The Final Stroll on Perseus's Arm (Perseus Gate Book 6)
Page 14
Nance rushed to Cargo and wrapped her arms around him, and the pair held one another for several minutes. He was dimly aware of soft murmurs as the other members of the crew spoke, and the AIs lamented.
Then something occurred to Cargo and his head snapped up from Nance’s shoulder.
“Finaeus, it’s been ten minutes…it didn’t take this long to get to Perseus. Have we overshot New Canaan?”
Finaeus rose from his seat and walked to the front of the bridge, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hands as he went. “I realized that we couldn’t jump right to New Canaan. It was too risky. Orion may have worked out the system’s coordinates. We’re going somewhere else first.”
“Where?” Cargo growled. “Where have you taken us?”
“You’ll seeee…now.” Finaeus said wearily as normal space snapped into place around them once more.
Except it wasn’t normal.
Brilliant starlight lit up the display at the front of the bridge—a sight like nothing Cargo had ever seen before. Not even the largest star clusters were this bright.
“Where are we?” Jessica asked softly.
“Jelina Arm…at least that’s what I call it,” Finaeus replied tonelessly. “The common name is still the 3KPC Arm—which is stupid.”
“What?” Cargo shouted as he stepped away from Nance, looming over Finaeus. “That’s almost at the galactic core! What have you done, you old fool? I—”
“I had been building this place in secret,” Finaeus said as he brought up the object on the holo. “Using machines, not people. No AI either. It looks like they finished, which is good for us.”
“You have an outpost fifteen thousand light years beyond New Canaan?” Jessica asked, her voice filled with wonder. “Why?”
“Well, we’re only about fourteen thousand light years from New Canaan. Just on the edge of the Galactic Bar. Sagittarius A* is only about five thousand light years from here.”
“So it’s a science outpost?” Nance asked. “You were going to study the galactic core?”
Finaeus snorted. “Yeah, sorta. I was going to send an expedition in. This was to be my staging ground.”
He waved a hand at the holo, and the structure Sabrina had spotted—which was in orbit of a terrestrial planet with a dim red star beyond—came into sharper view.
Cargo drew in a long breath. “It has a gate.”
“Yes,” Finaeus nodded. “It has a gate.”
“Let’s…” Jessica started to say, then her voice failed her for a moment. She swallowed, and then continued. “Let’s not go to New Canaan just yet.”
“It’ll take a day to get down there anyway,” Cargo said.
“And I need to get put back the way I was,” Nance added quietly. “I don’t want to look like this for another second.”
Finaeus let out a long breath, then asked the question that was on Cargo’s mind as well. “Did you bring them…the body…back?”
Jessica bit her lip and shook her head before whispering, “No.”
“Is there any chance?” Finaeus asked.
“No,” Jessica repeated. “They’re gone.”
“But how…?” Cargo asked.
“It was that core-damned machine, the AHAP,” Nance said, vitriol spilling from her lips. “She just left Cheeky!”
“Did she say—” Finaeus began, but Jessica shook her head again.
“Just said that ‘she’ told her to go as she ran past me. Then the stupid AHAP got shot to shit too.”
Misha walked onto the bridge with a bottle of vodka and a stack of glasses. “A drink,” he said. “Where I come from, it’s our tradition to toast someone who’s passed as soon as the news is received.”
The crewmembers all nodded silently, and the AIs appeared as holoprojections in their midst. Hank, Iris, Erin, and Sabrina. All looking as sorrowful and morose as the humans they stood amongst.
Misha passed the glasses out and poured a drink for each, while already filled cups appeared in the hands of the AIs.
Cargo knew it fell to him to say the words. He just didn’t know what they should be. The lump in his throat had returned as he realized Cheeky—that smiling, happy woman—would never be in the pilot’s seat again.
It would never be the same.
“I—” he began and then his voice failed him. The hand holding the glass shook for a moment and he feared the drink would spill before the toast.
