The Long Road to Gaia (17 page)

We materialized on another planet.

Two beings, not Human, but close, were
sitting watching a crystal ball.

"The Witches of Karn," said One.

"Karn? It’s a real place?"

"Of course. A lot of what humans think
is fiction is actually a real place or species, or something which happened
somewhere. Some of them tap into galactic or universe knowledge without knowing
it."

"Or someone at our level feeds them
hints."

"That too."

She pointed at the ball.

"What?" I said in confusion.

The image on the ball was showing Jon
patting his cat.

"At last," said the younger one.

"He looks older now," said the
older one. "The last time we were able to find him, he was still a
child."

"He's still young, but look at his
shoulders."

"Rank insignia?"

"Looks like it to me."

"This is the time we have been waiting
for then. I hope we have not connected too late."

The four of us watched for several hours,
as Jon made preparations to leave.

With Custer and Apricot One in orbit over
the planet, the station started moving.

The two witches became very excited.

"At last," said the older one.
"Long have we sought a way of leaving Karn before the Darkness arrives.
Now we have a way."

The ball had the image of Jon's station
being moved using small ships attached to it.

"Bring me a memory acolyte,"
commanded the older one.

She placed her hands around the ball and
began to incant.

The image moved aboard the station, and
settled on a room I knew to be the CCC. No-one was there. The image moved to a work
station, and a screen popped up. Schematics began to appear, of the station,
and what I knew to be station tugs.

The images stopped, centered on a basic
station blueprint.

The other witch returned with an acolyte.

"Remember all you see, sister,"
said the older one to the acolyte. "On this our lives depend."

One by one, the blueprints of the station
and tugs flashed up, the acolyte memorizing each one.

"I don’t understand," said the
second witch. "How does this help us? We have no understanding of such
things. How will we build them?"

"With our magic of course. The one
with memory will instruct those who create, and between them will construct
enough of these to save the race."

One nodded to me, and we returned to where
we'd left.

"Do you see Thirteen?"

"I had wondered how this particular
idea had managed to get used by others in the galaxy. Wasn’t it one of the few
things Humans contributed?"

"It was. While Jon thought of it this
time, in all the other timelines, some other Human somewhere else did the same
in order to save people. This time, it's happened earlier than before."

"Is that good?"

"I should think so. But the subtle
changes always have unforeseen consequences. We will have to see what happens.
I'll ask Nineteen to follow the witches' progress from now on."

"Lucky Nineteen."

There was a brief smile, and she vanished.

"For outstanding leadership in the
recent battle," said Lieutenant General Vonda Wellington, "For
tactical brilliance considered above the normal for a Rear Admiral, and because
we bloody well want to do it to you…" There were grins and short chuckles
all around the room. "…you are hereby promoted to the rank of Vice
Admiral. Congratulations."

With the fleet incursion into Azgard being
a total slaughter, by an inferior force, Jon had been promoted again.

"Did you expect this?" I asked One,
both of us standing to one side watching the show.

"Not so quickly. I wanted it to happen
before the Darkness arrives, but now is better."

"How so?"

"He'll be listened to more now, making
things easier later on."

"How far do you expect him to
go?"

She grinned at me, but as usual said
nothing.

* *
*

The battle for Midgard's Miami jump point
was joined.

Jon was overwhelmed, I could tell
immediately. He'd been surprised by the enemy planning to go the other way,
rather than engage him. No-one could have anticipated this, who wasn’t from
Midgard. It defied all logic based on their previous actions.

I stopped time, deliberately to let Jon get
a good look. He needed it. I gave him enough time to understand the situation,
and returned it to normal.

Battle was joined.

I stood there behind Jon's chair and
enjoyed the show.

Right up until the point where I saw Jon
beginning to believe he'd killed his girlfriend, and began to question
everything.

He needed help.

I sent BA in to distract him.

* *
*

"Doesn’t explain why he was terrified
of Jon though," said Amy.

"I don’t know," said Vonda.
"Wrath is a pretty powerful word to bandy about."

"Who are you really Jon?" asked
Alison. "Or what are you?"

