The Last Hero

by Nathaniel Danes

  Anna. I am going to lose her forever. Oh, Anna, I’m sorry I had to break this promise.

  The captain shook his head. “Not a viable course of action. The Fleet may or may not come. They may or may not win the battle. Even if they do and win, there’s no guarantee they can hold the gate long enough for us to travel back there. It’s not like we can just hang out a couple days away waiting for them. This is clearly an important system to the Bearcats, and they mean to keep it. The sure way home is through the other gate.”

  Dr. Crawford snorted. “Yeah...eighty damn years from now!”

  Others around the table spoke up, voicing their displeasure at their current predicament. DeWalt stood, sending his chair screeching backward. Leaning forward, he firmly planted both hands on the table. With sheer command presence, he arrested the room’s growing disillusionment.

  “Listen up people.” He stared at each person in the eye with great intensity. “If we are ever going to get home, all of you are going to have to suck it up and lead. You saw how you reacted to the news. You’re the ships goddamned leaders! Imagine how the crew and Legion soldiers are going to react when we tell them. If we aren’t careful, if we don’t hold it together ourselves, none of us is going home...ever!”

  Silence greeted his words. He looked everyone in the eye again. Removing his hands from the table, he straightened, crossing his arms.

  “Go back to your stations. Look over everything. We’ll meet again tomorrow to discuss over any issues pertinent to our eight month long trip. Not a word about this to the crew. I’ll make an announcement tomorrow.”

  The meeting broke up.

  Trent stumbled back to his room in a zombie like state. On his slow journey, a few people tried to speak to him, but he walked past them. He wasn’t avoiding them, he simply didn’t register that they existed. He wandered in his own little world, his own little hell.

  Entering his room, he sat on the bed, placed his face in his hands, and cried.

  He’d lost his little girl forever.

  Chapter 24: Trek

  The first month of the voyage home lurched along for Trent. He slipped into a deep state of depression. Living in a self-imposed exile, he ventured out of his quarters for only brief periods, to eat and attend to the idle Legion.

  Keeping thousands of battle-hardened veterans occupied proved to be a challenge. Fights, born out of frustration, became so common that instead of trying to stop them, Trent ordered the construction of a boxing ring. He figured a controlled environment that would allow the blowing off steam, as well as entertainment for the masses, would lower tensions.

  The concept worked. The ring became the preferred method to settle arguments. Soon it evolved into an organized league, complete with weight classes, and its own bookkeeping racket he ignored.

  Numerous romantic relationships blossomed in the confined space. The disproportionate ratio of men to women was his greatest concern. A close second being the number of new recruits born after they arrived home. Knowing better than to wage an impossible war against biology, he allowed the horizontal recreation to continue unabated after a mandatory refresher on birth control.

  Nor did he bother to shut down the distillery a group of enterprising crew members started. Procuring fermentable ingredients from the kitchen, they took great pride in what they believed to be a covert distribution system.

  During meals, customers would signal their intention to make a purchase to a certain server who would then exchange the standard beverage container for one containing a portion of the moonshine, or starshine as some took to calling it.

  Major Jones brought the operation to his attention, along with a sampling of the illicit product. After tasting the black market liquor, conceived of an unnatural blend of sugars and freeze-dried fruits, Trent determined that drinking the concoction served as its own punishment.

  To maintain a degree of military discipline, a strict exercise regimen was implemented along with a series of war games pitting century against century. The now empty fighter and drone bays served as the arenas. Imaginary kill shots and wounds recorded by the CALs kept a running score used to rank the units.

  A routine developed as the unwilling passengers settled in for the remaining seven months, making the best of a bad situation.

  Tossing and turning in his bed, sleep again eluded Trent like a cunning enemy commando. Only his own torturous thoughts kept him company during these long nights.

  Anna’s in her thirties now. Wonder if she’s married? I might be a grandfather! Hope I get to meet them. Hope she’s happy. Please God let them be alive when I get back. Please.

  Seeking to avoid the internal dialog, Trent got up, put on running shoes, a pair of black shorts, and gray t-shirt. Leaving his room, he walked down the quiet corridors to the deserted shuttle bay.

  He accelerated into a full jog, his running shoes causing the grated floor to clank beneath his feet. The parked shuttles became a blur when he moved into a sprint, rushing down the walkway as if he could outrun the demons he carried.

  Up and down the bay, he pushed himself. Sweat poured over his face, staining his shirt. Heavy footfalls against the metal grates drowned out any exterior noise as he ran for the sake of running.

  Thirty minutes into the failed therapeutic attempt, he abruptly stopped in the middle of the bay but not from exhaustion. His nano enhancements would have allowed him to continue. He stopped because in between his feet slamming onto the loud surface he thought he heard muffled crying.

  Listening over his own heavy breathing, he zeroed in on the source of the noise before it went silent. Moving to investigate, he took soft steps approaching the back of a shuttle. There, leaning against the shuttle and wiping her nose, was a red eyed Sergeant Roth.

  Embarrassed, she turned away to hide her shameful display of weakness.

  Trent maintained a policy of treating crying women as if they were explosives, so he carefully engaged the weeping warrior.

