War Angel: part sixty-two

From the Journal of Steven Keys- October 11, 2021

They managed to save my right eye. My vision isn’t exactly great in it; I think I’ll need a… shit, do we even have the capability of making a monocle anymore? I suppose if I could find a good prescription lens, I could break a pair of glasses in half and do it that way. On the bright side, if I hold the paper close, I can write, so I still have this.

I’m not sure I have anything else.

Still flabbergasted that they came for me. I understand it, but I don’t. Rationally, they needed to know if I had broken, what I had told. I’m certain they were moving and shifting things anyway, planning from the moment I was captured. The only smart thing to do. Stupid not to.

The good news, to them, is that I gave up nothing. They believe I didn’t crack, didn’t break under the torture.

A lie.

On the second day, when they took two of the toes from my right foot, my mind… I suppose I can best describe it as a schism. I faded out. Steve was away from the phone, please leave a message. Even now, it comes to me in bits and pieces, but what I do know is this: Nadine was there.

“But Steve” you say, “she’s dead. Not possible.” Trust me when I say that I realize that. But as they started snipping away at my feet, I felt my brain leave my body and I saw Nadine standing there next to me. She looked good, like the Nadine I met all those years ago. In fact, I think she was wearing the same dress she wore on our first date. We went to a Mongolian barbecue joint, a tiny little spot in a dying strip mall in east Mesa. She got tofu, I got steak. Tasted amazing. After that we went to a small local theatre and saw a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. It was one of the greatest- and most important- nights of my life. Anyway, there she was, smiling at me like she hadn’t seen me in years.

We talked. She asked me about Yumiko and told me she was happy for me. I asked her if she missed being alive, and she said no. I could hear the regret in her voice when she said it. Then she said that she only missed me, which was nice, yet also kind of sad. As we were talking, she cut herself off and said she had to go, like it was a real hurry. As she did, I snapped out of it, noticing then that the Omegan doctors were sewing up my foot. Seeing it, I cried.

Overwhelmed with missing Nadine, I cried more.

Logically, I realize that I manifested Nadine as a coping mechanism for the pain and agony coursing through my body. I continued to do so during the duration of my “stay” with our enemy. As far as this sort of thing goes, I’m rather impressed with my brain for working this one out. Appreciative, even. Whenever I snapped out of it, and the agony started setting in, it was all I could do not to whimper and beg. Never did, though. For whatever reason, I held on the idea that I would see her again when they started up, and I realized that I missed her so much that I… looked forward to it.

Obviously, I don’t think I’ll be sharing this with Yumiko. Maybe she would understand, maybe she wouldn’t. It isn’t important for me to find out. What is important is that she fought for the idea of rescuing me, and that she is alive and loves me right here and right now. I’m not going to throw that away for a mirage.

But… there is a part of me that wonders why I didn’t manifest Yumiko. What that means about my feelings for her.

Fuck, I’m a mess. Thinking about this kind of stuff instead of the fact that we’re currently being occupied by a military force of big purple bastards. Or maybe this is a good sign, that I am thinking about something normal in the face of all this insane shit happening to our world.

Fuck, I’m a mess.

Anyway, once I am feeling up to getting around and moving, I have been asked to report to the design group. I’ve spent more time inside Omegan vessels than any other living human, and they want to pick my brain about the things I’ve seen. Apparently there is a movement to design a ship of our own to meet the Omegans in the air, taking them on ship-to-ship. Whatever they come up with, it’ll probably take years to get it going. Better get started now, I suppose.

Nurse just came in and left a sleeping pill for me. Guess the word is getting around that I have been avoiding sleep since I got back. There’s truth in that, I know. I… shit. There’s a part of me that is terrified that I dreamt the rescue. That I have replaced Nadine with this scenario. That I look down at my six remaining toes and eight fingers, using my one good eye, and I fade out into imagination land. What happens if I go to sleep and I am right back there on that ship? Maybe that’s what will push me over that final edge.

No. No sleep until I am sure.

Yet how bad could death really be? Would it be better than this “life” on Earth?

Fuck, I’m a mess. A rambling, barely coherent mess. Can’t survive like this, that’s for sure. Maybe I’ll take the damn pill and just let things play out. Ugh.

