Chapter 01

104 Days have passed since the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus left the Fallon System.

Aves Zilla – “In nine days time, this entire planet will become a molten sphere of fiery hot magma,” said Tactical Lieutenant Commander David Alkema.

Commander William Keeler pondered the enormity of what he had just heard. He could not help but feel a note of sadness about the destruction of this planet. As the shadow of his Aves flashed over its indigo seas and golden sands, he determined it was one of the most beautiful planets Pegasus had visited in all its journeys. Finally, he breathed a heavy sigh and rendered his decision. “All right, shore-leave is limited to one week for everybody. No exceptions!”

“Excellent command decision, sir,” Alkema assured him.

“That’s why they made me Commander,” he reached under his seat and opened the cabinet he had recently had installed on Zilla, which he had designated his Supreme Executive Commander Hands-Off This Means You Aves. In the custom-designed cabinet was a selection of brown liquids in glass bottles. He selected a fermented grain blend from the Hardscape of Aurora colony and poured a glass for himself and his Executive Officer. Keeler raised his glass. “To doomed planets.”

Alkema returned the gesture. “To doomed planets.”

Keeler downed his shot and spared a glance at the ground monitor as he poured another one. “Of course, all planets are doomed, in the long run.”

Their Aves passed over an archipelago of tall, tiny islands that rose high over the sea like a row of pillars.

“You’re certain there’s nothing we can do?” Keeler asked him.

“The rogue planet is too large, too close, and moving too fast. Even if we pulverized it with Nemesis warheads, the debris would still pound the planet to bits.” Alkema seemed disappointed that, for once, he would be unable to pull a miracle out of his pants. His reputation as wunderkind was fading. He had begun his tenure on Pegasus as an underage officer, rising through the ranks by cleverly getting his ship out of one predicament after another. Now, in his mid-twenties, he seemed older, even a little tired, a little puffy around the edges of his eyes. The black curls of his hair seemed to have lost some of their luster. Keeler attributed all of this to Alkema’s four kids and “fish-mongering wench of a wife.”

The Commander himself had never had children, and was increasingly grateful for it as he observed the effects of family life on his young Executive Officer.

“What if we opened a hyperspace portal in front of it?” Keeler suggested, and as he did so, realized he had suggested this before, when Alkema had first explained to him the planet’s predicament.

“That only works in science fiction, sir. We don’t have the power to open a portal that big,” Alkema explained, for the second time. He offered a promise, “I’m going to keep working on it, sir.”

Keeler took this news as an occasion to drink again. “Maybe if we had gone directly here instead of Crotoan, we would have had time to figure out something.”

The Croatoan sytem, to which Pegasus had headed directly after leaving the Fallon system, had proved to be a small dusty system of four barren, beaten up planets huddled around a cool, red star swathed in a cloud of interstellar debris and a massive asteroid field.

“I don’t know that it would have made any difference,” Alkema said.

“True, but I will always wonder if we could have saved the planet if we hadn’t wasted three weeks in that hell-hole of a star-system,” Keeler said.

“There was also that… Thing,” Alkema reminded Keeler.

“We agreed we would never discuss the Thing again,” Keeler snapped at Alkema.

“We agreed that would be best,” Alkema conceded.

“I hated that… Thing,” Keeler went on.

“We all did, sir,” Alkema replied.

The Aves passed over a coastline, where the sea was presided over by tall eroded cliffs that rose imperiously like the sandstone columns of a crumbling temple. Commander Keeler touched the control panel on the side of his custom leather Supreme Executive Commander massage chair and projected hologram images of the some of the planet’s abandoned cities. Their probes had found over sixty large cities and hundreds of smaller ones all across the planet.

“There were at least 300 million people living on this planet no more than a few local years ago,” Keeler announced, feeling the need to state once again their mission objective.

“Where did they all go?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out, sir… I hope.” Alkema replied. “Even if they had space travel, it would be extremely hard to evacuate a population of that size. I’m not even sure Sapphire could do it.”

“Oh, sure we could. We’d all just go over to Republic and ask if we could crash on their couch for a while.” He shut off the hologram displays and gulped his drink.

“What do you think it was like, when they first learned their world was going to be destroyed?” Alkema asked.

“Uncertainty at first,” Keeler replied. “Those who raised the danger would have been dismissed as alarmists and doomsayers. Then, as the prediction was confirmed, some would panic, others would try to figure out what, if anything, to do. There would have been a rash of suicides, an economic and social collapse, possibly. Some brave souls would get mind-numbingly intoxicated and remain in that condition until the final moment of doom.”

The voice of Blade Toto came through from the flight deck on their COM Links.

“Altitude is now 2,000 meters and speed is subsonic. We’ll be on the ground in about fourteen minutes. Strap yourselves in, if that’s what you have a mind to do.”

On the horizon, their destination loomed. In the planet’s high latitudes, in the center of a vast plain, a huge shape had been built. It was as large as a major city, and it consisted of a circle, surrounded by four sets of lines radiating outward from four perpendicular points.

“It’s called a Ziga,” Keeler said. “And it was a sun symbol in one of Old Earth’s primitive cultures.”

“Every city on the planet is dead,” Alkema double checked the sensor readings. “But that ‘Ziga’ is putting out as much energy as Pegasus’s gravity engines.” He literally licked his lips then, as though in anticipation of finding out what all that energy was being used for.

“It’s possible they built some sort of fleet there to evacuate some fraction of their population,” Keeler suggested. “That would explain some of the planet’s missing colonists, at least.”

“It would be interesting if they also evacuated to Fallon colony, and met up with the refugees from Hellfire,” Alkema suggested.

“Probably not as interesting as you would expect,” Keeler replied. Alkema zoomed the projection in on a spot 10 kilometers south of the giant structure. Here a vast aerospace port had been constructed, and a city-sized complex of large buildings surrounded it. Their landing coordinates were at the edge of the aerospace port. Zilla and its accompanying ship, Phoenix, slowed and descended as they approached the vast aerospace port. They settled down onto the tarmac, kicking up dust devils beneath their landing thrusters.

A few minutes later, their forward hatches opened and the landing crews stepped out to taste the air of this new planet. Even this far north, well above 60 degrees of latitude, the air was warm and dry. Gethsemane orbited an F-class sun, which gave its sky a golden hue and kept the planet warm as the deserts of Nef.

The Aves looked sleek and small compared with the other aerocraft that lined the sides of the runways. They looked like they could carry 1,000 passengers each, Keeler guessed. Their fuselages were oblong, with eight large engines clustered in two pods of four and nestled between double sets of wings. Each plane had the same blue and white characters stenciled on their polished metal skin.

“Lingotron’s getting it,” Alkema told him, as though reading his mind. “The form is somewhat unusual, combining aspects of the ancient Anglish and Mandar symbology. There was similar text discovered in the logs of the cargo ship we encountered. It reads,

‘P-E-R-A: Planetary Evacuation and Resettlement Authority.’ And then there’s a code number for the individual aircraft.”

“Remarkable,” Keeler said. “This must be some kind of launch facility.”

“Maybe the Ziga is a kind of launch accelerator,” Alkema suggested. He could picture how it could work in his mind; if the ships were built here and launched on some kind of accelerator, they could reach a high rate of speed without burning fuel, which could be saved for decelerating when they reached their destination.

General Kitaen approached from the Aves Phoenix, with a squad of six warfighters tailing him. Kitaen scared the crap out of Commander Keeler, which Keeler supposed was a good thing for his chief of security. A single stripe of blue-black warpaint graced his left cheekbone. The dusky sun glinted off his shaved head. “Commander, we detect a large group of people approaching from the group of buildings to the northeast.”

“Are they armed?” Keeler asked, although he knew from experience they would be armed. They were always armed.

“Most likely,” Kitaen affirmed, and he nodded to his adjutant, a tall thin Sapphirean female, whose face was plain but whose knockers were almost perfectly formed snow globes of joy. Warfighter Shield gave a command and six warfighters in black tactical gear clicked their pulse weapons to active defense mode.

Sixteen soldiers in gray uniforms and black battle-helmets came marching across the tarmac toward the Pegasus crew. The lead man, who had close-cropped white hair, a stern face marred by a long scar on one side, and an eyepatch the same color as his trim uniform, stopped his squad and demanded. “Who are you people?”

Keeler thumped his chest. “Me, William Keeler, Commander of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus. This is one of my officers, Lt. Cmdr. Dave Alkema. The tall fellow with the bare pectorals is Lt. Commander Kitaen. And these are other people. We come in peace… and such-like.”

“I am Thall,” the man announced.

“You’re also handthome,” Keeler lied.

“Are you the Kariad?” the man asked, narrowing his eyes. Except for blossoms of burst red capillaries at the tip of his nose, the man’s skin was pale and white.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Keeler replied, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Are you from the Kariad?” the man demanded again.

Keeler answered him this time. “Technically… neg, we are not of the Kariad, but we know of them.”

“Why have you come here?” Thall demanded.

“We’re selling cookies and magazines to win scholarships to space camp,” Keeler answered. “We wondered if we could have a moment to…”

Alkema (per their prior arrangement) cut him off, “We are explorers… and we noticed your planet is in a spot of trouble. It’s going to collide with another planet in nine days.”

“We are aware of that,” Thall informed him.

“Oh,” Keeler gave him a big bright smile. “So, um, do you need any help clearing out the place. We’ve got a nice big spaceship in orbit.”

“We have already made arrangements to evacuate the planet,” the man answered.

“That’s good,” Keeler said. “May I ask what arrangements those would be?”

Thall gestured for Keeler to be silent. He put the other hand to his earpiece. After some seconds he said, “Yes, Madame President. I will bring the visitors to you. (Break) … Yes, immediately Madame President.”

Thall addressed them. “The President wants to see you. Walk this way.”

“If I could walk that way…” Keeler began, then decided not to go with it. He followed Thall toward the main building, just as a trio of large, wheeled land vehicles came from around the side. These were also labeled “PERA.”

Keeler turned to Kitaen. “I don’t think we all need to go. Just me, the kid, you, and a few armed men… and her.” He pointed to Warfighter Shield.

Kitaen agreed and ordered some of his men to remain with the ships. The other landing teams were loaded onto the vehicles and driven across the base to a large ugly building from whose front the Ziga was visible on the horizon.

Kitaen’s warfighters waited in front of the building while Keeler, Kitaen, and Alkema were led inside and down a long reception hall to a kind of conference room at the end. Where they sat and waited, and waited, and waited for well over an hour, until the leader of the planet deigned to see them.

Thall announced her arrival. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the People’s Quorum of Gethsemane, her eminence, Hildegard Kahn.”

She entered imperiously. Kahn was a shortish woman, with a mop of blond hair gone platinum. She was not notably fat, but her hips were disproportionately wide. She wore an unflattering yellow and black pantsuit that made her look like some kind of bumblebee. Keeler began to stand up. “Don’t stand up,” Kahn ordered him sharply. “Just tell me what you’re doing here… Commander Keeler, is it?”

Keeler nodded and withdrew the hand he had been preparing to offer. “Our ship was in the stellar neighborhood and we thought we would drop in. We detected a large planetoid on a collision course with your world, and we thought we might … possibly…

help you in some way.”

She cackled. That was the only way to describe the insincere, dismissive laughter that erupted from her. “No assistance is necessary. The Kariad warned us of the impending disaster thirty years ago. We took steps to deal with the crisis.”

“What steps did you take, may I ask?” Keeler inquired, more than the usual deference in his voice.

“At that point in time, I invoked Emergency Powers and took over Executive Authority of the Quorum,” Kahn raised a finger to indicate the importance of the next point. “In secret! Because we did not want to cause widespread panic.”

“Of course.” Keeler hoped he sounded neutral.

Kahn went on. “The Kariad instructed us in the construction of the Project we code-named ‘Heaven’s Gate.’” She gestured toward the window, from which the Ziga could be seen on the horizon. “The Gateway was built under conditions of Supreme secrecy.”

“Right, of course, supreme secrecy,” Keeler repeated.

“When the Gateway was completed, fifteen years ago, we began the process of planetary evacuation.”

“Through the gate,” Keeler deduced.

“Precisely,” Kahn affirmed. “And while it’s quite… extraordinary to receive visitors from other colonies at this late date, we really have no time to meet with you. I suggest you return to your ship.”

“What does the Gateway do?” Keeler asked. “Where were they evacuated to?”

“To Heaven,” she answered, scowling at him as though he were stupid.

“Is that the name of a colony?” Keeler asked.

She huffed impatiently, “No, the Gateway allows your soul to pass through to the Afterworld, without having to die.”

This was too much even for a slightly intoxicated Commander Keeler to take. Really?”

He challenged her.

“Yes,” Kahn said, scowling and angry that anyone would disbelieve her.

“And this isn’t some weird science-fiction plot where you dupe the populace into believing you’re sending them to a better place, when in fact, it turns out to be a mass suicide machine?” Keeler pressed, certain he had seen a plot like this in an old episode of the popular holo-fiction drama, The Scary Zone of Unpredictable Madness.

“There’s nothing science fiction about it,” Kahn snapped back at him. “Aliens calling themselves the Kariad warned us thirty-two years ago that our planet was going to collide with another, then instructed us in the construction of a meta-dimensional gateway that allows us free passage to the realm of the Afterworld.”

Keeler was skeptical. Pegasus had run across prior worlds visited by the Kariad…

Yronwode and Fallon, specifically. And wherever the Kariad had visited, catastrophe followed. “Is that what Kariad told you? That this… device… takes you to Heaven?”

“The Kariad only told us it would take us to another place where we would be safe,”

she replied. “We did not know it was Heaven until the first travelers went through.”

“How do you know it is Heaven?” Keeler asked. He was almost sure this was some kind of scheme, but he did not know what yet.

“Because those who went through came back and told us what lay on the other side,”

she insisted. “And their description matched precisely with our philosophical construct of the ideal Afterworld.”

Keeler almost fell over at that. “You mean you can make a round trip… to the Afterworld.”

“Yes,” Kahn insisted, her tone so exasperated that it made Keeler and Alkema think of Goneril Lear… albeit older and with less fashion sense.

“As a man of faith, I would be curious to know what the Afterworld is like,” Kitaen put in.

“It is much like Gethsemane,” Kahn replied, the brittle edge of her voice softening, but only a little. “Only much, much … better.”

“So, the Afterworld you access through this Heaven’s Gate is consistent with your religious conception of the AfterWorld?” Kitaen continued.

“Yes,” she replied impatiently.

“And what was your planet’s dominant system of religious expression,” Kitaen continued.

“NIM,” she answered.

Kitaen scowled. “NIM? I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with NIM.”

Thall interrupted. “Neo-Iestan Mysticism. NIM holds that the Afterworld is an extension of, and shaped by, our consciousness, hence this Afterworld is a product of our collective consciousness, our collective conception of what a perfect world should be. We built the Gateway in the shape of the Zina, the holy symbol of NIM.”

“It’s pronounced ‘Ziga,’” Keeler interrupted.

Kahn cut Thall off. “Thall, shut the hell up. It’s enough that I have to see you mound-kickers every day. I’m not going to talk to you, too. Just do your gawddam job and keep your mouth shut.”

Thall shut up. Keeler of course, did not. “If you are so certain that you can go to Heaven without dying, why haven’t you left?”

“There are still a few hundred of us here, and we will wait until the last day. I want to make sure all of my people are safe before I leave. That’s leadership.”

“Unh-huh,” Keeler nodded. “So, could I see this gate in action?”

Kahn had been growing steadily more pissed as the conversation had progressed. Now, she looked like her reflex reaction was to deny their request, but this impulse was over-ridden by her want to overcome their skepticism. “We’re sending the last personnel from the Office of Sustainment through this hour. If you are willing to follow our conditions, you may observe.”

“This I got to see,” Keeler said.

Without looking at Thall, Kahn ordered, “Major Thall will take your party to the Embarkation area. I will join you there. But first I need to speak to him in private.”

The three from Pegasus excused themselves, and Thall closed the door behind them. Almost immediately a tirade, barely muffled by the heavy wooden door, erupted. Kahn’s voice was shrill and hectoring. “This is the kind of mound I have to put up with while I’m trying to evacuate an entire furking planet! If I ever want your gawddam opinion I’ll ask you for your gawddam opinion. And don’t think that’s likely to happen, buddy, because you are a furking idiot. You’re here to guard my ass and open the gawddam doors and aside from that, you keep your gawddam mouth shut.”

This went on for several minutes longer than was necessary. Alkema turned to Kitaen and saw that his face was red. “Are you embarrassed?”

Kitaen looked down at the floor and nodded.

“I’m sure Mr. Thall can take it,” Alkema offered.

“I’m embarrassed for her,” Kitaen clarified.

The door opened again and Thall exited. His face was stony. Apparently, he was long accustomed to being on the receiving end of Kahn’s tirades. “Follow me, gentlemen,” he said politely, and led them to the far side of the building to a kind of tram station where a pair of monorail pods waited for them.

The twenty minute trip took them across an arid, rocky landscape of mildly interesting desolation. Most of Gethsemane’s land area was semi-arid desert, with vegetation confined to bands along the rivers and the coasts of its shallow seas. Though eroded hills rose in the distance, there was nothing on this flat plain like the grandeur of the coasts. Once past the open plain, the monorail ran between two of the rays of the Ziga. Kitaen looked over the side of the tram and admired the workmanship that went into the beams radiating out from the circle. Thall explained helpfully. “The beams are made of a cobalt-molybdenum alloy. Inside of them are rods of super-conductive material. They direct energy in toward the center of the circle.”

“What is the source of the energy?” Alkema asked.

“Zero point energy derived from quantum fields in subspace,” Thall answered.

“Very advanced,” Kitaen observed.

Thall admitted, “It is Kariad technology. We did not invent it.”

“It taps into the magnetic field of your planet, doesn’t it?” Alkema asked.

“I think so,” Thall answered. “I don’t really understand how it works.”

Alkema turned to Kitaen. “That explains why we detected an EM distortion field covering most of the planet’s surface. The planet Fallon had something similar, but it was localized and not nearly as powerful.”

“I remember,” Kitaen assured him.

The Tram dove underground, passed through a tunnel, and finally pulled up to a docking ramp. The station was part of an enormous, cavernous space notably larger than one of Pegasus’s hangar decks. Only one other of the huge docks was occupied, this by a long train of twenty empty cars.

Keeler realized after a moment that he was standing at the dock, staring up into the dome of rock with the slack-jawed, eyes-wide expression of a yokel seeing a Republic megacity for the first time.

“The other six lines aren’t used any more. We parked the trains in their tunnels.” Kitaen explained. Another tram pulled up behind his and Kahn emerged, surrounded by a coterie of aides and guards. She ignored the landing party and went her own way.

“The control room, let me show you it,” Thall said. He led them away from the boarding dock, down a short corridor, and up two levels to the control room. It was a surprisingly small room, an eighth the size of Pegasus’s Main Bridge, and a lot of it was taken up with banks of technology that blinked and hummed. Four men sat at desks in the front of the room, looking into old-style monitor screens. A smaller display in the center console was counting down:

Next Gate: 00:03:52

A sort of enclosed balcony protruded out from the rear that overlooked that vast round parade ground that surrounded the Gateway itself. Thall offered Keeler a set of binoculars, the better to scan the huge space, but Keeler declined. “Built in Zoom feature on our Spex,”

he explained.

“Spex?” Thall asked.

“A kind of vision augmentation built into … the gear we wear when visiting planets,”

Alkema explained further.

“Really? How interesting,” Thall said.

The center of the circle of the Ziga enclosed a space larger than the groundball stadium at the University of Sapphire at New Cleveland (which held 214,000 screaming Armpit Avenger fans and drunken alumni.) A metal ring of pure gold marked the interior circumference, forming a wall two-meters in height. The floor had once been white, but was scuffed and warped by the passage of millions of evacuees. In the center of the circle was a tall parabolic arch two hundred meters tall. Thall pointed toward the arch. “The departure party should be assembling by the gateway arch about now.”

Keeler, Alkema, and Kitaen zoomed their vision. There were about thirty people standing on the parade ground in front of the arch. They were dressed in white robes and dark glasses and alternated expectant glances between the arch and each other Alkema asked one of the men working the controls about one of the displays. The man was happy to explain. “These show the capacitors holding energy. It takes them about four hours to build to a one hundred percent charge.”

As the clock reached one minute, lights began flashing and a recorded voice that sounded a lot like Hildegard Kahn’s announced. “One minute to gate activation.”

A shield began sliding over the viewing windows at the rear of the control room. Thall indicated a display screen on the far wall, “You can observe the rest of the activation from here.”

When the clock hit 00:00:00, light appeared on the golden ring and in less than a second it traveled all the way around it, making it glow with bright white light. The moment it completed its circuit, the arch emitted a lightning flash of brilliant white light that seemed to penetrate their eyelids, bones and souls.

The afterimage blinded them for several long moments. Keeler willed his eyes to clear and stumbled toward the viewing window as the shield slid aside. Out on the parade ground, the entire group of people had vanished without a trace.

“Neat,” Keeler said.

“It isn’t over,” Thall told them. “We’re receiving an envoy from New Gethsemane. He will transport at the completion of…”

Before Thall could finish, the light circled the ring again, and there was another over-bright flash of light. When the after-image faded, a man stood in the middle of the ring, dressed in a colorful robe and looking happily disoriented. He was tall and dark skinned, with a thatch of tightly curled black hair going gray. Though elderly, he looked well-fed and robust.

“I’d like to talk to him,” Keeler said.

“The Passage through the Gate leaves you disoriented,” Thall warned, but he led them down a flight of stairs and across the parade ground in the center of the ring, which had a strange ozone-like sting in its air. Hildegard Kahn and one of her co-councilors were already greeting the envoy.

“Minister Oberth, the Five Welcomes of Unity extend to you,” said Kahn.

“I like pudding!” The man exclaimed at the top of his voice.

“We’ll see that you get some,” Thall promised the man.

“Who?” the man demanded in a loud voice. Thall carefully unpinned a folded sheaf of papers that was attached to the front of the man’s robe and handed them over to Hildegard Kahn, who snatched them away and held them jealously close.

“Because we can’t rely on memories of the Afterworld, reports have to be written and passed through an envoy,” Thall explained.

The tall man blinked at him, and as he became accustomed to his surroundings, a look of disappointment set in.

“What’s wrong?” Keeler asked.

“Oh, you know, it’s just that it’s such an adjustment to be back in here,” Oberth said patting his groin. “The bodies we have in New Gethsemane are so young and vigorous, nothing of the infirmities of age. You can play stickball and Buck-Buck and Johnny-on-the-Pony all day long and you never get tired. But then you gotta come back to this old body and your pubes are going all gray and all you can say is…” He broke into a shout, “‘What the Hell! My pubes are gray!’”

“Thall, take Minister Oberth to his chambers before he embarrasses himself,” Kahn ordered.

“Too late, I peed my pants!” Oberth declared.

“You aren’t wearing pants,” Thall reminded him.

“I peed something!” Oberth insisted.

“Now!” Kahn insisted. She turned over to Commander Keeler. “Regrettably, the journey between worlds confuses the mind. He will be all right and a day or so. If you are satisfied, I think you should leave now.”

“May I see it?” Keeler asked. “New Gethsemane. May I travel through your ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and get a look at the AfterWorld for myself?”

Kahn looked as if she were about to say no, but Oberth piped up with enthusiasm.

“Why, of course you can.”

“I’ll take that as an affirmation, then,” Keeler replied.

Chapter 02

Pegasus – Keeler’s Quarters (24 hours later) – As he prepared to return to the planet, Commander Keeler found himself in a conundrum: What was one supposed to wear when journeying to the AfterLife. On the one hand, it seemed something light and dressed-down would be in order, but on the other hand, what if he ran into the Allbeing? Shouldn’t he try and dress up a little?

Eventually, he decided on a combination of jacket and trousers in Navy blue with a gold shirt that he had often worn to the North Shore Yachting Club in New Cleveland back on his home planet of Sapphire. It came with a jaunty sailing cap, but Keeler decided he was too old to pull off that look and left the hat in its drawer.

“What do you think, Pops?” he asked of Dead Keeler.

The ghost (sort of) of his deceased ancestor Lexington Keeler hovered nearby in a gray mist of ectoplasm. “You look like a Delta City funny-boy.”

Live Keeler took another look at himself in the holo-mirror and preened. “That’s what you always say.”

“You are, by the way, a damned fool for doing this,” Dead Keeler added. “You really think the Almighty lets folks just sashay on into the Afterlife.”

“Sashay?” Live Keeler replied, checking the side-view in his mirror. “In this outfit?”

“I don’t know what sort of fool contraption they got down there,” the Old Man fumed.

“But it ain’t no Gateway to no Afterlife. Probably some weird science fiction euthanasia deal, where they trick you into think you’re going to heaven, then they kill you.”

“Neg, we’ve already ruled that out,” Live Keeler said. “It is a Kariad device, and that alone is enough to intrigue me. Everywhere they go, they leave chaos and decay in their wake.”

“I see why it’s so imperative that you risk your life jumping through a giant Kariad death machine then,” Dead Keeler… um, deadpanned.

Live Keeler smiled and raised his index finger. “Aha! That’s exactly the point! Who are these Kariad? Are they aliens, or are they one of the human races left behind. Why do they feel the need to screw with all the human colonies on this end of the galaxy. It’s important to know that, I think. Worth a risk of seeing what’s on the other side of that gateway.”

“What a load,” the Dead Guy scoffed. “We both know the real reason you’re going through that hellmouth is…”

They were dramatically interrupted by the commander’s door chimes. Live Keeler exited his sleeping chamber and passed into the main room of his quarters, a large and comfortable space dominated by a fireplace, large beige couches, and a wall of shelves filled with archaeological knick-knacks and souvenirs from the various worlds Pegasus had called up. He signaled the hatch to open.

Waiting outside was Keeler’s former Tactical Officer, Philip John Miller Redfire, who, ever since losing his memory three years previously, had been keeping bar in Pegasus’s Officers Club. “Greetings, old friend,” Keeler bade him enter into his quarters and make himself comfortable on this couch.

“You seem especially jolly,” Redfire observed.

Keeler offered Redfire a drink, which he declined. “To what do I owe the honor of your company? Does it have to do with the colliding planets? Have you recovered your childlike sense of joy and wonder at mass destruction?”

Redfire looked out through the virtual window at the sandy-brown and turquoise planet turning beneath the ship. “From what I understand of his journals, the old me would have enjoyed this immensely. Now, it just seems a horrible, tragic waste. When that planet explodes, no human artifact will survive, barring a miracle. Of course, miracles happen with a frequency that defies attempts to declare the universe random and meaningless. Nevertheless, a thankless waste.”

“But it will look really cool,” Live Keeler argued. He offered Redfire another drink, which Redfire again politely refused. Commander Keeler had already poured the drink, and was in no mood to let it go to waste, so he downed it himself.

“Do you really think the Gethsemanians found a way to access the Afterlife?” Redfire asked.

Keeler all but snorted his answer. “Neg. I honestly don’t know what kind of scam they’re playing here, but I’m curious to find out.”

“You think it’s some kind of hoax?”

“Some kind, za. I don’t believe for a minute they’re going to the Afterlife, but Dave Alkema’s has a team scanning, and probing, and studying the reports of those who’ve gone into and come back from the other side.” He gestured dismissively toward a datapad that had the report displayed on it. “He doesn’t think they’re killing people, or putting them inside some sort of weird virtual environment.”

“How does he know that?”

Keeler picked up the pad that contained the report Alkema had summarized for him and handed it to Redfire. “Dave told me that the energy signature the Gateway produces is similar to what happens when Pegasus enters or leaves hyperspace. I don’t know where they’re going or coming from, but they are definitely going somewhere, and Alkema tells me it could possibly be somewhere completely outside our universe.”

Keeler smiled and added. “If so, this could be my big chance to get away from it all.”

Redfire didn’t laugh. Even before his abduction, he had been a taciturn sort of man.

“Could it be a giant teleporter? Some speculate that the Commonwealth possessed teleporter technology.”

“Za, well, there’s lots of speculation about the Commonwealth,” Keeler countered. “The problem is, our forebears were prodigious generators of fiction and legends, and we don’t know what accounts are historical documentation and what are works of fiction. There are numerous accounts of teleporters in Commonwealth literature. But there are also well-documented situations in which use of a teleporter would have been a great asset, but they were not used. And even with the technology we salvaged from the Caliph probe, we’ve never been able to figure out how to make matter-energy conversion work with enough reliability to teleport anyone. I need another drink.” And, with that pronouncement, he poured himself two glasses and set one nearer to Redfire on his drinks table.

Redfire set the datapad next to his drink, because he already knew what was in it. He changed the subject. “Have you studied this religion of NIM they follow on Gethsemane?”

“Not really,” Keeler replied. “And by not really, I mean not at all.” Religion, honestly, had always been a gray area for the commander. He had been raised a Theologian of Christian aspect, but never had gotten the hang of ‘belief.’ He always figured he would work on it later. Most Sapphireans spent their waning years in Retirement Monasteries in the Arcadia and Panrovia provinces, and while Keeler was fairly certain he didn’t want to do that, he expected to come to terms with the Allbeing ‘at some point.’ And he really meant it as long as no one pressed on when ‘at some point’ actually started. Redfire had discussed the NIM religion in detail with Eddie Roebuck and General Kitaen. “NIM is a sort of Gnostic version of fundamentalist Iestanism.”

“If you say so,” Keeler interrupted.

Redfire pressed on. “The NIM believe that we influence Heaven as much as Heaven influences us. That we, all humans, are each one aspect of a celestial consciousness. Humankind is simply materialized thought operating on the 42nd vibration, so say the Nims. They believe that their heaven is shaped by their collective consciousness.”

Keeler took this in while nursing a long drink. Finally, he said, “Doesn’t that sort of diminish the Allbeing? I mean, that sort of makes God out to be some sort of politician, letting everyone vote on what heaven is. And the meaning of life just amounts to casting your vote. And what if the version of heaven that 50% plus one vote on is Hell for the other 50% minus one?”

“It isn’t that simple,” Redfire told him. “General Kitaen tells me that many prophets have claimed to have seen visions of heaven, but that these visions were limited by their human capabilities of perception. And the Gethsemanians who have returned report the same thing, that passing back through the Gateway limited their ability to recall or convey what they had seen.”

“Of course they would say that, but that illustrates the silliness, doesn’t it?” Keeler frowned. This was why he didn’t get religion, he decided. “Anyway, get to the point. You didn’t come here to debate theology with me.”

Redfire got to the point. “I want to go with you.”

“Why?”

“Because some believe that when we die, all the truths of the universe are revealed to us,” Redfire replied.

“And you believe that load?”

Redfire shrugged. “I need to know the truth about myself. Who am I, really? And why am I here?”

“So, then, you do believe that load.”

Redfire leaned closer to him, and there was an intensity in his eyes Keeler had not seen since before the amnesia had taken hold. “It’s been three years, almost four, since you rescued me from that planet, and I haven’t recalled anything. I had a wife I can’t remember. I read my old journals and they sound like they were written by a completely different man. And nothing the mind-doctors and the truth-machines have done for me have given me even one clue or brought back a single memory. I don’t have anything to lose. If anything, I should go, and you should stay behind.”

When he finished, Keeler set his unfinished drink down on the table. “All right, then, you can come with me. Every Dante needs his Virgil, and every Bill needs his Ted.”

Pegasus – Main Bridge – Specialist Atlantic felt Pegasus acknowledge when the ship reached the revised coordinates. "Orbit re-established at 14,400 kilometers, polar at 37-point-five degrees inclination.”

TyroCommander Change sounded satisfied for once. “Very good, Mr. Atlantic. Maintain this orbit for the next 6 hours."

Pegasus’s acting executive officer turned her attention to the rest of the details on her command priority list. A minute or two later, she touched the COM Link and confirmed the Geosciences Laboratory was ready to monitor and record the next Gateway activation. She then turned her attention back to the command schedule, and then linked to Geological Survey again to inquire about a different item. The Bridge Crew overheard only her side of the conversation.

“It’s been brought to my attention that Geological Survey Core requested an Aves to map the rogue planet. What is the justification for this request? … Why are we conducting a detailed survey of a planetary body that won’t exist in a few days … But what real use is the terrain map of a doomed asteroid? … (sigh) … Request approved with one change. Aves Ginger will take the terrain mapping mission instead of Prudence. I’ll instruct Flight Operations to install terrain-mapping equipment in its sensor bay. Change out.”

She looked at the next item on her command schedule. Acting Tactical Chief Kitaen was requesting permission to conduct urban combat search and rescue drills in some of the abandoned cities, as well as conduct air-to-ground combat drills. She briefly visualized Aves firing Hammerhead missiles into devastated cities, then decided that wasn’t going to happen. She approved the combat search and rescue drills and denied the bombing runs pending further review.

When she had finished the command list, she pushed its display back into the arm of her command chair and barked a crisp order. "Mrs. Winterborn you may relieve Mr. Atlantic at helm. Mr. Atlantic, I will speak with you in the command conference room." Among the crew of Pegasus, the words “I want to speak to you” from TyroCommander change ranked somewhere between “you have received a fatal dose of radiation” and

“Eddie Roebuck would like to discuss religion with you” on the list of things crewmen were most eager to here.

Atlantic rose from his station, shoulders slumped as though bearing the weight of a large, smelly animal carcass, and followed TyroCommander Change off the Main bridge. The other Bridge crew shifted sympathetically as he followed Change into the Briefing Room. Some of the more religious muttered prayers, thanking the Allbeing it was Atlantic and not them.

Inside the conference chamber, Change took a position at the head of the large, conference table, and indicated that he should take a seat near to her.

“Flight Captain Driver will be joining us,” she informed him.

“Why?” Atlantic asked.

She surprised him by saying, “Because you are the only other person on the ship besides him who knows the last system we visited was not Croatoan.”

Atlantic admitted. “I knew the navigational coordinates you gave me were wrong.”

“And yet, you entered them into the NAV Core anyway, why was that?” she challenged him.

“Is this a test?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What am I being tested about?”

Change scowled. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll let you know.”

Atlantic told her what he thought was the truth. “Because you ordered me, to.”

He could not read from the look on her face whether that was the right answer, so he continued, “Is that what I was supposed to do?”

“Of course it is, and I would add that it’s a good thing Lt. Cmdr. Alkema knows better than to check my navigational inputs,” she smiled a little bit at that, which unnerved Atlantic deeply. “Do you know why I gave you the wrong coordinates?”

“I knew it wasn’t a mistake,” Atlantic admitted.

The hatch chimed just then. She opened it to reveal Flight Captain Driver. He had been on the Odyssey Mission for eleven years, two years longer than the rest of them, but the people of Republic and Sapphire were long-lived, and he remained trim and handsome in his Flight Core uniform. His eyes were brown and thoughtful. His hair was also brown, but, being hair, was not quite so thoughtful.

He extended greeting to them. “TyroCommander Change, Specialist Atlantic. It is good to see both of you.”

If she seemed warmer than usual to Atlantic, she turned almost balmy at the arrival of Flight Captain Driver. “Hello, Matt, take a seat next to Kyle. We need to talk.”

Atlantic thought , Matt? Kyle? It was like hearing your parents use their first names on each other. It just wasn’t right. Driver took a seat next to Atlantic while Change pulled up a pair of reports on her datapad.

“Save the children of Gethsemane,” she said spiritedly. “Does that sound familiar to you?”

Driver nodded. “When we on CH-53 Liminix, I experienced a flashback to my time in the Chronos Universe, and that phrase was in the vision that I had.”

Change addressed Atlantic. “As I reviewed your report from the planet Fallon, that same phrase jumped out at me. ‘Save the children of Gethsemane.’”

Atlantic remembered. How could he forget? The message had been passed to him by a hallucination of Specialist Brainiacsdaughter he had experienced on Fallon colony. He had almost not included it in his mission report.

Driver was surprised. “You mean, two of us had the same phrase come to us, and now we’re here at Gethsemane.”

“No,” Change corrected. “Three of us had that phrase come to us. I’ve been hearing that phrase in the back of my mind ever since we arrived in the Orion Quadrant. In the last year, it’s dominated my every waking hour. And I knew we had to get to Gethsemane.

“When Commander Keeler ordered us to Croatoan, I deliberately gave him coordinates that would lead us to the wrong system, and make Gethsemane the nearest system after.”

Driver added quietly. “I had a strong feeling the last system we visited was not Croatoan.”

Change went on. “If we had gone to Croatoan, we would have been delayed, and we never would have made it to the Gethsemane system in time.”

“Why didn’t you take us directly to Gethsemane then?” Atlantic asked.

“The transit would have taken too long. Even Alkema would have figured it out,” she explained. “I thought we would be able to dismiss the system we arrived in quickly, and then move on to Gethsemane. I did not anticipate the presence of a polymorphic entity in the system we arrived at.”

She gestured to the three of them. “All three of us are Navigators. I have the gift strongly. Specialist Atlantic somewhat less than I, and you, dear Matthew, have just enough to sense the future when you’re in contact with someone who is a stronger precognitive than you. But all three of us understand we need to be in this system.”

Atlantic frowned. He never asked for the gift of precognition, and if it meant having to deal with weird crap like this all the time, then he was even less thrilled with it.

“All well and good,” Driver said. “But the population of Gethsemane found their own way off the planet. We don’t need to rescue them.”

“So it appears,” said Eliza Change. …”

“Maybe it’s not literally the children of Gethsemane we’re here to save,” Atlantic suggested. “Maybe it’s something else.”

“I don’t know what it is, but I know we’re not through here,” Change argued. “I sense it. You do, as well. That’s why I called us together. I can’t see the meaning of the vision right now, but I think it will soon become clear to all of us.”

Pegasus – Travel Tubeway – David Alkema rode with Keeler on the Transport Pod to the Hangar Bay, and took advantage of the trip to make a last pitch at talking his commander out of going.

“I just don’t see why you are putting yourself through the risk. There are surely other personnel who we could risk. I could go.”

Keeler continued staring straight ahead. “You have a wife and… how many kids are you up to?”

“Four.”

“Four kids, most of whom are yours, as far as you know.” Keeler shook his head.

“Sorry, kid, I need to do this. And before you ask ‘why’ it’s for reasons you could not possibly understand.”

Before Alkema could pitch another argument, Keeler continued. “While I am absent, I have approved orders placing TyroCommander Change in command, you will serve as Executive Commander, or whatever the title is.” Keeler paused. “And if for any reason I do not return, those orders will become permanent…”

“You’ll come back,” Alkema said, sounding almost prayerful.

“Who knows, I might like it on the other side,” Keeler mused. “In any case, review the missions I left in your command docket. The most important one is the cultural survey. I want you to take a team to the largest city…”

“Port Gethsemane,” Alkema interrupted.

“… and as many of the other large cities as you can get to in the time remaining, and I want you to recover any databases and any artifacts that may be of interest. Look for museums, large commercial centers, libraries… If you can find recordings of their dramas, their comedies, their informational broadcasts, that would be the best. Entertainment is how cultures imagine themselves …”

Alkema protested. “You’re talking about looting the planet…”

Keeler thundered. “Why not? Gethsemane was the major port-of-call for colony and trading ships for three sectors of space. There may be extensive records, star charts, archeological artifacts. We may even find a star chart with the location of Earth on it. The planet’s going to be rubble in a few days, four thousand years of human history are about to be destroyed, unless we loot them first.”

“What if Kahn refuses?” Alkema reported.

“And why should that be a problem?” Keeler asked. “She’s isolated at the Gateway with a small garrison of security people. They are in no position to stop us.”

With that the argument ended, as the transport pod arrived at the Hangar Bay. Pegasus – Hangar Bay Alpha – Phil Redfire was waiting for him. Keeler felt oddly happy that Ranking Phil would be joining him on this journey. He had missed the companionship of his former Tactical Officer, and if he had to go through the gateway with anyone, he would have chosen Redfire. “Good Afterdawn, Ranking Phil. Ready to ring the curtain down and join the choir invisible?”

Redfire nodded, and looked away. “I asked Eddie Roebuck if he wanted to join us.”

“Who?” Keeler asked.

Alkema reminded him. “The Brianist Holy Man you fought an apocalyptic battle with back on Yronwode, Back when you were the leader of the Ten Tribes of the Tsi Bai.”

Keeler frowned. “I’m almost sure I would have remembered something like that.”

“Eddie Roebuck didn’t want to come,” Redfire continued. “He said it was not the business of mortal man to try and get a sneak peek at Eternity.”

“That’s a Holy Man for you,” Keeler replied.

“How do you mean?” Redfire asked.

“Um, I don’t really know. It just seemed like something to say.” He dismissed Alkema with a stern admonition to conduct the cultural survey and began walking toward the dock where the Aves Zilla awaited to take him back to the surface.

“What do you think it will be like?” Redfire asked.

Keeler turned over his hands. “I don’t know, but if I end up playing chess with a skinny guy in a robe and hood, I’m going to be incredibly disappointed.”

As they came to the Aves’s hatch, they were met by an incredibly sexy woman carrying a landing pack. Her skin was a lustrous caramel color, her hair dark blonde, and her Science Core uniform was stretched tight over the relatively few parts of her body that weren’t exposed.

She checked the name on the side of the Aves to make sure she was at the right ship, then prepared to lift her two heavy bags into it.

“Let me help you with those,” Redfire offered.

“Thanks, but I can handle them.” The way she said this was sweet, in the vein of “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” rather than, “Back off! I can carry my own bags.”

“I know you,” Redfire said. “Lt. Scientist Hardcandy Banks. You sit at a corner table, late evenings, you drink a single Panrovian cordial.”

“Panrovian cordial,” Keeler interrupted. “Is that when the Panvorian asks politely before he pees in your sink?”

Hardcandy Banks smiled, showing white perfect teeth. “I’m from Panrovia province, Commander.”

“O.K, I’ll repeat the joke slowly…” Keeler offered.

“There will be no need for that,” she assured him. She was cool as a Borealan cucumber. Keeler realized he would not be able to get under her skin, or any other part of her.

But it didn’t stop him from trying. “If you’re the hostess on this strip, remember I like my martinis wet and occasional neck message before take-off, before landing, and throughout the flight as needed. I’m a very tense man.”

“Commander, I’m here as a scientist.”

“I didn’t ask for your life story,” Keeler protested.

“Why are you here?” Redfire asked.

She smiled. “I’m going to study the Gateway. As a high energy physicist, I want to study how it works, and see if we can learn something from it.”

“You do know that seven days from now, this planet turns to rubble,” Keeler reminded her.

Banks interrupted, “Actually, it will be a ball of molten magma surrounded by a debris field of rocky material. Eventually, it will coalesce back into a planet, and probably be habitable in another few hundred million years or so.” She grinned. “I have a sub-discipline in geology.”

Blade Toto appeared at Zilla’s hatch, where his eyes accidentally met with Hardcandy Banks’s for a brief second.

“Hoy,” he said awkwardly.

“Hoy,” she answered, in a tone that was not cool, but actually icy. Blade Toto had been more or less Keeler’s pilot of choice for the last eight years. He had grown up a lot in that time, no longer looking like a scary young hick from the badlands of Sapphire’s Graceland province. Now, he looked like a scary, grown-up hick from the badlands of Graceland province.

Looking past her, Toto told Keeler and Redfire. “Pre-flight check is complete. How many besides you guys?”

“I’ll have four technicians joining me,” Hardcandy Banks replied while busying herself with the large packs of instruments she was bringing, obviously to avoid looking directly at the pilot.

Blade Toto looked unaffected, mumbled “OK,” and went back into his ship. Keeler and Redfire follower him in, leaving Banks on the landing dock to wait for her crew.

“They used to date,” Redfire whispered to Keeler as they entered the main deck.

“Used to,” Keeler sputtered. He reached out and cuffed Blade Toto hard upside the head. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Chapter 03

Gethsemane – Heaven’s Gate – There was a thin veil of dusky cloud in the morning sky as Zilla descended and parked at the edge of the Gateway Complex. Thall and a pair of guards met the crew outside the hatch and drove them into the complex.

“There are 140 scheduled departures for today, aside from you two,” Thall explained to Keeler and Redfire as the bus trundled into a tunnel beneath the entrance. “You’ll be segregated from the other departures, the two of you, so you’ll be… separated from people from our planet when you pass through.”

“Why?” Keeler asked.

“President Kahn thinks that your presence could prove disruptive to the other departures.” Thall explained.

Keeler turned to Redfire and wiggled his eyebrows. “My reputation precedes me.”

Just as he said that, there came a rumbling sound. A few seconds later, the ground beneath them shivered.

“Are groundquakes common on your planet?” Redfire asked.

Thall assured him, “That’s the gravitational flux created by the rogue planet.”

Hardcandy Banks was surprised. “The rogue planet should still be too far away to trigger groundquakes.”

But there was more on Keeler’s mind than geophysics. He butted in to ask Thall, “What was it like, when you found out your planet was doomed.”

Thall seemed a bit startled by the question. “I haven’t much thought about it. I was just a boy when the Kariad warned us of the rogue planet. It’s been part of my life as long as I can remember.”

Keeler persisted. “Did people panic? Were there riots?”

Thall set his jaw. He looked too old to have been a boy when the Kariad came. “Not very many. It seemed like a long time away, at first. Thirty years. The Emergency government called up an emergency conscription to keep public order. When I was 19, I was conscripted into the security forces. A few years later, the Gateway became operational. I was stationed at the Port Gethsemane Relocation Point for ten years during the height of the evacuation. I was transferred up here when Stage 2 Evacuation was complete.”

Thoughtfully, Thall added. “There’s never been a time in my life that wasn’t dominated by the fact of our doom, and our relocation. It’s never even occurred to me that it’s an unusual way to live.”

“We live in a spaceship,” Keeler pointed out.

“I have no memories prior to three years ago,” Redfire added.

“So, really, we’re not going to quibble about what’s unusual,” Keeler explained. “Still, the complete evacuation of a planet. There’s almost no parallel in the human experience. There were emergency evacuations in the time of the Crusades, but those were smaller colonies, or just a portion of the planet’s population in an emergency. I know of one account where twelve colonies in the same system were obliterated in a sneak attack by Berserkers, and the survivors created a rag-tag, fugitive fleet out of their surviving spacecraft, and struggled to make it back to Earth.

“Did they make it?” Thall asked.

“The historical record was incomplete, also badly corrupted, poorly lit, and the sound was terrible. Or was that the Panrovian erotic pirate holovid I was thinking of.” Keeler shrugged. “But your effort consumed your planet for a generation. I can only imagine what it was like for your society. And you were on the front lines for all of it. Cheese Louise, someone should take an oral history from you.”

Grimness passed over Thall’s face like a cloud. “I don’t think I would want to discuss it.”

Keeler tried to back off. “I’m sorry, I am just trying to imagine what it was like.”

“It was … terrible,” Thall sounded angry, and anguished. Not too much, because Thall was not an emotional man. “The sacrifices people had to make were… terrible.”

“Of course they were,” Keeler agreed. “But they knew they were going to a better place, right? That must have been some comfort.”

Thall looked like he was about to say something, but then his pockmarked face returned to its usual, dutiful, stony visage.

Redfire joined in. “Did the Kariad tell you this was a Gateway to your afterlife? That doesn’t sound like the Kariad as we know them.”

“They told us the Gateway would give us the means to escape our planet’s fate by relocating us to a place of greater safety,” Thall said. “They instructed us to build three, but work was abandoned on two of them because construction was behind schedule. We combined all of our resources to finish the one gate. It wasn’t until we activated the Gateway that we knew it connected us to the Afterworld.”

The bus pulled up to a large windowless building constructed of gray concrete blocks. Keeler guessed there was not much use for architecture in the time of an emergency. The building was a huge, one-story box connected to a number of other concrete boxes by covered walkways.

They were escorted to a large room with a row of service windows at the front. Chairs and couches were arranged in rows that faced the front of the room. Banks and her technicians were led away by some of the Gethsemanian engineers and techies. Thall led Redfire and Keeler through the “Registration and Orientation” process, assisting them with forms and providing them with badges. For “Citizen ID Number,”

Thall told them to just write “Not Applicable.” Inspired by the notion, Keeler filled in most of the form with “Not applicable.” A stern bureaucrat at the reception window made him fill it in again. She made him fill it out a third time when she saw he had written

“Notorious Smuggler” next to Occupation and “Wouldn’t you like to know?” in the spot that asked if he had brought any contraband onto the Gateway Site. When their papers finally had been reviewed, inspected, and stamped Approved, they were led into a large auditorium in which they were the only two people, and were made to watch a video presentation. It flickered onto the screen at the front of the room. The audio crackled, and the video jumped and sputtered occasionally. Hildegard Kahn, a much younger version, appeared on the screen, standing in, what was presumably her presidential offices.

“Greetings, and welcome to the Gateway. This is the final stage in the evacuation process. Soon, you will be received into paradise, where you will be reunited with friends and loved ones who have already passed through. You will be free of want and illness, and you will live in peace forever. But before then, you must be prepared. This presentation will describe how you can make these next few hours as orderly and controlled as possible. And you should also give thoughtful gratitude to the collective efforts of millions of people who have made this evacuation possible… from the planetary leadership down to the laborers who helped build the Gateway.”

Keeler closed his eyes, shook his head, and uttered a curse against all politicians. When he looked at the screen again, a froggish woman in a green pantsuit was explaining the

“Embarkation Procedure.”

“PERA personnel will guide you to the Gateway Plaza. The Plaza will open twenty minutes before Gateway activation, and the doors will close two minutes before Gateway Activation. Please remain calm and silent while waiting for the gate to activate. If you miss your assigned departure time, bring your Departure Slip to the Rescheduling Office for a new time. You may ask any PERA guide for assistance in locating the Rescheduling Office.”

