REBELS AND SAVIORS

Ascension

“Alex! I can’t feel him any longer!”

Max had never not felt his twin. It was the one constant of his life, his only real comfort, and now the link was severed.

“Let him go, Max. It was what he wanted. Michael and Maria together were the One. This was the bending of the matrix I saw so long ago, the way it was always meant to be.”

“Fuck that!” Max searched the area where the great Granilith had stood and then winked out of existence with his brother and new sister-in-law.

A small hand touched his arm and he looked down at the young woman with golden blond hair and startling blue eyes. She looked done in, ready to collapse.

“We must go. They gave us time and this universe. Don’t waste it.”

Max nodded, but not in his newfound heart. It was broken. “What do I call you?”

“Tess. We’ve got to go.”

“Max, quickly. I will open a corridor back to the Shiva.”

They exited the room and found the main corridors. They needed to find a primary access area close to the main hull, at the entry point where they first boarded. Khivar’s Imperials were on all sides, and Alex rushed the women, with Lonnie’s hand in his.

The alert was sounded as Max’s men fought the Imperials on the Octavian. Sean and his group joined up with them just outside the entrance to the main Bridge where the other teams were waiting. The Octavian was trying to re-establish the power grid that had been taken out by the Granilith. Pushed and angry, Max left the group and entered the war Bridge on Khivar's ship. Alex and Sean called to him, but he didn’t listen. He couldn’t.

“Khivar!”

The man turned and looked at Max, disgust and hatred lining his face. An Attilaan. Tess followed Max and stood slightly behind him off his right shoulder, the defiance apparent on her face.

“You took my Immaculate!”

“I took more than that.” Max looked back at the young woman who had suffered torture at Khivar’s hands. “This Immaculate belongs to no one but herself.”

The rest joined Max, standing behind him.

“And the Anterraan? Where is the Princess?”

Max swallowed an angry lump in his throat. Sean showed him the countdown timer. It was getting close. Khivar’s Imperials were surrounding them, however Khivar motioned them to stand down, but remain on alert.

“She took back what was hers, and removed it from your destructive grasp. The Granilith is gone, no longer a weapon for your use! There is a war coming to this universe, and this time it will be fought on even ground.”

Khivar bristled at the knowledge the Granilith was gone. Standing angrily he faced Max down from the lower level Command deck. Tess smirked at him. The thread of his life was cut and drawing to an end.

“You think to fight me? I command an army of the best warriors in the known universe. Your own people. You fight me, you fight them.”

Max looked around the room. Khivar had surrounded himself with Attilaans. Max walked the upper deck.

“I’ll fight whomever it takes, wherever it takes me and no matter how long! I'd gladly meet my ancestors in the hall of Valhalla than live under the yoke of a would-be King! Times are changing, Khivar. And you in your sickness have missed an awakening. I’d rather die fighting for my freedom, the freedom of my people and the freedom of this universe, than live another day under your sickening reign.”

Max looked at his people, those forced into service against their will and pledged to Khivar through blood oaths.

“I’m freeing Attila and all her holdings. If you would be free, then rise up against the tyrant holding your restraints. It is a new world, brothers! One that has cost me dearly, and I will not watch the sacrifice go for nothing.”

Khivar laughed. “You hope to pull them from centuries of blood oaths, to rise up against me?”

“It matters not! My world will be freed, her children returned to the learning way and you, Khivar, will be the bug I squash beneath my feet!” Max looked at his people. “If you would be free, then join me! Join the Royals! Khivar is merely the thug of the day - toothless without his Granilith! My band of rebels has destroyed two of his strike fleet, and I hold the strongest Eminent One. There is no surrender! It is victory, or it is death.”

The explosive charges that Sean and his team had set went off at that moment. They started in the lower reactor core and moved upward. The control panels on the Bridge exploded in a display of fire and smoke. The Bridge’s few remaining lights went out as the backup lights came on and smoke rolled through the ship.

“Max, we must go! There is less than five minutes before the secondary explosives blow!”

