Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 28 - Stella

As a tear drops from Elena’s eye, she turns to Leon’s Uncle Damien, giving him a hard stare as her hands tremble at her sides.

“He better come back, or I’m sending you after him,” she says in a desperate tone.

“I promise,” Damien responds with a nod.

The door clicks closed and the three of us, Elena, Leon and I, stand frozen. Trapped within our confined room and feeling as alone as ever. Damien and Ethan have left us three here, to keep us safe while they attempt to infiltrate the control room.

“It’s a death mission...” Elena whispers from her spot on the floor, still staring idly at the door.

“Ma...come on, now. Don’t talk like that. You know Dad and Uncle Damien. They’re brothers, they won’t let anything happen to each other or their family. They’re going to be just fine,” Leon responds, striding the length of the room and placing his hand on his mother’s shaking shoulder.

I join them both in the middle of the room and Elena wraps an arm around each of us, leaning her head to Leon’s shoulder as she regains her composure.

“Elena, it’s not every day that I get to meet and work with my idols. The people I read about in history books are the people I’ve come to know and love. You, Ethan and now Damien...I’ve read everything there is to read about you. And Dante too. I know he was a friend of yours on the Zeus,” I say to her.

“He was Ethan’s very best friend. Always there for us, sacrificing himself in the end...” she whispers in reply.

“I spent my entire young adulthood worshipping you guys, Elena. Your courage, strength and intelligence. I worked so hard to ensure I’d be at least a small bit like you when I grew up. Don’t you see, Elena? I say, placing my hand gently upon her shoulders and looking into her eyes. They will be ok. They will find a way out of this. They were trained for this; you were trained for this and now...Leon and I have been trained for this. Trained by the best in the world.”

“Stella’s right, Ma. Your team is made up of the most brilliant minds to ever grace the galaxy. Hell, for Uncle Damien, this is his favorite rollercoaster! Dad’s probably reliving his glory days, feeling my age again, side-by-side with his brother, the two most fierce combatants ever born.”

“Thank you, Stella. You are right. They’re both master tacticians, the best in their fields of weaponry, strategy and combat. They both know how those Sekrid do things better than anyone else. They were made for this job, and if anyone can get us out alive, it’s them. We need a strategy,” Elena says, seeming to shed her gloomy shell, showing the courage and ferocity that she’s famous for.

“What do you have in mind, Elena?” I reply, as she wipes the tears from her sodden cheeks, standing up straight and looking up at the two of us, a new hope shining in her eyes.

“First off,” Leon interjects, “We’re going to need a way of communication between not only the three of us, but also with Dad and Uncle Damien.”

“Good thinking, son. You re more like your father every day.”

Elena begins pacing the floor, stopping every now and again as if trying to un-knot a particularly difficult string. It amazes me how I can almost see the cogs of thought turning in her head, formulating a plan of action for our escape.

“It’s going to be a waiting game...we’ll have to time it just right. There’s no way in hell we can get out of this room until those Sekrid do a shift-change.”

“How do we know that they’ll even do a shift change, Ma?” Leon asks, sitting on a nearby shipping crate and pulling me onto his lap. He wraps his arms around me and Elena stops pacing, looking over at us.

“It keeps them on their toes, Rin Gal wouldn’t want them getting bored by staying stationary for too long. Especially not now that he knows who he’s dealing with,” she replies.

“Makes sense, but how will we know when they go on shift-change?” I ask her.

“Oh, you’ll know Stella. You’ll be able to hear them like a herd of Jovian elephants,” Leon responds, kissing my cheek. I can’t help but to smile softly at him and he tightens his hold on my waist.

“So...now we wait?” Leon asks, turning to his mother.

“Now we wait,” she replies, nodding slowly and sliding down the wall, coming to rest on the hard concrete floor of the vacant storage room.

I remove myself from Leon’s lap and hand Elena the canteen around my neck. It’s only half-full, but she’s in greater need of it than I am. She looks up as I hand it to her and attempts a smile.

“Thanks, Stella.”

“No problem,” I reply, as I take a seat next to her against the wall, motioning to Leon to join us.

He stands up from his sitting position on the rickety crate, striding the length of the room in just a few steps and sitting down cross-legged in front of his mother and I.

Elena looks up at her only child and a tear rolls down her cheek, making a trail on her grit-covered skin that was flawless just hours ago.

“Ma...” Leon begins, taking his mother’s calloused hands into his own, looking up at her. “Ma, I need you to do something for me, please.”

“Wha--what is it, Leon?” she asks, looking concerned.

“I need you to explain to me...to us, Ma. Stella and I both need to know, so we can prepare.”

“Ex-explain what, Leon?” Elena stammers, fear flooding her eyes.

“You know what, Ma,” Leon says firmly, locking his gaze on his mother’s. “We need to know about your past...and about the Zeus. We need to know what happened, Ma.”

