by Ben Winston
They would also need to greatly expand their military. He explained that for the time being, one of the Talosian ships would remain in the system to assist them as needed including protection, unless Ian sent her away.
“Commander, you have given us all a great deal to think about. However, in all the preparations and changes that are happening, we would like to hold the ceremony soon. However, the, uh, people down here are making that impossible. I’m afraid that we will have to hold the funerals up there,” Luke replied, officially.
“I understand Councilor, if that is the will of the council and the people, we will make the arrangements immediately,” Ian replied.
Luke nodded tiredly. “If you can give us a few hours to think about this, and make our decisions, we will get back to you, Commander. I can tell you, it most likely won’t be very long.”
“Thank you, everyone. To those of you watching, that are crew members, or in the military, I ask that you consider what this will mean to all of us, as well as the people of Earth that we have sworn to protect. My staff and I will wait for your answer. Good evening, everyone.”
By the time that meeting was over, it was almost eighteen hundred hours, or six p.m. He thought that everyone would eat their dinner, and sleep on it. At best, it would take a few days before the council would get back to him. He was surprised when he had a call from Luke that evening, just before turning in for the night. The citizens had spoken, and decisions had been made.
Assisting the Talosian Alliance with weapons and ship building facilities passed, provided ample protection could be either built, or brought in by the Talosians. The recruiters could be put back to work to get the people that would be needed to fill all the positions that would be created.
As for the town, they voted almost unanimously to move off-world and take up positions working on the new projects that would be created. The wanted to leave immediately however, since housing was available on the moon, with a few families temporarily living on Star Dancer. A formal request for the funeral ceremonies to be held at the Commander’s earliest convenience was also given.
“I guess that no one wants to stay down there and build the hydrogen engines, or any of the other stuff that was developed down there?” Ian asked.
Luke shook his head. “The people working on those projects want to move to something else. Truth be told, the development phase has been over for a while. We only need to find a place to build them and set up training facilities for the techs to work on them.”
“I thought we already had contracts with a few automakers for those?” Ian asked.
“They’re not finalized yet. I think they’re waiting for the manufacturing and training facilities. Either way, that is already being taken care of. The people just want to get the hell out of here. Whatever you decide to do with the place after that will be fine with us,” Luke said.
Well, if no one is going to be there, and we don’t actually need to hide as much as we have been, I don’t see a reason to leave anything there. We’ll get everyone out of there, then have the drones reclaim everything. We’ll let those inspectors with nothing but sands to sift through,” Ian said with a sarcastic smirk. “I’ll make the arrangements. Tell everyone to start packing. We’ll begin transporting everyone up here the day after tomorrow.”
Luke nodded and wrote something down on his desk. “How do you want to handle the wounded US Marines? They won’t be released for a few more days.”
“It’ll take a while to get everyone moved, but if they still aren’t ready to be released when everything gets done, we’ll just bring them up here too. We can return them to their unit from here just as easily as we can from there,” Ian replied. “I’ll speak to Commander Serena about borrowing her shuttles to aid us. Once we see how quickly this is going to go, we’ll schedule the funerals.”
Epilogue
A week and a half later, the town of Talos, New Mexico has gone. The area it had been in looked exactly like it had before they had started building the community. In a private moment, Ian cried as he watched the town Elias had built be completely destroyed. Ian sat down at his terminal and entered a request for the drones at Talos.
At the base of the small mesa that had served as the backdrop for the town, there was a small monument. On it, there were the names of all the men and women that had died there, including the U.S. Marines that gave their lives to protect it. At the top of the list was written the name Elias Arthur Johnson.
The two great starships had extinguished their running lights. The only light was the navigation beacons and the light spilling from the landing bays. The ships mourned the fallen.
Ian entered the shuttle bay where floating biers held the dead in stasis. At his request the mortal remains of Andreya Stavros was the first bier. Ian bent, disabled the field over her small body, and picked it up. Silently he turned and walked back down the ramp. The biers, guided by Star, began to follow him. As each left the cargo bay of the shuttle, the family members fell in beside each bier. The hologram that was the physical representation of Star, in full dress uniform, would be the last one in the procession. Ian led the silent procession down the hyper missile ramp into the port side maglev tube. There he turned and began the long walk to the forward most missile tube. On his way, he would pass by all the caskets. Empty biers fell in behind the procession, each carried only an American flag, with a card listing the name of the soldier or pilot it represented. As he walked, tears ran down Ian’s face blurring his vision, but he continued on. Behind him, Andreya’s brother walked beside her bier and her mother walked beside the bier carrying Andreya’s father. Ian knew the next bier carried Elias. He had planned it that way. Luke Belden, Laura, Andrea, Kyle, and Stephanie escorted him.
