Ben stared hard at Jack. His palms had begun to sweat, and his breathing was shallow. Yet he knew he had to focus. Jack stared back at him, his posture relaxed and free. How had it come to this, Ben wondered. Only days earlier, he had considered Keys to be a lightweight, a guy who took school and life a little too seriously and who probably would never rise above his social station. But now… “You’re a murderer, Jack. A murderer.”
Jack waived him off. “I may be a pirate. Or a terrorist. But I think murderer is a bit strong. If Morrison had his way, we’d be prisoners right now.”
“Like my dad is,” Ben interrupted. Jack nodded. “You going to kill me, too, Jack?”
“Why would I wake you up just to kill you? I even got Kate to promise not to kill you.” Jack paused. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“No way I can just lay here and let you let my father die, man. No way.”
Jack stood up and began to pace. “I want to save his life. I really do. I just need to find the way to do it. We need leverage.” The young captain stopped and picked up a scalpel, twisting it in his hand and watching the medlab lighting glimmer off it. “I just don’t what that leverage is.” Jack looked at a nearby monitor. “I have thirteen hours to find it, though. There has to be something…” his voice trailed off.
“These bastards have been looking for something on our planet for over a hundred years, and you’re going to figure out what it is in the next thirteen hours?” Ben swiveled to look at Wilma. “Doc, I think I’d like to go back into my coma. That’ll make my death a lot less painful than yours.”
“When you put it that way, it sounds a little more daunting,” Jack replied, Ben shaking his head in agreement. “So, uh, don’t put it that way, okay?” Jack did a heel spin and made his way out of the medlab, leaving a mystified Ben Drake behind. Wilma walked over to him and held up a syringe of clear liquid.
“This will put you back under if you really want,” she said quietly, her eyes focused on the door as it closed.
Ben looked up at her and thought about it for a moment. Finally, he shook his head no, and she walked away. As she did, he began looking around for his clothes. “Hey Doc? Have you seen my underwear?”
Without hesitation or turning around, she replied “Is there anyone on this ship who hasn’t?”
Sarah answered the door, wiping away tears. Jack paused for a moment, surprised to see her in such a state, his curiosity almost overwhelming. Seeing it in his eyes, she shook her head at him. “Not now, Jack, okay?” She moved aside and beckoned him into the room. He walked in slowly, almost as if he was afraid of disturbing the air.
She walked past him and plopped back down into the bed, lying on her side, right in the middle. Seeing that she had not left room for him, Jack moved her desk chair across the room and next to the bed, and he sat down. Minutes passed as each waited for the other to talk. Finally, Jack broke the impasse. “I don’t know what to do.”
Her brow furrowed. “I’m not exactly full of ideas right now.”
“The easiest thing to do would be nothing,” he said softly. “We stay completely safe if we stay right here for now.”
“That won’t last, you know. Eventually…”
“We’ll have to find a new hiding place. Right. Hiding places, really. We’ll need more than one. Otherwise we’ll become predictable. Hey, can we survive inside the sun’s corona?”
Sarah raised her head, incredulous. “That’s a joke, right?”
“So that’s a ‘no’. Good to know.”
“Give me a year to really work on this old tug, and then we can talk about hiding near the sun.”
Jack grinned. “I may hold you to that.”
Sarah rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Jack? What happens to us when we die?”
“I… don’t know. I’ve always assumed that when we do, that’s it. Nothing else.”
She exhaled. “For centuries, most of the people on Earth believed there was some sort of afterlife. That you would be reunited there with loved ones.”
“It’s a lovely idea, no question.”
Her hand reached over and grasped Jack’s. “I… dammit, Jack. It would be wonderful if that were true.” She gave him a squeeze, then let go. “I suppose the Omegans never think about this kind of stuff. Bastards.”
“Not entirely true. Being a big purple monster doesn’t mean there’s no Heaven. They call it Erestia, I think. Very similar place to some concepts believed in by early Native Americans. We’re talking stuff that’s five hundred years old, mind you, but you get the general idea.”
Sarah giggled. “That would be pretty funny, a bunch of purple monsters showing up and finding early North American natives in their Heaven. ‘Did you guys take a wrong turn or something?’”
Jack’s jaw went slack. “Holy shit, Sarah! I think you’re onto something.”
She sat up, looking at him warily. “Jack, the Omegans aren’t attacking us in order to look for the door to this Erestia. That’s crazy.”
“Not quite what I meant, and not as crazy as you think. What if, just for kicks, Erestia really is an actual place? And what if the door really is actually on Earth?”
“How could that even be remotely possible?”
His eyes opened wide and he flashed a maniacal grin. “Let me go get my ancestor’s journals. I have something I want to show you.”
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