Jack stepped back from the view screen and turned around.
“You’re alive,” he said to the teenage boy in front of him.
“Yes,” said Gaz, rubbing his stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Whatever for?”
“Vyleria,” he said looking at the ground. “I… I shot Stormborn, who collapsed into Lava man, who then…”
“It couldn’t be helped,” said Jack, brushing Vyleria’s smoke-ridden corpse from his mind. “If it wasn’t for you, Lava man, the Scourge, the dreadnuts might all still be around. What happened happened, let’s forget about the rest.”
“But…”
“I told you to forget about it,” said Jack, his tone suddenly icy. “What’s done is done, it was Lava man and Stormborn who killed Vyleria, not you.”
Gaz nodded unconvincingly. “But if you want to help,” said Jack, looking at the crowd, “help them, it will be night soon and these people will need some shelter and some warm food; it’s best if we get started straight away.”
“It’s going to be a busy night,” said Padget.
“Yes, it is, for all of us,” said Jack.
“Hey where’s Grunt, Xylem?” said Jack noticing their absence for the first time.
“They’ve left,” said Kat.
“Without saying goodbye?” said Jack.
“Yes, but don’t take it personally,” said Kat. “The situation on their planets is even more dire than this one; we would have gone too if it wasn’t for…”
“Me?” said Jack.
Padget nodded. “You were hurt, sick, after…”
Kat coughed.
“It’s okay Kat, you can say her name – I have to get over Vyleria’s death somehow; not saying her name will only make it worse. Besides, I should be thanking you.”
“Thanking us? Why?”
“For helping me in my grief, when I was suffering the most you stood by me; that’s what friends do, and I will never forget it.”
A big green blur barreled towards Jack like a demented battering ram. It knocked him clean off his feet, hugged him tightly.
“Argh! Padget get off me!” Jack yelled.
“You’re the best Jack!” Padget shouted. “The besssssst!”
“Fine. Right. I’m the best, now can you get off me and shake my hand like a normal person?”
“Oh… right… sure,” said Padget, getting to his feet and smiling broadly. “I just wanted to say…”
“It’s okay Padge,” said Jack, “you’re a good friend too – you all are – even you Gaz – I couldn’t have done it without you. But now we have another mission, one just as important and as complicated as the war.”
“What’s that Jack?”
“The rebuilding, Kat; that’s our job now. We can start here and make our way around America, the world; there’s no point in fighting a war if we can’t ensure the peace.”
“Where do we start?” asked Gaz.
“We start by feeding these people,” said Jack. “Giving them a place to live; after that let’s see.”
Jack appeared in front of a sea of murmuring, inquisitive faces; Gaz, Kat and Padget following. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
Chapter Forty-Eight: Last Rites
Like an old wound, Earth recovered. Hunger was assuaged, power restored, poverty alleviated, shelter was found for millions of refugees; riots and disturbances quickly ceased, their main causes addressed. But like all wounds some scars refused to heal: economies and business were slow to recover, some countries waited for help rather than doing it themselves, even now transportation and sanitation systems were rudimentary at best.
“It’s lucky there are no more enemies left to fight,” said Padget.
Jack nodded, looked over the skeletal remains of what had been New York. Drills hummed in the distance, electric lighting flashed, hammers resumed their chorus. “It gives us time to recover, rebuild, though there are reports of piracy coming in from Jupiter’s belt.”
“We’ll have to deal with that.”
Jack shook his head. “No, Earth will,” he said. “They have to learn to stand upon their own two feet now, we can’t carry on like this.”
“Like my planet one day.”
Jack nodded, eyes fixed on the Statue of Liberty as it was raised back to its plinth. Manhattan won’t be this easy, and as for L.A…
“Which reminds me,” said Padget, fidgeting slightly. “We’re leaving.”
“What?” said Jack, spinning round. “You can’t…”
“We’ve been away too long as it is; according to Kat poverty there is widespread, the mutes are spreading and attacking all signs of civilisation. They need a leader Jack, and since I’m the only Paldovian from the ruling caste left…”
Jack looked again at the tangled web of stone and metal unfurling before his eyes; so much work, so little time. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. “You’ve stayed around long enough as it is anyway, I have no right to deny your people of their ruler. When will you leave?”
“Immediately after the funeral.”
“What? But that’s two days away.”
“I know that Jack and I’m sorry - we both are – but if the situation with the mutes deteriorates any further…”
“Of course,” said Jack. “You’re right and I’m wrong, I’m just being selfish, that’s all.”
“If I talk to Kat, we could leave in three or four days…”
“No, no it’s okay,” said Jack, rubbing his eyes. “It’s better this way, makes all of us stand on our own two feet, I’ve taken too much of your time as it is.”
“Jack…”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Jack, rocketing off towards the charred remains of Manhattan. “I’ve got plenty to do; I’ll see you at the funeral.”
Padget looked at Jack’s silhouette as it streaked across the skyline, a sinking feeling spreading throughout his three stomachs.
Jack looked at the long metal tube and wept.
