Resurrection Sticks

By Baeli Jaekel

It's hard enough building a life on a new planet, but when you're faced with dissension in your own tribe, you have to decide and decide quickly just how far you're prepared to go.

Sivon is half Bandonese, half human. Her mother was one of ten female survivors when their craft crashed on a farm in rural Colorado. Now she is running from one of her own people, risking everything for love and the things she believes in.

Mozzik, the self-appointed leader of the Bandosapiens, has his own agenda, and Sivon has just crossed the line. He's out to find her, to eliminate the risk she's flirting with and to assert his control once more over the whole tribe.

But sometimes power is about more than control. Doing the right thing can be the most powerful thing in the world...as Sivon is about to find out.

If Mozzik doesn't kill her first.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baeli Jaekel
• Release date: Jun 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301808618

Book preview

Summary:

It's hard enough building a life on a new planet, but when you're faced with dissension in your own tribe, you have to decide and decide quickly just how far you're prepared to go.

Sivon is half Bandonese, half human. Her mother was one of ten female survivors when their craft crashed on a farm in rural Colorado. Now she is running from one of her own people, risking everything for love and the things she believes in.

Mozzik, the self-appointed leader of the Bandosapiens, has his own agenda, and Sivon has just crossed the line. He's out to find her, to eliminate the risk she's flirting with and to assert his control once more over the whole tribe.

But sometimes power is about more than control. Doing the right thing can be the most powerful thing in the world...as Sivon is about to find out.

If Mozzik doesn't kill her first.

Resurrection Sticks

Copyright: Baeli Jaekel

ISBN: 9781301099221

Published: 16June2013

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Published by

Indie Literati Press

Colorado & New Zealand

ISBN:  9781301099221

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons living, dead, or in any realm in between, is likely to represent someone I've met, or a combination of more than one person, except when it was one person only, and then, I probably tweaked the character so it didn't really resemble them at all.

Created in the United States of America or New Zealand

Where we can freely create and share things.

DEDICATION:

For my darling Kate, who resurrected my self-esteem,

my hope, my happiness, and my writing. All ways, always.

Resurrection Sticks

Baeli Jaekel

When we’re thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it’s only here that the new and the good begins. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The rain began as if some Norse god unzipped the sodden heavens. It washed down on them like a great waterfall. On horseback, the four of them raced for a grand gargantuan oak tree across the clearing. Huddled beneath the sheltering limbs, the horses snorted and pawed the ground, agitated by the electrified air. Lightning pierced the night sky, illuminating Mount Sopris, and the streams of water snaking across the ground at the foothills. They were by now used to the occasional thunderstorm, but all were still mesmerized by it, their faces rapt by the flashes and water descending from the night sky. Another extravagant flash blinded them.

We are in danger here, Sivon said. The tree acts as a lightning rod. We have to find better shelter or else get out from under this tree.

You worry too much, Brix said, clenching the now soggy cigar in his teeth.

His words seemed to anger the storm, and a bolt of white light flashed nearby, forcing them to struggle with the panicked horses.

See? Sivon said. I told you. We can’t take shelter here.

From his place atop the buckskin Morgan, the eldest, Mozzik, begged to differ. We’ll just sit here until it eases. We’re fine.

We’re not fine, Mozzik, Sivon warned. I’m telling you. It’s dangerous. I’m out of here. She reined her Morgan around, and heeled her mount forward into a gallop through the driving rain toward the compound.

A loud crack split the saturated air, followed by an invisible force that swatted her from the saddle, where she landed in several inches of water and mud, the breath knocked out of her. She shook her head clear and scrutinized the scene. The great oak was split almost in two, one half of it on the ground.

Grappling for the dropped rein, she grabbed the thick leather of it and swung back onto the horse, coaxing him in a run back to the tree.

As she heaved the Morgan to a halt and jumped down, she saw that all three young men, and their horses, lay motionless on the sodden ground. She hurried over, shook them, checked pulses, but found no sign of life.

They were all dead.

Standing back, she reached into her cargo pocket for the stick, white now, in its dormant state. Sivon smacked it against her palm three times, then rammed the butt end of it against her knee. The stick came aglow, and she tossed it into the space between their lifeless bodies. Seconds later, a brilliant light exploded from the stick, almost as bright as the lightning that had electrocuted everyone. She closed her eyes against the glare.

When the light dissipated, she opened her eyes and saw the horses struggling to their feet, shaking their heads, snorting, and the boys began to move around, as well, checking themselves for injuries; Brix was even amused by it. I will never get used to that, he chuckled.

Mozzik led his horse out to where she stood, now drenched in the downpour. He was rubbing his chest, absently, wincing a little. He motioned for Corchi to toss him the stick. Catching it, he noted the dark markings on the side. Only two more left on this one. You used up almost all your resurrections for us. And the horses.

She shrugged, wiping a wet lock of chocolate hair from her eyes. Well, what else could I do? There is a time limit to the resurrections, you know. And I couldn’t very well move the horses out of range.

You could have used everyone’s individual sticks. Not use up all of yours.

Mozzik. Are you seriously criticizing the fact that I saved your lives?

Reluctantly, he nodded. Right. Well…thanks, Sivon. He was shaking his head in consternation, oblivious to the concept of his own mortality. He mounted his buckskin Morgan.

Corchi and Brix had mounted up again as well. Brix trotted by, saying, Thanks, Sivon, without much sincerity. Corchi paused long enough to meet her eyes and did seem genuinely grateful. He even reached out and took her hand for a moment before following the other two. Sivon peered down at her Resurrection Stick, contemplative, the rain plinking on its white surface. She shoved it back in her pocket, took a breath, and swung back on the bay Morgan to catch up with them.

At the barn, Mozzik left Sivon and Corchi to put the horses away, while he and Brix continued into the main house. After dumping grain into the bin, she closed the stall gate behind the four Morgans, and pulled the stick from her pocket, examining the dark marks on the side.

How many do you have left, now? Corchi asked.

Two.

He clawed both hands into his wet hair. Well, I owe you one for sure. Two, if you count my horse.

Thanks, Corchi. Hope you’re around if I need to take you up on that.

He touched her arm and started toward the house.

Sivon knew she would not be getting reciprocal resurrections from Brix and Mozzik.

On the walk to the house, she thought about how it all came to be. It seemed nonsensical that the males of the tribe would be the leaders, since this whole thing began with women. Out of the 52 crew members of the exploratory vessel, only ten had survived the disaster. All of them, female. This was because the higher authorities, the Lordoks, recognized that the inevitable robust sex drives of the Bando people might be a distraction if the two genders worked too closely together. Never mind the possibility that not all of them would be interested in the opposite gender, Sivon thought. But it became customary for the crew to be divided into male and female squads, and the male crew was at the helm when things went awry. It wasn’t clear what had happened to cause the ship’s propulsion and guidance systems to fail, but the result had been a crash-landing in Zachary Crow’s pasture twenty-seven years ago. Sivon’s mother had been one of the survivors, as she was in her quarters along with the other females, located in the center of the ship.

When the survivors crawled out of the wreckage, her mother, to protect against discovery, set the ship’s computer to destroy what was left of the vessel and then they made their