Cargo took a deep breath and managed to find his voice. “I still remember the first day I met her. Sera had just hired me on as the first mate. When I stepped onto the bridge, Cheeky was standing there wearing her “Got Milk” shirt…and what I first thought was her underwear—”
Cargo laughed and several of the crew joined in.
He drew another breath and swallowed the lump back down once more. “Sera introduced her as the heart of the ship, and it didn’t take me long to realize what she meant. Cheeky was the heart of all of us. She and Piya were kindred spirits that made everyone around them feel better about themselves and life…I’m going to miss them both more than I can say.”
Following his words, everyone was silent, then Nance said her piece, followed by Trevor. One-by-one everyone on the crew spoke a few words. Everyone except for Sabrina.
The ship’s AI stood next to Cargo, staring down at the holographic glass she held for over a minute before she looked up at the rest of the crew.
“She was my soulmate,” the AI whispered. “I’ll miss her forever.”
HERE TO THERE
STELLAR DATE: 03.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina
REGION: Jelina System, 3KPC Arm, Milky Way Galaxy
Five days later…
Jessica sat in the pilot’s seat, staring at the jump gate as it grew larger in the forward view, the roiling ball of twisted space—or whatever it really was—in its center.
She shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t feel right. She’d sat in this seat a thousand times before, but it just didn’t feel right.
Her gaze fell to her hands; boring, a matte lavender color, no glow to be seen.
Her overuse of the microbe’s charge in that final push to reach Cheeky had killed off the colonies of alien bacteria living in Jessica’s artificial skin. She didn’t glow anymore, and her skin felt numb, with barely any tactile sensation.
Insult to injury.
Iris was silent for a minute, then she said,
The display before Jessica lit up, showing a lock on the jump gate.
“We’re lined up. Taking us in,” she announced quietly.
“New Canaan this time, right, Finaeus?” Cargo asked and Jessica gave a soft laugh.
“Yeah, New Canaan. No shenanigans, I promise.”
“About time,” Jessica said as she increased thrust, pushing the ship forward.
“Deploying the mirror,” Finaeus announced.
Jessica held her breath as the shimmering silver mirror appeared before the ship, supported before them by a stasis bubble. A moment later it touched the gate’s ball of energy, and they jumped.
No one spoke for the duration. Nearly seven minutes of silence stretched out as their tiny bit of normal matter skipped across the underlying fabric of the universe—or wherever they really were.
“Annnd, mark,” Finaeus said as the stars snapped into view around them once more—one quite a bit brighter
than the rest.
They were in a star system at least, hopefully it was actually New Canaan this time.
Jessica brought up scan and surveyed the system they were in, looking for a sign that they had come to the right place.
“Well?” Cargo asked. “Are we there?”
“What the…?!” Jessica exclaimed as she spotted two massive fleets in a stand-off near one of the system’s gas giants. “Is there some sort of party going on here that we didn’t know about?”
* * * * *
On deck of the Sexy, still laying where Trevor had dumped her, Addie felt the small shift of a grav-dampened acceleration. It was a hard burn and she wondered what was going on.
She also wondered why no one had come for her after they made it back to Sabrina. It had been days.
And she carried something very important….
THE END
* * * * *
Thus ends Sabrina’s journey through Orion Space.
These six books of Perseus Gate Season 1: Orion Space take place during the latter half of the book, New Canaan. And while it may feel like an ending, it is really a beginning.
If you have held off, now is the time to read Orion Rising, and if you have already read Orion Rising, then you can begin Book 1 of Perseus Gate Season 2: Inner Stars.
That story starts just one day after Sabrina arrives in New Canaan and will see the crew off on a new adventure, where they must stop the AI uprising they inadvertently started eighteen years prior in Virginis.
Thank you for taking this journey with me through the Perseus Gate. You’ve all made it tremendously successful—more than I’d ever dreamed—and have ensured that tales of Jessica, Sabrina, and the rest of the crew will continue for some time.
Continue the story in Orion Rising
Jump to Season 2 in A Meeting of Minds and Bodies
THE BOOKS OF AEON 14
Keep up to date with what is releasing in Aeon 14 with the free Aeon 14 Reading Guide.