"Good question One," I said,
knowing she was watching, even if I couldn’t see her.

She appeared next to me.

"You know the answer to that."

"Do I?"

"Yes."

I looked at her doubtfully.

"He's a man. But like a very few of
them over all of their time, he is a form of genius. In his case, military
tactics and strategy."

"You didn’t create him
specifically?"

"Of course not. Do you think the
highers would allow that?"

"I guess not."

I'd not had a lot to do with the beings who
existed at a higher level than ours. One had though, a lot more.

"Such people are born from generations
of preparation. Did you ever watch the square screen movie called
Rollerball?"

I cast my mind back through a decade of
watching Jon's old stuff, and more decades of his name sake watching them when
they were first made. It rang a small bell, so I must have seen it.

I nodded.

"The message in it was twofold. The
game they played was supposed to demonstrate the futility of individual effort,
within a corporate structure, ensuring everyone was a team player. But in any
such environment, someone will be born who is a master of the game, and thus
negating its primary purpose."

I nodded again.

"Jon is the product of six hundred
years of living and fighting in space. He was trained from infancy to hone this
genius."

"Is that why we've been so protective
of his entire line?"

"Of course. Without our intervention,
he could never have existed. In all the attempts to survive the Darkness which
failed, he was not part of them."

"And without him, the universe
ends."

"Yes. And no, I didn’t believe it when
I was first told it either."

I stared at her suddenly as the thought
took me.

"This Midgard War, did you create it
for the sole reason of training him?"

One was speechless.

"No," said another voice. "I
did."

* *
*

"There are two last items of business
today," said Admiral Jedburgh at the American awards ceremony on Dallas
Military Orbital. "Vice Admiral Hunter, you are hereby promoted to the
rank of Admiral, effective immediately, and retired from service with the
American Space Force, effective at oh seven hundred tomorrow. Congratulations
Admiral."

One and Twelve were standing with me, to
one side of the room.

It wasn’t necessary to say anything.

One was beaming.

* *
*

After the promotion ceremony on BigMother,
One appeared again.

"Thirteen, you need to attach to Jon
and give him a message."

"What message?"

"Just remind him of his dreams, and
give him the impression he isn’t protected well enough. It should be all he
needs."

"For what?"

"I'm not sure. But I was told to give
you these instructions."

"Who by?"

"I think you'll find out very
soon."

She vanished.

I attached to Jon while he was eating
lunch, and made him very uneasy.

His response surprised me.

I wondered if it was enough.

* *
*

Jon stepped to the top of the ramp and took
a step down. His suit snapped into full protection mode with his foot still in
the air.

Four golden threads came at him, slamming
into his suit at the same place over his heart. Not pulses either, they were
continuous Meson streams.

His suit reacted as he'd been told it
would. The momentum of the hits was transferred down the suit, and into the
deck below, lifting him clean off the deck, and propelling him into the air. The
golden streams travelled down his body as he rose.

With four shots from his Long Gun, four
figures went down, and the streams shut off. Two meters off the ground, his
rise halted, and he came down as fast as he’d gone up. His feet hit the deck,
and he seemed to pass out.

No, he was dead.

I stood there petrified in shock.

One appeared next to me, took one look at
the body on the deck, and dragged me off.

We appeared in Jon's Ready Room.

Shock became confusion.

I couldn’t believe that Jon was sitting at
the conference table. There were two indistinct figures sitting at the other
end of the table. As far as I could make out, one was male and the other
female.

The woman smiled at Jon.

"Welcome Jon. You're dead."

We watched Jon dispute this with the
figures. A screen came on, showing his body still down on the deck.

With a wave of a hand, they became visible.

Confusion turned back to shock.

Kali and Ganesha were here.

"You work for them?" I said to
One.

Kali cast a look in my direction, but
didn’t say anything.

"No Thirteen, I don’t. But Kali is the
one who's been helping me save the universe. Now shut up and watch."

Kali actually grinned at us.

We listened to them tell Jon a few home
truths. He didn’t take it well.

"You were special Jon," Kali
said. "You carry my Sceptre."

"Your what?"

"Sceptre."