Max nodded, “Alex, do it!”

Alex opened the corridor back to the Shiva and Sean, the Immaculates and his men walked through. Khivar stood stunned.

“That is an Anterraan trick.”

Max shook his head no. “It is my Eminent One. We hold the knowledge of how to blink. My people have sacrificed themselves to bring forth your destruction, along with my brother and his wife giving up their own existence for my people enslaved for generations.”

“I’ll eat you! I will destroy your worlds, take your Eminent One, and then I’ll take your life!”

Max just laughed smiling a smile of genuine humor. “Then let it be a fight between us!”

“Max!”

Max nodded and started to join Alex through the corridor when he felt Him. Them.

“Alex, wait! I feel Michael again. I feel him and Maria.” Alex closed the distortion. “We must go back.”

“Max, the time.” Max ignored him and rushed against Imperial guards who stood unknowing what to do. Alex followed.

Khivar watched Max and Alex leave his Bridge, and no one stopped him.

“Stop him! Get me that Eminent.” No one moved. Khivar circled his Bridge screaming. “I said, seize them!”

He grabbed the nearest Attilaan warrior and shook him. The man knocked off his hands, and pushed him back. In an act of defiance, he turned his back to his onetime Master, as did the other Attilaans on the Bridge. They would not raise a hand against him, nor would they raise a hand to fight for him. Not ever again.

Max rushed into the room that once housed the Granilith. Pausing for a moment, he found them. They were on the ground in a heap where the Granilith had stood. They must have blinked back.

“Michael!”

Alex followed Max into the room and saw them. Looking over his shoulder he was surprised that no one had followed them. He went with Max to where Michael and Maria lay.

“Max, we are running out of time.”

“Can you open a corridor from here?”

Alex shook his head. “I do not know. There are so many decks and hulls, and the distance is great.”

A hand came up and grabbed his arm. It was Michael. Alex gazed into his golden brown eyes, sensing his message. Alex nodded and concentrated.

The corridor opened from the Octavian to the Shiva’s Bridge. Max quickly picked up his brother, helping him walk with an arm over his shoulder and supporting him under his shoulder. Alex picked up the unconscious Maria whose body was almost translucent, as was Michael’s, and they stepped through just as the decks behind them exploded.

~~~

When they emerged from the corridor, Shiva's entire Bridge was standing with arms drawn, waiting for whomever was coming through.

“Captain!”

Max quickly set his brother on his feet, gently. Alex still held Maria, who was looking almost ready to blink out again.

“Put them together quickly, Alex. He’s her anchor. Someone call Medical!” Alex complied while Max turned to his officers. “Helmsman, plot us a stream out of here now! That ship has troubles.”

“Aye, Cap. Main power just came back online. A plotted course back to Karnak is already laid in.”

“Cap, we’ve got Imperial battleships and prowlers closing fast.” Liander informed Max.

“Sam, get us out of here.” Max's last view of the Octavian before they entered the transport corridor was of her burning in space, her ballast gone as she veered off to port. He’d see her again. Of that he was sure.

~~~

“Max, I need you down in Medical.” Kyle voice came over the com.

“What is it Kyle?”

“Just get down here.”

Max nodded for Sam to take Conn and he raced to find what was wrong now.

“Kyle, is it Michael and Maria?”

“Yes. I can’t stabilize them. They’re blinking all over the place. As fast as they come back, they wink out again. Dammit, Max! I can't get through to them!”

Max stood beside the medical bed with both of them in it. He watched as they blinked out and then back again.

“Will they reset like Maria and Alex did last time?”

“I don’t know. Alex opened two corridors in a row just now with no ill effects except fatigue. The extra power he gained from Pierce must have helped. This time it’s different. It’s like they’re here, and then they’re not, and then they are. Almost as if they’re searching for something.”

“Max.” Alex came forward. “I believe they are searching for Max.”

“Me? I don’t understand.”

