The Voyage Home

by D. J. Holmes

  Sarah couldn’t get her head around it. What was Adams saying? Closing her eyes for a moment she tried to think. She couldn’t. All that came to her was the image of Adams shooting her mother. Filled with rage, she opened her eyes again.

  “You have to believe me,” Adams said as he reached out and touched Sarah’s hand. His gesture sent Sarah’s mind back to another memory. Ranack had tried to touch her to console her. It had been fake though, he had been getting ready to betray her.

  With a snarl, Sarah pulled her hand back. “You’re lying,” she spat at Adams. “Why would a man murder his own wife?”

  “I didn’t want to,” Adams said. “Your mother made me, she made me swear I would.”

  “That’s a lie,” Sarah shouted. “I don’t want to hear the lies you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night.”

  “You don’t understand,” Adams pleaded. “You’re special Sarah. We couldn’t let the Elders know about you. It was the only way.”

  “The only way for what?” Sarah said. “The only way you could get rid of her?”

  Adams didn’t respond. Instead he hung his head. Sarah could hear him sniffling. “I loved her,” he mumbled. “I still love her. I have never loved anyone else.”

  “Prove it,” Sarah spat, knowing that he couldn’t.

  Slowly Adams reached down to a drawer in his desk. “Watch it,” Sarah said. “Move slowly.”

  He complied. After typing in a security code, he opened a locked drawer. Only when he began to pull out a picture frame did Sarah realize he might have punched in an alarm. She cursed herself for her stupidity. Her fear vanished when she saw the picture Adams had produced. It was of her mother. Adams was standing beside her. He had one arm around her and in the other he was holding a small baby.

  “That’s you,” Adams said. “It was taken six months after you were born. If I didn’t love her, why would I still have this? If the Elders found this, they would execute me on the spot.”

  “You’re telling the truth?” Sarah said slowly. She didn’t want to believe it. Yet her mother looked happy in Adams’ arms.

  “I am,” Adams said as he wiped his eyes.

  “But Melissa said my father disappeared, that he ran away,” Sarah said.

  “To her it probably looked like I did,” Adams said. “She didn’t know I was a part of the Resistance, not many did. To her and to many others it looked like I had just betrayed my wife and killed her to save my own life. That was the way it had to be. It was the last thing I wanted. But we had no choice. The Elders had found out about your mother. Her past caught up with her. If they had interrogated her, the truth would have come out. If I hadn’t killed her, they would have arrested me too. We had to do it. For the Resistance. I don’t expect you to believe me, to understand me, but it is the truth.”

  “I...” Sarah began to say but she was interrupted by a beeping that came from Adams.

  He reached down and pulled out a COM unit. Sarah almost shot him. She thought he was going for a weapon. “It doesn’t matter now,” Adams said urgently, unaware of how close she was to shooting him. “If you don’t leave right away, I won’t be able to help you.”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah said, thinking it was a ruse. “What is that?”

  “It’s my COM unit. That is the security alert,” Adams answered. Sarah couldn’t think of him as her father. “A Blackshirt patrol was attacked not far from here. I presume that was you? Well, security has just been put on alert. If they haven’t already, they will soon figure out you were here. You have to leave.”

  “Not without some answers,” Sarah demanded.

  Adams sighed. “You have your mother’s passion. Run in first and think later. That got your mother into a lot of trouble. It has served you just as well. You have stirred up a hornet’s nest. Do you know when the last Blackshirt patrol was attacked? It was years ago. What were you thinking? How would killing me have helped the Resistance?”

  “It would have helped me,” Sarah shot back, embarrassed by her father’s criticism.

  “You?” Adams said. “Maybe you are not as similar to your mother as I thought. Your mother was a part of the Resistance. She died to keep you and I safe. She died to keep the Resistance’s main hope alive.”

  “Main hope?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, you,” Adams said. “I told you, you are special. That is why I had to kill her. Proving my loyalty allowed me to keep the authority I needed to smuggle you out of the Sol system. It allowed me to rise to the position of Governor. I was the leader of the Resistance. If I had of died, all of our plans would have died with me. Now, I am in a position to do something. To help our people. When your freighter disappeared, we thought we had lost you. We have been working on other plans. But now, with you back, there is a chance. But it is a chance that is quickly fading. You need to leave before you’re caught. If the Elders catch you and find out what you are, they could kill us all.”

  “So you put the Resistance above me?” Sarah asked, afraid of the answer.

  “No,” Adams replied as he reached out and took Sarah’s hand. This time she didn’t pull back. “She put your future above her own. She was in the Resistance because she wanted a better life for her children and all the children on Earth. She died so that you could escape. So that one day we, you and I, could do something to help Earth. The Elder’s couldn’t find out about you.”

  “You genetically modified me, didn’t you?” Sarah said as the truth dawned on her. Suddenly she understood why she had been able to use an interface helmet and to imprint with Alexandra. She didn’t know how, but her father had done something to her. Something that made her different to other humans.