Ian reached his destination. The bier slid into place inside the last open casket. Placing Andreya’s body back on the bier, Ian kissed her softly on her cold forehead. “Please forgive me little one," he said very quietly. Her brother, who had been doing a good job of holding back his emotions, burst into tears. Ian stood and backed up, taking a moment to compose himself.
“Today we are gathered to honor our fallen and say a final farewell. We have come from many different backgrounds and many different beliefs. Yet we lived together in harmony. I don’t know what awaits the spirits of our loved ones, but I do believe they have, at last, found peace.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat, and continued. “As we prepare to begin a new phase of our own lives, I cannot help but think how much our fallen would have wanted to help us. Instead of a town, Elias could have helped us build an entire planet. Little Andreya would have loved to grow up there.” His emotions were getting the best of him, so decided to finish what he wanted to say, while he could.
“The last biers are for members of the United States Military, they were not members of our community in life. However, they gave their lives trying to protect us and so we honor them as well," Ian said. He straightened to attention. “Ghost Squadron! Salute!” he raised his eyes to the monitors placed along the walls for the ceremony. He watched as the ten ships of Ghost Squadron, running lights on so that people in the bay could see them, slowly flew away from the Star Dancer. They flew in V formation with a ship at point, five ships on the left and four on the right. Corvis’ voice, as flight leader, directed the squadron, “Ready! Fire!” and each ship fired one laser cannon into deep space. Corvis repeated the command twenty-one times.
Ian remained at attention. “Honors!” he called and saluted.
In the nexus point of the maglev tubes, Crewman Conner McBride began to play ‘Amazing Grace’ on the bagpipes. With all maglevs disabled and all access doors locked open, the song carried, un-amplified, throughout the ship, it was also relayed to the Prometheus, parked below, and to starboard of Star Dancer.
As the song played, Ian dropped the salute. Remaining at attention, he stepped up to the control panel and pressed the button initiating the launch sequence. “Andreya Stavros, we return your
body to the stars. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," he spoke as the casket closed and slid into the launch tube. Ian stepped formally to the next and repeated the process for every casket, the last one launching as the song died. He then stepped past where it had been, to where Star waited and did an about face. His tears no longer contained, he stood there at attention and silently cried. Goodbye Andreya. Goodbye Elias, you will be missed.
After a few minutes, he dismissed the ceremony. As the congregation broke up, Beth and Jenny moved to be with him, to comfort him, but Serena stopped them. “Don’t. He needs to do this alone. He will find his own way back. This is a duty that cannot be shared.”
He remained standing at attention long after everyone else had left, tears of grief and pain staining his formal uniform.
Silently, standing to his right, and one step to the rear, Star remained at attention, a look of pain on her face.
Also by Ben Winston
Talosian Chronicles
Olympus
Star Dancer
Tides of Mars
Ascension
Conflict
Tides of Mars (Omnibus Version)
Standalone
Pollux Paradox
Watch for more at Ben Winston’s site.
About the Author
Ben Winston (1965 - ?) was born in Iowa and grew up in Minnesota on the family dairy farm. Upon reaching adulthood, he joined the United States Army as a communications technician. Before getting out of the military, he decided to go to school for computer electronics.
Shortly after getting out of the military, and after getting a new job with an over-seas company, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. A month after beginning the new job, he was laid off due to budget over-runs on the project he was hired for. Upon returning to the United States, he had difficulty maintaining employment because of the chronic illness.
He began writing as a form of stress release, from being home bound and not being able to work, and found he liked writing erotica. Ben wrote a trilogy called the Talosian Chronicles (Currently in rewrite to remove the graphic sex and finalized his vision of the story). The first book, Star Dancer, won awards and was nominated for many others by the online communities where it was posted.
Ben Winston returned to school for literature, after completion, he began writing professionally. Being an avid fan of science fiction he focused on this genre. He was, and still is, influenced and inspired by Gene Roddenberry, Anne McCaffery, David Weber, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury. Some of his favorite movies and TV shows are; Battlestar Galactica (both versions), Andromeda, Star Trek, Firefly, Star Wars, and many of the B-rated movies that were actually box-office bombs.
Read more at Ben Winston’s site.
About the Publisher
Currently, only Michael McClain and Ben Winston are published through Blue Space Publications. It was formed by those authors with the sole purpose of publishing their works.
We have recently added a new author by the name of Ian Williams to the family.