“There’s just two of us. Why are they making us sit through this?” Redfire grumbled. Keeler understood, “They obviously developed these procedures when they were handling thousands of refugees every day. They never changed them. There’s a story of a man in the Republic Ministry of Certifications who has the job of standing at the foot of a staircase in the lobby. No one could figure out why. Then they discovered two hundred years previously, the stairs had been painted and a man had been hired to warn people not to use them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Redfire snapped. “They could easily have programmed a robot to do that.”

“Do not bring any food or drink into the Gateway plaza. Singing is expressly forbidden in the plaza area, or in the holding area next to the Gateway Plaza.”

“What if you could use these things to travel between planets?” Redfire wondered aloud. “What if every colony in the galaxy had a gate to every other colony.”

“It would be dreadful,” Keeler replied. “People would start migrating from planet to planet. People from failed planets would come to successful planets and recreate the same conditions that made their planets fail.” He shook his head in dread of it all. “It ought to be hard to move between worlds. It encourages people to stay put unless they have a damn good reason to move.”

“When the Gateway activates, you will see a tunnel stretching before you with a bright light on the far side. Simply step into the tunnel. When you reach the other side, please move aside to permit the arrival of other travelers. Those who greet you on the other side will help familiarize you with life on the other side.

“Oh come on!” Keeler burst out.

The video presentation froze, and the voice of an annoyed woman crackled through the public address system. “If you do not pay attention, the presentation will repeat until you have sat quietly though the entire presentation.”

Keeler and Redfire slumped quietly in their seats and endured until the end. After about twenty minutes more, the video presentation ended. Thall opened a side door. He had been waiting for them the entire time. He asked to see their Embarkation forms, so he could stamp the area that indicated they had watching the orientation film.

“What’s next?” Keeler asked when his forms had received the proper stamps.

“Next, you’ll undergo a medical examination.” Thall explained as they walked down a long corridor. Designed for larger numbers of people, it had become an echo chamber where their footsteps reverberated against the walls.

“Why?” Keeler asked.

“To make sure you are fit for Gateway travel,” Thall answered. Keeler was a bit baffled. “Minister Oberth said people on the other side enjoyed perfect health. Has anyone ever died or gotten sick as a result of Gateway travel.”

“No,” Thall admitted. “But Regulations require a thorough medical exam.”

“Ah, Regulations,” Keeler said, as though the word were poison in his mouth. He detected a whiff of alcohol on Thall’s breath, which told him Thall had been drinking while waiting for them to finish the presentation. This confirmed what Keeler had suspected; Thall drank. Thall drank a lot.

Keeler continued. “I was only thinking that it must have been chaotic back at the peak of the evacuation, with thousands of people passing through here. How many doctors did it take to perform all those exams?”

“In Stages 1 and 2, Medical Exams and the other procedures took place at the Point of Origin,” Thall explained. “During Stage 2, 90% of our population was evacuated, the ten largest cities each had a facility for processing evacuees. They did the medical checks and orientation there, then they transferred the evacuees up here. Exams here only became necessary in Stage 3, when the final 10% began evacuating.”

“How did people know when it was their turn to go?” Keeler asked.

“The Authority divided the planet into zones, and people were evacuated according to their zone. People with vital skills went last. The Authority wanted to make sure society continued to function as the population reduced. Farmers, mechanics, pilots, truck drivers went last. The people who went through first were the people with nothing to do; mainly people whose companies were taken over by the Authority.”

“Was there any resistance?” Keeler asked.

“Resistance?” Thall stalled.

“Was anyone unwilling to go? Did anyone resist the evacuation orders?” Keeler clarified.

Thall answered stoically. “In the beginning, there were some citizens who were uncooperative with the Authority.”

“What happened to them?” Keeler asked.

Thall paused so long Keeler began to think he was ignoring the question. Finally, he said, “The penalties for non-compliance were very harsh. A few people had to have examples made of them. Eventually, it got better, and people stopped… defying the authority.”

By then, they were at the Medical Examination Room, and Keeler realized the stall had been deliberate. Thall did not want to give him time to ask a follow-up question. Thall again waited outside in the corridor while Keeler and Redfire underwent their exams. The medical examinations were conducted in a cold examination room by Doctor Vico, a stout middle-aged woman whom Keeler had not been entirely certain was a woman at all at first meeting. Doctor Vico had hands that shook alarmingly, particularly when she took their urine samples, and spoke in an odd drawling accent the LingoTron struggled with.

Doctor Vico made Keeler lie on a cold bed whose well-worn cushion had been pressed flat as paper. She clamped one of his wrists and scowled at the readings her instrument was giving her. “Your heart is beating 28 times per minute,” she growled at Keeler.

“Well, I’m kind of nervous,” Keeler replied.

She continued scowling. “Is this heart rate normal for you?”

“I think my normal heart rate is like 20, 21… something like that.”

From there on, the examination became progressively less comfortable and more intrusive. Just as Keeler was beginning to feel like a Bountiful Harvest Day Turkiye, Doctor Vico announced that the exam was complete.

Redfire rejoined them at this point, and Doctor Vico led them to a row of large devices that lined a corner of the room. “Put your hand on the pedestal, palm down,” she instructed.

Keeler and Redfire did as they were told. Doctor Vico pressed a button on the side of the pedestal, and Keeler felt a brief sensation of something clamping to his hand. When he raised it, he saw a kind of sigil etched on the back.

“What’s this for?”

“Your recall trace,” Vico answered. “It is set to pull you (Yow) back to this (this-yuh) planet at the end of your journey. I have (Ah-vah) set it for three days (fuh three die-zuh).”

Keeler did math in his head. Local days were 30.5 hours in length. He would be gone 91.5 hours.

“The mark will be invisible for the first day. On the second, it will turn green. When it turns red, you have one day left,” she warned. “Time is different in the AfterWorld. So, you’ll want to pay attention.”

“Will there be a Gateway for us to return through?” Redfire asked.

“I was getting to that. We can get through this faster if you’ll stop interrupting me,” she huffed. “There is no Gateway in New Gethsemane. When it is time to recall you, a portal will open up within five meters of your position. It will be a circular area two meters wide and will have the appearance of a tunnel with a light on the distant side. Walk into the aperture.”

“What if we miss it?” Redfire asked.

“Then, you will remain in the Afterlife,” she said. “We will be unable to recall you.”

Dr. Vico handed them off to Dr. Raman, another large woman, but at least this time, definitively a woman. Her responsibility was to prepare them spiritually for the journey ahead. She led them energetically down the hallway to a wing filled with chapels and prayer rooms.

“You will want to make your peace with your personal godhead,” Raman said. “You go through this door. And you pray, and you pray, and you pray some more. Until you find a way to reach that far shore. Let the spirit come forth and pour…”

“And two and two make four,” Keeler added. “If I had some marshmallows, I’d make a s’more. If I was drunk, I’d be on the floor…”

She scowled at him.

“What happens if I don’t believe in anything?” Keeler asked.

“Non-believers do not appear in New Gethsemane,” Raman answered.

“Where do they go?”

Her body-language tightened. Keeler intuited that this was a topic no one on the planet cared to discuss. “We retrieved some… they were catatonic… and we were unable to bring them out of the catatonic state.” Her hard brown eyes fixed on him. “I hope you believe in something, Mr. Keeler.”

She opened the door to let him in. The door closed, and Keeler was along in the prayer room. The room was small, not much larger than a closet. There was a kind of an altar with a trio of candles burning on it. Some kind of deep red velvety cloth was draped around it, edged with purple tassels.

Keeler looked up toward the ceiling, because that’s where he supposed the Allbeing was. “Okay, God. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. But, I apparently have to work things out with you, man-to-Deity, so let’s talk.

“You probably have figured out that I don’t really believe this is any kind of stairway to heaven. It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles. I just don’t believe humans can make miracles happen.

“I want to see what this really is, and the only way for me to do that is to go through the gate for myself.”

That’s really not why you’re here, a still, small voice said inside his head. Keeler angrily told it to mind its own business.

“I do believe in You, or ‘Thou,’ I guess, so I want to make that perfectly clear from the get-go. I don’t know who Thou art, or why you doest some of the crazy things Thou doest, but I doeth know this Universe and my life in it can’t be accidents. So, I believeth in Thou.”

He realized he was pacing the room. He paused for a moment, then began pacing again. “O.K. What else do people talk about when they pray? Sin! Sin, all right, everybody likes a little sin. What have I done, sin-wise speaking, that I should clear my conscience of?

Um… hm… Adultery? Look at me. Do Thou think I ever even get a chance to commit adultery. Murder? I think I’ve only killed some Aurelians, and some freaks on EdenWorld… they don’t count. Um… what else? Um, mother, father, honored… check. Stealing? I’ve never really had to do that. Lying?”

He paused for several long seconds. “Moving on… Um… let’s see… What else is a sin. There’s wrath, I guess. I think I’m a pretty mellow individual, except when the situation has called for me not to be. And Thou art the one who putteth me into those situations. So, if I have been wrathful, it’s because you wanted me to be.” He was pointing his finger at the ceiling, and more specifically at the lighting fixture, whose luminescence had made it a reasonable stand-in for the Allbeing. But he realized that pointing at the Allbeing was rude, so he lowered his finger.

He continued. “Lust? OK. You’ve got me there. But frankly, you filled my world and my ship with so many tantalizing morsels of femininity. I think it would have been a greater sin not to appreciate them. By the way, nice job on Hardcandy Banks,” Keeler gave the Allbeing (lamp) a thumbs-up.

He tried to think of some more sins. “Pride? Well, all things considered, I’m a relatively humble and unassuming individual. So, I think I get a pass on that one…

“Sloth? I don’t think that’s a real problem with me. Gluttony? Maybe, a little. OK, I’ll grant that one. So, I ask forgiveness for indulging my appetites too much.”

“As for envy,… that’s not really a problem for me, since I am the object of other people’s envy.”

He muttered to himself. “What else goes into a prayer? Some scripture I guess. Um…

‘The Lord is my co-pilot/And what else could I possibly need?/ He likes long walks on the beach and hates phonies/ He restores my soul/He gives good advice/ He makes me breakfast in the morning/ And when I’m walking through the Valley of Death, I’m afraid of nothing Yea! All right!/ The Holy gunslinger protects me in the hour of my need/ Surely goodness and mercy will be right there when I need it as long as I live./Later, I’ll crash at His Place./You bet. Amen.”

And then, a thought came to him then. Unbidden. A memory. He must have been 14 or 15 years old. It was Christ-Solstice Mass, in the Holy Name Church in New Cleveland. He remembered the scene vividly. He remembered the altar and the high places in the chapel filled with candles. He remembered the church decked out in its holiday glory. He remembered the Holy Man reading from the Gospel of Matthew, a sheen of sweat on his shaved head.

He remembered the parishioners singing one of the Ancient carols together.

“Oh, Citadel of Bat’Leth

Thy blade beside me lies

Far above through time and space

Our mighty starships ply

Our world will always welcome Saviors

As time goes by.

Oh yes, the world will always welcome Saviors

As time goes by.”

And in that church at Christ Solstice Mass Time, it had suddenly occurred to him that the other people in the church weren’t just enjoying the lights, or the songs, or the smell of churchwood, but that somehow all of these things were helping them make a connection to the Allbeing. And that he, though his parents had made him attend various services over the years had never felt that connection the way these others did. When he looked at the candles, he only saw fire. When he heard the carols, they were just songs. When he prayed, it felt like he was standing at the edge of a canyon, straining to hear an echo that never came.

And he had asked himself, ‘What if they are all just pretending? What if they have convinced themselves that this ritual somehow connects them to the Allbeing, when in fact, the Allbeing is off on the higher planes and could not possibly care less about them?

“Bugger this,” Keeler said out loud. Then, turning his eyes heavenward added, “Not you, of course.”

He pounded on the door, “I’m ready to go,” he called out. It was an understatement. He couldn’t wait to get out of that small, Holy room.

A short time later, Keeler and Redfire were taken to a dressing room, and provided with white robes to wear ‘in preparation for your journey,’ the quartermaster, a wizened little fellow whose name-tag read “Trosper.”

“What will happen to our clothes while we’re gone?” Redfire asked.

“They will be kept in a storage locker for you,” Trosper replied, and he cocked his head to the rows of metal lockers behind him.

Keeler held up the robe as though it were a dirty diaper. “I’m not wearing this.”

“Pardon?” Trosper said.

Keeler handed him back the folded robe. “If I’m going to go into the next world, I’m gonna go with my pants on.”

A crooked grin came across Redfire’s face. “I agree,” he said, handing the robe back to the befuddled Trosper.

“But you must wear the robe!” Trosper protested. “Everyone wears the robe!”

“Oh, and if everyone shoved corn down his pants, would you do it, too?” Keeler challenged him.

Trosper seemed confused at the unexpected reference to corn. He pointed to a sign hanging in the front of the room. ‘All Departees MUST Wear Appropriate Vestment. NO

EXCEPTIONS!!”

“Two exclamation marks,” Keeler said. “They must really mean it. However, I’m not going to wear this robe.”

Trosper picked up his communication device and pressed several buttons. “Security, I have two departures here who refuse to wear their vestments.” Keeler and Redfire could not hear the other side of the conversation. “Yes, they’re the off-worlders… But the rule is No Exceptions… But the rule is No Exceptions… The rule says ‘No Exceptions… No exceptions…. I can’t make an exception…’”

Keeler seemed amused listening into the conversation, while Redfire grew apprehensive that they would miss their scheduled departure. Trosper would not be mollified until an order was delivered to him from “Level 3,” which authorized Keeler and Redfire to be allowed into the Departure Area sans robes.

“Why did you make such a big deal about the robes?” Redfire asked Keeler as they walked, alone, onto the flat open ground of the gateway.

Keeler smiled. “Mainly, it was because I really do prefer wearing my own clothes, and the idea of waddling around here in a bathrobe struck me as stupid. But also, the little old guy’s response gave me insight into their culture. He almost immediately called authority figures to enforce an admittedly arbitrary rule. Authoritarian cultures inevitably make their citizens weak and stupid, subject to the whims of the complete imbeciles who staff the state bureaucracy. ‘No exceptions.’”

They were made to wait a few more minutes to be allowed into the plaza. They walked out onto the flat, marble slabs that lined the floor of the plaza and strode toward the silvery arch that loomed over them.

They saw a small group of people on the opposite side of the Gateway. The separation between them was deliberate.

The doors shut at the four entrances to the Plaza. “Two minutes to Gateway Activation” said a voice. Above them loomed the gateway, a high-golden arch. Keeler felt an electric tingle that might have been the energy building in the gate’s capacitors, or might have been anticipation.

“One minute to gate activation,” Redfire informed him.

Keeler began to sing. “I love to go swimmin’ with bow-legged women and swim between their legs….”

The Gateway Control Annex – When the gateway activated, A bright light enveloped Keeler and Redfire, and when it had faded, they had vanished.

The measuring instruments Hardcandy Banks had brought with her showed a massive burst of energy as the gate activated. A lot of it was mundane… photons, electromagnetic waves, neutrinos and the like. There were also herds of hyper-neutrinos, hyper-photons, and hyper-energy waves like those found in hyperspace. But there were also bursts of particles and waves her instruments couldn’t identify. She scowled at the readings.

“Did you get your data?” asked Blade Toto, leaning against the doorway, showing off his lean, sensual frame.

“Neg,” she said. “Something blinded my instruments point-four-seconds into the event. Some of the energy that comes out of the Gateway is acting like a dampening field for our instruments.”

“That’s too bad,” Toto said.

“Not really,” she made a rapid series of notations on her datapad. “The energy spike that came through the Gateway would have killed all of us and vaporized this entire complex, were it not for the dampening field.”

Toto put his hand on her waist. “Hey, you wanna see if they have anything to eat or drink around here, since we have some time to kill. I’ve got some kava back in the ship, if you want.”

She groaned. “You wanna ‘kill some time’ huh?”

Toto laid his hand on her shoulder. “Well, we’re here and aside from the Gateway, there ain’t much to do.”

She gently pulled his hand away. “Maybe I can get some technical data from the Gethsemanians to put my energy into context.”

Toto sighed. She would end up giving into him, but she always insisted on this dance first.

Chapter 03A

Who Knows Where? – William Randolph Keeler found himself the sole passenger on a long, wooden boat that glided silently above the silvery waters of a dark river. He turned around to see a man with a hood guiding the tiller at the back of the boat. Seeing Bill Keeler turn to him, the man at the back of the boat peeled back the hood from his head. He revealed himself to be a soft, middle-aged human, bald, but with a trim ring of hair above his ears; distinguished but harmless, and perhaps a little befuddled. Bill Keeler recognized him instantly.

It was his father.

Arthur Keeler had died of a freak brain aneurysm while participating in a naked quoits tournament in Kandor. This had happened some nineteen years previously by his own time scale, and maybe three hundred years had actually gone by as Commander Keeler had passed time in hyperspace.

This was going to be awkward.

Arthur Keeler, smiled and offered his hand. “Hello, Billy.”

Bill Keeler took it and shook it tentatively. “Hello, Dad. Um, I wasn’t expecting this.”

Arthur Keeler shrugged. “Well, no one ever does. I was kind of surprised myself, to tell you the truth.”

There was an awkward pause.

Bill Keeler broke the silence, “So, they keepin’ you busy?”

Arthur Keeler gestured at the tiller. “You mean this? No, they just sent me here to escort you to the other side, make your journey less stressful and whatall.”

Bill Keeler nodded, and then asked his father, “How’s mom?”

Arthur Keeler shrugged again. “Same as always, except, you know, dead.”

The boat shuddered and Arthur Keeler had to push on the tiller to direct it into calmer waters.

“This darn thing is always doing that. Now, what were we talking about?”

“You look like I always remembered you,” Keeler said. “You look like you were when I was growing up. But you were an older man when you died. Is that what happens when you die? You get to be middle-aged again?”

“You’re only seeing me the way you want to see me,” Arthur Keeler explained. “It’s kind of complicated. You know those episodes of The Scary Zone of Unpredictable Madness that always end with some kind of crazy plot-twist, like where the protagonist doesn’t get what he wanted, but gets something similar, but very disturbing that ultimately destroys his soul?”

“That’s pretty much every episode of The Scary Zone of Unpredictable Madness ,” said Bill Keeler.

“This is going to be a lot like that.” With that, Arthur Keeler pulled the hood up over his head. A thick mist had begun rising from the river.

“Where’s Ranking Phil?” Bill Keeler asked.

“Flying through a tunnel of light,” Arthur Keeler said.

“Why didn’t I get to fly through a tunnel of light?”

“Some people get tunnels of light, some people get rivers, some get nothing at all,” the elder Keeler explained. “It’s just how it is.”

“So, what should I expect when we reach the far shore?” Bill Keeler asked. Arthur Keeler heaved a sigh. “You know, if I were you, I wouldn’t have gone. But it’s too late to turn back now.”

Bill Keeler scratched himself out of sheer unease. The boat glided through the water for several interminable seconds during which Bill Keeler could think of nothing to say. Arthur Keeler looked off into the foggy distance. “Billy, when we reach that far shore, you’re going to learn things you won’t be able to unlearn. The Gethsemane Gate was not built for you. You’re going to regret this journey in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”

“Oh, great, now you tell me.”

“Really, they should have put some kind of warning label on that thing,” Arthur Keeler said, referring to the Gateway.

The boat crunched against the bottom of the river on the shallow side. The fog on the other bank was thick and heavy. “Here we are. Watch your step getting off the boat.”

Bill Keeler hesitated, and turned to his father. “It was good seeing you again.”

“Next time, maybe you can stay longer,” said Arthur Keeler. “We’ll play some checkers.”

“I’d like that,” Bill Keeler agreed, and he shook his father’s hand. Bill Keeler stepped off the boat, and charged into the fog without looking back.

Chapter 04

Pegasus – Family Quarters of Lt. Commander Alkema – Ten Nemesis warheads exploded sequentially on the night side of the rogue planet. The first carved out a deep, bowl-shaped crater on the night-side of the planet. The next nine exploded within the crater, creating a rocket-engine effect that altered the rogue planet’s trajectory by fractions of a degree. Instead of hitting Gethsemane head-on, the rogue planet struck it a glancing blow. A quarter of Gethsemane’s surface was obliterated and shockwaves destroyed most of the remaining crust. Debris from the collision rained down on the planet, each piece detonating like a small nucleonic warhead.

0.0% Survival Rate. Complete Ecosystem Destruction.

Pegasus said.

Lt. Cmdr David Alkema frowned and ran the simulation again, adding more warheads and altering the angle of deflection. He sat back and watched the simulation play out in the holographic display. It was still not enough to avoid the complete destruction of the planet’s surface.

If Pegasus had arrived a few years earlier, or even a few months, they could have destroyed or deflected the rogue planet. If they had arrived at the time the Kariad did, they could have put the rogue planet safely into orbit around either the bright orange primary star or the large, iron-cored planet that occupied the next orbit in from Gethsemane. If the Kariad could build a Gateway to the Afterlife, they should have been easy for them to deflect a rogue planet.

For that matter, of the ten other planets in the Gethsemane system (the binary companion had no planets), three were in the star’s habitable zone. Gethsemane was the third planet in the system. The fourth planet had a deadly sulfur-oxide and cyanide-rich atmosphere. The fifth, however, had a carbon-dioxide/argon atmosphere, an icy ring system, and abundant surface water (even if most of it was ice). It was not an ideal place to settle, but it was not terribly much worse than Republic had been when the first colonists arrived there. Construction of habitation domes and evacuation of Gethsemane would have been challenging, but certainly less extreme than building a metaphysical gateway. Why had the Kariad not chosen to do that instead?

As he set up the parameters for another experimental simulation, he felt Pieta putting her pudgy arms around him. “Hey, babe,” he purred at her. “The kids are asleep, I guess?”

“Yes, thank the Goddess,” Pieta replied. She kissed him gently on his neck. “You should spend some time with me, now.”

Alkema scowled at his holograms. “Let me try one more simulation. Maybe if the rogue planet was in the middle of a circle of warheads at max yield, it would vaporize the debris. The planet would have epic meteor storms for years to come, but…”

She reached across him and deactivated his interface. She was still a handsome woman. She whispered in his ear, “You can’t save everybody.”

Alkema stroked her forearms, because she seemed to like that. And he asked her, “If you had been on Bodicea and you knew your planet was about to be destroyed, and someone told you to walk through a Gateway and you’d be in whatever your idea of the Afterlife was… would you go?”

“My planet was destroyed, dear,” she reminded him. “I had to live in a goddess-forsaken jungle for sixteen years. If I could have missed that, by walking through some kind of gateway, I would have. Definitely.”

“What if the alternative was living in an eco-dome on cold, barren, desolate planet?”

Alkema continued.

She put a hand over his mouth. “You know I don’t like to think about things that never happened. And why are you bothering. They left their planet. It’s over for them. Have you thought about all the planets where people didn’t have a way out? My planet? Medea?

The Crux planet?”

“Coriolis,” Alkema added. “Meridian, Fallon … compared to the other Pathfinders, we seemed to have hit a lot more dead worlds. It just frustrates me. We could have saved the planet if we had come here sooner. But the rogue planet is so large and it’s moving so fast… ”

“I know what you’re going to do,” Pieta interrupted. “You’re going to obsess over this. You’re going to keep trying to come up with some way to save this planet, but you know, it’s a waste of time. There’s nobody left on the planet. They left. So, what’s the point?”

“Their entire history and culture is about to be erased from the universe,” Alkema argued, but felt the weakness of his argument even as he said it.

“No, that’s not what it is to you. To you it’s a problem. You see a problem, you need to fix it. So you obsess over it. But the people on the planet already solved their problem. They’re gone, and wherever they’ve gone to, I hope they’re happy. That’s all I can do. Now, it’s your turn to make me happy.”

“Za, dear…” he reached up and kissed her.

“Are you ready to make me happy now?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Good, now go down to that shop in the Amenities Nexus and get me one of those peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches I like. Oh, and feel free to pick yourself up something, too.”

Gethsemane – Port Gethsemane – Port Gethsemane, the planet’s largest city, had obviously seen better times --but what was left behind was a testament to what times they must have been.

The remains of the city curled around a crescent-shaped bay on one of the planet’s larger landmasses. At its center, needle-thin, towering buildings pointed toward the sky in shining bronze-tinted metal and glass. Around them, more modest towers held the habitations where the city’s elite lived, and could survey their empire. These habitation complexes looked toward the sea, and the vast harbor from which the city’s wealth was drawn.

On the inner edge of the crescent were ginormous sea-docks, stretching into the water for 2,000 and 3,000 meters in length and 500 meters across. The tips of these structures were circular platforms that were a hundred meters wider on either side than the piers themselves. Tracks ran along one side, but the equipment that had once loaded and unloaded the space-freighters of the Ancient Commonwealth was long gone. Those ships had stopped calling millennia ago.

Some time in the last four thousand years, the harbor had become an ordinary maritime port. There were still waterships tied up alongside the piers that stuck into the harbor. They looked much like seagoing vessels on other worlds, except for the brown metallic shades of the metal they were built from. A few had sunk in the last few years and their hulks rested on the bottom near the docks. The others waited silently to rust away ¯

which, of course, they would never get the chance to. Perhaps they might survive their planet’s destruction and drift off into the galaxy, presenting a riddle for future galactic explorers… how did these ocean-going freighters and tankers come to be adrift in the space between stars?

Beside the largest of the ancient sea-docks, four Aves had parked: Edward, Neville, Phoenix, and Winnie II. Lt. Commander Anaconda Rook led the ‘Cultural Survey’ mission, which a few on the ship were calling ‘The Great Looting.’ She had set up a command post on the pier next to the Aves Phoenix. On a holographic table, she examined the city while her daughter, Skua, slept in a pack slung over her back.

She trained her Spex along the city’s skyline. North of the downtown sector, rows of slim thirty and forty story residential towers stretched along the seafront. South of town, the buildings were blocky and industrial. She spotted a large, solid structure with two humps that had probably been an energy plant. Rows of Quonset-style warehouses crowded along the southern edge of the harbor.

“How many people do you think lived here?” she asked Specialist Fangboner, her liaison with the Survey crew.

“At least twenty-million people and maybe thirty,” he answered. Instead of the skyline, the gangly technician was studying aerial reconnaissance. He was not interested in the towers at the center of the city, but looking toward places where artifacts and recoverable data might be recovered. He tried to identify which buildings might be government data centers, libraries, or museums; any of which might contain valuable archival data.

“This city was a major transfer point for the evacuation of their planet,” Taurus Rook mused.

“I wonder why they didn’t build the Gateway closer to it,” Fangboner mused.

“The isolation of the Gateway helped them control access and kept the evacuation orderly,” she replied. Since leaving the Warfighter Combat Core, she had become a master of logistics. “Lt. Cmdr Alkema said they had to move 80,000 people a day… probably more than that. To do that, they worked out a system of moving people from the countryside to the large cities, and as the big cities emptied out, they moved new people in. And they kept it for years.”

“Moving that many people must have caused a lot of nightmares,” Fangboner added.

“Transient populations tend to be more violent and disorderly than stable ones.”

Taurus Rook agreed. “They also had to keep the population that wasn’t being evacuated busy producing food, energy, and whatever else it took to sustain the operation, all the while adjusting to a constant state of population decline. A very challenging balancing act.”

He zoomed in on a section of the city. “There’s a large building here that is surrounded by parks and plazas. It’s very common for government centers or museums to be designed like that. Direct Team Winnie II Alpha to that sector. They’re the closest.”

Taurus Rook turned to Specialist Frontenac. “You heard him, get Winnie II Alpha to those coordinates.”

Frontenac conveyed the order, while Taurus Rook looked over the reconnaissance display. “Where’s Phoenix Alpha?” she asked.

“Phoenix Alpha is looking through the buildings at the edge of the docks,” Fangboner answered, and activated their position locator. They appeared as five yellow dots, two kilometers away, among the clustered Quonset warehouses of the South Bay. Taurus Rook looked up into the bronze-colored sky. A few arc-seconds from the sun was a bright star. This was Rogue, hurtling toward them at 60,000 kilometers an hour. In seven days, it would crash into the planet, wiping Port Gethsemane and everything here from existence.

“So, how do they think they can find star charts if there hasn’t been a ship calling on this port in a thousand years?” Taurus Rook mused out loud.

“If only we had time to search every building on the planet,” answered Specialist Fangboner. “But, since we don’t know, we have to look for the likeliest places to find old records. There were probably companies portside that handled cargo from the galactic freighters and shipping to the adjacent sectors. With any luck, we’ll find some kind of records archive.”

It would actually require a great deal of luck. Sapphire’s records of transactions from the Commonwealth period were fragmentary. In fact, no colony Pegasus had called upon in the nine years of her journey through space had uncovered more than a few records of the locations of ancient worlds. Perhaps, that was par for the course when looking into a civilization that had collapsed nearly two thousand years previously, but it was still very annoying.

Gethsemane – Team Phoenix Alpha – Phoenix Alpha was a team of five, and its core was once again made by Warfighters Johnny Rook and Max Jordan, joined by Flight Lieutenant Trajan Lear. Two others, a man and a woman, Specialists Cottonmouth and Sting, with dual specialties in Planetology and Technology, accompanied them as they picked their way through the warehouses at the edge of the harbor. The warfighters wore light combat jackets and single weapon gauntlets on their arms. No fighting was expected, but the possibility of giant wharf rats kept them on alert.

Trajan Lear, standing in an alley between two warehouses and looking toward the ocean, thought the warm humid air smelled like sea salts, and wondered if the oceans were richer in minerals here than on other worlds. On Yronwode, he remembered, the atmosphere had been dry, and smelled like old, yellowed paper. On Aurora, the air had smelled faintly of ozone and copper… as though an electrical storm had passed through but left no rain. On Bodicea, on the Isle of Mab, the air had smelled of green lilacs, and the breezes had been soft as kisses.

Trajan counted to himself. He was 23 years old, and he had stood on nine worlds. Only a tiny sliver of humanity would ever set foot on any other world than the one they had been born on. He had been in three different universes. He knew of only one other person who could claim that. Now, he would be one of the last humans to ever stand on the planet Gethsemane. Quite against his wishes, his life had turned out to be extraordinary. He also reflected that although he had stood on nine worlds, he had not really known any of them beyond one or two places on their surface. And the planets had been, most of them, fairly ordinary.

Looking around this old warehouse district, it was not much different than Midlothian or the City of Logistical Support on his own planet of Republic. Warmer, of course, and the sky was golden instead of gray, but it was still a place humans had built to satisfy their needs, in both cases, a need to distribute goods and resources across a planet. On Aurora, he remembered, they had had spheres made up of tiny mirrors, which they hung above the dance floors in their music clubs and shined low-powered lasers on to make lights and patterns. They called them disco spheres. That’s what these colonies were. Each one was a little mirror on the surface of the disco sphere that was human civilization. And if someone shined a laser on them…

He realized then his metaphor had gotten silly.

He left the alley and walked along a broad street that ran parallel to the water. It was strange to be in a city – on a world – whose inhabitants had abandoned it. The streets were empty. Clearly they had been designed for vehicle traffic, but there were only a few abandoned vehicles and these were parked neatly off to the sides of the street. The buildings had been carefully shuttered and locked, which struck some of the crew as odd. It was like cleaning your house the day before demolition, which, incidentally, was required by law on Republic.

“I wonder what it was like,” Trajan Lear mused out loud.

“What what was like?” Max Jordan asked through the COM Link.

Trajan Lear shrugged. He had not meant for anyone to hear him. “Life on this planet. What was it like to live in this city.”

“Team Neville Alpha located what they think was a recreation district on the beachfront,” Rook answered through the COM Link. “Apparently, the Geths had some very, um, open-minded, ideas about sex and pharmaceuticals.” He sounded a little jealous.

Max Jordan tried to give him perspective. “Just think, someday, you’ll be telling your grandchildren how you took their mother and grandmother on a trip to a planet that doesn’t exist any more.”

Rook nodded. “Za, so true. Now, I just have to find the right souvenir to remember this world by.”

“A star map to Earth would be nice,” Anaconda Taurus Rook broke in to the COM

Link.

“Za, dear,” Rook replied, even through the link sounding embarrassed he had brought up the “recreation district” on an open channel.

Trajan Lear continued his survey of this street, moving away from the warehouses toward the City Center. Up ahead was a large building that had once been called the Port Gethsemane Sea-Land Commercial Center. But the letters forming those words had been torn from its edifice. A more recent sign erected in front of the building identified it as the

“Planetary Evacuation and Relocation Authority, Processing Center 1AA-2C.” He had just begun to wonder if there could be anything inside worth “recovering,” when the voice of Johnny Rook came through his COM Link. “Hey! Somebody just hit me in the head with a rock!”

Reflexively, he began running down the street toward Rook’s location. He was the first to reach the warfighter, who was holding the side of his head, bleeding from a wound to his temple and looking a little dazed.

“Someone threw a rock at me,” he repeated to Trajan Lear. “There’s supposed to be nobody here but us.”

“Let me look at it,” Lear said. He leaned in close to Rook’s head and took his hand. He sensed elevated adrenaline levels and some dizziness, but he didn’t sense that the blow was serious. Soon, Specialist Cottonmouth arrived with a medical kit. Max Jordan came from around a corner, brandishing his single pulse gauntlet. He had deployed a combat helmet.

“I didn’t see anyone,” Jordan reported.

“Maybe a chunk of masonry fell off one of the buildings,” Trajan Lear suggested.

“What’s going on Phoenix Alpha?” Anaconda Taurus Rook demanded through her COM-Link.

“Someone hit me with a rock,” Johnny Rook repeated.

“Was it Jordan?” Anaconda Rook asked.

“Negative,” Rook answered, as Trajan Lear cleaned the wound, which had stopped bleeding.

“Are you okay, baby?” Anaconda Taurus Rook asked.

“Za, dear,” he answered.

Anaconda Rook ordered. “All teams, reset your combat Spex to detect human life signs and report.”

Trajan Lear and the warfighters mentally reset their combat Spex, and scanned their territory as one of the other teams protested that the city was “supposed to be deserted”

and Anaconda Taurus Rook replied to them that it was possible some Gethsemanians (“Geths”) had chosen not to evacuate and had attacked the Phoenix Alpha team so get the Allbeing-dammed Spex reset to detect human life forms.

“Holy crap,” said Johnny Rook. Trajan Lear linked to him and saw what he was blessing excrement about. Within a 100 meter radius, the Spex had picked up fourteen human life forms other than the Survey Team.

Johnny Rook tapped his COM link. “Phoenix Alpha, here. I just detected movement at our periphery. Investigating.”

His wife’s voice answered him. “Acknowledged, Phoenix Alpha. Go to LIVE Link.”

He cocked his head and activated the transceiver inside his Spex. Now, the command crew would see what he saw. He slowly swiveled his head to the surrounding buildings, where humanoid forms were detected, primarily in the upper stories.

“Ow!” Max Jordan said. Trajan Lear turned toward him. A rock the size of a ping-pong ball had just bounced off his helmet.

“Fall back,” Johnny Rook ordered. The Spex indicated a nearby warehouse was clear, and he directed the team toward there.

“It’s just a rock,” Jordan protested.

“They might have something worse,” Johnny Rook replied. “Survey Command, we are arming weapons to non-lethal mode and retreating so we can re-assess.”

“Acknowledged, Phoenix Alpha. Do you require back-up?” Anaconda Rook asked.

“Not yet,” Johnny Rook answered. “We’re going to beat a cowardly retreat while we assess the situation.”

The door to the warehouse was sealed with a bolt lock, but a hit from Jordan’s pulse gauntlet opened it up. Inside the old warehouse was a stench of dust and rotting leather. Boxes of old and rotting shoes were stacked all about. Trajan Lear took up a position just behind Max Jordan.

Johnny Rook was frustrated. “I can’t seem to get a tactical read on the life forms. I’m getting interference.”

“There are low-level EM fields all over the planet,” Cottonmouth explained. “We think they have something to do with the operation of the Gateway.

Johnny Rook grunted. “We’ll return to the ship and figure out what to do from there.”

“No fighting?” Max Jordan asked.

“Disappointed?” Rook replied.

Jordan shrugged. “At one time I would have been, but now, I’m at a place where I can let it go and still feel good about myself. I no longer need to prove myself in combat to validate my self-worth. It’s a good thing.”

Johnny Rook rolled his eyes. “Is there any chance a rock to the head could flip your brain back to normal?” Ever since Yronwode, where the artificial intelligence known as Caliph had erased Jordan’s traumatic childhood memories, he had been … far too mellow.

“I can still fight,” Jordan reminded him. “But right now, I agree with you. A peaceful retreat will serve us best.”

“There should be a rear entrance that way,” Trajan Lear pointed toward the far end of the warehouse. “That should take us back toward the ship.”

“They’re moving in on this cargo storage facility,” Johnny Rook reported. “Let’s get out of here.”

The team made their way through the dark to the far end of the warehouse. A door was located ‘round the back, secured from the inside with a deadbolt. Max Jordan was about to shoot it when Trajan Lear calmly opened the unlocked mechanism. The door opened on a narrow alley between the shoe warehouse and an adjoining one. Rook pointed down the Alley. Trajan Lear led, with the warfighters taking position at the rear. They hadn’t made it very far, when he hard Rook say, “Oh, Crap!”

“What oh crap?” Trajan Lear asked.

“The life-forms just disappeared from my Spex,” Johnny Rook reported

“Interference?” Trajan Lear asked.

“Don’t know, but they were moving this way the last time I had a fix.” Rook gestured down the alleyway. “Let’s take the next right and try and stay ahead of them.”

Jordan and Rook raised their pulse gauntlets and quickened their pace. From the corner of his eye, Trajan Lear caught a swift movement in an alley up ahead. He turned, Spexed it, but couldn’t make a firm contact. The distance and closing data displaying in his retinas seemed to be accurate, so he didn’t think there was an interference problem. Johnny Rook sent a message. “Phoenix Alpha to base, we’ve lost telemetry on the life-sign indicator.” A display in his Spex indicated there was no contact with the land-base.

“COM Link seems to be out,” Rook reported.

“Did you see that?” Max Jordan asked suddenly. “Something moved.”

No one replied. They were almost at the turn in the alleyway. Trajan Lear sensed from the others, a rising sense of apprehension. They moved more quickly through the next street, but they found the next alleyway blocked by crates and debris.

“Did you hear that?” Max Jordan asked.

“Za,” Rook answered. He gestured for the others to stay back while he scouted ahead. When they turned the corner, a band of ragged, feral children was running toward them. A few were brandishing pipes, and all of them were screaming. Before Rook could say, “Holy crap, they’re kids,” the first and fastest had leaped upon him.

Beating children in hand-to-hand contact had not been a required course in warfighter training. Johnny Rook improvised, applying the martial arts techniques from the

‘Hand-to-Hand contacts with Humanoids of Sub-Normal Stature’ course, flipping the first two kids hard onto the ground.

Max Jordan found himself conflicted. Even a feral horde of children were still children. Figuring he avoided hitting them but pushed his attackers back while brandishing his side-arm, set to a non-lethal stun yield as he backed off away from the direction of the attack.

Trajan Lear didn’t like kids, and kicked aside his first three attackers with ease. Then, he touched his tactical gauntlet and sent out a Pulse Effect Wave, a wall of dense, energized air that arced out in front of him like a concussive wave. As soon as it hit the raggedy children, they fell over like a Siberian forest under an exploding comet. Johnny Rook looked over the children slumped in the street. His tactical gear had softened the impact of the Pulse Effect Wave. “Where in Perdition’s flames did these kids come from?”

Chapter 05

Redfire – The little bell on the door tinkled as Redfire entered the Celestial Café. He took a moment to survey the immaculate white tables with their clean, crisp red-checkered table cloths. The walls were painted in murals of photo-realistic cloud scenes. The café was huge, considerably larger than a groundball field, tables with immaculate checked tablecloths stretched off into the distance by the hundreds, but he appeared to be the only customer.

A perky waitress with a halo crossed quickly to him, her hard heels clicking on the blue and white tiled floor. “Hi, darlin’ How’re you?” she drawled, between snaps of gum. “I’m Gabrielle, I’ll be your waitress. Where’d you like to sit down, hon’?”

“Something by the window, I guess,” Redfire said. This was not what he had been expecting at all. Yet it seemed to make some weird sort of sense to him. He looked through the window as she seated him. Outside were clouds and sky and nothing more.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?” Gabrielle asked, tapping her pen against her order pad. It dawned on Redfire that he had not seen an order pad, or for that matter a waitress, in anything but old fictional entertainments about the pre-technological renaissance.

“I was hoping for some enlightenment,” Redfire said to her.

“We’re still serving breakfast, sweetie,” Gabrielle asked him. “How ‘bout some pancakes? A nice stack of pancakes, with bacon and butter pecan syrup. And some nice hot kava? I just percolated a fresh vessel?”

Resigning himself, Redfire agreed. “Okay, pancakes and bacon it is. And the kava.”

“That also comes with toast and hash browns?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I’ll bring that right out for you, honey.” With that, she turned and walked away from him.

She placed his order on a rotating rack and rotated it toward the old man in the white beard in the kitchen. “Tall stack of Vermont blowout patches, smoke the pig, two shingles, sweep the floor, and a cup of mud.”

Before he settled into his booth, he peeled back the blinds that covered the plate glass window. Beyond it stretched clouds and sky. He saw no sun, but there was light everywhere.

Gabrielle bumped him. “Sorry, Hon, brought your kava.” She set the mug in front of him. Redfire sat down and drank from it.

Not only was it the best kava he had ever had, it seemed to flow directly into his blood, filling him with warmth and energy, as though every part of him were coming alive.

“Everything okay?” Gabrielle asked?

“Yeah,” Redfire explained “Really, okay. Really, really okay.”

She swatted him playfully. “Now, ain’t you glad you got the kava instead of enlightenment?”

Keeler – Bill Keeler found himself lying in a bed, a most comfortable and familiar bed. He opened his eyes half expecting to see angels and seraphim, but instead was met with the sight of a tastefully appointed master suite. The Panrovian-style doors had been left open, and cool spring breezes wafted in over the verandah. The sky beyond was a jewel-like shade of blue he had not seen in nine years.

“I’m on Sapphire,” he whispered to himself. He didn’t go on to whisper to himself that he was lying in his own bed, in his own master suite, on his own family estate on the little peninsula that jutted into Lake of the Loons southeast of the sprawling city of New Cleveland, but each of these things was also true.

Best yet, his own wet bar was across the room from him. He sat up in bed, observing that he was wearing his favorite pair of pajamas, the ones made of pink Panrovian silk in the white bunnybeast patterns. He had taken the original pair with him to Pegasus, but they had mysteriously disappeared three weeks into the journey after he had shown up wearing them at one of Goneril Lear’s Senior Staff meetings. He checked next to the bed. His bunnybeast slippers were there also, but it seemed like a warm spring day like this, he would not need them. He rose barefoot and walked over to the bar. He could not help but notice that he felt really, really good. He felt no hint of fatigue, nor of any of the heaviness that had accumulated in his body over the prior fifty years. It was a cliché, sure, but he did feel like a kid… like his body was new and the world was alive with possibilities and potentials.

He discovered, halfway to the wet bar, that he didn’t actually want a drink. The open doors beckoned him to the verandah, so he strolled out onto it and beheld, as if for the first time, the well-groomed grounds of the Keeler family estate. There was a telescope fixed to the rail of the verandah, and he peered into it and saw the sleek communication towers and architectural monstrosities that made up downtown New Cleveland, some ten kilometers away.

A little man whose gray-blond hair was drawn into a pony-tail at the back of his head entered the room.

“Tolkien?” Keeler asked.

“Forgive me sir, I am most surprised to find you up at this hour,” Tolkien said.

“What time is it?” Keeler asked.

“13 hours in the afterdawn,” Tolkien answered.

“And the date?”

“Pentember first, sir.”

“And the year?”

“7301, sir.” Tolkien seemed unsurprised by the line of questioning, even a little bored.

“Nine years,” Keeler mused. But that wasn’t right. Three hundred years had passed on Sapphire while Pegasus had been gone. “Are you dead?” Keeler asked Tolkien.

“I’m afraid not, sir,” Tolkien Xerox said. “Will sir be dressing this morning?”

Keeler pondered this for a while. He checked the back of his right hand and saw the mark laid down on it, emerald green. “Not just yet Tolkien. I could do with some breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Tolkien seemed a bit surprised at that. “At this hour, sir?”

“OK, brunch, just make sure it comes with pancakes and some melon slices,” Keeler told him. He yawned. Maybe something to drink would help him make sense of this situation after all. He returned to the wet bar and poured himself a glass of Borealan whisky. He lifted it to his lips and was surprised how dambed good it tasted, sliding down his throat like sweet, sweet cream, but giving him a kick like a Haligonian street-fighter.

“Nice,” he said, and poured himself another glass. He carried the second glass into the hallway with him.

It was as he remembered it, but it was like seeing it for the first time, all polished wood and smooth marble. The hallway led through the bedrooms in the west wing of the house. He knew of a back staircase that would take him into the kitchen. He descended it, pausing to marvel at the tall, stained glass window built into the stairwell. His great great grandfather had acquired it when the Sumacian War Temple at Northworks had been renovated. Rumor had it, this glass window had once adorned a temple in the Unreal City… which no outsider had ever seen. It depicted a design of swords and stars, with stylized robots at the lower sides.

He continued down until he reached the main kitchen. The estate kitchen was nearly as large as the main bridge of Pegasus. This was necessary to keep up with the amount of entertaining that was expected of the Keelers. It was presided over by Rosalind, a heavyset woman of a certain age. At the moment, she stood near a range the size of a conference table, calmly turning over a skillet of pancakes.

“Good afterdawn, professor Keeler,” she greeted him, without turning away from her pancake-making duties.

“Good morning, Rosalind,” Keeler settled into the informal breakfast table that occupied a side alcove. “May I presume you are also not dead.”

“What a weird thing to say, even for you,” she answered.

She proceeded to place the largest, most perfect stack of pancakes in front of him that he would ever shove into his face. “Nobody seems surprised to see me here. Were you expecting me?”

“It’s not a surprise for you to roll out of bed at 13 in the afterdawn, if that’s what you mean,” Rosalind growled at him.

“I mean, no one is surprised that I am here instead commanding the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus.”

“You? A starship captain? You’re a stinking drunk!”

“Madame, I may be a stinking drunk,” Keeler began. Then, he decided not to belabor the point and asked instead for a datapad. Rosalind removed the kitchen one from its holder and gave it to him on the table. He accessed Sapphire’s demographic index.

“Inquiry, Redfire… Philip John Miller.”

The answer came back:

Philip John Miller Redfire is the senior tactical officer on the pathfinder ship Pegasus.

“Inquiry, Alkema, David… from the city of Josh-Nation.”

The answer came back:

David Alkema is a junior officer on the pathfinder ship Pegasus.

“Inquiry: Brainiacsdaughter… um…is there a Brainiacsdaughter on the Pathfinder ship Pegasus.”

Affirmative.

“What about Keeler, William Randolph.”

William Randolph Keeler is the Chairman of the Historical Studies Department at the University of Sapphire at New Cleveland. He resides in New Cleveland, Oz Province.

“Nothing’s changed except me,” Keeler said. Then it occurred to him that he had been Chancellor of the University before leaving. He wondered who the current Chancellor was, and the Index answered him. “Mary Jane Watson?” he said out loud. “That skank!”

“More pancakes?” Rosalind asked, incurious about his choice of expression.

“Sure,” he replied. “Hey, I did train to serve in the Pathfinder program, didn’t I?”

“They offered to make you Voyage Historian on the Lexington Keeler, but you refused,”

Rosalind told him, putting another stack of delicious, sweet-smelling pancakes in front of him.

“What about my brother Ken?” Keeler asked.

“He’s in Corvallis.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“He’s the provincial advisor for environmental resource development.”

“He went into politics? That idiot-bastard.”

“It was your idea,” Rosalind replied. “You asked the provincial government to give him a position where he’d be no harm to himself or others.”

“That certainly sounds like something I’d do.” Keeler said. “What about Bettilou?”

“She’s a broadcast counselor.”

“What the hell is a broadcast counselor?”

“She has a program on the wireless. People call her and ask her for advice and she tells them how to deal with their moral dilemmas.”

Keeler scowled. That seemed like a perfectly … “Does she still live in New Cleveland?”

“Za.” Her tone of voice suggested that he ought to have known that. He tapped the datapad. “Send a message to Bettilu Keeler. Bette, it’s your brother, Bill. I’m in town for a few days. Call me.”

He realized that Rosalind was staring at him. “What?”

“You’ve barely ever spoken to your sister since I’ve known you,” Rosalind informed him. “She doesn’t even spend Christ-Solstice Mass here.”

It finally dawned on him. “You think I’ve been here all along, that I never left. The past nine years didn’t happen out in space, they happened here. But for me it’s been more like three hundred years. So, you could all be dead, and this could be my Afterlife.”

“How much whiskey have you had so far today,” Rosalind asked.

“Only two,” he answered, not really paying attention to her. He accessed the Sapphire Topicality Index and requested the mission report from Pegasus. If this was nine years on, the ship should have completed its mission to Meridian. He saw that the mission reports were encyclopedic, and so he requested the summary, which the Index delivered to him. Pathfinder 003 Pegasus arrived at the 10 122 Pegasi system and confirmed the locus of the Meridian colony.

An initial landing party determined that the human colony had been overtaken by an alien infestation. There were five casualties in the initial landing party. A malfunction in the braincore led to the destruction of all planetary population centers (10) with the use of low-yield anti-matter warheads. The alien infestation was eliminated. Surviving human colonists were provided with assistance in rebuilding.

The primary braincore was isolated and deactivated. Ship’s operating systems were re-initialized using the secondary and tertiary braincores.

Pathfinder 003 Pegasus departed the system 65 days after arrival. Current destination is the 10 223 Equuleus system. Anticipated arrival: September 7308. Keeler felt a sort of … disappointment at this information. “I wasn’t there, and it didn’t matter,” he said. “No wonder I drink.”

