Microsoft Word - DoorwaytotheStars (11 page)

“You know, I’d like it a lot more if you would reveal yourself to me. Are you afraid for me to know your face? Or do you not think I’m worthy enough to glance upon such a royal face?”

She laughed. “I do not think that. You have the wrong impression of me. I just like to observe without being singled out all of the time.”

“Yes, it must make it so much easier for you to sneak around so you can delve telepathically into everyone’s minds.”

“You need to stop thinking the worst of me. I only wanted to read a bit of your mind so I would know if you can be trusted around Aries.”

“You already told me that you knew I was fully capable of duplicity.”

“I needed to know if you would try to hurt Aries in order to escape. Thankfully, you would not. Nothing you’ve committed to doing would harm him enough to rob him of his life. I am glad for that.”

“Thank you.” She stared at the wall in front of her.

“I’m over here.” The Empress spoke in a raised whisper. A sheen of light swept through the room, and then the sight that met her eyes made her jaw drop and a sigh to escape her lips.

“You’re like a portrait. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. You radiate light. I don’t know why Aries was attracted to me, if you’re a true representation of the type of beauty Gaian women possess, then I look like the ugly stepsister.”

Aries’s mother was draped in what looked like silk from head to toe. The sparkling crown on her head was studded with diamonds and emeralds. Her hair was a light blond and sparkled like gold under the lights. Her eyes mirrored her sons, and her skin was a shade paler. She wore an emerald colored dress with bell shaped sleeves and a scooped neckline. She made her look like a pudding.

“Aries is deeply devoted to you. In his eyes you are a rare gem with a glistening beauty.”

“With a dull shine.” She looked away. “Actually, I think I would have preferred it if you would have just remained invisible to me. Now I don’t like the way I feel about myself.”

“You need not feel unworthy of Aries love. Like he told you time and again, he chose you, he wanted you. You should feel humbled by that.”

“Humbled, my ass.”

“One day, you will look back upon that statement and you will regret even saying it.”

Doorway to the Stars by Marly Mathews 50

“Don’t bet on it.”

The Empress looked at her one last time, nodded her head to her, and left.

As the door shut behind her, it opened again to reveal Aries.

“So, how did your war meeting go?”

He ignored her and walked all of the way into the room. Pressing something on his wrist, the bed started to lower to the ground. She gripped the sheets beneath her fingers.

“We set off in one week.”

A ball of dread formed in her stomach. “Why? Why do you have to do this? You already have new breeding females … you already have everything that you need. Your Empire isn’t at risk.”

“In that, you would be wrong. You see, I won’t have to take my war fleet to Earth. I only have to take it to the edge of our space borders. The war is coming to us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earth has been planning to wipe out my peoples for the past three years. They have built many ships with the sole purpose to kill every last Gaian. You won’t need to worry about me attacking Earth, you’ll be able to see the war coming to us.”

“No. Earth doesn’t want another war … they would never take on an enemy like you. This doesn’t make any sense. No sense whatsoever.”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it? They believe us to be an inferior race. They believe that we are nothing more than a backward set of people. They think victory will be swift and the spoils of war will far outweigh the cost of war.”

“If what you’re saying is true, they don’t really think there’ll be that high of a cost to pay.”

“Indeed.” He pinned his unwavering gaze on her.

“Then they’re coming here as exterminators of a sort.”

“They’ve already served the first strike by sterilizing our females, now they are coming to finish the job.”

She had to look away from him. He’d been right. Her government was corrupt.

Earth had truly lost her way.

Doorway to the Stars by Marly Mathews 51

Her body jolted as the bed finally hit the floor. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Her knees went to jelly beneath her ,and she had to fall back onto the mattress. She felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

“Are you quite certain this information came from a reliable source?” Her voice trembled.

“Reliable source, yes. In fact, it wasn’t my people that brought us back the final statistics of what Earth was planning. It was yours!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Obviously, the side you fought on during the war has kept their fingers in the pot so to speak. They’re part of an underground rebel movement or resistance. It would really depend on how you might define what they’re doing. All I know is that they’ve gathered together a haphazard fleet of fighting space ships, and they’re sending them to our region of space as we speak. They seem to think that the battle between Gaia and Earth is the finally climax. The victors will emerge as the defining power in our universe.”

“How did we come to this point?”

“Are you referring to us, or the war that is about to begin between my people and your people.”

“Evidently, where I belong has become blurred in my mind. I had a visit from your mother … she gave me quite a swaying argument. She made you seem like my white knight, and I don’t really think that I disagree with her. Nonetheless, I don’t want this war between Earth and your Empire. The problem is, there seems to be no other recourse does there? I mean, they’re coming to attack you. You must be ready and able to defend what is yours. I understand that all too well. I failed my uncle.”

“No. You didn’t fail your uncle. He probably believed he failed you. He was put into prison not just because he had debts he needed to pay to your government, but because he was ....”

“Let me guess, he was working for you.”

She didn’t need him to confirm her suspicion as always his eyes told her the truth.

They were so expressive, she could read him like a book.

“So many secrets. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He probably didn’t want to get you implicated. I’m sure you were being watched

… the government was probably just itching for you to put one foot out of line.”

“This is so bloody complicated. Aries, is there anything else you aren’t telling me that I should know? You should have told me from the get go about my uncle. I deserved to know.”

“I told your uncle that we would take care of you in the event that something unfortunate happened to him.”

“Why didn’t you just sneak into his prison and break him out? You have all of this power at your fingertips, and yet, my uncle is still six feet under!”

“I did send an agent in to retrieve him. They had almost made it out when their escape was discovered. They were shot on site.”

