To Jake’s right there was a transparent bulkhead where he could watch new ships leave the Solar Forge, and in front of him was a larger transparent wall overlooking the testing area. Several Triton crewmembers rushed around the vessel with silver, round bodied skitter bots helping with the final inspection.
“Lewis will be proud,” Jake muttered to himself as he admired the shape of the armoured hull. It was two short decks tall, twenty one metres long, and it bore a sleek, broad profile. “Proud, and more than a little envious.” He chuckled as the seven pulse turrets rotated, part of the after construction check, he guessed. Each of those turrets had two barrels and a small missile launcher , that was on top of the ship’s three torpedo launchers and single multi-purpose launcher, large enough for a medium sized mine or probe.
He almost forgot he was leaning against a railing as he watched the ship’s thrusters light up the testing bay as they pulsed on for the first time. “What kind of automation do they have?” Jake asked.
“On board only,” Alice replied. “No one outside the ship can take control of the automation systems, so it can only be hacked by someone on board, just like the original.”
“What’s happening to the Clever Dream now that we have these?”
“The Clever Dream and Lewis are being given back to Alice,” Ayan said as she came down the ramp into the simple observation area. She was in a dress that left her legs mostly bare, and teased more with a short, loose skirt. The scooped neck drew his eyes up to her ample bosom, the top half of the dress was revealing too, and a tight fit. Her warm smile drew his gaze up further, and he returned the expression until she was in his arms. They kissed briefly and took a step back. “Wow,” he said.
“Thank you,” she replied.
“That’s my cue,” Alice said. “I have Tactical Trial Two in an hour, so I should start getting ready.”
“How did One go?” Jake asked. He knew she wasn’t stressed about the first tactical test, it was an urban warfare scenario, one he’d taken several times using a simulation interface.
“Good, I’m third in my class, but that was only because I didn’t stay on top of my squad as much as I could have, something I’ll work on,” Alice said. “This one is going to be interesting though.”
“Zero gravity tactical?” Ayan asked.
“Yup, I’ll be lucky to pass,” Alice said. “I gotta go get ready.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Jake said.
“If I pass today I’ll have the third Tactical Trial tomorrow morning,” Alice said. “So I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, or in the morning all defeated and mope-ey.”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Jake said. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Alice said.
Jake stepped away from the railing, took three sure steps to her and gave her a hug before she left. Ayan was at his side as soon as his daughter started to leave. Instead of leaning on her, Jake moved back to the railing and lightly put his hand on it. His balance almost felt normal, and he barely needed help with his stability when he walked. “You know what I really like about this ship?”
“What’s that?” Ayan asked as she moved to walk alongside him.
“Railings. There are railings everywhere, I have no idea why, but I’m thinking of having them installed in the Warlord,” Jake replied.
“Zero gravity,” Ayan said with a chuckle. “They’re here for a crew to start the ship up from a dormant state.”
“Ah, so everything shuts down if there’s nothing to build or repair,” Jake said. “I think I read that somewhere. I don’t remember where, it feels like I’ve read half the database since I woke up, way too much time on my hands.”
“Doctor Messana says you’ve been training most of the time, over ten hours a day yesterday, twelve the day before that,” Ayan said. “The last few weeks since you’ve been awake read as though you are either sleeping or exercising.”
“Walking, tossing a ball, more walking, weight training, swimming, more walking,” Jake said. “I need to get ready, I can’t spend more time than I have to here.”
“We can keep the war warm while you’re recovering,” Ayan said, “your bruises tell me you’re trying too hard. You have to slow down once you’re off the station, too much training can do more harm than good.”
Jake took a step away from the railing and picked Ayan up in his arms. His balance threatened to falter for a moment but he recovered. She was shocked, her eyes and mouth wide open. He took advantage and kissed her with vigour. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she returned his kiss with the same passion.
He enjoyed the feeling of her against him. She was lighter than expected, but most importantly her reception was far more amorous than he could have ever guessed. That made the conversation he had to have with her more difficult to start. He didn’t want to question what was growing between them, he wanted more long conversations with her, he wanted the casual pleasure of seeing her every day, and he wanted what he was feeling with her in his arms. It still felt temporary, as though she would be gone when he could walk on his own two feet without questioning the act of staying upright. It still felt as though she was there because she felt guilty about something.
He lowered her slowly, their lips parted gently and she remained encircled in his arms, catching her breath. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I didn’t work for it,” Jake said.
“Happy surprise, that,” she said, her big blue eyes looking up at him.
They remained standing together there quietly for a long moment, breathing together, swaying slightly as they looked at each other. Then Jake decided to ask the question that would break the moment. “Why did you leave last time? I need to know.”
Ayan lowered her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. “I regret that,” she said. “I got some very bad advice. Very bad, but convincing advice.”
“From who?” Jake asked. If that was all it took, then what they had before couldn’t have been worth much, he thought.