“Where’s my cat?” Keeler asked.

“What cat?”

“Queequeg?”

“That little gray monster?” Rosalind trilled. “Ran away. Years ago. Lives in Kandor, now. Manages a trading account for you on the Baden Baden Baden commodities exchange.”

“Well, good for him.” Keeler stood up from the table. “I’m going for walk around the grounds,” he announced.

“Shall I prepare your usual going-for-walk-around-the-grounds flask?” Tolkien asked. He had been standing nearby the whole time. Keeler had not noticed him. Keeler shook his head. “Not this time. I need to think, Tolkien.”

He first passed the grove of Sleepy Hollow trees. He had no idea why they were called that, but they were quite scary. Their black trunks were as big around as buffet tables, gnarled and twisted. Sleepy Hollow trees lived long and this grove had been around since before the founding of the colony. Lexington Keeler, his ancestor, had been found passed out drunk among them on many occasions, which was why the early colonists chose this land for his estate, so he wouldn’t have to walk so far after a bender. Nearby was a perfectly landscaped grove of Sylvan trees. These were native to Jutland province, but had, with exquisite nurturing, managed to thrive in the cooler, drier climate of Oz province. Their leaves were blue, silver, and black, and breathing in the aromas put off by these trees helped clear thought and enhance the ability to reason, and so they were usually much avoided by those who were otherwise fans of consciousness-altering vegetative pharmacology.

What the hell was going on? Keeler wondered, pausing to look to a distant pond where two young boys were playing. Could this really be an AfterLife? All those he had left on Sapphire were now dead, so that was certainly possible. Was the Afterlife no more than a different version of the planet you came from? It was possible, but it didn’t make sense, at least not when arrayed against what he could remember being taught of possible Afterlives in his Theology classes.

“You kids get out of my yard,” he yelled at the boys, but they ignored him. On the other hand, if this was the Afterlike, it was very much in line with what the people of Gethsemane had described as their Afterlife, an idealized version of their own planet; in their case, one that was not doomed to collide with another world. Maybe that was the only difference. Just as the only difference here was that he had not gone on the Odyssey mission and had never served as commander of Pegasus. Maybe it wasn’t a Gateway to the Afterlife, maybe it was a giant “Change One Thing” machine that changed one factor in your reality and created an alternate reality where only one thing had been changed.

Maybe furthermore, the “Change One Thing” machine had plumbed his soul and determined that deep, deep inside himself he had never wanted to be the commander of Pegasus, and so had created a world where that had not happened. But how would that work? Did the machine create some sort of “pocket universe”

wherein the one change had happened? Did it have to create a pocket universe for everyone who walked through it?

He snorted out loud. “Change One Thing” machines. “Pocket Universes.” It sounded like science fiction.

Then, he remembered, he lived on a spaceship.

He sighed and turned back to the house; passing by the topiary that had been trimmed into lewd animal shapes under the direction of his great, great, great, great grandfather, Felix the Perverse.

When he got back to the Main House, Tolkien was waiting on the steps. “Sir, I have to inform you that, since you are at home, your wife requests your presence for lunch on the west patio.”

Keeler was stopped in his tracks for a moment, then pushed Xerox out of the way as he broke into a run toward the west portico.

Redfire – The pancakes were every bit as good as promised.

The bell tinkled again, and Redfire turned to the door and was shocked to find himself looking at … himself, walking into the diner with a gorgeous woman on his arm, whom he recognized as Halo Jordan.

The Other Redfire and his wife strolled confidently over to the booth where Redfire was sitting. “Mind if we join you?” he asked, sliding into the other side of the booth, his wife next to him.

Redfire’s mouth had stopped working, and he was unable to say anything to his other self. The Other Redfire seemed to sense this, grinned, and explained, “I was told I would find me here, back at the Celestial Café. And sure enough, here I am. How am I doing?”

“You’re a little freaked out,” Redfire managed to stammer.

“As well you should be,” the Other Redfire said cheerily. “This is all pretty freaky-deaky. You went through the Celestial Gateway on the planet Gethsemane, expecting to find yourself in some sort of Afterlife. And instead you found yourself here, in the Celestial Café.”

“Right,” Redfire said. “Say, what happened to …”

“Commander Keeler? His … destination … for lack of a better word, or maybe that is the right word .. his destination was some other place…” the Other Redfire explained.

“But is this really the Afterlife?” Redfire asked.

The other Redfire began to point toward his nose, then veered his finger away. “Not quite, brother. It’s more like a…”

“Would you two like to see some menus,” Gabrielle interrupted.

“No thanks,” the other Redfire Replied. “We know what’s on the menu. Just bring us a couple of glasses of water, would you, babe?”

“You bet, sweet thang, I’ll be back when you’re ready to order.”

“So, this isn’t the Afterlife,” Redfire tried to clarify as Gabrielle walked away. The other Redfire scowled, knitting his eyebrows. “The Gethsemanians believe they built a Gateway to the Afterplanes. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that they have. Can we say that?”

“I guess so,” Redfire granted. “But what is this place?”

“You might think of it as a WayStation,” Halo Jordan offered. “First of all, it wasn’t your time to die. And second, your Final Destination is, at this point, quite vague.” She was much younger than she had appeared in the images back on Pegasus. As though the sixteen years spend on Bodicea had been given back to her, and then some.

“Are the people from Gethsemane in the Afterlife?” Redfire asked, The Other Redfire and Halo Jordan looked awkwardly at each other. Finally, Halo explained, “We can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?” Redfire asked.

“Did you happen to believe that when you died, all the answers to all the questions would be revealed to you?” Halo Jordan asked.

“Not… really,” Redfire admitted.

“Of course, you didn’t,” the Other Redfire said. “You only get to keep the knowledge you acquired in your lifespan.”

“You don’t know if they reached Heaven, and you’re not supposed to know,” Halo Jordan told him. “And, in a way, that is sort of your answer.”

Redfire could only look disappointed as the Other Redfire continued. “I know you were hoping to have some questions answered, about who you are and what happened to you. There will be answers to your questions, here, but the answers can only be drawn from what you already know. You don’t know the truth about where the Gethsemanens are.”

“So, what can you tell me?” Redfire asked.

“You think you’re me, but you’re really not,” the Other Redfire said. “I was killed in the 12 255 Crux system, as was my wife.”

“That’s right,” Halo chirped. “I was there.”

The other Redfire grinned. “Would you like to know how I died?”

Halo Jordan objected. “Oh, we don’t need to get into that old story.”

“I don’t know how you died,” Redfire objected. “So, how can you tell me that?”

“In your case, there is a certain dispensation,” Halo Jordan told him. “There are certain things we can tell you that you may not be aware of because of the connection you have with my husband.”

“If he wants to know,” the Other Redfire added.

“I do…” Redfire said. “But first, I’d like to know, if I’m not you, who am I really?”

The Other Redfire leaned over and called to the kitchen. “Gabrielle, Can I get Adam and Eve on a raft, one shipwrecked, a bowl of birdseed for the wife, two coffees blonde and sweet.”

“Anything else, Sug?” Gabrielle called back.

Halo Jordan spoke up. “I’d like the eggs, Spam, Spam, ham, Spam, bacon and Spam, but without too much Spam.”

“No birdseed?” the Other Redfire asked.

“Neg, I’ll take the birdseed, too,” she leaned over to Redfire. “The marvelous part about all this is the food is wonderful, and you can eat as much as you like without ever filling up.”

Gabrielle replied. “So, eggs, Spam, Ham, Bacon and Spam, then?”

“Za, that.,” Halo replied. “With maybe just a little more Spam.”

The Other Redfire leaned back in the booth. “While we wait for the food to get here, I’ll begin to answer your question. I’ll begin with how I died.”

Chapter 06

Pegasus – Command Conference Room, Deck +100 – “Fourteen inhabitants attacked our search team,” Anaconda Taurus Rook reported via HOLO Link from the surface. They were lined up on the dock behind her, sedated and resting on blankets. On Gethsemane, the day had grown overcast in the city, and the light was dim.

Lt. Commander Alkema asked for clarification. “You say they’re children?”

“They appear to be, affirmative,” Taurus Rook seemed a bit peeved at having to repeat what she thought was clear in her report. “Four of them may be very young adults, but the other ten are definitely in early pubescence, according to Medical Technician Spitfire.”

“What is their current condition?” Alkema asked.

“Medical teams have treated them. There is no evidence they suffered any serious injuries from their interactions with our team. We are keeping them sedated as a security precaution.”

“Thanks, Lt. Cmdr Rook,” Alkema said. Eliza Change had tasked him to deal with the sudden discovery of children on Gethsemane, but to keep her apprised. She had then excused herself from the Main Bridge to meet in private with Specialist Atlantic and Flight Captain Driver, which Alkema had found strange.

Alkema called an immediate meeting with specialists from the ship’s Medical and Technical Cores, as well as some from the ship’s Family Life and Cultural Survey Specialists for additional insight.

“How did we miss the presence of children on the surface of Gethsemane?” was Alkema’s first question to his team. “More importantly, do you think there are more?”

“The energy field from the Gateway” was the consensus answer to the first question.

“Probably,” was the answer to the second.

Technical Specialist Conradin Otter was a Specialist on the ability of ship’s sensors to detect human life signs. Otter explained why the sensors didn’t detect any in Port Gethsemane. “We didn’t detect human life signatures because that… Gateway device or whatever it is… is integrated into the planet’s magnetic field. Its own energy feeds back into the planet’s magnetic ley lines, and that masks life signatures from the surface.”

“OK,” Alkema made a note of this on his datapad. “Can we compensate?”

Otter reported, “We can adjust the ship’s sensors to compensate for the interference, and that will improve resolution somewhat, but our sensors are based on detecting the life energy, the ‘auras’ created by living creatures. These will still be masked by the energy output.”

“We could ask the Gethsemanians to shut down the Gateway,” another Sensor Specialist, Soundattack, added. “But I don’t think they would agree to that.”

“That seems unlikely,” Alkema agreed. “What about other sensing systems?”

Otter had already considered this. “We can use visual, thermal, and acoustic sensors, but they wouldn’t be very effective from space. The only practical application is low-altitude flyovers in Aves equipped with enhanced sensors.”

“How low?” Alkema asked.

“3,000 meters or less,” Otter answered.

Alkema scrunched his eyebrows together. “At that altitude, their scanning radius is going to be pretty small.”

“Probably less than 90 square kilometers,” Otter told him.

“Like looking at the planet through a beverage straw,” Alkema scratched his chin. “We can concentrate on the cities, that’s where there are most likely to be survivors.”

“We can also increase the resolution of the ship’s optical sensors, which aren’t affected by the magnetic field,” said Technician Spirit, an expert in optimetric detection systems. “If we took Pegasus into a lower orbit… maybe a thousand kilometers… we could scan areas of the surface for movement or human presence.”

“Except for the parts under cloud cover,” Soundattack objected.

“Naturally,” Otter agreed.

“We could use low altitude Aves for poor visibility areas… night and cloud cover, and scan the clear areas with Pegasus’s optical sensors,” Alkema decided.

“What do we do when we find them?” asked the Cultural Anthropologist, Everett Silvertip.

“We rescue them, of course,” Alkema said. “This is a real opportunity for us to perform a service to the Gethsemanians, rounding up the remaining members of their populations, bringing them up to the Gateway Complex.”

The Cultural Survey Specialist, Eva Exeter, objected, “But, we ought to tread lightly. They might have left those people behind for a reason.”

“Children?” Alkema, and Taurus Rook’s hologram, exclaimed in surprise. “That’s really unimaginable.”

“And I know Prime Commander Keeler would disagree with me,” Exeter continued.

“But, I think we really ought to know why these children were left behind. And, at a minimum, we should consult with their government before we proceed. And maybe the optimal way to do that is to explain it to them when we bring those first children to the Gateway Complex. But we should not be surprised if they object to our proposal.”

Alkema could not imagine how the Gethsemanians could object. “Are the children ready for transport?” he asked Anaconda Rook.

“They’re sedated and malnourished, but there’s no reason they couldn’t be transported,” Rook answered.

Alkema nodded. “I’ll take an Aves to the surface and inform the Gethsemane government what we’re doing. Specialist Exeter, you’re with me. Meet me in Hangar Bay Alpha. I’ll secure a ship. Specialist Otter, begin the sensor augments on the Aves. Specialist Soundattack, begin augmenting the optical sensors on Pegasus.”

“And make sure we clear the ground mission with TyroCommander Change,” Exeter added.

Alkema felt a twinge of dread. “I’ll take that one. I’ll also recommend Commander Change take the ship down to 1,000 kilometers above the surface. That should improve our scanning capability.”

Gethsemane – The Gateway Complex – Two hours after the meeting, Alkema returned to the planet in the Aves Victor, landing on the runway outside the main terminal where Anaconda Taurus Rook had parked the Aves Phoenix. Alkema, Exeter, and Anaconda Taurus Rook were met by the guardsman named Thall and escorted to the Authority Central Administration building. This edifice was a grand structure, six stories tall, each story smaller and set back from the others, creating a kind of squared-off wedding cake effect. On the top level, large, plain characters reading P-E-R-A were arranged on each of the sides. The A was the largest, standing a third taller than the others.

They took an elevator to Hildegard Kahn’s office on the fifth floor. Her office occupied most of that level except for a private conference room and a small reception area. It was decorated in red and gold; a pattern of gold diamonds on a red background was incorporated into the thick-but-well worn carpeting and drapes, the walls were red with gold moldings. The couches in the reception area were red with gold pillows.

“Red and Gold were the colors of her party,” Thall explained, seeing the reaction of Alkema and Taurus Rook. “Red for unity, gold for Progress… Unity and Progress.”

“It’s very…” Alkema began, then completely failed to come up with a diplomatic-but-accurate adjective. “Can we see President Kahn?”

“She’ll be with you when her schedule permits,” answered the fussy old woman at the reception desk. “You may have a seat.”

The receptionist then ignored them. Kahn’s chambers were separated from the reception area by a pair of very heavy gold doors. No one went in or out during the time they waited.

Fifty minutes passed, and then Alkema approached the desk again. “Excuse me, we need to see President Kahn. Could you tell her we’re here to see her.”

“The president will be with you when her schedule permits,” the fussy old woman snapped.

Alkema persisted, “It’s imperative that we talk to her. People’s lives are at stake.”

The old woman was unimpressed. “You are lucky to be on this level at all. And with one call to the Security Guards, you would not be.”

Duly chastised, Alkema returned to the couch. “And I thought the Bodiceans were rude,” he muttered to Taurus Rook.

“I think the Aurorans were the worst,” Taurus Rook replied. “They not only kept you waiting, they propositioned you while you waited.”

“The Yronwodeans were also pretty rude,” Alkema added.

“I kind of understood where they were coming from, though,” Taurus Rook admitted.

“SSSSH!” the fussy old woman hissed at them.

Alkema and Taurus Rook were resentfully silent for a few moments, but then Taurus Rook began to speak. “If this takes much longer, I should link John and have him feed Skua.”

“Pieta should be putting out dinner around now,” Alkema said. “I’m famished. I don’t think I’ve eaten since breakfast.”

“There are meal-kits on the Aves,” Taurus Rook answered, as Exeter glared at them. “I like the yellow ones.”

“Are those the one with the corn-bars?” Alkema asked.

“Za,” Taurus Rook answered.

“Those aren’t bad, but I like the loose meat sandwiches in the red meal-kits better,”

Alkema. “The jam-pies in the red packs are good, too.”

“The blue ones are nasty,” said Taurus Rook.

“Agreed,” Alkema agreed.

“Be Quiet!” snapped the fussy old woman. “Or, I will have you removed!”

Alkema and Taurus Rook sat quietly for another forty minutes. Finally, Pro-Consul Oberth came to their rescue when he appeared for a scheduled meeting with the president.

“What brings you folks here today?” he asked, considerably more lucid than he had been the previous time Alkema had met him

Alkema stood. “I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Lieutenant Commander Alkema from Pegasus. Our search parties have found gangs of children living in Port Gethsemane who haven’t been evacuated. We’ve brought some of the children here with us. We think the president should know. And we would like offer our assistance in conducting search and rescue for any of your remaining citizens.”

“But only with your government’s consent,” Exeter added.

Oberth’s warm smile melted like a snowball that just met a blowtorch. “Wait here!” he ordered with seriousness. Before Alkema or Taurus Rook could explain that waiting was what they were already doing, Oberth hurried into Kahn’s office chambers. A moment later, Oberth poked his head out from behind the gold doors. “Mr. Thall, please bring our guests forward.”

Thall stood. “Follow me,” he said. The tension in the air had increased palpably in the few seconds since Oberth had arrived.

They passed through a large antechamber with two sets of double doors. The walls of this antechamber were hung with photographic portraits of President Hildegard Kahn, all striking heroic poses as she addressed her people, cut the ribbon at the opening of a relocation center, greeted a flight of refugees, or some other public event. The more recent ones had been doctored to hide her advancing age.

A guard opened one of the sets of double-doors from the inside, revealing a conference table at which Kahn and Oberth sat. Kahn’s expression was one of barely controlled fury. Before Alkema and Rook even had a chance to sit down, she began railing at them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Alkema tried to speak. “Mrs the President, our landing teams in the city of Port Gethsemane…”

She cut him off, “What the fluck do you mean ‘landing teams?’ I never gave you any flucking permission to come down to my planet.”

“They were conducting a… cultural survey,” Alkema answered, this time finding the technically and diplomatically accurate description. “They were seeking to document and preserve the memory of …”

“I didn’t give anyone the flucking permission to do that!” Kahn glared at them, filled with rage.

“On behalf of the Odyssey Mission,” Exeter began. “I wish to extend our apologies for…”

“The point is,” Taurus Rook interrupted, “We’ve found children in the city. We don’t know if they were abandoned by their parents or what, but we have brought them here. We believe there are more kids in the city. We came here intending to offer you assistance so they could be evacuated through the Gateway.”

“We don’t want your flucking help,” Kahn snapped. “In fact, I want all your flucking pig-lickers off my planet.”

Alkema was stunned.

“If you aren’t out of my building and back on your flucking ships in ten minutes, I’ll tell my guards to shoot your flucking heads off.” And with that, she rose and charged from the room without another word.

Pro-Consul Oberth apologized profusely for her, and attributed it to tension and fatigue. Alkema tried to put it aside. “Mr Oberth, there is still the matter of 14 heavily sedated children waiting in our ship…”

“Can you take them to your mother-ship?” Oberth asked, with urgency in his voice. “To your… Pegasus?”

“Of course,” Alkema replied, somewhat befuddled. “But I assumed you would want to send them through the Gateway to join your people.”

“They can’t go through the Gateway,” Oberth replied, determined and sad. “Their only chance is for you to take them back to your ship.”

“Why not?” Alkema asked.

Oberth whispered intently. “Come with me. I would hate for you to get shot in the head on my account.”

Oberth walked them out to the reception area, where the fussy old woman had been joined by four armed guards. Oberth waved the guards off. “I will escort the visitors out. You need not trouble yourselves.”

“We have orders,” one of the guards said.

“To escort them out of the building, right?” Oberth challenged them.

“Those are our orders,” the lead guard confirmed.

“I think only four people fit in that elevator,” Oberth told them. “In fact, as Pro-Consul for Health and Safety, I declare that that elevator’s capacity is limited to four people, for safety reasons. Now then, y’see, since there are four of you, there is no way you can all escort these three people out of the building. You could make several trips with two of you escorting them one at a time, y’see. But that would take more than twn minutes, wouldn’t it? Do you want to explain to President Kahn why you failed to get these people out of the building in the required time period?”

The lead guard’s face turned white at the prospect.

Oberth grunted with satisfaction. “I will escort them out. You can report to Hildegard Kahn that they have been returned to their ship.”

Oberth quickly shuffled them into the elevator. As it began its descent, he explained,

“When the first families were sent through the Gateway, they emerged on the other side without their children. No one knows why. No one knows where the children went. They just disappeared. It was a very tragic situation.”

Alkema was horrified, and that was just a shadow of how he imagined he would feel if he and Pieta emerged on the other side without Djamilla, the twins, and Little William. Anaconda Taurus Rook beat him to saying, “That’s horrible.”

“It is,” Oberth agreed. “Horrible, most horrible, most of our people believe it’s because children haven’t yet developed enough moral responsibility to be ready for the Afterlife…”

Alkema’s mind was racing. It couldn’t be that. There had to be something to do with mass, or physiology. “Is there a cut-off age or something?” he asked.

“Thirteen or so,” Oberth answered, and his face became flushed. “There were some terrible experiments… terrible… terrible experiments. We knew about the problem fifteen years ago when the Gateway was first activated. The Authority issued a law, the No Child Left Behind Law. We made sterilization mandatory at all population levels.”

The elevator reached the bottom floor. A dozen armed guards lined the foyer. Oberth told them to hold their place while he escorted the outsiders back to their ship. He led them outside, where their bus was waiting.

“The Mandatory Sterilization order didn’t work,” Alkema said, once they had cleared the guards.

Oberth sighed, “Unfortunately, you can’t make everybody follow the law. ‘Cos people are like that, y’see. You tell them not do something, y’see, and they just have to do it. The Authority did everything they could, there were propaganda campaigns, most of the population went along with that. Then, there was the crackdown, and that got most of the rest… but there’s always a few.”

“Where are the parents?” Alkema asked.

Oberth was red with shame now. “When the Enforcers found a family hiding children, they forced the parents through the Gateway and left the children behind. It was supposed to punish them, and make them an example to others. Compared to everything else we were trying to do, trying to keep our society from total collapse, it was just one horror among a thousand. It loses its power to shock, after a while.”

They had reached the door to the bus, which slid open. Oberth gestured Alkema to come toward him. He whispered below the rumble of the bus’s engine. “The thing is, y’see… I could get left behind just for telling you this…”

“Telling me what?”

“Some of the kids who were separated when their families were arrested and put through the Gateway by force were gathered up and taken to what they called a

‘Non-Relocation Camp.’ Y’see, it was set up for the kids who wouldn’t be relocating through the gateway, so they could be taken care of until…”

Alkema waited from him to finish, but the old man just shook his head, unable to say it out loud. “Where is the Non-Relocation Camp?” Alkema asked him. The driver of the bus revved his engine. Oberth grabbed Alkema’s shoulder and pulled him close enough to make sure he heard. “Go to a place called the Abbadon, in the valley between the Seth River and the Saltwash River. You should be able to find it on a map. There’s children there,” he said. He paused.

“Does Kahn know about it?” Alkema asked.

“Yes,” Oberth told him. “It wasn’t her idea, but it was the one time the Authority stood up to her and did something she didn’t want to do.”

The driver blew his horn. “You better go… now!” Oberth insisted. Alkema still needed to know one thing before he got on the bus. “Why won’t Kahn let us help?”

Oberth suddenly looked tired and old. “When I told you how we found out children didn’t come out of the Gateway on the other side, I didn’t tell you Hildegard’s only daughter was one that didn’t.”

Phoenix – David Alkema and Anaconda Taurus Rook shared the ride back. The two aves leaped into the auburn sky and shot toward Pegasus. En route, they reported in to TyroCommander Change.

“President Kahn doesn’t want us to evacuate the children,” Alkema explained. “I don’t know why.”

Change really didn’t care. “President Kahn’s orders are irrelevant. Tell me how you intend to proceed,”

Taurus Rook answered. “Our only option is a full-scale search and rescue operation. I’m going to need every Aves, every pilot, every Med-Tech... Hell, I’m gonna need everybody on the freakin’ ship.”

Eliza Change grunted. “All right, Lt. Commander Rook, you’re in charge of the search and rescue operation. 100% of ship’s resources are at your disposal. Flight Captain Driver will be in charge of the airlift, under your direction. Similarly, Lt. Commander Kitaen will provide any needed tactical support. Get Chief Delilah from Operations to open up the Tertiary Inhabitation Area. We don’t know yet how many children we’ll be receiving.”

Kitaen joined the conference and wanted to know what the tactical assessment was. Taurus Rook answered, “All they have are a few security guards at the Gateway. From what I’ve seen, a pack of Young Boy Rangers could hold off their entire military establishment, what’s left of it.”

Alkema displayed a topographical map of the planet’s surface. “We think Abaddon must refer to a place listed in their records as ‘Fort Abaddon.’ It’s located between two of the planet’s rivers, like Oberth said it would be.”

Kitaen interrupted. “Based on your initial encounter, this is not going to be a standard search and rescue. It’s not going to be easy to get them on our Aves voluntarily.”

“I’m working on a plan to deal with that,” Taurus Rook assured him. One of the children on board Phoenix regained consciousness, and began screaming and writhing against his restraints. A medical technician adjusted his calmative and the child soon relaxed again.

“How are we going to fix that?” Alkema asked. “We only have a handful of crew trained to deal with childhood trauma.”

Eliza Change answered him. “I’ll find someone in the crew to worry about that. Your job is to come up with a way to help us find the kids that are left on the planet; better sensors, better search patterns.”

“What’s your ETA, here?” Kitaen asked.

“About fourteen minutes,” Alkema answered.

Change demanded from Kitaen. “How long will you need to prepare teams of warfighters for search and rescue operations.”

Kitaen frowned. “I can be fully mobilized in half a day, but we can have the first teams ready to go by the time you’re ready to launch your first Aves.”

Change cracked a small smile at that. “Sounds like a challenge. I’m sure Flight Captain Driver can have ships ready to go by the time Taurus Rook hits the flight deck.”

“My warfighters will be waiting in the Hangar Bay when they arrive,” Kitaen promised.

Pegasus – Main Bridge – After she closed out the COM Link, Change stood up from her command chair, crossed the bridge, and knelt next to Specialist Atlantic. “I suppose this means the message was meant to be taken literally after all,” she said. Pegasus – Hangar Bay Alpha – As Phoenix docked in the Hangar Bay, Crews for the first six Aves assigned to search and rescue were already prepping their ships for departure. Alkema thought this a bit premature, as he and the others exited their ship, since they didn’t even have search and rescue areas mapped yet.

Anaconda Taurus Rook did not think this would be a problem. “We’ll use the ground base we already have at Port Gethsemane as our ground command center. We’ll begin searching in the immediate area, and we’ll dispatch another squad to Abaddon.” She handed Skua to Johnny Rook, “Hold this.”

Then, she took a case from out of one of the ship’s storage lockers and handed it to David Alkema. “You, hold this.”

Taurus Rook climbed to the top of the Aves Phoenix, standing just behind the command canopy. She touched a control on her gauntlet that put her on ship-wide COM Link, and raised her hands in a demand for silence and then she spoke. “May I have your attention!”

The crews stopped their preparations and looked up to the shapely woman in the tactical gear standing atop one of the ships. “I know some of you were looking forward to shore leave, to science expeditions, to cultural surveys of this planet. But we have to put those things aside if we’re going to save the children that are still down there.

“As you have been informed, the Gethsemanians devised a means to escape their doomed planet. Whether you believe it really is a Gateway to the Afterlife, or you think it’s some kind of trans-dimensional portal, that doesn’t matter. The flaw in its design is that children can’t go through it. Which means the Gethsemanians left their children behind, and they will die unless we get them up to Pegasus.

“We don’t know how many there are to evacuate, we don’t know where they are, and we have only seven days to do it. Probably less. This is an impossible job. Let me tell you how we’re going to do it.”

She peered over the edge of the ship. “Lt. Cmdr. Alkema, toss me up that box, would you?”

Alkema tossed up the case. Taurus Rook unlatched it and set it down on the top of the ship.

“The children are semi-feral, so…” She kicked a pulse-rifle out of the box, flicking it up into the air and catching it in her hands. In a single smooth motion, she armed and locked it. “Heavy stun should take them down.”

“Whoa,” a young warrior with unkempt reddish-blond locks, Warfighter Copperhead, objected from the front row. “We’re gonna shoot children?”

“That’s right.” Taurus Rook told him.

Copperhead grinned. “Neat.”

“Getting hit with a stun pulse is not a pleasant experience,” a female voice in the back protested.

“Standing on a planet when it explodes is a much less pleasant experience,” Anaconda Taurus Rook countered. “Perspective, people, you got to have it. We’re going to need a lot of it in the next few days.”

Taurus Rook continued. “Shooting the kids is only going to be a last resort. It’s possible not all the children on the planet will be as gone wild as the ones we encountered in Port Gethsemane. We’ll also be transmitting audio calls and using other enticements as part of the operation.

“Once we have secured the children, we also have to keep them calm while we transport them, and while we evacuate them to Pegasus. Medical Technician Rand, I believe you have a solution to this problem.”

Medical Technician Ran held up a bracelet. “We’ll fit the children with these. They’ll keep them calm and sedate while we transport them and acclimate them to the ship.”

“So, we’re going to shoot the kids, and then drug them,” someone heckled.

“That’s the general idea,” Taurus Rook nodded. “The ground search is only half the effort. We need to prepare this ship for an unknown number of refugees… hundreds, maybe thousands. While the search and rescue teams are on the planet, we need shipboard crews to prepare the tertiary inhabitation areas. We’re going to need clothing, blankets, medicine, food, water… We’ve got work to do, no doubt about it.

“We have to be realistic. This will not be easy. It’s going to require the effort of every man, woman, and family on this ship to find these children, catch these children, bring them back to Pegasus, and give them a home.

“We’re going to rescue the children the Gethsemanians left behind!” She said in a determined voice, not shouting, not hectoring, simply stating the fact. “So, teams, form up, and get ready to depart. Flight crews. Let’s get these ships out of here.”

Chapter 07

Keeler – William Randolph Keeler met Delia Katherine Anne (Somerset) Chanski in the summer of 7270, when he was a fairly disreputable Assistant Professor of Histories, and she was a novelist on the verge of a breakout. The occasion had been the launch party for her first long work, The Bold and the Beautiful, a meditation on history and philosophy disguised as a novel about a man and a cyborg in love with the same woman and on the same quest for lost Commonwealth treasures. (Keeler would later read the book and wince at the anachronisms and historical errors, but her prose was surefooted and her grasp of the role of evil in the evolution of mankind’s civilization was spot-on.) The launch party had taken place at the Somerset estate in Shoreline, one of the communities that stretched along the beachier shoreline of Lake of the Loons to the west of New Cleveland, where the third wave of rich settlers had come to live centuries earlier. It was a more gentile place than New Cleveland proper. The Somerset manor was a four hundred year old stone structure on a hill overlooking Lake of the Loons. The Somersets had made a fortune, ages ago, developing Magnetohydrodynamic power stations for coastal cities. Just when they had squandered their original fortunes, they made a pair of fortuitous marriages to the Chanski family, who had built an even larger fortune investing in shipping and industrial companies in Jutland Province. They only wintered in Oz. The Chanski family home was in Amity, on the northeast coast of Delta continent, a small town with too much money for its own good.

And when those fortunes had run their course, their survival instincts kicked in again, and they targeted the Keelers. The marriage of Bill Keeler to Delia Chanski would give the Somerset Chanski clan access to nigh-on inexhaustible wealth and status, and would provide the Keelers a chance to marry off he-who-was-thought-unmarriable. Arranged marriages were not unusual on Sapphire. Which was fine with Bill Keeler, as there were certain implied understandings about arranged marriages, and the rather limited husbandly duties required of them. The first thing he noticed about her on that crisp September had been her eyebrows. Sure, she had fabulous tits, but so did most all of the women of his acquaintance in those days. Those eyebrows, though, the way they arched above her violet-colored eyes, he couldn’t stop staring at them.

“Why are you staring at my eyebrows?” she had asked him.

“What eyebrows?” he had slurred in response.

When Delia turned from the luncheon table and smiled at him wanly, Keeler had to look at her eyebrows again. There they were; beautiful arches underneath the bangs of her straight black hair, still protecting her eyes from moisture and dust, but more importantly, always letting him know exactly what she was feeling. At the moment, they indicated warm surprise.

“So good of you to join me,” she called over to him in that smoky, yet precise accent from the upper society of Amity. She wore a conservative white suit with a pale yellow summer skirt that was too warm and too conservative for subtropical New Cleveland…

and he loved her for it.

He almost immediately fell to his knees beside her, unable to speak, nearly weeping.

“What’s wrong, dear heart?” she asked him. “Are we out of the Arcadian nut liquor again, or have you just been into the Arcadian nut liquor again?”

He took her hand and kissed, held it against his cheek to convince himself it was real. It was real. It was soft and warm and smelled of that expensive milled soap she ordered from that boutique back in Amity.

“I love you, Delia,” Keeler whispered.

The eyebrows indicated bemused annoyance. “Good Lord, you have been into the nut liquor.”

“I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again,” he whispered.

“Why, did you drink yourself blind last night?”

He stared up at her. So many thoughts converged at once in his mind: he was so happy to see her, to touch, her to smell her; if she was here, maybe this was his Afterlife; although he doubted she would be ragging on him about his drinking in an actual Afterlife; actually a drink would be pretty good right now.

“What is it?” she persisted in asking him.

His reply came in a near-sobbing jumble as all his thoughts spilled out in his words: “So happy, me, heaven, reality, deserve, drink.”

“Maybe you should go back to bed,” she took his face between her two hands and cradled it. She looked straight into his eyes, saw the tears in them. “Whatever is the matter, darling?”

Keeler tried to say something, but only managed to exhale. It was as though he had forgotten how to speak.

“What?” she insisted.

He had to concentrate and will himself to make the words come out. “I don’t know where to start. I cannot believe you’re alive… or possibly not, but you seem real, and we’re together again, and that’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and even more wonderful.”

“Maybe I should call Dr. Christmas,” she said.

“Neg, neg… you see…” He paused and recovered himself a bit, tried to look her steady in the eye. “How to say this without sounding like an incoherent drunk…”

She smiled patiently. “Good luck with that.”

“I am… for the last nine years, I’ve been the captain of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus. This morning, I walked through a Gateway on a colony called Gethsemane, on the other side of the galaxy. This Gateway supposedly takes you to an Afterlife. But I woke up here, in this house, and came down to see you.”

She nodded slowly and released his face from his hands. “I’m afraid you’ve failed, dear.

“

He grabbed her hand. “Seriously… Forgive my incoherence, but after twenty-one years, I am back with the woman I love again.”

“You’re crushing my hand,” she said.

A little voice in Keeler’s head demanded: If this is the Afterlife, wouldn’t she know that this was the Afterlife?

He released her hand and slowly stood up from the ground. She looked him over, head to toe. “There is something different about you. I am wondering, if you had some sort of dream. And now, you wake up confused by reality.”

Keeler winced. “In my reality, you died twenty-one years ago. That was no dream.”

She was startled by this, at first. Then, she asked. “Tell me, if I am dead, do you remember how I met my gruesome end?”

It was painful for Keeler to recall it. “It was shortly after the second work in your trilogy was launched, As the World Turns. You went to Corvallis as part of some sort of promotional tour. We were having problems with our marriage, and I stayed behind. You went to a game of rounders. You were in the front row of the stadium. A fastball went wild, caught you right in the temple. You died instantly.”

“How ghastly,” she patted her mouth with a napkin. “I so remember that game. It was the Corvallis Haberdashers against the New Sapporo Coopersmiths. The Haberdashers won 42-38 in extra outings. They went to the Global Sequence that year, but they lost in seven games to the New Halifax Steamrunners.”

“I didn’t even know you liked rounders,” Keeler said. A servant he didn’t recognize helped him into a chair.

“I didn’t much at the time, but I’ve become something of a loyalist since then. Our local squadron is not very impressive. They need a couple good utility fieldsmen, if you ask me, and a thrower who doesn’t lose his nerve in the lightning rounds.”

Keeler was losing the sensation of a world spinning away from him. Everything seemed to be coming to rest. Normal conversation seemed possible. In that spirit he asked, “What happened to you. You didn’t die at that rounders match 21 years ago?”

She shrugged, “Well, if you must know, I returned to New Cleveland. I finished the trilogy. The third work was called The Guiding Light. It considered the possibilities of redemption. Sales were respectable, although the critics were unimpressed. We purchased a lovely cottage in Jutland with the proceeds, and for nearly two years, we lived there and…” She blushed. “We didn’t work or bother with the family, I’ll put it that way. We were too young, too restless, too bold, too beautiful. We did marvelous things. We traveled the planet. We bought some amazing things. You developed an especial interest in antique novelty light fixtures shaped like naked women.”

Keeler admitted, “It certainly sounds like something I’d so.”

She continued. “After two or three years of that, we returned to New Cleveland and I took a position teaching writing to bored undergraduates. A few years after that …”

“You are so beautiful,” Keeler burst out. It was one of the things he had always regretted not saying to her before she died. Defying his own expectations, he had fallen madly in love with her after their wedding. It had taken some time, a year or so. But he had eventually discovered that his parents’ arrangement had given him an extraordinary woman, much better than he had ever deserved or could have found on his own.

“Thank you,” she said, starting to blush again. “Oh, dear… I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what to make of this.”

“You think I’ve lost my mind.”

“I’ve thought that for years, darling,” She reached across the table and stroked his hair.

“Part of me is wondering if we should contact a Mind Doctor. I am sure your sister knows some. On the other hand, I also wonder if I could get a book out of this. A man awakens from a dream, believing his wife to be dead, and finds her alive again. Interesting premise, I wonder where the narrative goes from there.”

“So, you still write,” Keeler said.

“Not very much, it’s been a long time. In fact, I haven’t written more than a few short articles since the third book came out.”

This came as a surprise to him. “You haven’t written since the trilogy?”

“Like I said, an essay here and there… but look at me, reminding my own husband of my career. Oh, this is jolly, this is very, very jolly, indeed.” She smiled and took a sip of her

“iced tea.”

Rosalind came out of the house at that point, bearing a tray of small ham and turkey sandwiches, green lettuce, heaps of tomatoes, and boiled eggs. Another servant followed with bottles of ginger beer.

Keeler reached for one of the sandwiches and Rosalind promptly smacked his hand away. “This isn’t for you, this is for Kyte and his those vagabond friends of his. They’re down by the lake, pestering the fish, I imagine.”

Keeler frowned. “They’re for who now?”

“Kyte… and his friends.” Rosalind clucked.

“Kitey?” Keeler repeated. He didn’t remember anyone living on the estate named Kitey.

“Kai-tay,” Rosalind enunciated slowly. “Your son.”

Redfire – Gabrielle soon reappeared with large, steaming trays of extremely delicious food. The two Redfires and the Halo Jordan dug into their plates, all the while complimenting on how wonderful the food was.

The clouds outside the diner never moved. Redfire A had become aware of that as he sat and listened to his counterpart, the Other Redfire B, explain the details of his captivity aboard the alien mother-ship.

“When I came to, I felt like hell. My head was pounding, my joints ached. I soon discovered puncture wounds in my arms, groin, and at the back of my neck. Apparently, my captors had extracted some of my blood, spinal fluid, and other bodily humors for examination. I found myself in a kind of cell, oblong in shape, about a meter wide, not much long enough for me to lie flat in, nor high enough for me to stand up. The floor was padded, and I supposed I was meant to sleep on it. It was dark, but a dim light came from the front of the cell, which was covered with a metal mesh in a diamond pattern. It was razor sharp, and I cut myself quite badly when I tested it.

“I carefully inspected the confines of my cell once, twice, a third time, and I determined that escape was impossible. I crawled over to the front, where the metal mesh was, and I called out ‘Halo, are you there?’

“And someone answered me, ‘I am not Halo, but I am here.’

“’Who are you?’ I called out.

“’I am Corvus of Aurelia,’ the voice answered. “’I am an Ace of Wands in the ranks of Lucifer, under the Heirophant of the Arcana.’

“’Are you our guard?’ I asked.

“I could hear him laughing in reply. ‘I am not your guard. I am imprisoned like you are.’

“I asked him if we were on an Aurelian ship, and he said we weren’t. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. I thought – neg, neg. I was fairly certain, that this was a trick of some kind.

“The Aurelian kept talking, ‘I am of the second generation to be born on the Megasphere. My human forebears lived on a colony called Park, before we were liberated from our superstition and savagery by Aurelia.’

“At this point I interrupted. ‘Spare me your propaganda, I’ve seen what the Aurelian Empire does. I saw how Medea colony was wiped out. I saw the attack on Bodicea. I saw how the civilization on Hearth was destroyed. I saw Coriolos…’”

“The Aurelian said, ‘The Aurelians only wish to give humans lives of comfort and happiness, while preparing the way for an evolution into a higher state of being.’ He also said something about humans having no business colonizing worlds that belonged to other species.

“I told him that Bodicea had been bombed from space with mass drivers and millions had been killed. He told me if the Arcana had willed it to be so, then there must have been simply no other way to wipe the slate of such a thoroughly corrupt and misguided civilization.

“’The human race can only be allowed to make so many bad choices before someone has to intervene,’ the Aurelian said. ‘We will make things better for all of you.’

“I told him, ‘Well, I would love to visit your megasphere and see just how much better it is. Oh, but, too bad, we passed by the wreckage of your megasphere in the outer system.’

“’A billion lives senselessly ended,’ the Aurelian said. ‘We came in peace to offer the humans of this system unity, purpose and comfort. And we are repaid in violence.’

“’Correction,’ I said. ‘You came to force the humans in this system to live under Aurelian rule, and to serve Aurelian purpose.’

At that point, Redfire A interrupted. “Could we, maybe, skip ahead to the part where you escape, or to the part where you die? No offense, but, can guess that this argument about politics went on for a while, and there are things I really must know.”

Halo Jordan dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Maybe I should take it from here.”

Keeler — “Since when do I have a son,” Keeler demanded when Rosalind had disappeared down the path. “When did *that* happen?”

“You’ve had a son for almost thirteen years,” Delia replied. “As for when *that*

happened, add nine months and you’ll get the answer.”

“Good Lord,” Keeler downed his drink in one long swallow.

“We should continue this conversation in the library,” Delia suggested. Keeler remembered that she had never liked spending too long in the sun. She rose from the table and turned toward the house, knowing he would follow her.

The library was on the opposite side of the house, and one more floor down from the sun porch, being mostly underground except for a high row of windows. The walls were fieldstones up to about shoulder level before giving way to clean, geometrical forms in brown hardwood.

The shelves the lined three of the walls were made of the same hardwood, and lined with books, an earlier Keeler had had to re-invent paper in order to make this possible. Three large desks were set into one wall, each with a large holographic screen in front of it. This was where the real information was exchanged. The books were mostly decorative. There was a fireplace on one wall with three large couches in front of it. Delia sat down on one of the large, soft leather couches. Keeler preferred to stand. He had always hated this room.

“So, I have a son,” he repeated. “Any more kids I should know about?”

“I only had the one,” she answered. “Beyond that, I can not say.”

Keeler rubbed his chin. “What other fresh hells await me in this bizarro version of my life?”

“I can’t really say,” she replied, crossing her legs. “To me, the notion of you flying around the galaxy on a spaceship is quite bizarro. You don’t even like to travel to Kandor.”

Keeler pointed to one of the leather-bound volumes. “That book is wrong; The Myth of the Tarmigans. The Tarmigans are not a myth. I’ve seen their handiwork. Allbeing, how could I have been so arrogant. What other creature from our mythology are real? The Klingons? The Goa’uld? The Germans?”

He took a deep breath and turned to her. “All right, tell me. What have I been doing for the last nine years?”

“You’ve been the Couch of the Histories Department.”

“The ‘Couch?’”

“You said it was more comfortable than a chair,” she explained.

“Was I ever Chancellor?”

“Za, from 7288 to 7292. You quit because you got bored.”

Keeler shrugged. “That certainly sounds like something I would do.” So, in this reality, he had quit his post as Chancellor the same year he had become Prime Commander of Pegasus in his own reality. He wondered what that could mean.

“What else have I done?” he asked.

“Your tenure as the chief of the Histories Department has been fairly successful. You got some of the deadwood transferred to other universities. You hired some exciting new people. You’ve recently secured funding to renovate the Histories Building and the Hall of Antiquities.”

“Am I a respected figure in the academic community?”

Delia smiled. “For the most part.”

“Then I have become that which I hate,” Keeler grumbled. There was a knock at the library door. “Who is it?” Keeler barked.

Tolkien Xerox cracked open the door and poked his head in, looking white and timid.

“Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”

“Who?” Keeler demanded.

Someone pushed Xerox aside and flung the door open. And Keeler gaped when he saw who it was, because it was him. It was his doppelganger, looking much the same except instead of a bathrobe, he was dressed in a frumpish suit with leather patches on the elbows.

The newcomer scowled, paused for a second, then pointed an accusing finger at Delia.

“Aha! I caught you! Just as I suspected, you have been cheating on me… with me!”

Chapter 08

Gethsemane – A trio of Aves on Y-formation flew low over the semi-arid landscape in a southwest sector of the northern hemisphere, casting bird-like shadows on the dried grass and dehydrated trees. Two small, shallow rivers cut through this land of weathered brown-red mesas emerging from plains of yellow-gray sands. Between them was a valley more fertile than the surrounding wilderness, but not much more, giving life only to occasional stands of stumpy trees and fields of hardy desert grasses. Phoenix led the flight, and the other two Aves were Quentin and Zeus. Approaching the outpost at the far end of the valley, they banked and made for an old dirt runway scraped from the hardpan. The runway was set eight kilometers from a set of buildings older, squarer, and much more weathered than the buildings at the Gateway complex. Ten windmills stood tall over the complex, turning in the constant desert wind. The place was surrounded by triple fencing and razor wire, angled both toward and away from the camp, to keep anyone from getting in or out.

They called this place Fort Abaddon.

Dust devils swarmed as the Aves landing thrusters blasted dirt from the ground and the ships settled onto the hard-baked ground.

The hatch on the underside of Phoenix slid open. Trajan Lear, Johnny Rook, and Max Jordan emerged blinking into the fierce afternoon sunlight, and surveyed the badlands around them, and the weathered collection of gray-brown buildings that made up the old fort. “How old is this place?” Max Jordan wondered aloud.

Rook shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s only going to get five days older.” He adjusted his Spex. “There’s life signs all right. Over there.” He gestured toward the barracks. Other rescue teams from the other Aves emerged, each one a team of five, two warfighters, two technicians, and a medic. The pilots of the other ships remained inside their ships, so Trajan Lear led the teams toward the fort complex.

“What a hellhole,” Rook observed.

Max Jordan shrugged. “EdenWorld was worse. 255 Crux was worse. I wouldn’t want to live here, but…”

There didn’t seem to be anything coming after the word “but,” so Rook grimly noted, “I wouldn’t want to die here either.”

The voice of Warfighter Silvertip, flanking them to the east, came across the COM Link.

“Someone’s coming.”

A figure riding a very large motorcycle approached them from the direction of the barracks, kicking up a trail of dust. In short order, the motorcycle and its rider caught up to them, and parked directly in their path, about twenty meters ahread. She was clad in leather and filled out the leather in a female way. A patch covered one eye, and her dark hair was drawn back into a ponytail. She greeted the Pegasus landing crew in the customary fashion… by pointing a pair of weapons at them and demanding,

“Who the Hell are you?”

Johnny Rook calmly raised his arms as though surrendering, and he faced the mad woman with the double-barreled kinetic energy weapons. “Warfighter Specialist First Rank Johnny Rook of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus. We’ve come to rescue you.”

“Rescue us,” she snorted. “What makes you think we need to be rescued?”

“Your planet is about to be destroyed. We have come to evacuate you, to take you to safety. I’m Johnny Rook.” He extended a hand and smiled, the kind of handsome smile that had always worked so well with the women on Pegasus. The woman wasn’t buying it. “Are you from the Authority?”

“Neg,” Rook answered. “We’re from another planet.”

“A Commonwealth colony world?” she asked.

“Sort of,” Rook answered.

She frowned and looked past where he stood to where the Aves were parked.

“How many kids do you have?” Rook asked.

She squinted at him very suspiciously, and finally answered, “Never you mind. How did you find us?”

“It was a man in your Authority, a man named Oberth who told us we could find children in need of rescue here,” Rook explained.

The woman would not put down her weapon, but the name Oberth seemed to strike a chord with her.

“Does the Authority know what you’re doing?” she asked.

“Not really, neg,” Rook admitted.

This seemed to reassure her. “Of course, they probably were against it. So, where are you going to take us?”

“Off this planet before it explodes,” Rook answered.

She waved one of her weapons at the Aves. “All my kids won’t fit in those ships.”

Rook patiently explained. “We have a larger ship in orbit capable of evacuating everyone left this planet. These ships are here to shuttle your kids up to our big ship. I can show you pictures, I can even give you a ride, if you want to see the ship, but we can’t be wasting time here. Your planet’s going to be smashed to rubble in about five days.”

“Supposing you are space people,” she asked. “How do I know you’re not going to take my kids off into some kind of slavery, or something worse than that?”

“There’s not much worse than being on a planet when it explodes,” Trajan Lear added in. “Trust me on that.”

“I swore to protect these kids,” the woman insisted.

“You’re not protecting them, you’re dooming them,” Trajan Lear snapped back.

“Unless you let us evacuate them to safety.”

Johnny Rook moved slowly a little closer to the woman. “We’ve come here to save them, save you, you have to believe us. We only have five days; five days to save anybody we can off this planet. I don’t know what it would take to convince you of our good intentions.”

She glared at them, unimpressed.

Max Jordan cleared his throat and spoke up. “No offense, ma’am… but we didn’t have to ask. Shoot me with your gun, if you want. I have a shield. It won’t hurt me. And after you fire, one of these guys will drop you. Guaranteed. There’s sixteen of us and only one of you. Believe me; we don’t need your permission.”

She leveled her weapon at Max Jordan. Her finger twitched on the trigger. Rook and Trajan Lear tensed. Max had not entirely been accurate about the shields. They did not have full tactical shields, and there was no way to know the limited shields they had brought would be effective against the woman’s weapon. Max didn’t flinch, but stared her down, daring her to fire.

