Finally -- I Married The Snake

I didn’t consider myself a pilot and never wanted to be, but by the time we reached our destination I had plenty of experience on the simulator. I couldn’t believe that we had spent almost three days in null space to get to this planet. No wonder the people of Earth never heard of it. In ships going slower than the speed of light it would have taken centuries.

I couldn't believe it, but Darla and I got much closer during the three days we spent together. She seemed to start talking with me, instead of at me in her usual way. She also found reasons to keep touching me. I found that strange. It wasn’t bad and I started finding reasons to touch her too. She didn’t mind. It seemed that we were building a relationship. She told me stories about her past and how rebellious she was.

She was raised to become the leader of The Empire. It was just a figurehead position that she thought was rather ridiculous so she rebelled every chance she got. She soon realized she couldn’t avoid it so she became cold and detached. To her surprise, her family and parents were pleased. She realized that they were all like that and that was the cultural norm. Finally, having been fed up with the whole thing, she began to really act up enough to get exiled, which she thought was perfect. She would receive money from them, a stipend, and not have to deal with any of them.

So began her job working with a non-profit space resettlement agency who seemed to like her cold and detached manor because of the necessary duties. She would work with conquered nations, or semi-conquered ones, meaning those conquered and given their independence with no necessary resources, to develop them. One had to be hard and non attached to do that and it was easy for her. She jumped at the chance to go to Earth because it was so far away and very primitive. She only had to supervise one small village on a dying planet. That would be it.

She arrived on Earth quite early in the morning. A young man met her there riding a snowmobile. That was the only type of transportation the whole village had. That man was me. I took her back to the cottage, one of very few, and took her few things in. She warmed herself by the fire. When I told her I wanted to take her to her quarters she announced that my house was her quarters. I couldn’t believe it. After some argument she said we could share the house or I could go to the quarters prepared for her. That was the beginning of our relationship.

She smiled as she recounted this to me. “I didn’t want to go to any stuffy quarters or government building. I knew that they knew who I was and were going to try to treat me like royalty. I had been avoiding that for years. It was only after I accepted that I found that it was our empire in charge of helping the Earth people along. Had I known I wouldn’t have taken the assignment. That's how you got your unwanted guest.”

“Not too unwanted, but it was shocking. It also gave me some company. As a post I was living out there all alone in the snowy woods. I wasn’t crazy about people so a mean old woman who didn’t want to talk that much was kind of…just right at the time.”

“Mean old woman, eh?” She responded. “Mean woman, right. Old, not as old as you think. Your woman now though. Am I right?” That statement shocked me. I looked at her hard, trying to look inside of her.

“If she wants to be,” I said.

“Oh. If she wants to be. Am I or not?”

“You have strange ways I don’t understand.”

“I’m glad you recognize that. Am I or not?”

“Yes. You are my woman.” She smiled pleasantly.

“Interesting,” she simply said. She rotated the captain’s seat forward. “Very interesting.”

“Really? What does that mean?”

“You’ll have to find out. That’s part of the mating game, Husband.”

“Husband?”

“Yes, Husband. We’ll be coming out of null space soon. We’re outside of the solar system. Why don’t you take us in? And watch out for the meteors, comets and dust. I doubt that even you could run into another ship.” I pursed my lips. She laughed to herself. “Ready?” in a blink we came into normal space. We were surrounded by darkness with many stars standing out in the distance. The sun looked like a small, orange ball. I set the coordinates as we headed for the fourth planet circling the sun. It was Birrundi, the golden planet, and its color was actually gold.

I didn’t have to do much. The ship moved by itself. All I actually needed to do was watch out for unexpected objects, even though I could steer the ship myself if I wanted. I was satisfied with it being on automatic pilot. I got out of my seat, walked over to her chair, leaned over and kissed her on the head. She looked up and grinned. “We’re moving fast. You may have to secure yourself when we enter the atmosphere. One thing no one has mastered is the burning of the atmosphere.”

I moved to my seat in the rear, near the panel again. We were moving fast. Even at sublight it seemed that we were quickly dashing through the planes, which surprised me. Later I found that we were very close to light speed, meaning we were going 187,000 miles per second. We definitely weren’t sashaying by any means. There were only six planets so we arrived at planet number four, Terrebundi, very quickly. I moved us into orbit. Darla communicated with the AI computer on the planet. After we received instructions we went in for a landing. We used the friction from the atmosphere to slow us as we tilted the heat shield on the bottom of the ship toward the surface.

Without mishap, after a rough ride, and flame blaring past the windows all the way down we arrived at the altitude where we kicked in our retro-rockets. We arrived at the capital city and landed on a round landing pad that slowly lowered itself into a large welcome area. I had no idea what to expect or what the people there would look like.

