by E. R. Torre
On the surface of Arcadia and in the Megacity, the crew of the Salvo watched as a fireball lit up the sky.
Inquisitor Damien reached for Lieutenant Chandler and tried to put his arm around her.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’re trapped here forever.”
Lieutenant Chandler held the Inquisitor off. Her attention was on the sky.
“The explosion didn’t come from the Displacer,” she said after a few seconds. “It was too close. Much closer than…”
Lieutenant Chandler frowned.
“It was the Salvo,” she said. “The ship exploded but the charge that destroyed her was… it was small. Smaller than what would have come from the device I saw. But our ship is gone.”
The crew around the Lieutenant was dead quiet. Most overheard the conversation and, like Inquisitor Damien, were shocked –and worried– by what she said.
“How can you tell all this?” Inquisitor Damien said.
“Good eyes,” Lieutenant Chandler replied.
“Why would the ARWs destroy the Salvo?”
“They didn’t.”
“How do you know?” Inquisitor Damien said.
Lieutenant Chandler didn’t say. The bright light from the explosion faded and, seconds later, pieces of the doomed craft streaked across the morning sky and fell into the far off desertlands.
“Look!” a crewmember said.
All eyes turned east as another flicker of light appeared in the horizon. Unlike the pieces of the Salvo, this one did not burn upon entering the atmosphere but instead grew larger as it approached Arcadia’s Megacity. It descended at a steady pace before slowing and turning. It come in for a landing.
“It’s a ship!” someone yelled.
“It’s Commander Meyer’s Goliath,” Lieutenant Chandler said.
“Spread out,” Inquisitor Damien ordered. “They’ve come back for us!”
He reached for Lieutenant Chandler’s hand and took it in his. He tried to pull her away, to hide, but she pulled back.
“No use running,” Lieutenant Chandler said. “If it’s the ARWs, we’re finished. They’ll pick us off and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it.”
“Then this is it,” Inquisitor Damien said. “Could I… could I say something to you, Lieutenant? I know it’s against regulations but at this point—”
Lieutenant Chandler cut him off.
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret, Inquisitor.”
The ship closed in. Desert sand kicked up while the roar of the ship’s engine drowned out all other conversation.
The Goliath shuttle floated a hundred yards from the crew’s makeshift camp. Its landing gear emerged and locked into place. The ship landed.
A walkway extended from the craft’s center and, once it touched the sandy ground, the ship’s rear hatch slid open. The transport truck the ARWs used to move about the city emerged, drove down the ramp, and parked a short distance away from the ship. Its engine shut off.
Two shadowy figures appeared at the hatch. They walked down the ramp and into the Arcadian sunlight.
The crew of the Salvo held their breath as the two descended, unsure who walked toward them. When the sunlight fully revealed their features, the stranded crew let out a joyous cheer. They emerged from their hiding places and surrounded the two. They clapped and laughed for they knew instead of death, they were saved.
Everyone cheered as Elias Vulcan and Laverna DeCastillo walked among them.
By removing the military transport truck and as much unnecessary equipment as they could, Inquisitor Damien and his crew made enough room within the Goliath shuttle for the personnel of the Salvo. Less than an hour later the bulk of the crew was aboard the craft and waiting to leave this desert planet. To the side and away from the last remaining few stood Inquisitor Damien, Lieutenant Chandler, Elias, and Laverna.
“It will be a very uncomfortable ride home and if anyone needs to use the bathroom they’ll have to do it where they stand, modesty be damned,” Inquisitor Damien said. “If anyone so much as protests this fact, I’ll be more than happy to leave them here.”
“I doubt you’ll have any takers,” Elias said.
Inquisitor Damien nodded. Elias’ face was almost fully healed. Most of the burnt skin was gone, replaced by a layer of new flesh. His limbs, too, were all straight.
“I have no right to ask anything of you Elias,” Inquisitor Damien said. “On the contrary, I should just thank you and be on my way.”
“But you have to ask anyway,” Elias said. “Please, go ahead.”
“Were you here all this time?”
“No,” Elias said. “I arrived shortly after the Salvo did.”
“Where were you before?”
“Hiding in the rubble of Pomos.”
A frown appeared on Inquisitor Damien’s face.
“If you were there all this time, someone had to watch the Milities Generation for you. It couldn’t have been anyone within the group, so it had to be someone near them. In the past five years, the only vessel close enough to them was mine.”
“Too true, Inquisitor.”
“Someone aboard my ship works for you, don’t they?”
“They do.”
“Not just anyone, though,” Inquisitor Damien continued. “It had to be someone close to me. Someone who could access all my files.”
Inquisitor Damien’s attention moved from Elias to Lieutenant Chandler. Their eyes locked.
“Lieutenant?”
“You’re a brave, honest man, Inquisitor Damien,” Chandler said.
“Even more importantly, I’m also blind,” Inquisitor Damien said. “Blind to you, Lieutenant. You used me. From the beginning.”
“From well before that,” Lieutenant Chandler said.
“Are you… are you one of them?”
