By David C. Daoust
The Royal Alliance was formed in resistance to the Royal Vanguard’s unwillingness to allow the people to secede, to find their own ways of life throughout the Onion. To disperse from the Ark Ships, as they saw fit, to live the lives they wanted, not the lives the Royals of the Vanguard dictated.
The young Mari Swan was a freedom fighter.
Mari fought to throw off the oppression that had coalesced around humanity throughout the generation-ships’ trek through the nothing.
It was a good fight, a fight she could believe in.
What she could not believe… was the Royal Alliance’s shift, from that of ‘advocates for freedom’, to ‘scared little mother hens’ at the sight of the growing power of the Trade Consortium.
While the people of the Second Sun believed the Factions War was won by the Royal Alliance, in Mari’s eyes, the war was not ended by the fighter’s she’d lost in the black. But by the Royals, that lost ground ideologically, which allowed the oppression of old, back within their ranks. As the years passed, the Alliance started to look more and more like the Vanguard, and thus, in the darkest recesses of Mari’s mind, she knew, the Royal Alliance had lost.
It was the Royal Alliance’s change in stances (the rest of the Swan family included), which truly forced Mari to leave them in the dust, all in an attempt to follow her own idea.
It was a simple idea; The Individual Good.
Groups of people are stupid. Their mind is fogged by the other guy’s thoughts. What do they want? What do they think? How will it affect me? Do I have a standing? How do I get ahead? These thoughts are all confusion, which can only lead to frustration and hate. Can only lead to division; painful loneliness in the mass of so called unity. As the groups belittle those that do not fit, and draw lines in the sand for those groups that do not join.
The individual mind is good, a singular good that can spread through one’s life, and affect those around it.
Rules and regulation create authority; create oppression, create confusion, frustration and hate.
Strong Government, right or left, as always, is the enemy.
Mari believed rules and regulations do not help create a healthy society.
Mari believed authority is not meant to be held over any individual person, nor is that power of being in authority, meant to be felt by any individual; both sides twist the soul, and bend the mind to violence.
Individual morals and ethics, is the only way to freedom. A belief in ‘good’, a belief that we all feel the same thing in given situations, a belief in a spirit of good and a faith that it permeates all things, thus guides those, with those interests at heart, to the betterment of all.
The individual is good; it is a mind and a soul, each on its own more powerful than anything else in the universe. That power, harnessed by good, is a force of good. That power harnessed by other peoples’ rules… is a force crippled and deformed, creating the birthplace and breeding ground of evil.
Mari believed evil could only be halted with forgiveness; Injustice could only be answered with forgiveness. Yet people, instinctively, answer injustice with justice. To find justice, one must create authority, this justice may be meted out, but this authority still stands. Authority corrupts, creating an illusion of power, which creates a cycle of violence. A cycle Mari recognized too late, a cycle that Mari knew intimately, thanks to her years at war. She could not remove it from society; the illusion of power was too ingrained. So from society, she removed herself.
“My goodness,” Mari suddenly exclaimed as the meds the good doctor had just injected into Mari’s shoulder, suddenly chased the exhaustion clear out of her body. The resulting charge of energy that flushed through her was bracing, to say the least.
“Now that should do it for a bit,” Dakota said to the suddenly bright eyed and alert war hero, “I would not suggest taking any kind of stimulants… for at least three days, and keep in mind when this wears off, you’ll be out cold.”
The situation had changed once the holographic woman suddenly ordered her men to escort the good doctor to the Otomo Corp Cruiser. Order’s issued moments before the woman suddenly ceased transmission and vanished into thin air.
The small squad of Soldiers, upon receiving said orders immediately began to round up all those still within the room. All of which included Mari, the small girl Margo, and the small group of medics which had rushed the injured to the med bay to begin with. The soldiers which had infiltrated the Red Faction’s Barrack ship, all dressed as Red Faction soldiers themselves, with the only variation being the small blue band strapped to one arm, efficiently handled the task at hand.
The medics were all bound and left in a small huddle in the center of the room. The soldiers collected the weapons from the floor, and considered destroying the vacant bots where they lay, before abandoning the idea for reasons unknown to her. Though Mari and the girl were both saved from being grouped with the prisoners, only thanks to Dakota’s intervention, and insistence they accompany her. The small girl was largely ignored, despite the rifle within her grip.
“How long ’til it wears off?” Mari began to ask, though the soldiers suddenly herded them together, jostling them both and interrupting her thoughts. Mari gave them a look, but considering they were fully armored, armed, and trained for combat, it did not have much effect.
“An hour…” Dakota said as they were escorted to the door, though it was clear by her tone it was a guess, “Maybe more… at least long enough for us to make it off this ship, I hope.”
Of course the problem was that Mari’s body was still trying to recover from the injuries she’d sustained, not only when she’d flipped her land speeder, but also the APC’s mysterious collision with… what? Mari could only guess. The fact that she had been awakened in a strange lab, an unknown amount of time later, by the small electronic voice of Noreen, practically screaming in her ear, took a back seat to the fact that her son was locked in a brig somewhere on this ‘ship’. (A bit of information provided by Noreen)
“Dr. Sun,” Mari whispered in a low tone to the small blond, eying the soldiers that were around her, “I have to free my son. They have him locked in the brig, I can’t leave him here…”
“Please call me Dakota,” the doctor whispered to her as she searched through the squad of soldiers until she found the familiar face…
“Major Sims,” Dakota said in a clear strong voice, somewhat mimicking the way Suzanne had issued her commands, “We have a stop to make before we can leave.”
“Mam?” the soldier asked, giving the small blond a questioning look.
“There is a man locked in the Brig,” Dakota continued with her dominant attitude. “We must retrieve him. He will be accompanying us.”
The soldier coughed, sharing a glance with others around him.
“I think we may know where he is being held,” Sims said with an odd look on his face.
It did not escape Mari’s notice that Dakota looked somewhat thrilled, and relieved, that the soldier had taken her commands seriously. Dakota, clearly impressed with herself, suddenly smiled slyly, raised one eyebrow and shoulder, as she sent Mari a triumphant look.
Mari had plans of her own, not only was she going to collect her son, the AI of the Ark Ship Rhea Epsilon, aka Noreen, actually woke her up for a reason, it seemed Noreen had a request. Mari wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to manage the request, but she knew she would honor it.
Mari recognized the small girl Margo, whom she had helped pry out of an incredibly tight spot in the crisis on Twin Crown. A rather large portion of a building had suddenly collapsed on the girl, a collapse that had happened right before Mari’s eyes.
Mari still wasn’t sure how the girl had survived the situation unscathed. She found the sight of the small girl standing there, with a fully automatic rifle in her hands, seemingly in ranks with the soldiers, somewhat chilling. She could only question why the soldiers had not immediately stripped the girl of the weapon.
Mari suddenly reached down and pulled the gun from the girl’s grasp.
“Hey,” the gravelly voice of Vincent came out of the small girl’s mouth, “What gives?”
“Vincent!?” Mari exclaimed, as her mind suddenly questioned not only reality, but what the good doctor had just injected her with…