Keeping her weapon leveled at Max Jordan’s head, she hissed, “We have shelters all over the place, and you won’t find them without me.”

“I think we could find most of them,” Max Jordan answered. “In that big building straight behind you, I’m reading 432 bio-signs. There’s another eighty in the side building to the south. There’s an underground section with 184 bio-signs just under the main building. Do you want me to go on?”

Slowly she lowered her weapons back into their holsters. “Well, since I don’t have a choice then, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“A wise decision,” Max Jordan said.

“What’s your name?” Rook asked her.

The woman took a long time before she answered. “Miranda.”

“How many children are there here?” Rook asked her.

“I don’t keep count,” she answered. “Somewhere around two thousand.”

Rook looked back toward the Aves. Packed to the walls, they could hold two hundred kids each. “We’re going to need more ships.”

“Why don’t you take us to the camp so we can start getting the kids out of here,” Trajan Lear said.

Miranda very reluctantly nodded.

“You made a good choice,” Max Jordan said to the woman. “Two thousand kids are going to be alive in six days because of it.”

Pegasus – Outer Bridge – Anaconda Rook was giving Eliza Jane Change the latest update on the first full day of evacuation operations. “Aves George and Hector are inbound with 163 refugees. The James group is preparing to evacuate a group of 267, that’s not a final count. Aves Bernard and Andrew just departed with the first 206 out of 487 refugees from a river encampment.”

The two of them examined a large logistical display projected in the forepart of the bridge, showing the positions of search teams on the planet and Aves outbound or inbound.

“I’m going to recommend putting a ground hold on further take-offs until we get these groups processed,” Taurus Rook advised.

“Why?” Change asked.

Taurus Rook explained. “We already have 227 refugees in the Hangar, and we’re trying to get them checked out before we move them to the Tertiary inhabitation decks. It’s a learning curve situation. We’re trying to get them through as fast as we can, but they’re not used to this… and neither are we.”

“Would more crew help?” Change asked.

“I don’t know where you could find them,” Rook replied. “Everybody on the ship is tasked already.”

Change was unfazed. “I’ll have Alkema review the personnel roster. If I can reduce crews in non-essential sections, I can give you more people.”

A COM link signal called for their attention. The COM officer brought up a display showing Trajan Lear sitting on the flight Deck of his Aves. “Trajan Lear, Phoenix Group. We have arrived at the location provided to us by Councilor Oberth. According to the …

person in charge… there are about 2,000 survivors in this location.”

“What is their condition?” Anaconda Rook asked.

Trajan Lear replied, “I haven’t seen them yet, but the person in charge reports that they are healthy and… fine I guess. We don’t have enough ships on the ground to take them all, but the first three groups should be ready in less than two hours.”

Taurus Rook looked at her logistics charts. “Hold on the ground until you get clearance from Flight Operations. Our hangar bays might be full in two hours. I don’t want to overwhelm our people here, so we’ll take move them out over three days. It should be enough time.”

Trajan Lear nodded. “Acknowledged, I’ll put Specialist Rook in charge of the operation.”

“Negative,” Anaconda Rook replied. “As ranking mission officer, I’m placing you in charge of evacuating this outpost. I am going to need Rook and Jordan back at the Command Base.”

“Ma’am,” Lear objected. “I’m not a command officer, I’m just a pilot.”

“As of now, you’re a command officer, and your job is to evacuate Fort Abaddon,”

Taurus Rook replied. “I’ve got sixty teams scouring this planet for survivors. It sounds like you’ve got an easy one. Not every team does; some of the teams are encountering resistance. Just load your kids on the ships and get them to Pegasus. If you can’t handle this, you’re too stupid to breathe. Pegasus out.” She cut off the COM Link before Lear could raise another objection.

The slightest smile crossed Eliza Change’s lips, and anyone who caught it knew she had respect for Anaconda Taurus Rook.

“If you don’t mind, ma’am,” said Taurus Rook. “I’d like to be in the Hangar Bay to supervise when these new survivors are brought on-board. Maybe I can figure out how to speed up the processing.”

“Good idea. If you need command assistance, let me know.” Taurus Rook exited toward the docking pad to catch a transport to the Hangar Deck.

Change returned to the Inner Bridge and to her command chair, trying to ignore Science Specialist Merch, who was in charge of the (in her mind completely useless) operation to survey the rogue planet.

After she took the command seat, he maneuvered into her field of vision, and stood there fondling a datapad. She realized ignoring him would no longer be possible. “What is it, Merch?”

“Telemetry and surveillance reports from the survey mission to the rogue planet,” he told her, offering her the datapad.

“I’ll review them after the impact. While you were out surveying, you must have missed the news that we’re evacuating the planet.”

“You really should take a look at this,” Merch said. Merch was obviously a slow learner. Change snarled at him. “If it’s that important, terminate the elaborate set-up and just report to me what the telemetry showed.”

“Life,” Merch snapped. For some reason, he was now as angry as she was.

“What life? It’s a rock,” she growled, activating the data display.

“Not presently,” Merch clarified. “But look at those structures in this crater here, and this one here. And on the opposite hemisphere, we found huge blast craters, highly radioactive. The radiation and damage signatures are consistent with nucleonic weaponry.”

“I can see how certain people would find that interesting,” Change said, but her tone of voice indicated that she was not one of those certain people.

“It’s a very big deal. It could be Commonwealth, or even alien. Planetology requests resources to conduct a ground survey of the ruins,” Merch went on.

“We can’t spare any resources. Human lives are more important than some ruins,”

Change handed him back his datapad.

Merch insisted. “If we don’t go down there now, we will never have another chance. Those ruins will be lost to history.”

“Who cares?” Change answered. “Dead ruins versus live children, that’s one of the easier command decisions to make.”

Merch wouldn’t give up. “I’m only asking for one ship, one pilot, and two or three anthropologists who wouldn’t be very helpful during the evacuation anyway.”

Change scowled, and finally conceded. “All right, one team, one Aves… Maud… and stay the Hell away from me until the Evacuation is over.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Merch took his datapad and got himself off the main bridge in a hurry. Later, he would throw up.

Pegasus – Hangar Bay Alpha – Aves Prudence eased silently into her dock. Her port-side hatch opened and the Evacuation crew began leading the first children out of her main deck. Some kept the clothing they had worn on the planet, but most had changed into clothing the crew had provided for them: tunics and jerseys worn over loose fitting pants. They had made a run on the ship’s clothing stores, and still there still weren’t enough. The clothing artifactories had been brought on-line to create a kind of standard evacuation uniform in shades of burnt orange, sage, and umber with thick black bands on the sleeves. Most of the children, upon reaching Pegasus, reacted with a kind of cautious wonder. Their eyes opened wide as they surveyed the technology and expanse of the Hangar Bay. They had nothing on their planet like it. There was relief in some, a cautious, tentative hope that finally they might be safe, that someone would take care of them. There was fear in others, a terror of this new life that led some of the littlest ones to cry and wail, and demand to return to the surface. Among the older ones, there was either wearied resignation to whatever ‘what now’ they had been delivered to, or a wary, self-protecting vigilance against what might come.

Then, there were the really quiet ones, the ones who were too wild to be easily transported. They had been stunned by the pulse weapons, and then affixed with calmative bracelets. They left the ships on stretchers for transport to the newly activated Hospital 5.

Anaconda Taurus Rook met the Operational Lead at the hatch to the ship. “What’s the tally?”

The Lead on Prudence’s last mission was Technician First Class Spirit, a Sapphirean female, roughly the same age as Anaconda Taurus Rook, who in normal times worked maintaining the ship’s Graviton Engines. “Forty-seven calms, and twenty-eight sedated.”

“That’s not nearly a full load,” Taurus Rook lamented, entering the figures into her datapad.

“They were on an island,” the Operational Lead reported. “They had been hiding there with their families. Then, the Authority found them, took all the adults and the older kids by force, left the rest behind. They were frightened of us. We took as many as we could find.”

“Did you leave any behind?” Taurus Rook asked.

“We did two fly-by scans before we left for orbit,” Spirit answered. “We detected no further signs of life. We asked the children if anyone was missing, and they haven’t named anyone. I think we’re clear.”

Taurus Rook noted the little boy who hung onto Spirit, he looked to be seven or eight years old. “And who is this?”

Spirit smiled wearily. “He hasn’t told me his name yet, but some of the kids … many of the kids … really take to the people who rescue them.”

Taurus Rook checked her schedule. Bernard and Andrew would be docking in two minutes. “How long do you think you’ll need to clear your group through the Hangar Bay?”

“I don’t know, sir. Medical checks, space assignments… two hours at least.”

Rook took this information in with a distinct lack of satisfaction. She knew everyone involved was trying hard. But it just wasn’t going to be enough. “We should begin processing the calms in the Bodicea Garden Park. It’s a better environment for them than the Hangar Deck, and it will give us more room to work here. How long have you been on?”

“Thirty-two hours, sir,” Spirit reported.

“Take a nap,” Rook ordered.

She dismissed Spirit and entered the ship, making her way to the flight deck, where Flight Captain Driver was making his post-flight report.

“I need you to take me back to Port Gethsemane,” she told him. Driver was taken aback, but he agreed. “I was supposed to go to Abaddon. Let me alter our flight plan. I thought you were running the operation from up here.”

Rook unhooked the carrier holding Skua from her back. “The Pegasus end is five-by-five. We’ve got 711 refugees on Pegasus. But there are almost 3,000 more waiting on the ground and we have barely managed to survey the major urban areas. There could be thousands more in the countryside.”

“Do you think you’ll be more useful on the surface?” Driver asked.

“I think there is too much of a bottleneck in the Hangar Bay. I want to establish a medical screening facility on the ground so we can get them processed to the ship faster. We can move them more quickly through the Hangar Bay that way. “

“That sounds like a good plan.”

How long before we can take off?” Rook asked.

“Soon as I finish post-flight, pre-flight, and get clearance from Flight Operations,”

Driver answered. “The flight checks will go faster if I put Prudence in auto-diagnostic mode.”

“Do it,” Rook ordered. “We put Pegasus in a lower orbit to increase sensor resolution, but that should also reduce flight time to the surface. I would take her lower, but we’re almost kissing atmo as it is…”

“A higher orbit would work better,” Driver informed her. “Rendezvousing with Pegasus in low orbit requires more course corrections and more maneuvering than a rendezvous in higher orbit. The closer Pegasus is to the planet, the faster she orbits. The pilots have to make a lot more adjustments, especially if they’re coming from the far side of the planet.”

“I didn’t know that,” Rook admitted. “But it makes perfect sense. What would the optimal orbit be for you guys?”

“A geostationary orbit at around 35,000 kilometers would be the easiest for us. It puts Pegasus at a fixed point relative to the surface of the planet,” Driver explained. Taurus Rook opened her COM Link. “Specialist Atlantic, request reposition Pegasus for a geostationary orbit at around 35,000 kilometers and alert all pilots and crew to our new position.”

Atlantic’s voice came back. “Will do, ma’am.”

“I’m surprised TyroCommander Change didn’t note that,” Driver added. “She’s usually very good at orbital mechanics.”

“TyroCommander Change has been very accommodating,” Taurus Rook reported. “She hasn’t questioned, challenged, or refused any of my request since Operation Evacuate Gethsemane started.”

Driver was taken by surprise. “Really? That’s very not like her.”

“It’s a rare quality in a command officer, knowing when to stand out of the way,”

Taurus Rook said.

“Auto-diagnostic is complete. All systems check,” Driver reported. Taurus Rook activated her COM Link. “Pegasus Flight Operations, clear Aves Prudence for launch through landing hatch 27 Beta.”

Flight Operations confirmed. “Prudence cleared through 27 Beta.”

“All right,” said Rook. “Let’s take it back to the ground.”

Chapter 09

Keeler – The two Bill Keelers and the one Delia K.A. Chanski Keeler stared at each other across the elegant library.

Delia Keeler looked from one, to the other, and then back again. “And I thought this was going to be a dull day. Good afternoon, dear. How was work?”

“It was just ducky until I came home and all the servants look at me like they’ve just seen a ghost … or a sober Panrovian,” the other Keeler – Sapphire Keeler – said. “Then they tell me that while I’ve been slaving all day over a pile of poorly reasoned graduate thesises, I’m back at home cheating on myself with my own wife. Naturally, I was outraged. Why was I the last to know?”

“Darling…” Delia began.

But Sapphire Keeler cut her off, “Of all the people you could have cheated on me with, why did it have to be me? Think of the children! You could have cheated on me with one of them, and wouldn’t that be filthy?”

“Dear …” Delia Keeler sighed patiently.

Sapphire Keeler would have none of it. He pointed at Pegasus Keeler accusatorily.

“Wait! That’s not me! That’s an evil clone from an evil alternate clone universe of evil clones!”

“Don’t be absurd,” Delia Keeler replied.

Sapphire Keeler looked affronted. “Absurd am I? Haven’t you ever observed The Scary Zone of Unpredictable Madness?”

Am I usually this much of an assol? Pegasus Keeler wondered. Regrettably, he already knew the answer to that.

Sapphire Keeler turned to face his counterpart. “What’s wrong with you, man? You look like you’ve seen a … never mind, I already made that joke. Let me think of another.”

“I was expecting me to be the only me here,” Pegasus Keeler informed him.

“Likewise,” agreed Sapphire Keeler. “I’ve gotten used to coming home and not having to deal with evil clones of myself from another dimension. Xerox!”

“Za?” asked the Butler.

“Bring my firearm!” Sapphire Keeler ordered.

The Butler squinted. “Neg, sir. I don’t think so.”

“All right, then, bring me a booze!” Sapphire Keeler insisted. Xerox shook his head. Sapphire Keeler muttered something of a curse, crossed the room, opened one of bookshelves to reveal a hidden wet bar, and poured himself a strong one. Before he drank it, he turned to Delia and smiled. “Isn’t it ironic. For once, I’m drinking, but you’re the one seeing double.”

He poured himself a tall thin glass of brown liquid and continued monologuing. “So, what is this? Some kind of parallel dimension, some weird intersection between alternate realities?”

Delia indicated Pegasus Keeler. “This one claims he has come from another universe, where he is the captain of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus.”

Sapphire Keeler snorted. “Oh, really?”

“This was supposed to be my AfterLife,” Pegasus Keeler said. Sapphire Keeler perked up. “Oh, really? What did you die of? And please tell me it had nothing to do with alien face-grabbers or head-biters.”

Pegasus Keeler answered. “I didn’t die. The people of Gethsemane built a Gateway that allows them to make a round trip to the Afterlife.”

“What the Hell is a Gethsemane?” Sapphire Keeler demanded to know.

“An ancient Commonwealth colony in the Orion Arm of the Galaxy,” Pegasus Keeler answered. “Run by a rather authoritarian group of busy-bodies known as The Authority. Their planet is about to be destroyed by a collision with another planet, and they have evacuated the whole of their population to what they believe is heaven.”

“Mm-hmm,” Sapphire Keeler sighed. Pegasus Keeler took a good long look at the man he would have become had his wife not been killed in a tragic rounders accident, leading to him not commanding Pegasus. He was fatter, and the bloom of busted corpuscles across his nose was wider. His face was fuller, and less lined with worry. Sapphire Keeler must have been making a similar appraisal. “What happened to your hand?” he asked.

Pegasus Keeler held up his right hand, which still bore scars. “What this old thing? It happened on a colony called EdenWorld. I fried it gaining entrance to what the natives believed was an ancient temple, which turned out to be the offices of some sort of ancient planetary recreational park.”

“Weird,” said Sapphire Keeler. He began to pour himself another glass of brown liquid. He snapped his fingers. “A Borealan eating a snow cone?”

“Pardon me?” Pegasus Keeler asked.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost or a Borealan eating a snow cone. That’s what I should have said a few minutes ago. Oh, well, now the moment is lost.”

Sapphire Keeler very leisurely made his way to one of the other couches in the room, placing himself nearer to Delia than Pegasus Keeler, but facing him. “I would very much like to hear more of this tale of yours. May I pour you anything? I’ve got some Carpentarian Smashmouth that’ll make your feet stink and keep you…”

“I haven’t had Carpentarian Smashmouth in years,” Pegasus Keeler interrupted him.

“And I’m not about to start again, now.”

“Your loss,” Sapphire Keeler raised his glass, almost like a salute. “All right, let’s hear your tale, Evil Clone of Me.

Redfire – Halo Jordan picked up a crisped potato wedge in her elegant fingers, dipped it in the pureed tomato sauce, and ate it lovingly. “Isn’t this place, wonderful?”

After breakfast, Redfire B had gone to the gaudy, illuminated cabinet in the corner and selected several songs that were popular on Sapphire in his youth form its stored repository of pre-recorded optical media., including “Snikkets in Love,” “Panrovian Girl,” and “Break Like the Wind.” For lunch, Redfire B had recommended double-decker cheeseburgers with fries, pickles, and milkshakes… all of which were delicious.

As they ate, Halo continued with their shared story of captivity, escape, and death. “I awoke in my cell to the sound of Philipdarling and the Aurelian prattling on about galactic politics. I was in the same block of cells, but I was two cells over. Like Philipdarling, I also had been probed and penetrated, but at the time of my capture I still had my flight interface grafted to my right arm, which meant I was still linked to my Aves. Our captors must not have recognized what it was.

“I made a thorough inspection of my cell. It was, as he said, escape proof. The mesh at the front was stiff and very strong, and sharp as razors besides.

“There was a thick mat on the floor. One corner of the mat was a flap that opened over a 17-cm diameter hole. I guessed that this was to be used for bodily functions. That’s how I used it.

“On closer inspection, I realized that the mesh at the front was also the door to the cell, and that it would slide upward when opened. Also, it was held in place by mechanical locks, not electronic ones, and I realized that with the proper tools, I could pry it open, but I had no such tools at my disposal.

“I considered whether I could tear up the pad from the floor and use it to, perhaps, smash through the mesh at the front of the page. I soon discovered it was too well-attached to the deck, would probably be slashed to ribbons anyway, and besides which, I was probably not strong enough to break through it.

“I studied the locking mechanism on the mesh door. I realized if I could jam a sufficiently hard piece of metal into it, I could prevent it from locking the next time it was opened. The flaw to this plan was that I didn’t have a hard piece of metal, nor did I know when or if it would be opened again.”

“I laid down on the mat again, I linked into Basil through my flight interface and reviewed the ship’s assets to see if there were anything on-board that could help me. Any delusions I may have had about interfacing the AI from Basil with that of the alien ship and ordering it to set me free was not going to happen.”

She chuckled. “It was a foolish notion anyway… the idea that our AI could interface with, let alone manipulate, alien technology, was thoroughly ridiculous and I was embarrassed for even considering it. But I was determined to escape, somehow.

“I found it what I needed in external stores locker four. Micro toolbots.” She held her fingers about ten centimeters apart. “Little things, about the size of an Arcadian woodroach. They were used for emergency repairs and I had at least ten of them that I could get access to.

“I accessed external sensors and saw that the ship was being guarded. I knew I would need a distraction to get the toolbots out of the hangar. I also knew I would have to program them for what I needed them to do while they were still on the ship since I didn’t have any way of doing that once they left. I also had to get them to my cell, and I had no way of knowing where I was relative to the Hangar Bay.

“I accessed Basil’s sensors again, and used harmonic resonance mapping and sonar to develop a rough internal schematic of the alien ship. Using the Flight Interface as a beacon, I determined the location of my cell, and plotted a route from the hangar bay to it.”

“It took almost three hours to program the micro toolbots, chart a path to where I was, and study the schematics of the alien ship as best I could and commit them to memory. I also had to calculate how fast to make the micro-toolbots come, since the nano-power-cells wouldn’t last long if I had them run to me in an all-out sprint. But, if they didn’t come running, they would be vulnerable to discovery. I had to get them out of the Hangar Bay, without anyone noticing. I eventually decided sixty per cent of top speed would work. I also had to program them to figure their way around obstacles.”

“Isn’t she just brilliant?” the other Redfire B interjected, spewing cheeseburger crumbs from his mouth. “I mean, wow… brilliant. Doing all that in her head. I am so glad I married her. I would not be able to get through this eternity without her by my side.” At that, he kissed her affectionately on the forehead.

“I hate to interrupt the story,” Redfire A asked. “But, is there sex in the Afterlife?”

The other Redfire and Halo looked at each other. “Sex isn’t necessary in the Afterlife,”

Redfire B finally said. “But what we have instead is so much, much better.”

“And not in the phony way that a good book or an exquisite dessert is said to be better,”

Halo Jordan added. “I mean, physically better … well, metaphysically, anyway.

“So, back to my story. I knew the toolbots needed cover, so I overloaded a power node on Basil. Basil had taken damage in our capture, so an exploding power cell would be unremarkable. The power cell explosion created an electromagnetic pulse that temporarily disabled lights and sensors… I hoped… in the Hangar Bay, as well as stunning any guards that were around. The toolbots were insulated in the cargo bay, and while it was still dark, I sent them out and into a ventilation shaft.

“It took another hour for the first toolbots to make it to my cell. Only four out of the ten of them made it, but it was enough. I set them to work disabling the locks. It only took a few minutes. I then pushed the door open using the mat.”

“I freed Philipdarling next,” she smiled. “He was happy, and somewhat shocked to see me. We debated whether to free the Aurelian, and eventually, we were persuaded that his help would improve our odds.

“I knew that either the cell block would have live guards, or it would be tightly monitored. We would need a distraction; which is why I had been studying the power grid in the Hangar bay. As we prepared to break out, I sent a signal to two of the other toolbots I had programmed to find the primary power node for this part of the ship. The little things threw themselves into the relay, causing a short circuit that crippled primary power throughout our section.

Redfire B interrupted. “She left out the part where the Aurelian and I got into a fist-fight. I still believed that we were on an Aurelian ship, and that this was some kind of plot to deceive us. That he would try to get information out of us by pretending to be a fellow prisoner. He was bigger than I was, but he had been in the cell for days, so I was faster and not as weakened. I soon had him on the deck.”

“The fight, unfortunately, attracted the attention of the alien guards,” Halo Jordan continued. “Philipdarling and the Aurelian put aside their differences long enough to pound the alien guards like cheap meat…”

“What were the aliens like?” Redfire A asked.

“We can’t tell you that,” Redfire B answered him.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Here, there is no difference,” Redfire B responded. “I could not tell you if I tried. It would break the rules. Here, watch me try.”

He sat there and did nothing.

“Well, are you going to try?” Redfire A said to him.

Redfire B shook his head. “I may look like I’m just sitting here to you, but from my perspective, I am screaming at you about the aliens at the top of my lungs.”

“He is,” Halo Jordan agreed. “I can see him.”

“I don’t get it,” Redfire A admitted.

“You can’t access that information. It is outside your mortal realm of experience,”

Redfire B explained.

“I’m not even allowed to know the post-mortal fate of dear, sweet Paul Ironhorse,”

Halo Jordan remarked sadly. “And the reason I am here at all is I set out to avenge his death.”

“So, how can you tell me about your escape from the aliens, unless you really are me, and it was really me that did the things that you are describing?” Redfire A realized he was only a little aware of what that sentence meant.

“Would you guys like some dessert?” Gabrielle called out from behind the counter.

“Banana splits,” Redfire B answered her. “Look, perhaps it would be best to just go on with the story. It will become clear at the end.

Redfire A sighed. “You’re not going to tell me until the end anyway, are you?”

Redfire B grinned at him. “Now, you’re getting it. Mrs. Jordan Redfire, please proceed with the telling of the story.”

Halo Jordan took a sip of her beverage, smiled, and continued. “We got out of our cellblock and made our way toward the Hangar Bay. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves at this point. We had gotten out of our cells, we had beaten up a couple of guards. We had their weapons, which looked kind of like a cross between a short staff and a hand drill. Even though we couldn’t figure out how to fire them, just having them made us feel more confident. We thought we had maybe a one in a thousand chance of getting off the ship alive.

“A thousand to one,” Redfire B chuckled. “We really were wild-eyed optimists, but we didn’t think we had anything to lose.”

Halo Jordan continued. “We entered a utility shaft and began climbing down deeper into the ship.”

Redfire B interrupted. “While we moved through the ship, I was running down Pegasus intruder protocols in my head, trying to figure out how we would deal with a pair of escaped alien intruders. The aliens would have to figure that our only way off the ship would be Basil. The hangar bay would be swarming with guards. We would also have internal sensors. I figured out that I would have to give our hosts other things to worry about.

“I hit on the idea of making the aliens think we had gone for the escape pods instead of our own ship. If we could get somehow access the system, we could launch escape pods and distract them long enough to get to the ship and blast our way out of the Hangar Deck.”

Halo Jordan put in. “The Aurelian thought we were mad, but he agreed that we had no other choice. A few decks below that, we exited the shaft. The ship was mainly utility areas at that level, like Pegasus, but alien. The ship was much warmer than Pegasus, darker, and the decks were smaller. We actually had to slump over in order to pass through some of them. And the walls were padded with material like the mats in our cell. I was wondering if maybe their inertia compensation systems were less advanced, and the crew was bounced around more than we were.”

Redfire B resumed. “We managed to evade the guards on that level for a while. Then, suddenly, the Aurelian made us stop. The Aurelian excused himself, told us to wait, and disappeared down a side-corridor. When he came back, his hands were bloody, and he had another pair of alien hand-weapons. He apologized to Halo, and gave me one of the weapons. He told us to follow him.

“At the end of the side corridor was a small room with two dead alien guards outside of it and a system access console inside of it. The Aurelian told us to guard the door while he went to the console and began tapping on the typepad interface. I challenged him. ‘What are you doing?’

“The Aurelian said, ‘I am attempting to access the central data control system.’

“Naturally, this piqued my suspicions, ‘How could you possibly know how to do that?’

‘I’m an Ace of Wands,’ the Aurelian answered. ‘We are engineered to be good at manipulating technology. We also were able to study the alien species before you got here and destroyed our fleet. If I can access the security system, we have a better chance of making it out of here and back to your ship.’

“I put the alien hand weapon to his head. ‘Or maybe this has been an Aurelian ship the entire time, and you’re going to escape with us to access Pegasus.’”

“’I don’t have time for this,’ the Aurelian said. ‘Either we are all on an alien ship trying to escape, or you are being held by my people. I don’t think you have a choice either way.

‘Beside which, you don’t know how to fire that weapon.’

“I watched him work. I saw the alien language on the display. It looked like patterns of tight scratches to me, but I think I understood the pictures, the icons representing different systems. The Aurelian managed to cut off power to over half the ship before they caught on to us.”

Halo Jordan added. “It was a relatively straightforward procedure. Their ship used a grid of power-relays. It was just a matter of closing off the circuits.”

Redfire B grinned. “He blinded them, cut off their sensors, and the three of us could move at will. We figured our odds of escape were up to 100 to 1.”

“You may have thought so,” Halo Jordan countered. “I would have given us… at best

… 200 to 1.”

Redfire B resumed the narrative. “Unfortunately, the Aurelian could not locate any escape pods in the ship. Maybe these aliens didn’t care about saving lives, or maybe he couldn’t identify them, but he pored over the ship’s schematics could not find anything that looked like escape pods. So, we had to give up on that plan. We had to press on toward the Hangar Bay.”

Halo Jordan summarized. “So, long story short, we snuck around through corridors and utility shafts, the ship was dark and shadowy, we played hide and seek with a couple of patrols, Philipdarling exchanged witty repartee with our Aurelian friend , and finally we got to the Hangar Bay.

Redfire B paused thoughtfully before he continued. “All things considered, we got a lot farther than we had any reason to expect we could. We were right there in the bay with our ship. We could see Basil parked on the deck. We could also see the thirty or so armed alien guards standing between us and it.”

He took another pause to let the imagery sink in. “I guess we could have just surrendered then. We were tired. We were hungry. There was really no hope of escape, but we looked at each other and knew we weren’t going to give up.”

“So, what happened?” Redfire A asked. Gabrielle brought over the banana splits, and then curled into the adjacent booth, also interested in the story, or at least in Redfire B’s telling of it.

Redfire B put his arm around Halo Jordan’s shoulders. “I kissed my wife. Then, we activated the ships external defenses. Basil began shooting up the launch bay. The aliens were confused at first, and they started shooting at the ship. And while they fought the ship, we made our charge.

“The Aurelian went down first. Their weapons shot these really nasty energy bolts, and he took a bunch of them in the chest. They seem to go right through him. He went limp, keeled over, and went sprawling down on the deck.

“Then, I felt these things punching holes through my body and I realized I was hit. I grabbed Halo and we ducked behind some crates or equipment lockers – some things the aliens had on their deck. Things were starting dark and sparkly for me. I knew I only had a few seconds.

“Halo was cradling my head in her lap. She wasn’t crying. She was stroking my face and just looking at me with the kind of love I hadn’t seen from her in years.”

Halo Jordan took over the story. “And then he smiled at me and said, ‘Let’s blow this bitch.’ So, I took my control gauntlet, and I ordered Basil to launch some of her Hammerheads and detonate the rest. There’s always a lot of fuel and munitions in a hangar bay. This ship was no exception.

“There was a flash of light. I had a sensation of flying. And the next thing we remembered, we were here, in the café. And the waitress asked us, ‘You want the usual, darlin’?”

“Quite a story,” Redfire A told them. “Very moving. Now, when are you going to tell me who I am?”

Keeler, In the Library, with a drink – “So, then, after that apocalyptic battle, we divided the crew between Pegasus and Lex and limped back to the Chapultepec StarLock. The Odyssey Project didn’t want us to proceed to the Orion Quadrant, so we had to break their security and sneak through when they weren’t looking. We ended up on another StarLock called Chanticleer. We scrambled its codes so they couldn’t send anyone after us, and then we tried to find some clue where the colonies were in that Sector of space.

“After a year or so, we found the wreck of an Old Commonwealth Space Freighter, and we recovered its navigational core. I seem to recall some sort of space monster guarding the wreckage. Anyway, then we went to Yronwode and, under the influence of powerful narcotics, I became the chief of a barbarian horde. I led an army of savages in battle against the last outpost of Commonwealth Civilization on the planet. We lost, of course. And I returned to the ship. Then, I spent several days negotiating with space pirates, and was able to secure a supply of fuel for the ship.

“We then traveled to Fallon colony. The savages on that planet tried to kill me, but they failed. Then, we went to Gethsemane, where I went through the Gateway and ended up

… here.” Pegasus Keeler let his gaze fall back upon his enthralled companions. The light outside was beginning to dim, it being in the late afternoon.

“You had me going until the space pirates,” Sapphire Keeler said, munching cheese on a toast corner. Rosalind had brought around some snacks somewhere between Pegasus Keeler’s tall tale of riding on the rocket sled and seeing a library full of ancient wisdom torched at Winter. Sapphire Keeler had cried out in pain at news of that loss.

“I think it’s marvelous,” Delia chirped huskily… a very difficult vocal trick to pull off.

“Marvelous?” Sapphire Keeler protested. “According to him, more than half the former colonies of the Human Galactic Commonwealth failed entirely or reverted to a backwards state of civilization. How is that marvelous?”

Delia waved her hand dismissively. “Enough about planets and civilizations, tell me about the people on your ship. What have you learned about yourself through your travels in space?”

“Between Pegasus and the other pathfinder ships, we’ve recovered records of post-Collapse civilization from over fifty worlds,” Pegasus Keeler reported.

“And have you gleaned any great insight from your study of these civilizations?” Delia asked.

Sapphire Keeler shrugged. “I can tell you that Sapphire has the best system of planetary management of any world I have yet seen.”

“And just how do you spend your time?” Sapphire Keeler asked. “I mean, when you’re not battling space pirates, or hanging around with those guys from the crazy geezer planet. Actually, I kind of liked the crazy geezer planet.”

“I spend a lot of time studying historical accounts from other colonies, trying to piece together a history of the latter day Commonwealth.” Sapphire Keeler paused. “And I drink.”

“Here! Here!” Sapphire Keeler raised his glass again. “At last, something I and my evil doppelganger can agree upon!”

Delia pulled a small data recorder from her purse. “I should be getting this down. How does a small community in space, isolated from their homeworlds, two very different cultures… how does it get along?”

“Most of the Republickers left to sign up with Goneril Lear on Lex Keeler, ” Pegasus Keeler replied. “Since then, it’s been great.”

“What about your friends?” Delia persisted. “Who are you friends with?”

Pegasus Keeler had to think for a moment. “Well… there’s Redfire. He’s the ship’s bartender.”

“Of course, you’d make friends with him,” Sapphire Keeler raised his glass, his fifth drink since the session began.

Pegasus Keeler continued. “Redfire also went through the Gateway, and I have no idea where he ended up. Maybe he’s in Corvallis right now, seeing what his life would have been. But somehow I doubt it. Also, there’s Dave, he’s one of my officers. Bright kid, but his wife… yeesh. Then, there’s my Exec, Eliza Jane Change, she’s … she’s kind of weird. And there’s Toto, my pilot. He’s a strange kid. Thorough hick, but the women can’t seem to keep themselves away from him. I can’t explain that one.”

Pegasus Keeler stopped. Delia waited. “And…?”

Pegasus Keeler shrugged. “I guess that’s all I can think of.”

“You’re on a ship with 6,000 people and you’ve gotten to know four of them?” Delia was shocked.

Pegasus Keeler defended himself. “Well, I mean, I get along with everyone, and I know lots of people by name, but those are the ones I most regularly interact with.”

“You were always so gregarious,” Delia went on. “Does commanding ship make you isolated?”

Pegasus Keeler hadn’t thought about it. He had spent so much of his time on Pegasus surrounded by people, he hadn’t noticed how lonely he had gotten. Pegasus Keeler turned this over in his mind, pondering it so long the others might have grown concerned. “I just realized something,” Pegasus Keeler said finally.

“What is that?” Delia asked.

“I’m on Sapphire.”

“You always were a quick-study, my love,” Delia purred at him.

“Neg, neg… You don’t understand. I’m on Sapphire,” Pegasus Keeler protested. “I’m on Sapphire! Don’t you see?”

“And?” Sapphire Keeler prompted.

“There’s bars and restaurants out there that I thought I would never see again,”

Commander Keeler exclaimed, standing up suddenly. “Why am I wasting my time talking to myself. Let’s go! Let’s go! Is the Esteemed Faculty Club still in operation?”

“Of course, it is,” Sapphire Keeler assured him.

“Then, let’s not go there. The portions are too small and they water the drinks.”

Commander Keeler cast his gaze through the window.

“Then, where would you like to go?” Delia asked.

“North Shore Yachting Club,” Pegasus-Keeler stated firmly. “Za! If we leave now, we can get there in advance of Happy Hour.”

“Oh, I haven’t been there in an age,” purred Delia. “Oh, let’s do, William!”

Pegasus Keeler snapped his fingers. “Neg! Wait! Even better! Let’s go to Zorg Patterson’s.”

Sapphire Keeler brightened. “Zorg Patterson’s, why didn’t I think of that?”

Delia laughed. “Oh, how marvelous, I haven’t been to Zorg Patterson’s in an age and a half. Oh, let’s do.”

Pegasus-Keeler and Sapphire-Keeler pointed to each other simultaneously and said,

“You’re buying.”

Chapter 10

Gethsemane – Fort Abaddon – Quentin and Zeus took off with the first load of children from Fort Abaddon, numbering three hundred and sixty. Trajan Lear watched them depart standing beside his own ship, and wishing he was leaving with them. It was late in the afternoon, and the sky had turned a shade of greenish-brown as a frontal system had moved in.

Trajan Lear began to walk back toward the camp. A young girl met him halfway with a wide-necked bottle of something bittersweet and cold. He thanked her for it and drank the liquid. On the way back to the camp, the girl told him her name was Minerva, and she had been evacuated to the camp six years previously.

They sat together on a bench alongside the fort’s parade ground, watching dust blow up into the muddy sky. “It looks like it might storm,” Minerva said. Far in the distance were brilliant flashes of heat lightning. “I hope it will hold off until we can get another flight into the air,” Trajan said. Aves Neville and Jethro were in-bound, with more to follow.

The woman Miranda emerged from one of the buildings with a young boy in tow. “Did you like the tea?” she asked.

“It’s good. I’ve never tasted anything like it,” Trajan Lear admitted.

“If there’s time, I’ll try and save some of the teaberry plants we brew it from,” Miranda continued. She settled onto the bench, looking tired.

“I am sorry,” she said. “For pointing a gun at you.”

“I’ve been through worse,” Lear told her. He pointed at the boy. “When I was about his age, I was kidnapped, zapped by an electromagnetic rail charge, almost drowned, and broke two ribs falling on an Aves… all on the same day.”

Miranda said nothing, so Trajan Lear said, “At least, you no longer believe us to be slave traders.”

“I don’t know what you are,” she answered back at him in what was almost a snarl.

“But if you had any idea what we’ve been through, you wouldn’t be nearly so snarky.”

“It had to be harsh,” Trajan Lear said.

She grunted but made no reply. He had obviously pissed her off. A hot wind moved across the ground, kicking up dust devils.

“They could have put us anywhere,” Miranda complained. “They managed to find the most desolate hellhole on the whole planet.”

Trajan set down his bottle of tea. “It reminds me of another planet I’ve been on. It was called Yronwode.”

Miranda answered in a kind of hostile mutter. “Yronwode? You mean, the prison planet.”

Trajan nodded. “You’ve heard of it?”

Miranda leaned forward in her chair. “Stories… there isn’t a lot to do out here, so I’d read the children stories. They say no one ever escapes. But if you came from there, I guess that legend is just a legend.”

“It wasn’t easy getting off,” Trajan replied.

“That’s what he said,” Miranda answered with deadpan. “Sorry, I’ve spent my whole life around the young. They enjoy that sort of humor.”

Trajan Lear didn’t get it. He looked toward the rough stone and timber buildings that made up the campsite. They looked much more than fifteen years old, but in this environment, it was hard to be sure. “Was this place built just to house the children who couldn’t go through the Gateway?”

Miranda shook her head. “Originally, Fort Abaddon was a military outpost. A thousand troops were garrisoned here, to keep Loro and Nineveh from fighting each other, and protecting the smaller settlements from bandits.”

“That sounds violent,” Trajan said.

Miranda shrugged. “Didn’t your planet have some wild, barely civilized back-country.”

Trajan shook his head. “Nay, on my planet, those who were unwilling to live by the rules were cast outside the atmospheric domes. Those didn’t suffocate died of exposure in the first dry ice storm. My grandfather told me stories of extraction workers who had adapted to underground life in the mines and become monstrous creatures living underground, occasionally dragging disobedient children into the bowels of the planet. I think he was unserious”

“Probably,” Miranda agreed. Trajan Lear found something in her mannerisms, a sense of her control that felt curiously familiar.

“You’ve been watching over these children all by yourself?” Lear asked.

“There are a few more adults, there used to be many more. They were going to sacrifice themselves in order to care for the children.” She picked up a couple of rocks, and moved one past the other. “Two years ago, Rogue slingshot around our sun and crossed our orbital path. It passed Gethsemane at a distance of 56,000 kilometers. The sight of that killer planet in the sky and the quakes that came with it…” She paused. “It scared the hell out of a lot of people. Thirty days later, it was just me and a few others left. It made it real for those who stayed behind, and they finally realized they were going to die, going to be smashed apart… they retreated to the Gateway.”

Trajan was numbed by this. “And you’ve been going through life all these years knowing that was your fate?”

She didn’t say anything to that. “You don’t have to wait out here,” she said. “Why don’t you come and meet some more of the children.”

Trajan Lear apologized. “I don’t like children.”

Miranda looked at the boy and the girl, who seemed slightly amused at the comment.

“Really? Why not?”

Trajan Lear bristled. “I just don’t understand the appeal. They annoy me. They’re cruel and they waste time.”

“I could say the same about most of the adults I’ve known.” Miranda cracked a crooked smile. It was slight, but it was definitely there if one looked hard enough. Trajan Lear tried to shrug it off, but the stares of the two children burned at him like low-powered lasers. “I think they also remind me of myself too much. When I was a child, I was … spoiled, petulant. My mother was hardly ever around to raise me, and when she did, she tried to control me totally. My father… I don’t think my father even much noticed I was around. I didn’t want to leave Republic, but… lord, if I had stayed behind I don’t know if I ever would have grown up.”

The young boy, who seemed to be about ten, with a slight build, longish dirty blond hair, and an upturned nose, kept staring at Trajan Lear. “Can I help you?” Trajan Lear asked finally.

“Look,” the boy pointed behind him. Trajan Lear turned.

A turbulent wave of dust and dirt was heading their way. Lightning flashed within it.

“Turbinado!” Miranda cried out, she jumped up and raced toward the largest of the buildings.

Trajan Lear turned toward the approaching cyclone. It was perhaps six kilometers wide, still a ways off, but it was clearly growing in intensity and bearing down right on them. He pulled open his sleeve and touched some controls on his gauntlet. Phoenix rose and shot off into the sky ahead of the storm.

He ran toward the building, where Miranda was pulling on a cable attached to a noisy, raucous alarm driven by compressed air.

“Your ship?” Miranda asked.

“Self-protection mode,” Trajan Lear answered. “She’ll find somewhere safe to stay until the stormfront passes.” He activated the COM Link. “Trajan Lear to Aves Neville and Jethro. We have an extreme weather condition on the ground at Fort Abaddon. Recommend you divert to alternate site.”

The cyclone was closing on them, and the wind was picking up, sending stinging dust into their eyes. Miranda led Trajan Lear and the children to a utility shed at the base of one of the power-generating windmills.

“Stay inside until the turbinado passes, and stay away from the windows,” she ordered.

“Where are you going?” Trajan Lear asked.

“I have to make sure the others made it to the storm shelters. You will be safer here.”

Then, she left. Trajan Lear secured the door with a bolt and hunkered down to weather out the storm. He saw that she had left the kids with him. And there were several more who had taken shelter under the windmill. So, however long the storm would last, this was going to be awkward.

There was a loud crash as the first wave of dirt slammed against the side of the shed. New Gethsemane – Port Gethsemane – Anaconda Rook looked out from the tent-pod that she had designated her command post, and congratulated herself on her choice of a ground command base. The docking area in Port Gethsemane could easily accommodate ten Aves at a time. Shelters were being deployed for medical inspections of the children. Cargo pallets were being unloaded from the Aves with clothing, food, and medical supplies. There were over a hundred Pegasus crew working the site. Three groups of children were being processed, being fed, inspected, and given an

“84-hour pack” of basics to get them through their first three days on Pegasus. The sedated ones were laid out on pads that could be loaded like stretchers. Two Aves, Xena and Kate II had been designated as Medical shuttles, and could evacuate fifty of the heavily sedated wild children ---which the landing teams had dubbed ‘the Ferals’ ---at a time. So far, a total of 993 children had been evacuated to Pegasus, another 110 were en route in Aves Fannie, and 3,573 were awaiting evacuation on the ground from fourteen different locations on the planet’s surface, including the 1,700 or so remaining with Trajan Lear at Fort Abaddon.

“The teams are finding them faster than we can airlift them,” Specialist Fangboner reported to Taurus Rook. He activated a holographic map. “There’s still a lot of cities and towns we haven’t explored yet.”

Rook hit her COM Link. “Lt. Commander Alkema, this is Lt. Rook on the surface. What’s the status of the sensor recalibration.”

Alkema came back. “We had to start over. I was calibrating the sensors to an intense scan from 1,000 kilometers of altitude. Now, the ship’s at 35,000 kilometers. There’s no way we’re going to get effective resolution from this high.”

Taurus Rook bit her lip. “How low does the ship need to be?”

“Ideally, 1,000 kilometers, but I can work with up to 3,000, maybe 5,000.”

She worked it though in her head. Bringing Pegasus lower meant more work for the Aves. They might find more survivors, but they would have less ability to evacuate them. And there was already a huge backlog on the ground now.

“Can you use probes?” she asked.

“Sure,” Alkema replied. “But to spot life signs, the sensor augments are going to be like shining a laser onto the surface. We’ll only be able to scan a radius of maybe 100 kilometers of surface area at a time.”

There was a long communications pause.

“Lieutenant Taurus Rook, are you there?” Alkema asked.

“Give me a moment I’m trying to think through this.” She paused and thought through this.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said finally. “We’re going to load up all the Aves we have on the ground and get those kids to the ship. I know it’s more than they can handle, but time is a factor. I want 20 fresh Aves launched at the same time the ships leave the ground, they will approach the planet but hold in lower orbit. After the Aves with the kids on board have all docked, take Pegasus down to 1,000 kilometers. Concentrate your spotlight on cities and settlements we haven’t explored yet. Whenever you find pockets of survivors, an Aves will break orbit and proceed immediately to that location.”

“Understood,” Alkema replied.

“Remain at the lower altitude for no longer than six hours, at that time, the next flight of Aves should be loaded up and ready to go.”

“One of the Aves should be directed to the Gateway Complex to retrieve Commander Keeler,” Alkema added. “He is due to return from the ‘Afterlife’ sometime today.”

“Designate an Aves for that task, Taurus Rook out.” Taurus Rook cut off the COM Link, and looked again toward the children on the dock. Some of them were playing, throwing a ball around, or drawing on the ground with their Crayola-wands. Fangboner spoke up. “We’re bound to miss some people.”

“We can’t think about that,” Taurus Rook answered, knowing it couldn’t be helped.

“We’ll save who we can. Let me look over some of those mission reports.”

Mission Report – Silo Town

The plains that lay between Gethsemane’s Great Hurk and Minor Hurk river systems contained the planet’s most fertile croplands. Though they had been left to seed as the planet’s population abandoned them, they still provided a reliable food source. As such, many families had been drawn here to escape the Authority. Many hundreds of their children remained behind.

Silo Town had been a good-sized settlement, where, at one time, grain had been loaded onto trains that took it to the cities or the river, where it could be loaded on barges bound for other cities farther away.

“I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with ‘Q,’” said Warfighter Specialist Gatlin.

“Quattro-triticale,” answered Warfighter Lieutenant Tango, for that was the crop that surrounded them for thousands upon thousands of hectares.

Warfighter Lieutenant Tango was charged with leading this hunt. The terrain was difficult because the crops had grown out of control, and the children hid among them. The crops were late in the growing season, and tall. Walking among them reminded him of hunts he had taken with his father in southern Arcadia. Most of the Arcadian province was lush, and the northern reaches were notable for their rainforests and the eccentricities of its inhabitants. But southern Arcadia was much like Graceland… temperate cropland and home to hunters and farmers.

Tango led a team of four warfighters through a field. The soil was soft and their boots sank in deep in places. It was hot, the air was moist, and insects flew at his men from their nests in the topsoil.

Warfighter Gatlin swatted at one of the flies. “There’s at least one life form I want miss when this planet goes tits up.”

Tango grunted in response. His tactical Spex said there were humans nearby, but they were hiding in the brush, and moving away from where his team was. Suddenly, a very human shape began closing on their team, rapidly, in a hard run. They all saw it and snapped to readiness. “Hold…weapons at low stun,” Tango reminded them.

They saw the tops of the plants rattling as the form came closer to them. A moment later, a boy burst through the rows. He was rail thin, maybe thirteen years old, with straw-colored hair, and dressed in rags. He ran right into Lieutenant Tango as though not seeing him, then bounced back sprawling into the dirt.

The boy looked at them for a moment, wide-eyed in fear, then jumped up very quickly and charged back into the crop rows.

“What the hell was that?” Gatlin explained.

“First contact,” Tango responded. He then called out. “We don’t want to hurt you. Come on out and let’s talk.”

They got nothing in response so they pushed on through the field. Gatlin reported detecting a structure a few hundred meters ahead surrounded by a cleared area. They made for that, crossing the yard between the fields and the house slowly, walking backward to keep their scanners and weapons trained on the field. In the clearing were a large ramshackle farm house and a large storage barn surrounded by a grass yard, long gone to seed, and falling-down sheds of various sizes, A windmill rotated in the breeze, making a screeching noise like old rusty metal scratching on old rusty metal.

“That sound,” Gatling groaned, adjusting his aural filters to screen it out. When the windmill sound was subtracted, he picked up the first strains of another sound, children’s voices singing a hymn, languid and sickly sweet.

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Then, they began coming out from the green crops, in twos and threes at first, and then en masse. Boys, girls… the smallest were not more than five or six years old, and they all were singing in a creepy sing-song…

Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,

Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;

When our weeping’s over, He will bid us welcome,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

And as they sang and shuffled, all the children stared at the warfighters, with deadened gazes from eyes that were glazed over.

“O.K., that’s creepy,” said Gatlin.

Warfighter Quatrain raised the pulse setting on her gauntlets. Suddenly, the singing stopped.

A shrill, prepubescent voice cut through the air: "And I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God's wrath is completed."

The warfighters turned around to see a young boy standing on the porch of the house. He wore a flat round hat and spectacles, clutching a book in a black binder. He railed at them, waving the book.

“Behold, a dream did come to me, and the Lord did show all this to me. A time of

tribulation has come. A test is at hand. The Final Test. And He Who Walks Behind The

Rows did say, "I will send outlanders amongst you. Three men and a woman. And these

outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy, but the man will sorely test you,

for he has great power.”

He held the book open over his head. It was open to a two-page picture of a red-eyed, reptilian beast.

All the children answered him. “Praise God, praise the Lord!”

The three warfighters exchanged looks and a common thought. You’ve got to be shitting me.

“Little man,” said Lieutenant Tango, stepping forward and facing him. “Are you in charge here? I need to speak to whoever is in charge here.”

The boy fixed Tango with a harsh glare. “And just as he was offered up unto him, so shall be the unbelievers! Make sacrifice unto Him! Bring Him the blood of the outlanders!”

“You’re not getting my blood,” Gatlin answered, leveling his gauntlets at the children nearest him.

