Queen in Training
Dear Journal,
Well, I just woke up. I guess this is my first official day of my rule. Queen Matia. Shocking isn't it. I mean I'm seventeen the youngest ruler in our history was thirty- six. Any ways I'm starving…
I stretch and get out of bed. 'I refuse to wear black.' I think to myself. I'm the ruling queen I can break with tradition if I want to. I look through my wardrobe and pick out an aqua shin length dress shorter than is normal for a queen but give me a break, I just became queen yesterday. I'm much more tan than my mother and some how I was born with light brown hair with red accents and my eyes are more green than most. I deeply regret my decision not to feed last night. I am so hungry. I brush through my waist long hair. Then I walked into the "jewel room" or so I call it. I rummage through the sparkling jewels. I would have enjoyed it much more if it wasn't for my hunger. I select a light wire necklace with aquamarine and sapphire stones and matching earrings. I quickly apply make-up. I don't really like make-up. I quickly put on my silver ring guards. I should wear them when I sleep but I only received a couple months before the hibernation and I'm not use to them. I had just gotten use to the light weigh chitin ones when Mother gave me theses.
I slip out into the hall way and made my way to the cocoon room. There were not many humans left. I select a strong male and have a guard lead him to the dinning room. I decide to practice my mental tactics. "Let him go." I order the guard. As soon as the guard releases him, the human lunges at me. I quickly take control of his mind. The human kneels in front of me as I smile smugly to myself. I rip open his shirt placing my hand on my chest. I hiss with pleasure as I slowly drain the life from the human. I wipe the blood from my feeding slit with one of the many towels in the room.
I walk to the nursery to awaken Kadesh. He is curled into a little ball in the middle of the bed. I smile, because I do the same thing. I sit on the edge of the bed and gently pushed him awake. He stretches out his small arms the imprint of his still delving feeding slit clearly visible. His cat-like eyes open slowly. He stares at me blankly. I placed him on my lap stroking back his long locks of hair and trying to soothe the one that refused to bend to command. "Do I have to wake up mommy?" 'Mommy?' I can feel the mothering instinct awaken in me.'
"Yes Kadesh you have to wake up now." I tell him softly. He lifts his and stares up at me.
"You're not-"he stops tears formed in his eyes as he remembers the events of yesterday. I hugged him tight.
"I know. I miss her to." I whisper to him stroking his back to soothe him.
"Who are you?" He cries looking back up at me.
"I'm your sister, Matia. Remember?" I say surprised.
"You don't look like her." He answers frowning. I glance into the mirror. He's right; I did not look like myself. My face has changed. It is thinner the small amount of baby fat that was there yesterday is now gone. I stare at my body. My small breasts are now replaced with much larger ones which spill out of my dress. I cover them self-conscience. Though I had been thin, now I my waist was smaller but my hips more defined. I look older much older; all traces of girl are gone except for my height. A beautiful woman replaces them "Your beautiful" said Kadesh, "My sister was just average."
'Well think you very much.' I think to myself. "Yes, your sister Matia was just average but your queen Matia is beautiful." I admit lifting him into my arms. He lays his head on my shoulder his hands reaching down beneath my dress. I quickly correct that even though he doesn't know what he's doing.
"Are you my new mommy?" he asked lifting his head to look at me with his innocent eyes.
"Yes." I say to him kissing his forehead thinking it would be better fore him. I smile. I will have the chance to raise a child before I have my own. What a wonderful learning experience! "I love you, mommy." He says hugging me, "Will you play with me?"
"I can not now, Kadesh. I'm sorry. But I will tonight. Now I must leave." I say setting him down. I turn to leave.
"Mommy?" He says questionably.
"Yes?" I ask glancing back at him. He holds out his arms. "Oh, I forget silly me." I laugh bending down to hug him. "I love you." I whisper in his ear.
"Now you can leave Mommy." He says holding up his head. "Why thank you." I laugh.
'I wonder what happen. Why did I change so quickly? And why am I hungry again?' I wonder walking back to feed yet again. It must that I have not feed for so long. I beckoned two drones on my way. This time I selected a young female. The drones forced her to her knees and I quenched my hunger.
I make my way up to the control room pulling up my dress trying to cover my larger breast. A couple of long lustful stares from some of the males alert me to the seriousness of the problem. My dress hits above my knees. I quickly run to my chambers to change. I can't find anything that fits and forget underclothing. Finally I find something of my mother's. It is a long dress embroidered with seed crystals. A little formal for every day by better than nothing. I quickly put it on and rush to control room.
