by Blaze Ward
“So he’s dead dead?” Yan asked.
“If it is as you described it? Yes,” Carthage replied.
“Dead,” Yan said. “And good fucking riddance. Might have to go back there, one of these days, just so I can piss on his grave.”
The emotions passing through the man reinforced the message.
In vino, veritas.
“And the descendants of his crew?” Carthage asked.
“Ain’t no Shangri-la in that sector of space,” Yan replied, citing the ancient tale of a city, hidden high in the lost Himalayas of Earth, where an advanced culture had resided, safely invisible to the outside world. “Nothing but backwards clowns still trying to figure out indoor plumbing. If one of them was Kinnison’s children, then they failed.”
The emotions in Bedrov right now left his vital signs sharp and definitive.
Carthage stopped, metaphorically, to breathe.
Kinnison was dead. Yan Bedrov believed it.
The Concordancy War was finally over.
That only left one warrior to resolve.
He had the coordinates. He could go and visit the planet where the Admiral had sought to make a new home. But Robert Kuhlenschmidt had been dead for three thousand years. As had the rest.
He would be an alien, were he to visit. Worse, a terror from ancient times, come to destroy them all over again, like ancient Leviathan itself.
Yan and Ainsley had listened to his tales, and told him theirs, but they had no choice. Mendocino could not escape him without damaging themselves and invoking his destructive wrath.
For what was he, but another rampaging war god?
Both of the humans had grown concerned by his silence, stretching for visible seconds of realtime.
“Finish your wine, my friends,” he said. “Decision time is upon us.”
Bedrov
“Mendocino, this is Bedrov and Barret aboard the shuttle Cyrenaica,” he said in a distant, tired voice. “Request permission to dock.”
“Friend or Foe?” Centurion Otilia Calkin challenged him over the comm.
“Pawn to Queen’s Four,” Yan answered.
“Acknowledged, Shuttle Cyrenaica,” the young woman said. “Standing by.”
“You’re clear, Carthage,” Yan repeated unnecessarily to the system piloting the transport.
“Thank you for being understanding, Yan, Ainsley.”
“Not like we had a lot of choice, pal,” Yan let his tiredness edge into his voice. “You’re a Mark Twenty-Two Skymaster. Not a lot any of us could to do gainsay you.”
“And I’m a crotchety, old man, Bedrov,” the machine answered with true warmth. “Sitting in a lost bar talking to a young man with so much of his life left in front of him, trying to impress upon the youngster all that I have seen, in far too short of a period. Thank you for listening patiently.”
“Thank you for hosting us, Carthage, “ Ainsley said in a warmer voice, leaning into Yan’s shoulder and wrapping her arm around his waist.
Yan let her hold him up for a bit as the shuttle crossed the last few meters and locked itself smoothly into the other hull. After more than three hours on the Skymaster, Mendocino was a hay wagon by comparison.
“It was my pleasure, Ainsley,” Carthage said. “I have cherished this. I hope you will feel the same.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said.
“One last thing,” Carthage said as they started to move towards the hatch.
Yan turned back, holding hands with Ainsley.
Across the way, Yan watched a small locker open without anybody touching it. It was a measure of his exhaustion, both of them, that neither jumped at what his monkey-brain kept wanting to interpret as ghosts.
Inside, a light came on, showing a small unit about the size his dad would have called a cigar box.
“Ainsley, I would like you to take this with you as a thank you,” Carthage said.
His voice sounded about as tired as Yan felt right now.
“What is it?” she stepped forward.
“A portable hologram projector,” the machine answered. “I have invested it with a reasonable Avatar of the God of Tiki, and programmed it to replicate the room. If you were to follow its instructions in building up a space the same size, it will be able to completely recreate the lounge, and its bartender.”
“How long will it last?” she asked in a voice of wonder, carefully lifting the box and turning so Yan could see it.
“Depending on use, somewhere between five and twenty Standard years, and it can be recharged with an induction field. There is a diagnostics and training module built in to help you service the few parts that are probably repairable. Unfortunately, if Mendocino is any guide, most of the technology contained inside is far beyond your current capabilities. But it will remind you of tonight, and in that way, some part of me might live on in the modern age.”
“I’m just sorry that we couldn’t invite you to travel on with us, Carthage,” Yan said heavily. “But most of the galaxy would not welcome you. Your kind are their worst nightmares made flesh. You were mine, a day ago. I’m glad that I got a chance to meet you.”
