Between claps, the magistrate gestured toward the exit to grant Valnor leave of the courtroom. Before the newly minted captain stood up, he looked over at Hastelloy. There was a deep sense of pity behind those eyes, but also a hint of the young, insecure officer he first knew seeking approval from his mentor.
There were volumes of words Hastelloy wished to say to Valnor in that moment. Unfortunately, he could not utter any in the present circumstance. That being the case, he paraphrased as best he could with body language. Hastelloy rose from his chair and joined in the rousing applause to recognize Valnor’s loyal service through all the years. When Valnor got to his feet, Hastelloy snapped his heels together, straightened his spine and offered his former subordinate a crisp salute.
He could tell Valnor gave a thought to returning the salute, but knew better than to acknowledge a hated traitor in front of all the cameras broadcasting the proceedings to every household in the Republic. Instead, Valnor held Hastelloy’s gaze for a moment, nodded his head slightly and turned on his heels to leave the courtroom. Once in the exit tunnel and safely out of camera sight, Valnor wiped a tear away from his eye as he walked through the doors.
Chapter 29: Quality Family Time
Once the courtroom door closed behind him, Valnor wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the floor. The emotional rollercoaster that was his testimony had left him spent beyond any measurable meaning of the word. As the onslaught of reporters and remote cameras arrayed throughout the hallway crashed in around him, Valnor realized that respite would have to wait until he was away from public view. He was a celebrity now and his newfound status required him to maintain a certain appearance while the cameras were rolling.
Valnor had already turned down requests for private interviews with every news outlet in the Republic. That only seemed to fan the flames of public interest in him. Now, mere moments removed from his rousing testimony against his former commanding officer in court, they all wanted to capture his reaction.
He could have taken the opportunity to gain political favor by standing there to rail against Captain Hastelloy for his attempt to ally himself with the Alpha, that was what they all wanted to hear. He chose not to because it was something Tomal might have done, and he was loath to emulate that bastard in any way. Instead, he straightened his posture and conveyed the image of a dedicated public servant who was content to have performed his duty for a greater good.
After what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only a few seconds, four members of Chancellor Malum’s security detail waded into the sea of journalists to rescue Valnor. They managed to clear a path down the hallway and escorted him out to the backside of the Hall of Justice building. There were no reporters, just a hover transport waiting to take Valnor home.
The vehicle could have easily accommodated ten passengers, but this evening Valnor had his choice of any seat. He collapsed into the closest one and allowed his head to sink into the plush headrest that began massaging the back of his neck. The vehicle’s computer knew the destination already and was en route shortly after the guard detail closed the door behind him; it was finally over.
Valnor finally had the opportunity to let the whipsaw of emotions he experienced during the day overtake him. Part of Valnor was eager to tell his side of things and indict what he deemed traitorous behavior from Captain Hastelloy. However, contemplating his testimony in his mind, and actually delivering it while the captain sat a few feet away proved to be an entirely different experience. In reality, Valnor’s moment to shine amounted to a disheartening and thoroughly awful experience that marked the lowest point of his entire existence. His testimony was nothing short of a total betrayal of his commanding officer, his mentor, his friend.
He deserved a punch in the jaw from Captain Hastelloy for what he did to him today, but instead the captain stood with the rest of the audience and applauded Valnor’s actions. Not only that, for the first time ever, Captain Hastelloy saluted him. That moment, that one final show of respect haunted Valnor to no end. Had the captain acknowledged that he was wrong and Valnor was right or was the gesture issued as a satire? The various possible meanings vexed him, which was probably Captain Hastelloy’s true intention.
Between the distractions presented by the neck massage from the seat and the confusion in his mind regarding his former captain, the long journey home felt like it passed in a flash. Valnor’s ride came to a stop outside his apartment structure and a set of council security officers opened the door for him to exit the official state vehicle.