“Steady, hold your fire,” Tango ordered, trying to match the hardened gaze of the boy on the porch. “You don’t want to fight with us. And you don’t have to. We have food in our ships, enough for all of you. Just give us a chance to talk.”

The boy called out: “I am the giver of his laws! Disobedience to me is disobedience to him! Seize them! Do it now or your punishment shall be a thousand times a thousand deaths! Each more horrible than the last! I am the word and the giver of …”

The boy fell over on the porch, smacked down by a bolt from Warfighter Quatrain’s gauntlet. She leveled her guns at another group of children. “Who’s next?”

The children, deprived of the leader but still on the verge of acting on his last order, wavered uncertainly. Behind them, a pair of Aves came in low over the fields. Tango commanded the ships to hover and hold their position.

“All right, you children listen up. We’ve come to take you off this planet. You can walk onto those ships, or you can be carried on,” explained Tango. “It’s up to you.”

A group of older boys broke off from the pack, yelling war cries, and charging toward the warfighters. Gatlin and Quatrain took them down easily with chest shots. Most of the other children panicked at the display and ran off into the fields, disappearing into the rows and leaving behind only a few who were too scared to move. Tango tapped his COM Link. “Quentin and Leo, it didn’t work out. Plan Beta.”

The two ships made a sweeping arc over the fields. Weapons emerged from their undersides. There was what can only be described as a thunderous Woosh as shockwaves cut through the rows of grain, knocking the children down sprawling into the muddy ground.

Tango shook his head. “I guess they’d rather be carried. Gatlin, Quatrain, arm up and prepare to stun any more who don’t want to cooperate. Get the Med-Techs to sedate the others. This is going to take a while.”

Mission Report - Nevalah

Warfighter Copperhead had visited two of the Megaplex Cities on Aurora, had patrolled the Archology of Meridian after its bombing, had been through the underwater survival bunker on Dominia, and had even explored the weird, giant pre-fab space-skyscrapers of Ecco 1. They were all stranger than the city of Nevalah but none of them had been as creepy.

Nevalah had been built on the clifftops overlooking coastal plain of one Gethsemane’s southern continents, just few ticks south of the planet’s equator. The city consisted of high narrow stone buildings, tightly packed and arranged with the precision of dominos in a pattern that left only narrow alleys between them. Some had even toppled into each other during the groundquakes that had become common in the final days of the planet, as though the planet were shuddering at the thought of its own death. The emptiness and silence of the abandoned city and its empty, windy streets gave her the creeps… as bad as any Night of the Living Dead Horror Show back on Sapphire; Worse for being a real place where a real apocalypse was in the offing. The bright star of the rogue planet rose in the northern sky and hung there like an angry red eye in the twilight sun.

If the probes were correct, children had taken shelter in some of the buildings, and it was a real challenge to locate and root them out. They were in no mood to be found, much less by strangers from another planet.

Copperhead led a squad of four down the broadest avenue in Nevalah, which was barely wide enough for four men to walk abreast in. The buildings crowding around her made her feel like she was some kind of rodent navigating a maze. There were no apparent signs of life here. The Spex told them that children were in the buildings on either side, but moving too quickly to maintain a position fix on.

“Up there,” hissed Warfighter Helaman, zooming in on the second-from the top-level of a nearby structure. “Two… distinct. On that floor. Moving… southwest vector.”

“Let’s check it out,” Copperhead said. They moved toward the old building, a tall, narrow rectangle that jutted up from the street. The entrance was blocked with stones and debris, knitted together with stripped electrical wire. Warfighter Neominides suggested blasting through, but Copperhead didn’t want to panic the children. They searched for another way in, and found an opening on the second floor. They rappelled up the side and gained entry.

It was dark inside, but their Spex helped them pick their way through the musty rooms and corridors. What had this been? Copperhead wondered. A hotel, she guessed. The rooms seemed too small for a prolonged stay. But the furnishings, the draperies, even the fittings in the euphemisms had been torn out long ago.

“Something ahead,” said Warfighter Biehn. “Wait, it’s gone.”

“Those kids are fast,” said Warfighter Motyka.

“Or, we’re chasing sensor ghosts,” Copperhead muttered.

They worked their way through the building and found nothing. They soon figured out why. The structure’s interior walls, ceilings, and floors had been punched through in strategic locations. The kids had worked out their own internal networks, and could move from room to room independent of the hallways. The children had also set up booby-traps, as they discovered when Biehn fell through a lightly camouflaged hole in the floor. Using ropes from their packs, they pulled Biehn back up to their level, then continued their fruitless search for more children.

“It’s getting dark,” said Warfighter Motyka some hours later, stripping off his tactical helmet, his face moistened with sweat in the sultry tropical air. “Let’s get back to the ship, make a plan for tomorrow.”

Copperhead reluctantly agreed. “Fall back to the ship,” she ordered, and led her men away from the city, the two at the rear keeping their weapons ready for another assault from behind.

“If they weren’t in the buildings, we could use stun blasts,” Motyka said to her as they made their way back to the ship.

“If we can just capture a few, maybe we can talk to them, reason with them, get them to lead the others out to us.” Copperhead knew even as she said it, it was wishful thinking.

Copperhead stripped off her tactical helmet as they approached the landing field where they had left the Aves. Nevalah had no aeroport in its day, and the ship had parked on the only decent strip of flat ground nearby. As she and the team approached, she noticed fresh footprints laid in the dust. They led to the ship’s open hatch. She signaled for the team to halt and scanned the ship, but detected no life signs. Nonetheless, she led them forward cautiously, and up the landing ramp. The Main Deck was empty, but several of the storage compartments had been pried open and stripped bare. And there wasn’t single loose object… not a datapad, not a kava mug, not a retro-digestion bag left in the main cabin. Every loose object had been stripped. Also, the pilot was missing.

The Nevalah children had led them into the city and kept them busy while some of their compatriots had looted the ship.

A determined look came to Copperhead’s eyes as she said, “This is going to be a lot harder than we thought.”

Gethsemane – Abbanaki – “Follow the sound of this voice to the escape ships. You will be fed

and well-treated. We will take you away from this planet to a better place.”

The voice was transmitted through the groves of olive and fig trees that lined the shores of Lake Abbanaki. Alkema had suggested that the food and water available here would draw children, and his thought was confirmed when the first low-altitude sensor flights detected a number of groups of them living here.

PonyBoy James stood in front of his eponymous Aves, grilling Borealan tube-meat over a fire pit, the savory scent of the cooking meat wafting into the trees. He figured anyone living on olives and figs for the last few years would appreciate a good tube-meat. He had told his warfighter teams to hold off shooting until the brats had been given a chance to work.

And he sensed more than one pair of eyes were watching him from the undergrowth between the old olive trees.

He took a tube of the grill and slid it into a bun, than slathered it with relish and onions. He took a bodacious bite off the end.

“Damn, that is good eatin’” he exclaimed. And it was very good. Since marrying Rocky Collins, he had rarely partaken of good tube meat. Her tastes were a bit more sophisticated than that.

Finally, someone emerged from the bushes, a young boy of maybe, maybe 13. The boy was tall and thin, but not as bad off as the first group of children from Port Gethsemane had been. He approached the fire warily, like a stray cat approaching a saucer of milkbeast juice.

“Hoy,” Ponyboy James called to him. “Are you hungry? Would you like a seared tube-meat?” He sensed the boy would run if he approached, so he simply put a roasted tube-meat on a bun, sprayed it with yellow mustard and drakh sauce and capped it with onions and a sprinkle of pickled fungus. He set it on a plate with some grain-chips and placed it far enough away that the boy could get to it without getting too close. The boy was cautious at first, but hunger overcame fear. The boy grabbed the plate and tore into the food.

“Let me get you another one of those,” Ponyboy offered, picking up another tube-meat from the flame-pit. “My name’s Pony, by the way, what’s yours?”

“Trig,” the boy introduced himself.

“If you like the tube-meat, I’ve got plenty more for your friends, if you want to bring them back here.”

“Why?” the boy asked. He had finished the meat in seconds and making the chips disappear alarmingly fast. James prepared a second plate.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to this planet?” James asked.

“One day… Boom!” they boy said, then stuffed more food in his mouth. James nodded and handed him the plate. “Za, well, that day is getting close. That’s why we’ve come here. We thought you might, you know, not want to be on the planet when it goes ‘Boom!’”

“We can’t go through the gate,” the boy protested.

“We’re not going to take you to the Gateway, but we have a great big ship up there somewhere,” he pointed toward the sky. “There’s room for all of you.”

The boy interrupted. “They tried to take me, but I wouldn’t let them. My brother is here.”

The boy did look old enough to make it through the Gateway. If James recalled correctly, Anaconda Taurus Rook had said that the cut-off age was about thirteen.

“Is your brother hungry?” James asked. “Maybe you could take him some food. Now that you know it’s safe.”

“I won’t leave my brother,” Trig said.

“You won’t have to,” Ponyboy James assured him. “We have enough room for everybody. And food.”

It took some time, and a lot of tube-meat, but PonyBoy James and his crew eventually recovered 196 survivors from the olive groves of Lake Abbanaki. Mission Report – Mariah Beach –

Team Victor Alpha had deployed to a beach in a sub-tropical region of Gethsemane’s southern hemisphere. Waves lapped against the shoreline, hills rose off into the distance and palm-like trees swayed gently in the gentle wind.

“It could be worse,” said Warfighter Lieutenant Diamondback, as a stray ocean breeze blew through his rust-brown hair.

They were in warm weather tactical gear… shorts and short-sleeve shirts, light tactical vests. Fly-bys from probes had located several dozen survivors, mostly older children, who had made up a crude encampment of tree-huts not far inland.

Diamondback took his team forward, following a freshwater creek that led out of the jungle. He had three other warfighters, one medical technician, and a general technical specialist named Sony to assist the Medical Technician, make spot repairs to equipment, and maintain COM links with Pegasus.

As they proceeded into the jungle, Diamondback mind was sizzling with questions. Why would the Allbeing destroy a world? Why would the Gateway exclude children? How did Pegasus manage to be here at just the last moment to save them? How did the complicated path of his own life lead him to be here, at this time?

To put these thoughts aside, he turned to the Warfighter next to him and asked,

“Herrald, is this what you imagined when you signed up for the Odyssey Project.”

Warfighter Herrald, a tall, sinewy hunk of a man with curly, honey-blond locks answered, “Honestly, sir, I expected I’d be captured by a race of beautiful, three-titted, blue-skinned alien nymphomaniacs and forced to breed in their love mines.”

“Why blue?” Diamondback asked.

Herrald shrugged. The team moved in into the woods at the other side of the beach from the water.

They located the children living in groves of trees that lined either side of the creek. They had built crude inhabitations in the branches of the trees.

“They’re in the trees,” Herrald reported.

Diamondback examined the tree-houses with his Spex, and ascertained multiple life-sign readings behind their bamboo(-like) walls. “Sony, send out the friendship message.”

Sony activated the acoustic device. “Children of Gethsemane, we mean you no harm.

You are in danger, and we have come to rescue you. Please come with us. You’ll be given

food and taken to safety.”

Silence answered them. Sony repeated the message three times, but the children remained in hiding.

“O.K,” said Diamondback. “What else we got?”

Anaconda Taurus Rook had defined the mission plan broadly, leaving room for commanders in the field to determine how best to proceed. If attempts to draw out survivors failed, the next step was to attempt non-hostile direct contact. Diamondback sent Herrald and another Warfighter, Riddle, into the trees to assess the situation close up. A few minutes later, Herrald and Riddle came running back out of the jungle amid a hail of rocks and sharpened sticks.

Herrald reported. “They seem somewhat resistant to being rescued, sir.”

Diamondback couldn’t help but chuckle. Here were his warfighters, decked out in the finest armor and advanced tactical weaponry, sent into retreat by kids with sticks and stones. He cocked his gauntlets. “So much for the peaceful approach. Now, we go in shooting, weapons on heavy stun.”

Herrald raised an objection. “Those kids are pretty well dug into the trees. It will be hard to get clean shots unless we draw them out.”

“What do you suggest?” Diamondback asked.

“Crazy Purple Knock-Out gas?” Riddle suggested, naming a powerful airborne crowd control weapon they had developed after determining at Yronwode that large, non-violent means of crowd control would be helpful in some situations. It was still experimental, though. And they would have to get a specially equipped Aves to disperse it. Diamnodback pointed this out.

“Incendiaries,” Herrald suggested.

“You want to burn them up?” Riddle was shocked at the suggestion. Diamondback was considering the logistics.

“Nay, we’ll set them a half kilometer away, smoke them out of their hidey-holes,”

Herrald explained. “We can shoot them as they come out of the jungle.”

Diamondback stroked his chin. “We’ll have to make sure they run to the beach and not deeper into the jungle. We would have to set the incendiaries in a wide semi-circle around the tree houses.”

“We would have to destroy almost the entire jungle,” Riddle observed.

“In five days, the jungle is being blaster to space-dust anyway,” Herrald argued.

“Set the incendiaries,” Diamondback ordered Herrald. “The rest of us will fall back to the beach.”

Pegasus – Main bridge – David Alkema had command of the bridge as the second full day of rescue operations was winding down. Since Anaconda Taurus Rook had moved medical screenings and provisioning to the surface, throughput in the Hangar Bays had become much more rapid. By the end of his watch, the 2,000th child would be processed and assigned to quarters in the Tertiary Inhabitation area.

By his own calculation, they would have to process at least that many in one day tomorrow in order to keep pace with the rescue operations on the surface. The logistics projection in the forward Bridge showed the 32 locations on the surface where rescue operations were currently in progress.

“Aves Linus is inbound with 37 children,” reported Flight Officer Kyle McCormick from the Flight Control station.

“So close,” Alkema commented. This load would still leave them short of the 2,000

mark. Hopefully, the next ship would have more passengers.

He had a report from Hardcandy Banks who was monitoring gate activations from a special telemetry laboratory. She and Toto had been ejected from the Gateway facility after the confrontation with Hildegard Kahn, but were continuing their work aboard Pegasus. She had collected data from two activations in the past two days and was working on building an energetic model of the Gateway.

“What’s the situation at the Abaddon Site?” he asked one of the Mission Controllers. The woman answered him. “They are still under storm conditions, and the conditions are intensifying.”

Alkema frowned. He would have to do something about that.

He paused for a moment to check another display, the trajectory of the Rogue planet. Aside from a minor gravitational perturbation, it remained on course for its cataclysmic rendezvous. The Maud team was exploring some ruins in one of its surface craters, but they were so badly damaged it could not even be determined if they were human or alien in origin.

COM officer Lewis alerted him to a transmission from the surface. “It’s on a non-standard frequency… carrier-wave,” she announced. “It’s Hildegard Kahn.”

“Give me a display,” Alkema requested.

A projected holographic rectangle showed Hildegard Kahn sitting behind her Presidential desk. Alkema recognized the gold and burgundy trappings of her office. She looked livid.

“It has been brought to my attention that you have disregarded our orders to leave our children alone. Furthermore, in contravention of our planetary sovereignty, you are continuing operations to remove our children from their home planet. You are ordered to cease such operations immediately and return the children you have stolen.”

Alkema was surprised to hear her speak for so long without a curse word. He was about to explain that operations would continue, but she didn’t stop speaking long enough for him to do so.

“We were generous enough to allow two of your people through our Gateway. They were to have been returned to you earlier today. They have not been. I alone have the recall codes necessary to bring them back. If you do not cease operations immediately, and return our children, we will leave them in the Afterlife, and you will never see them again.”

Her face disappeared, the rectangle went to static. “Transmission ends,” Lewis reported.

Alkema drummed his fingers against the arm of his command chair. “This just got more interesting.”

Chapter 11

Keeler – Tolkien Xerox brought round one of the estate’s larger hover sedans and chauffeured the three Keelers toward the city. Pegasus Keeler placed a call on the car’s COM Link. “Bettilu, it’s Bill again. We’re going to Zorg Patterson’s. It’s about seven hours into the evening, and we would love it if you would join us. Call me.”

Sapphire Keeler snorted dismissively. “Why do you want her to join us? She’s about as fun as a night at a Panrovian Accordion Opera.”

Pegasus Keeler replied. “I left her and went to the other side of the galaxy, and all that time I’ve never sent so much as a natal anniversary greeting. Since getting here, I’ve realized all the chances I’ve passed up… that you’ve passed up also.”

Sapphire Keeler shrugged. “I’m comfortable with my decisions.” He paused. “Except for buying the fur-lined sink. In retrospect, I’d take back that one. Probably.”

They passed through one of the checkpoints on the road that led off the estate. It was unmanned. Sapphireans were not a people who cared much about celebrity, and Keelers were not people who cared much about strangers driving by to see the legendary estate, so long as there weren’t too many. Pegasus Keeler was surprised when they came to a second checkpoint that was manned by a team of Ninjas. “That wasn’t there before,” he noted, out loud.

“What, that? We put that in three years ago,” Sapphire Keeler informed him. “Some pro-election nut-jobs from Republic broke into one of the estate houses and broke some of our stuff. We thought we should keep some security nearby, at least for a while.”

“I would have put Trauma Hounds in closer to the estate,” Pegasus Keeler said. Sapphire Keeler wiggled his eyebrows. “What makes you think I didn’t?”

A speedy drive down “Lake of the Loons Parkway” took them into downtown New Cleveland, which was dominated by the sprawling university complex and the colorful office towers of businesses the university had spawned. These followed along the path of the Super Freeway and MagLev Express lines, spreading out at the tip, giving the downtown area a shape like a giant hammer.

The Avenues downtown were very wide, and traffic was very light, it being the end of the week and long past the end of the workday. To the west, Sapphire’s sun was disappearing below the horizon, leaving red rippling reflections on the lake and a warm glow in the darkening sky.

As they passed by the central campus area, the sedan was slowed by foot traffic. Something noisy and obnoxious was going on, and it annoyed Pegasus Keeler. “What the hell is going on? Why is our path toward booze being delayed?”

Tolkien Xerox answered, “Pro-election demonstrators, sir. The New Democratist movement. They’re demonstrating in favor of abolishing the lottery, and replacing it with elected representatives.”

“The fools!” Pegasus Keeler spat. He turned to Sapphire Keeler. “Why aren’t you having them beaten and jailed?”

Sapphire Keeler rolled his eyes. “Because I’m not the Chancellor, Mary Jane Watson is. And she thinks sedition against our planetary government is cute.”

Tolkien Xerox added, “The government of Republic has been aggressively supporting the pro-democracy militants ever since they added a Coordinating Committee to the Five Houses to their planetary government. Twelve members, two from each of the five legislative bodies and two from the Executive Committee now coordinate all of the activity in the legislative bodies, to make Republic’s government more efficient.”

“Bo-ring,” Sapphire Keeler proclaimed.

“And dangerous,” Pegasus Keeler added. “The last thing anyone should be cheering is an efficient government.”

“It’s worked quite well, so far,” Xerox protested. “Bills are passed in a fraction of the time it used to take. The Ministries have been streamlined…”

“Blah blah blah,” Sapphire Keeler interrupted, waving his hand. “We should have taken one of the trucks, I believe at least one of them has a large snow-plow attached to the front.”

“Snow? In New Cleveland?” Pegasus Keeler was skeptical. Sapphire Keeler shrugged. “You never know, do you?”

Pegasus Keeler looked through the rear window at the students and locals streaming by. He didn’t get a “revolution” vibe from the chaotic scene in the vast lawns that fronted the university’s north side. To him, it looked like a street party. It was typical for a Firesday night in New Cleveland for students to be all over Lex Keeler Memorial Park, listening to music, drinking, socializing… later throwing up maybe, or waking up next to someone unacceptable. Sapphire Keeler guessed the “democracy” radicals had piggy-backed their protest onto the normal festivities to make themselves look more substantial. He couldn’t see anyone in the crowd who looked like they were adamant about replacing Sapphire selective service lottery with an electoral process.

The sedan paused at a traffic control signal. Keeler’s eyes lingered over a tall, handsome student engaged in conversation with two laughing females. The male had the confident look of someone who was going to get laid that night, and Keeler felt a pang of anguish. He felt pain for the loss of youth, when such a little thing as hooking up for the night mattered so much. At the same time, he felt sorry for the student, because someday he would know that sense of loss as well.

Then, Xerox accelerated though the crowd and the street party disappeared behind them.

Redfire – After Gabrielle took their orders for the dinner meal, Redfire A recalled. “Just before Lexington Keeler launched missiles to blow up the sun at 255 Crux, the Tactical crew was monitoring unusual movements in the alien fleet. I’ve heard people talking about it in the bar. That must have been because of you, destroying the capital ship. If you hadn’t distracted them, they would have attacked before we discovered them.”

Redfire B beamed. “How about that, honey? We made a difference after all.”

Redfire A asked in all seriousness. “So, is this where you are, for all eternity?”

Halo Jordan smiled. “Neg, we’re just here to visit with you.”

“Where are you the rest of the time?” Redfire A asked.

A moment of something, maybe regret or resignation, shone on the faces of both Redfire B and Halo Jordan. Then, Redfire B spoke. “We are… we’re learning.”

Halo Jordan added, “Our souls are too immature to go on to the real world.”

“What do you mean ‘the Real World?’” Redfire A asked.

Halo Jordan tried to explain. “What you think of as the material world, what you think of as reality, is just an illusion… like a holo-projection. Matter, gravity… they’re just illusions created by manipulating cosmic strings.”

Redfire A gestured around the Celestial Café. “Is this real?”

Halo Jordan smiled. “This is just a more self-evident illusion, albeit, one with excellent cheeseburgers.”

“Here, here!” Redfire B agreed.

Redfire A had to ask, “So, what is reality?”

“Reality is the Allbeing,” Redfire B answered. “We’re all a part of the Allbeing. We came from the Allbeing. But we chose to separate ourselves from Him, and now we can’t return to the Allbeing until we’ve learned enough about truth, and faith, and the nature of our own selves. We can not survive in His Presence otherwise.

“Unfortunately, Halo and I got too caught up in the details of our temporal lives. If we approached the Allbeing in this state, we’d be consumed and destroyed by the light. Maybe that’s what Hell is… people approach the Allbeing before they’re ready, and it destroys them.”

Redfire A chewed on that. “That’s somewhat different than how I thought it worked.”

“Someday you’ll understand,” Halo Jordan assured him. “It’s nice enough, where we are, but Phil and I still have a lot to learn before we can progress to the next level.”

“It’s not too late for you, though,” Phil said. “You can avoid this, and go on to the next level if you choose another path.”

Finally! They were getting to the point. “All right then, once and for all, who am I?”

Redfire B smiled. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Most definitely,” Redfire A assured him.

“Gabrielle, can I get a glass of water over here,” Redfire B called out. Gabrielle brought a single glass of water on a silver tray, which Redfire B immediately splashed in the face of Redfire A. To Redfire A, it felt like a lot more than one glass of water. It felt like a wave washing over him, and almost drowning him..

A series of images came to him, as though unlocked from inside of him. He was running through a field in Graceland province, toward the house he had grown up in. His mother was standing there with her arms wide open.

He was in a room inside the house. Other ginger-haired children were around him, and some others. They were being taught about mathematics.

The morning of Christ-Solstice Mass. He was opening a gift, a colorful shirt he did not like. He was in a city. He was standing outside a bar, and he was crying. A woman had just left him.

He was in a ship, a great, dark, and silent freighter piloting the dark cold channel between the Sapphire and Republic Systems.

He was holding a molecular integration tool, working with a team of fabrication robots attaching bulkheads to the interior of a great ship.

He was running through darkened passageways, chased by men almost invisible in their shadow armor, firing weapons at him.

He was sick, and he was walking through fire, to a cave.

Redfire A stammered. “I remember everything. I was sick. I jettisoned myself in a lifepod. I homed it in on the landing party beacon. It landed hard. Skidded into the river. I pulled myself onto the shore, but there was a firestorm. It was all hurricane-force wind and fire. Before long, my clothes were burning. I stripped them off, but by the time I got to the redoubt, the heat burned off my hair.

“I’m John Hunter… neg, I’m John Philip Redfire… I’m…”

“My twin brother,” Redfire B finished for him. “I got picked for the Pegasus mission, you stowed away on board the ship.”

“We’re telepathically bonded, that’s how I could know how you escaped,” Redfire A stammered. Halo Jordan passed him a napkin so that he could mop the water from his face.

“Exactly so,” Philip John Redfire smiled. “And when you were working on Pegasus during construction, you tampered with the programming in the BrainCore and the Medical Database so no one could ever detect you by DNA or electro-magnetic imprint. As far as the ship was concerned, you were me. That’s part of the reason you outlasted all the others in the UnderDecks.”

“What about Ghost… my lover… is she?”

“You’ll see her again,” Halo Jordan promised.

Redfire A – John Philip Redfire sighed in relief, feeling as though for the first time, he truly knew himself.

“Now, are you ready for the bad news?” Philip John Redfire began. Keeler --Zorg Patterson’s Pub had a prime location on the New Cleveland waterfront. It was far enough off the beaten path that tourists didn’t know about it, and it was expensive enough that the freighter crews from the docks didn’t bother with it. Zorg Patterson had knocked down a three-hundred-year-old boarding house to build his bar. He had brought slabs of lake granite from the quarries north of the city to build the floors, put huge windows on the upper deck to look out on the lake and the city, and built the walls from solid black brick. Its simplicity made it one of the least ugly buildings in New Cleveland, but it was the hearty food and vast collection of imported ales that made Zorg Patterson’s Pub *the* place for New Clevelanders to have a good time and not be seen.

Pegasus Keeler charged up to the young woman at the reception pedestal. “Get me a table now! I’ve just dropped in from an alternate universe, and I want to drink!”

“Like I haven’t used that line before,” Sapphire Keeler quipped. The night was early, but already the place was crowded. Pegasus Keeler insisted that someone pay the maitre d’ an enormous bribe to secure a table on the deck with a view of the lake. Zorg’s was laid out in the form of very large table-bars arranged throughout the main section, with more on the deck out back. On a Friday night, even the largest bribe Delia could manage was not enough.

They had all but resigned themselves to an inside table when Sapphire Keeler excused himself, went out to the back deck, and a few moments later appeared in the doorway of the lake deck, gesturing for them to join him.

Sapphire Keeler had found that one of the tables in back was, as he suspected it would be, occupied by the USNC’s Friday Night Faculty Meeting. There were nearly two dozen professors there already, most of whom were reliably smashed. Procuring four additional chairs for their large table was not a problem.

Maynard M. Menard, the Professor of Quality Writing for Fiction Dramas, goggled at the two Keelers that stood before him. “Am I seeing double? You haven’t gone off and cloned yourself, have you old boy?”

Sapphire Keeler wiggled his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He threw an arm around Pegasus Keeler. “This, apparently, is my doppelganger from another parallel universe.”

“What a hackneyed plot device,” muttered Maynard M. Menard.

“In his alternative timeline, I left on one of the Odyssey ships, I can’t remember which.”

He added in a stage whisper. “I strongly suspect he is evil. Let’s get him drunk and find out.”

“Alternative universes,” chuckled Professor Clara Kent, a theoretical physicist specializing in Hyperspace Mechanics. “I personally debunked that entire theory last year in the Spring Issue of Theoretical Physics Journal.”

“I remember that,” said Professor Bryce Wayne, Professor of Running Large Companies.

“It was in the Swimsuit Issue.”

“Quite right!” Kent chimed in, flattered that her colleague remembered.

“And didn’t you look fetching,” Bryce Wayne added.

Kent leaned in accusingly. “So, you couldn’t possibly be from another universe…”

Pegasus Keeler cut her off. “It’s my story and I’m sticking to it”

Professor Olive Queer, the renowned molecular biologist and brain doctor was similarly taken aback. “Why, this is like an episode from the Scary Zone of Unpredictable Madness,”

she slurred, already several sheets to the wind.

This remark made the rest of the table titter. Pegasus Keeler suddenly remembered that he despised every one of these people, and began to think coming to Zorg’s had been a gross mistake.

“Somebody find me a chair so my ass can sit on something,” Sapphire Keeler bellowed, but an attractive serving wench was already seeing to that, bringing around one of the dark wooden chairs that was part of Zorg’s atmosphere.

Pegasus Keeler took a seat also. They were not seated adjacent to each other, but occupied the same side of the table with Delia in between them. Sapphire Keeler ordered Naked Borealans for the whole table, then specified to the waitress he meant the mixed drink that went by that name and he wanted to make damn sure there was no confusion on their part.

“Do you really believe you have been commanding Pegasus these past nine years?”

asked Professor Parker, of the Astrophysics department.

Pegasus Keeler nodded, and reached for one of the twists of cheese and pretzel in the snack bowl in front of him. He knew very well what was coming next.

“How is the Graviton Drive holding up. Has the Transitional Diplosion Element remained constant, or has it migrated over time.” Parker had been an advisor to the Cloudbuster Aersopace team that had designed Pegasus’s hyperspace drive systems. Pegasus Keeler munched some cheese. “Haven’t got a farkin’ clue what you’re talking about.”

“The Transitional Diplosion Element creates the dimensional shift that enables your Pathfinder Ship to enter hyperspace,” Parker persisted. “Surely, you would know that, if you had been in space these few years.”

“When I want to transition to hyperspace, I ask my navigator to do it,” Pegasus Keeler responds. “When some wiper-of-anatomical-crevasses asks me some technical question about the ship’s operations, I refer them to Mr. Alkema. That’s how a command works.”

“How can you possibly command a starship without knowing how its engines work?”

Parker seemed smug in his certainty on this point.

“Because starships do not work that way!” Pegasus Keeler thundered.

“What about the cybernetic systems?” asked Danvers, an expert in the field of artificial intelligence. “You know, the basic research behind the Pathfinder Braincore was done at SIC Systems, here in New Cleveland. I was the lead research advisor to the project.” She always made sure everyone knew this.

“The Braincore achieved sentience, then it tried to kill everyone on the ship and destroy an entire inhabited planet,” Pegasus Keeler replied. “That’s how well it worked.”

Around the table, groans erupted. “That was in the Meridian Mission report,” someone pointed out.

“On my Pegasus, we separated the entity from the Braincore without destroying it,”

Pegasus Keeler defended himself. “She’s flighty as all hell, but handy to have around sometimes.”

Next, an astrophysicist asked Keeler a question about stellar fusion that he couldn’t answer. An anthropologist posed a speculative question about patterns of development in human civilizations on different worlds, which he was able to parry using examples from Bodicea and Yronwode. A geneticist asked him a question about a shift in a particular gene sequence and its variance across colony worlds, which he could not understand, much less answer. An engineer asked him a question about the ship’s systems he also could not answer.

Pegasus Keeler was keyed into what was going on. They weren’t interested in the places he had been. They weren’t interested in his discoveries, they were making a sport of trying to discredit him.

As the night wore on, the questions began to diminish and he knew that this crowd was largely convinced he was a fake, and speculation turned to what kind of a fake he way. He understood now why his counterpart had become a stinking drunk, but he still didn’t have an excuse for himself.

Around 1050 in the evening, through a soft gauzy haze of intoxication, he became aware of a woman at the head of the table, sharply ordering a waiter to bring her a chair and a glass of chilled water, no ice, with a hint of applegrass. Pegasus Keeler looked at her and smiled. “Hello, Sis.”

Bettilu Keeler smiled back at him, a little curiously. She was a rail-thin and tiny woman, whose blonde-white hair was perfectly coiffed and whose dress was immaculate. “Why are there two of you?” she demanded of the Bill Keelers.

Once again, Pegasus Keeler was forced to explain about Gethsemane, about the Gateway, and about how he had been commanding a pathfinder ship for the previous ten years. All the while, the faculty laughed at him and Bettilu Keeler’s eyes bore into him like lasers.

Her response was surprising. “I believe you.”

“You do?” Pegasus Keeler was surprised.

“I have a bit of the truth-machine gene,” she replied to him. She asked the Professor of Vibeology who sat next to him if he would mind relinquishing his seat and then claimed it for herself; directing his ass to the seat the waiter had brought.

“So, what’s the rest of the universe like?” Bettilu asked crisply, but with genuine curiosity.

Pegasus Keeler took a deep breath and gave the condensed version. “Well, EdenWorld’s filled with genetically altered human freaks. Bodicea is a world dominated by women, where men are kept as breeding slaves. Winter is a frozen hellhole, but its people live forever and are insane. Fiddler’s Green is a green planet inhabited by leprechauns and crazy people. Independence is kind of like what Sapphire would have been if it were run by Republic’s government. Medea is a dead world, that we repopulated with androids. Hearth and Coriolus were conquered by the Aurelians. Ecco 1 is a dead world we repopulated with genetically-enhanced battle-cyborgs. Aurora is a planet of hedonists. Yronwode is a prison planet locked in an endless cycle of violence. Fallon recently underwent a complete collapse of its civilization. And Gethsemane is about four or five days out from being destroyed by collision with another world.”

“Independence sure sounds like a perfectly awful place,” Sapphire Keeler put in.

“They had some lovely bars,” Pegasus Keeler replied. “And their capital city is perfectly round, like a great big circle.” He mimed a great large circle in the middle of the table.

“The rest of the galaxy sounds like a waste of time,” Bettilu said, a little saddened. “I had really hoped that the Odyssey Project would be more ennobling to the human spirit.”

Keeler was shocked at her indifference. “But this is the galaxy! This is history. The greatest of human civilization is human civilization! We put colonies on ten thousand worlds, maybe more! And you don’t think is ennobling?”

Delia patted his shoulder. “You’re drawing attention to yourself, dear.”

“But have you learned anything about what goes on in here?” Bettilu asked, thumping her chest.

“Oh, give ma an extra-large break and a side of Panrovian fries,” Sapphire Keeler belched. “Both of you, Mr. I’m-so-cool, I-explored-the-galaxy, and Mrs. The-Greatest-Journey-Is-In-The-Human-Heart. You know what I think of space? I think space is an infinite expanse of near-vacuum with an ambient temperature three degrees above absolute zero.”

“So’s your mother,” growled Pegasus Keeler.

“Well, the University at New Cleveland may not be interested,” Delia commented. “But the University at New Tenochtitlan has started a College of Galactic Studies based on the Odyssey Project, Carpentaria Tech has an entire department devoted to applications derived from extra-colonial technology, and University of Arcadia is planning an Odyssey based curriculum. And they’re eating us alive in new enrollments,” she added.

“But enough about my boring space adventures, what have you been doing with *your*

life,” Pegasus Keeler challenged his sister. “According to the other me, myself, and I, you spend your time on the wireless gabbing to losers about their personal problems.”

“I help people,” she answered calmly, and after pausing to ask a passing serving girl for a small glass of sherry to go with her water, she went on. “I am also on the forefront of defending our planet’s morals, values, and culture against the onslaught of this New Democracy movement.”

“So, you’re the one who’s going to have their leaders taken out and shot,” Pegasus Keeler nodded approvingly.

“Of course not,” Bettilu replied. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“It’s what we’ve always done in the past,” Pegasus Keeler said. Then, he glanced around the table at the shocked expressions worn by some of the more naïve professors.

“Oh, right… sorry. Not in the esence-pray of itnesses-way.”

Bettilu Keeler wagged her finger. “I’ve started a group called WITHSTAND – Women of Integrity, Temperament, and Honesty Standing Together Against the New Democracy.”

“Why not Broads Against Radical Fanatics,” Pegasus Keeler counter-suggested. “It’s more concise.”

Some of the less discreet male professors chuckled at this, but the female professors were glaring at him.

“The New Democratists have purchased an entire building in downtown Corvallis,”

Bettilu paused to thank the serving girl for her sherry. “They are going to press The Thing to lower our standards of public decency until this whole planet is on giant Bacchanal Island.”

“Holy Milkbeast!” Pegasus Keeler sputtered. “Don’t they realize how that will devastate the economy of Bacchanal Island? There’s no reason to go there except to screw, gamble, and get pissed.”

“Nine million Sapphireans a year visit Bacchanal Island,” said Professor Cranston Lamont, an economist. “That should tell you something about the true state of our public morality.”

“Here, here,” agreed Professor Krankenschwester, the ethicist. “What would be so wrong about being more open about embracing the more deviant parts of our inner self-lives.”

“Because it doesn’t work,” Pegasus Keeler said, drunk enough to be serious about it.

“Za, it’s important to have times and places where people can indulge in hedonism and blow off steam; Bacchanal Island, the Halifax Platinum Festival…”

“Panrovia,” Sapphire Keeler interjected.

“… but you can’t have sleaze exist as part of your normal, decent society.” Keeler concluded.

“How do we know that?” Professor Krankenschwester challenged him. “How do we know we wouldn’t be better off as a society if we accepted and normalized deviant human behavior? Of course, some behaviors would be off-limits… killing, I suppose would be one. Acting out against an unwilling partner would be another. But why can’t we have more general tolerance in our society for deviant behavior.”

“Because it doesn’t work,” Pegasus Keeler repeated. “On Aurora Colony, they’ve done just exactly what you suggest, and their civilization is dying, if it isn’t dead already.”

“Well, I’m sure that will never happen here,” Krankenschwester said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Will to!” Pegasus Keeler insisted.

Bettilu Keeler poked Sapphire Keeler. “I like this outer space version of you.”

“I think he’s a tool,” Sapphire Keeler replied. He downed a shot. “Tell me, other me, have you solved the riddle of the collapse of the Galactic Commonwealth.”

Pegasus Keeler spoke with that breed of total seriousness and absolute certainty that only the best drunks are capable of. “Za, the Galactic Commonwealth was destroyed by war with the Tarmigans.”

“Oh, now you’re just being ridiculous!” Sapphire Keeler spat at him. “Tarmigans…

pah!”

“The Tarmigans are real!” Pegasus Keeler insisted so insistently that his drink insisted on depositing some of itself on the table, Sapphire Keeler, and a passing waiter. “I saw a planet where they shifted the orbit until the population froze to death! I saw a planet where they turned the colonists into salt! I have a report that says they may have destroyed an entire universe.”

“Evidence that the Tarmigans attacked, let alone caused the collapse of the Commonwealth is scanty at best,” Sapphire Keeler insisted.

“Scanty?” Pegasus Keeler shouted. “Is that the kind of fop I became if I stayed here? The kind of fop who uses the word ‘scanty.’ Allbeing!”

“I am not a fop!” Sapphire Keeler insisted.

Delia Keeler tapped Pegasus Keeler on the hand. “Darling.”

“What?” Keeler snapped at her.

“That green mark on your hand,” Delia said. “It just turned yellow.”

Chapter 12

Pegasus – Command Center Conference Room – Three Days to Impact – “I think we have to treat President Kahn’s threat as genuine,” David Alkema informed the command crew after reviewing the message. In attendance were TyroCommander Change, Lt. Commander Kitaen, a pair of tacticians, Matthew Driver, and for some reason, Specialist Atlantic. Eliza Jane looked noticeably more aggravated than she had been lately, and when she spoke, she sounded it. “Suspending our rescue operation is not an option. I am open to plans to get Mr. Redfire and the Commander back, but the rescue of the children remains our top priority.”

Alkema asked. “General Kitaen, how hard would it be for you to seize the Gateway Complex?”

Kitaen touched his datapad and projected a schematic display. “Three squads of warfighters could take the facility. Unless Kahn has weapons and men she has not shown to us, we should experience light casualties… if any.”

“You would have to pull warfighters from the rescue operations to carry out the attack, would you not?” Change challenged him.

“We could go in with fewer men, but some cannibalization of the search and rescue teams would be necessary,” Kitaen admitted

“We’re at the height of the evacuation now, I don’t want to leave any teams short-handed,” Change decided.

“I’ll also need to train and brief the teams in advance of the attack,” Kitaen countered.

“I will require time to prepare them.”

“You mean the rescue,” Alkema corrected.

Kitaen shrugged.

“We should delay seizing the Gateway until dawn of the last day,” Change decided.

“We’ll send one of the negotiators, Exeter, to keep Kahn occupied until we are ready to strike. Lt. Cmdr Kitaen, draw up a list of the warfighters you need. We’ll begin pulling them off search and rescue teams tomorrow.”

Gethsemane – Port Gethsemane – Aves Chloe settled onto the dock and the hatch opened. Warfighter Copperhead emerged and crossed the dock to report to Anaconda-Taurus Rook in the Command Shelter, a tent-like structure where Taurus Rook and ten technicians tracked every rescue team on an array of monitors.

“84 Survivors,” Copperhead reported. “Nevalah is clear… as near as we can tell.”

Taurus Rook frowned at the report summary. “It took you three days to rescue 84

kids?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Copperhead said, with a noticeable clenching of the jaw. “They were well dug in, and they were uncooperative. They completely eluded our initial SAR, and while we were trying to find them, they looted our ship and kidnapped our pilot. Lured him outside of the ship then hit him with a rock.”

“Is he all right?” Taurus Rook asked.

“Flight Lieutenant Ajax? He’s fine. Minor concussion injury.” She checked her nails. None of them were chipped. “After that we set up a camp outside the ship and the next day we went back into the city. They hit the camp to steal our supplies again, which we had loaded with tracking devices and auto-detonated stun grenades. We got a dozen of the looters that way, and about thirty more of their compadres when they took the stuff back to their bunnybeast warrens. That’s where we found Flight Lieutenant Ajax.

“When our prisoners revived, we fed them and gave them new clothes. When they saw that we were friendly, they helped us track down the rest. End of story.” She paused.

“Except for the part where one of them acquired Warfighter Cristobal’s weapon and started shooting at us. But, that’s just a detail. All of them are in the ship, mostly sedated, some heavily. They will be ready for transport to Pegasus following medical screens.”

“This is the last day that we will do medical screens on the surface,” Rook reported to her. “We’re running out of time down here, and they’ve gotten a lot better at processing upstairs.”

Her COM Link chirped. “Lt. Rook, this is Lt. Commander Alkema. Can you put me on holo-projection.”

Taurus Rook gestured to Specialist Fangboner, who brought up Alkema on a display. He was standing in Pegasus’s Primary Telemetry Lab, looking tired but energized. “I’ve made refinements to our sensor processing techniques, and we may have found some pockets of survivors we overlooked the first time.”

“Go ahead,” Taurus Rook ordered.

Alkema brought up some displays of high resolution ground imagery. “Instead of looking for direct life-signs, we had the ship’s sensors look for secondary signs of human inhabitation. Take a look at these two crop areas. The trees here have fruit that’s falling and rotting on the ground. We detect it visually by inspecting the trees and the ground, and detecting chemical traces in the air from rotting fruit. This grove over here was recently picked clean. No rotting fruit on the ground. There must be a human habitation nearby. Similarly, this town is plainly abandoned. The streets are overgrown, there’s no litter. There has been no activity around it. But with this other town, there are pathways through the streets, and we detect the heat-signatures of campfires at night.”

Taurus Rook was torn, she glad more survivors had been found, but despaired at forcing her weary and overtaxed rescue crews to go after them. “How more many areas have you detected with probable life-signs?”

“Sixteen,” Alkema answered.

Change nodded. “Dispatch an Aves to each of those locations, and any other with secondary inhabitation indicators,” she ordered. She paused. “Are any of them nearby my coordinates?” she asked.

“There’s one 140 klicks northeast of your location,” Alkema answered and showed her the display. “An old power-plant. We didn’t detect life signs, but there’s still energy output and mechanical activity going on inside.”

“Thank you, Rook out.” She looked over to where the Aves Prudence was parked on her dock, thinking it was past time she had seen one of these rescue operations first hand. Gethsemane – Fort Abaddon – Ten hours into the Dust Storm, Miranda had returned to the shelter at the foot of the windmill and led Alkema and the children to a larger shelter. They linked arms to stay together. Alkema was nearly blinded by the howling dust, but Miranda seemed to know where she was going.

They came to a second shelter, underground, with more than 300 kids huddling inside. The dust storm was still raging outside the walls of this shelter. Aeric Tuck, the young boy with the upturned nose who had first pointed out the storm, had fallen asleep against Trajan Lear’s shoulder and was snoring. Lear had removed his flight jacket and wrapped it around the boy. He sent a report to Pegasus reporting on ground conditions, using the text function of his COM Link:

No change in past 43 hours. Sustained cyclonic winds of 160K with blowing dust and electric discharges

Miranda came out of the galley, and offered water to a girl who had been crying.

“It’s been two days,” Miranda asked. “How long can your ship stay up there?”

Trajan Lear answered her. “Once Phoenix is airborne, she doesn’t use fuel. She can stay in orbit for days if she has to.”

Pegasus Flight Control sent him a message:

Lt. Commander Taurus Rook and our best adverse-weather pilots are planning a mission to evacuate you guys.

Trajan Lear passed this information along to Miranda. “Commander Rook is prepared to send evacuation ships to us to land in the storm if necessary to get us out.”

Miranda frowned and shook her head. “Getting the ships in and out won’t be the problem. If we try to move these kids out in this dust storm, we’re going to lose some of them in the dust between the shelter and the landing zone.”

Trajan conveyed the message to Pegasus, who sent a response: Could the ships land closer to your shelter?

Trajan replied:

Negative, there’s too much obstruction on the ground. Also, the children are in three separate storm shelters.

There was a long pause. Then Pegasus said:

Lt. Commander Alkema thinks he has a way to dissipate or at least weaken the storm. We will make the attempt. if it doesn’t work, we will take our chances with a heavy weather evacuation in 30 hours. Trajan Lear responded:

Understood. Lear out.

The communication ended, he turned to Miranda. “If the storm doesn’t break, we have to be prepared for a heavy weather evacuation. There will be no other choice. Miranda’s face registered shock, but she seemed to understand. Aeric Tuck stirred and awakened. When he saw Trajan Lead next to him, he smiled and huddled closer. Trajan Lear really didn’t care having the boy so close to him, but put his arm around the boy’s shoulder to offer him a bit of comfort and security anyway. Miranda sipped at something from a tall, ceramic mug. She looked around the shelter, which was dimly lit by tiny emergency lamps. Outside, the wind continued to howl.

“Do these storms happen often?” Trajan Lear asked.

“I have never seen one this bad,” she replied. “It’s funny. Every day for the past fifteen years, I wondered what the last day would be like. I had it pictured in my mind. I dreamed about it. I was going to make a huge feast. All the rations I’ve been saving, all the candy-cakes and sweets. We would have a huge feast, and we would play once last time in the sun. And then, as the final hour drew near, we would gather and hold each other. We would pray. I’d tell the children not to be afraid, that soon we would all be with our families again. And we would meet death, all of us, holding the hands or held in the loving arms of someone who cared about us.”

She sighed. “I never imagined rescue, but now I see even without rescue, this storm would have ruined my last days anyway.”

“We’re going to get out of this,” Trajan Lear promised her. It seemed like what he was supposed to say.

Miranda suggested, “Maybe you should tell the children about your ship, so they know what to expect on their new home.”

A hundred, or so, young and dirty faces looked up expectantly. Trajan Lear cleared his throat. “Pegasus is a Pathfinder-Series Long-Range, Extended Mission Self-Sufficient Exploration vessel. Pegasus is 4.2 kilometers in length. It has 221

decks, 100 above the centerline and 121 below. Its primary propulsion system consists of four Graviton Engines with a combined output of …”

“Will there be food?” a young girl asked.

Trajan Lear had to refocus his recall in order to answer her. “Pegasus has stored food supplies sufficient for ten years of operations at 100% crew levels. In addition, it has hydroponic gardens for the production of fresh vegetables and cereal grains, and waste reprocessing systems that generate additional supplies through protein isolation and resequencing. Meat is produced on the ship through a cloning-based budding process.”

“Where will we sleep?” another little girl asked.

“My understanding is that quarters are being prepared for you in the tertiary inhabitation areas,” Trajan Lear answered.

Miranda cut in. “What he means is, there will be food for everyone. And you’ll all have your own bed…”

“Sleeping unit,” Trajan muttered.

“… and nice people like Citizen Lear will be there to take care of you.” She finished.

“Will there be other kids there?” a boy asked.

Trajan Lear answered. “There are over 300 personnel under the age of 16 on Pegasus. I don’t know the precise number, or the breakdown. I can get that information for you.” He picked up his datapadd to retrieve the information. “327 under the age of sixteen,” he announced.

“He means yes, there will be other kids there,” Miranda corrected. “The most important thing is that you’ll be safe on his ship.” She looked at Trajan, pleading with her eyes for him to reinforce her point.

“You will be safe,” Trajan Lear reassured them. “I promise you, you will be safe.”

The wind picked up and the storm banged loudly against the side of the shelter.

“Do you like living in space?” Miranda asked Trajan Lear.

“Nay,” Trajan Lear was surprised to hear himself say that out loud. It was as though the answer had escaped before he could engage the filter that kept him from admitting such things, most of all to himself. The filter quickly kicked in, as he half-heartedly backtracked. “I mean, it’s a good life and the work we do is important.”

“It isn’t the life you would choose for yourself,” Miranda told him. Trajan Lear told her something he had never admitted to anyone before. “Sometimes, I think that if we ever find a planet where there’s an advanced civilization… that isn’t about to be blown up or invaded by Aurelians or some other horrible fate… that I would just like to stay there. That I would like to find a big city where I could live in a tower and just be one among millions. No one would know who my mother was. No one would know that I was the kid who disappeared into a different universe for two years. I could just have an ordinary life.”

Miranda almost smiled, came as close as she almost ever did. “You don’t want to be the hero who saves orphans from certain doom?”

“I would really prefer someone else had that job,” Trajan replied. “I’m not a hero. I’m just the pilot who happened to get this mission assignment.”

Gethsemane—Jericho Point – Prudence ducked low beneath a dusky-hued cloud bank and made for a large complex whose perimeter was defined by a large octagonal fence. A dozen or so dilapidated buildings surrounded a large, heavily built structure in the center; a huge drilling rig at least a hundred meters high stood in the center.

“What is it?” Anaconda Taurus Rook asked Tactical Specialist Eric Molto as they closed over the site.