“And I you, and Ainsley,” Carthage said, “Thank you for helping me to understand what had eluded me for all those years.”
“What was that, Carthage?” Ainsley asked pointedly.
“Love, Ainsley,” the machine said gratefully. “We were programmed to be warriors. And philosophers, it seems, but the scientists left out any understanding of the other human emotions. Probably afraid that we would turn on our creators. When we eventually did, it was out of ignorance, rather than malice. I cannot atone for all of my sins, but I can apologize and attempt to make it right. I have also included most of my personal logs for you and others to listen to at some point, so you might know what came before.”
Yan thought that was everything and was about to turn again when the ancient berserker spoke again.
“There is one other thing,” he said. “This is a present for Yan.”
Yan watched the lights in the cabinet shift to a smaller black box on the left. When he stepped close, he realized that it was actually a book.
Lifting, it was bound in leather, about three centimeters thick, twenty centimeters wide, and about thirty tall. Heavy. Made from real paper.
Yan had known very few real books in his life. Everything was usually electronic, usually.
This had the feel of great age.
“What is it?” Yan asked, turning it back and forth in his hands but not cracking the spine open.
“Open it to the inner cover, Yan,” Carthage said in a quiet voice.
Yan discovered he was at the back, flipped it round, and opened the front.
Robbie,
With boundless love,
Alayna
The words were scrawled in English, with an ink pen, free hand in a form of lettering so curly that Yan had a hard time deciphering it.
“Who’s Robbie?” he finally asked, once his brain made sense of the letters.
“Admiral Robert Kuhlenschmidt,” Carthage answered. “From his wife Alayna. It is a collection of love poetry dedicated to sailors and travelers.”
“He didn’t take it with him?” Ainsley asked.
“Alayna was on Earth at the end, Ainsley,” Carthage said in a tiny voice.
“Oh.”
“I retrieved this from the shrine I had made of his cabin,” Carthage said. “While I listened to your stories and watched the love you two share, to have walked into the lion’s den together. I cannot think of a better place for it now. He will not miss it, and it would otherwise be lost.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Yan said in a voice hoarse with unshed tears.
If anyone had told him yesterday what kind of day today would have turned out to be, it would have been a tossup whether he laughed in their face or punched them.
And yet…
Rather than say anything that might set him to crying again, Yan m
oved to the airlock hatch. He keyed the comm to Mendocino’s side.
“Two coming home,” he exhaled.
“Who’s the tactical officer on VI Victrix?” Val challenged over the air.
Knowing Val, he had gone beyond their plan to have him and a gun on the other side of that hatch, against the sudden introduction of killer robots. Probably had the entire crew, except Calkin, with every weapon they could find pointed at the hatch.
“Komal MacInerney,” Yan answered. “The Goddess of War.”
The airlock hatch opened into the vestibule. Yan and Ainsley stepped in, and both turned to look back one last time.
“Thank you,” Ainsley said loudly.
“Good luck,” Yan offered.
“Thank you, my friends.”
Yan took her hand and stepped back into the dowdy ship, back to a future without the sleek, deadly lines of the ship that had once been the peak of naval architecture.
The second most powerful warship that was ever launched into space, bereft and alone. The last warrior to remember the war.
Val was waiting for them, up the hall a little and tucked up against a hatch, mostly out of sight except for a beam pistol in one hand.
“Who was that?” he asked as Yan keyed the button that caused the airlock hatch to begin to swing closed with a siren loud enough to get you out of the way.
“The Earth Alliance Sentient Combatant Carthage,” Yan said as the hatch sealed. “Last survivor of the Concordancy War.”
“So you’re back?” Val probed.
“Let’s talk up on the bridge,” Yan said as the hatch finally closed. “You, me, Emery, Melody, and Otilia. I have one last promise to fulfill, and then I want to sleep for a week.”
“Bad?” Val asked, looking for signs of torture.
“Emotional,” Ainsley offered, when she realized that Yan didn’t have any words left.
He wasn’t sure if he ever would have words again, after today.
That was a bridge he would burn tomorrow.
He led, and let the others fall in behind him, stopping only long enough to strip off the lifesuit and get back into comfortable clothes, ogling Ainley’s nudity with as much effort as he could still manage.
A kiss conveyed everything.