Reporters and their automated cameras were all over the place here as well. This, it seemed, was now his life. The fact that the council, and the Chancellor himself, had made state security and vehicles available to him hinted that the ruling elite had big plans for him in the future.
“I’ve got it,” Valnor said as he placed his hand on the vehicle door to prevent one of the security officers from closing it behind him.
Valnor looked back into the transport as if it carried all of his baggage from the last four thousand years: the great battle with the Alpha fleet, their crash landing on Earth, the friendships he’d made, and the enemies he’d bested during that time. He closed the door on all of it and turned to face his apartment building. Inside the modest structure was his future and he moved with great joy and purpose to meet it.
He stepped through the front door and left the noise and cameras behind. He boarded the lift carriage and allowed the internal bio scan to confirm his identity.
“Good evening, Captain Valnor,” a pleasant feminine voice said. “You will arrive momentarily at level twenty-three.”
Valnor’s instinct was to thank the kind voice, but it was only a computer program. Instead, he saved his pleasantries for the real female in his life waiting for him on the twenty-third floor, Tulasi.
Three days earlier, he met with the wife he married only days before the landing that stranded him on Earth. Valnor expected the reunion to be a thoroughly awkward and dreadful experience where complete strangers forced themselves to endure meaningless small talk until a socially acceptable amount of time had passed before they parted ways again.
While on Earth, the entire crew assured Valnor that Tulasi would remarry. ‘How could she not after all that time?’ Hastelloy had asked. ‘From her perspective, your life force ended in the battle,’ Tonwen said. ‘There is loyalty, and there is foolishness. After four thousand years without any contact from you, which do you think would be the case?” Gallono asked. ‘You’re free from your vows, go have fun. I guarantee you that she is,’ Tomal advised on numerous occasions.
All of them were wrong. Valnor was the one who knew his wife best, certainly better than his fellow crewmen. Over all of the millennia since Valnor’s disappearance she never remarried. Not so much out of devotion to Valnor’s memory, but more to avoid a similar experience of such profound pain and sorrow at the loss of a loved one.
As it turned out, their initial meeting was not the least bit awkward. In fact, it was like discovering the love of his life all over again. Between the history they shared, the mystery of what they did not know about one another over such a long absence, and an impassioned eagerness to explore it all, they chose to renew their union vows. Yesterday, in a private ceremony away from the prying reporters and cameras they renewed their union vows and began the life they should have always had together.
Valnor pushed the day’s events out of his mind and approached his apartment door with the eagerness of a newlywed. Tulasi must have requested the elevator to notify her when Valnor was on his way because the moment he stepped foot into the one bedroom apartment, she was on the fly - literally.
Tulasi charged him, leaping into the air. Valnor managed to catch his bride under her armpits, which allowed Tulasi to wrap her legs around Valnor’s waist. He held on as best he could, but his new Novi legs were not up to the task of supporting their combined weight just yet. Valnor teetered back onto his heels and started to fall backwards, b
ut Tulasi was prepared. She planted her feet on the ground in time to catch Valnor and lowered him down onto the floor for a nice, controlled landing. She then startled him as she began to administer a passionate kiss and a bone-crushing hug. “Welcome home!”
“I may have to call the authorities and register a complaint of spousal abuse,” Valnor teased. “How dare you take advantage of a man half your age like that?”
Tulasi looked at Valnor with the notion of pressing her advantaged position to turn it into yet another chance for the newlyweds to do what newlyweds do best, but suddenly she stopped. She got back to her feet and gave Valnor a helping hand so he could do the same. “That call will have to wait for another day,” she said with a flick of her head in the direction of the living room. “Look who made it in time to see us off before boarding the ship tomorrow for your new assignment.”
Valnor leaned to the side and craned his neck around the corner to catch a glimpse of an extremely old and wrinkled Novi seated in a zero gravity chair. He did not recognize the individual, but it could be only one man, his son, Javer.
Tulasi took Valnor by the hand and escorted him to the room. “Come on. This is a meeting several thousand years in the making.”