Everything came back to him then – meeting Vyleria for the first time, saving her from the volcano planet, rescuing her from Area 51, going for picnics, playing football, climbing mountains, exploring new worlds, crashing through supernova, racing space cars, rocketing across the galaxy… falling in love.
He placed his hand on the cold metal, felt his heart lurch. “Vyleria, was in many ways our true leader,” he began, looking into the faces of Padget, Kat, Gaz. “She was the one that brought us together and kept us strong, especially in the beginning when we didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going. If she hadn’t been there, we would probably all have died, either in space or because of each other, and now in a cruel twist of fate she is dead, and we are the ones who live. I stand before you now not to dwell on that fact, but to celebrate who she was, what she did for us and to etch her memory into the stars. She was the best of us, and because of that the Scourge have been beaten and the whole galaxy is now free. From the moment I first saw her, I loved her purely, savagely, bitterly. She was my spacegirl and I was her spaceboy, but now all I have is memories and I am the poorer for it. I don’t know if I believe in Heaven, but if it exists, I hope to meet her there after the last star has ceased to shine and the last planet has been ground to dust, but until then I am forced to mourn her angelic face. She was the best of us, and now I commend her body to the stars, where she was most at home.”
Vyleria’s coffin passed through a small hole in the spaceship. Jack followed the silver tube with grief-stricken eyes long after it had been lost to the vacuum and the infinite sea of stars.
Chapter Forty-Nine: The Last Battle
Jack leaned forward and kissed Vyleria on her forehead. Sunlight arrowed through the window, slanting across her nose and her pink cheeks. Like a rose, he thought. He cupped her naked breast, left his lips to linger on hers for what felt like an eternity. He held her close, his hands pressed against her ribs, shoulders. Tears f
lowed down his cheeks like a river.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Go where?”
“Back to the real world, the one without you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This isn’t the real you,” he said. Even now the words stung in his mouth, in his chest. “You died… six months ago…. in the war.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, pressing her wine-red fingernails to her skin. “If I was dead, how could I do this?”
“Because I programmed you that way… after the funeral.”
Vyleria frowned. “You’re scaring me now Jack, come back to bed and let’s make things alright… together.” Jack’s heart broke. He shook his head, cheeks moist.
“No, not this time,” he said, inching towards the bedroom door. “It’s not fair. I’ve got to move on, we both do.”
“But…”
“Computer pause the program.”
Vyleria froze like a statue, arms prostrate in the air, her last smile etched permanently on her face. Jack’s heart sank. He looked at her beautiful, timeless features once, twice, three times, then opened the bedroom door, closed it, headed for the stars.
Epilogue
The planet shimmered in what little sunshine reached the surface, a web-like pattern of blue meltwater spreading out from the equator. The air was devoid of all clouds, all life; the sky a perfect crystalline blue.
Grunt aimed at the tangle of metal, glass and wires a few billion miles away, obliterating it with one shot.
He breathed-in, sighed, watched the solar shield sizzle away into nothing as a tide of sunlight engulfed the planet. He watched the blue ribbons at the equator lengthen before his eyes as ice began to crash and fall into the new sea. Then he put his spaceship into a steep dive, piercing the cold air in seconds.
He stepped out onto a thinning glacier, the dark hulks of the mountains towering-up on either side of him. The air resounded to the sound of melting ice, the sun a gold medallion overhead. He scanned a network of caves off to his left, then bounded up the slope seconds later.
He approached the dark entrance of the cave, more in trepidation than fear, shuffled down the passageway.
He had been walking for what felt like hours when he entered a large cavern, its centre lit-up by what looked like glowing rocks. Around these sat five or six boys, the remains of a long dead animal in their laps. They looked like him, though shorter, thinner.
One of the boys turned round, looked in his direction, ice smeared across a thin, scraggily beard.
“Tomen!” he shouted, staggering towards him. “But you’re dead… I saw you…”
“I…” Grunt’s mind flashed with recollection. He saw a thin wastrel boy, a small dark cave, then a mouthful of teeth and snapping jaws pulling him down a long, dark tunnel. “Thomy? Is that you?”
“Yes, of course it’s me,” said the boy, gripping him by his arms. “But I don’t understand; how are you alive? It’s been years; I saw the Nagwhal take you, tried to stop it, but I couldn’t, I was so weak…”
“I don’t really know how I survived to tell you the truth,” said Grunt, surprised to find that he was smiling. “But I think I can guess; it will take a lot of explaining, all of this will. I…”
“It’s okay Thomy, you must be hungry, please… sit; we can find you some food I think too.”
Grunt’s smile stretched across his face. “What’s so funny?” asked his brother.
“I’m not here to find shelter Thomy, I’m here to rescue you… all of you,” he said, looking at the other boys.
“Rescue us? But how? Everything is ice now, even the sea; we’ve been on the run, surviving on our own since… Well, I don’t know how long to be honest, it feels like forever.”
“Do you hear that?” asked Grunt.
“Hear what?” asked his brother.
A sound like thunder reverberated in the distance.
“What’s that?” asked one of the boys, his body gripped by violent shivers.
“Hope,” said Grunt, smiling broadly. “The ice age is over; the solar shield has been destroyed.”