Elena takes a deep breath as her hands start to tremble, clutching Leon’s hands in her own as if it’s her only lifeline on a sinking ship.”

A sinking ship...ironic, isn’t it?

“Elena...it’s ok. I...I won’t ever tell anyone,” I say to her, whispering.

“Oh no, it’s not that, Stella. I trust you, completely. It’s hard to talk about for me. And...well, I was sworn to secrecy,” Elena replies, her voice taking on a mysterious tone. “Before my time on this ship...my life was nothing but a series of lies, secrets, dangerous Ops and heavy training. Training in which you couldn’t fathom in your darkest dreams...”

“What do you mean, Ma? Training? Like the kind of training Stella and I do?” Leon asks, a puzzled look on his face.

“No, son. My training sessions weren’t held in a fancy floating ship in the sky. My training was back on Earth, eighteen-hour days with heavy artillery and the most prominent martial arts instructors the world has ever seen. I learned from the CIA and FBI’s most intelligent Black Ops specialists, learning new technology and weaponry,” she whispers darkly.

She shifts her position a bit, releasing Leon’s hands and pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging her arms around them. She rests her chin on her knees and looks up at us both, resembling a scared little girl for a fraction of a second.

Leon hooks an arm around my waist, scooting me over to him and clutching me tight against his chest. It’s a moment before Elena speaks again, but we don t push her, because we both know, whatever happened, it’s hard for her to talk about.

The room seems to drop a few degrees as she looks up at us with haunted eyes. To see my idol, the woman I strived so long and hard to be just like, broken and shattered, a captive in a war, breaks my heart.

“They were training me to rid the world of one of the deadliest, most dangerous weapons in history. More destructive than the first atom bomb, more catastrophic than every Earth war combined,” she continues, taking a deep breath.

“What was it, Ma?” Leon asks, a note of fear in his usually infallible voice.

“I’m getting there, son, but for you to understand you have to know a little more first,” she says. Leon just nods in acknowledgement and grips me closer to him. “This is all classified information, so this never leaves this room,” she says, her voice barely audible.

All we can do is nod as we stare intently at her, waiting for her next words to come. My heart is thudding dully in my chest, gaining momentum each time Elena speaks as if it’s bursting with pride and honor, excited to be in the same room as my idol.

She runs her hands through her dark red hair, smoothing it back behind her shoulders in one sweep as she takes a deep breath.

“I’m a Raven Agent, trained by the world’s finest and most dangerous Ops specialists. They trained me in several areas of military study. One day we’d work on assassinations, the next it’d be training in extractions or infiltrations. There were around fifty RA’s when I was in training, including myself. Even less were females. Some of my fellow female agents were trained in seduction even. Using any means necessary to gain what we needed to complete our missions.”

My heart drops a little at her statement, but before I can jump to conclusions, she speaks again, clearing my mind.

“Don’t worry, I refused to participate in those...activities. I knew my mind could get me far better results than resorting to sacrificing my dignity,” Elena states, taking a sip from the water canteen and handing it to me.

“After my training was complete, our group of RA s were approached by the President of the United States himself. He told us a war was on the horizon, and that he wanted us to form an elite protection agency, in order to destroy a new weapon that had surfaced,” she says, pausing to gauge our reactions. She gives their trademark family smirk and continues her explanation. It had come to light that this weapon was a bomb. A dark matter bomb to be specific, that had the capability of destroying the entire Earth and it’s solar system if detonated correctly.”

“So...what happened next?” Leon asks, as if hearing a tall tale of superheroes as a child.

“Well, we formed our group, known as Project BlackStorm. Our mission was to find and safely destroy the bomb without detonating it in the process. It took several months to track down, but when we finally did, it was destroyed. I can’t give you the details, I shouldn’t even be telling you this much, but you’re right, you deserve to know.”

“So, how’d you end up on the Zeus?” I ask her softly. She turns to me and grins a little.

“Well, you see, after Project BlackStorm was finished, I was ready to get back into the field. I had had a few months off, I went to visit friends, family and the likes, but I wanted to be out in the thick of it again. That was when the President contacted me for the second time, asking me for a meeting. When I arrived in D.C., I saw several of my fellow Raven Agents. We had all been assigned to different places, one each to protect that base, ship or city,” she continues, shifting her position with her back against the wall.

“So, you were assigned to protect the Zeus, then?” I ask her, whispering.

“Yep, and I went gladly. I just wanted to be up in space again, even if it meant masquerading as a Tech Engineer, which I was more than equipped to handle, due to my training with the other RA s. The President wanted me to keep watch on the Captain of the Zeus, who we found out was crooked. So, I packed up and shipped out and made my home on the Zeus. That’s where I met Ethan, and things were going smoothly until the infection hit,” she says, her eyes seeming to darken.