  “Yes,” Adams said. “You are still our daughter. But you were special. Just after conception we found out. You are one in a billion. Your genetic code allowed us to make some simple modifications. Simple modifications that will have a profound impact on us all, if we can get you out of here.” As he finished speaking, Adams stood and hardened his tone.

  “You need to leave now,” he repeated. “Can you make it back to the safe house?”

  “I... yes, I think so,” Sarah said as she was pulled to her feet. Adams had clearly lost all fear of being shot. “Then get out of here. I will say you tried to assassinate me but I fought you off. The place will be crawling with Blackshirts in a minute or two. You need to go. You can lie low for a week or so and then maybe I can arrange a meeting with you.”

  “But I have information that can help the Resistance,” Sarah said as she moved to pull out the data chip she had brought with her. It held details on all the Elder technology Alexandra had access to.

  “There’s not time for that now,” Adams said. “It’s not important, you are the secret to beating the Elders. We need to get you to safety.”

  “Ok, ok,” Sarah said as Adams dragged her across his office. “I’ll go. But you have to promise to meet me, soon.”

  “I will,” Adams said. “Now quickly, there is a secret turbolift that opens onto the street in the corridor outside my office. I will open it for you. Take it. There will be Blackshirts in the streets, be careful.”

  “I will,” Sarah said as she shrugged her father’s arm off and paused.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “Your name,” Sarah said. “What is your name?”

  “Jonathan,” her father replied. “Now go.”

  Jonathan, Sarah thought. Melissa had said her mother’s name was Kate. Now she knew the names of both her parents. Beyond that, she didn’t know what to believe, her head was spinning. Everything she thought she knew had been thrown on its head. She didn’t even really know if she believed anything Adams had said. Shouts from somewhere on the same level as Adams office focused her mind. The Blackshirts were coming. With a sob, she looked at her father one last time and then turned and ran out of his office.

  *

  As soon as she was gone, Adams pulled a second COM unit out of his locked drawer. After speaking
a few words into it he pulled his blaster out of its holster and fired a series of shots all over his office. Only once he was satisfied that it looked like an intense fire fight had broken out did he stop. Quickly he then packed away the picture of his wife. Sitting down in his chair he let out a long breath. Less than sixty seconds later, the first Blackshirt showed up.

  *

  Three streets away, Sarah continued to run for her life. She had seen at least fifty Blackshirts descending on her father’s building. She had narrowly escaped the security perimeter they had been erecting. As she continued to run, the locals looked at her strangely. Most of them were moving quickly into buildings. The loud sirens that were going off told them something was wrong. In her attire, Sarah stood out like a sore thumb.

  Her attackers on the other hand, blended in perfectly. Dressed in the primitive clothes of the general populace, Sarah didn’t even tag them as a threat until it was too late. Arms reached out and grabbed her as she ran past. As she felt the auto-injector touch her neck, she tried to scream for help. Her words never left her lips. The drugs were already rushing through her system. As her mind began to get foggy, despair washed over. She knew who was attacking her. It was her father’s men. He would have told them where she was going. With a sob, she felt her body go lifeless in their hands. I made it home, yet it is nothing I hoped for, she thought. Her mind began to close in around her. Her last thoughts were of her mother, she feared she had died in vain. Her father had betrayed them both.

  Within seconds of being injected, Sarah lost consciousness. Her childhood dream began to replay once again. As she saw her mother being led onto the platform she screamed for her mama as loud as she could. Despite her best efforts, Melissa couldn’t quieten her. This time, when the man stepped forward to address the crowd, there was no haze obscuring his face. Sarah recognized her father. Other childhood memories flooded into her mind. Memories of him holding her. Of them playing together. Of seeing him and her mother kissing. “No,” she screamed. “No,” she screamed again as he lifted his laser pistol and aimed it at his wife. Without flinching, he pulled the trigger and splattered his wife’s blood all over the platform.

  Anger and pain made tears stream down Sarah’s face. He had betrayed her mother, he had betrayed her. He had betrayed all her people. Then Sarah saw the Elder looking at her. Her tears stopped. She knew what was coming next. His mouth opened and she felt herself lifted into the air.

  Chapter 36

  A week later.

  Commander Simmons sat in her office staring out the view port built into the asteroid. One thousand six hundred years ago her ancestor had sent the asteroid on a ballistic course towards Earth. Now it served as the home for her people. They had named the asteroid after the ship her ancestors had used to flee Earth – Hope V. As the asteroid slowly rotated, the star she had been looking for came into view. Sol was just seventy light years away. It was so near, and yet so far. Her ancestors had spent two millennia hiding from the Elders. The asteroid, in the middle of open space, was the perfect hideout. It had allowed them to study Elder technology and further develop humanity’s at the same time. Now the time had come where she felt they had finally surpassed the Elders. Yet, simply having a superior technology was only the first step towards humanity’s freedom. The Elders controlled a vast Empire, ruling over thousands and thousands of worlds. Technology couldn’t beat numbers. Not yet at least, Simmons thought as she clenched her jaw in determination.