  “Amanda...are you okay?” he asked from a safe distance.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said through a stuffy nose. “I thought I would be alone here. You know...to let some stuff out.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m here to do the same thing.”

  Regaining a measure of composure, Amanda turned back, but not completely. Her side profile faced Trent.

  “After what happened on the surface, I was really looking forward to going home. I know I didn’t connect with people last time, but I really wanted to try again. Try to...try to be…”

  “Normal.”

  “Yeah, normal, I didn’t want to be responsible for any life and death decisions. The last time I was, a lot of good people died. I think I’m done with fighting,”

  Closing the gap between them, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about what happened down there. It happened. It was war. The enemy killed them, not you. If you want your discharge when we get back, it’s yours. Make that decision for the right reasons, not out of a sense of misplaced guilt.”

  “I know, I know. I keep telling myself that.” Sitting on the grated floor, she pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “The last time I was home, I already felt like a stranger. But now, everyone I ever knew will be dead...or dying when we get back. I’ll be a stranger. A modern day Valentine Michael Smith. A stranger to an entire world. A world I am not likely to understand.”

  “I hear you.” He walked over, stopping beside her. Lowering himself down, he sat on the floor, leaning against the hull. “I had just reconnected with my daughter when I left on this little adventure. Thought I would be back in her life for good in a couple years. What’s a couple more years compared to an entire lifetime, right? Now she may be...may be...,” He couldn’t say it. His own eyes watered. He fought, but a few tears escaped down his cheek.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot you had a kid,” Amanda said. “That’s a thousand times worse than anything I’m going through.”
r />   More tears trickled down. He buried his face in his hands. Amanda slid her arm across his shoulders, providing a little comfort.

  Trent was lonely, she was lonely, but here and now, they helped each other survive another difficult night.

  They both wished their embrace could be more. But important lines, between a colonel and sergeant had already been crossed. Neither of them would dare to go any further.

  Pulling his face from his hands, Trent leaned against the wall. Amanda removed her arm. They sat there quietly and apart, but not alone.

  ***

  “We have a problem,” the captain said to everyone at the conference table. “If we don’t find a solution, this trip is going to get interesting. Lieutenant Commander Sejak, please outline the issue for everyone.”

  Sejak served as the chief engineering officer. A tall, lanky woman with a dominating nose, she wasn’t attractive by almost anyone’s definition. Trent couldn’t tell if her cold, humorless personality resulted from her extreme intelligence, or a lifetime of being the ugly duckling.

  “Thank you, Captain.” Her high-pitched voice filled the room. “The issue is with the waste processing system. As you know, it was badly damaged in the attack. We were able to restore it to near normal operating capacity. But we didn’t have all of the parts we needed, so we jerry-rigged a few pieces. Our repairs are now breaking down. It will soon reach a point where we can’t repair it anymore. At which time, we’ll run out of fresh water. Even with strict conservation, our water supply is designed to be continually replenished by processors to save room for other things.”

  “How long do you estimate that we have?” Doctor Crawford asked.

  “Two weeks...maybe three if we’re lucky.”

  “Aren’t we due for some luck?” Commander Sanchez commented.

  “Are there any engineering options left, Commander Sejak? It’s not like we can just pull into the nearest supply depot and get you your parts,” the Canadian weapons officer, Lieutenant Thomas Pate snarked.

  Sejak’s glare hinted that she didn’t tolerant stupid questions. She leaned forward.

  “If there were, we wouldn’t be having this meeting.”

  Crawford asked, “What are our options?”

  “We find more water.” Trent offered the obvious answer.

  Crawford replied, “Where?”

  “Lieutenant,” Captain DeWalt said to the navigation officer, Lieutenant Pierre Garçon. A Frenchmen sporting a new black eye earned in the boxing ring. He quickly learned Fleet should never pick a fistfight with Legion.

  “About two and half weeks out, there’s a planet on the maps. Data from long range scans conducted by an exploratory probe sent through our target gate indicates there may be water there.”

  Pate asked, “What do you mean “may be?”

  “The probes didn’t visit the planet. Just took long-range readings. Hell, the planet could have been destroyed fifty years ago, and the probe wouldn’t know because it’s basing its analysis on images from a planet several light-years away. It’s our best shot.”

  “It’s our only shot,” the captain emphasized. “Even after we dump our waste and refill the tanks with fresh water, it still won’t be enough without the processors. We’re going to move materials around. Consolidate a bunch of stuff so we can convert regular storage holds into additional water tanks. Commander Sejak will be in charge of that.”

  Trent asked the only question of concern to him.

  “What kind of delay is this going to cause on our trip to the alternate gate?”

  Garçon looked up from a tablet. “We’ve already changed course and begun to decelerate. The planet is a little off course. All told after we accelerate again, we should lose about a week. Or a year-ish Earth time.”

  Great.

  ***

  Dressed for battle, Trent strolled down the corridor, his helmet under one arm and the MRG in his other hand. The inactive green suit looked odd amid the flow of Legion black and Fleet gray clad people.

