The Last Exodus

by Paul Tassi

  Lucas turned and stormed out of the room, shoving aside a piece of equipment hanging from the ceiling as he did so.

  Asha turned to Alpha, her voice softer.

  “He’s right you know. You’ve gotten us this far. We know you can get us to the end. All you have to do is try, and we’ll do the rest.”

  She left in silence as Alpha rubbed his head with a claw.

  That night in the water chamber, Lucas couldn’t sleep. Alpha’s news was weighing on him, and he wrestled with the reality of the situation. After all this, everything they survived, was he right? Did they even have a chance? If Alpha in all his infinite genius thought the odds were impossible, what shot did they really have?

  But when had any of their battles ever seemed like fair fights? A city of cannibals, a fleet of assault drones, a station full of soldiers. Were they really that outmatched here?

  They had to be. He could see it in Alpha’s eyes. There was a hopelessness Lucas hadn’t seen since they met, when Alpha was lying helpless in the sands of the Portland crater.

  The strangest part was, Alpha wasn’t even sad for himself. He was confident he would live through the ordeal, though a life of servitude to the group that murdered your loved ones was hardly a wanted outcome. But rather he seemed sad for them. These humans he’d brought so far from home. Ones that by now with all they’d been through, he felt a kinship with. It was a mutual feeling, as Lucas hadn’t thought twice about risking life and limb to save Alpha back at the depot. The scientist was now sorrowful that he would not be able to return the favor.

  But he had, hadn’t he? Lucas felt around for his long curved scar. He’d given him an almost entirely new set of internal organs, and brought Asha back from the brink of madness. If they were keeping score, they likely still owed him. But to Alpha it didn’t matter. His mistake allowing Omicron to catch up with them had made it all pointless.

  Lucas wondered if they would be executed like he said. Perhaps they’d be thrown in a tank like their new crewmembers and given to some other Xalan scientist for study and experimentation.

  Surely that would be a fate even worse than death, and it wasn’t an idea that made Lucas feel any better about their prospects. He tossed and turned, but was unable to make his bedding any more comfortable. Eventually, he gave up, and he drifted off to sleep despite his unease.

  Lucas opened his eyes sleepily, minutes or hours later, he couldn’t be sure. It was still dark, and as he regained focus he saw a familiar vision. A shadowy figure, standing at the foot of his bed. As it saw him stir, it took a step closer. Asha.

  Please god, not again, he prayed silently to a long-absent deity, desperately hoping she hadn’t relapsed into insanity.

  But as she took another step, her body was illuminated in the blue glow of the tanks. She wore nothing.

  Lucas’s heart continued racing, but now for an entirely different reason. The light showed her graceful curves, but the darkness hid her litany of battle scars. She was truly a beautiful creature, more so than any he’d seen before. Reaching the mattress, she kneeled down and crawled toward him. He was speechless, breathless. He only managed to get out one word.

  “Why?”

  She looked into his eyes, and after lingering a moment, kissed him.

  “Why not?”

  She shoved him down against the mattress, and broke into a full smile that Lucas had never seen her wear before. Even in the darkness, it was captivating. As was the rest of her, bathed in the dull blue light.

  He asked no further questions.

  21

  Lucas slept more soundly than he had in years that night, the weight of the old apocalypse and their imminent destruction lifted from his mind. When he woke, Asha was gone. He was hardly surprised, though he had to make sure the entire thing hadn’t been a dream. Overturned stacks of books and a bite mark on his collarbone indicated the events of the night had indeed occurred, though Lucas still had trouble believing it.

  Why not, she’d said. With all but certain death mere weeks away, was there anything to lose? Grab the closest, or only, person next to you and try to enjoy your last few moments.

  Or was it more than that? Lucas remembered the look in her eyes, and her smile. That smile. There was something deeper there. Reflecting for moment, he realized he’d felt it for a while now, and there had been something between them that was downright palpable, especially since he’d woken up from his injury. A wound sustained while saving her. Perhaps that had something to do with it as well. He supposed he’d get some clue when he saw her that day.

  He found her in the CIC, rapidly thumbing through the holotable display. She’d clearly been much more immersed in the technology the past few weeks.

  She glanced up and caught his eye.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  There was a pause that lasted a few beats too long. Asha broke the silence.

  “So, you’re not going to get all girly about this are you?”

  Lucas looked caught off guard by her frankness.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Great. And don’t go bragging to Alpha either.”

  Lucas laughed.

  “You know, I really doubt he’d care.”

  “He was probably watching on the monitors.”

  They both laughed at that one, and the tension evaporated from the room. Whatever her motivations, Lucas was content to leave them a mystery.

  They debated what should be done with the day. Should they train in the chair? Getting through the last few Soran lessons seemed a bit pointless now. Should they work out? Lucas had a long path ahead of him to get back to where he was before the injury, though clearly Asha had made good use of the last month. Her body was . . . well, perfect, as Lucas had discovered. His mind wandered as he watched Asha absentmindedly swirl through galaxy maps on the holotable. His thoughts were interrupted by Alpha on the comm.