The Intrepid Saga
- Book 1: Outsystem
- Book 2: A Path in the Darkness
- Book 3: Building Victoria
- The Intrepid Saga Omnibus – Also contains Destiny Lost, book 1 of the Orion War series
- Destiny Rising – Special Author’s Extended Edition comprised of both Outsystem and A Path in the Darkness with over 100 pages of new content.
The Orion War
- Book 1: Destiny Lost
- Book 2: New Canaan
- Book 3: Orion Rising
- Book 4: The Scipio Alliance
- Book 5: Attack on Thebes (Feb 2018)
- Book 6: The Thousand Front War (2018)
- Book 7: Fallen Empire
- Many more following
Tales of the Orion War
- Book 1: Set the Galaxy on Fire
- Book 2: Ignite the Stars (Feb 2018)
- Book 3: Burn the Galaxy to Ash (2018)
Perilous Alliance (Age of the Orion War - with Chris J. Pike)
- Book 1: Close Proximity
- Book 2: Strike Vector
- Book 3: Collision Course
- Impact Immanent (2018)
Rika’s Marauders (Age of the Orion War)
- Prequel: Rika Mechanized
- Book 1: Rika Outcast
- Book 2: Rika Redeemed
- Book 3: Rika Triumphant (2018)
- Book 4: Rika Commander (2018)
- Book 5: Rika Unleashed (2018)
Perseus Gate (Age of the Orion War)
Season 1: Orion Space
- Episode 1: The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star
- Episode 2: The World at the Edge of Space
- Episode 3: The Dance on the Moons of Serenity
- Episode 4: The Last Bastion of Star City
- Episode 5: The Toll Road Between the Stars
- Episode 6: The Final Stroll on Perseus’s Arm
- Eps 1-3 Omnibus: The Trail Through the Stars
- Eps 4-6 Omnibus: The Path Amongst the Clouds
Season 2: The Inner Stars
- Episode 1: A Meeting of Bodies and Minds (Feb 2018)
- More coming in 2018
The Warlord (Before the Age of the Orion War)
- Book 1: The Woman Without a World
- Book 2: The Woman Who Seized an Empire
- Book 3: The Woman Who Lost Everything (March 2018)
The Sentience Wars: Origins (With James S. Aaron)
- Book 1: Lyssa’s Dream
- Book 2: Lyssa’s Run
- Book 3: Lyssa’s Flight (Jan 2018)
- Book 4: Lyssa’s Call (2018)
- Book 5: Lyssa’s Flame (2018)
Machete System Bounty Hunter (Age of the Orion War - with Zen DiPietro)
- Book 1: Hired Gun (Feb 2018)
- More coming in 2018
The Empire (Age of the Orion War)
- The Empress and the Ambassador (2018)
- Consort of the Scorpion Empress (2018)
- By the Empress’s Command (2018)
Tanis Richards: Origins
- Prequel: Storming the Norse Wind (At the Helm Volume 3)
- Book 1: Shore Leave (June 2018)
- Book 2: The Command (June 2018)
- Book 3: Infiltrator (July 2018)
The Sol Dissolution
- The 242 - Venusian Uprising (The Expanding Universe 2 anthology)
- The 242 - Assault on Tarja (The Expanding Universe 3 anthology)
The Delta Team Chronicles (Expanded Orion War)
- A "Simple" Kidnapping (Pew! Pew! Volume 1)
- The Disknee World (Pew! Pew! Volume 2)
- It’s Hard Being a Girl (Pew! Pew! Volume 4)
- A Fool’s Gotta Feed (Pew! Pew! Volume 4)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Cooper likes to think of himself as a jack-of-all-trades (and hopes to become master of a few). When not writing, he can be found writing software, working in his shop at his latest carpentry project, or likely reading a book.
He shares his home with a precocious young girl, his wonderful wife (who also writes), two cats, a never-ending list of things he would like to build, and ideas…
Find out what’s coming next at http://www.aeon14.com