The Reign: Mara - a Passion Uncontested Read online

  As Stephanie nodded and hurried off, Sterling turned back to

  Gloria. “Mara’s fine, she’s being taken to your husband. How far apart are your contractions?”

  “About a minute,” Gloria said, grimacing in discomfort.

  “Wow, you’re really moving along,” Sterling replied easily.

  He snapped his fingers at one of his techs, who instantly slapped a hypo-needle against his palm. Sterling observed the pinkish liquid inside a moment, checking its dosage, then rested a friendly gaze upon Gloria once more.

  “I’m going to inject you with a mild inhibitor. It’s not going to hurt you or your baby in the slightest, but it will ease your contractions for several minutes, which will allow us to get you to the medical bay so that we can deliver your baby there.

  Okay?”

  Gloria nodded in acceptance, and Sterling gently injected her arm, draining the pink liquid into it. A few moments later, she was placed on an anti-grav stretcher, which the four techs carefully led through the aisle, past all the gawking passengers.

  Sterling followed his team down the ramp, where Mark Elliot waited with his daughter beside him, holding her hand.

  Stephanie stood off to the side, a look of cautious relief on her face—obviously glad to have the pregnant woman off her hands.

  The doctor casually pulled a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her as he approached. “Please give me a call later this afternoon. I’d like to go over a few things with you, regarding what happened with this patient. Just to clear up a few details.” He flashed her a broad smile as he said this, the smile which always carried a hidden message which women always subconsciously picked up on.

  “Of course, Doctor,” she said and nodded obediently.

  Sterling turned away and headed back to the Elliots and his team, leading them out of the landing area.

  “Are Mom and the baby going to be alright?” Mara asked as she and her father waited outside the delivery room. Mark put down the hard print magazine he had been reading and looked at his daughter. He took her hand in his and kissed the outside of her palm. “She’s going to be just fine, kiddo. Your mom’s a toughie—just like you.” He quickly reached over with his other hand and began tickling her stomach and under her arms, making her laugh hysterically. He let up after a moment, and she hugged him as tightly as she could. “Did you think up a name for my sister?” Mara asked as she released him.

  Mark started to answer, but the delivery room doors parted and Doctor Sterling stepped out, wrapped up in medical coveralls and wearing a surgical mask. He reached up to pull off the mask, a proud smile on his face as he asked Mark, “Would you like to see your new baby girl?”

  After the delivery, Gloria had been taken to a private room to recover, while the new baby had been cleaned up and placed in post-natal receiving for routine observation. Sterling led Mark and Mara to the viewing room for PNR, where the doctor pointed out the lieutenant-commander’s brand new girl from the other infants sleeping peacefully.

  “She’s beautiful, Dad. I want to hold her.”

  “In a little while, sweetheart. Right, Doctor?”

  Sterling nodded. “Soon as she’s absolutely cleared, we’ll bring her to Mrs. Elliot’s room. You can hold her to your heart’s content,” he told Mara.

  Sterling’s com-line rang, and he excused himself from Elliot and his daughter. As the doctor stepped away, Mark held Mara close to him as he lovingly stroked the glass pane in front of the resting bed where the newest addition to the family slept.

  “Welcome to the world, little Sara.”

  “Sara…” Mara repeated, then looked up at her father. “I like it.”

  Gloria quickly recovered from the delivery, and after a few hours she and baby Sara were allowed to go home. The Elliot family resided in a row of private bungalows near the north compound of the Alpha base. The base itself had been established in the late 2130’s as a jumping-off point for Heavy Cruisers assigned to deep space missions or heading off to faraway areas of combat, as well as a refuge for civilians wishing to escape the confines of Earth. The United Earth Force government wanted to maintain a semblance of normalcy during the long war between Earth and the Calvorian Alliance, and so the base was inadvertently a tool of propaganda, displaying humanity’s willingness to go about a “routine” existence in spite of the constant threat presented by their alien enemy. The north compound bungalows were one of the only established housing areas on the base reserved exclusively for military personnel, and Mark enjoyed the solitude afforded his family.

  Mark was formerly second in charge of security aboard the Heavy Cruiser Perseus, but was then transferred to Alpha base to be XO for security. He had been afforded ample leave to be with his wife and family during the last weeks of Gloria’s pregnancy and the first few weeks of raising the new baby.

  Gloria was an avowed homemaker, having never desired much beyond finding the right man to settle down with and being able to raise children she could love. She came from a large family herself, and looked forward to having as large a family of her own as she could manage. She and Jack doted on Sara, seeming to make her the new pride of the family…a position formerly occupied by Mara. Mara loved her baby sister very much and tried not to be jealous, but it was hard. She realized that new babies were fragile things and needed extra care, but it seemed to Mara that she had never been showered with so much affection from her father as Sara received. Still, she did love her little sister, and held her close whenever her parents allowed.