She looked up at him, searching his face for a moment before saying. “I like what’s happening here, with us. No, I love this, I love us, right now, the way this feels and the time we’ve been spending talking about everything, just being together. I even want to take you home with me tonight, to get you out of here so we can have some time alone, unrecorded. I’m afraid the truth is going to break that.”
Jake kept his mouth shut as his mind raced to the conclusion that she broke off their previous relationship to be with Liam Grady. That was what he expected her to say next, and he didn’t know if it would break their relationship. He only knew that he lost respect for them both, Ayan and Liam, and that he was still irate about the whole thing.
“I’m going to tell you everything anyway, because you deserve the truth,” Ayan said, carefully stepping out of their embrace and taking his hand. They walked down the corridor to a room designed for planning and examining star ships. It had several floating seats and was equipped with high quality holographic projectors hidden in the walls. “Privacy mode,” Ayan told the computer sombrely. “Display Ayan Future Three around Jake and myself.”
The room was filled with images running along a timeline stretching for twenty years. “This is what I have been able to piece together from my experience with the Victory Machine. I was able to use the Triton’s neural scanner to rebuild most of the memory and I’ve run most of it down this timeline. The red marks are things I believe have not been fulfilled, or have failed to begin on time. The green marks along the timeline show things that have come true. So far, red and green are roughly equal. If there is a slash across a green marker, then it’s something I had to bring into being myself, acting on the machine’s advice.”
“What are the black marks?” Jake asked, observing several circles along the timeline that correspond with the previous new year’s eve.
“My breakup with you, Laura and Jason’s deaths and the beginning of my relationship with Liam,” Ayan said. “Thin
gs that were not predicted, the last of which was a terrible mistake. Nothing has gone right since then except for what I could build or gather together. I am a political failure, and I disappointed you when I left. I don’t know if I can make that up to you, but, I can at least explain.” Ayan enlarged the black dot marking the day that she left Jake and a full sized holographic image of Minh-Chu appeared. He was playing a guitar that looked exactly like the green, blocky instrument that had been given to him on New Year’s Eve by Ashley. He looked much older than his current self, and wore a Stetson hat.
“The Victory Machine had something to say about us getting too close too soon, and it used this image of Minh to get that across. I asked the Victory Machine why he looked older in the future it presented, and it wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, this is where the Victory Machine told me to step away from you,” Ayan said, moving away from the image a little, but still standing off to the side. Jake sat down and watched as a much older Minh-Chu spoke to a hologram of Ayan.
"Make sure Jake doesn't get any bright ideas about direct revenge on the higher ups. There's no end to the anger he has for the Order of Eden and their leaders. From what the Machine can see, there's nothing wrong with him going after them indirectly. On the other hand, if he ever stands in front of Hampon, the Child Prophet, or Eve, Jake could literally become a different person. I can’t tell you what will happen to him because the Victory Machine can’t calculate it, and that’s rare. This thing can calculate sky luge tournament standings eight years in advance and be ninety eight point six percent correct, so when it can’t see the possible outcomes of something, it’s a big deal. Worst case scenario: Jake kills Eve, or Hampon and humanity’s chances of surviving the next century go down the crapper. Best case scenario: Jacob Valent is transformed by the experience, and his path changes drastically. Somewhere in between is just as likely, but do you really want to take the chance?”
“No, definitely not,” Ayan replied.
“Neither would I. There’s another thing. You have to send him on his way and put as much distance between you and him as you can for the next few days at least. It’s the only way to make sure he’s not in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you two get back together - and the chances are likely, trust me – he’ll be burdened by guilt. He’ll focus on taking revenge on Wheeler, Thurge, and everyone else who was involved in that android that looked like him. You’ll have trouble with him too, the memory of being assaulted by something that looked so much like him is still fresh, it’s too soon.”
“I know the difference, it was obvious,” Ayan protested.
“The subconscious is like Supersticky, things stick to it until you break out the brand-name solvent, which is always sold separately, damn those corporate geniuses. You’ll process your encounter with Android Jacob, but it’ll take some time away from the real Jacob. What’s more important to consider is how being with Jake will affect his thinking. He’ll be focusing on you when he should be coordinating with a team. If he doesn’t link up with a dependable crew and focus on being part of a competent group, if he’s focused on you instead, his future gets real dark. You’ll have to take care of him, and that’ll darken your world too. You leave him, and he finds a good crowd. Well, good by his standards, anyway." Minh-Chu began playing the Hall Of The Mountain King as he continued.
“We’re just about to find our way back to each other,” Ayan said. “I can send him away for a few days, I don’t have to leave him.”
“If he sees you as his damsel if you’re in trouble, it will distract him from a whole chain of events he has to forge. Sometimes the military policy of non-fraternization is the right one. Someone once said; if you truly love someone, you must set them free. If it’s meant to be, they’ll return. Trust. Just trust.”