  “Crew to laboratory level.”

  Lucas was surprised. After their conversation yesterday, he thought Alpha would be even more sealed off. What was he summoning them for now?

  When they arrived, the lab was humming with various devices. Alpha was at his desk, which was littered with all manner of mechanical parts. His metal claw was busy rifling through some circuitry while he worked on an entirely different set of electronics with his good arm. At the same time, he seemed to be looking over a technical readout floating in front of him. How his brain was able to process so many different tasks, Lucas could not imagine. All of them ceased when he saw them.

  “Welcome,” Alpha said warmly.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing?” Lucas asked coldly as he approached the desk. He was still displeased with Alpha.

  “Thank you for coming. I understand that you felt our discussion yesterday was . . . unproductive.”

  “You could say that.”

  He closed the readout in front of him so there was nothing between the three of them.

  “Last night I had a revelation.”

  You weren’t the only one.

  “Your words found a place in my core. You were correct in your assessment that it would be foolish to abandon hope after all that we have overcome to reach this point in our journey.”

  Lucas folded his arms as Alpha continued.

  “Perhaps hope itself is foolish, but I would be remiss not even to attempt to craft a solution that will allow all of us to survive.”

  “So what does that mean?” asked Asha warily.

  “Commander Omicron must be destroyed.”

  That produced a glint of excitement in her eye.

  “But what about what you said yesterday?” Lucas asked. “You made it sound like he and his troops are practically invincible.”

  Alpha nodded.

  “That remains true. It is the reason we will have to work exceptionally hard if we are to stand any chance at surviving a confrontation.”

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “There is little the p
air of you can do to aid me with what needs to be done. Rather, you must train yourselves to be more quick thinking, stronger, and faster than you have ever been. You must maximize your potential as much as is ‘humanly possible’ you might say. Anything less than perfection is unacceptable for the task ahead.”

  “We can do that,” Lucas said. His muscles had atrophied from his prolonged unconsciousness, but with thirty-seven-hour days to kill, he imagined he could inch back to his former level of fitness.

  “And what are you doing?” Asha asked. She was already miles ahead of him, but knowing her, she would push herself to the absolute limit if it meant a chance to survive.

  “I will train as well, but more importantly, I must craft weapons that can kill immortals and armor that can protect us from them. This shall be no easy feat.”

  “I thought you said we didn’t have the materials.”

  Alpha lifted up a holographic menu and coasted through pages and pages of schematics. The designs were complex, and even if Lucas could recognize some of the symbols, it was unclear what was being envisioned in these three-dimensional pages.

  “I did not sleep last night as I could not get visions of theoretical weaponry out of my head. I have created a number of designs that I think may suit our purposes. In part, they have been fashioned from military prototypes in production on Xala, combined with a few of my own ideas. Ideas that will make them actually work.”

  Lucas breathed a sigh.

  “I knew you’d come through.”

  “I have not, yet.”

  Alpha waved his claw as he stopped on one of the designs. He sat back in his chair.

  “Be forewarned. Even with such devices, should they function as intended, our chances of survival are almost non-existent. Whatever trials we have faced to date, they will pale in the face of this upcoming conflict.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Asha said. “So long as we try. Besides, I can think of less dignified ways to die than at the hand of a legendary alien general.”

  Alpha scoffed.

  “Commander Omicron can imagine a variety of ways to end your life without dignity, and he has done so across many Soran worlds. Do not delude yourselves with visions of an honorable death.”

  “You’re sure they’re not just going to blast us to bits the moment they see us?” Lucas asked.

  “Their behavior has always indicated an attempt to capture, not annihilate. As such, we will be boarded. Much of the fight will take place here.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “If we survive, on the [garbled]. On his ship.”

  “So what exactly are you going to be making?”

  Lucas peered into the floating schematics, but couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be when it was all disassembled. Though one of the pieces did match the item in Alpha’s right hand.

  “I will inform you upon completion. I am still sorting through concepts to ascertain what should take priority in the limited time we have.”

  “Forty-odd days seems like a lot.”

  “These are items that would take a team months to craft back on Xala.”

  “Well, that’s why you’re better than them, right?” said Asha.

  Alpha chortled.

  “We shall see.”

  The next two weeks were a whirlwind of activity. Alpha was in his lab for practically days at a time, only venturing to the engineering bay or CIC on rare occasions. Usually it was to pull something out of the wall, and he was appropriating many pieces of the ship’s technology for whatever it was he was working on.

  They let him be and focused on their own training. There were no more Soran lessons, no flight simulators and unfortunately, less time lounging with Noah. They let him crawl around nearby as they worked out together, and he was content enough with his toys, but he had to be an afterthought. His survival depended on what was to come, as did their own, and as such they trained with a laser-like focus. Distractions were no longer permitted.

  Well, almost. Every night for the past two weeks after a hard day’s work, Lucas was visited by the same nightly specter, one he welcomed. Asha crept through the ship to the water chamber to recreate the events of that first night. Each evening was more memorable than the last, but every morning, she was gone. Lucas didn’t bother asking why, or wonder out loud why they couldn’t just share quarters. He let her come and go as she pleased.