  Problems began to arise however, when Mark and Gloria’s attention remained focused on young Sara past her first two years. When Mark had been aboard the Perseus, he was often away for months at a time. During those periods, Gloria and Mara had forged an extremely close bond, with Mark always on the periphery of it. But now that Mark was home and the two parents were focused on the younger sibling, Mara did begin to feel resentment more plainly. She began to act out in ways which forced her father to occasionally shift his attention back to her.

  “Two ‘F’s’ and three ‘C’s’?” Mark said in astonishment as he read the quarterly report card Mara had brought to him at mid-semester of her sophomore year at Alpha Privatized, one of the few non-military educational facilities left on either Luna or Earth. Mara sat across the small square living room table from her father, while Gloria chased little Sara playfully around the couch. The toddler squealed with delight as she ran in a wobbly circle.

  Mark pointed to the report card in puzzlement as he stared at his eldest daughter. “Mara, how…how can you be doing so badly? You’re a bright girl, I know that. You’ve always excelled at all these classes! What’s the problem?”

  I hate my stupid little sister and the fact that you never pay attention to me somehow seemed inappropriate, so the fourteen year-old simply shrugged. Mark tilted his head quizzically, just knowing that his daughter hadn’t given him such a blasé response. “Excuse me, but I don’t think you’re understanding the gravity of this situation. You are this close to flunking, and I want to know why.”

  Mara shrugged again. “I’m bored—? I dunno…can I go now?” And without waiting for an answer, she rose and proceeded to head to her room at the rear of the apartment.

  It was, to Mark’s recollection, the first time in at least half a dozen years that he had actually raised a hand to his daughter.

  When Mara was a child, of course, there had been the occasional slap on the hand to stop her from doing something which might cause her to injure herself, or a spanking to atone for disobedience. But he had never been so out-and-out flabbergasted and embarrassed by his own child’s nonchalance for such a serious situation as this. Mark leapt to his feet and delivered a solid backhand straight across the rear of Mara’s head, sending the surprised teen reeling into a wall, which she rebounded off of and fell to the floor.

  “Mark!” Gloria shouted in surprise, in turn shocking little Sara. The child burst into tears of fear and confusion, but Ma
rk was too enraged to pay any attention to either her or his wife.

  Mara shook her head, beginning to struggle to her knees, but Mark reached down and grabbed her fiercely by the back of her hair. She screamed in sudden terror, taken aback by her father’s response. She reached behind her, fighting in vain to free his hand from her, but he pulled her to her feet, holding her hair with one hand as he smacked her continually on the rear with the other, each slap forcing her to jump forward a bit until he pushed her into her room.

  “You actually think that you can treat me like nothing? Like I’m one of your little friends? You’ll know that I’m your father when I’m done with you,” he promised, and grabbed her by the hair once more as he sat down on the bed in her small room.

  He threw her across his knee and lifted her grey pleated skirt.

  Mara screamed and threw out a couple of curses she didn’t know she actually had in her to say to him.

  “Don’t you dare! Don’t you DARE—!” he said as he laid his elbow roughly across the base of her neck, holding her down firmly as he began to almost rhythmically pound her buttocks with his hand. Her cries of protest ultimately turned to defeated sobs, and he finally tossed her to the floor in an undignified heap. Mark stood and pointed a stern finger down into her face. “You will not ever react to me in such a fashion again, and you will pass every quiz, every test, every single one of your classes for the rest of the year with flying colors! Do you understand me?”

  Mara almost threw two more words at him, but thought better of it. She cried harshly, unable to answer any other way.

  Mark began to storm out of the room, but halted abruptly as he spied Gloria standing in the doorway, holding Sara in her arms.

  She had gotten the child to calm down, and little Sara was now sniffling gently. Gloria gave Mark a stern glare which he attempted to ignore as he tried to walk past her.

  Gloria blocked his path and gave him another look that dared him to try to move her out of the way. “Take your daughter,” she said sternly, and offered the baby to him. Mark didn’t resist. He gently took his child into his arms as he had been ordered. Gloria stepped aside now, allowing him to exit.

  As he did, he cast another angry glance at Mara, but the look he received in turn from his wife instantly brought a stop to it. He headed back into the living room as Gloria softly closed the door behind him, not wanting to upset the baby any further.

  Gloria sat on the edge of Mara’s bed, watching silently a moment as her eldest daughter continued to sit on the carpeted floor and weep.

  “Come here,” Gloria said gently.