“Geothermal energy plant,” Molto answered. He adjusted the sensitivity of the Aves’s sensors. “It’s still putting out a power signature. It’s not easy to detect in over the background electromagnetic interference.”

“Touchdown in forty seconds,” Driver advised from the command deck. Taurus Rook clapped Molto on the shoulder and joined the two warfighters and two medics in the ships Main Deck. She took a landing couch across the warfighters. “You’ve done three of these already. What’s your standard procedure?”

“We take our orders from the mission captain,” answered Warfighter So’Oto. Taurus Rook smiled, of course that was how it worked. “Damn right, So’Oto, you’ll be with me. We’ll scout out the compound and get an idea of how many men it will take to make this evacuation work. Specialist Richter, hang back at the ship and stand-by in case we need you.”

Richter was a tight Borealan female, who had to bunch up her hair to accommodate her combat helmet. “Right,” she acknowledged, double checking her gauntlets.

“We’re on the ground,” Driver informed them from the Command Deck. “Powering down main engine.”

“I didn’t even notice we’d landed,” remarked So’Oto.

“He’s very good,” Taurus Rook confirmed, leading him to the hatch. There was a smell of steam and minerals in the air as they exited the ship. Driver had parked them inside the walls at the edge of the compound. Anaconda Taurus Rook heightened her perceptions, remembering the ambush of her own team in New Gethsemane, and thinking of the other rescue teams that had been attacked by untamed youth. Detecting no one nearby, she gestured for So’Oto to follow her toward the largest building in the semi-circle that surrounded the drilling rig.

“Some of the teams send out friendship messages from the ship’s acoustic systems,”

So’Oto advised.

“Let’s get an idea of what we’re dealing with first,” Taurus Rook replied. A small child, gender indeterminate under layers of clothing that was much too big but who appeared to be about eight years old wandered up to them. Its skin was smeared with grease and grime and it carried a small can and smiled at them. “Hi!” he or she said. Taurus Rook knelt down to meet him at eye level. “Hi, there,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Shorpy,” the child answered,

“Shorpy,” Taurus Rook repeated. “I’m Ana.”

“Hi,” Shorpy repeated, with a little wave from his or her small filthy hand thrown in for good measure.

Taurus Rook listened against the wind, knowing the child might be distracting her in advance of an ambush by his or her compatriots. She was about to ask him (or her) where the others were, but he (or she) spoke first.

“Do you have any food?” Shorpy asked. “We don’t have much food here.” So’Oto drew out a large chocolate-nut chunky bar from his pack and handed it to the child, who took it in his (or her) grimy hand, unwrapped one end, took two bites, then tucked away the rest.

“I’ll share it with my friends,” he (or she) promised.

“We have more food in our ship,” Ana told him. The child looked away from her, and toward the large, gleaming spacecraft parked behind her. Taurus Rook saw, and sensed, his fear. (She was quite sure he was male now. Even through the smell and the dirt, there was a distinctly male aura about him.) “It’s okay,” she said. “That’s just our spaceship. Do you want to see the inside?”

“No,” Shorpy answered.

“Would you take me to your leader?” Taurus Rook asked him. “Is he in that building over there?” She pointed toward the Main Building of the complex.

“Unh-huh,” answered Shorpy. He began walking toward it, simply expecting them to follow him.

As they crossed the dusty ground, Taurus Rook spoke into her COM Link. “Prudence Team, break out the nutrition packs. We may have some malnourished children to treat. Tactical teams, stand by, we’re going into the main complex.”

Molto answered. “We’re standing by.”

“Who are you talking to?” Shorpy asked.

“The people on my ship,” Taurus Rook answered. “I told them to get the food ready because your friends will probably be hungry.”

“Yeah,” Shorpy agreed. “There hasn’t been much food lately.”

They passed through a large set of doors and into a large open floor-space dominated by huge machinery. Through the dust that hung in the air, Taurus Rook counted fifteen people. They seemed to be ignoring the visitors, too busy operating the equipment. Shorpy looked around a bit before spotting the person he wanted to take them to. He was a boy of about, Taurus Rook would have guessed, fifteen. His hair was longish and wavy, she guessed it must be blond but it was hard to tell because it had not been washing in so long. He was twisting a wrench on some horrible mass of pipe when they approached him. He did not notice them until Shorpy tugged on his sleeve. Although irritated at being interrupted, he set the wrench aside.

“Are you the leader of this place?” Taurus Rook asked.

He shrugged. “I guess so, sort of.”

“What’s your name?” Taurus Rook asked.

“I’m Soarboar.”

“Ana,” she said, extending her hand.

Soarboar turned to Shorpy. “Station 19 needs a lube job.”

Shorpy nodded and scurried off.

“It’s getting harder and harder to keep the machines running,” Soarboar said. His voice was husky, but soft. It was a voice that might have sounded unintelligent, but obviously he knew enough to keep this little outpost of survivors going.

Taurus Rook sensed that she wasn’t in danger. She powered off her weapon, and broached the subject of her visit. “I don’t know if you know this, but this planet is going to be destroyed soon.”

“That’s what they say,” Soarboar sounded as though he didn’t believe it, or didn’t care.

“This place is kind of our home. It’s kept us going.”

“How many of you are here?” So’Oto asked,

“85,” Soarboar answered. “There used to be 92, but we lost five when one of the capacitors exploded during a Gateway operation. We lost two more gathering food.” There was an epic of tragedy contained in the two sentences.

“Our families put us here five or six years ago,” he went on to explain. “The Authority was going to do a Final Sweep of Jericho. And they had a list with all the names of all the can-gos. And our families knew they’d never stop looking if they couldn’t cross off all the names on the list. So, they hid us here. And then they went away. We kept the plant going, but we ran out of food. And the storehouses are almost empty now.”

“We brought food on our ship,” Taurus Rook explained.

“That’s good,” Soarboar said.

Taurus Rook tried adjusting herself. She had been prepared to fight, and she had been prepared to be welcomed as rescuers (though she thought it unlikely), but she had not expected this calm resignation.

“There isn’t much time left,” Taurus Rook told him. “It’s not safe here for you or your friends. We would like to take you to somewhere safer.”

“Where are you from?” Soarboar asked.

“I come from a planet called Sapphire,” Taurus Rook explained. “Our ship is called Pegasus. It’s in orbit above this planet. We’d like to take you there. You and all your friends.”

“My dad used to tell me about the other worlds,” Soarboar continued, in his quiet, almost lazy locution. “He used to say that Gethsemane was just one of ten thousand human colonies. And starships used to come here, a long time ago.”

“Pegasus is a big ship,” Taurus Rook told him. “There’s room for all of you. Plenty of food. You’ll be safe there.

“OK,” Soarboar agreed. His expression never changed, but his eyes had become wet. If he had been the leader and protector of these children all this time, Taurus Rook realized, than he must have disciplined himself to contain his emotions. Maybe he wept when he was alone.

A girl came forward. She was Soarboar’s age, or a little younger. And she was very pregnant. “This is Serrea,” he introduced her.

“Hello,” she said shyly, taking shelter in his arms.

“She is our time-keeper. Is it almost time?” he asked.

“It’s almost time,” she answered.

He nodded, and pulled on a cord. An old-style siren began wailing. He pulled the cord twice, sharply, creating two brief whistles. He waited a minute, then pulled it two more times.

Children began running all around them, most of them making for the exits. Two boys located at a large control board began pulling down switches. “You should move away from the machines,” Soarboar gently advised them.

“Why?” So’Oto asked, but Taurus Rook knew better. If someone who should know what was going on told you to do something, it was best to do it. Soarboar led them to a pit in the floor of the power plant.

The machinery in the old power plant fell silent. Seconds elongated in anticipation of what would happen next.

Taurus Rook sensed a tingling, and then an electrical shock as power surged through her tactical gear. She felt her hair begin to stand up, and then every loose piece of metal began flying toward the power machinery. Then, boxes and conduits expoded in showers of sparks and some of the machinery began powering up again, then cycled up and down several times before things quieted again.

When it passed, there was a stench of hot ozone in the air. “What was that?” Rook asked.

Soarboar shrugged. “It happens every time they open the Gateway.” He looked over at a charged junction box. “That was a really bad one. They’ve been getting worse.” He picked up a tool from the ground and began walking toward his machinery. Taurus Rook grabbed his arm. “You don’t have to fix it this time. Just get your friends together and come with us.”

An hour later, 85 children were gathered outside the Aves Prudence, eating nutrition bars while the team examined them. Prudence had noted a piezo-electric energy spike in the planet’s magnetic field, but had been insulated against its effects. Medical Technician Vakapuna took Taurus Rook aside. “Their clothing and hair are infested with parasitic organisms. I also detect signs of intestinal parasites. We will have to decontaminate them before we can transport them to Pegasus.”

Taurus Rook looked up at the bright star in the southeast, bearing down on the planet.

“Don’t take too long,” she ordered. “So’Oto, Richter… bugs.”

So’Oto sighed and picked up the portable parasite eliminator. Richter called for the children’s attention. “All right, we’re going to give all of you new space clothes. But first, you’re going to have to take off your old ones, and let my friends, Mr. So’Oto and Mrs. Vakapuna shoot you with their… um… space guns to … um… prepare you for transport. It won’t hurt. Let me show you.”

Richter let So’Oto fire the decontaminator at him, which bathed him in intense purplish-green light. The then began dividing the children into groups for decontamination.

Taurus Rook tapped her COM Link. “Port Gethsemane Command Base, this is Mission Commander Taurus Rook. We have 85 survivors. I am clearing them for direct transit to Pegasus. Can anybody there give me a lift back to the base?”

It was Johnny Rook who answered. “Hoy, honey. Good to see you. Your daughter’s been cranky.”

Taurus Rook sighed, “Lovely, can you send me a ship?”

Husband Rook smiled his killer smile. “I think we have one that’s not doing anything. Stand-by for dust-off.”

“I’ll be here,” Taurus Rook answered.

She felt a little hand tugging on the hem of her jacket. The boy who had greeted her, Shorpy, had separated from the group and approached her from behind. He had been the first to go through decontamination, and his skin was bright and clear after a double-treatment with the sonic scrubber. He wore off-white coveralls with green stripes on the legs and the sleeves. “You cleaned up nicely,” she told the boy.

“Are you leaving?” he asked her.

“I am afraid so,” she told him. “But I will see you back on Pegasus.”

“I want to stay with you,” Shorpy cried, and clung to her legs.

“But I have other children to save,” she explained to him gently. “But I will see you on Pegasus very soon. I promise”

“No, I want to come with you. Please?” He looked at her with brown eyes that seemed to have expanded to cover half his face.

“All right,” Taurus Rook agreed. “You can stay at the Command Base with me. But don’t wander off, and stay out of trouble.”

Gethsemane – New Jacinto – Warfighter (Auxiliary) Andorra Terrasmith was leading the search and rescue operations for Team Joshua Six, operating in a city that had once been called New Jacinto, located in the northern desert of Gethsemane’s largest continent. This city had apparently been a resort destination, and its sprawling city-center was dominated by the abandoned remains of large hotels, casinos and sex malls. Many of Gethsemane’s departing population had passed through on their way to the Gateway for one last wild spree of partying. While the other cities on Gethsemane had declined during the evacuation, New Jacinto had actually boomed.

But between the transient nature of the population and the planet’s imminent demise, the population had not been very much interested in children. Warfighter Terrasmith’s search squads had so far brought back only fifteen, the oldest was a girl of about 14, the youngest a boy of about six. They had come across the first survivors playing in an abandoned fountain in the forecourt of the hotel. Although frightened at first, the children were lured into a rescue vehicle with promises of food and offered no resistance. They had come across another group of kids living in a different abandoned hotel. They had run and hid in the rooms on the thirteenth floor. A squad had to go in, corner, and stun each child individually. Getting all six of them had taken over three hours. A top-to-bottom search of a seventeen story hotel on the main strip had yielded only three survivors, who had also had to be stunned. Teams were carefully checking the remaining hotels, scanning them first with life-sign detectors to determine if they were occupied.

The children they had found had been gathered into a reception terminal at the city’s air station. Most of them slept, those that were awake ate the food they were offered, or sat smiling creepily as the dermal patches maintained their brains in a state of artificial calm and well-being. Medical technicians examined them and eliminated some parasites and infections that had turned up.

Out on the tarmac, a pair of Aves, Joshua and Drake, were parked to evacuate them. Overhead, a trio of Accipiters flew in formation, a few hundred meters above the city, scanning for more signs of life.

As she completed her day’s report, one of her patrols returned in their Road Warrior, bearing a young boy and a young girl, still stunned. Terrasmith summoned a medical technician to apply a calmative patch to each of the children. She first noticed that the light units that lined the runway were beginning to sway. She was just beginning to wonder how this could be when she felt the ground quaking beneath her. Her crewmen scrambled to protect the children, who did nothing but stare and giggle as the groundquake rolled through.

Then, the ground snapped and shuddered violently, hurling Terrasmith to the pavement with a force that almost knocked her unconscious.

A fissure had opened in the ground, splitting across both of the runways of the air base. And the air turned bitingly cold.

Smoke and a stench of sulfur rose from the fissure. Her vision was blurred from the blow to her head, but the smoke seemed to be taking on the shape of a horrible mask, or a face, a face that leered at her with malevolence.

“You are all going to die,” a voice roared through her ears. Pegasus – Main Bridge – Lt. Commander Alkema had the command watch when the latest series of groundquakes began rumbling across the planet.

“I’m reading seismic disturbances in nineteen different areas of the planet,” reported Technical Specialist Keane, who was monitoring planetary telemetry. He put up a display that showed areas of the planet’s crust shaking and splitting open in real-time.

“Are any of the disturbances near our Search and Rescue teams?” Alkema demanded.

“Two,” Keane reported. “Area 63, designated New Jacinto, and Area 21, tri-cities of the Kanesh River Delta. No reports of injuries.”

One of the other technicians on the Bridge gasped, “Commander…”

She put up a display of a city being completely swallowed by the rift that had opened up underneath it. Buildings toppled and the streets disappeared into the gaping maw.

“Where is that?” Alkema demanded.

“Area 11… it was cleared two hours ago. No teams there,” the Technician reported.

“The seismic activity is subsiding,” Keane reported. The red areas of the planet cooled to orange and then yellow.

“Get me status on all ground teams,” Alkema ordered.

Hardcandy Banks entered through the doors at the rear of the Bridge and crossed over to Alkema. “I need to speak to you… now!”

Alkema waved her aside. “It will have to hold. We just had nineteen simultaneous groundquakes. The rogue planet must causing tectonic stress…”

“The rogue planet is still too far away to be causing that level of tectonic shift,” Banks told him calmly, bringing up her seismic scans of the planet and correlating them to the energy lines that fed the Gateway. “It’s not the rogue planet. These quakes are caused by Gateway activation.”

Alkema didn’t understand. “The Gateway is causing this?”

Banks sat at an empty bridge station and began calling up her modeling studies. “Not exactly. Whatever power source they tapped into to feed the Gateway is causing this. The Gateway takes a huge amount of energy, comparable to what Pegasus discharges when we open a portal into hyperspace. But the source they’ve tapped into has so much energy, it spills over into the planet’s crust.”

“Wait,” Alkema shook his head. “They’ve been running that for fifteen years. Their whole planet should be in ruins.”

“The energy spikes have only been breaking through into the crust in the last few days,”

Banks explained. “I suspect the forces have built up over time, and the crust has gradually weakened, but I am still trying to work it out.”

Banks summarized. “The point is, these energy spikes are starting to tear the planet apart. It’s a race to see if it even lasts long enough for the rogue planet to destroy it.”

Alkema sighed and looked at the display that listed the 52 Aves and the rescue teams currently on the planet. “This mission just got a little more dangerous.”

Chapter 13

The Keeler Estate: Pegasus Keeler woke lying on top of his bed in his underwear, hungover, and with no recollection of how he had gotten from Zorg Patterson’s to the estate. Ah, that took him back.

He rolled off his stomach and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t recognize the mural, but he was sure he was one of the guest rooms in the south wing, where he would be shielded from the afterdawn sun… if it was even still afterdawn.

He checked the back of his hand. His green sigil was still yellow. He had only a few hours left. How much time had he wasted unconscious? Had he dreamed? He didn’t remember dreaming.

He rose from the bed and showered. When he got out, he noticed his bed was made and a suit of clothes had been laid out for him. It was the little things … like an army of servants to do his bidding like this … that he missed most of all back on Pegasus. He made his way downstairs to the private kitchen without changing from his fuzzy yellow bathrobe. He hoped they had waffles.

He was surprised to find that the kid was in the kitchen, his kid, the son he never had. The boy sat in the breakfast nook with a stack of waffles in front of him. He was also wearing a fuzzy yellow bathrobe.

Pegasus Keeler sighed and took a seat across from him. The kid asked, “Are you my dad, or his evil clone from another universe?”

“Evil clone,” Pegasus Keeler answered. “Pass me the syrup.”

The boy slid the syrup across the table to him. Keeler realized, regrettably, that the boy had inherited more of his genes than his mother’s. The boy’s sullen face was round and placid, and his hair was straight and brown. He was not going to get through life on lady-killing good looks.

“My dad says you claim you’re the commander of Pathfinder Ship Pegasus.”

“That’s me,” Pegasus Keeler confirmed. He pulled out his lapels. “You should see the bathrobe I wear when I’m commanding that baby!”

Kyte passed him the syrup. “There’s episodic entertainment based on the Pathfinder ships. It’s called ‘Worlds Apart.’”

Keeler scoffed. “What idiot came up with that title?”

Kyte became rather more excited as he explained the concept. “It’s about the Pathfinder Ship Dauntless and its crew. The commander is named Commander Bear, his son is the Flight commander.”

“How realistic,” Keeler muttered as one of the kitchen staff brought him a plate of delicious waffles.

Kyte went on. “And, on the first mission they go to a planet called Darkside. And Darkside is run by this, ah, guy named um, Xobeem. But his daughter, Zara, is secretly part of the rebellion. And so, um, Commander Bear takes her on his ship. And she helps him steal the Quantum Pulse drive, so his ship can actually go faster. But Xobeem vows to kill them all.”

“Sounds like it was written by a Panrovian,” said Pegasus Keeler before starting to shovel pieces of waffle in his mouth.

Kyte continued. “It’s really dark. Their ship gets beaten up pretty bad in the first episode, but they’re afraid if they use the Quantum Pulse drive to get back to Sapphire, Xobeem will follow them and destroy the planet.”

“They should go to Republic then.” Pegasus Keeler gestured for the serving girl to bring him some hot kava.

Kyte was indifferent to Pegasus Keeler’s lack of enthusiasm, and continued to relate the story. “But it turns out the Quantum Pulse drive is unstable. They can’t control where they’ll jump to when they use it, or how long they can stay before the ship jumps out again.”

“Uh-huh,” Pegasus Keeler mumbled through his waffles. Kyte went on, “On the second episode, they go to an all-female planet…”

Pegasus Keeler interrupted him, “I’ve been to that one. Believe me, kid, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Kyte tried again. “And there was this other episode where they got caught in a temporal loop, and were repeating the same day over and over again. Did that ever happen to you?”

Keeler nodded. “Yeah, but we weren’t in a temporal loop. It turns out I was just really, really bored.”

Kyte frowned. “You don’t sound like you’re happy you got to go on Pegasus.”

Keeler was not sure how to finesse this. “I guess I’m lucky, I got to see some remarkable things. But it’s very hard for me to be back here and see everything that I have missed at home.”

“Like, there’s no me in your universe,” the kid said.

“Not yet anyway,” Keeler muttered. He took a drink out of his glass of mauve juice and grimaced. There was nothing but mauve juice in it. He tapped the glass insistently with his grapefruit spork, hoping someone would bring him some Janx Spirit or Borealan Wildtail. The kid crunched away at his toasted pastry. “For you, I guess, this is kind of like, you know, that old holovideofiction drama they broadcast at Christ Solstice Mass? The one where the guy wants to commit suicide, but the ghosts of his ancestors appear and show him how his life would have been like if he wasn’t around? You know what I’m talking about?”

“No clue,” Keeler lied. “Look, kid, I’m not trying to be an assol about this, but I don’t know if you even really exist. I’m only still talking to you because, as you probably know, insanity runs through our family like a herd of Borealan Taurbeasts.”

The boy seemed taken aback by this. “You don’t think I exist?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Pegasus Keeler conceded. “I believe these waffles are yummy, but I don’t know if I believe they exist either.”

“You’re a waffle!” the kid shot back, rather non-sequiturishly. Tolkien Xerox entered then, and spared them both further awkwardness. “Master Kyte, the Bollock brothers are waiting for you at the front gate.”

“I gotta go,” Kyte said, and with that the boy all but leapt from the table.

“Kid,” Pegasus Keeler called after him. The boy stopped and turned. Keeler took a deep breath, and told him, “The real Pegasus journey was nothing like your fiction-drama, but it’s still been a pretty good ride.”

The boy looked puzzled, but then turned and exited the kitchen, leaving Keeler with a noticeably uncomfortable Tolkien Xerox.

Keeler dismissed him, saying, “You may go as well,” and a visibly relieved Xerox left him. When both were gone, Keeler discovered he no longer felt like finishing the stack of fruit-stuffed waffles that had been placed before him. Still in his yellow bathrobe, he left the kitchen through the back doorway.

Outside, the sun was high and warm. Maybe because of his breakfast with Kyte, Keeler decided to go to the Watchtower, which had been one of his favorite places to play when he was a boy.

The tower had been built by yet another colorful ancestor, Milorad Keeler, way back in the 64th Century. Milorad had wanted a clear view of New Cleveland, and especially of the main road that connected the estate to New Cleveland. On a related note, there was a tunnel at the base of the tower that led to the estate’s boat dock. One might call this paranoia, but in Milorad’s case, it was just good planning.

Pegasus Keeler climbed the stairs to the top of the tower. The view of New Cleveland was remarkable, taking in all of the towers that lined up along the shoreline of the peninsula.

It was a beautiful city, he thought, leaning on the guardrail (that had not been added until the 66th Century, and then only after a series of unfortunate drunken accidents and one completely sober “accident”). Was it more beautiful, though, than Presidio Capitat?

More beautiful than Xiyyon? Or even, in its own gaudy way, the Nettwerk Megaplex? Did he romanticize his hometown overmuch, like he had apparently been over-romanticizing his entire life back here?

Keeler was not so lost in reverie that he didn’t notice when Delia joined him at the top of the tower, saying, “I know it’s a cliché, but I knew I’d find you here.”

Keeler didn’t turn, but kept his gaze focused on the city. “Where’s the other me?”

“Still sleeping off last night.” Delia came and stood beside him at the rail.

“Sapphire,” said Keeler. “Jewel of the Perseus Quadrant. Of course, Esmerelda colony also claimed to be the jewel of the quadrant. So, did Flame Opal. So did Zirconia…”

“Stop,” she said. He paused, they both looked out over the peninsula. “What happens when you leave.”

“A tunnel of light opens, I walk into it,” Pegasus Keeler explained.

“What happens if you don’t?” she asked. She had bought a thermos of tea with her, and she began sipping from it.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Commander Keeler assured her. “At first, I thought this might be heaven. It made sense. It’s the place I’ve longed to be, ever since I left. And seeing my loved ones, people who’ve been dead for at least three hundred years, that made sense.

“But the other me doesn’t make sense. The boy, even less. I am not sure what this place is, but it is not my heaven. Maybe, it’s my purgatory or something.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t need me in it,” he concluded.

“Is that what you came here to discover?” she asked him.

Pegasus Keeler shook his head so hard it almost dizzied him. “I don’t know, but I’ve discovered that if I had remained here, I would have accomplished nothing of consequence, and my friends would all be twits. And yet, leaving on Pegasus is almost as bad, I’ve found that my mission means nothing to anyone here. Delia disagreed. “That’s just New Cleveland, or particularly, the University. The academic class is only interested in their own navel-gazing, but most of the planet is very excited about the Odyssey missions.”

Pegasus Keeler vented his frustration. “They made a cheesy fiction-drama about it; a ridiculous space opera with holographic sets and dim-witted actors spitting out second-rate dialog. It’s like I get no respect. No respect at all.”

Delia smirked at him from behind her tea cup. “You never cared about respect before.”

Pegasus Keeler grunted. “I’ve seen a much larger universe since we started this mission. I’ve seen humanity, not just as a bunch of people I know, but as a great race that despite its foolishness, despite its pig-headedness, despite its tendency to destroy every good thing it manages to create spread itself across an entire galaxy.

“And in all those worlds, no one, anywhere, has kept it together as well as we have on Sapphire. And that’s something those pretentious fops from the Faculty Club we’ll never understand. Our world is special. We matter.”

Delia tried to interrupt him. “I have never known you to be this reflective. It’s interesting.”

But Pegasus Keeler was on a roll. “Furthermore, when they trivialize the mission we’re on, it’s not me that’s being disrespected, it’s my crew. They bring down all the work and accomplishments of my crew – who are truly exceptionable. And I think it’s because on some level, they realized that most what they do will amount to nothing. But history will remember Pegasus!”

She waited. “Are you finished?”

“I think so,” Keeler sighed.

“The last time I saw you give a speech that passionate, you were drunk and challenging the President of Sapphire University at Corvallis to a seed-spitting contest.” She reached across and touched this arm. “It’s good to see you like this, believing in something. I like it.”

Keeler gently took her hand from his arm and set it down on the rail, letting his hand rest next to hers, just close enough to be barely in contact. “In this reality, how did I manage to grow estranged from you.”

“Oh, come on,” she protested. “We’re not estranged. I love you in this reality, and you love me, too. But it’s different now. We have the love of two people who’ve shared a life together.”

“Well, excuse me,” Keeler sputtered. “I never got to have that. And he doesn’t appreciate you. Not the way I do.”

“He’s you,” Delia reminded him.

“Neg, he isn’t,” Keeler protested, although a nagging little voice in his soul was saying,

“Za, is too.”

Delia patted his hand. “In your reality, I died. When I died, I was frozen in amber…

metaphorically, I mean. I assume I was interred in a more conventional manner… But your memory of me was frozen in amber, and I remained always how I was, and maybe you even forgot about some of the niggling things, the little disagreements, the annoying habits that build up like… like tartar on the teeth, I guess. To grow old together, you have to grow together old.”

Keeler shook his head, and swore, “If it weren’t for him, I would never leave. When they pulled me back through the Gateway, would tell them, ‘Send me back! Send me back, now! And I would never leave you again.”

Delia raised one elegant arched eyebrow. “You would give up the exploration of the galaxy, that you were praising just a few minutes ago, as the most meaningful thing you have ever done.”

“For you, I would.” The little voice inside was silent at this. She laid her hand gently on his. “Maybe… maybe… the purpose of this journey you’ve taken… and I mean the journey here, to this alternative life… is to give you the chance to confront yourself.”

Pegasus Keeler issued his assessment of this theory, “Oh, horse manure.”

Delia chided him, “Is it really horse manure. Your desire for an Afterlife took you back to the place where you were most comfortable. It took you home. But it wasn’t enough. You had to meet yourself. You had to *judge* yourself, and you found yourself wanting. There’s something… metaphysical about that.”

“How so?” Keeler asked.

Delia cocked her head, raised her perfect eyebrows. “Judgment is a common theme in most mythologies of the Afterlife. In this one, you judge yourself.”

Keeler snorted, “So, I’m the Allbeing. I’m God. Is that what you’re saying?”

Delia lifted her tea to her lips. “I am saying, you’re the god of your own life.”

“But here I am judging a life I didn’t actually live. That’s just stupid!”

“Maybe that’s the criteria you set for yourself,” Delia argued. “Maybe that’s the benchmark you need to compare it to.”

“Then, maybe I’m just stupid… aw, hell,” Pegasus Keeler slumped over the top rail. “If I am judging myself like this, then what am I supposed to take away from it? That if I had stayed behind on Sapphire, I would have become a cartoonish buffoon with no purpose…

but on Pegasus, I became a cartoonish buffoon with a meaningful life. Okay, suppose that is the lesson here. What do I do with that?”

“Maybe your takeaway is much more simple than that,” Delia suggested.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re lonely,” she said. “A ship with 7,000 people, and you could only name four of them. What does that tell you? When you came to your Afterlife, you found me, maybe the one person you ever got really attached to. What does that tell you?”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “If you can love someone again, I think you should. You’re not the sort of person who should go through life by yourself.”

“Would that betray you?” he asked quietly.

“Neg,” she said. “Look, there has been something that has been on your mind ever since you saw me here, but you haven’t had the courage to ask it. So, I’m going to tell you.”

“Don’t!” Keeler begged. Her hand on his suddenly felt as heavy as iron. He couldn’t get away from her words.

Mercilessly, she went on. “You have always wondered if I was going to Corvallis to meet a lover on the weekend I died, in your reality.”

“Don’t do this,” Keeler begged.

“And I was,” she answered.

Keeler felt part of himself die.

“Although not in the way that you think…” she went on.

“Oh, jeez, it was a woman, wasn’t it?”

“Neg,” she had to stop herself from smiling. “Neg, it was Gabriel Van Helsing.”

“The Poet?” Keeler gasped.

“The very same,” she told him. “We went to secondary school together. And I knew he was attracted to me. And I enjoyed his attention, his flirtation… but that’s as far as it went. We never consummated it.”

Keeler felt as though he had released a breath he had been holding for twenty-one years.

“Is it getting darker?” Pegasus Keeler asked. The light of the day had begun to dim, and Keeler feared he was being pulled back across.

“It’s an eclipse,” she told him. “It’s Ulysses, so it should be getting dark fairly quickly.”

As he watched, the city fell into the umbra of the largest and closest of Sapphire’s three moons. Lights began to glitter on, making the city look almost like a sort of magical kingdom.

Keeler let his gaze linger over the downtown lights of New Cleveland. “Would you hold hands with me until they pull me back across?” he asked.

Delia smiled and took his hand, and they watched the shadow of Ulysses pass over the city and press on toward the far shore. Stars cane out, the old familiar constellations of the Southern Hemisphere: Hermes, Malachi, Morbo, Calculon. They sparkled in the darkening sky.

A breeze arose, tickling their noses and bringing the scent of the gardens. A bird called out from the woods. Keeler tried to focus on the moment. He lacked the skill to change to perception of time, but he tried anyway, hoping to make the moment last forever.

“I wonder,” Delia whispered. “If this entire reality was created just for you, what will happen to all of us when you leave.”

Redfire: After dessert had been served and finished, a busboy appeared from the kitchen, and began removing the plates, cups, and utensils from their table. John Philip noted that the busboy wore no shirt beneath his smock.

Just as John Philip was noting the bare, smoothness of the boy’s chest, the busboy looked up and cocked a smile.

Gabrielle busied herself flipping chairs up on the tables at the rear.

“Last call,” Philip John Redfire said, and he grabbed John Philip Redfire’s hand and examined the pulsing red beacon on his palm. “You’re going to be leaving us soon.”

John Philip Redfire pulled his hand back. “Just when this was getting interesting.”

The light outside changed quickly. Instead of bright noonday, it now took on the quality of a dreary, late afternoon in winter. John Philip looked at his red sigil, and suddenly felt all strange, as though he were in a deep sleep about to be awakened from a dream.

“Now, for the bad news,” Philip John Redfire began.

“Oh, neg, no bad news,” John Philip Redfire protested.

“Neg, it’s very important,” Philip John Redfire insisted. “Back when I was being tortured by an Aurelian agent…”

Halo Jordan interjected. “Tortured? That’s an odd way to describe receiving fellatio…”

“… I had two distinct visions,” Philip John Redfire continued. “I had a vision of a pathfinder ship and the crew of Pegasus crashed on a planet. I had another vision in which the Aurelians attack and destroy Sapphire. I have come to realize, that those are two mutually-exclusive destinies.”

“Meaning what?” John Philip Redfire asked.

“Either Pegasus is destroyed, or the Aurelians will destroy Sapphire,” Philip John Redfire paused. “I wish I could explain more to you, but I can not. All I can say is, what you do, when you go back, will determine which of these destinies comes to pass.”

A pensive expression came over Halo Jordan’s face. When she spoke up, it was with a supreme sense of seriousness. “When you return to the temporal world. You will be lucky if you can hold onto one single thought, one single memory of this place. It’s important for you to choose the right thought to remember.”

“I think it’s obvious I should remember who I really am,” John Philip heard himself reply, but things seemed to be slipping away from him.

“Neg,” said Philip John Redfire, as though from a great distance. “I think my lovely wife is trying to clue you into something of much greater importance.”

Redfire looked around. The lights in the café were turning off, and he could no longer see anything beyond the edge of the table. He felt frightened.

“Normally, this type of information would be kept from you,” said Halo Jordan, and though she spoke normally, John Philip Redfire found it hard to hear her. “It’s prophetic in nature; a closely-held secret. But you must know of it, the fate of our ship, of the entire human race may depend on you remembering this one piece of information.”

“I reject the premise of that,” John Philip shot back. “If there is truly some kind of Celestial Being running the shop, then he would know damn well not to entrust me with the fate of humanity.”

Now, the focus had drawn even tighter, and John Philip could just see the faces of the two others.

“Listen to her,” Philip John Redfire insisted. “You don’t have much time left.”

“I’m just saying that humanity’s fate can not hinge upon me,” John Philip Redfire argued. “I am sure there’s a back-up plan.”

“Shut up and listen to me!” Halo Jordan snapped, the first harsh words he had heard since his arrival. She fixed him with a look of all seriousness. “General Kitaen is going to betray you.”

“And what am I supposed to do about that?” John Philip demanded. It was very dark outside now, and now even the two faces of the other two had begun to fade around him. In a moment, he would be alone in the dark.

Halo answered. “Let him.”

Chapter 14

Gethsemane—Port Gethsemane – Two Days from Impact: Dawn rose for the second-to-the last time over Port Gethsemane, and the sky went from black, to maroon, to a deepening shade of red. Volcanic gases and iron-rich dust kicked into the atmosphere by the groundquakes and surface storms had tinged the atmosphere. Yesterday, it had been a rust color, but today auburn. Tomorrow, it would be red, red as blood.

The sun’s rise was preceded by another tremor, strong enough to crack the windows in the tall towers in the middle of the city. Broken glass rained down in avalanches and spattered the empty streets. A sewer split open in an industrial zone, water… rusty and septic… flowed down the streets toward the harbor, flushing oil, toxins, and garbage ahead of it, but it was a bit too late for the environmentalists to get upset about it. The morning was quiet for a half an hour. Then from the north came a rumble, like a steady thunder that moved across the sky, rising in volume and pitch as it grew closer. The sound carried to the docks where Anaconda Taurus Rook had set up her command post. It awakened her from a dreamless two-hour nap. She rose from her bunk, listened to the growing rumble, and pulled on her tactical jacket. The air had grown distinctly cooler over night, and a brisk wind clipped over the harbor.

In another corner of the tent, Shorpy snored underneath a survival blanket she had tucked over him in the night.

The first thing she did, before tucking her hair aside or using the field hygiene pod, was pull up a datapad and look over the ;atest evacuation figures. 6,229 children had been recovered, and 5,060 had been taken to Pegasus. The others were on docks, being checked out and prepared for the journey. There were still over 1,400 kids trapped by a dust storm at Fort Abaddon.

Alkema’s attempt to break up the storm by firing weapons into its convection cells had failed. If the storm didn’t break by noon today, she would have to give the order for Matthew Driver to take his squadron of storm-hardened Aves into the storm and evacuate. They were running out of time.

Fangboner pulled aside the flap that served as the door to her command shelter. “Lt. Commander Rook, tactical shows two unidentified ships moving toward us at low speed.”

“Hostile?” she asked.

“I don’t think they’re Angels,” Fangboner answered.

She stepped out of the shelter and zoomed her Spex at the aircraft approaching from the north. They were big heavy ships, whose design was so brutal they had to be military. Four engine pods with rotating blades held aloft each ship’s bulbous fuselage. Tumultuous clouds of dark smoke trailed behind them. That smoke, coupled with varying pitches in the sound their engines made told her the ships had not been well-maintained. Further along on the dock, she saw Max Jordan and her husband, Johnny Rook emerge from one of the rest tents. Max had just woken up, and was trying to pull on a tactical vest as he approached. He was still in the shorts he wore asleep.

Taurus Rook met her husband’s halfway along the dock. “We’ve got trouble, my love. Where’s Skua?”

“In the ship, where it’s safe,” Johnny Rook replied.

Taurus Rook acknowledged this with a quick nod.

They watched the approaching craft grow larger and louder. They flew low over the city and then gradually set down on the far end of the dock. Hatches opened at the sides and rear, and a dozen or so Gethsemanian security troops in black body armor came out of them.

“Orders?” Johnny Rook asked.

Taurus looked behind her. About ten warfighters were lined up, waiting for her command. “Protect the children!”

Anaconda Taurus Rook began to walk toward them, seeking to meet them half way, before they could get close to the frightened children nearer the Aves parked at dockside. While she moved, Johnny Rook urged the children to move closer to the Aves, behind the protective cordon of warfighters.

One of the security men gestured for the others to halt. It was Thall. Thall continued moving forward until he stood just a few meters in front of Taurus Rook. He favored her with the Authority’s martial salute, then pronounced loudly: “By order of the Planetary Evacuation and Relocation Authority, you are ordered to cease all planetary operations and leave immediately. You are further ordered to return all persons already removed from the planet Gethsemane back to the surface.”

“And if we don’t?” Anaconda Taurus Rook asked.

Thall gave an answer, one that he clearly was not happy to be delivering. “If you do not comply, we will deactivate the Gateway permanently. Your commander and his companion will be stranded permanently in the Afterlife.”

Taurus Rook crossed her arms. “We reject your ultimatum and offer an alternative. You return to your base, finish evacuating your sorry asses off the planet, and let us finish saving these children.”

Thall marched a few meters forward, so that he could speak to Taurus Rook without shouting. “I don’t want to fire on you, but I have my orders.”

So, Taurus Rook thought. Hildegard Kahn was upping the ante.

“Your orders are to leave children to die,” Taurus Rook answered him. “I can’t understand how any man could carry out those orders.”

“We believe these children will be re-united with their families on the other side,” Thall stated.

“But are you certain of that?” Taurus Rook challenged him. “We offer these children a shot at survival, of living complete lives, how can you want to take that away from them?”

Thall spoke to her more quietly. “If my men and I don’t stop you, Kahn has threatened to leave us on this side of the Gate. We are dead either way, so we have nothing to lose in fighting you.”

Taurus Rook’s shock at the ultimatum was soon overtaken by anger, not against Thall, but against Hildegard Kahn. The Gateway, she realized, was not just a means of rescuing her people, it was a tool for absolute control. What worse fate could be worse than being left to die on a planet doomed to cataclysm. And Kahn… the harridan … had been wielding this absolute power for thirty years.

Taurus Rook also recognized how dangerous this made her situation. Thall’s men were on edge. It would not take much to set them off. Her mind tried to work for a way to defuse this situation. It played on her that another Aves was due to arrive within minutes, bearing survivors from New Jacinto. How would these men react to that?

“I think it’s safe to say neither one of us wanted to be put in this position,” Taurus Rook said.

“I agree,” Thall replied. “But that does not change the fact that we are in this position.”

“You must realize that our weapons are vastly superior to yours,” Taurus Rook reminded him.

“I know,” Thall replied.

“There may be an alternative you have not considered,” Taurus Rook unclenched her teeth and faced Thall down. “Trust me, you don’t want to fight with us. But you can help us. You can even come with us back to Pegasus. .”

Thall’s cheek twitched. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Thall answered, but was struggling not to lose composure. “These men have families waiting for them on the other side.”

Taurus Rook felt another wave of disgust toward Kahn, but did not blink. “I understand. At a minimum, we must discuss this, before anyone…”

She abruptly interrupted by a BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA sound as one of Thall’s nervous men opened fire. Thall instinctively pushed Taurus Rook to the ground to get her out of harm’s way, while yelling “Cease fire!”

But it was too late. The other Gethsemanian security guards had also opened fire, and the chill morning air was soon filled with smoke and the smell of cordite… also bullets. Taurus Rook’s Warfighters responded as they had been trained, activating tactical shields and returning fire with their gauntlets.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Thall screamed over the top of his men, but the calls went unheeded. The Gethsemanian guns grunted and spat. Bullets sprayed across the dock, most of which were easily deflected by the personnel shields. In the background, unarmed, unshielded rescue personnel ducked and tried to shield the children from stray and deflected rounds with their own bodies.

The battle was over in moments. Taurus-Rook’s warfighters were well-trained and had better weapons. Even though they were outnumbered, they made quick work of the Authority’s guards with pulses from their gauntlets and pulse cannons. The morning fell silent again.

Thall helped Anaconda Taurus Rook to her feet. He had been spared because he had not been firing. Taurus Rook disarmed him in one swift movement and brought her gauntlet against his temple. “Real fighting isn’t the same as herding unarmed civilians into transports, is it?” she asked him.

“Commander Rook, we have a casualty,” Johnny Rook shouted before Thall could give a response.

Taurus Rook swiveled around One of her warfighters had gone down when the first nervous guard had opened fire, because he had just gotten out of bed and was not wearing his personal shield.

Max Jordan lay on the dock, grimacing in pain and desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood that was fountaining out of his right leg. As the blood coursed through his hands, he was heard to shout, in grand warfighter tradition, “"Goddamn motherfucking shit-for-brains!”

“Medic,” Johnny Rook called. He took off his jacket and pressed down hard on the thigh of his brother-in-arms.

Max Jordan already had lost a lot of blood and was struggling to remain conscious as a pair of Medical Technicians struggled to get a pressure bandage on his shredded leg. He kept himself awake by cursing, loudly and obscenely.

“I think he’ll make it,” said Warfighter Medical Technician Icedog when she had stabilized Max Jordan. “We’ll need to get him back to Pegasus immediately.”

“Do it,” Rook ordered. “Get him on the next transport. And get the rest of these kids off the dock quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

Rook and Icedog strapped Max Jordan into a stretcher. As the sedative kicked in, he his cursing became rich and pleasantly modulated. When he said, "Damn the Allbeing, stupid farking knob-gobbling son of a bitch," he sounded like a man reading a news report. Taurus Rook turned back to Thall. “Are there any reinforcements coming or is it just you?”

“We’re all she has left,” Thall answered.

“Any other surprises?”

“The Authority lacks the ability to carry out a coordinated military operation against your forces,” Thall confessed. “We were her only option left.”

Taurus Rook lowered her weapon. “So, the question is, what to do with you?” Taurus Rook answered. She cocked her head toward Johnny Rook, then toward Thall. Her husband slipped a pair of restraints on the prisoner’s wrists. Awakened by the ruckus, Shorpy the boy came running out of the shelter barefoot. He would have run to Taurus Rook, but a warfighter held him back.

“What are you going to do with my men?” Thall asked.

“I’m going to send them back to Hildegard Kahn with a message suggesting that she put something very large and unpleasant in a very personal part of her anatomy,” Taurus Rook responded.

She realized that Pegasus Tactical needed to be informed of the situation, and she hailed Lt. Commander Kitaen on her COM Link. She explained that they had taken fire, defeated and captured the attackers, and relayed Hildegrad Kahn’s revised ultimatum. “They’re going to deactivate the gateway permanently unless we return the children.”

“Oh, is that what they think?” Kitaen replied. “We were preparing to take the Gateway ourselves thirty hours from now.”

“How many men are you bringing?” Taurus Rook asked.

“Two teams of twenty, just to be certain,” Kitaen responded. “

Taurus Rook thought about it, and then replied. “Maybe if I go and have a very intimidating chat with President Hildegard Kahn today, we can end this and avoid the need to fight tomorrow.”

She proceeded to tell General Kitaen what she had in mind. The warrior agreed with her plan, gave her a go, and made preparations on his own end. Pegasus – Special Telemetry Laboratory: Lt. Commander Alkema entered the designated Gateway Energy Project Special Telemetry Laboratory on Deck 53 and found Banks on top of her workstation with the top half of her uniform undone. Blade Toto was sitting on her lap, facing her.

Alkema sighed, “Now, is this the proper time and place?”

Banks shoved Toto off her, and quickly closed her uniform. “We thought it would be quicker than sneaking off to our quarters,” she admitted, blushing.

“You’ll have all the time you need for that after the planet blows up.” Alkema looked past the two of them to the displays. “Is this modeling work on the Gateway energy signature.”

Hardcandy Banks nodded, though she was still blushing “I’ve had the Braincore analyze the readings we took during the Gateway activations we witnessed and correlate them to the changes in the planet’s electromagnetic field our ship’s sensors have recorded.”

“And, what do you have?” Alkema asked.

“I think I was wrong initially,” she answered. “I thought the groundquakes and power spikes were caused by the cumulative effects of Gateway use, but now I don’t think so. Based on my analysis, the Gateway uses more energy than the planet can generate, so they are pulling it from somewhere else.”

Alkema raised an eyebrow. “Somewhere else? Like, another set of dimensions.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that, but it seems likely there is some source outside normal space-time that they are drawing on.” She activated an additional display. “This is a total shot-in-the-dark scenario, but imagine another universe where energy didn’t coalesce into matter. You could have a whole universe of pure quantum energy to draw on, if you could tap into it.”

Alkema scowled. “My knowledge of inter-dimensional physics is limited, but that sounds… pretty far-fetched.”

“Yeah, far-fetched,” Toto agreed.

“I agree it’s far-fetched, but I don’t have any other explanation yet,” said Banks. She began fiddling with one of the displays. “Anyway, it’s not that the energy has been building up, like I thought. I think more energy is actually coming through the Gateway than there used to be.”

She activated one of the displays. “This is what happened the last time the Gateway activated, and we had major, planet-wide tremors and seismic shocks. Look at this.”

She zoomed in on the Gateway location. In the split-second after activation, a stream of energy, looking like a horrible tentacle, seemed to reach right through the Gateway.

“What was that?” Alkema asked.

“I don’t know, and that’s what worries me,” she said. “If my energy universe theory, or something like it, is right… then the Gateway could be tearing open an aperture between the two places. If energy just started pouring into our universe through that aperture… I have no idea how we could make it stop. But that’s not the worst of it.”

Alkema was almost afraid to ask, but he knew he had to. “What is the worst of it?”

Hardcandy Banks was grave as she turned over the latest telemetry reports to Lt. Cmdr Alkema. “I saw from the telemetry reports that that the Rogue planet is 1.4 million kilometers closer than the models predicted. Telemetry reports confirm the Rogue planet is accelerating. At this rate, it’s going to hit the planet nine hours earlier than we first thought.”

He pulled up a display. If Bank’s higher estimate was right, Gethsemane would explode in just forty-eight hours. “How is this possible?” Alkema asked.

“I don’t know, unless it has something to do with the energy source that powers the Gateway,” she replied. “And I think it’s just possible that it does. Watch this.”

Banks activated a display screen that showed a schematic of Pegasus’s orbital position responding to a gate activation, the ship’s orbit was clearly perturbed by the event. ”The last two times the gate has activated, something pulled against Pegasus. Specialist Atlantic was able to compensate, but we lost 600 kilometers of attitude in the first, and over a thousand in the second.”

Alkema threw out an idea. “Maybe space-time itself is being pulled into the Gateway, like it’s a quantum singularity.”

“Doubtful,” was Hardcandy Banks’s assessment. “And even if it were the case, I don’t know what we could do about it.”

“I’m going to have Atlantic put Pegasus into higher orbit,” Alkema decided. “62,000

kilometers. I’ll tell Lieutenant Rook to begin wrapping up search and rescue operations. And I’ll tell General Kitaen to ramp up the schedule for his plan to take the Gateway and rescue the Commander.”

“In the meantime,” he added. “You two stop banging each other.”

Gethsemane, Near The Gateway: The sun was high in the sky as Anaconda Taurus Rook stepped out of the Aves Prudence and onto the tarmac at the Gateway Air Station. She took Thall out of the ship with her.

Once outside, she released him from his handcuffs. “Go get her, bring her to the tarmac,” she ordered Thall.

Reluctantly, Thall made his way into the Administration Building. Taurus Rook waited, inspecting her nails. She was pleased they had made it through the last few days without chipping or breaking.

Meanwhile, another Aves, Quentin, descended from Pegasus and parked on the tarmac, dispensing another twenty warfighters she could use to storm the complex, should she find it necessary. She did not think she would find it necessary.

Forty-two minutes passed. During some of these minutes, she had her guards remove Kahn’s disarmed men from the Aves and moved to the side where two of her men watched over them.

Taurus Rook had just decided to give Kahn eight more minutes before she took the facility by force when, finally, Kahn appeared. She was minus Thall, but flanked by more of her elite security guards. She stood among them, chin held high. Taurus Rook was unarmed, but unafraid, as she walked toward the Administration building where Kahn waited. The wind was kicking up. In the distance, dust storms filled with arc-lightning rolled along the horizon and the ground gave off rumbles, the echoes of distant groundquakes.

Taurus Rook squinted against the sun and the wind, but kept her gaze fixed on Kahn, walking steadily until Kahn shouted “That’s close enough.”

Then, in direct contradiction of her own words, Kahn began striding across the tarmac, her heels click-clicking against the cracked concrete. She approached until she stood face-to-face with Taurus Rook.

“What the furken is going on?” demanded Kahn. “Where are my security forces?”

“On their way back here, minus their weapons and probably still sore from the ass-kicking they took from my men,” Taurus Rook answered.

Kahn’s face contorted in rage. “I want you off my furking planet.”

“It’s not your planet,” Taurus Rook informed her. “Not any more. You run this little complex, and you order around a few guards, but the planet isn’t yours anymore. 42 hours from now, it won’t be anyone’s.”

“Kill her!” Kahn ordered her guards. Thirty of Taurus Rook’s warfighters immediately armed and leveled their weapons.