War Angel: part sixty-one

F’ath M’isti leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on his knees. “Fascinating. Simply fascinating.” He turned to look at his second in command. “M’aschi, what do you make of him?”

M’aschi T’reen bowed his head in respect to the Omegan commander. “I think he is a vile, untrustworthy worm. He has the stench of betrayal about him.”

“I agree with that assessment. But look deeper than that. What do you see?” M’isti asked.

The Kan’Tar’s second stopped for a moment, thinking about the conversation he had just watched. In his mind, he replayed the words spoken by the captain of the War Angel, finally putting his finger on what bothered him. “He is not meant to be in command of that vessel, is he not? The records we gained access to spoke of a Morrison leading that crew. Strange.”

“Indeed. Young Keys was in command in battle above Saturn as well. I would doubt highly that Morrison is anything but a corpse. There is a human word: mutiny.”

“Murdering one’s superior. Yes, Commander. You think this boy?”

M’isti smiled and leaned back. “M’aschi, have I ever told you of my days during our first occupation of this wretched planet?” He shook his head. “I was a pilot on a B-class ship. One day I was performing maneuvers when I saw one of the other cruisers acting strangely. It was listing in its orbit; very odd. Then I saw an explosion tear through its hull. Had it not been one of our own, it might have been beautiful. The fire cascaded through the ship, eventually shattering it into pieces. Nearly every soldier onboard found his way to Erestia that day.”

“I have read of that moment. A small human force had made its way inside and sabotaged the ship.”

The Omegan commander laughed. “Indeed. And history would later us that of all the humans who invaded that ship on that day, only one survived: a man named Steven Keys.”

“The boy’s ancestor.”

“Aye. He took with him weaponry and other tools that the Earthmen began to reverse engineer in an effort to build up their ability to resist us. Some of that technology went into building ships like the one orbiting the outer planet right now.” M’isti closed his eyes. “My squadron was diverted almost immediately to destroy the place where Keys and his fellows had come from on the ground. We reduced every square inch of it to rubble. But the true damage was done. Keys himself had not gone back to where he had left, which we did not know at the time, so we missed our first shot at him.”

“But you had a second chance and you killed him?”

M’isti’s eyes popped open. “We did get a second chance. And a third. A fourth. An eighth. This human…” he flexed his fists, “he was a thorn in our sides for a long time before we finally captured him.”

The Omegan second recoiled in shock. “He was not immediately put to death?”

“No. At first because we did not know it was him. Then, for pragmatic purposes- he had information we wanted in order to put an end to the resistance once and for all. Torture. Horrible, brutal torture.” F’ath M’isti smiled at the memory. “I was part of the squadron that brought him in, so I was given the privilege of watching his suffering. It was glorious.”

“How long did it take to break him? An hour? A day?”

Memories flooded the Omegan commander’s mind. He remembered chunks of skin carved off of Steven Keys’ body, toes and fingers being removed… of watching as Keys was struck so hard in the face that an eye popped out of socket. It was impressive that the human managed to take so much punishment without begging for mercy. As a young soldier, it was instructive for him to finally see his enemy up close and understand who he was truly dealing with on the battlefield. “He never broke, M’aschi. During a shift change, a small force penetrated our defenses, boarded the ship where Keys was being held, and rescued him.”

“Madness! They should have let him die!”

“Not at all. It taught me that the humans were far better strategists than I could have ever imagined. By getting him back, they could determine what he had told us and prepare themselves for any attacks we might be planning. If they killed him themselves, they would have the same problem. No, they showed intelligence, loyalty, and compassion all at the same time. That, my friend, is what makes them such a dangerous race.”

M’aschi exhaled. “Now we face another one, and this one seems to have a ruthlessness about him. As you said earlier, commander: fascinating.”

“And he knows just enough about our objectives here to be dangerous to them. Thus we must meet him on the… dinner table… of battle.”

“How long will you wait before you kill him?”

F’ath M’isti laughed. “Ahh, that is the question is it not? He will surely arrive with a plan to kill me. I will take his measure up close, see what information he truly has or is willing to share, and then…”

“He will die.”