As Valnor stepped out of the short hallway and into the living room, it dawned on him how truly alien this moment felt. On Earth, parents were old and children were young. That was the natural order of things. On Novus, owing to the Nexus, parents and children were often of mixed ages. In this case, Valnor was in his twenties, Tulasi in her forties, and Javer was the ripe, old age of a hundred and sixty. This would take some getting used to.
Javer was the first to find his words at this, their first meeting as father and son. “I haven’t found the energy or motivation to stand on my feet for many years, but certain moments demand it.”
The spindly Novi looked thin and frail enough to blow away in a moderate gust of wind, yet he dug deep and found an inner strength. With hands shaking as they pushed off the armrests, Javer managed to stand on his wobbly legs. Not only that, he found the strength to let go of the chair and extend both arms toward Valnor.
He was certain his son would have found the strength to step across the room to meet his father as well, but Valnor moved to cover the space between them. He crossed the room and wrapped his son in a light embrace. He wanted nothing more than to grab hold with all his excitement, hoist his heir into the air and never let go, but that likely would have killed Javer, or at least snapped several bones. Instead, after a perceived eternity, Valnor eased his only son back into his chair.
“I’m so glad you could make it in time,” Tulasi exclaimed with a giddy clap of her hands at seeing the two men in her life finally joined. “Dinner’s almost ready. Let me get the table set while you two…bond.”
Tulasi bounded off for the kitchen and drew an amused laugh from Javer. “I’ve never, in all my years and lifetimes, seen her so thoroughly elated with life.”
“That holds true for both of us,” Valnor added as he sat down on the couch across from his son.
Javer regarded Valnor with a tilt of his head and a skeptical eye, “You sure about that? I see mother jumping and dancing about, whereas I see you collapsing into that sofa as though you’ve been carrying the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders all day long.”
“Maybe not the whole galaxy, but certainly the entire Novi Republic,” Valnor admitted. “All eyes were on me in that courtroom. I knew today would be difficult, but I didn’t appreciate just how hard.”
“You told the truth, right? You simply recounted events as you saw them unfold, nothing more, nothing less,” Javer offered to ease his father’s troubled state of mind.
“Yes, but there was nothing simple about it,” Valnor sighed. “I turned on my commanding officer, mentor, and if I’m really honest about things, my father figure of several thousand years. Without Captain Hastelloy, the Alpha would have defeated the Fifth Fleet.”
“I’m not just talking about the initial battle either,” Valnor went on. “Our ship was adrift in space, and he got us all down safely to Earth. On that planet he did not just defuse one or two half-witted schemes by the Alpha survivors. He saw through and defeated hundreds of well-conceived and extremely dangerous Alpha plots over thousands of years.”
“All the while he held firm to honoring the council’s non-interference directive, even when several of us urged him to break the rules. He was loyal to the ideals of the Republic, almost to a fault,” Valnor commented.
“Not in the end he wasn’t,” Javer observed. “I watched your testimony from here. Conspiring with the Alpha, what was he thinking?”
Javer had no intention of waiting for Valnor to answer the question and pressed on with his own opinion on the matter, “He couldn’t have been thinking straight. He had to have gone mad. Perhaps he fell victim to the same condition that your crewman, Tomal, contracted; this Alzheimer’s disease of the mind that you described.”
“No,” Valnor answered with a subtle shake of his head. “The captain was perfectly lucid right up to the moment of his arrest. He just…changed. From the moment the Novi arrived and their intention to eradicate the human race became known, everything changed for Captain Hastelloy.”
Valnor shook his head with regret as he went on. “None of us wanted any part in serving a council that would authorize such an act. The course of action that we all agreed on was to try and reform the Republic from within.”
“It was unfortunate that Captain Hastelloy never even gave that option a chance. Instead, he acted completely on his own, locating and reaching out to the Alpha. I can only assume it was to ask for help in an armed rebellion against the Novi Republic.”
