Eva: No, the years have been hard on all of them, one way or another. Maria’s in a bad position and with what she’s just witnessed she’s not sure what to believe or who to trust. It’s hard to see them like this for sure – and as a writer yourself, you know how difficult it is to write them in painful situations too.
Maria’s trust is one thing Michael doesn’t really believe he deserves, but what it would do for him to have it.Parker1947: Thank you! There is so much going on and they’ve all been through so much. They really need more time to process and work through it, but unfortunately they’re working on a very tight deadline and things are going to have to be, shall we say, expedited.
xmag: Well, it’s one story that definitely won’t be easy to tell or to hear, but it is one that also must be told.
Why are the humans necessary to the plan? Just wait and see because that will be revealed. The human contingent of this group is vital to the success of their mission.
Kyle has paid a high price and it wasn’t easy for him to reach a place in his life where he was able to move on to some degree. What he went through left mental and emotional scars that he had to find a way to live with. It’s a shame they never pursued the aftereffects of his situation on the show because that would’ve made a good storyline. Of course… there were several pretty major things that happened on the show that were just swept under the rug. Then again, that makes great fodder for us writers, doesn’t it?
Book One – Chapter 7
October 13, 2016 – Pete’s Liftoff Gas Station, Outskirts of Roswell, NM – 0617 Hours
“You’re wrong about him, Maria,” Isabel said, her tone quiet but fierce. “There are physical changes, but where it matters most he’s still Michael Guerin. We were separated from him, delivered to our personal quarters and left to wait.”
Max cleared his throat when he saw her swallow convulsively. “We were told that we had to be bonded to the Granolith if there was any chance of turning the tide of the war.” And they’d had no idea what that entailed. He controlled his response to the memories this conversation dredged to the surface. “We weren’t full-blooded Antarian as we had been in our previous lives, so the process to bond us to the Granolith was very… physical.” His hands clenched at his sides and he hid the grimace when he felt the sweat collecting on his palms. “I was fitted with Zan’s breastplate. Isabel was fitted with Vilondra’s wrist plate that would match the one Rath wore when they were betrothed. They were to be bonded together.”
“Michael wasn’t actually a descendent of the royal line so in addition to the purity of his Antarian bloodlines being compromised by Human DNA the fitting for Rath’s armor was…” she closed her eyes for a moment as she fought for control.
“His armor was parasitic.” Max stopped there when his sister motioned slightly to let him know she would pick up the tale from that point. He could see her struggling with her emotions and he reached out to place a hand on her shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” Maria said slowly. “How can something like that be parasitic?”
Isabel reached up to cover her brother’s hand, squeezing it and drawing comfort from his touch. “I heard him cry out from down the hall. It was an awful sound.” As she began to speak she found herself back in her quarters on the day he had been fitted with Rath’s armor. He hadn’t cried out; he had screamed in agony and the sound had made her skin crawl.
Max had barked out a sharp order to the guards situated outside their quarters, insisting they be allowed to pass. Their guards had simply bowed their heads and taken a single step back, their backs stiff and their eyes staring straight ahead. They had run through the corridors until they reached the room Michael had been taken to just as another scream seared the air.
They hadn’t been prepared for the sight that greeted them.
Michael had been laying on a metal table, naked and restrained by an invisible force. The table had appeared to be more liquid than solid, like a living thing. They had been held back when they tried to intercede on Michael’s behalf. The soldiers stationed around the table would reach out and touch certain points and when they did the liquid metal would twist and form around Michael, snapping the bones in his shoulders and chest and then fusing them into the shape that was required to fit Rath’s armor.
The soldiers’ faces remained impassive as they went about their business as if they weren’t subjecting a living being to torture of the cruelest nature. She and Max had been helpless to help Michael and finally they had been removed from the room. Nothing had removed the sounds of his pain from their minds or the sight of his face, contorted in agony as his body was restructured to fit Rath’s armor.
“It was barbaric,” she rasped. “They didn’t even give him anything for the pain.”
Maria had been watching Isabel, studying her and feeling her pain as she related what they had witnessed being done to Michael. She believed her. How could she not? Hadn’t she seen Isabel’s empathetic response when he had become ill after participating in the sweat on the reservation? There was no way she could fake those emotions.
Liz gave Maria a nudge, guiding her into a nearby folding chair when she looked like she might fall down. “The word written on his back, it resembles Latin, and the tattoos reminded me of a complex form of hieroglyphics. What do they mean and what’s the significance of the glyphs?”
“It’s a combination of Latin and Antarian,” Max answered, glancing at his sister when she moved around restlessly. “It means the King’s Sword. As for the glyphs, you’ve seen the simplified version before on the wall of the cave River Dog took us to.”
Maria’s mind was starting to turn over ideas, organizing and discarding, as pieces fell into place and she saw the truth of their return. “The tattoos, they seem to move across his skin when he moves, almost like they’re alive.”