“Solar shield? What are you talking about?” asked Thomen.
“It will take a lot of explaining.”
“Try me.”
“Later. Right now, I’ve got to get you and the rest of the survivors onto my ship…”
“There are other survivors? I thought we were the only ones… Wait, what’s this about a ship? Do you have a boat? What about the ice?”
Grunt smiled. His biggest yet. “Where we’re going we don’t need ships.”
“But you just said…”
“All in good time,” said Grunt, walking back down towards the tunnel. “We’ve got to rescue the other survivors first.”
“But…”
“Follow me if you want to live…”
“Alright alright keep your hair on,” said his brother scampering next to him. “There better be a hot dinner at the end of this.”
“As much food as you want, brother,” said Grunt.
“Promise?”
“Promise,” said Grunt, putting his hand on his shoulder. “The future starts here. For you. For me. For all of us.”
When Grunt, his brother, and the rest of the boys stepped out of the cave a thin dagger of sunlight was piercing through a fluffy layer of clouds, illuminating a growing band of bare, black rock. Waterfalls were spurting from the tops of cliffs, rivers snaking over the retreating glaciers. From where they were stood, they could see a huge sea emerging from the pack ice, its waves lapping gently against the sentinel-like cliffs. Everything is going to be alright, thought Grunt looking into the spreading bank of gold above him. Everything is going to be alright…
The dark mass of tentacles coiled around the boulder, sucking the minerals from the rock.
“It doesssn’t look like a Haa’drath,” hissed a voice.
“It will. In time,” hissed Xylem, turning to face the Xenti next to him. “It will grow. It mussst. We are dead otherwise.”
The other Xenti soldier nodded, his blood-red eyes fixated on the Haa’drath as it devoured another slab of rock. “And you’re cccertain of the technology used to create thisss thing?”
“It isn’t a thing,” hissed Xylem. “It’sss usss… our mother, our creator.”
“But we don’t even look…”
“A lot was lossst after the Ssscourge dessstroyed our World,” hissed Xylem. “Much has been forgotten; in time the Haa’drath will grow and give birth to new Xenti; without it we cannot thrive.”
“And then the Xenti civilisation can ssstart again,” hissed the Xenti. “And the galaxy will shake.”
“No, thisss time we do it differently,” hissed Xylem. “Thisss time we rise through peaccce. The pathsss of conquessst lead to the grave.”
“And the Ssscourge,” murmured the other Xenti.
“Yesss,” hissed Xylem, his jagged teeth broadening into what could have been a smile. “Our Empire will be one of peaccce and exploration, not war.”
The other Xenti smiled then too, they all did. “I was hoping you were going to sssay that,” he said.
Xylem smiled once more, exercising muscles that hadn’t been used in generations; he looked at the Haa’drath as it moved further down the long dark tunnel, crushing another boulder between its vice-like jaws; he smiled again.
Darkness wrapped them like a cloak, the cold air stroking their faces.
“What are we here for?” asked the boy.
“You’ll see,” said Kat, directing the boy towards a thin line of gold on the horizon.
“Anytime now,” said Padget, kissing Kat on the forehead.
“You said that last time,” said Kat.
“I… err… that was a miscalculation.”
“Look!” shouted the boy. “Over there.”
Suddenly the gold necklace on the horizon became a crown, light exploding outwards. They shielded their eyes, surprised by the glare.
When they opened them, they saw a clear blue sky filled with an armada of sheep-like clouds, flat plains snaked by fat, lazy rivers, gargantuan canyons iced with snow, and a line of hills bearded with trees the size of houses. Flocks of unknown birds took to the air and started to sing; animals emerged from shadowy caves, started to eat what little grass there was.
“Wow,” said Kat. “It’s…”
“Beautiful,” they both murmured at once.
“I told you the solar mirror would work,” said Padget. “Now we will have true equality on our world; those that live on the light side will no longer prey on those who inhabit the dark.”
“Freedom,” said Kat.
“Yes, it is,” said Padget, looking out across the green, sun-bright vista. “For all of us.”
Jack’s spaceship hummed with activity. He swooped over a procession of moons, asteroids and planets, searching, digging.
Sometimes he discovered what he was looking for, other times all he found was death. But he kept on searching, hoping. It was his last gift to her.
He found them alone, in groups, in the husks of desiccated cities and space colonies. The Scourge had been thorough in their destruction of Elaria, but the outer colonies had not been so unfortunate; life had clung on despite the worst excesses of Scourge brutality.
It took him months, but he found them all in the end. No one was left behind to face the night. The anti-dreadnut virus was used many times. And when he was finished he took them home.
To Elaria. Vyleria’s planet.
Despite the Scourge attack many of the buildings were still standing, the technology still in good working order; it was almost as though the civilisation had been sleeping and was only waiting for Jack to wake it up.
They thanked him of course, begged him to stay, help them re-build and re-establish their economies and off-world relations. He wanted to of course – desperately so – but one look at Elaria from orbit, of its towering cities and emerald seas, only reminded him of what he had lost. No, he would leave, had to. The universe was his home now…
Jack Strong and The Last Battle Page 20