“Looking back on it now, the captain’s behavior was so impulsive in the end,” Valnor went on. “I never once saw Captain Hastelloy venture into a questionable situation without half a dozen contingency plans for every occasion. Once we got to the Alpha system, it was as if he never contemplated the Alpha might try to trap the ship or that the crew might defy his orders. It was all so thoroughly out of character.”
“Your captain was probably correct to conclude that reforming the Republic from within wouldn’t work,” Javer reasoned. “A lot of people agree with the current policies; many others are indifferent. Those who do oppose the party line are too scared to say anything. That’s because Chancellor Malum and his war hawk supporters are as ruthless regarding internal threats as they are to external ones like those posed by the Alpha or even Earth.”
“Over the thousands of years, many have tried to speak up and change things, but they were easily silenced using various means by those in power. Some received pay offs, others suffered slander in the press to the point that no one would ever take them seriously again. Then there were those stubborn few who resisted all conventional efforts to silence their voice. These valiant few usually vanished without a trace, leaving no one brave enough to ask where they went.”
“Perhaps I can still do something about it,” Valnor suggested. “You saw the reception I received in that courtroom. I could run for a council seat and challenge Chancellor Malum for leadership of the Republic.”
Javer allowed a faint smile of amusement to touch his lips as he nodded his head in agreement. Contrasting this was a set of eyes that looked upon Valnor and pitied his naivety. “You certainly are the hero of the moment, but how long will that last? Elections are two years away, and I believe you recently accepted a promotion; command of your own ship if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s right,” Valnor confirmed. “The Alpha battle may have been a victory for the Republic fleet, but it was a costly one. Before his capture, Captain Hastelloy managed to destroy three quarters of the Novi’s combat fleet, killing a significant portion of the officer’s corps in the process. I figured the best way to extend my hero image and remain relevant until the elections was to step up and serve in the fleet. They need all of the experienced officers they can get since every space faring
race in the galaxy is going to try and test the Republic and its fractional remaining fleet.”
“Experienced officers?” Javer repeated with skepticism backing his words. “Not to be unkind, but what experience do you bring to the command chair? You’ve been away from space craft and the responsibility of having to make command decisions for several thousand years.”
“I know full well that my new commission was more of a ceremonial appointment than anything else, but it gets me in the chair as well as the spotlight where I can make a difference,” Valnor countered with a touch of anger sneaking into his voice.
Javer took the hint and extended his hands in a disarming gesture. “I’m not questioning if you are fit for command, but I do feel you are making a grave political misstep if you truly intend to challenge the Chancellor for leadership of the Republic. Right now, you’re the polar opposite of Chancellor Malum and his ilk. Two years from now, after carrying out orders issued to you by the council, you will no longer be able to say you’re different from them. That, of course, assumes they issue you legitimate orders. They may send you into hopeless situations with your imminent failure in mind to humiliate you in the public’s eye.”
“What would you have me do then?” Valnor demanded. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“You should do precisely that,” Javer confirmed. “You returned the lost Fifth Fleet, you are inseparably linked to our final victory over the Alpha, and you turned in the ultimate traitor to our people. You’ve done your part for Chancellor and Republic already. Sit back, enjoy your celebrity, and milk it for all the riches that it’s worth. Then, two years from now, decide if running for a seat on the council still makes sense or if the joy derived from a simple life with your new bride is more appealing.”
Valnor had to admit that his son, who was infinitely more schooled in Novi politics, made an excellent point. Serving in the fleet could ruin him. It was tempting to do nothing for the next two years except nurture his own celebrity and the riches that would follow. It was extremely tempting, but it was also something that Tomal would do. That rutting pig would milk the good life of fame and fortune and never look back. If Valnor allowed himself to travel down that path, he might fall into the same trap, and he could not allow that to happen. He had to live a life of purpose; serving under Captain Hastelloy had engrained that far too deeply into his sense of self-worth to ignore. He had to serve.
Origins: A Greater Good Page 19