When I arrive in the control room, I find the high ranking members with their arms crossed waiting not to patience on me. I smile quickly. "My Queen, we are ready to take off once you plot a course." Says one of the navigators hastily as he hands me a tablet computer. I quickly type in the star-portal addresses of seven planets that had the larges number of humans in the last culling. By waking early, I fear there will not be enough food. We have to start rationing it and dispensing of some of the drones. I quickly plotted the course then uploaded it to the main computer so all could access it. I stood from my throne and walk over to the flight controls. Though there are others that could pilot the ship, I want to fly it this time. I carefully lifted it off the ground and into space. Once clear of the planet I jumped us into hyperspace. At which the ship lurched forward then jumped. 'Oops' I think to myself: Being Queen is full of ups and downs just get use to it.
"My queen," the junior pilot signals me from my throne.
"Yes?" I answer.
"We have at the first planet and are establishing orbit."
"Send as many darts as possible." I order my curator of the feed grounds, "Leave only a small population of the humans preferably mostly females. If they fight, capture them all and destroy there cities."
"I will do as you order me my queen." He types something in to the computer causing the signal for the culling to begin. The hive buzzes with excitement as pilots climb into their darts and others make ready the holding cambers. 'Ahh, one moment where I don't have to do anything but watch.' Or so I thought.
The culling is going well. The dart pilots are working with great efficiency and accuracy. The humans were weak mounting no resistance. I leaned back in my throne and closed my eyes in a short moment of rest. I was rocked out of my rest by the violent shaking of the ship. "What was that!?" I demanded.
"It appears we were hit with some sort of weapon." Says one of the scientists franticly working at his computer.
"There's a ship at our back." Says another.
"What kind?" I ask. I need as much information as possible to make the right decision.
"I do not know, it is unlike anything I have every seen." He replies.
"Turn us around," I order as we were hit again.
"Our shields are down to 50." Says a frighten scientist.
"What's their communication frequency?" I ask. They all looked at me strange. I jump from my throne and push one of the scientists out of my way, "Move, I'll do it." We were hit again as I scan frequencies for a lock.
"Our shields are down to 20" says an engineer
"Divert power form sub light engines to the shield and fire at them." I order. Finally I found the frequency. I step in front of the communications screen. A startled human appears; in the background fire was clearly visible. "Why are you firing at us?" I demand in the Common langue.
"I must speak with the commander of your vessel." Demand the bald-head human in turn.
"I am the commander of this vessel, and I demand an answer to my question." I growl. He looked confused.
"Their ship is much small than ours, my queen." Says one of my scientists in wraith.
"Train all weapons on them." I order in my own tongue. A woman appeared in to screen. "I am Dr. Elizabeth Weir, May we negotiate with you?" she says.
Negotiate? There is nothing to negotiate. "What is there to negotiate?" I ask confused.
"The safety of our people and yours." The woman says calmly. I have never seen a human so calm in my presents. 'Is it honor, or ignorance?' I wonder.
"As I see it, you are the ones who need safety and you have nothing you can offer us," I say quick growing amused at this conversation.
"Are you so sure?" Says the woman raising her right eyebrow.
"You have no weapons we need, no superior technology, all you are good for is food for us." I answer smugly crossing my arms.
"We have this." says the woman. A bright beam of light appeared behind me. Left in its wake, was a bomb.
"Oh they did not! Fire all weapons!" I demand rippling the casing off the explosive device. There were three wires connecting the bomb to the timer. I quickly removed the timer and saw that only two wires connected it to the bomb, green and red one. I pulled out the small knife I carried on my ankle and sliced though the green wire spotting the timer. I breathe a deep breath and looked up to see my crew starring at me in shock. "Transport this thing to the planet. Once there extract the power source. It may be useful." I ordered. They all just stood there surprised. "What are you waiting for? Hurry up!" I say.
"Yes, my Queen." Answered several of the crew together. I sat back in my throne just as the first of the darts came back to the ship, oblivious to what had happened. They unloaded there cargo. Take action when required, then life will continue as normal.
As we jump into hyperspace, heading to the next planet, I am hungry again. It is extremely frustrating. I do not want to eat for fear that I will grow again, but the hungry gnaws at my very being. I decide I will sample the new humans. I walk to one of the storage chambers. There I five humans four males and one female. The female and one of the males are acting very strange. Humans! You can never figure them out. I select a male who is hiding in the corner. Not the best of meals, but I feel guilty feeding on so many. He is brought to one of the dining rooms by my guards.
"Please, don't kill me." He begs, "I have children."
"Then die with the knowledge that you saved their lives by sacrificing yourself." I say ripping his thin shirt. I do not like killing things, but it is what we must do to survive. I place my hand on his chest being to drain his life. The man screams loudly. I hate the screams so I cover it up with my own hiss of pleasure. I clean my hand and walk to the nursery to see Kadesh.