Alex stood beside Max and nodded towards the couple. “Michael was Maria’s anchor. He gave her enough structure to survive, but he needed something that anchored him as well. You, Max. You are his anchor. I thought they together were the One, but I was wrong. It is you, Michael and Maria. The twin bond you share has grown over the past few months, evolving much like the maturation of their bond. It was meant to be, as was their mating. Michael came back and brought Maria too, because your bond with him gave him a physical place.”

Max frowned. “What do I need to do?”

Kyle looked at Alex and shrugged. “Touch them. Touch Michael and call him home?”

“He was here once.”

“Yes, but we lost him again once we brought him to Medical  and separated him from you.”

Max nodded. Taking a chair, he grasped his brother’s larger hand and waited. Whatever it took. Michael had never left him behind, even when it meant digging a mountain off him and almost dying in the process. Max wouldn’t leave him either.

“Come on, M. Don’t be such a pansy. I’ve got work to do. Worlds to move and a war to fight. The word is already spreading. Nations are rising in revolt and contacting us for a rendezvous for the assembling of a Royal Rebel fleet. Khivar’s days are numbered. He’ll not forget the pasting we gave him today.”

Max sat and talked to Michael and Maria for what felt like hours. Until a pair of hands touched his tired shoulders.

“Any luck?”

Max looked up at Isabel and shook his head. None. They were still silent. Isabel's hands stroked through his long hair in comfort and he closed his eyes. The touch of kindness, of comfort - it was strange to him and he craved it.

“He’ll come back. They both will.” Isabel looked at the two on the bed. Their bodies were tangible again and not blinking in and out. To her, they looked asleep, wrapped around each other. Strange, she could feel them almost like a whisper in her mind. What she felt from them was a sense of peace and a serenity.

“I hope so. I’m sick of talking. I can’t remember ever talking this much.” Max reached up and took one of her hands, and pulled her around. “What are you doing here? I thought you were scheduled for galley duty tonight, so I was looking forward to eating in the officer’s mess.”

“I am scheduled, but I had an appointment with Kyle.”

“You okay?”

Isabel paused and thought of a better circumstance to tell him, but in truth between them nothing was ever just normal.

“I’m pregnant.”

Max forgot to breathe. He stood up and then sat down again, until he noticed he had left her standing. He quickly stood up and pushed her into his vacated chair. Isabel chuckled softly to herself. He was totally at a loss.

“Pregnant?” His high-pitched voice made her soft laughter increase into real humor.

“You knew it was a possibility, and since we’ve been back from Cyrenaica we haven't even tried to be careful.”

That was true. Max had to admit it. Since she came to talk to him that day, three days after Cyrenaica, she had practically lived in his rooms with him and in his bed. They never used protection in any form. He wanted to be a father. He never thought he ever would. Serena had been sterile and then she died. He had thought that was it for him in this category.

Alex was right. Things were changing. He was changing, as was Michael who was born changed. They both had found an emotion called love, and they both were mating outside their species. His child would never be accepted on Attila, nor would any child of Michael and Maria's. He didn’t care. His children wouldn’t be sent to live in a military camp so young. He, Michael and Sean would teach them everything they needed to know. And he would touch his child.

“Just tell me it won’t be twins.” He had been a twin all his life and he loved the bond with Michael, but it was also a hard life when one is never alone or private.

Isabel laughed as Max knelt on the floor in front of her, and buried his head against her still-flat stomach. “I’m a twin. You’re a twin. It’s not looking good for us, Captain.”

Max didn’t care. He didn’t care. He was going to be a father. “Marry me,” he said softly in her stomach.

“No.” Max drew in his breath sharply and looked up at her. She gently smiled and framed his face with her hand stroking his scar. Shaking her head, she said no again.

“Why? Don’t you want to marry me?”

“Yes. But when you’re ready.” Max started to protest. “Shh, it’s all right. The baby or babies are ours, and there is no question that you’re the father. I’d marry you in a heartbeat because I love you. But you need it to be what you really want. Michael knew he wanted Maria, and he asked her because it was all he could think about. I want you to feel that sure, that real, and not have it just be about the babies.”