He shook his head. “We’re not sure about that, but it has something to do with being bonded with the Granolith.” He observed Maria, recognizing the concentration in her features. He wanted to make this easier for her, for all of them, so he straightened up and cleared his throat. “I have them as well.”
Liz winced when her head turned so quickly she heard and felt her neck pop. She couldn’t stop herself from staring as he waved a hand over himself and the tattoos on his skin were revealed to her curious gaze. Next to her, she could feel Maria resisting the urge to back away, could hear her swallow audibly as she turned her attention to Isabel.
The tall blonde nodded and concentrated, revealing the intricate pattern of lavender on her skin, physical proof of her position as the Princess of Antar.
Maria took a halting step closer to the other woman, her eyes tracing over the flower. It only took a moment to recognize it as one that had been featured in her mom’s shop. She had loved its sweet scent. “It’s lavender.” Her breath caught as she continued. “Mom loved it.”
“So does mine.”
Liz lifted her eyebrows. “Your mom?”
“Yes,” her eyes locked on Maria as she answered, “my mom, Diane Evans.” A moment of shared understanding passed between them and she relaxed slightly when Maria released a ragged breath and nodded.
“Latin and lavender,” Maria glanced at Liz, knowing there was something significant about that combination.
Liz felt excitement thrum through her veins as she made the connection. “The Romans.” She looked at Max. “They’ve been here before.”
“Many times,” he said with a nod. “The Granolith isn’t Antarian. The truth is, no one knows where it came from or has any actual understanding of what it is. It just appeared on Antar several centuries ago. The king at the time touched it and it did two things. First, it gave the gift of remapping DNA and second it bonded him with the Granolith and became the throne of Antar.”
“So your family has been bonded to the Granolith for centuries?”
He gave Liz a small smile when she started theorizing. “No. Actually, it was Kivar’s ancestor that first bonded to the Granolith. But over time the power began to be abused and used for selfish gain so the bloodline was refused. When the time came for a new king to be bonded the next ancestor in his line was rejected. At that point our bloodline became royalty because one of our ancestors took advantage of a moment of chaos and touched the Granolith.”
“Which made you the rightful heir,” she said and nodded.
“Yeah, exactly. Years passed and eventually the people learned to alter themselves, granting them resistance to viruses and diseases of their environment. Over time their mental abilities also began to advance, developing far beyond anything we could’ve imagined.”
Maria had tuned them out at some point, the headache that had been making its presence known slowly building over the course of the conversation until it had become a giant agonizing pain that pulsed with every beat of her heart. She shifted, her body unconsciously protesting the discomfort of the metal folding chair. It had been years since she’d had a headache this bad and without even giving it any thought she knew it had been related to the alien nonsense she’d been surrounded with before they had left Earth.
Her stomach rolled sickeningly as flashes of the horrific scenes from just hours ago exploded in her mind. She was still fighting to reconcile what she’d witnessed with her own eyes against what she knew of the Michael she’d known. But he wasn’t the same boy she’d known, was he? This man was hardened by war, detached from the softer emotions, and in so many ways a complete stranger.
He hadn’t been a coldblooded killer back then, but what she’d seen him do to her… no, she believed Isabel. It wasn’t her mom that he’d… there was just no way to gloss over what she’d seen with her own eyes. She hadn’t been speaking glibly when she’d used the words ‘butcher’ and ‘slaughter’ in reference to the way he’d killed the Skin masquerading as her mother. There was just no civilized word that described that scene with any accuracy.
She just couldn’t eradicate that image from her mind. Knowing it was a Skin helped on one level, but the sight of her mother’s face twisted in agony, her mother’s voice screaming as her body was sliced open, prevented her from letting it go. The fact that it had assumed her mom’s identity down to the smallest gesture and fooled her into believing it was Amy Deluca terrified her. From everything she had learned over the past few hours she knew it was unlikely her mom was still alive.
What Michael had done had been done to save her life. He had come back with the others to change the past and prevent this very thing from happening. Maybe he hadn’t expressed the softer emotions, but his reaction to a threat against her had been fueled by raw emotion. He’d always reacted in that manner though, hadn’t he? Not to the same degree of course, but his reactions to a threat had always been to act swiftly. And this time the enemy had been poised on the precipice; her life had been hanging in the balance without any knowledge of the danger on her part.
Why? After everything that had happened prior to their departure, why would he react in such a way to a threat to her life? Killing to protect her, yeah, she could see that, especially given the soldier he had become. But to kill, being driven by such rage to do what he’d done to that Skin, to be able to see beyond the façade presented by the Skin and to, to butcher it, she didn’t understand that.
He had destroyed everything between them, set a chain of events into motion that they could never recover from. Why not just simply kill the Skin and get on with the plan? Why was there so much rage motivating every blow he’d made against the enemy?
“There are physical changes, but where it matters most he’s still Michael Guerin.”
She closed her eyes against the dim lighting when even that slight illumination caused the pain to worsen. Pain that wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket compared to what Michael had suffered. She swallowed down the bile that rose up in her throat as she recalled what Isabel had told them about Michael’s experience during the process that would make him more… what, aesthetically pleasing?