He is drawing on a piece of paper very intently, so much so that he does not notice my entrance. "Kadesh," I said getting his attention.
"Mother!" he exclaims running to hugging me around the waist. 'I'm still not use to this title. I guess this is just his way of dealing with things.' I think. He let me go and dashed back to his drawing.
"See, its one of the little ships I saw today." He says proudly showing me his drawing.
"Very good." I said smiling at him, "Those are called Culling Darts."
"What was that big noise today?" He asks starring at me.
"We had some trouble with another ship, that's all." I say reassuring him.
"Another ship like this one?" he asks.
"No, a different ship, a bad one." I say smiling. I laugh inside as I revert to my child speech.
"What makes them bad and us good?" he asks. I'm impressed. He can already argue.
You will learn about this people in school." I answer his question.
He scowls, "I don't like school."
"You don't like school!" I was shocked. I loved school. Infect I loved school so much I out smarted all of the normal teachers and had to have a private tutor. I still love to learn. I am currently reading a book on quantum mechanics. "School is very important." I say sternly. "It's boring. There's no fun." He growls and crossed his arms.
I take a different approach. "Well, what did you learn about in school today?" I ask.
He retrieves a half completed addition paper. I looked at it and then noticed a bowl of grapes sitting on the table. "I bet I can make this fun." I say sitting down beside him. "Now, here's your problem." I sit two grapes on a piece of paper writing a plus sign then sitting three more grapes on the paper. "How many grapes are there?" I ask smiling. "Five." He said giving me a toothy grin. "Now, eat one." I say smiling. He smiled as he popped the fruit in his mouth. "What did you just do?" I ask.
"I subtracted one!" He said giggling, "I'm going to add three; and that's…one…two…three…four…five…six…seven. Seven grapes!"
"Very good." I say enjoying this time with him. Suddenly the door open and a messenger came in.
He bows and says, "My queen, we need you in the control room immediately."
"I'm coming." I said standing up. I glance back a Kadesh.
"You have to leave?" He says his eyes growing in that child way. "Yes, I do but I'll be back. Practice your math." I say smiling.
As I walk into the control room, I notice that the place is full of scientist. One is holding an insolated box with a grey material inside which must be radioactive. They bow to me and one begins speaking. "The material used in the weapon is a strange material and high radioactive. It was a good thing you took action when you did, my queen, otherwise the reaction could not have been stopped. I believe we may be able to use it as a weapon"
"Does anyone of you have an idea on what the bright light was that delivered the bomb?" I asked. I had my own theories but I want to hear theirs.
"Yes, we believe it is some sort of transportation beam. Similar to our culling beams. The good news is we are capable of jamming the beam so nothing can be beamed into our ships. The bad news is the enemy can, mostly likely, change the frequency of the beam making our jamming codes ineffective. I suggest we create a computer program that can change the jamming frequency" suggests one of them.
"Any ideas on who the enemy is? There are no humans with such technology except the travelers and they are little threat." I ask.
"We are unsure my queen. The ship wasn't Atlantean nor was it of any design any of us has ever seen." Says one of the scientists.
"Is there any people that have such transportation technology? I have not read that even the Atlanteans posed such technology." I ask
"No, we know of none as well." Says one of them.
"Odd turn of events. If any of you find out anything else please tell me." I say nodding my head to adjourn the meeting.
Soon we reach the second planet on our course. The ship precisely drops out of hyper-space and assumes normal orbit. The darts went out like clockwork caring out there job of gathering food for us. The humans on this planet were healthy and strong. 'Finally it seems things are slowing down.' Just as I am getting up to leave, a young scientist brings me a rather large box. "We found this creature on the surface and thought you might be interested." He says handing me the box. I slowly open the box unsure of what may be inside. Suddenly a small fluffy face appears. It is a kitten; black and tan brindle with a white belly. I gently lift the small creature out of the box pushing it aside. The kitten begins to purr as I stroke its small face with one finger.
"Thank you." I say smiling. "It's an honor to serve you my queen." With that, I left; the tiny kitten purring in my arms.
I head back to my quarters, where I set the tiny creature on the bed. The kitten stretches out its paws revealing its white claws. 'I wonder what you are." I thought placing the kitten on its back. The female, as I discover, meows and tries to squirm out of my grasp. "You need a name." I say to her lifting her to my face. She wraps her arms around my face like a hug. "What about Vespavia? Do you like that?" I ask as the kitten purrs. I slip into my night gown and lay down in bed holding my purring kitten