The Omegan commander stood and clapped a hand on his second’s shoulder. “See to preparations for their arrival and send two ships to meet them.”

“It will be done.” M’aschi bowed and exited the command bridge. As F’ath watched him go, he sighed gently and shook his head. His second in command was a generation younger than he, and the Omegan commander found himself frustrated by that fact once again.

“This new breed does not know. It forgets,” he muttered. He lifted his uniform shirt and brushed his fingers across a large scar running across his torso. From mid-abdomen to his left shoulder, the raised and damaged skin stood out from the older man’s body. He gave an involuntary shiver, then lowered his clothing back into place. “But I will never forget.”

War Angel: part sixty

Richard flicked a switch and the lights on the bridge brightened. “That’s as high as they go, Jack. Are you sure about this?”

Jack shrugged. “No. But any level of image management we can engage in is important. If they think this thing is pristine, it gives us a little more of an intimidation factor. We don’t want to look like we took too much damage in that last fight.”

“I should have most of it fixed within the next twelve hours.”

“You have nine.” Jack swiveled the Captain’s chair around to face the front of the bridge, eyeballing the main viewscreen. “Okay. Let’s start broadcasting. Open it up.” Richard pushed a button and the screen burst to life. A pulsating sine wave began scrolling from left to right, a continuous hum echoing throughout the room. One minute passed, then two. Jack began to feel his palms sweat a little, and he reached down to dry them on his pants legs. Finally, as a third minute ticked away, the screen shifted to an image. There, in all his glory, stood F’ath M’isti.

Jack crossed one leg over the other. “Supreme Commander F’ath M’isti? This is Captain Jack Keys of the War Angel. I bid you greetings.”

M’isti gave a grunt that was half-laugh and half-snarl. “Captain. I assume you have called to offer your surrender?”

“I’m afraid not, Supreme Commander,” Jack replied calmly. “I don’t think that would benefit either of us.”

This time M’isti laughed fully. “Oh, I think it would be of a great benefit to you, boy. There are very few places you can hide from us. Not to mention all of the people we’ll kill if you don’t.” The Omegan smiled, sending a shiver down Richard’s spine. “You don’t really want those deaths on your hands, Captain.”

It was Jack’s turn to laugh. “I shot a man in the back in order to take over this ship, Commander. You really think I care about who you kill?”

“I do, Captain.” M’isti paused. “Or shall I call you Jack? You are a Keys. I know exactly what kind of man you are. The four pillars of life according to the family Keys: Be the very best. Uphold our family honor. Live a life of courage. Do the right thing.” Jack’s body went slack. “It’s that last part that tells me you’ll surrender… Captain.”

Jack stood from his chair, staring at the screen. He absently adjusted his uniform and slowly made his way closer to the viewscreen. “That’s… impressive, M’isti. You seem to know a lot about me and my family.”

The Omegan commander nodded. “Let us just say that… I have a history with your ancestors, boy.”

“Huh. Well, I’m not my ancestors, Commander. And I assure you, I am not going to surrender this ship.”

“A regrettable decision. Particularly for Mr. Drake’s father…”

Jack cut him off. “I am, however, going to offer you a deal, F’ath M’isti. One I think you’ll accept.”

“You have nothing to bargain with, Captain. You are wasting my time by stalling, and,” Jack saw him motion to someone offscreen, “I must now have Prisoner 1212 executed.”

“Do that,” Jack said, his confidence rising, “and you’ll never find the pieces of the gate.”

The Omegan froze. “What did you say, boy?” he snarled with barely contained rage.

“You heard me. You kill Patrick Drake, and I promise you that you will never find the rest of the pieces of Earth’s gate to Erestia.” Jack spun on his heel and walked back to the Captain’s chair, retaking his seat. “I mean, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Closing the breached gate on this end. But you have to put it all together first in order to do it.” Jack leaned forward. “I can make that happen, F’ath. But not if you start killing family members. We all take that a bit personally.”

Jack watched as the Supreme Commander of the Omegan forces gritted his teeth and flexed his fists. F’ath M’isti then stood and towered over the broadcast camera on his end. “You… are a clever one, boy. Captain. Perhaps a little too clever.”