  He headed toward the shuttle bay. Trent planned to lead the recon mission onto the planet’s surface to collect samples and search the area around a large lake to prepare security for the utility shuttles that would carry the water shipments.

  He didn’t head directly to the shuttle bay though. Trent made a minor detour to the brig, to check on a new friend.

  The thick metal doors slid open as he approached.

  With a casual nod, he glided past the security officer behind a desk, and another one standing next to the door leading to the holding cells. Typing an access code into a keypad, he offered his voice and verbal security code for authorization.

  “Colonel Trent Maxwell. Security code tango, whiskey, tango.”

  “Access granted,” the female computer voice announced.

  The locks sang out in a thud and a click, releasing the door. The hatch swung open, and Trent stepped forward. There in the first cell, behind crisscrossed metal bars, was the Bearcat prisoner.

  To his right was a guard holding a tranquilizer gun. The tool served two purposes. When put in the cell for the first time, the prisoner tried to kill himself by running his head into the wall. If he tried that again, it would be nap time. Secondly, the very stubborn and eager to die brute tried starving himself to death. That meant to keep him alive, doctors needed to administer nutrients and fluids via an IV. The doctors insisted that the guard tranquilize the Bearcat for the procedure.

  Trent looked at the creature for a few minutes before leaving without saying a word despite the translation program allowing for conversation. No one was allowed to talk to the prisoner, per his orders.

  “Are you ever going to say anything to him?” asked the desk guard.

  “When the time is right.” Trent continued to the shuttle bay.

  Assuming the furious warrior wouldn’t offer useful information with the application of physical pain, he’d decided to mess with his head before attempting a chat. At least once a day, he would pay the guest a visit to look at him. He didn’t really know what he was doing, the book on Bearcat psychology was pretty thin, but he thought it worth a try. If it failed, he could always pull its retractable claws out one by one.

  He had the time. Since the gate they traveled to didn’t have a sub-space relay, anything he learned now couldn’t be sent to Earth.

  Chapter 25: Cupcake Mission

  The shuttle ride down to the planet was surprisingly enjoyable. Usually such an excursion meant that he and the other passengers were bound for combat on some weird alien world. This time, their chariot casually carried them to the surface for a simple scout mission in advance of an even simpler resupply run.

  Each seat on the mission represented a hot ticket among the idle 1st Legion. Weeks of inaction aboard a cramped starship caused an epidemic of cabin fever to sweep across the ranks. Boxing matches, sex, drinking, and war games helped to alleviate some of the symptoms, but they were no match for the feel of real ground.

  Despite not issuing a request for volunteers, Trent was besieged with such offers. Thousands of bored veterans jockeyed to secure one of the rare places on the first shuttle down. Ignoring such pleas, he selected a team ripe with nepotism. The advance party of fifty included Major Jones, Captain Simms, and Sergeants Gabriel and Roth. Captain Thomas would have joined them as well, but she was still re-growing a leg lost in the final moments of the battle on Black Marble.

  With no sign of an advance civilization or an enemy installation, the shuttle treated the passengers to a comfortable ride while penetrating the planet’s atmosphere. Cutting through a collection of fluffy white clouds, they broke through the final layer. The racing ground beneath the shuttle blended together in shades of green, brown, and black on the planet’s surface to create an abstract painting of sorts.

  They soon reached their target—a large lake surround by small rolling hills. The shuttle circled the area and upon finding no sign of trouble, touched down in the serene landscape, a few hundred meters
from the water’s edge.

  The door hummed on its way down, reaching the soft ground. The legionaries exited the craft the only way they knew how, in battle formation.

  With MRGs raised, the soldiers swarmed out in numerous directions, creating a perimeter around the shuttle. Ready to confront any challenge to their presence on this planet, the bored adventure hungry warriors soon received the natives surrender in the form of a chirping bird. The winged yellow avian, about the size of a pigeon, had fur instead of feathers. Its shrill song projected out a conical beak.

  A soldier took aim at the poor defenseless creature. A burst from the weapon turned the alien opponent into atoms.

  “Hold your fire!” Trent ran to the offending party and ripped the MRG from his hands. “There is no need for that bullshit. Break out into your squads and search this entire area, from here to the hills. I want the shuttle in the air for eyes in the sky and support just in case. Major, you are in command of the search.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jones made assignments.

  The camouflaged soldiers darted off. Trent scanned the surroundings. It could have been Earth. Much of what he saw reminded him of home, a spot he and his father would go fishing in Minnesota to be exact.

  Green grass, with thicker blades than normally found on Earth, carpeted the ground. Occasional bare spots revealed black soil underneath. The trees, if they could be called such, served as the surest sign he wasn’t home. Standing a meter tall with dark purple, heart shaped leaves on the top half, clusters of the odd foliage were scattered throughout the area.

  Satisfied with the initial survey, he turned to Captain Simms, who carried a piece of equipment out of the shuttle.

  “Ready to head to the lake?”

  “Lead the way, sir.”

  ***

  The foaming water lapped over Trent’s boots. The liquid changed color with each wave, shifting between various tones of blue, green, and purple. Simms knelt next to him to take a sample with a small vial. He screwed the top on it before walking a few paces inland to insert it into the machine.