“Isabel...”

“It’s all right! You ask me again when the time is right for you.”

“You’ll say yes?”

Isabel laughed again. “Maybe.” Max’s eyes narrowed and Isabel smiled as she reached down and kissed him. “You get to tell my brother though. I think he was planning on having a talk with you about your intentions towards me, so telling him I’m knocked up should be even more interesting.”

Max just groaned against her. Great. Fucking glorious. Alex would use his voodoo super Eminent powers and pin him to the wall like a bug. Max smiled at the thought. Michael was right. He didn’t know that a person was supposed to feel happy and loved, or that it was even possible to feel anything other than loyalty, honor and duty.

“Hear that, little brother? I’m going to be a father.” Max said to his silent brother.

So when Michael spoke without opening his eyes it was shocking. “Hard to miss,” he said softly. “Maybe you could take her somewhere and celebrate in private so I can get some damn sleep instead of listening to you yakking my ears off.”

“Michael!” Max stood and grabbed his twin's head.

Michael slowly opened his eyes as if they were too heavy to hold open. “I swear, Maxwell, if you kiss me, we’ll be having words.”

“Kyle!” Max called to the doctor and kissed his brother on the forehead anyway. Finally! He was free to leave and get back to work - or other things.

Kyle came in and saw that Michael was awake. Scanning him quickly, he nodded at Max. Their bodies had finally stopped fluctuating. “They’re both fine. They just need some rest.”

Michael just snorted bitterly, closed his eyes, snuggled up close to Maria and went back to sleep. Fat chance of that happening on this fucking crate. No one ever left you alone!

Max grabbed Isabel’s hand and thanked Kyle quickly. “Come on. Let's go talk about this pregnancy thing.”

Isabel held back a little, suspicious of his motives. “Talk?”