Calkin was holding the bridge with the others around the walls and stations when he joined them a few minutes later.
“Open an audio channel to Carthage, Otilia,” Yan ordered quietly.
She nodded moment later.
“Carthage, this is Bedrov,” he said in a voice with just about all of his remaining energy. “What do we need to prepare for?”
“Merely to watch, Mendocino,” Carthage answered. “I will handle everything from here. It was necessary that you get home and be with friends first, because otherwise this would be a potentially frightening occurrence. I have been studying your star drive system with great interest, and I believe I understand how it works. Rebuilding my systems with such technology would have been one of the few upgrades the modern age could offer. But you also cannot do this. Stand by, Mendocino.”
“What’s he doing?” Val and Calkin managed to ask in unison.
“If I understand it correctly, he’s going to make a jump, and carry us with him as part of his gravity wedge,” Yan said. “And no, I don’t know how it works. Just shift to active scanning for now and record everything.”
She pushed a button and nodded, eyes focused on the boards as if her career hung in the balance.
Nothing so grandiose. At most, it was only their lives.
“Go ahead,” Yan said.
The stars blinked.
Yan blinked a moment later.
They hadn’t been in Jump more than a second, but they had moved. And apparently Carthage had teleported them in his wake.
“All systems green, Mendocino?” Carthage asked hopefully.
“We’re here, Carthage,” Yan said. “As you bear.”
“Good luck, Mendocino,” Carthage said. “Thank you for being my friends.”
“Good luck, Carthage,” he and Ainsley said together.
Yan leaned over and kissed her, just because it felt like the right thing to do. He didn’t have much left at this point.
“Tell him I said hello,” Yan offered one last benediction.
“I will,” came the quiet reply.
The line went dead with an audible click.
“What just happened?” Calkin asked. “We’ve moved right to edge of the gravity well on that brown dwarf we had been orbiting. And what’s he doing?”
“Hush,” Ainsley chided the young Centurion.
Yan ignored them all and concentrated on the screen. Carthage’s bow shifted a little, until it was centered on the almost-star before them and then the majestic warship turned and began to accelerate at an almost unbelievable rate.
This wouldn’t be like diving into a living star, where the front would melt under the intense heat. A brown dwarf like this had never gotten hot enough to ignite fusion.
Instead, Yan watched as Carthage’s lights vanished into the depths of the clouds, like an arrow fired into a rose bush. Down into the depths of those storms, where the immense pressure would do just as good a job of destroying the ship.
And then that being, that man, would know the truth. Would discover if they all simply fell to entropy at the end, or if he could go to a place where Robbie and Alayna might be waiting to welcome him home.
Yan felt the tears fall now, washing down his face as he sniffled. Ainsley put her arms silently around him, crying just as hard, possibly as loud.
The rest of the crew watched everything in awed silence, unwilling to break the spell that had fallen.
Finally, Yan breathed. Sucked air all the way down in and turned to kiss Ainsley with all the promise he had left in him right now.
“He’s gone,” Yan said quietly.
“Who?” Val asked. “Who was that?”
“The last dragon,” Yan offered. “The last survivor of the Concordancy War. An ancient warship named Carthage. An old man, sitting on a barstool, remembering what the world used to be like. A friend of mine.”
Yan took one more breath and said goodbye.
About the Author
Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer, The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Collective, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places.
Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors (Kobo, Amazon, and others). His newsletter comes out quarterly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!
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Also by Blaze Ward
The Jessica Keller Chronicles
Auberon
Queen of the Pirates
Last of the Immortals
Goddess of War
Flight of the Blackbird
The Red Admiral
St. Legier
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CS-405
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
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Additional Alexandria Station Storie
s
The Story Road
Siren
Two Bottles of Wine with a War God
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The Science Officer Series
The Science Officer
The Mind Field
The Gilded Cage
The Pleasure Dome
The Doomsday Vault
The Last Flagship
The Hammerfield Gambit
The Hammerfield Payoff
* * *
Doyle Iwakuma Stories
The Librarian
Demigod
Greater Than The Gods Intended
* * *
Other Science Fiction Stories
Myrmidons
Moonshot
Menelaus
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Earthquake Gun
Moscow Gold
* * *
Fairchild
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White Crane
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The Collective Universe
The Shipwrecked Mermaid
Imposters
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Two Bottles of Wine with a War God
Blaze Ward
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