Taurus Rook stood her ground. “We’ll drop every one of you before you get a shot off. We are going to finish rescuing these children I didn’t come here to debate you. We’re not going to abandon the children, we’re taking them with us … on Pegasus.”

“They are not your children, you furking hoor,” Kahn bellowed at her. “They’re mine! If they don’t make it across, tough shit. Their stupid parents shouldn’t have defied the law. Now, you can just get the furken off my planet, right furking now!”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to stop us, Madame President,” Taurus Rook’s voice was calm and measured, but her eyes burned with intensity. “As you can see, my crew feels strongly that we should complete this mission. These men have orders to seize your complex, and they will. I hope you have enough to see that your resistance is futile.”

Kahn was spitting in her fury. ”You don’t have the recall code. You’ll never get your people back.”

“The recall code is a bluff,” Taurus Rook said calmly. “There is no recall code. The Gateway has only two modes, Send and Receive.”

“Who told you that!” Kahn hissed.

“You just did,” Taurus Rook answered. “Or, rather, you confirmed our analysis with your reaction.

“You listen to me, you snatch-licking hoor,” Kahn spat at her. “I’m not playing any furking games here. You don’t get your furking captain or his friend back unless you bring my furking kids back to this planet… Code or no code.”

“Our commander is expendable,” Taurus Rook replied. “So, you can imagine how we feel about our ship’s bartender. Regardless of that, the children are staying with us.”

“Is that your final word, you snatch?” Kahn asked.

“Not quite,” Taurus Rook activated her COM Link and barked. “Pegasus… Go!”

Nothing happened. Hildegard Kahn smirked and tapped her foot. “Well?”

Taurus Rook crossed her arms. “This will take a second, Pegasus is on a 60,000 kilometer orbit.”

Four bright streaks appeared in the sky, and almost as soon as they appeared, they slammed into four of the giant transport aircraft lined up beside the main terminal. The aircraft exploded into bursts of light and noise that shattered them to tiny pieces. When the fireballs and dust cleared, there would be four neat symmetrical craters in the ground where they had been.

The elite security guards ran for cover, but the warfighters stood stoically, even repressing, temporarily, the urge to share with each other how cool that just was. Taurus Rook stood her ground as the blasts from the explosions blew past her. While debris was still falling on the tarmac, she said to a visibly shaken Hildegard Kahn, “Those were just babies, low-yield tactical warheads. We can and will destroy the Gateway, or bury it in rubble with you on this side of it. And I don’t think you want to be standing on this planet when that other planet hits it.”

Hildegard Kahn was almost apoplectic by this point. “So, that’s your furking plan?

Threaten us with your furking weapons? What the hell kind of people are you?”

“We’re nice people with big weapons,” Taurus Rook replied. “Don’t furk with us.”

Kahn stayed silent for a minute. “That’s how it’s going to be? That’s how it’s furking going to be?”

“It is,” Taurus Rook assured her. “The Gateway is scheduled for a reactivation in 2

hours. That activation will recall Commander Keeler and Mr. Redfire. Some of my men will now escort you to the control room to make sure that activation and the recall take place. And we have them, we will leave, and you can do whatever you want here. But if anyone from your Authority comes near my people again, we will kill them.”

Kahn scowled, but was unbowed. “You can go ahead send your men to the control room. I am returning to my office. We will depart on schedule.”

Kahn turned on her heel and headed back into her complex, followed by her guards. Taurus Rook gestured for half of her warfighters to move in and take the Command Center. She allowed the disarmed guards they had brought from the docks to follow Kahn’s men.

When this was done, she activated her COM Link, and connected to Pegasus. “The situation on the ground has stabilized,” Rook reported to Alkema, Change, and Kitaen on the Main Bridge. “I have sent a squad to secure the Gateway control room. Thank you for the missiles.”

“A loud explosion has a way of focusing the mind,” Kitaen remarked.

“What about the recall code?” Alkema asked.

Taurus Rook reported. “There is no recall code, like Banks said.”

“You need to begin wrapping up ground operations,” Alkema told her. “The point of impact may be sooner than we estimated.”

“I received that update already,” Taurus Rook confirmed. “Once we have the commander, I’ll return to the base and we’ll start packing up around sunset today. Rook out.”

She terminated the COM Link and went over to speak with Quentin’s pilot. She instructed him to remain at the Gateway to recover Commander Keeler and Phil Redfire. Ten warfighters would remain behind in case Kahn had any more tricks up her pantsuit. Taurus Rook informed the rest of the warfighters that they would return with her to Port Gethsemane. There were at least 2,000 more children to evacuate by day’s end. She was determined not to leave any behind.

As she was checking on the status of Trajan Lear’s mission to Fort Abaddon, Eric Molto’s voice came over her COM Link. “Mission commander, we’ve reached the control room, but there’s nobody here.”

Taurus Rook realized Kahn had not given up, but she wasn’t sure what the trick was, yet. “Stand by, I’m going to join you in the control room.”

“There’s something else you should know, sir,” Molto said.

Before she could ask for more information, Taurus Rook and the entire ground crew were knocked off their feet. A sensation - like a lightning bolt hitting near enough to make your hand stand on end but not near enough to fuse your teeth together – shot through their bodies and left them lying stunned on the ground.

After a few long moments, Taurus Rook pulled herself up, disoriented with a ringing in her ears. Warfighter Topkapi was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear his words above the ringing in her ears. It was the work of a minute to clear the sound.

“Report!” Taurus Rook shouted.

“I said, ‘They activated the Gateway!’ Topkapi shouted back.

Gethsemane – TheGateway: The control room was empty. Anaconda Taurus Rook, Specialist Fangboner, and a squad of warfighters made their way deep into the complex to the site of the control room.

They met up with Eric Molto and his team of warfighters near the Control Room, It was as empty as they had reported. Worse than empty, everything in it had been smashed. Someone had taken an axe to the equipment, the monitors, and the control boards. Wiring had been torn out of the control stations.

“It was like this when we found it,” Molto insisted.

There was one monitor that had not been damaged. Taurus Rook flipped the rocker switch next to it.

The face of Hildegard Kahn appeared. “Hello, anatch,” she said.

“What have you done?” Taurus Rook almost asked, but Hildegard Kahn had some things of her own to say.

“This is a recorded message. If you are playing this message, it means you have discovered that the main control room has been irreparably sabotaged on my orders. I and the remaining cadre of personnel have evacuated using the auxiliary control room. Don’t bother looking for it. I have left a charge to destroy it after we have left.”

A rictus… a frightening parody of a smile … stretched across Kahn’s lips. “You may have taken our children, but you will never get your commander back.” She then raised three fingers and thrust them at the camera in what Taurus Rook could only assume was a gesture of contempt.

Taurus Rook assessed the situation and turned to Fangboner. “Does anyone know how to operate this thing?”

“Lt. Scientist Banks has seen it activated,” Fangboner reported. “I don’t think anyone else knows how to work it. And I don’t know if anyone can figure it out, even if we can repair it in time.”

Taurus Rook grimaced. “Get me Lt. Cmdr. Alkema. Now!”

Chapter 14A

Between: The river was rough this time. Though the boat held steady, wind and rain pounded the river’s surface into towering whitecaps. Thunder and lightning raged. There was an old hooded man at the rudder, whom Bill Keeler once again recognized as his father.

Bill Keeler stood up unsteadily and made his way down the pitching deck to where his father was, and he asked. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a disturbance in the path between worlds.” Arthur Keeler answered. “I can’t guarantee I’m going to be able to get you back.”

“Hmph,” was all Bill Keeler could add to that.

“How was it?” Arthur Keeler asked him.

“On the whole, I’d rather be in Baden Baden Baden.”

Arthur Keeler whistled low. “That bad, huh?”

“I saw Delia,” Bill Keeler told him. “And I learned several truths I was deeply unprepared to deal with.”

“People aren’t normally prepared to deal with the truths they’ve been denying about themselves,” Arthur Keeler said. He touched his son on his shoulder. “Would you care for a life-saver?”

Bill Keeler observed the churning waves. “I think that would be advisable.”

Arthur Keeler handed him a ring-shaped flotation device.

“What would happen to me if I drowned in the river between worlds?” Bill Keeler asked.

“Hard to say,” Arthur Keeler replied. “You broke some pretty major rules to get here. You see, the Allbeing really doesn’t like it when people try to sneak a peek at his plans. And… well, gosh darn it, penalties are going to have to be paid.”

Bill Keeler asked. “Like what kind of penalties?”

“I don’t know the details,” Arthur Keeler replied. “But I have a strong feeling you’re not going to be passing this way again. Not for a very, very, very long time.”

“Thanks,” Bill Keeler said. He shrugged. “I guess there could be worse penalties.”

Arthur Keeler shook his head. “I’m sorry, son. But you have no idea what you’re in for. It won’t all be bad, but it’s going to be, definitely, a long life filled with isolation.”

Bill Keeler wondered. “Does it have to be? One of the things Delia warned me about was not to isolate myself from my crew. She thought I should form relationships with more people.”

Arthur Keeler signed. “I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen to you, but I can tell you that you will outlive every other person on your ship. Oh, and you’ll never see Sapphire again.”

“I did not expect to,” Bill Keeler assured him.

“If we make it through this, would you do one more thing for me?” Arthur asked.

“What?”

Arthur Keeler smiled. “Say ‘hi’ to Lex.”

Chapter 15

Gethsemane – The Gateway – 32 Hours to Impact – David Alkema surveyed the damage in the control room. He moved aside the smashed display monitors, brushed the broken pieces from the control boards, and scowled hard at the equipment. Finally, he pried open the side panel of the control board and peered inside of it, using a small pen-light scanner to examine the interior.

“I think you’re right,” he said to Hardcandy Banks, the closest thing Pegasus had to an expert on the device. “They did a lot of damage to the surface. The control boards are inoperable, but their internal components are intact.”

“So, the Gateway controls can still work if we can find away to operate them without using the control panels,” Taurus Rook deduced.

“Correct,” Alkema confirmed. “We will need some displays though.” He pulled open a wall panel on the side. To his surprise, its interior was still intact. “This could be useful.”

“What is it?” Rook asked.

“It could be a switchbox,” he said. “A sort of manual over-ride in the event of a control board failure. The Gethsemanians left it intact.”

“They did a real half-assed job of sabotaging the place,” Technical Specialist Black said. He was somewhat new to the Technical Core, and bore enough of a resemblance to Blade Toto to pass for a younger brother.

“I think that’s what they meant to so,” Taurus Rook said. “Hildegard Kahn was a piece of work, but that doesn’t mean the people under her were all bad.”

Taurus Rook asked Alkema, “Can you use it to activate the Gateway.”

“I don’t have a clue what any of these switches do,” Alkema replied. He turned to Technical Specialist Plover. “Take a crew out into the complex, see if you can find four large display devices like the ones they broke. Bring them back here and hook them up.”

Taurus Rook checked her chronometer. “Do you think you can figure out how to operate this technology?”

“The gate will have to be activated by by-passing the control boards and running the operation from within the system itself. I can’t do that,” he sighed. “But I know someone who might be able to. And I’ve already sent for her.”

Gethsemane – Fort Abaddon – The storm had weakened but had not let up. Trajan Lear regarded his datapad grimly.

“It isn’t just here,” he told Miranda. “There are seismic and atmospheric disruptions going on around the planet. I don’t think we have a choice any more. We’re going to have to evacuate through the storm.”

Miranda protested, her voice rising and punctuating each point of her objections.

• “There’s no way to get from here to the landing field!

• Through all that dust and debris!

• From three separate storm shelters!

• Without losing some of the children!”

“We’ll lose all the kids if we don’t start evacuating,” Trajan Lear answered. “This storm isn’t gong to dissipate in time. I’m going to signal Pegasus to move in the…”

He didn’t finish because just then the door exploded. Several of the children screamed, and their voices were lost in the howling wind.

Six figures clad in heavy black armor and wearing dark helmets and heavy tactical vests with weapons strapped to them marched swiftly into the room, two taking positions by the door while the others cut through the crowd of children to approach Trajan Lear. The lead soldier stripped off his helmet brushed off a cake of dust as he greeted them.

“Hoy, Trajan Lear,”

“Hoy, Johnny Rook,” Lear returned. “Why didn’t you link?”

“What? And spoil our entrance?” Rook got straight to business. “There are six Aves on the landing field. The planet’s going to go boom in under twenty hours. And I plan on surfing the debris in an Accipiter when that happens in honor of Max Jordan, who is wounded…”

“Wounded?” Trajan Lear asked.

“Shot in the leg by a squad of Authority Security Forces. He’s going to make it. But that’s not important right now. I gotta get you guys off the planet. You’re the last ones still here. Who’s the lady?”

“My name is Miranda,” she answered. “How are we going to get the children to the storm to the landing pad.”

“We’ve got ten Rockatansky Road Warriors waiting outside. It’ll be tight, but we can take 200 kids at a time out of the shelter and to the ships. As soon as these six are gone, we’ll move in six more to finish off with the rest of them.”

Trajan Lear did the math in his head. Loading the trucks; driving to the landing pad, loading the kids on the ships. “That’s cutting it really close.”

“You wanna stay here?” Rook asked.

“Negative,” Trajan Lear replied. “Let’s get these kids on the trucks. Little ones first.”

“Good plan. More of them will fit in the trucks.” Rook barked an order. “Let’s move

‘em.”

Miranda hand-picked the first two hundred kids to move out. She was methodical, arranging it so that one of the older children was responsible for two of the younger children as they were arranged into groups of twenty-four for the transport out. The Road Warriors were lined up outside with their rear hatches open. Even though they were parked only a few meters away from the shelter, they could barely be seen in the blowing dirt. It was impossible to tell whether it was day or night outside, and the blowing grit smelled like cinders. Also, the temperature had dropped almost to freezing, which was highly unusual. Gethsemane had always been a warm planet, even lacking ice caps at the poles.

The kids were loaded into the backs of the trucks in less time than Trajan Lear would have expected. He looked up, expecting to see the rogue planet, but instead seeing nothing but a sky full of roiling clouds.

All around him, lightning bolts pounded the arid landscape, all the time, continuously, eight, nine, eleven, more bolts of white lightning striking the ground all at once. Ashes and sand blasted through the air. Trajan Lear felt himself oddly connected to all of it. And he also thought that this was Hell, minus the tormented souls. He was caught up in staring for a few moments, watching the clouds make shapes and patterns. Rook hit the truck’s air horn to get his attention. “Are you coming with us?” he shouted.

“Just one minute,” Trajan Lear said. He fought the winds and made his way back into the storm shelter.

“Are you coming?” he asked Miranda.

“There’s still four hundred children in this shelter,” she told him. “And another eight hundred in the other two shelters. You take these to the ships. I’ll organize the next group. I’ll be on the last ship out.”

“That will be mine,” Trajan Lear told her.

“I’ll be there,” she promised. “Now, go.”

Trajan Lear spared her a look, then fought his way through the wind to the front of the truck.

Johnny Rook strapped himself into the driver’s seat. Trajan Lear rode shotgun. They could see nothing through the darkness and blowing dust on the windscreen. “Road Warrior 6, give me virtual.”

The windscreen changed to a projected view of the surrounding landscape, well-lit and free of dust. This was thanks to the scanners and sensors in the vehicle’s bumper and on the roll-bar atop the cabin.

He pushed the accelerator forward and the vehicle lurched into motion. It was a rough-ride. The Road Warrior was a combat vehicle, and offered almost nothing in the way of comfort, and the path to the landing field was rutted and filled with debris.

“Strange day, isn’t it?” Rook remarked. He turned on the Road Warrior’s music unit, and began blasting Auroran hardcore.

Pegasus – Main Bridge – Specialist Smith announced that the Rogue planet was exactly sixteen hours from impact. Change gave the order to Atlantic, “Increase distance from the planet to 700,000 kilometers, maintain our position behind the Rogue planet’s trajectory.”

“Increasing distance,” Atlantic answered, bringing the Gravity Engines to power. The models predicted that debris would remain within 330,000 kilometers of the planet, but Change had first hand experience in what happened when rocks bumped in space. She ordered the ship to a high safety margin, and put it behind the point of impact so it would not be in the path of debris blown out by the force of worlds colliding.

“There are four in-bound Aves from Gethsemane, and eighteen ships still on planet,”

Specialist McCormick reported from Flight Operations. “Maud will depart the Rogue planet in twenty minutes. I will alert them to our change of position.”

“What of the Aves Lt. Commander Alkema requested?” Change asked.

“Arrived on the surface eight hours ago.” McCormick reported. “Retro-fitting the special equipment he requested took longer than we anticipated.”

“How long before the planet’s surface becomes too unstable for surface operations?”

Change demanded.

“Hard to say,” Geophysical Scientist Lattermilk answered. “I don’t think it will start really falling apart until four hours before impact, but with its unpredictable acceleration, I can’t say when that will happen. I can say that the last two hours down there are going to be like something out of Hell.”

Gethsemane – The Gateway – Technical Specialist Suzuki lugged a very heavy device into the center of the Control Room. The meter-and-a-half tall, silvery cylinder was a data node, a miniature version of Pegasus’s braincore, a matrix capable of storing the amount of data generated by one reasonably competent civilization in 500 years, (“Or, a thousand years of Republicker civilization,” Keeler would have joked.)

“Perfect,” Alkema said. “Position it in the center of the room.” Suzuki moved the cylinder as ordered.

A tremor shook the building as Alkema performed a final systems check on the device. They were down to nineteen hours from impact. The groundquakes were becoming more frequent and more severe as the Hour of Doom approached.

“Is the data-link ready?” Alkema asked.

“It is,” answered Technical Specialist Black.

Hardcandy Banks activated the displays they had jury-rigged and connected to the Gateway’s devices. At first, there was nothing but interference and gibberish. She tapped on the interface device. Columns of numbers and letters appeared on one of the display devices. Another activated, showing schematics. The other two flickered, but then displayed graphs. “Got it!” Banks exclaimed.

“What about power?” Alkema asked her.

“I think I’ve switched the Gateway’s power source to auxiliary.” Before leaving, Hildegard Kahn had sabotaged the capacitors that fed energy into the Gateway, but she…

or more likely someone else… had left the auxiliaries intact. There was enough reserve power in them for one activation, Banks thought, although she was not sure. Most of the controls and read-outs in the control room were not labeled with clear statements of their purpose. There was no panel labeled “Auxiliary Power,” just one labeled UX-139. Similarly, the switches and buttons in the wall panels were labeled only with letters and numbers.

“All right, let’s try this,” Alkema said. He activated the data node. A holographic projection appeared above it, a slender woman with a silver-black body and bright purple hair. Her eyes glowed blue.

“Hoy, Caliph,” Alkema said.

Caliph’s Avatar looked past him and out toward the Gateway. “It’s so shiny!” she raved.

Alkema tried to keep her on task. “Caliph, we need you to get inside this tech, and activate the Gateway so we can pull Commander Keeler back through.”

She looked at the banks of old tech equipment that lined the control room. “This isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. It’s not like I can just merge programming with this technology and instantly figure out how to make it work.”

“You didn’t have any problem figuring out the StarLock,” Alkema reminded her.

“The StarLock’s mind was not too different from Pegasus’s braincore, or me. This is whole different kind of technology… altogether.”

“This is a whole different kind of technology,” the landing crew repeated in unison.

“Stop that!” Caliph admonished them. She had no idea where some of these ridiculous Sapphirean customs came from.

“Can you do it or not?” Alkema snapped at the recalcitrant hologram. Her avatar scowled. “I am doing it right now, you just can’t tell. Let me depict what I am doing for you.”

She plunged her holographic hand into the nearest terminal. The displays above the smashed control boards blanked out, then re-activated, displaying a rapidly changing sequence of characters in the Gethsemanian language, accompanied by diagrams of the Gateway, the Gateway Center, and the Gateway complex.

The reflections of the displays glowed across Banks and Alkema’s faces. “Is this the data you are currently accessing?” Banks asked.

“No, these are just pretty pictures to keep you occupied while I do the actual work of figuring out the activation sequence,” Caliph replied. “In case you’re wondering, I did search the data files for some kind of Operator’s Manual, but there’s none here. The operating system for this device is based on trinary code. By reading the code, I expect to be able to generate a set of operating instructions.”

“Can you do it?”

“Definitely,” she answered. “Can I figure it out in time, that’s another issue, entirely!”

Port Gethsemane – Taurus Rook had departed the surface before Dawn of the last day of Gethsemane’s existence. She was back on Pegasus, coordinating the reception of the last of the planet’s survivors.

This left Specialist Fangboner to be the last to leave Port Gethsemane. There were no more kids here. They had left two hours before. He was overseeing the last of the mission’s equipment being loaded into the Aves Edward.

When the last cargo container was placed on board, he paused and gave a last look toward Port Gethsemane. The entire city, from one edge of the harbor to the other, was engulfed in flames.

It had started a few hours before. The theory was a deep underground deposit of methane had been opened up by the groundquakes. Whatever the cause, flames burned through the streets, sent up the building like torches, and filled the sky with acrid smoke. Up until that time, Port Gethsemane had remained largely in the clear from the storms and groundquakes that were tearing apart the rest of the planet in land, sky, and sea. He made sure his ship’s visual sensors were recording the image of the whole city, on fire, burning across the horizon. It was like every twelve year old boy’s pyromaniac fantasies come to life. Fangboner felt like he was looking at a panorama of Hell.

“We have to go,” Edward’s pilot advised him.

Fangboner nodded, and looked at Gethsemane for the last time. “Goodbye, cruel world,” he said, and turned to get onto the ship.

Gethsemane – The Gateway – For more than ten hours, Caliph read the Gethsemane equipment. Her features were perfectly placid most of the time, although she sometimes scowled for no understandable reason. She seemed at ease with her task. The rest of the crew were less at ease. Time was running out. Fortunately, the Gethsemanens has installed no outside surveillance feeds, no dramatic center screen showing how imminent was the collision with the rogue planet. If the Pegasus crew could see how fast the rogue planet was bearing down on them. It loomed over the far Horizon of the Gateway base, a scarred hemisphere of doom, growing larger and closer with each passing minute.

Such a view might have made the crew even more panicked then they were. However, they had plenty of reminders of how precarious their position was. Every couple of minutes, a tremor rippled through the floor of the control room.

“Do you have it yet?” Alkema asked Caliph.

“I have the initialization sequence,” Caliph replied. She transferred the data to a display, then translated it into the standard language.

“Three buttons!” Hardcandy Banks exclaimed. “All that effort to tell me I have to press three buttons.”

“No,” Caliph protested. “All that effort to tell you which three buttons.”

“I’ve got it,” Alkema reported. He went to the first wall panel. He looked first at the display. “Releasing energy to Gateway.” He touched the button labeled JX-225 and pulled the adjacent switch. It illuminated with a blue light, and a display activated, showing bar graphs and rows of characters in the native Gethsemane language. Alkema waited until all of the bar graphs turned light blue. “Initializing field,” he called out, and touched the button labeled IX-097. Another display activated, and the room seemed to build up a charge of its own. Arcs of electrical power began to exchange among the pieces of equipment in the room. A circuit board exploded out of a wall panel with a shower of sparks and a puff of smoke.

The crew ducked and covered. “This didn’t happen before,” Alkema said.

“It’s not a malfunction,” Caliph said. “Energy is feeding into the system from another source. You have to activate the Gateway now!”

“Activating Gateway now,” Alkema said, pressing GX-415.

There was a flash, and additional bursts from exploding circuitry. One arc caught Hardcandy Banks in the hand and she cried out.

Before her cry faded, a penetrating white light filled the room, blinding them. In that moment, Alkema realized he was supposed to close the shield over the viewports to the Gateway Plaza.

When his vision cleared, he looked into the Gateway area, where a very confused and disoriented Keeler and Redfire were waiting, wearing the same robes they had departed in, staring confusedly up at the sky.

Alkema grabbed the address system. “Commander Keeler, are you all right!”

Keeler looked at up at the control room blearily. “Who?”

“We have to get down there,” Alkema said.

“We have to get off the planet,” Hardcandy Banks added.

“You’re welcome!” Caliph said pointedly.

Alkema touched the address system again. “Commander Keeler, it’s me, Ranking Dave. Stay there, we’ll come and get you.”

“Aunt Sestina?” Keeler asked.

“Pancakes!” Redfire shouted at the top of his lungs. “Delicious pancakes! I must have them!”

“We better go,” Alkema insisted. He began to move toward the door to the stairwell that led to the Gateway Plaza, but paused before he got there

“Are you all right?” Alkema asked Hardcandy Banks.

Bank’s hand was scorched and blistered. A Medtech was tending to her. “I’ll be okay, but we really have to go… now. Get the Commander, I’ll stay here and help move out Caliph. Don’t worry, I’m not hurt.”

“I’ll help,” Specialist Black said.

Hardcandy Banks turned to Caliph’s avatar. “We can carry your module to the ship, but you may want to transmit yourself back to Pegasus, just to be safe.”

“The risk is too high,” Caliph answered. “I’ll ride in the Data Module unless you have to abandon me.”

Hardcandy Banks nodded. “Black! Let’s get this module to the ship.”

Caliph looked Banks up and down. “Your attractiveness greatly exceeds the human mean for females.”

“Thank you,” Banks said.

“If you’re not busy later, would you like me to ride around in your head for a while?”

Caliph winked at her.

“I’ll think about it,” Banks promised.

Alkema and a pair of warfighters pried open the door at the end of the parade ground and approached Keeler.

“Commander, are you okay?” Alkema demanded.

“The Aurelians are invading Republic!” Keeler announced.

“I’m not who you think I am!” Redfire announced.

“My son is a nerd and my friends are jerks!” Keeler shouted.

“Adam and Eve on a raft, one shipwrecked!” Redfire insisted.

“Their minds are scrambled,” Alkema said.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander Obvious,” Warfighter Topkapi replied. “Let’s get them to the ship.”

Before she finished speaking, a rumble began that emanated from far below them underground. What followed was less like a groundquake and more like an eruption as ground shook then burst open, creating a massive fissure that cut through the center of the Gateway’s arena and swallowed the arch into the chasm that opened. The Dome above the Gateway Complex shattered into pieces that began falling all around them. Nothing but luck prevented them from getting hit by falling debris.

“Hell and Damnation,” Alkema shouted. Toxic, sulfurous gasses rose from the deep pit that had opened in the planet’s crust. He helped Commander Keeler to his feet. Topkapi helped Redfire. The Gateway complex began to fall to pieces all around them.

“We’ll have to go around that chasm,” Alkema pointed, “The rift doesn’t reach that edge of the field. We’ll go around that way.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Topkapi. She tapped her COM Link. “Toto, come and get us. Bring the ship to us. The cover’s gone, you’ve got a clean landing field. Minutes ticked by, only a few but seeming like many, many. Aves Zilla flew into position overhead and fought the rising clouds of gas to set down on the ground on the opposite side of the chasm.

“I have to pee!” Keeler proclaimed.

“There’s no time!” Topkapi yelled.

“There’s always time to pee!” Keeler insisted.

“Let him,” Alkema said. “This planet’s going to smack in about 55 minutes. If there were ever a time to suspend the prohibition against public urination, this is it.”

There was another groundquake, powerful enough to knock all of them to the ground. Alkema landed on his back. From his perspective, the rising clouds of gas and smoke took on the shapes of monsters and howling spirits.

Only a narrow bridge of intact ground stretched across the opening pit. Commander Keeler walked to the edge of the pit, opened his robe, and pissed into the yawning chasm, laughing hysterically.

“Allbeing,” Alkema cursed.

Zilla hovered just above the ground. When the Commander had finished his business, Alkema led the way across. Blade Toto stood in the hatch and helped the last of them on board.

“Are y’all right?” he asked Banks, seeing the bandage on her hand.

“Yeah,” she assured him. He gently kissed her hand anyway.

When all of his passengers were on board, he sealed the hatch, and his ship rose into the sky, which was rapidly turning into a narrow space between Gethsemane and the oncoming rogue planet.

Phoenix – The very last Aves to leave Gethsemane was Trajan Lear’s ship Phoenix. Lear stood outside her as the last group of children were brought on board, in near pitch blackness illuminated in lighting that flashed like strobes, creating an eerie stop motion effect to the world around them.

With less than a half and hour on the clock before impact, the last 73 children of Gethsemane were strapped into the Main Deck. The ship also contained three Medical Technicians, and four Warfighters. But not Miranda.

Trajan Lear and Johnny Rook had gone into each of the shelters, shouting her name, and finding nothing. They had systematically gone through each of the other buildings in the complex and not found her there either.

Now, they stood in the main courtyard, amid the fury of the storm the planet had thrown up as it lay dying. Johnny Rook shook his head and linked to Trajan Lear, having to shout above the storm. “She must have taken one of the other ships.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Trajan Lear shouted back at him. “She said she wouldn’t leave until the last group of kids was safe. We have to look for her!”

He lifted the binocular-like device that hung around his neck up to his eyes and scanned the landscape. The Oculus was 200x more powerful then standard Spex implants, but in all the interference, the lightning, the blowing debris, it could distinguish nothing.

“She had to have gotten on one of the ships,” Rook shouted. “Why would she be out in this? There’s no way.”

“How can we be sure?” Trajan Lear shouted back at him. “We can’t leave her.”

Johnny Rook took Trajan Lear by the head and forcibly turned his face upward. The storm clouds had parted. The rogue planet filled a third of the sky. Its craggy surface features and craters were visible even through the blowing dirt and sand. “We’ve got forty minutes to get off this rock,” Rook shouted at him. “If she didn’t make it off, we don’t have time to find her.”

Trajan Lear was tempted to raise a protest, but he knew Johnny Rook was right. Reluctantly, he followed his friend into the Road Warrior and secured the hatch behind him. Rook put the truck in gear and guided it to the landing strip where one last Aves waited for launch.

Trajan Lear re-boarded Phoenix as Rook took the vehicle around to the ship’s aft cargo bay. He waited for Rook to seal the cargo hold and come alongside. As he approached, Rook paused, looked up at the sky, took one last look at the desolate landscape, about to be gone, shook his head and came into the ship.

They stripped off their weather gear and pressed their way through the crowded main deck. Trajan Lear climbed the short ladder to the Main deck with warfighter Johnny Rook behind him. Waiting for him was an unexpected co-pilot.

“Can I sit here?” Aeric Tuck asked, running his hands across the back of the right-hand seat on the flight deck.

Trajan Lear nodded. Johnny Rook strapped in at the tactical station. Technical Specialist Idlewild activated the Flight Engineering console.

Trajan Lear abbreviated the pre-flight check. “Phoenix, condition all systems?”

Phoenix replied. “All ship’s systems within acceptable flight parameters.”

“Begin Main Engine sequence,” Lear ordered.

“How long to impact?” Johnny Rook asked.

Trajan Lear checked the chronometer. “Twenty-five minutes.”

Johnny Rook shook his head and whistled. “This is way closer than I wanted it to be.”

Trajan Lear paused. His hand was the control stick. All he needed to do was fire the lifting thruster and bring his ship up. He had to leave the planet. There was no option. He wasn’t completely sure they would make it as it was.

He looked out through the canopy, at that darkened landscape thrown into shadow by the world about to smash into it.

He knew for a fact that Miranda had not boarded any of the other ships.

“We have to go,” Aeric Tuck reminded him.

Trajan Lear fired the lifting thrusters.

Struggling against gravity and the wind, the Aves rose into the turbulent sky. Lear calculated his course.

There were only 10,000 kilometers left between Gethsemane and the Rogue Planet. He plotted the shortest way out.

At 2,000 kilometers, Phoenix began to struggle. It was caught between two large planetary masses at very close and constantly changing proximity, which was playing havoc with the ship’s propulsion envelope. The Aves was bouncing like a ping-pong ball. From Trajan Lear’s perspective under the command module’s canopy, there was ground above him and ground below, just minutes from pancaking into each other, and he was trying to get his ship out through an ever narrower passage. He was also navigating a storm of rocks as the two planet’s gravitational field began interacting and the informal landscape-swap began in advance of the final smash-up.

Aeric stared in wide eyed terror at the scene through the ship’s canopy. “Get below,”

Trajan Lear ordered him. But the boy stayed put, figuring that not watching what was happening would not make it stop, and Lear did not pursue the issue.

“Crap,” the Flight Engineer burst out.

“What?” Trajan Lear asked,

“The rogue planet’s still accelerating!”

“What?” Trajan Lear and Johnny Rook said in unison.

Something hit the underside of the port wingblade. The Flight Engineer checked his scanners. “Oh, now this… this… this pushes the boundary of really, really, bad.”

“What?” Trajan asked again.

“Look,” said the flight engineer.

But Trajan could already see it through the display. Although the planets were still several minutes from impact, their mutual gravity fields had begun tearing each other’s crusts apart. Magma balls were falling from the rogue planet toward Gethsemane, igniting into massive fireballs as they hit the atmosphere. Rocks and dust were also falling upwards toward the rogue planet from Gethsemane. And in the midst of this fiery maelstrom was Phoenix.

Ka-Thunk, another rock bounced off the dorsal hull. “Hang on,” Trajan Lear said.

“Are you going to try something?” Johnny Rook asked.

Trajan didn’t answer because answering seemed like a waste of time and concentration. He pushed the thrusters hard to maximum, intending to get out from under the Rogue planet before it got any worse. He concentrated hard on altering his perception of time, so that he could guide his ship through the rock-fight-of-the-gods currently taking place outside his canopy.

Beneath him, giant fissures appeared in Gethsemane’s surface as tectonic stress gave way to gravity, and the crust was pulled apart like strips of old paper. A fleeting thought came to him, wondering what had become of Miranda, but he immediately put it aside and focused on the challenge of piloting his ship out, as two vast landscapes prepared to smack into one another.

Trajan Lear pushed his ship’s engine to maximum, but could not seem to reach escape velocity. Space around the ship was distorting, changing somehow, and it was impossible to keep that systolic gravity envelope around his ship stable. Then, an alarm began to sound. Trajan Lear checked his scopes.

“What is it?” Johnny Rook asked.

“Remember your ambition to ride out the shockwave from the planets colliding?”

Trajan Lear asked.

“Yeah?” Rook replied.

“Strap in, because it’s about to happen.”

Chapter 16

When the rogue planet smacked into Gethsemane, the crew of Pegasus saw a brilliant and silent explosion.

Slowed down a few thousand times, what happened was this: The rogue planet knocked into the northern hemisphere, creating at its impact point into a concave dent thousands of kilometers across. The southern hemisphere perpendicular to the point of impact bulged outward and exploded as the insides of the planet were knocked out; like an over-ripe melon hit by a cannonball. A geyser of melted rock sprayed into space for thousands of kilometers. It would eventually be pulled back by gravity and rotation into a molten ring.

The rogue planet’s iron core was solid enough and moving fast enough to pass through Gethsemane like the aforementioned cannonball and emerge through the other side. But it was not quite fast enough to escape the pull of Gethsemane’s residual gravity. The hot iron core traveled out about 330,000 kilometers before being pulled back toward the planet. Over the next million years, it was positioned to become a new moon as it accumulated debris from the planet’s orbit and the molten surface re-solidified. The atmosphere of the planet incinerated instantaneously. The seas boiled away in the first microsecond of the cataclysm. The crust of the planet vaporized below the impact point and rapidly shattered into dust and rubble all across the planet’s surface. Mountain ranges were reduced to gravel or blown into space, roots and all. Two worlds annihilated each other and became one expanding mass of debris and hot magma. The cities and every man-made structure on the planet were obliterated in less than a second, except for one. The Gateway survived.

Pegasus – Main Bridge – A large display on the main bridge showed the last two Aves fleeing the planet trying to make it to Pegasus. Zilla shot clear just as the planets crashed together. Running hard ahead of the shockwaves, it made for Pegasus at high speed. The glyph representing Phoenix flickered and vanished.

There was a moment of shocked silence. “Did we lose them?” Eliza Change demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Specialist McCormick, the big blond Flight Controller reported as he reset and recalibrated his instruments. “Telemetry?”

“No sign of Phoenix,” Specialist Billy Keane reported from the Telemetry station. “But I can’t be sure through this interference. There’s flooding across all scanning bands, including neutrino, and they were on the far side when…”

Suddenly, the entire bridge rocked as though hit by a groundquake. There was an abrupt lurch backwards, followed by a rapid buck upward, then down. Alarms activated and the bridge lighting switched to Tactical Mode. The shaking continued for several long moments and McCormick almost spilled his kava.

“What was that?” Change demanded, as lighting flickered, displays vanished, and control interfaces turned orange and red across the spoon-shaped bridge. She knew they were too far out to be hit by debris.

“Shockwave,” Keane reported. “It definitely came from the planet, some kind of raw electromagnetic energy.”

“Stabilizers,” Change called.

Atlantic was at the helm. “Unresponsive.”

Specialist Coldbeer had been monitoring ship’s systems when the wave hit. She pulled herself back up to her station and shook out her long brown hair. “Some of the power nodes overloaded. There are sporadic energy fluctuations throughout the ship. Some secondary systems have gone off-line.”

“Stability and navigation are primary systems,” Change challenged her.

“And their auxiliary systems should be coming on-line now,” Coldbeer replied, calmly watching several graphics turn from ocher to turquoise on her monitor. Atlantic saw his own control board shift into active and nominal modes. By now, the ship was no longer shaking, but he tested his thrusters and stabilizers just in case. Billy Keane was staring at the shapes forming on the part of his display monitoring energy output from the planet. “Something’s wrong.”

“Specify,” Eliza Change ordered.

Billy Keane projected his display. There was a nasty, rising curve on it. “The energy output from the planetary impact should be receding… but it’s increasing.”

“Impossible,” Eliza Change pulled up the data at her command station, double checked the readings, and realized immediately that the impossible was happening. Billy Keane zoomed that Primary Sensor Display on the Bridge to show the fiery chaos of Gethsemane’s molten core boiling and erupting into space as the shattered remnants of its crust joined the pulverized remains of the rogue planet in a rapidly spreading field of chunky rocky debris.

Another shockwave rocked the ship; a much stronger one. Although they were better able to stabilize the ship this time, there was minor damage. Loose objects and tools tossed around in other parts of the ship. A water conduit cracked open. Coldbeer took injury reports from the Hangar Area.

When the wave had passed, Keane undertook to pinpoint the source of the shockwaves. He focused the ship’s sensors at the center of the expanding energy force. It was deep in the heart of the debris field, but its energy seemed to be pushing aside, or perhaps annihilating, the debris around it so that it appeared as a tiny eye in the midst of a hurricane. “I have a sensor lock.”

“Extreme zoom,” Eliza Change called for.

The sensors zoomed in on the source of the energy as Keane cleaned out the interference until they had a discernible picture of what was emerging.

There was a large parabolic circle, clearly identifiable as the Gateway. Until now, the crew had not realized that what had been visible on the surface, a parabolic arch, was only half of the complete structure.

In the middle of the parabolic circle, some thing seemed to be emerging. Tendrils… or maybe they were tentacles… horrible looking things, hundreds of kilometers long, with spikes and hooks were shooting out of the Gateway.

“What the hell is that?” said Atlantic.

“And what are those?” asked Coldbeer. The thing had not yet completely emerged from the Gateway, but other things were flying off its tentacles, things that looked like thin scorpions with needles protruding from their heads.

Eliza Change didn’t need to wait to see what they were. “Battle Situation. General Kitaen to the Bridge. Raise shields. Stand-by weapons. Accipiters to launch-ready status.”

Phoenix – Trajan Lear’s ship had been almost opposite the point of impact – and barely clear of the atmosphere – when the rogue planet hit. Phoenix caught the trailing edges of the wave of white hot gases, plasma and debris that erupted from the planet, and was knocked hard into space as the shockwave hit.

Trajan Lear fought to keep his ship steady, to at least keep Phoenix’s keel parallel to the blast front to minimize damage to the ship. He used thrusters at maximum to try to add velocity as the ship fled the planet.

The first shockwave was primarily vaporized oceans and atmosphere. Phoenix was able to ride that out. The second blast wave was rocks and debris, which hit the ship’s after section like hail on a metal roof. By the time the third wave of molten liquefied magma and plasma hit the ship, Phoenix had been blown clear enough to miss the full force of its impact. But the energy was still enough to kick the ship ahead of it like a metal can, and a bunch of systems overloaded and crashed.

When the third wave had passed, and the ship seemed to have found calm space again, Trajan Lear checked his systems. “Thrusters are all right. Engine Main Power is stable. Control Systems are functioning. We’ve got life support, for now. … ah, hell.”

“What?” Johnny Rook asked, like everyone else on the flight deck, still firmly pinned into his seat by crash restraints.

“The Navigational Core is gone,” Trajan Lear answered. “We’re over a million kilometers from Pegasus, and we don’t have a way to find them.”

He flipped on the distress beacon, and it sent a calming, repeating pulse through the cabin.

“Now, what?” Rook asked.

“We await rescue, and watch the show” Trajan Lear explained. He jigged his control stick until the irregular ball of red hot molten lava surrounded by a debris field that a few minutes earlier had been a living planet was centered in the canopy. From here, it looked no larger than a pearl, a burning red pearl in the black sky. They owed the subsequent hours of their survival to the fact that the more interesting show was happening on the other side of the planet.

Zilla – Zilla had felt the force of the shockwave several seconds before it hit Pegasus. It shook the Aves hard, but no worse than a crash landing.

“Bouncy,” giggled Redfire.

“Bouncy! Bouncy!” Keeler agreed. Both Keeler and Redfire were strapped onto landing couches on the Main Deck. A pair of Medical Technicians examined them, finding nothing wrong … apart from the fact that both of them were babbling idiots.

“Get the commander some booze!” Alkema ordered the Medical Technician tending to Keeler. He pointed the MedTech to the built-in booze-bar next to the commander’s seat. Another hard blast rocked the ship from dead astern. A COM display appeared in the Main Cabin. “We’ve got demons on our six,” Toto reported. His sounded nonchalant about it.

Alkema and Hardcandy Banks dashed to the forward part of the Main Deck. Alkema brought up a tactical display. A swarm of targets was closing on the Aves, swooping in like a determined flock of raptors.

“That can’t be,” Alkema activated the sensor display. Surely, these were just bits of debris flung out by the planet.

At highest magnification, he got a look at them, and he knew they weren’t random debris. They were too alike, too complex to be mere debris. They were horrible. They were headless and eyeless… just stingers and claw-like legs attached to bodies that were needle-thin, segmented carapaces. They moved like a swarm of wasps, their hundreds of tiny legs pumping vigorously, as though they were running across something solid. He wondered how they could propel themselves through space like that. And, more bizarrely, he felt like he could hear them… like a buzzing on his head.

“Where in Hell did they come from,” he whispered. There were at least two dozen space-scorpions closing in on Zilla very fast. Alkema churned the possibilities over in his head, tried to think past the buzzing, but his ideas made no sense. All he could picture was that Gethsemane was like some giant wasp’s nest, broken open and setting free all the things that had secretly lived in its core the entire time.

Hardcandy Banks concerned herself with a different display. “The energy coming out of the Gateway is increasing exponentially,” Banks reported.

Something hit the ship, some kind of energy beam that cut right through the shields, right through the hull, and through the cabin like a superheated plasma knife. It charred and boiled the bulkhead at the front of the ship and made an unoccupied landing couch burst into flames.

One of the Medical Technicians grabbed a Fire Control device and extinguished the fire as the emergency lighting came on.

“What the…” Alkema began, but he was overtaken by Toto and Banks talking over each other.

Toto: “Damage to rear thruster cluster. Hull damage, aft section…”

Banks: “Massive energy discharge. Type unknown. Reconfiguring shields… I don’t know if it will do any good.”

Alkema gave the only sensible order under the circumstances. “Toto, get us the Hell out of here.”

Toto responded. “Pushing engine output to maximum velocity. Engaging evasive maneuvers.” Pause. “You guys might want to, you know, strap yourselves in or something, if you haven’t already.”

“How long until we reach Pegasus?” Alkema asked.

“Another eighteen minutes at least,” Toto replied.

Alkema looked at his screen. The Demons would overtake them in about six minutes. And then an odd, almost lucid expression came across Commander Keeler’s face. The irises of his eyes disappeared, leaving only a large black pupil. And in a low sober voice he said, “Heaven isn’t the only Afterlife.”

Redfire’s eyes turned black, and he spoke in that same deep, thoughtful voice, “When you open a door to get out, something else always gets in.”

Alkema heard them, but at that moment, he was preoccupied.

“Another energy beam, incoming,” Banks reported.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Alkema ordered.

Toto banked the ship hard to port. The blast beam passed just underneath their starboard wingblade, leaving a char mark. A power node embedded in the wingblade overloaded and exploded, igniting a small fire. Power to the main cabin flickered and died. Tertiary power kicked in.

“Another energy beam!” Hardcandy Banks reported.

“Hard to port,” Toto warned as he corkscrewed is ship into another evasive maneuver. Caliph appeared. Her avatar projected from the transport cylinder and stood in the main cabin. With glowing blue eyes, she read the telemetry and sensor reports on the screens in front of Banks and Alkema. She calculated the time to intercept of the closing demons and the strength of their weapons. She also took in all the data the sensors had on whatever was emerging from the still open Gateway.

She sized up the situation, and came to a conclusion.

“Bye,” she said to the crew before blinking out and transporting herself back to Pegasus. Pegasus – Main Bridge – The Bridge had gotten more crowded. In battle mode, the stations were double manned, and the tactical stations triple manned. “Uh, oh,” said Coldbeer. And just as she said it, the bridge went dark. A few seconds later, auxiliary lighting came up, but every display was gone.

“Some kind of energy surge from the planet,” Keane reported. “Some kind of… I hate to describe it this way, but … dark energy.”

“Dark energy?” Eliza Change asked in a what-the-hell-is-that-crap tone of voice?

“It seems to suck the energy out of anything it passes through,” Keane answered. “Until now, I thought it was theoretical.”

Coldbeer reported. “We’ve lost sensors and communications…”

“How long to get them back?” Change demanded.

Coldbeer answered. “About two minutes to reinitialize the total system.”

“How are tactical systems?” Change asked out loud, although she herself was already at the tactical board.

Tactical Specialist Raider reported. “The tactical systems are also off-line. Weapons interlinks not responding.”

“I’d suggest engaging electro-magnetic shields to protect against further disruptions,”

Keane suggested.

“Why haven’t you done that already!” Change ordered. “Is the armor deployed?”

“Armor deployed before we lost systems,” reported Tactical Specialist Gage, from the tactical control station. Key areas of the ship were now protected with thick slabs of neutronium armor.

General Kitaen arrived at the Main Bridge. He was in full war-paint and Sumacian battle regalia, including the chest shield and shoulder armor. He took a position next to Change’s command seat, and she seemed to tolerate his presence.

“Scramble Accipiters,” Kitaen ordered. “Bring Phalanx railguns, particle weapons, and hammerhead missiles to ready.” He snapped his fingers once at Specialists Raider and Gage.

One hundred Accipiters, remotely piloted fighter craft, began launching off the electromagnetic rails in the ship’s hangars.

“Helm, bring us about and put some distance between us and that thing,” Change ordered.

“What about the Aves?” McCormick asked.

“They can catch up with us after we get clear,” Change answered him. “We have to save this ship first.”

Pegasus --Hospital Three – The sound of battle-stations awakened Max Jordan from his healing sleep. He sat up in his healing bed just in time to feel the ship shudder from the impact of another dark energy wave. The medical bay was filled with children, and when a few of them started screaming, most of the others joined in.

He pulled the nearest COM display over to his bed and brought up a tactical summary to see who was attacking his ship. He took only a few seconds to process the available tactical information. While the medical crew was distracted trying to calm the children in the ward, he got out of bed, pulled on a robe, grabbed a pair of crutches, and snuck out of the ward.

His right leg was horribly stiff and painfully sore as he hobbled down the corridor, but, he didn’t need legs to remotely pilot an Accipiter. Being nearly a liter of blood low was more of a problem, and moving down the corridor he nearly passed out. Getting to the control deck would be the hard part of the journey. Finally, he found a transport station. He traveled to an auxiliary control deck and entered his new Access/Over-ride code. He slung himself onto the saddle of one of the Accipiter control simulators and prepared to join the fight.

Suddenly, Caliph appeared in front of him. “Hi, Max!”

“I’m busy,” he told her.

“I know, and I know you don’t like me as much as you used to…” Something massive bumped the hull near that section of the ship. The lighting flickered as power to the deck fluctuated. “Hold on a sec,” Caliph closed her eyes for a moment in concentration. When she opened them again, the impacts to the shields were muted. “I’ve reinforced Pegasus’s outer shielding, but it won’t last very long. I’ll also need to augment the ionic cannons. But first, we have to take care of this.”

She brought up the display of the tentacled entity beginning to emerge from the Gateway.

“What the heck is that?” Max Jordan asked.

“I don’t have time to explain it, but just imagine there’s a really, really hungry monster coming through the Gateway. He hasn’t eaten for a billion years, and human souls look like little frosted cupcakes to him. It’s kind of like that.”

“Is that what’s attacking the ship?” Jordan asked.

Caliph shook her virtual head. “Yes and no. It can’t attack us directly until it gets through the Gateway. That’s where the dark energy pulses are coming from, but he also has these things attached to him. They’re like parasites, like those Chenga flies back in the woods of Bodicea. They’re hungry, too. They don’t have weapons, but they will smash through the hull to get to us.”

“How can we destroy the big monster and all the little monsters?” Jordan asked.

“We can’t destroy them, but we can send them back,” Caliph answered. The Accipiter displays changed abruptly. Max Jordan wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Caliph explained. “You’ll need to pilot a Nemesis carrier vehicle and drop a warhead right into the Gateway. Actually, one might not be enough.” Additional displays activated. “That should do it.”

Max Jordan beamed. “So, I need to fly a Nemesis missile through the flaming debris of a destroyed planet and outmaneuver an army of space demons to detonate an anti-matter hyper-missile to blow up a Gateway into another dimension?”