Doorway to the Stars by Marly Mathews 52

“No.”

She bit down so hard on her lip that she drew blood.

“I’m sorry, Freya. If I could, I would turn back time and fix everything.”

“Well, even your great civilization isn’t that powerful.”

His eyes flickered, and then the slight glimmer of indecision faded. “You still need to conserve your strength.”

“Come here.” She winced at the commanding tone in her voice. “I’d really appreciate it if you would come and help me, I need to stretch my legs, they’re aching something fierce.”

He walked toward her. She tried to forget that he was making her burn up on the inside. Like he just said, she had to conserve her strength. And, right now, she was in no state to start thinking about going back to bed with Aries.

“Getting back to my mother … I didn’t know she was going to slip into the room when I opened the door to go to the war meeting. I didn’t want you to be surprised by her. But it’s true, I did ask her to watch over you when you were sleeping.”

“Sleeping, I was in a form of a coma.”

“I’ve never had anything scare me in my lifetime, but the thought of finding you only to lose you, truly did scare the hell out of me.”

“I believe you.” He stood a hairsbreadth away from her. She reached up and took the arm he offered her. She looked down at the silvery blue nightgown she wore. It glittered in the light of the bedroom. It was cut down low and when she stood in the room leaning heavily on his arm, she felt a chill go right up and back down her spine.

Still leaning on his arm, she turned around and rested her eyes on the wardrobe by the bed. “There wouldn’t happen to be something warm in there would there? I’m suddenly feeling the cold.”

Her head ached, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He walked her toward the ornate wardrobe. “I asked for it to be outfitted for your every need. There’s another large room through that door that is stuffed full of clothes for you.”

“A whole room?”

“Several rooms if you desire them.”

“I’ve walked into a fairytale. I lived in a cupboard back on Earth compared to the size of this place.”

“Palace.” He corrected.

She snorted. “This is almost too good to be true. I’d ask you to pinch me if I didn’t already have this injury on my head, to tell me that I’m really in the here and now.”

“Is it still giving you grief? I should have the doctors come and treat you now that you able to talk to them and tell them how you feel.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had much, much worse. And I have a feeling that your painkillers don’t exactly have the same effect on me that our Earth medicine does.”

“I should have consulted the other Earth women on that. I’m sorry. I’ve been rather single-minded. I couldn’t even allow Talia in here to see you.”

“Why not? She wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

“I never know who to trust anymore.” He looked away from her.

“What do you mean? What’s happened?”

He patted her hand gently. “No matter, you needn’t fret over anything. It’s all Doorway to the Stars by Marly Mathews 53

being taken of.”

“No. I want to know. What has happened?” Her heartbeat quickened. Something was up, he had that look in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t think that Mathias would like you doubting Talia’s honor.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that, Freya. Mathias is dead.”

“Dead?” Her hand shook.

“Murdered by Talia’s own hand.”

Her legs went to jelly again. She would have fallen to the floor if she hadn’t been holding onto him. He pulled her back up, and before she could protest he’d swept her up into his arms. “Impossible.” She gasped. Her head swirled.

“No. Quite possible. She killed him. We have it on our holographic recordings.”

“No. She loved him.”

“She never loved him. She was only biding her time to take her revenge against him. She hates Gaians. She wanted to be wanted by them so she could kill one and hopefully get to me. She was an agent for your government.”

“You see … when I asked you earlier if there was more secrets I needed to know, that falls into that category. I needed to know about that. I can’t believe you, Talia has always been such a faithful friend to me.”

“For being such a faithful friend, she was the one that contacted the bounty hunter and told him where to find you. She was the reason we were attacked.”

“Why? She was on my side during the war ….” Her voice trailed off as full recognition hit home. The sour sensation in the pit of her stomach intensified. It all made sense now. She now knew why they had lost so many key battles during the war. They had been fully infiltrated by the enemy. There was no telling how many of her so-called war buddies had actually been working for the other side.

“What do you do when everything you used to know to be true turns out to be a lie?”

“Not all of your life has been a lie. Your uncle did love you. He never would have done anything to betray you. Talia had the chance to kill you, herself. It would have been a great blow for our side, she knew how attached you and I had become, and yet, she never did betray you in that way. I think she knew we would be able to finish off your bounty hunter … but then, temptation overcame her when she killed Mathias. She told me she didn’t want him to touch her ever again, even though she was the one that had initially seduced Mathias. Mathias wasn’t the sort to take her without her consent.”

“How do you know? I didn’t even know Talia, and I thought I did. How do you know that Mathias was completely innocent?”

“Mathias was my cousin. I feel quite certain that I knew him far better than you knew your Talia.”

“That’s why your mother told me I was capable of deception but not murder. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. Now it does.” She sighed. “What about the child she was carrying?”

“What child? There is no child. Talia was taking a form of birth control that was untraceable. She only admitted it when she realized she’d been caught and she had no way out.”

“Something isn’t adding up … there’s something rotten in Denmark. I can just feel it. Where is she now?”

Doorway to the Stars by Marly Mathews 54

“She is awaiting her trial, though I feel quite certain she will be sentenced to death.”

“Send her home. Put a tracker on her and send her home.”

“No. She has murdered a member of the Gaian Royal Family. I will not allow her to escape the hand of the law. Justice will be served.”

“Do you want to portray her as a martyr for the enemy? Send her back, put a tracker on her, and when the fighting comes to our borders, you will know which ship she is on and you will be able to destroy that ship.”

“You make an interesting point. We could use her to ascertain the ships shield capabilities and weapon functions. Our Intelligence we’ve gathered has been sketchy in the ways of how well equipped the new Earth space battleships are. This might give us the upper hand we could use.”