“Careful, you sound like my mother.”

F’ath M’isti growled in response. “Let us say that I believe you. That I believe you have information that will help… complete our quest to your planet. Why should I not just take it from you?”

“You certainly could try,” Jack responded. “You certainly have us outgunned and outnumbered. But,” Jack said with a smile, “we’re faster. After raiding your ship, I have plenty of supplies to get me out of the solar system. Who knows what we’ll find out there? I’m more than willing to find out. Or…”

“Or?”

“Or you could invite us to dinner. We can sit down, talk this out, put an end to 120 years of war between our peoples. The gate can be put together and shut down, and whatever damage has been done to Erestia can begin to be repaired. Everybody wins, F’ath. Everybody.”

The Omegan clasped his hands behind his back and walked back to his own chair. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

“Live a life of courage, do the right thing. This is the right thing for both our peoples, Commander,” Jack said with all the earnestness he could muster.

F’ath M’isti sat motionless and silent. Jack watched his purple-skinned foe think, not pressing the issue. After a couple of minutes, the Omegan smiled. “All right, Captain. Let’s have that dinner and… chat. What do you propose?”

Jack nodded. “In twelve hours, we will meet whatever escort you wish to send at the largest moon of Mars - Phobos. From there we will proceed under flag of truce to wherever you would like to dine and… chat.”

“I accept those terms. You will be met and escorted to the Kan’Tar, where we will meet in person, Captain.”

The captain of the War Angel smiled. “I’m looking forward to it, Commander. Keys out.”

Jack turned to look at Richard. “What did you think, Clover?”

“I think that guy scares the living crap out of me, Jack. No way in hell he has any intention of honoring his bargain.”

“Oh, he will for a while,” Jack replied. “No worries for you, though. You aren’t going.”

“I’m not?”

Jack shook his head slowly. “Nope. Got a job for you.” Richard started to look relieved. “Don’t worry, it’s also ridiculously dangerous.”

“I feel much better,” Richard said dryly.

“Cheer up, man. You’ll still be safer than you would be inside the RGC and in the middle of our backstabbing contest.” Jack took a deep breath. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

“You had a plan last time, too.”

“Stop killing the mood, Richard.”

War Angel: part fifty-nine

2142- In Orbit Around Pluto

Sarah handed the journal back to Jack. “I don’t get it. He doesn’t seem to talk about it anymore after that.”

He set the book down gently on the nightstand. “He never mentions it again. Really, it’s one of the few actual loose ends in his journals. I’ve always assumed that they either found a simple explanation or it just wasn’t all that important. They had so much other stuff to work with that maybe it was something he couldn’t waste any energy on.”

“But now you think you have the answer?”

Jack smiled. “I have a theory, at least. Let’s say you’re the Omegans. Highly advanced race, traveling the universe, checking things out. You land on a backwater dump of a world, the inhabitants extremely un-evolved from a technological standpoint. But you see some potential in them and befriend them. So you share your beliefs, your culture with them. This includes your mythology, your religion, you name it.”

“Where are you going with this?”

He continued. “You tell them of your version of the afterlife, and the natives buy into it.”

“You’re starting to worry me.”

“I’m getting there. So you’re advanced enough as a species that you can travel across the galaxy. But what happens if you die a long way from home? How do you find your way to the afterlife?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Umm… you don’t because there’s no such thing.”

Jack held up his hand. “Hold on, hold on. They believe strongly, remember? So perhaps wherever they go, they construct a way for the dead to enter Erestia. And on Earth, they leave it in the hands of the natives that they liked so much.”

“It’s official: you’ve gone completely insane. Jack, come on! You’re suggesting that space aliens crossed the galaxy, befriended a tribe of Native Americans, and left them a key to Heaven when they took off. And for the last hundred plus years, those same aliens have been showing up and killing us in droves.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I’m starting to really regret sleeping with you, because I’m probably going to have to shoot you.”

“Have some faith. I know it sounds crazy, but think about this: the first attack was in 2018. Only a couple of years before that, Earth scientists fired up the largest supercollider in history. Things got a little crazy. There were dimensional breaches reported, small singularities cropped up, strange frequencies began showing up on the electromagnetic spectrum… there were some fundamental changes in our relationship with the physical universe at that point.”

