#13
 
 
Our struggle is becoming immortalized in mainstream discussions of what history will find salient in the late 21st Century, Common Era, along with advancing space mining and explorations and our developing global/local system of self-governance.  We have opened eyes to a greater need for vigilance in securing our common goals of liberty.
 
The mercs are defeated.  Those who survived are rounded up and put into rehabilitation camps much different from those they had envisioned for their prisoners.  Torture and acts of cruelty against prisoners are strictly prohibited.  Heavy physical labor and psychiatric rehabilitation techniques, including mind-altering drugs and public confessions, are now their just reward.  They are secured for the rest of their lives in maximum confinement, without possibility of escape.
 
The rebels are honored as heroes everywhere.  We are given full citizenship as quickly as the workings of bureaucracy can manage it.   Even Reag, proudly, admits we are far from abominations.  Having at last arrived on the other side, welcomed into our diverse human family, we are proud to be part of these exciting times.  We are discovering uses for our hard won strengths in the greater human community.  Still, most of us find we prefer to settle in low-density population areas, where the incidence of psychic impressions is easier to manage.
 
Several of us are building a kind of mini-compound out here in a fairly secluded mountainous area.  We are very happy to be free, living a relatively quiet life.  We even forgive Calinda and Reag for being insufferably proud expectant parents.  Little Freedom, as we are already calling her, will be the first freeborn of our people.  We can’t wait to tell her her story.