Lieutenant Chandler laid her hand on Inquisitor Damien’s cheek. Her touch was warm, human.
“No,” she said. “I’m something else entirely.”
She pulled her hand back and Inquisitor Damien had to look away.
Before them, the body bags containing SG Walters, Engineer Talbot, and Commander Meyers were loaded into the Shuttle. Inquisitor Damien’s face clouded.
“I lost two of my men,” Inquisitor Damien said. “The Milities Generation lost their Commander. What if your plans hadn’t worked? Would you have sacrificed us all to stop the ARWs?”
“It was my hope I wouldn’t have to,” Elias said.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Considering the ARWs’ plans, what would you have done, Inquisitor?”
Inquisitor Damien thought about that. After a few moments, he said:
“Just yesterday, on Davilia, I was outraged by the assassination of a single woman. Her life was taken from her and the justification was that it was for the best of the Empire. Today, you ask me whether I’d sacrifice every member of my crew for that very same cause.”
“The situation is not the same,” Elias said. “We saved more than the Phaecian Empire. Our actions today saved the entire human race.”
“So it worked out for the best, right?” Inquisitor Damien said. “I suppose the universe is better off without those ARWs. But who’s to say it wouldn’t also be better off without Saint Vulcan?”
To this Elias said nothing.
The last of the Salvo crew boarded the Goliath and waved to Inquisitor Damien.
“Time to go,” he said. “You’re not coming, are you?”
Elias shook his head. Laverna and Lieutenant Chandler also were still.
“I’m not surprised,” Inquisitor Damien said. “I suppose you have your own means back and more business to attend to?”
“We do.”
“Anything you care to share?”
“No,” Elias said. “Suffice to say it will endanger neither Empire.”
“That’s a relief,” Inquisitor Damien said. He shrugged. “Even if it did, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. What about Arcad
ia?”
“It’s served its purpose. After you leave, we will destroy its Displacer. Even if a single ARW molecule survived the wreck of the Salvo, it will remain trapped here.”
“Good riddance.”
Inquisitor Damien turned. He began walking to the Goliath ship but stopped when a voice called out to him.
“Wait.”
Lieutenant Chandler approached Inquisitor Damien. She reached into her suit pocket and pulled out a small cube. She offered it to the Inquisitor.
“What’s this?”
“One last gift,” she said. “All the information I amassed on the Milities Generation. Including the dealings of those who backed the group.”
“Overlord Dianna?”
“There’s more than enough information on her to force her out of the Council, should you wish to.”
Inquisitor Damien took the cube.
“Information like this is… dangerous.”
“Especially to those who abused the public’s trust,” Lieutenant Chandler said. “In the right hands, it could lead to positive changes. It might even lead to a brighter future.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Inquisitor Damien said. “What should I do with it?”
“How about something unpredictable?” Lieutenant Chandler said.
She embraced Inquisitor Damien.
“Good luck.”
“To you as well, Lieutenant Chandler.”
She smiled.
“The name’s Holland. Catherine Holland.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Inquisitor Damien said. “Nice to meet you, Catherine.”
Inquisitor Damien addressed Elias.
“Did you name her after yourself, Catherine Vulcan?”
“Actually, it was the other way around,” Elias said.
Inquisitor Damien was dumbfounded. He stared deep into Catherine Holland’s eyes.
“Then how… how old are you?”
Catherine Holland said:
“You should get yourselves back home.”
Inquisitor Damien nodded. He walked to the Goliath’s ramp and, once there, checked the computer embedded on his trench coat sleeve to make sure all crew was on board and ready to depart. All were.
Inquisitor Damien climbed to the top of the ramp and looked back. Elias, Laverna, and the woman named Catherine Holland were gone.
“Goodbye, Catherine,” he said before stepping into the ship and closing her rear hatch.
Moments later the ramp slid into place and, seconds after that, the shuttle’s engines came to life. The enormous craft lifted and flew into the sky before disappearing altogether.
75
Laverna DeCastillo approached the foundry’s entrance.
It felt like a lifetime passed since Elias and she hid there. She looked back at Catherine Holland.
“So what exactly are you?” she asked.
“A hybrid,” Catherine Holland said.
“What does that mean?”
“She is human,” Elias said. “She’s also from the time before the Exodus.”
“My, my,” Laverna said. “And you don’t look a day over four thousand years old. Elias wasn’t lying when he said he took your first name when he chose the Saint Vulcan identity.”
“She was here, in Phaecia for much of the time following the Exodus,” Elias said. “My right hand man, so to speak.”
“Yet you abandoned me for over fifty years,” Catherine Holland said.
“After what happened to Pomos, it couldn’t be helped,” Elias said. “I didn’t know how much the Milities knew about me and the people who worked for me. Besides you knew the plan. You followed it and when Commander Meyers and his ARWs were in Davilia, you made sure to send the message that brought me here.”
“Don’t thank me,” Catherine Holland said. “The program you left me, the one I put in the Salvo’s computers, did what you asked. And our arrangement?”