She cut him off. “And you think that when this stuff was happening, the gateway or whatever that the Omegans left here got knocked offline.”

“Offline? Hell, there could have been an incursion! Our experiments could have punctured Erestia and done it damage. If twentieth century Earth people had discovered that Heaven had been invaded and/or damaged in some way, how would they have responded?”

“By nuking the shit out of whatever did it.” She rubbed her temples. “I can’t believe I’m buying this shit. I must be crazier than you.”

“That makes me feel better, oddly.”

“So why still come back here after all this time? They could have just turned the entire planet into rubble and forgot about us during the first period.”

“Only one answer to that: the gateway, or the pieces to it, must still be here and active. They must be trying to find it so they can close it permanently and get it away from the insanity of the human race.”

“Suddenly I can’t blame them.”

“I can; they’re still bastards. The tricky part is that when they eventually get what they want, I have zero doubt that they will try and reduce Earth into a new asteroid belt. So we have to beat them, and beat them decisively, at the same time sharing a goal with them: shutting down this gateway. Once we win, we can’t leave them any reason to come back. The Erestia thing has to be loud and public.”

She sighed. “I hate to ask, but do you know where it is?”

Jack stood and stretched. “I was thinking about it as you were reading. The Omegans have concentrated their searching of the planet to various areas over their various occupations. The only thing I could really see that these places have in common is a large number of museums. So the door to Erestia must have some sort of physical component. True or not, they must assume that archaeologists have found however many pieces there are and spread them out. It’s a logical assumption.”

It began to sink in for Sarah. “But we know where at least one piece of it was… back in 2019.”

“If we can get close to home, we might be able to jack into the databanks and follow where the stuff went when Steven Keys and his group were done on the island.”

“How do you propose we do that without taking on the whole damned Omegan armada?” she asked, finding herself uneasy about the potential answer.

Jack grinned. “By getting us invited to dinner.”

War Angel: part fifty-eight

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 8, 2019

We are getting nowhere. Okay, that isn’t quite fair. Every day that passes, we get a better idea of who the Omegans are and what their society is like. Our intelligence provides us with a clearer picture of their movements and their numbers. If we’d have known half this shit a year ago, we might have found a way to stop these bastards. Though realistically, there was very little chance they wouldn’t have achieved a landing of some sort. At this point, I’d estimate that we’ll need at least five to ten years in order to build ourselves up to a point where we truly stand a chance of beating them back.

In the meantime, some of the reports have been pretty gruesome. Even though they’ve stopped firing meteors at us, they’re doing a solid job of wiping us out when they land. Shock troops hit the ground running, firing on every living thing in their path. The worldwide death toll right now has moved passed 200 million. That’s so staggering that I can’t even truly comprehend it.

Yet weirdly, I am feeling a sense of peace and calm. I wake up in the morning, stretch, eat a light breakfast, drink a cup of coffee, and go to work. In the middle of all this, I have achieved normalcy and a routine. Crazy! On the mornings where Yumiko has stayed over, we lay together and enjoy the quiet as the sun rises. For just a little while, we forget. It is wonderful.

Then I get moving and remind myself that I am a linguistics professor living and working on a secret Japanese island, trying to find out why aliens have invaded the Earth and what they are doing here. After that, I take a moment to regain my sanity, and then I get back to it.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 9, 2019

All the credit goes to Pettit. My favorite frog sociologist (as he said to me “I’m the only ‘frog’ sociologist you know. I’d best be your favorite, cochon.”) was looking over the morning intelligence report while the rest of us yawned and scratched our asses. None of us had paid much attention to it when we read it. Thankfully, we have diverse interests.

“They’re digging in the wilds of Puerto Rico. Huh,” he said. We all just sort of looked at each other and shrugged. “Ah,” he continued, “I was just remembering taking holiday there. Had a crazy experience.” Shareen laughed and asked if it was weed or mushrooms, but Pettit begged off. “Non. Mes amis, we saw a UFO. I swear to you, this thing hovered over San Juan and then moved off into the distance and vanished. It was quite mysterious. Though now it seems rather trite in the grand scheme of things.”