Her heart pounded harder, its thunderous beating threatening to send it catapulting out of her chest, and the blood rushed through her veins, blocking out all other sound. She leaned back and pressed her thumb and fingers hard against her brow, grateful for the momentary respite it gave her.
“Headache?”
Somehow Liz’s soft voice cut right through the white noise. She couldn’t stop the grimace of pain that crossed her features in response to the sound though. “Understatement,” she answered, the words barely a whisper.
“You’re really dehydrated, Maria.” She wrapped her fingers around Maria’s, drawing her attention to the cold bottle in her hand. “Here, keep taking small sips.”
“Maria.” Max called her name quietly. “Maria, I can take the pain away,” he offered, careful to keep the commanding tone of the king out of his voice. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel as if he was giving orders and taking the choice out of her hands because that wasn’t his intention.
She was vaguely aware of Max moving closer, but remaining far enough away to avoid crowding her. “No.” She winced when the response came out sharper than she intended. A stray thought rolled through her mind, giving her a way to soften her refusal of his offer, and the slightest hint of a smile graced her taut features. “Not into TMI flashes of my bestie.”
A look passed between Max and Liz, a thousand memories of a shared past that had been cut short and torn them apart.
“Liz, there’s a bucket of ice in the cooler,” Isabel said, interrupting the moment. Part of her regretted it because she knew what it meant for them to be together in any capacity but there was a small part of her that couldn’t bear to be witness to the emotions that had managed to survive all they had been through.
“Ice?” Liz asked, her head jerking as she forced her gaze away from Max.
“We need some for her head. It’ll help ease the pain and allow her to drink without getting sick.” She shrugged and looked away. “My mom used to get terrible headaches and Dad always put her to bed with an icepack.”
Maria was aware of it when Liz moved away. Even with the throbbing pain pulsing through her head she could hear how unsteady Isabel’s voice was when she spoke of her parents. She could hear the fear there, the undisguised anguish for the loss of two relationships that had in many ways defined who she was.
She inhaled slowly, forcing down the nausea that continued to remind her of its presence, and opened her eyes to look at Max and Isabel. After giving her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light she focused on the tall blonde, but when she spoke her words were directed at both of them.
“There’s a possibility that the Skins haven’t located your parents.”
Max reached over and rested a hand on his sister’s arm, a warm, steadying presence. “What makes you think that?”
“Your dad spent all of his time and resources trying to find you guys after you left. Nothing anyone said could persuade him from his belief that he would find you.” Failure after failure had taken its toll on Philip and Diane though. She could remember seeing them on a trip home to visit her mom and they had seemed so much older, as if losing their children was slowly draining the life from them. “They left Roswell and moved to the East Coast after several years.” Three years in which Philip’s law practice had foundered under his lack of attention. “It was just too hard on them to stay here.” She pressed the cold bottle against the back of her neck and sighed at the slight, but blessed, relief. “I know that’s probably more than you wanted to hear, but I just wanted you to know that for now, it’s completely possible that they’re alright.”
Isabel’s gratitude revealed itself in the slight easing of her rigid posture.
Max shot a furtive glance back towards the kitchen where Liz was looking for something to put the ice in. “Liz’s parents, are they still here?”
Maria couldn’t stop the brief smile at his hushed tone but it disappeared the second she shook her head and brought the jackhammer back to life. “Still living over the Crashdown.” Somehow she couldn’t imagine them ever leaving Roswell. It was where they’d grown up, married, started a business and raised a family. “Do you think the Skins will see them as a threat?”
“It’s not a matter of them being a threat.” Isabel moved to the window to look outside, wishing fervently that the stars hadn’t gone into hiding as the sun chased them away. The disappearance of the stars marked another day off of the clock that was ticking far too fast already. “The Skins don’t need to face a threat to attack. They’re ruthless and coldblooded and they kill for the pure enjoyment of it.”
“So they’re in danger.”
“We don’t know.” Max ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in the gesture. “Yes, it’s a possibility,” he continued before she could ask the question. “It’s one we can’t dwell on. Our time is limited and there’s so much we have to tell you before we make our move.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve told us – “
“No.” Isabel turned from the window, her dark eyes hard and unrelenting. “What we’ve told you barely scratches the surface. Changing the past, preventing these events from happening, to make these things happen both of you must be prepared to undertake the mission.”
“Did you just say must?” Maria joked weakly. She shook her head when she caught the curious look Isabel shot in her direction. “Inside joke, sorry.” She leaned forward and pressed the heel of her hand against the bridge of her nose. “If we’re successful in changing the past, the future, whatever… how far back are we going?”
“We go back to where everything went wrong.”
“Max, please stop speaking in riddles,” she begged. “My head can’t take much more of it. In changing things will we be able to prevent Alex from dying?”
Isabel felt her heart pound in response to the question and she wasted no time in answering it with an irrevocable, “Yes.”
.