  Lucas felt more connected to her than ever. Their nights and days were spent almost entirely in each other’s company. Their only sparring was physical, for combat preparedness purposes; they avoided verbal altercations entirely. The weight of probable death had whitewashed whatever problems they’d had. They had almost killed each other on more than one occasion, but the number of times they’d saved one other from death was starting to rival that tally. Lucas putting himself in between her and the energy rifle blast seemed to be the tipping point. Skepticism had turned to trust. Anger to lust. Hate to . . . love?

  Lucas wasn’t sure what he felt for her. Was it love? Or was it two people with nothing to lose, trapped on a spaceship for six months, surviving more near-death experiences together than was statistically possible? Whatever had sparked it, he couldn’t put the flame out now. It was true, he felt kinship with Alpha and even Noah, but his connection to Asha ran deeper. He’d felt it sooner than that first night in the water chamber, but he’d shoved it out of his thoughts. Despite their wary alliance that had begun months ago, for a long time she had still felt like a possible threat.

  He thought back to the most recent time she tried to finish the job, when she was driven out of her mind by pod memories. She wasn’t even attacking him; she was trying to kill some would-be rapist in Alaska. But that whole event was a look into her soul. He saw the source of her passion, and her capacity to love. Love drove her hate, and it wasn’t blind or sadistic the way he’d imagined. Since her recovery, he felt he understood her, and she him. That’s why, without a moment’s hesitation, he had thrown himself in front of that blast. His body knew what his mind wouldn’t admit. He’d do anything for her. Even die. And he almost did.

  Lucas wrestled the thoughts to the back of his mind, though every morning when he woke, he was a little disappointed she hadn’t stayed. Despite the fact she was offering herself to him each night, there were still defenses in place. Barriers that needed to be broken.

  Not that he was an open book. There was still so much he hadn’t told her, about his life both before and after the war. He thought of Sonya and Nathan more often now. His love for them had sustained him during a trip through an ocean of devastation. Though he had lost his faith in traditional notions of God, he wondered if, should he die, he might see them again. He’d heard a theory about death once that had stayed with him. A condemned soul speculated that heaven might be going back to the time in your life in which you were happiest and living there forever. He thought if he died out here in space, perhaps he could wind up living in some past lazy summer. He and his wife young and beautiful, their son even more so. Maybe when they’d rented out that cottage in Cape Cod for a week. It was hard to imagine a more ideal time in his life.

  But sometimes he wondered if he might come back here instead. On the Ark he had a stalwart extraterrestrial friend, an adoring, bright-eyed child, and a woman in his bed that had been worth a hundred-trillion-mile journey. If he could ignore the ever-present shadow of death, it might have felt pretty perfect itself.

  Lucas looked down at Asha, fast asleep, as all these thoughts floated through his mind. He ignored pending death, forgot about a decade of drinking, an interstellar war, and a hundred murders he’d committed since. He was content.

  The lights of the water chamber grew brighter as they were programmed to at 0600. Lucas squinted and found himself stunned when he saw Asha remained next to him. It was the first time she hadn’t left in the night. Her eyes fluttered, and she too looked shocked at her surroundings. She stammered as she saw Lucas was already awake.

  “I, uh . . .
I was pretty wiped from yesterday,” she explained.

  “It’s alright.”

  “Let me just . . .” She scrambled for her clothes, which were strewn all around them. Both of them looked up when there was a familiar clank in the metal hallway ahead. Of all the days . . .

  Alpha was walking toward them down the corridor. These creatures couldn’t quite smile in the traditional sense, but Lucas imagined that must be what he was doing. His translator wasn’t verbally relaying his current thoughts on what he saw in front of him. Asha wrapped herself in the covers, her usual lack of modesty not extending to aliens, it seemed. Lucas just sat on the mattress with his arms folded around his knees.

  “Hi Alpha.”

  “Greetings.”

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Asha said, now as covered as she could manage.

  “I have something to show you. Please accompany me to the laboratory.”

  “And you couldn’t have just told us that on the comm?” Asha asked menacingly.

  “I was overcome with excitement. Apologies, I did not mean to . . . intrude.”

  Asha just shook her head. Lucas had already thrown on a pair of pants and shirt and walked toward Alpha.

  “Alright, let’s go then,” he turned back to Asha, still wrapped in the sheet. “Asha?”

  “I’ll meet you up there,” she said as she fumbled around with her hastily assembled pile of clothes.

  The elevator ride was a tad uncomfortable as the pair stood in silence. Lucas felt obligated to break it.

  “You know, that’s not going to interfere with our training or anything.”

  Alpha waved him off.

  “I am not concerned. It was expected.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows.

  “Expected?”

  Alpha nodded.

  “Imagine my delight when the last two sane humans on Earth turned out to be a male and female. I knew biology would assuredly run its course on the journey. Though I did not expect it to take this long, mind you.”

  Lucas was confused.

  “You planned this?”