by Isaac Hooke
But Shaw had persuaded me to stay. She told me I wouldn’t be happy if I left. That I’d be miserable. That if I quit, I’d feel like I was abandoning my brothers.
She was right.
But the deciding factor for me was her own choice to remain in Big Navy. Knowing that she’d be out in space while I was back on Earth tending to the vineyards and maybe our children didn’t sit right with me. What was the point of leaving the Teams if I couldn’t be with her? If instead I felt only envy whenever I looked up at the stars?
So I had stayed on the Teams. I’d be reporting back to base shortly.
However, I had something to take care of first.
There I was, seated in that extensive driveway with its large central fountain, in one of the richest neighborhoods in New Santa Monica. In trepidation I stared up at the mansion looming before me.
“Are you ready?” Shaw rested her palm reassuringly in mine.
I looked into her eyes. “No.”
She sighed gently. “It’ll be over soon.”
“I know.” I lowered my gaze. “It’s just that . . . ah hell.”
Slipping from her grasp, I got out of the vehicle. Shaw joined me.
The mansion was so damn tall and imposing. Could I really do this?
I had wanted rivers of blood.
Hijak had given those rivers to me.
But I would take all that blood back again if it meant he could live.
Rest in peace my dear, dear brother.
I took a hesitant step forward, then another, slowly approaching the mansion and its ominous front doors with their carvings of roses and thorns. My eyes fixated on the thorns especially: With anything of beauty in this life, there was always pain. Always.
I didn’t want to do this. Not at all.
But I had to.
Beyond those doors awaited Hijak’s—Dyson Xang’s—parents. I came to tell them the truth. That their son had loved them. That he had died to save us all.
I knew I shouldn’t be ashamed of the tears. It would show his parents how much I cared. How much he meant to me.
Yet I was ashamed. I shouldn’t be the one crying.
I had to be strong. For them. For Shaw.
I stopped.
This was the hardest thing by far I had ever done in my life. Harder than my training. Harder than the torture I’d endured while captured. Harder than any damn war.
“Rade . . .” Shaw said.
“Just a second.” I wiped away the tears and steeled myself. I could do this.
I once said I wasn’t the same person I was when I joined the Navy.
That was true.
I was a better person now.
Thanks to people like Hijak and Ghost. Big Dog. Lana. Alejandro.
And those of my brothers who yet lived.
But most of all, thanks to Shaw.
Gripping her hand tightly, I strode toward the front doors.
I could do this.
EPILOGUE
Lieutenant Commander Braggs sat at his desk, where he reviewed the leaked footage one more time.
Sixteen months ago, before the war with species X25910 had ever begun, Builder ship D-72, the Prospectus, had been sent through a newly constructed Gate leading from Arcturus system, located at the periphery of UC territory.
The Slipstream associated with the new Gate led to unexplored space. Fleet scientists calculated that it opened onto the 11-Aquarii system, one hundred lightyears from Arcturus (though only eighty-six lightyears from Earth).
A typical Gate took around two months for a Builder to construct. However, when the eight weeks came and went, no one worried since various factors could delay construction. But after five months had passed and still not a word had been heard from the Prospectus, the operation was considered a scrub. Failure scenarios were examined, running the gamut from mechanical problems to alien attack. Unfortunately there was no way to know for certain, because if the robot-manned Builder sent a distress call, it wouldn’t be received until it reached Earth eighty-six years later.
Eventually Builder ship D-79, the Destinus, was dispatched in place of D-72, this time with the supercarrier John A. McDonald acting as escort. The John A. McDonald was one of the new line of Decatur class supercarriers, the most powerful in the UC; it had faster drives, three times the armaments, and twice the starfighter capacity than the Rickover class of carriers, which included the Gerald R. Ford.
The Destinus and her escort had been sent through the outgoing Gate over a year ago; neither had returned. Humanity had encountered species X25910 in the interim and the Destinus had promptly been forgotten.
But now that the war had been won, the Brass once again focused its attention on the more pressing local matters such as the mystery of the lost Builders.
Fleet scientists in multiple systems trained their most powerful telescopes on 11-Aquarii, to no avail. Detecting planets in orbit around a star was one thing, but discerning actual ships and Gates in solar systems located a hundred lightyears away was another entirely.
But never tell that to the armchair astronomers. A few days earlier, footage was sent to senior intelligence officials from billionaire amateur astronomer Reys Motabi, from Arcturus. He had been studying 11-Aquarii with an experimental telescope he had personally designed and built that used the Slipstream itself as a lens. He had recorded what looked like a Decatur class starship passing in front of the distant sun—a dark outline whose profile matched the John A. McDonald.
But it wasn’t the supercarrier sighting alone that had everyone on edge.
Lieutenant Commander Braggs stared at the footage on his aReal and watched the contour of the John A. McDonald limp across the G-class star for the fifth time.
Behind it, another object slowly passed in front of the sun. Though it was a mere silhouette, it proved entirely unlike anything the UC had ever encountered before. It appeared to be some sort of black dodecahedron, about twice as big as the John A. McDonald.
The Lieutenant Commander paused the feed at the thirty-four-second mark and skipped forward several frames. There.
He zoomed in.
The outline of an explosion appeared along the uppermost edge of the supercarrier.
One theory was that a coronal discharge from the sun just so happened to erupt at the right time and place to impart the illusion of a projectile impact. The plasma outburst would have caused no damage to the supercarrier due to the vast distances separating the sun from the ship.
But Braggs doubted he was looking at a coronal discharge.
That was an explosion, despite what the most optimistic members of the Brass might think. The alien vessel was attacking, and the John A. McDonald, most powerful supercarrier in the fleet, was fleeing.
Braggs wondered if the alien crew belonged to a species the Phants included in their repertoire of conquered races. Somehow he didn’t believe it. The heart of Phant territory was eight thousand lightyears from here. No, this was a new, local threat.
Lieutenant Commander Braggs bit his lower lip, feeling both dread and anticipation at the same time.
He had a hunch the Teams were going to be called in.
Real soon now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Isaac Hooke’s experimental novel, The Forever Gate, achieved Amazon #1 bestseller status in both the science fiction and fantasy categories when it was released in 2013, and was recognized as Indie Book of the Day.
He holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time.
He is an avid blogger, cyclist, and photographer who resides in Edmonton, Alberta.
You can reach him at isaachooke.com.
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