Caliph nodded her virtual head. “Exactly.”

“Well, yippee,” Jordan responded. He saddled up. A neural interface deployed over his eyes.

Caliph continued. “Now, put me in your head. I already have full sympathetic control access to the Nemesis missiles. I learned how when I tried to blow up Meridian. You weren’t around then.”

Max Jordan nodded. “Unh-Huh.

“I’ll try and pull you out before the missiles detonate,” Caliph assured him, as she over-rode the launch controls and prepared to fire the Nemesis. Zilla – Blade Toto steered his Aves toward Pegasus’s landing bays, surrounded by the space-scorpions that had overtaken him in flight. Demons buzzed passed him like moths around an exterior lumination source.

Maneuvering into the Landing Bay was going to be a challenge. Zilla had lost two maneuvering thrusters and the others were responding unpredictably. Pegasus was retreating away from them at a relatively fast clip. Flight Control had not responded to his requests for landing clearance.

Zilla’s Main Deck was filling with smoke. Alkema and the rest of the crew were wearing air masks as one of the Medical Technicians tried to locate the source of the fire. Something struck the ship’s hull, causing David Alkema’s tactical screen to fry out. “What are they firing at us?” He shouted.

“That’s outside my area of expertise,” Banks informed him.

One of the Medical Technicians came forward. “Sir, Lt. Commander Alkema… the fire suppression systems are off-line and something in the cargo deck is burning. We’re going to lose containment if we stay here.”

“Get up the Flight Deck,” he ordered. He turned to Banks. “You too.”

“What are you going to do?” Hardcandy Banks asked him.

“I’m going to blow the Main Hatch and vent atmo to put the fire out.” Alkema reported.

“You can do that from the Flight Deck,” she said.

“We’re losing systems. I have to be sure.” Alkema tapped his mask. “I’ve got my rebreather on and I’ll be strapped in. Just go… now! I don’t want to blow up inside the landing tunnel.”

“That would be messy,” Hardcandy Banks agreed. She would have given him a kiss for luck, but she couldn’t because of the oxygen mask. She gave him a good hard slap on the rump instead.

When the crew and passengers had cleared the deck, Alkema double checked his straps and tapped the control panel to open the hatch. It was inoperative, as he figured it would be. He opened an access panel next to the hatch and pulled down the manual release. Next, he felt his way through the smoke to the center of the hatch, pulled open the manual release panel, and jerked hard on the handle inside.

The inner hatch opened up about eight centimeters. The outer hatch was still shut, with an ugly blister of welded alloy in the center of it where one of the alien beams had hit. Alkema cursed, groped his way back to the weapons locker, and grabbed a heavy assault rifle. He set the weapon to max yield, aimed as best he could through the smoke, and fired off. The rounds weakened the hatch but did not create the opening he needed. The hatch was reinforced and blast-resistant.

He was reconsidering his options when suddenly the entire hatch assembly blew away from the side of the ship. One of the alien creatures had batted against the side of the ship, and the combination of its impact and the weakened state of the hatch had caused it to disintegrate.

David Alkema looked into the horrible shape the thing that was attacking his ship. He felt it in his mind, and it terrified him. He could hear it screaming in his head. Something long and sharp like a mosquito’s serrated tongue shot out from it and Alkema barely dodged out of it in time. The restraints that kept him from being blown into space now trapped him in front of the opening in the hull the alien beast was clinging to. The cabin had decompressed and his rebreather must have malfunctioned because he was fighting to get air in his lungs. The scene was getting purple and black around the edges of his vision as his brain demanded oxygen his blood could not supply. He raised the assault rifle again and squeezed off rounds continuously at the alien. He heard a scream inside his hid that felt like a migraine headache. He fired and fired until the insect let go of Zilla.

Then, he passed out, still in his restraints.

Pegasus – Main Bridge – “It’s emerging,” Billy Keane reported breathlessly. On the screen, they had a view of the thing coming out of the Gateway. Swarms of tentacles surrounded the central body, which seemed to consist entirely of mouths, ten of them, with tongues of fire and lined with rows of fangs. In the very center of the beast was a circle of nine horrible flaming red eyes.

It was terrifying enough, but their immediate problem was the swarm of small, scorpion-like things on their ship’s rear quarter. General Kitaen ordered Tactical Specialist Gage. “Arm Hammerhead missiles. Set for contact detonation and launch.”

“Right, arming Hammerheads. Targeting Demons. Arming warheads.” Gage activated a forward tactical display that depicted missiles in Pegasus’s forward weapons array arming and launching.

“Aves Zilla is in the landing tunnel, 13-Alpha,” McCormick reported. “They’re heavily damaged.”

“Increase velocity to maximum,” Change ordered. “Get us to transition speed.”

“What about Phoenix?” McCormick demanded.

“If they haven’t already been destroyed, there’s nothing we can do for them,” Kitaen answered, sparing Change the need to say it.

The Demons had caught up with Pegasus, and the pathfinder was not doing well, not doing well at all. Almost twenty accipiters had been destroyed in the first few minutes of battle. The anti-proton cannons on the Accipiters barely scratched the Demons. When the Accipiters attacked, the Demon ships turned and slammed into them, instantly annihilating both ships. Pegasus’s ionic cannons were having somewhat more success, but destroying one of the attackers meant keeping it in a steady line of fire for several seconds while the Demon ship jigged and evaded.

One Demon, then another, and another smashed hard against the rear base of the command tower. The bridge juddered from the assault. The Hammerheads were taking their toll on the Demons, but there were so many of them.

The small, scorpion-like ships were pounding against Pegasus’s outer shields. One had even slipped through a weak point an annihilated itself against the Inner Shield at the base of the Secondary Command Tower, causing moderate damage. Specialist Coldbeer had sealed off that section.. Another of the demons skipped across the bow like a stone across a lake, then smashed into a section near the base of the two towers. Specialist Raider spoke up from Tactical. “Commander, one of the Nemesis carrier vehicles has gone to launch mode.”

“I didn’t order that,” said Change.

“I was about to,” Kitaen pulled up a tactical display nest to his position.

“Whose authorization code was used?” Change demanded.

“No authorization code, the launch sequence was over-written. Missile away,” Raider reported.

“Show me,” Change ordered.

Raider added a new display hologram to the forward bridge, showing a Nemesis carrier vehicle launching from the forward hatcheries, then banking and heading back over the ship before speeding toward the Gateway.

“I’ve found a control linkage between the Nemesis and the Auxiliary Accipiter control on Deck 49,” a third tactical specialist, Warfighter Swift, reported. “I can attempt to disable it.”

“Negative,” Kitaen barked, then looked at Change. “I don’t know what that thing is, but we know it’s hostile, and very powerful. It needs killing, and the Nemesis is the most powerful weapon we have.”

Change nodded. “Maintain that link.”

Kitaen added. “Give that warhead carrier vehicle some fighter support.”

“Affirmative…” Gage answered.

“Outer Shield failure imminent over the port wingblade,” Coldbeer reported a second later.

One of the Demon ships broke through the shield and smashed right through to the port wingblade. It self-annihilated on impact, but tore a gaping hole nearly a hundred meters across right through the ship.

Another Demon made an impact in the same zone of the ship, deepening and widening the hole. A third smashed right through to the Graviton engine embedded within. The entire ship lurched hard to port.

“Get us out of here,” Change repeated.

Atlantic snapped back at her. “The Number Four Graviton Engine is off-line. I’m trying to reconfigure the propulsion field to compensate.”

“Outer Shield failure over the Aft Port Quadrant,” reported Tactical Officer Gage. Shield failures were also imminent over the rest of the ship.

“Cut power to the Outer Shields, reinforce the Inner Shield over the Command Towers and the Habitation Decks,” General Kitaen ordered.

The Demons surrounded the aft section of Pegasus like a swarm of flies around the tail end of a Borealan Musk Ox. The difference being, the flies of the Borealan plains were merely pesky, and didn’t explode violently upon impact. The Demons did. And they were inflicting massive damage across Pegasus’s entire aft section. The scorpion-things began to cluster around the huge hole they had blasted in the ship’s port wingblade, ripping into the exposed decks with their horrible, horrible claws, as though knowing instinctively this was the ideal route to the inside of the ship, where thousands of tasty humans huddled and braced against their onslaught. Deep Space/ Deck 49 – Through the sympathetic neural link, Max Jordan could feel the carrier vehicle beginning to fail all around him. “Maneuvering thrusters are gone. Aft hull is losing structural integrity.”

Caliph whispered: “Just hold it together for 13.7 more seconds.”

The Demons had largely ignored him as he had flown out from Pegasus, and he tried to give the swarm a wide berth as he bore on toward the target, an elongated circle in his head’s-up display.

He felt a shockwave and then an impact against the side of his ship. One of the Accipiters escorting him had been destroyed, and a large hunk of its former engine smacked off his hull.

The Nemesis carrier entered the planet’s debris field. Jordan dodged and weaved the ship through the flying rocks. This was worse than any asteroid field simulation he had ever tried. It was thousands of times more dense than a standard asteroid field. The rocks were still in motion from the explosion, their flight paths fully random, and it would take millions of years for them to stabilize.

Suddenly, a chunk of Gethsemane’s crust the size of a mountain range loomed up in front of him. “Whoa!” he shouted out loud, putting his ship into a panicked crash dive as the flying mountain range cleared the top of his ship by less than a hundred meters. Something that felt like a hard punch to the gut greeted him on the other side. A rock no larger than a wally-ball had smacked the ventral side of the carrier vehicle and knocked out most of the armor plating. Back in the control chamber, the loss in control became a vibration, like driving a speeding road vehicle across a deeply rutted dirt track at high-speed on two flat tires.

The carrier was barely responding to control inputs. “I’m losing it!” Jordan reported.

“You can’t!” Caliph insisted. “We’re not close enough.”

She tried to help him stabilize the vehicle. It helped a little. He checked the head’s up display. He had lost the target. “Dammit!”

“Correcting,” Caliph told him. She instructed him to rotate 47 degrees on his y-axis, 32

on his x-axis. The thrusters responded sluggishly.

The ship was through the worst of the debris field, but now was passing close to the molten surface of the planet formerly known as Gethsemane. It was hot like a small star, and gases were exploding outward from its surface.

“There, I see it,” Max Jordan said. On the control simulator, sweat was pouring down his forehead and into his eyes. His wounded leg throbbed with pain. His throat was parched. Only Caliph’s constant stimulation to his brain kept him from passing out. It took everything he had in him to put his ship on course for that ring. The thing inside it was nearly through the breach. A hundred tendrils, or more, waved and swatted in the blackness of space.

“Stay away from those things,” Caliph warned him. “The condition of the Carrier Vehicle is too precarious.”

“You should launch another one,” Jordan told her. “I don’t think this one is going to make it.”

But Caliph insisted. “There isn’t enough time. Ialdabaoth has to be destroyed before it can get out of the Gateway, or we cannot stop it.”

“Ialdabaoth?” Max Jordan asked. “How do you know its name?”

“It looks like an Ialdabaoth to me,” Caliph answered. “Now kill it.”

Pegasus – Main Bridge – Coldbeer was losing her battle to keep up with the damage reports. Deck after deck, section after section was decompressing, opening to space as the demonic creatures from another dimension tore Pegasus apart.

The largest holographic display on the bridge was now devoted to a three-dimensional schematic of Pegasus, showing the beating the ship was taking. Each passing second recorded another impact against the rear quarter. Most of the phalanx guns in the aft section had been taken out. Shields were failing.

The UnderDecks were taking the worst of the attack. The Demons had smashed through the outer hull of the UnderDecks on the starboard side. It was an outboard section, unoccupied. But they had penetrated the ship and were tearing it apart from the inside, making their way toward the inhabited decks.

General Kitaen hovered over the Tactical Display. “Deploy emergency bulkheads throughout the Aft quarter, it will slow them down.”

He traced with his finger the most direct route from where the Demons were to the nearest inhabited decks, the Aves Hangars.

“Pet some tactical teams on the other side of the bulkheads to lay some traps,” Kitaen said. “If we put explosives behind these bulkheads here, here, here, and here, those bastards will have one Hell of a surprise waiting for them when they bust through.”

“I’ll relay the order to Lieutenant Patton,” Raider said.

“Sir, we have a problem,” Gage called to Kitaen.

He showed the outer tactical display. A group of the demons broke away from the main body and swung around to the front of the ship.

“They’ve figured out that this is the command center,” Kitaen said in a near whisper. A pair of loud explosions came from the opposite side of the armor shield that protected the Main Bridge. A third explosion knocked a bulge in the hull plating.

“Secure stations. Evacuate Primary Command,” Change ordered.

“Reroute tactical command to Secondary Tactical Command Center,” Kitaen ordered.

“Maintain all previous operational orders until we arrive there.”

“Rerouting operations functions to Tactical Command Center,” Raider reported. McCormick and the others were already evacuating their stations, scrambling toward the hatch at the back that led to the transport dock.

More explosions, the hull plating groaned and began to snap. Pegasus sounded a warning:

H u l l b r e a c h i m m i n e n t i n P r i m a r y C o m m a n d 1

Gage and Raider remained at their stations and worked furiously to make sure control over helm and tactical systems wasn’t lost, as scorpions smashed against the armor of the Command Tower, one after another.

“Leave it!” Change ordered. “Come on.”

Locking down their stations, Gage and Raider followed her to the exit hatch and sealed it behind them as the scorpions broke through.

The front of the Main Bridge breached and exploded into space. Deep Space – The badly damaged Nemesis carrier vehicle commenced an arc around the outside of the Gateway, releasing warheads all along its trajectory until all ten were launched. The first four were almost immediately destroyed by impact with Demons. But the other six got close.

Caliph had programmed them to detonate sequentially. The first three created a backwash in the energy that was streaming through the open Gateway, disrupting it enough to collapse the field holding it open.

Just as it closed, the remaining three detonated within nanoseconds of each other, destroying the Gateway completely, and sending the terror that had been struggling to emerge back to the Hell dimension from whence it came.

The hundreds of scorpion-demon-space monsters trying to rip into Pegasus found their existence in this reality unsustainable in the absence of their host. In the space of nanoseconds, they turned to quantum ash and blew away on sub-atomic, super-string winds, shrieking in unheard ultraviolet wavelengths as they perished. Also, the annihilation of energy and anti-matter created an explosive burst of energy on the scale of a small supernova. And since even a small supernova released energy on the scale of billions of nucleonic weapons, further dispersing the debris field that had been the planet Gethsemane.

Several minutes later, the badly battered Pathfinder Ship Pegasus was subjected to one final massive blast wave, then all was quiet again.

Chapter 17

The ship is more how I like it now, dark in places, and filled with strange noises. I was in the commander’s quarters during the attack. The noise disturbed one of my better naps. Then the bulkhead compressed and I was trapped in the Old Man’s sleeping quarters until they brought him back from the planet.

The humans are trying to repair their mighty ship. The damage it has taken has been extreme. I, myself, have been generously providing my services to the crew in restoring damaged systems.

Pegasus – Commander Keeler’s Quarters: Keeler sat in his couch, wearing a blue bathrobe with a design of yellow and gray geometric shapes linked by black lines in a sort of circuit-board pattern. The slippers on his feet were made of bunny-beast fur. The drink in his hand was hot buttered rum.

He stared at the case that had been built into his wall, but was now smashed and broken, like the dozens of archaeological tchotchkes that had been displayed on it but now lay in pieces across his tasteful cream-colored carpet.

The ceiling over one of his chambers had collapsed entirely. The bulkhead near his sleeping quarters had collapsed. Fortunately, however, his liquor cabinet had come through unscathed and that Keeler regarded as proof of a beneficent Allbeing. Someone knocked at his door. “Come,” he bade to them without getting up. The door no longer opened automatically, David Alkema had to push it aside. “Good morning, Commander Keeler, how are you feeling?”

“I am very disappointed,” Keeler answered. “It looks like you kids threw a wild party while I was gone. And you could have just as easily thrown it while I was here.”

“I don’t know if you remember,” Alkema said, sitting down across from him on the opposite couch, placing a datapad on the low drinks table between them. “Two days ago, as we were returning from Gethsemane, Pegasus was attacked by… something we are still trying to analyze.”

“The last few days are something of a blur,” Keeler admitted. “I have a clear memory of walking through the Gateway. Then, there’s a lot of fuzzy stuff about … damn…”

“What?”

The Commander groaned in frustration. “Every time I think I’m just about to remember, it gets away from me. Anyway, I wake up here, my cat’s hungry, I give him some tuna fish.”

Alkema activated the Display Mode of the datapad. A holographic model of Pegasus, 1/4,200 scale, projected above it. Most of the rear sections were colored red for severe battle damage.

Alkema explained it. “We took multiple direct hits to the UnderDecks, the port wingblade, and the Secondary Command Tower. We lost 34% of our water supply. 32% of our food supply. 30% of our general stores. We lost 33% of our production capacity from the artifactories. Power nodes have been disabled in over a third of the ship.”

Alkema nearly got emotional on the next point. “Primary Command Center… The Main Bridge was completely destroyed. That entire deck was torn to pieces. The Bridge Crew barely made it out alive.”

Keeler shook his head, near disbelief. “Krishna. Was any one killed?”

“No one on the Main Bridge, they got out in time.” Alkema rotated the model. “Another direct hit took out one of our gravity engines, the portside aft one. It’s beyond repair. The starboard gravity engine is severely damaged. We may be able to salvage it, but we’re still assessing. In the meantime, we have only two working engines. And with the other damage to the ship…” He shook his head.

Alkema then brought up a secondary chart that described damage to tactical systems.

“We lost over a third of our Accipiters in the attack, and our supply of hammerheads is severely depleted. A number of our phalanx guns were destroyed, and others were badly damaged.”

Keeler asked. “What about people?”

This was the grimmest news of all. “46 confirmed dead, and another 96 unaccounted for. There are parts of the ship we can’t get to, and won’t be able to for a while. All casualties were among our personnel, we didn’t lose any of the Gethsemanian children.”

Keeler looked puzzled. “What Gethsemanian children?”

Alkema took a deep breath: “After you went through the Gateway, we discovered that the children of Gethsemane could not pass through it. They were going to be left behind to die when the planet exploded. We undertook to rescue them.”

“Oh, Good Lord…” Keeler realized he was going to need another, much more potent drink to cope with this.

Alkema gave him the details. “We rescued 8,111 children under sixteen and 200 adults from the planet’s surface. We have space to accommodate all of them in the ship’s habitation complex. Most of the children are above the age of ten.”

Keeler was stunned by this information. “What you’re saying is these children now outnumber our legacy crew by more than two to one.”

Alkema: “Not all of them are children, but, za, there are now at least 11,600 people on Pegasus.”

Keeler was mortified. “How can we possibly take care of that many people with the damage we’ve suffered?”

Fortunately, they are moving most of the new young humans to the Tertiary Habitation Decks them. The quarters that were emptied out when half the crew left on Lex Keeler will house the rest, most of them with families that have agreed to adopt them. We had to shut down the Holographic Sky Generators to save power, so there is nothing projected on the domes over the inhabitation areas, just black starry space. Since those areas have not been used until now, they’re rather plain. They used to be entirely dark and empty. There goes the neighborhood, I guess the expression is.

Other members of the crew are also moving to the Tertiary Habitation Decks so they can help the newcomers adjust themselves to this ship, which adds to the general disarray that has become the defining characteristic of life on board Pegasus since the destruction of Gethsemane.

Pegasus – Tertiary Habitation Area, Deck 11: “If you don’t like the color of the walls, you can adjust them with this control panel,” Taurus Rook demonstrated by changing the walls in the room for white to dark blue with white trim.

“They were okay before,” Soarboar said in his soft, shy voice. “It’s good.”

It was a standard residential pod, a central living and dining area with an alcove to one side for food preparation. A short corridor at the back led to sleeping areas and the hygiene pod, which Johnny Rook had demonstrated to the polite amazement of Soarboar and his wife.

This pod contained only the bare minimum of furnishings it had been equipped with at the time of Pegasus’s launch: a dining table, a couch and a chair. There were additional blankets and clothes in the storage cupboards, along with a months supply of food and the utensils for preparing and eating it.

“When the artifactories are operational again, we can supply you with more furnishings,” Taurus Rook said apologetically, resetting the walls to standard white.

“This is good, thank you,” Soarboar assured her. “It’s real nice. Maybe I can help fix your… your artrafactries… I’m good at fixing things.”

“We will be happy to train you. Maybe you can join the ship’s Technical Core once you learn our technology,” Taurus Rook told him.

Anaconda Taurus Rook was now tasked with provisioning, quartering, educating, and integrating eight thousand new Gethsemanians into Pegasus’s crew. She along with Johnny Rook, Skua, and Shorpy would be moving into family-sized residential quarters in the Tertiary Inhabitation Area, along with the Gethsemanian refugees. During the attack, the crew wasn’t sure if one of the Aves had made it off the planet and survived the explosion. As it turns out, they did and I lost 10 bucks. There should be some interesting and awkward conversation once they learn TyroCommander Change wanted to leave them to die. Phoenix: Trajan Lear and his ship had been adrift in space for more than 22 hours. Aeric Tuck had fallen asleep in the second seat and slept for so long, over six hours, that Trajan Lear had to check to make sure he was all right.

Down on the main deck, the last of the children alternated between hyperactivity, panic, and restlessness, so a few hours earlier Trajan Lear had briefly reduced the life support systems oxygen content to put them to sleep. It had been quieter since then. Trajan Lear had allowed himself a brief nap, had tried to reinitialize the navigation system on three separate occasions, and had moved his ship closer to the molten ball of rock that once had been the planet Gethsemane, thinking it might be easier for Pegasus to find them there.

After 22.3 hours adrift, his proximity alarm alerted him to the presence of another ship. Trajan Lear read the transponder code and activated the ship-to-ship COM Link. “I knew it would be you.”

The Aves Prudence flew into view over his canopy. “What’s your status, Phoenix?”

“Propulsion and flight controls are able, but our navigational sensor array and related systems were severely damaged when the planet exploded,” Trajan Lear reported.

“Can you follow me back to Pegasus or do you need a tow?” Matthew Driver asked.

“Cables are standing by.”

“If you remain in visual range, we can follow you back to Pegasus,” Aeric Tuck began stirring in the seat next to Trajan Lear. “How far are we from Pegasus anyway?”

“About 16.7 million kilometers,” Matthew Driver answered.

Trajan Lear replied. “Did you say 16.7 million kilometers?”

“Affirmative.”

“Were you guys planning on leaving us out here or something?”

Matthew Driver responded. “We had a tactical situation on the ship. In the course of which, we moved several million kilometers farther away from the planet.”

Trajan Lear didn’t ask for details, he was too busy calculating how long it would take them to get back.

Matthew Driver read his mind. “I’m signaling Pegasus to come about and rendezvous with us. It should shorten the trip to … three-point-seven hours. Activating formation beacon.”

A bright flashing light appeared on the underside of Prudence. Trajan Lear instructed his ship to lock onto it.

The two Aves moved together, precisely matching acceleration curvatures to stay in visual range. Driver filled Alkema in one the attack Pegasus had suffered through, which Trajan Lear did not believe in at first. The notion of monster demons from another dimension was just too ridiculous.

Within an hour, they were passing through the outer edges of Gethsemane’s debris field. Trajan Lear saw close up the gob of molten ore that had been a living planet. He knew enough about geophysics to know it would take thousands of years for the crust to cool and resolidify, and that for thousands more years, the surface would be bombarded by rocks as the planet’s gravity pulled its pieces back from orbit. And nothing made by humankind would survive, he thought. Compared to the mass of a planet, all the things a human civilization might make over the course of millennia would be like a sliver of finger nail to a human body, or maybe an eyelash. And most of that would have been annihilated in the initial collision of worlds. So, it was a minor miracle when he saw the watership.

He detected an object in space and zoomed his visual sensors on it. Under intense magnification, he spotted the hulk of an old ore freighter, one that had been parked at the pier in Port Gethsemane.

The watership was drifting through space, neither spinning nor tumbling, but simply drifting forward, prow first. Under exteme magnification, he could even pick out the name painted in Gethsemanian lettering on its rear, “Iron Voyager.”

Trajan Lear could not help but smile as the only relic of Gethsemane’s civilization plied its way through the Cosmos. Perhaps, some future civilization would find it and puzzle over it. Or, it might drift through Cosmos until the last red dwarf stars cooled and faded and the universe died.

“Godspeed, Iron Voyager. Godspeed,” Trajan Lear whispered. A couple of hours after that, they rendezvoused with Pegasus, and Trajan Lear realized that, if anything, Matthew Driver had been soft-peddling the battle. The rear of the great pathfinder ship – once the most beautiful space vessel ever assembled by human hands – was a ruined landscape of twisted and jagged metal. A hole a hundred meters across had been blasted through the port wingblade. The edges of both port and starboard wingblades, once as smooth and as sharp as knives, were gouged and broken. There were even pockets of fire burning in some of the UnderDecks. They were all thinking the same thing, but it was Trajan Lear who verbalized. “By the Allbeing, what happened to our ship?”

When you’re living on a spaceship, and your spaceship nearly gets destroyed by an evil monster from another dimension, one of the things you want to find out is what the thing was that attacked you. So you can avoid running into one in the future. (My advice would be to avoid trying to cheat death by opening portals into unknown dimensions, but I probably would not follow my own advice. I don’t really want to die.) Unfortunately, our encounter did not leave us with many clues. Pegasus – Artifact Laboratory (Deck 53): Many of Pegasus’s laboratory sections had been damaged in the attack. The Primary High-Energy Experiments Lab had no power and its Orgatron was inoperable. The Microbiology Laboratory had been breached and destroyed entirely. A flood of contaminated water from a burst conduit had destroyed the Space Physiology Laboratory. And an oven had exploded inside the Experimental Food Laboratory, splattering little bits of cake everywhere.

The Artifact Laboratory had fared a little better. Some of the colonial artifacts and equipment were damaged, but it was intact enough to receive the antiquities and small everyday devices recovered in the final days of Gethsemane.

But what called the most attention was a small curved oblong piece of metal, made of an ancient alloy, measuring twenty-four centimeters by twenty-two centimeters by one-point-five centimeters thick. It had been recovered from the Rogue Planet. There were two circles at the top followed by words. Lingotron had worked up a translation of the ancient message as best as it could.

Consequently of in AFTER CHRIST our resistance of the star in the foot of the month of the July peoples 1969 they with security to arrive at the beginning for all persons existence of for inside

“What does it mean?” Alkema asked the small group of archaeologists gathered in the laboratory. Aside from images of blasted and twisted metal support parts, it was the only thing they had salvaged from the Rogue planet.

Specialist Merch tried to explain. “It’s a very old Earth dialect, a precursor to one of the languages of the Commonwealth. Espanol, maybe, or Anglish. We think the number 1969

might refer to a date, the old Solar Year 1969. Which would mean this predates the Commonwealth by four hundred years.”

Another scientist spoke up. “There were once pretty extensive facilities there. There’s not much left now, but there could have inhabitations, laboratories, hangars…”

“That place was bombed hard,” Merch added. “Maybe during one of the Crusades.”

“When you’re finished studying the object, hand it over to Commander Keeler,”

Alkema said. “I think he would enjoy having it.”

Alkema left the Artifact Laboratory, he paid a visit to the Special High Energy Studies Laboratory, where he encountered Hardcandy Banks and Blade Toto, both of whom, he was relieved to find, were completely dressed.

“I know it’s soon to ask,” he told Banks. “But General Kitaen and I agree we need a full report on that thing that attacked us. And we need it before Commander Keeler puts it in the ‘let’s never discuss it again’ folder. Any personnel or other resources you need to complete the report will be at your disposal. Just let me know what you need, and how long it will take to complete the report.”

Hardcandy Banks gave a low whistle. “I can do the report myself, and I have everything I need… except data. All of our sensor records of it are gone.”

“Destroyed in the battle?” Alkema asked. “We should be able to pull recovered files from …”

“Neg, there are continuous sensor records from Pegasus and Zilla. There just aren’t any readings,” Banks indicated the two displays, one for each ship. “No visual records of the ship being hit by those … Demon things. No records of unusual energy signatures in the Gateway. As far as the sensor logs are concerned, our ship was nearly destroyed by nothing.”

Alkema was completely baffled. “How is that possible?”

Hardcandy Banks assumed her “hot but thoughtful” posture. “How is it possible to walk through a Gateway and get a foretaste of the Afterlife? Look, I know I am a scientist. But when I try to analyze this, all I get back to is that the Gethsemanians… with help from the Kariad… were messing around in areas they should have left alone.”

This did not satisfy Alkema. “I don’t accept that. We saw those things. We saw them on our sensors. I saw one face-to-face. How can our sensors say they didn’t exist when we saw them?”

Blade Toto explained it better. “She’s saying those things weren’t real. Our sensors couldn’t record them because they weren’t real. Something let them be for real, for a little while. But once they stopped being real, our universe forgot they were ever here.”

Seeing Alkema’s befuddled expression, Hardcandy Banks explained. “That’s how I explained it to him before you came in.”

“Are you saying we’ll never even know what that thing was?” Alkema asked.

“Probably not,” Banks broke the news to him.

Alkema took this in, and was surprised to find himself saying, “Maybe we aren’t supposed to know what it is, but I’d still like the best report we can do. I’ll try to record whatever I can remember from the sensor readings in Zilla. We’ll study the damage for residual clues.”

There was one other thing. “Did you ever figure out how the Gateway itself worked, and where the Commander and all those other people went.”

Hardcandy Banks transferred her final report to his datapad, but gave him a verbal summary. “I am almost positive the Gateway opened up a portal to somewhere, using a mechanism similar to the mechanism Pegasus uses to pass through hyperspace, which carried an interesting implication. To wit: If we duplicated the exact output and energy signature of the Gateway with our own engines, we could take the entire ship through to wherever the others went.”

Alkema contemplated the implications of this for a second. “OK,” he decided on the spot. “Let’s never do that. In fact, when we write this mission report, let’s write it in a way so that nobody will ever try to do that.”

While the humans were trying to piece together what happened, I went to the source, which they apparently never thought to do… or haven’t yet. I asked Caliph. She told me what it was, and she also told me she would never tell the humans even if they asked her because they couldn’t deal with it. I thought that was very arrogant of her. I like arrogance. She also said she thinks my ears are cute.

Pegasus – Auxiliary Command Consultation Room: Deck 10: Eliza Jane Change, Kyle Atlantic, and Matthew Driver met once again, this time in a much smaller conference room, windowless, deep in the ship’s interior.

“We saved the children of Gethsemane,” Eliza Jane Change said.

“We did,” Matthew Driver agreed.

“Now, what?” Specialist Atlantic asked.

“Maybe we keep saving them,” Matthew Driver suggested. “The children are still alive, but now they’re going to need years, maybe lifetimes of our support. Trajan Lear has taken in a boy from the Fort Abaddon site.” He smiled. “It seems my protégé, now has a protégé

of his own.”

“But what about us?” Atlantic persisted, making a circle gesture with his hand as though to draw them together. Although what he was actually wondering was whether having the precognition gift meant that weird crap like this was bound to happen to him for the rest of his life.

Change shocked them both y reciting poetry. “When shall we three meet again?/ In thunder, lightning, or in rain?/When the hurly-burly's done/ When the battle's lost and won/That will be ere the set of sun.”

“Where did that come from?” Driver asked.

“A little poem my father used to recite to my mother and me whenever the three of us managed to get together,” Change explained. “It never made much sense to me. We lived on a mining ship, so I didn’t know what thunder, lightning or rain were, much less what a hurly-burly was. I had not thought about it in years.”

“What about us?” Atlantic repeated impatiently. “Is there more work for us to do? I’m still young, and I don’t want to think that I’ve already accomplished my purpose in life.”

“Now, I guess you’re free to make your own purpose,” Matthew Driver replied. But Atlantic wasn’t satisfied with that. “We were called here to rescue these children, and we nearly got killed ourselves doing it. Why did … why did something call us here and then try to kill us? And what if we didn’t come?”

“The children would have died and that … that thing would have been released on the Universe,” Driver replied. “It’s a good thing we did come.”

“That doesn’t help,” Atlantic was struggling to explain his position, as always when a man tries to deal with something infinitely greater than himself. “I don’t like the idea of a Universe that depends on us to make things play out the way they are supposed to. But I also don’t like the idea that everything is set out and nothing we can do will change it.”

“Humanity has wondered about that for a hundred centuries,” Matthew Driver replied. “Along the way, we’ve had some genuine Prophets and Messiahs who have relayed some truth.”

“And a few Charlatans, as well,” Eliza Change added.

Atlantic accepted this with wary resignation. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe I should talk to Eddie Roebuck. He seems to have found something that works for him.”

I watched the Old Man mope around in his quarters for two days, though he drank less then he usually does when he is bored. Cleaning up the mess was low on the list of priorities for the ship, but finally, a cleaning robot appeared on the third day and helped clear the debris. It will be another ten days, at least, before a restoration crew can repair the damage. He presided over the Memorial Services for the personnel who died in the attack. Most of them were in the sections adjacent to the port Graviton Engine (total loss) or in the secondary command tower. The Old Man recited, with great sincerity, the tributes to honor and duty Alkema-guy wrote for the services. He also approved designation of a Memorial Garden, which will be done after major repairs are completed. When not moping or attending funerals, he spent time reviewing old mission reports. He once watched the recorded image documentation of the Aurora mission for seven hours straight, but that may have had something to do with the obsession Auroran women have for baring their breasts in the presence of recording devices.

Pegasus – Officers Club: When Keeler was feeling better, he went to the Officer’s Club. It had come through the attack unscathed, but had not reopened. Keeler invoked the Captain’s privilege, and went in anyway to share a drink at the bar with his friend Redfire. “Borealan Smashmouth,” he requested, not knowing why.

Redfire poured himself a glass, then raised it to the commander. “Cheers, mate.”

“Cheers indeed,” Keeler replied. “I guess… I guess we missed a terrible lot. Thousands of little kids evacuated from a doomed world. Planets colliding. Horrific space monsters.”

“Some of that was recorded,” Redfire replied. “A few of the ship’s documentarians followed some of the evacuations, anyway. The Geosciences Core put hundreds of sensors on the planet to record everything up to the moment of impact. Orbital probes and the ship’s sensors caught the collision.”

“Really wild stuff,” Keeler said.

“Wild, indeed,” Redfire agreed.

Small talk dispensed with, Keeler asked Redfire the real question. “Where did you go?”

Redfire shook his head and smiled. “I don’t remember. Do you?”

Keeler shook his head. “I can’t remember. If I try really hard, little bits and pieces come to me, but I don’t even know if they really happened or if they’re just things I created in my head. There’s something about a river, or maybe a lake. I just can’t make sense of it. And after a while, I just start thinking about my family, remembering times on Sapphire. But nothing about the Afterlife.”

Redfire nodded gravely. “Same here, I have images, like some dream you’re desperately trying to remember. There was some kind of light. There was some kind of…” he shook his head. “See, as soon as I try to articulate it, I lose it.”

“Do you really think it was an Afterlife we went to?” Keeler asked him.

“Neg, I really don’t,” Redfire replayed. “I think the Universe was just playing with us. But it was worthwhile.”

“Why?”

“Because I know who I am now,” Redfire told him.

“And just who are you?” Keeler asked.

He stood up straight. “I am TyroCommander Philip John Miller Redfire of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus.”

“You got your memory back?”

“Neg, but I feel like I know myself again,” Redfire replied. “I realized I do have a life here, and if I don’t have a history I remember, I’m liberated to create whatever future I want for myself.”

“Good for you,” Keeler tapped his glass, pointed out that it was empty, and requested more. “I suppose I received some sort of revelation because since I recovered my faculties, I’ve been filled with a burning desire to author a book about our ship, and our adventures, and the places we’ve seen. I have a desire to explain it to people, so that future generations will remember our voyage.”

“That sounds like a worthwhile thing to do,” Redfire replied. “A good way to pass the time in transit between worlds.”

“If what Ranking Dave tells me is true, this ship isn’t going anywhere for a while. Not without major repairs to the hull and propulsion systems.”

“I have been, kind of out-of-the-loop on those kinds of discussions,” Redfire said. “But it’s time to put an end to that. I have a request of you, my captain.”

“What is it?”

“I wish to return to duty as this ship’s senior tactical officer.”

It was Caliph who figured out the nature of the aliens attacking us, and it was Caliph who figured how to defeat it. But, naturally, it was a human that took all the credit for it.

Pegasus – Hospital Three: Some hours after the battle was over, after they had repaired the immediate damage and reset themselves up in the Secondary Tactical Command Center, a search crew found Max Jordan passed out unconscious on the saddle of an Accipiter remote operational simulator. At some point in piloting the nemesis, one of the blood-seals in his legs had given up, and he lost more blood. The searchers who found him brought him back to the Hospital, where he was infused both with his own cloned blood and blood from his brother Sam and his half-sister, Pieta.

A few days after that, Anaconda Rook stood next to Max Jordan’s healing bed next to her husband and Specialist Fangboner. All three wore their Dressy Warfighter Officers uniforms… a smart black and khaki ensemble trimmed with red piping.

“On behalf of the crew of Pegasus, and the people of the planet Sapphire,” she intoned gravely. “I present you with this Scarlet Lizard, in grateful acknowledgment for your personal sacrifice in coming to harm in combat operations on the planet Gethsemane.”

She attached the small medallion with the red lizard on it to the front of his healing robe. Max was shy and awkward about it.

“It seems weird to be getting a medal just for getting shot,” he said.

“You don’t get the medal for being shot,” Taurus Rook told him, with one eyebrow raised conspiratorially. “You get it for being brave enough to stand where you could get shot.”

“And then getting shot,” Max Jordan deadpanned.

“There’s more,” Taurus Rook, went on. “On behalf of the crew of Pegasus, and the people of the planet Sapphire. I also present you with the medallion of Flawless Victory in defeating the evil monster that was trying to emerge through the Gateway and destroy the universe.”

She handed him a medal the size of a large coin, gold metal with a black dragon insignia on it.

“Doesn’t seem big enough, somehow,” Johnny Rook said.

With the Main Bridge destroyed, the humans relocated operations to the Auxiliary Command Center on Deck 42 of the Primary Command Tower. The Secondary Command Tower remains too damaged in too many sections. It is unusable for the time being.

We moved the ship into orbit around the fifth planet in the Gethsemane system and began operations to harvest water and atmospheric gases to replenish what we had lost in the attack. It will take at least 100 days of repairs before the ship is even capable of entering hyperspace. Pegasus Auxiliary Command Suite (Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) Deck 2: Sitting around a large, black table with hologram displays floating above it, Keeler met with his Core Staff twice a day for status and planning, with their focus being the repair of his ship.

Eliza Jane Change sat on his left, David Alkema on his right. Going down the table were Anaconda Taurus Rook, General Kitaen, Rocky Collins representing the Flight Groups, and representatives from Engineering Core and Technical Core.

Alkema provided his latest status report. He sounded tired. He had gotten little sleep in the five days since the attack. “About four hours ago, we lost a power node in the lower part of the secondary command tower. There is no life support or power above deck 29 in the secondary tower. Estimated time to repair, sixteen hours.”

“How long until we get to use the Bridge again?” Keeler asked. He didn’t like using the BMC2 as the ACS. It was too dark, and the seats were uncomfortable. Worse, it just felt like he was hanging out in someone else’s home and using their stuff. It just didn’t feel right.

“Repairs to the Main Bridge will be our next priority after Primary Systems have been restored to 80% operational capacity,” Alkema answered.

“How long will that take?” Keeler asked.

“Ten weeks,” Alkema answered. “That’s provided we can secure enough materials to complete repairs. Our reserve supplies aren’t enough to handle this kind of damage. Even if we cannibalize the sections that are beyond repair, we don’t have enough structural materials to repair all the damage.”

“What are you doing about it?” Keeler asked.

Alkema had provided a report on what they were doing, which the commander obviously had not read. Without his usual sigh, he explained. “To begin with, we’re harvesting ice off the planet we are now in orbit around. That will help us replenish water, oxygen, and volatile chemicals once we’ve repaired our systems enough for them to receive it.

“We’re also surveying the moons of the outer gas giants. There are plenty of moons in this system, 54 so far. The system doesn’t have an asteroid belt…”

“It didn’t used to,” General Kitaen muttered darkly.

Alkema ignored his grim joke. “We’ve already found a large deposit of platinum on one of the moons of the seventh planet. Preliminary estimates say 3,000 tons. That will at least get us started on repairing the armor and the hatches to the landing bay. Although mining ore from asteroids and moons was Eliza Jane Change’s area of expertise, she held her tongue. She seemed distracted, and let Alkema continue. Which he did, “We can’t spare any human personnel on the mining work, so it’s been delegated to androids and mining robots. Our on board ore processing capacity is limited, but…”

“We will manage,” Keeler finished for him.

“What we could really use is… more platinum, molybdenum, tungsten and/or titanium for hull repairs, we can’t fabricate enough alloy for all the patches, but we can make strong enough substitutes with those materials.

He added another list to the display. “We’re also looking for Gallium, Indium, Yttrium, Beryllium, and some other rare elements to restore our power and control systems. We could use some Palladium to repair the fuel cells, but I doubt we’ll find any. ”

“Braving the elements,” Keeler chuckled. “How are our personnel holding up?”

“They’re holding up well,” reported Anaconda Taurus Rook. “Between the repairs to the ship, and the relocation of some of our crew, there’s an intense amount of activity. Morale is very good.”

“I meant, do we have enough to fix this?” Keeler gestured at the three dimensional display of his damaged ship.

“Technical Core is working double and triple shifts,” reported Technical UnderChief Shayadrian Bauer, one of the Republickers who had remained behind on Pegasus. “It’s a strain, but we will keep it up until we meet Lt. Commander Alkema’s goals for system operations.”

“What about the Gethsemanian youths?” Keeler asked. “According to the reports I’ve seen, 2,400 of them are fourteen or older. Could they assist the repair teams in any way?”

Taurus Rook frowned. “We have training programs starting up, but it’s going to be a while before they know our systems well enough to be useful. And it may be longer before they can learn how to work with us.”

“Some of them may never work with us,” Medical Technician Briceland interrupted.

“So far, we’ve found at least 200 hundred children with severe behavioral disorders that resulted from them being abandoned on the planet and left to fend for themselves.”

“The ferals,” said General Kitaen. “And I believe the number is closer to 400.”

“They are going to require intensive rehabilitative therapy,” Briceland continued. “And they should be isolated from the others, some of them perhaps permanently. They’re too prone to violence and aggression. They would victimize the others.”

Alkema had already seen the recommendation from Cultural Survey with regard to the ferals, so he relayed its conclusion. “They should be isolated from the other survivors and given intensive therapy. In extreme cases, we’ll have to consider use of a neural-calmative implant.”

“Give them to me,” General Kitaen said. “Warrior discipline will help them tame the demons inside them. The Warfighter Core will give them purpose and instill discipline in them.”

Briceland looked like she was about to object, so Keeler simply said. “Approved. Have our Medical Core work with General Kitaen to devise a regimen of warrior discipline for the ferals. What about the rest, though. Can we put them to work?”

“I think it would be a great idea to get them working with the crew,” said Taurus Rook.

“But I don’t even know how long it will take to train them to that level.”

“Understood,” Keeler said. “Just keep in mind the goal of your program is to be assimilation into the crew as productive, contributing members. I’m not going to have them living in the basement, watching our video entertainments and eating turkey sandwiches, or whatever it is untamed youth do these days. Is there anything else?”

There was something else. There was always something else. Alkema presented yet another display. “Our supply of Hammerhead missiles was severely depleted in the battle, and our capacity to make more is severely limited. I am working on an idea, but you might not go for it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Keeler asked, cuppng his chin in his hand.

Alkema displayed a schematic of a Hammerhead’s warhead. “To make new missiles, I’ll need a power source for the new missiles warheads. And the only suitable power source on board… are the warheads for the remaining Nemesis missiles.”

“Oh, dear,” Keeler said. “How many of those do we have left?”

“We still have one hundred and twenty-two…” Alkema answered.

“I can let you have half of them,” Keeler said. “I mean, we barely use those things much anyway. Will that help.”

Alkema didn’t seem very pleased, but was grateful for what he had. “Based on my calculations, I should be able to get 10 Hammerhead-type warheads out of every Nemesis warhead I dismantle. I’m still weeks away from even being ready to build a prototype.”

“Six hundred missiles,” General Kitaen noted. “That’s well below our normal complement.”

“Once we’re more restored, I may be able to design some new warheads,” Alkema replied. “There is some good news to report, commander.”

“Natural alcohol deposit on one of the moons?” Keeler guessed insincerely.

“Not that good,” Alkema replied. Alcohol would be very useful for restoring some of the processing systems. “Cultural survey has translated the records we recovered from the Museum of Galactic Navigation on Gethsemane, and we have names and stellar designations for 242 colonies in the Ara, Triangulum Australe, and Scorpius sector.”

Keeler brightened a little bit. “Scorpius was one of the twelve sectors of the Old-Line Commonwealth.”

Alkema knew Keeler would go for that. “The nearest colony, according to the star charts, is called Eventide. With the damage and our reduced speed… it will take us two years to reach it.”

“Two years,” Keeler sighed. “How long would it take us to get back to Chanticleer StarLock?”

“Thirty-seven years,” Alkema answered.

“Eventide it is,” Keeler sighed. “We will have to pray that they have the resources to help us.”

General Kitaen smiled. “Prayer.. za… prayer would be very good. I could lead one now, if you would like.”

“Oh, look at the time,” Keeler said. “Before I adjourn this meeting, I have a few announcements. I saved them to the end to make them more dramatic. First, at the request of TyroCommander Philip John Redfire, I am reinstating his position as Chief Tactical Officer of Pegasus, effective immediately. I am promoting David Alkema to the rank of TyroCommander and appointing him Executive Office of Pegasus, effective immediately. Your primary task will be to restore this ship to maximum possible functionality. And finally…” he drew a deep breath. “I am taking leave of my position as Commander of Pegasus effective immediately. As of this moment, Commander Change is captain of Pegasus.”

Since that meeting the Old Man has had more time to spend with me. He spends most of it writing. He has even asked to review some of my journals, but I have not shown him them. He expects to have his memoir of our voyage completed by the time we reach Eventide, two years from now, in ship-time.

I’m going to nap now. I promised Chief Engineer Flash I would reconfigure the command and control systems in the New Environmental Control Center later. We have to triple the ship’s atmospheric reprocessing capacity to accommodate the expanded population. I think they can hold their breath until I finish my nap.

Journal Entry Ends

Approximate Date: December 2, 7622 AS

An Epilogue of Sorts

This was not what she had expected.

Surrounded by a cold misty fog, a clammy dampness that penetrated her entire being, Hildegard Kahn waited. She hated waiting. In her world, no one had ever made her wait. She was comforted by the thought that she had won, in the end. The visitors may have foiled her, but in the end, she had gotten them back. And if she encountered any of her people in New Gethsemane who wondered about the fate of the children they had left behind, she would blame the visitors for meddling.

That was the sweet part about politics. There was always someone else to blame. Eventually, a shape began to emerge from the mist. It was a boat, a very long boat with a high curved prow. She had not realized, until then, that she had been waiting on the edge of a river.

A middle-aged man in a hood, with a thin ring of hair greeted her from the boat.

“Hildegard Madeleine Kahn?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Now that the river has calmed. I have come to transport you. Please come aboard.” He offered her his hand.

“About furking time,” she hissed as she entered the boat. “My people have been waiting for me.”

The hooded man pushed the boat away from the shore with a long pole, and then took his position at the tiller. The boat began plying through the water. Her trips to the Afterlife had taken place many, many years before. And like most all who passed there, she had only discordant fragments of memory to go on. Still, this did not seem right. “None of the other travelers said anything about a boat.”

“Most of them didn’t come this way,” the boatmaster said. “And those who did would not have remembered.”

She squinted at him. “I don’t know you, sir. What is your name?”

“It’s not important,” he replied. “I normally don’t do this, but I was in the neighborhood, more or less, and no one else wanted the job.”

“Hmmph,” she hmmphed. “Well, no matter then. I am sure my people are eager to see me again. I have a wonderful speech prepared, full of inspiration, and hope. They will undoubtedly…”

The man interrupted her. “What makes you think that your people, in the Afterworld, still have the need to be ruled over by the likes of you.”

His insolence offended her. The tone she used in response was frosty. “You don’t know them like I do. Without my leadership, we would never have survived, we would never have built the Gateway, we would have never been able to evacuate the planet. Without my leadership, my people would be lost.”

The old man chuckled at that, which she found even more insulting. “What are you laughing at?”

“Well, ma’am, what you might call ‘the powers that be’ are well aware of the actions you took to ensure ‘order’ during the evacuation of your planet.”

“Everything I did was necessary and justified,” she insisted. Then, she caught herself. “I don’t have to justify myself to you. ”

“Not to me, no,” the man admitted.

“My people will judge me!” she asserted.

“Yes, among others,” the man agreed.

Hildegard Kahn felt that the argument had gone on too long and gotten tiresome. “How long until we arrive at New Gethsemane?”

“I regret to inform you, Mrs. Kahn, that you will not be proceeding to your intended destination,” the man told her.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

He did not answer her, but she would get her answer soon enough. The boat was coming to the far shore. There was a crowd of people waiting in the cold. They were murmuring in angry voices. She couldn’t make out individual words, nor did the murmuring seem all that loud, but it was beginning to give her a headache. The man at the tiller said, “Many, many people suffered under your long reign, and they would like to have some time with you. Then, they will decide what to do with you.”

Hildegard Kahn, was suddenly afraid. She had not felt afraid in longer than she could remember, and she didn’t like it. She was about to demand that the man take her back to the opposite shore, but she knew there could be no turning back. It was not what she had expected.

But it was what she should have expected.