“The infection was parasitic, it would attach itself to the brain stem and inject its own need to feed into the infected person, causing the victim to physically and mentally change. The change would cause disfiguration that would transform them into hideous monsters, mutated beasts with homicidal aggression. The aggression was caused by a hormone injected by the parasite through the brain stem, forcing the victims into violent, mindless states,” Elena says, closing her eyes for a moment as if to wash away the horrible memory.

“Dad was infected, right?” Leon asks cautiously.

Elena nods solemnly and runs her fingers through her hair, sighing.

“Your father was scratched by a little girl. She was one of the many mutated monsters on the Zeus. I stayed up some nights, thinking of the little girl, praying that she’d be ok and feeling sorry for her. It wasn’t her fault, after all. But that changed once Ethan had his first fit. His rage was out of control and it only got worse with time. Fits of severe, head-splitting pain, uncontrollable anger and lucid nightmares of the little girl coming after him,” Elena says, shuddering visibly.

“He was cured though...” I whisper quizzically, not fully understanding the situation.

“Yes, he was, Stella. But it wasn’t until a short while later. You see...we had been trapped on the Zeus for quite some time, searching endlessly for ways and means of escaping. It was during that time that Ethan and I really made ourselves official,” she begins again, smiling fondly at the memory.

“Anyways,” Elena continues, “this ship docked one day. It was carrying a group of pirates who had decided to infiltrate the Zeus and capture one of the mutants. They were planning on taking it back to a research center to be sold for profit. One of the men in the group was Dr. Thomas Blaze, he was the only one of the pirates who wasn’t killed. The mutants killed the entire group& except for one. He was killed by Ethan...”

“Why did Dad kill him?” Leon asks in a hushed voice.

“He tried to rape me, son. That’s why I was so worried about you earlier this evening, Stella,” Elena states, extending her hand out and placing it over mine.

“So, Dr. Blaze?” I ask, enthralled by the story.

“Ah, yeah...Thomas. Well, after all of us got over our initial dislike of him, he turned out to be quite a nice guy, not to mention a brilliant doctor. He found a way, through experimental testing on Ethan, to isolate the symbiote parasite and eventually exterminate it. It ended Ethan’s psychotic and violent episodes for good. Nothing he did could stop the nightmares though...not even now,” Elena says, looking thoughtful.

“Dad still dreams about it, doesn’t he?” Leon asks, securing his arms tightly around my waist.

“Almost every night, and even sometimes when he finds himself alone. He’ll get lost in a thought that turns into a full-fledged nightmare while he’s wide awake. It’s been happening more and more lately, especially visions of the little girl and Dante.”

“So, what happened next?” Leon and I ask in tandem. Elena gives a brief smile at our question and sips from the canteen, handing it to Leon. He takes a slow drink and passes it to me as Elena speaks again.

“Well...during the time of Ethan’s infection, before he was cured by Thomas, I found out I was pregnant with Leon,” Elena begins, a small smile on her face. I can’t help but to smile myself as I look up at Leon. He smirks and kisses my forehead, before we both turn our gazes back to his mother.

“Ethan, of course, was so worried that the infection would spread to our child, and it made him work twice as hard towards a resolution...a plan to get us off that damned ship and back to safety for us and our child. At last, a rescue ship, manned by Commander Andrews, finally arrived for us. Just as we were preparing to leave, the mutants ambushed us. We all retaliated, firing everywhere we could,” Elena says, pausing and pinching the bridge of her nose.

A tear slides down her cheek and she swiftly wipes it away. She shifts her position again and breathes deeply, listening to the overhead movements for a moment before continuing.

“Just as I was making my way to the ship, my water broke. I had been having contractions all day, but I had thought them to be false. That can sometimes happen. Once I told Ethan, he ensured that I got on board safely. He and Dante were arguing over who would get in first. Dante faked him out, pretending to get in the ship, but instead he lifted Ethan up and tossed him in.”

“He saved Dad’s life...” Leon says quietly, as the scraping of boots overhead gets louder.

“Ethan protested, knowing that Dante was sacrificing himself for our sake,” Elena says, sitting up on her knees and scooting closer to us as she grabs her knife belt. She secures it around her waist and nods to us to do the same. We both grab our discarded weapons and mimic her kneeling position.

“I’ll never forget Dante’s words,” she says, shifting into a crouching position and motioning us to follow. ’Yes, you are leaving me Ethan, it’s time I give something up for once.”

Up above us, the sudden scurrying of heavy-heeled boots and massive bodies can be heard.

“Shift change, time to go...”

No words are spoken, but very quietly Elena places the bottom of her running shoe against the heavy door, sliding it open a fraction of an inch and using her shoulder to prop it open. She peers out into the corridor, pitch black and freezing cold, before turning to us and signaling us with one finger.

Leon grips my hand, securing his gun over his shoulder and we creep softly out the door after Elena, ready to face whatever may come.