“We’ll talk...well...eventually.” His arm went around her waist and his hand rested on her slim hip, pulling her body close to his. A father. Who’d have thought?

~~~

Max turned in his Captain’s chair when Michael and Maria returned to the Bridge, arguing furiously.

“I told you to stay put!”

Maria shrugged. “I did. For a few moments. You didn’t say how long.”

“Maria, I swear...”

“That’s all you do! I wasn’t in danger, and we got the job done.”

“Is it?” Max asked interrupting their usual Michael possessiveness/Maria recklessness discussion. They were a couple made to produce ulcers. They fought almost as hard as they made love. But not quite.

Michael nodded. “We successfully planted the explosives and blew up the Imperial stronghold. The new colonial government sends their regards. The rebel forces are now taking over control of their planet. They'll be sending representatives to the new Royal Federation.”

“Cap, three of our recovery ships have just requested a rendezvous in the Karnak system. They have completed the final relocation of the Aesculapian system.”

All worlds had voted unanimously to relocate to the Karnak system. It didn’t hurt their decision when they discovered that Karnak was going to serve as the homeworld and command base for the Royal Alliance, and the seat of the new Royal Federation.

“Inform our ships that we’ll be there to pick them up once we complete our rendezvous with the Royal Alliance in the Escalari system. They’ve found another Imperial stronghold. Order them to Karnak for regular maintenance and shore leave.”

“Aye, Cap.”

Six months. It had been a long six months since they took the Granilith and the war started again. Six months of fighting Khivar at every turn. Some battles they lost, but many they won. Once the word of Khivar’s loss of the Granilith spread, worlds held under oppression rose up in rebellion and joined the Royal cause.

Khivar was further weakened by a flood of mutiny within his ranks as Attilaans deserted their posts in droves and returned home to free their world and join the Rebels. Some worlds were liberated easily, but many were places of open guerilla warfare, with battles in space that left both the Royals and the Imperials searching for power sources.

“Inform the fleet of our arrival in the Escalari system.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The Shiva was the flagship of the Royal Alliance, and Max held full command. But it was Alex who was the leader of the Resistance. His position of Eminence held as he planned the attacks and met Khivar on all battlefronts.

“Any word from Alex?”

“No, Cap. He is still aboard the Baltar. He will reboard the Shiva when we meet them at the rendezvous.”

“Good.” Max didn’t like having Alex off their ship. His sister worried, and Isabel was in no condition to be worrying about anything as she was nearing her seventh month of pregnancy. Isabel was suffering separation anxiety having Lonnie on Karnak and Alex gone. They were correct in assuming that their children were twins. And Isabel wasn’t happy not being able to see her feet. Max just smiled at her waddling form.

Max sat back and listened to Michael and Maria’s banter. Since Maria was no longer needed in her position as the Acolyte de Prin’c, she was determined to find herself a place on the Shiva.

Max already had her in a position equal in rank to his highest officers. She was his new astrometric officer. The new lab needed an expert, and there was no one more qualified, who knew and understood space and spatial anomalies more than Maria. But he let them fight it out.

“I don’t know why I can’t work in security. I can take you down.”

Michael just snorted. Maria and explosive rounds? Wasn’t going to happen, not on his watch.

“Helm? I’m a great pilot with an excellent sense of navigations.”

“Like the Torsaian Nebula you took us through last week?”

Maria made a face. Bitch, bitch, bitch. “It was fascinating, and it only damaged a few of the forward shields. I recorded some real interesting stuff. Wait until I finish my analysis.”

“Max isn’t going to let you pilot the Shiva.”

“Max...”

Max didn’t even bother to look up from his reports. “Keep me out of it.”

“Getting Max to take your side is useless. He knows better...”

“To step in the middle of one of your squabbles.” Max finished. “Maria, I’ve got a report about your lab being left open. Did you leave it that way before you left on the last mission?”

“No.” Maria frowned. “Dammit! It must have been Sean again. Bastard! He keeps scavenging my components for his damn engines!” Maria headed off to go survey the damage and kill Sean. Point a finger at her husband, “We’re not through with this yet.”

Max turned and watched her stomp off in search of a certain hapless engineer. Max smirked and looked at his brother’s stormy face.

“Happy?”

Michael just growled. “Fucking ecstatic.”

But in truth, he was. Life with the biggest pain in the ass Anterraan was nothing if not unpredictable and interesting. And when he felt himself getting all weepy, weak-kneed, and ready to spout poetry, she always did something to piss him off, and he recovered his moment of weakness.

Max just chuckled and went back to work. Surprisingly, Michael was quiet and thoughtful at his station as they prepared to engage Khivar for what might be the last battle of the Resistance.

“So, Max...” Max just made a sound in his throat without even bothering to look over at his brother, Hmm. “This pregnancy thing with a non-Attilaan, how does it work?”

“What, you want a diagram on how to do it?”

Michael made a face. “I think I’ve got the logistics. I just mean, is it different from a normal pregnancy?”

Max just laughed and shook his head. “It’s not going to work, M.”

“What?” Michael tried his most innocent of looks which came off as being sly and devious.

“Getting her pregnant isn’t going to magically get her to settle down and do the housewife thing.” Max snickered under his breath. “Women don’t get pregnant and suddenly know how to cook, clean, and want to stay home where it’s safe.”

Michael just swore under his breath. He supposed not, but who said Max was an expert on women? The idea of Maria pregnant didn’t bug him in the least, but the thought of her and her pregnant body down on a planet in the middle of firefight made his blood run cold.

“She still wouldn’t settle with being left behind.” Michael said in a burst of insight, swearing under his breath.

“Doubt it. Her title and position of Princess was more of a protector title and not Royalty. I notice she's still able to toss your ass around the gym on a regular basis.”

“She cheats.”

“Uh huh. That’s what Sean said the other night when she took half his winnings in poker.”

Michael just laughed. “He’s right, she does cheat. She used her Anterraan tricks and switched cards with me!”

Max was laughed. “You didn’t tell Sean?”

Michael snorted. “No way in hell! Maria gets all excited and raunchy when she wins. It makes for great sex.”

“You’re a sick man.”

“I am.”

~~~