We sat there for five or ten minutes, which I really didn’t mind. I didn’t like flying that much, especially in such a small ship. We were both just sitting there, silent. We had spent many hours like that before in my little cabin, before we had been taken off Earth to Darla’s planet. It was hard not to think back to those times. Things were really quiet then. Not much was happening. Having been to her planet, back to Earth, and now to Terrebundi, and having learned about AI wanting to take over the galaxy made me long for my simple life again.

I wondered how many people all over the galaxy in different worlds had no idea about what was going on, or even if life existed outside of their own little worlds. Imagine knowing that there were races of beings millions of years old and more evolved than your race moving throughout the universe making trade rules and building alliances while you thought that you were all there was and fought over little scraps of land on a small planet somewhere on the outskirts. Just a generation ago my people had been like that. We didn’t have a clue.

For centuries the UFOlogists, as they called themselves, had told us about it. They presented all the evidence they could, but the governments of the world spent millions, maybe even billions, to muddy the water and make them look ridiculous. It worked very well. It worked too well. By the time we woke up an ancient group of ETs had entered the planet, taken control of the government and economy and had just about destroyed everything.

We tried to expel them. We were no match for the technology or for the upper one percent who had conspired with them for millenia with the hope of a total takeover some day. That day had come. The only thing that saved us was a conglomerate of planets that moved in and expelled the rogue ETs. Disclosure happened.

We learned about the way the galaxy really worked and how church and state had colluded and kept us in the dark for so long. We became part of the Confederation of Worlds. The Terrerians were sent to help us become knowledgeable and prepare for full entrance into the Confederation. Unfortunately, all of this happened after the world had become so polluted that global warming had had the most detrimental effect.

Global warming followed by a few nuclear bombs set off just about destroyed the weather patterns. An attack from the Reptilians with a planet killer followed that. Luckily, they were only partially successful, but successful enough to slightly shift the magnetic poles enough to put some of us in perpetual winter. Had we only known and had we not been betrayed for so long by our leaders. To think, many other planets were still asleep and being deceived. I took a deep breath and looked out the window.

The area was cavernous. The ceiling was about 50 feet high. Several other ships were parked in various spaces inside the enclosure. The coloring was dull, like a concrete parking garage. There was very little light, just enough to see by. That too was like a parking lot. Darla just sat there, silent, looking out the window. Eventually three people approached.

One wore a long, white robe with large sleeves and a black belt around his waist. He had his arms folded across his chest with his hands tucked into his sleeves. Two women in black suits and with white rifles slung over their shoulders followed. They had no insignias, just plane black suits that looked as though they could easily serve as space wetsuits.

They slowly crossed the large open space and stood in front of the ship. Darla hit the button and we stood, looked at each other, and walked out. The air seemed breathable, somewhat like the air on Earth with a slightly different smell. Every planet had a different smell due to the vegetation, biom and so on. One stopped noticing it once they got used to it. The man in the white robe stepped forward and smiled.

He seemed to have a pleasant disposition. He was a dark man with black hair and a black beard, but his hair, unlike most people of his shade, was straight and extending down to his shoulders. He extended his hand from his sleeve.

“So, you’ve made it,” he said with a grin. I shook his hand with my head slightly tilted to the side. “You don’t recognize me,” he said. “I’m Byron.”

“I thought you were in cyberspace or something,” I replied.

“We are all in cyberspace," he said, “But I’m also in this new body.” He opened his arms and did a little turn. “Cool, eh? We can move from one body to the next quite easily because our essence is stored in Compu Net." He looked at Darla and walked over to her.

“What shall we do with you, Your Highness? Since you did try to kill me?”

“I didn’t want to kill you, or you would be dead,” She simply said.

“No doubt. Well now the Empire is ours. I don’t think we really need an Empress, do you?”

“You don’t have to kill her,” I said, jumping in.

“I know I don’t have to.”

“I don’t want you to kill her, " I corrected. “She belongs to me.” His head quickly snapped in my direction. He laughed a little.

“Are you serious? She’s a snake.”

“I’m serious. She’s my woman.”

“We’re married,” she said. It was my turn snap my head and be surprised. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he already said yes. I was going to tell him later.” I narrowed my eyes and looked at her. She looked at me innocently. Byron just stood there for a few moments.

“I just find this incredible,” he finally said. “Take the royal couple to their quarters please, and set up outside. He walked past me very close and whispered, “I told you she was a snake.” He turned back to face us. “Someone will be in to see you soon.”

The End (Part 4)