I shot a glance at One, my eyes wide. Hers
were too.

"I know something of Kali, and she's
never been depicted with a sceptre."

"Very true. Do you want to know
why?"

"Yes."

"Because the only time I carry my
Sceptre is when I bring destruction at a cosmic level. For humans, this would
be terminal. The species would end in a blink of my eye."

Jon looked at her in awe.

I looked at her in awe.

One looked at her in awe.

"Fuck me!" I said quietly.

Kali's eyes bore into mine for just a
second.

"Be careful what you ask for,"
she said.

I cringed.

"A human is gifted with the Sceptre
for one lifetime," said Kali to Jon. "Whoever accepts this burden is
granted wisdom and power beyond their wildest imaginings. But it's only given
to those of pure heart."

"Many die young," said Ganesha.
"The burden is too great for them."

"Oh," said One.

She looked at me.

Understanding dawned. Things made so much
more sense now.

"What choice are we talking
about?" asked Jon, as I tuned back in again.

"Carrying the Sceptre of course,"
said Kali. "The burden comes with responsibility as well."

"Responsibility for what?"

"To wield it properly," said
Ganesha.

"To wield it wisely," said Kali.

"And I haven't been, have I? I killed
when I didn’t need to."

"You did as we bade," she said.
"The question was not would you accept the task, but would you carry it
through regardless of the personal cost."

"And I failed?"

"No Jon. You passed."

In an instant, the room was gone, with One
and I finding ourselves in a hospital room.

"Fuck that hurts," Jon said,
referring to the three girls draped over him. "For divine's sake, get off
me!"

I looked at One.

"I don’t know about you," I said
to her, "but I'm going full human for tonight."

"Why?"

"I'm going to get totally
pissed!"

"Good idea. Give me a moment to call
Twelve to watch Jon, and I'll join you outside."

I shifted out of the hospital. A few
moments later, a stunning girl about the same apparent age as my own body,
appeared next to me.

"One?"

"Who else, numb nuts?"

She grinned at me. We looked around and saw
we were alone. Both of us shifted into a full human body.

"Let's get sloshed," she said,
and lead the way towards the nearest source of alcohol.

* *
*

One, Twelve, and I, stood behind the two
Witches of Karn, as they watched Humans discussing the possibility of other
intelligent life in the rest of the galaxy.

The witches laughed the whole way through.

I found the whole thing sobering. As much
as the Humans had no clue about other life, and we did, we all shared one
thing.

None of us knew what the Darkness actually
was.

I suspected One did, but in spite of our
now closer relationship, I wasn’t game to ask her. She'd retained her younger
looking body look, and it made her look more formidable, not less.

The revelation she was playing on the same
stage as the likes of Kali, I was surprised to find, was intimidating. More so
than before I knew.

Sobering. Yes. I needed that, for more
reasons than the obvious.

* *
*

Life support failure.

Jon sat next to the Queen, in the wreckage
of Gunbus' Armoury. His suit life support was exhausted. The Queen was inside
his combat suit, safe.

"Give yourself to me," said Kali
to him.

She repeated it.

"I give myself to you," he
parroted.

His pain stopped.

His breathing stopped.

His heart stopped.

Time stopped.

Kali appeared next to me, as I looked down
on a dead Jon once again.

"Things are not as they appear,"
she said to me.

I tried grinning, but it faltered. Instead,
she grinned fully at me.

She reached down and touched him.

Jon burst out of his body, incorporeal like
us, but out of phase. We could see him, but he couldn’t see us.

"Fly my dove," murmured Kali, as
the incorporeal Jon left the ship.

I followed him. We discovered Jane outside
the hull of the Battleship. I felt relieved. We'd had few interactions since
our first one, and I'd watched her development with interest, given she was unique
to the galaxy. When Gunbus had been shot down, she vanished with the side of
the ship, and I’d felt a wrench, like something special was gone. Not gone,
just out there.

Jon toured the Battleship, trying to make
sense of things. Next was BigMother, where he found Angel was safe. Then the
station, and the planet below. Eventually he returned to his body, and stood
there looking down at it.