  Mara managed to get her sobs down to a gentle snuffle and crawled a half-pace before she was able to stand on trembling legs. She headed to the bed as her mother wanted. She gingerly sat down, a small “ouch” escaping her lips as she realized her rear was still quite tender from her father’s punishment. “I’m too old to be spanked,” Mara shouted at the closed door. “But he likes it! He probably gets off on it!”

  Gloria sharply snapped her hand once across Mara’s thigh, making her yelp more from surprise than actual pain. She looked at her mother in shock as Gloria waggled a finger.

  “Don’t you ever say something like that again, do you understand? It’s wrong.” This was in fact the first time Gloria had ever raised a hand against Mara, and the young girl could only nod mutely in reply. She loved her mother dearly, and didn’t want her to be angry with her, too.

  “I don’t think your father should have done what he did, but you did deserve to be punished,” Gloria said firmly. “Why are you failing, Mara? And don’t you shrug at me or say ‘dunno’, either.”

  Mara stared at her a moment, fresh tears threatening to replace the ones she was just wiping away. She loved her baby sister, she really did…

  “You’re jealous of your sister, aren’t you?” Mara gasped as her mouth fell open—stunned beyond all comprehension that her mother seemed to so clearly read her thoughts! Gloria smiled lightly and softly ran her fingers through her daughter’s brown-beginning-to-turn-dark hair. Mara always loved it when her mother touched her in this way; somehow, even more so than a kiss on her cheek, this was a tangible reminder of her love.

  “Before either of you were born,” Gloria began, “your father and I knew we wanted to have at least three or four children.

  But in any family with two or more kids, no matter how well raised any of them are, there’s bound to be sibling rivalry at some point. I read pounds and pounds of articles on child rearing, and how to recognize the signs. I knew it would eventually come with you and Sara…in fact, I expected it a little sooner than this.” She moved closer to Mara on the bed, wrapping an arm about her daughter’s shoulder and holding her in a loving gaze. “You know your father and I love you, Mara…but you also know that he’s not as good at expressing his feelings to you as I am, and also that we need to focus on Sara now, because she’s at such a delicate stage.

  “I expected more of you, I guess, than I should have without telling you. I’m sorry. It’s just that since you are older, you can be more responsible for yourself, and I take it for granted that you always handle yourself so well. I’ll try to pay more attention to you, but I need you to understand, honey, that Sara needs my attention just a little bit more. Okay?”

  Mara’s sobs had ended, and as her mother wiped the last of her tears away, the young girl slowly nodded. Gloria leaned close to her daughter’s ear. “I trust you, my love. Don’t ever tell your father, or Sara when she’s older, or any of the other siblings you’ll one day have. But no matter who else is in my life, you will always be the most precious thing to me.”

  Gloria pulled back a little bit and smiled warmly at her.

  Tears of joy welled within Mara’s eyes as she smiled back.

  “Thank you, Mommy,” she said, and threw herself to her mother, wrapping her in a tight embrace which the woman eagerly returned. After a couple of minutes of this, the pair mutually ended the hug and Gloria ran a soft hand across Mara’s cheek. “Please do better for me in school? I know without a doubt that you’re capable of better, because that’s what you’ve always shown us.”

  Mara nodded resolutely. “I promise, Mom...I promise.”

  Mara kept her word to her mother. The next report card, and every one after that for the rest of the year, consisted of nothing but straight A’s and glowing reports from her teachers. She excelled at every one of her classes and rose to the top three percentile in her school.

  Mark was satisfied, but never rewarded Mara for her successes.

  Gloria, on the other hand, made good on her promise and spent more time with Mara by including her in activities with herself and little Sara—strengthening the bond between the two sisters through their interaction at home and when they went out to the park and stores on base. Mark eventually had to return to active duty as executive officer of lunar security, and thus was placed on the perimeter of the family dynamic once more.

  Two years passed, and Mara turned sweet sixteen. Her mother threw a lavish surprise party at home, which Mark barely made it to before it was over, but which was an overall success nonetheless. Once the party was done, Gloria went to put four year-old Sara to bed while Mark and Mara worked together on cleanup.

  Mara threw some trash into the recycle dump-chute in the kitchen and activated the setting for inorganic matter. She took a deep breath and braced herself as she walked out into the living room once more, where her father was wiping up some cake that someone had dropped but had the boorish audacity to hide it between a chair and the wall, rather than pick it up themselves. “Dad…? I have something to tell you. It’s important,” she said cautiously.

  Mark curled the cake remains into a napkin and set it down on the living room table as he looked at her expectantly. “Okay.

  Let’s have it.”

  Mara took another breath, let it out, then said, “I enlisted at the Citadel a few months ago. I received an e-mail confirmation of my acceptance today.
”

  Mark’s eyebrows shot up as his brown eyes widened. He had half-expected to have to hunt down some hooligan boy that had knocked up his child…but never anything like this.