  For the last three decades her scouts and spies had been bringing in reports that suggested the Elders were pulling back. They had all but abandoned the outermost sectors of the Orion Arm. Her great grandfather had predicted their fall. All the data they had suggested the Elder Empire was stagnating. They hadn’t conquered a new planet in a thousand years. It was now rare to see young Elders sent out to replace the Elders who died in rare accidents. The Empire hadn’t made a single technological advancement in more than five hundred years. The Elder empire appeared doomed. Yet, they weren’t falling quickly enough. Her grandfather had predicted it would be at least fifty years before the Elders began to pull away from Earth. By then Simmons knew she would be dead. Thanks to medical advancements she had already lived one hundred and eighty years. Her body was tired though. Her doctors said she didn’t have more than a couple of decades left. Earth was so near, as soon as the Elders pulled back, she and the rest of the Hope ships that had left Earth over two thousand years ago, would be ready to return. Yet Simmons feared she wouldn’t be alive to see her life’s work come to fruition. She was a realist. She knew the Elders wouldn’t leave Earth quietly. She had plans, ideas and strategies for how to save Earth from their withdrawal. Yet she feared she wouldn’t get to see if they would work. She would die not knowing if her life’s work had been worth it. Like Earth, the future was so near, and yet, so far away.

  She sensed excitement run through some of her crew. Knowing she was going to indulge in a moment of weakness, she had sealed herself from the rest of her people. Though she still retained a vague connection to them. As she reconnected her mind to the Hope V’s neural network, the sense of excitement overwhelmed her. “What is it?” she thought to the officer on watch on the bridge.

  “A freighter is approaching. It has a communication from Earth’s Governor. The freighter has a package for you.”

  “A package? Are you sure?” Simmons queried. Her question was superfluous, she was already accessing the communication with her mind. Yet the seriousness of the officer’s report made her ask anyway.

  “Yes,” the officer replied.

  I can’t believe it, Simmons thought. A package can only mean one thing. Adams had found one of the engineered!

  Simmons’ father had reached out to the humans of Earth sixty years ago. He had believed it necessary to have people on the ground on Earth to help restore order once the Elders pulled back. He had been happy to find a thriving resistance already operating on Earth. Her father’s decision had appeared to pay off when Hope V’s scientists had finally made the breakthrough they had been striving for, for centuries.

  When Simmons’ ancestors got their hands on a damaged Elder frigate almost a millennium ago, they had been stunned to see just how closely Elders were able to fold their minds into their ships. It gave them a distinctive edge in combat. It also meant an Elder ship or orbital station couldn’t simply be captured in battle. The ship had to give control of itself to someone who could link with it. At first, Hope V’s scientists had thought the Elders had naturally developed the ability. But after procuring a deceased Elder’s body, they had found the truth. Though the Elders had banned genetic modification in their Empire, they had used it on themselves.

  It had taken her people centuries, but they had finally made a breakthrough in engineering the same ability into humans. In the end, they had resorted to splicing Elder DNA into a human’s. Even so, only around one in a billion humans had the ability to undergo the splicing procedure, and it had to be carried out prior to birth. Twenty-one years ago, Simmons, after being elected to replace her grandfather and assisted by the Resistance on Earth, had undertaken a massive covert search on Earth and humanity’s four other colonies. Twenty-one years ago, the first hybrid humans had been born. Then everything had fallen apart. The Elders on Earth had penetrated the Resistance. Everyone knew that if the Elders found the hybrids, they would likely kill everyone on Earth. That was how they dealt with colonies who broke their rules.

  Forsaking their plan, four of the five hybrids had been killed and disposed of before the Elders found them. An attempt had been made to smuggle the fifth out of Earth but she had gone missing on her way to Hope V. After that, fearing anymore contact with the Resistance would reveal the existence of Hope V, Simmons had turned to other avenues of research. Yet she had left Hope V’s course with one member of the Resistance. He had orders to contact her if he found one of the hybrids. The frigate’s appearance, now, meant only one thing. There was no other reasonable explanation. No E
arth human had ever come to Hope V. It was far too risky. There was only one reason Adams would send a ship. Suddenly, Simmons realized what the appearance of a hybrid meant, she would have to re-evaluate all her plans. Everything would change now. A smile spread across her face. Twenty years might just be enough, she thought.

  An alert in her head distracted her. A file had just been sent to her neural implant. After reading it, she jumped to her feet. The file contained details on the package Adams was sending her. The young woman was still sedated. That means I can get to work right away, Simmons thought. She rushed out of her quarters. She had things to do. The freighter would be docking in less than half an hour.

  *

  Sarah woke with a scream. She had just felt the Elder’s teeth sink into her. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she calmed herself. It’s ok, it’s just a dream. Her efforts began to fail as confusion set in. Where am I? She couldn’t see, and her whole body felt numb. All she could remember was her nightmare. Vainly, she tried to take another series of deep breaths to calm down.