“It remains valid and will be fulfilled very soon,” Elias said.
“What arrangement?” Laverna said.
“A story for another day,” Elias said. “We need to focus on you, Laverna, and your future.”
Laverna looked away and at the shadows before the foundry. A smile suddenly appeared on her face.
“I’ll be,” she said.
Her hovercycle stood where she left it, its fried power cell on the sand beside it. Laverna ran to the machine and checked it.
“All she needs is a new power cell and she’s good to go,” Laverna said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare, would you?”
“As a matter of fact,” Catherine Holland said. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled a small power cell from within. “From orbit we had a pretty good view of your surrender to the ARWs. I saw what they did to your hovercycle and figured we might need transport. Eventually.”
“You guys think of everything,” Laverna said.
She took the power cell from Catherine Holland and installed it in her vehicle.
They rode the hovercycle back to the edge of Bordertown and what, in Laverna’s fractured memories, was the bar she frequented when she was a scavenger.
“Why did you want to come back here?” Laverna asked.
“From here we get to where we need to go,” Elias said.
As he spoke, his communicator activated. A familiar voice said:
“Elias, this is Inquisitor Damien. We’re near the Displacer.”
“Ready to return home?” Elias asked.
“Ready as we’ll ever be.”
“Gods speed.”
“To you as well,” Inquisitor Damien said. “And especially to you, Catherine Holland.”
Elias pressed a series of buttons on the computer embedded in his sleeve and a holographic image was projected over it. A tiny black speck, the Goliath shuttle, appeared before the Displacer’s maw. Elias pressed another button and the Displacer activated. Brilliant colored energy arcs filled the Displacer’s center and a wormhole leading back to Davilia formed.
The shuttle approached the colored arcs. It penetrated them.
Just like that, the vessel was gone, transported thousands of light years away. It would emerge through Davilia’s Displacer and at the exact place where, for the crew of the Salvo, their adventure began.
“Will we see Inquisitor Damien again?” Laverna asked.
“Catherine and I might,” Elias said. “You won’t.”
“Oh?”
“Your next mission will take you far from here.”
He pressed another button and the Displacer’s energy grid shut down. He then pressed another series of buttons and another, different energy readout appeared. It spiked.
Arcadia’s enormous Displacer rocked to and fro as a series of explosions ripped through its structure. In a matter of seconds the mighty device was broken into pieces.
“Why did you do that?” Laverna asked. “How are we going to…?”
“Arcadia’s Displacer served her function,” Elias said. “It is no longer needed.”
“But how do you get home?”
“The same way I came.”
“You have another Displacer?”
“I do.”
The three walked through what in Laverna’s mind had been a bar but, in reality, was a med-station.
Laverna stared at its interior, her memories in conflict with the reality before her.
“I’m sorry for the memory fabrications,” Elias said.
“What are we if not our memories?” Laverna said.
Elias motioned to the back corridor.
“Let’s make some new ones,” he said. “Real ones. Please, step this way.”
Laverna, Elias, and Catherine walked down the corridor and to what had been the bar’s bathroom. They found themselves in a similarly shaped room which contained a single medi-bed.
The bed’s mattress was indented with the shape of a human form. Wires dangled over the bed.
“You were connected to these wires and lay here all th
is time,” Elias said. “These wires fed you dreams of Bordertown.”
Elias motioned to the other side of the room.
“Come,” he said.
They approached a solid metal wall and Elias pressed a button hidden within it. A panel slid away and revealed a small empty room. It was an elevator.
“Where will this take us?”
“Come and see,” Elias said.
The elevator trip took a full ten minutes to complete.
The elevator’s motion varied. At times it moved quickly while at other times it slowed. They traveled many, many miles.
“How large is this place?”
“Quite,” Elias said.
For most of the trip they descended, though there were moments Laverna felt they moved diagonally.
Finally the elevator slowed and stopped. Its doors opened and Laverna found herself before a long and very dark corridor.
“After you,” Elias said.
Laverna and Elias stepped out of the elevator but Elias motioned for Catherine Holland to stay.
“Go to the bay,” he told her. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Any other orders?” Catherine Holland said. There was considerable sarcasm in her voice.
“None,” Elias said. “Don’t worry. I won’t keep you waiting long. Not this time.”
“After fifty years, I should hope not.”
“You deserve an apology, Catherine,” Elias said. With great sincerity he added: “I’m sorry for making you wait.”
Catherine Holland shook her head.
“I can never tell when you machines mean it.”
With that, Catherine Holland stepped back. The elevator doors closed and she was gone.
“I like her,” Laverna said.
“What’s not to like?” Elias said. “Let’s go.”
They walked down the corridor, their pace regular despite the darkness around them.
After a few minutes, Laverna wondered the distance they traveled. Remarkably, an exact number popped in her mind.
1.9 kilometers.
She had no doubt this was an accurate measure.
“What is this building we’re in?” Laverna asked.
“Not a building,” Elias said. “Please, this way.”
At the end of the long corridor they found a secured door.