“How long?” Ayan asked. “How long do I have to stay away?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Minh-Chu said. “Here’s a real spoiler for you: you need time away too. You’re changing so fast that you need to have a few new experiences. You’ll be a different woman from week to week for a while, and when you come though, you’re going to be just amazing. If you get tied down to Jake it’ll be like turning the reverse thrusters up to full, and that won’t do you any good. This breakup is a good thing, it feels like crap now, but you’ll see. Go it without him awhile, you’ll thank me. Well, you won’t be able to find me to thank me, but you get the point.”
“I’ll try,” Ayan said. “I’ll break it off with him and test your theory.”
The image faded and Ayan walked back to the middle of the timeline before Jake could say anything. He didn’t know what to say anyway. The Victory Machine wasn’t right and it wasn’t entirely wrong, as far as he was concerned. The breakup with Ayan did make it easier to stay away, to pursue intelligence that aided the Warlord in its mission, that was beneficial to both the British Alliance and Triton Fleet.
He pursued his missions without restraint, and finally arrived at a point where he was ruled by rage, where he became a murderer. Murder for a cause was still murder, even though the act caused a dip in Order of Eden recruitment that measured in tens of thousands in that sector alone. It wasn’t enough to justify murder.
None of what he’d seen sat right. It still felt like the Victory Machine had a very easy time convincing Ayan to leave him, and, even though he knew it was an irrational reaction, that’s still what he thought about most.
“Before you say anything, I need to show you something else,” Ayan said. “The Victory Machine left me with a vision of children in a more distant, calculated future.”
Ayan was about to touch a hollow dot to the far right of the timeline, but Jake blurted; “stop!” before she could, nearly falling out of his seat. “I don’t want to see that part of the future.”
Ayan turned and crossed the room to him, kneeling down, taking his hand in hers. “I have to share some of it, because it’s what made leaving you possible. If the Victory Machine didn’t show me a future with two children, one from you, and one from someone else, both of them beautiful, then I would have never been able to leave. It left me with the distinct impression that I still loved you, that we would be together in the future, but that I’d had a daughter somewhere in that time with someone else, but we came back together even after that. Leaving you was so hard, I was crushed, but knowing that we could still have a future made it possible. Now I want to begin that future, there’s nothing in the way, and there’s even evidence that the Victory Machine was wrong about some things, big things.”
Jake looked to the timeline, then back to Ayan’s sorrow struck face. She was impossible to say no to. It seemed that she had suffered more while they were apart than he had, even though he knew that she would have kept him calmer, he would have never murdered a bridge officer aboard the Order of Eden destroyer if she had stayed with him. She would have stood in his way. Then again, he already felt like the person he was before Doctor Messana saved him was entirely different, so he couldn’t be sure. Looking down at her, into that heart shaped face that was more beautiful to him than any belonging to a digital model, or anyone he’d met, he realized that she was begging him.
This woman who had gone through so many trials with grace, accomplished things that he didn’t even know how to start, could navigate government despite her own opinion of being a failure, was begging him to take her back. The woman who would feed the world orbited if it were a question of kindness instead of supply, and was more intelligent than he would ever be overall was waiting on his answer. Somehow the idea that she partially broke it off at the promise of children and a future where they were back together made it a little better, even though jealously at her past relationship with Liam still nagged him, but much less so than before.
There was only one other thing that argued against him taking her back unconditionally, and he voiced it. “I don’t deserve you,” Jake said as he reached down and tried to pull her up. He lost his balance and slipped out of his seat instead.
.”I don’t deserve you,” Jake repeated. “I’m a murderer, if there were still Galactic Courts, they’d have me in front of a local tribunal, and I’d deserve whatever sentence they passed down for murder.”
“It’s war, and if anything my experience in this life has taught me, it’s that we can’t take responsibility for what our past incarnations have done.”
“Just because part of my mind was rebuilt and rewritten doesn’t mean I’m not the same person. I have the same memories, I love the same people,” Jake said, and was stopped by Ayan’s smile.
“You’re not the same,” she whispered. “All the time I’ve spent with you in training, what you’re saying here, I know you’re a better man. I think it’s your separation from that machine inside you. I didn’t realize it before, but you seemed more distant then, now I feel like you’re all here, and that comes with a man who can embrace guilt, who values life, and can love. Maybe we didn’t belong together before, you as a framework and me, but we’ve both had a real rebirth now, and I think it’s our time.”
He allowed himself to look into her blue eyes and couldn’t help but ask himself; Maybe my atonement starts with making her happy, with putting her and everyone I love first? Maybe I can have this? Before he realized it was about to happen, he was kissing her. His right hand crossed her back, his left caressed her lower back and he held her close for a long time while they indulged. He’d never felt anything so warm and intimate, nearly merging through body heat, soft lips and the soothing smell of her – earthy vanilla and something else he couldn’t put a name to.
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