I’m sure if we had footage, you’d be able to see all of our jaws dropping at once, probably in slow motion. Heads swiveled slowly as we looked at each other in amazement.

Pradeep spoke first, and I think he spoke for all of us. “Mother. Fucker. What if they were here before?”

“What if they left something behind?” Yumiko asked softly.

We huddled on that one, immediately calling up any data we had on UFO sightings, but it was clear that what was readily available was not enough. We asked for a meeting with the Colonel, and when we told him what we wanted, he seemed a bit skeptical. However, after explaining it to him, he agreed to try and get what we asked for. We’ll see what happens.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 18, 2019

It’s taken us almost a full week, but the data the Colonel was able to get us has started to make sense. There were a surprising number of unexplainable incidents over the past hundred years, almost one actual UFO for every one that can be disproved. We started building that map next to the map of the Omegans’ movements and landings, and after a while we could start to pick up a pattern with certain locations. We can attribute almost thirty percent of the “real” UFOs to places they are at in force right now. As a group we have decided to call that statistically significant.

So now we’re waiting for the Colonel to see if he can get us more intel about those particular incidents. I have no idea what we’ll discover, but at least we’re making headway into something.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 20, 2019

Walked into the room this morning to a stunning sight: six large crates. In them we found eyewitness reports from civilians, military personnel, and commercial pilots; telemetry data; classified photos; Presidential orders; an autopsy report; and debris.

Holy mother of God.

I’m glad we shut the door before we started looking at the stuff, because frankly our decorum was not great. For us, it was Christmas morning. A jackpot of goodies just dropped in our laps.

There may have been shouting and whooping.

The autopsy, interestingly, was not of a fully grown Omegan, at least not from what we could tell. That’s something we’ll have to come back to later, I think. Instead, we divvied up the reports, photos, and debris and got started.

I was reading reports, mostly. To be honest, after a while it got boring. People saw stuff, had no idea what it was, and couldn’t catch it. Same thing over and over. But it does seem from the descriptions that what were being seen in most of these cases was indeed were Omegan ships. Smaller craft, more maneuverable, but Omegan all the same. Just as I was about to take a break and stretch my legs, though, it got a little interesting elsewhere. Pradeep called me over to look at the debris.

“Professor Steve? How about a little linguistics help?”

He had my immediate attention. Parsing out the Omegan language is something I would love to be able to do on a grand level. My first thought was about how I could use whatever I was about to see, but what he showed me was pretty bizarre. Pradeep handed me a piece of jagged metal. Its surface was smooth and shiny, with some small scoring, and on the flip side it had a number of symbols that I recognized from my time on the ship in orbit. “Definitely our bad guys,” I told him, and handed it back to him.

He nodded and took it back from me. “That’s what I thought, too.” Reaching down, he picked up a second piece of metal. Showing it to me, he then placed it next to the first one, and I could see that they fit together. “Obviously two pieces of the same whole.” I was starting to get confused, which I think he could see. He flipped over the second piece and handed it to me. My confusion grew immediately.

“I don’t understand,” I told him.

“Does that look familiar to you?” he asked. I nodded weakly. There was damage obscuring some of it, but having worked in my field for a long time, and having lived in an area that focused on Native American history pretty heavily, I had no doubt in my mind about what I was seeing.

“This,” I told him, “appears to be written in Cherokee.”

Pradeep swallowed hard. “What does it say?”

I looked at it again, tilting the piece around to catch every angle of lighting I could. Finally, I realized I was just delaying the inevitable.

“Deep, I could give you a full, ridiculous translation, but the gist of it is this: what we have here is an invitation of sorts.”

“To what?”

“The afterlife.”

War Angel: part fifty-seven

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.”

War Angel: part fifty-six

Gina laid her head back on her pillow, her hair gently spilling out in both directions. Her eyes fluttered as she fought to keep them open, fatigue both physical and emotional settling in to her bones and joints. This was the first real chance they had to rest since she made her discovery in the caverns carved beneath Pluto, and it dawned on her that her life had suddenly become something surreal.

Yet, she realized, she had also caught a lucky break. “I’m alive and not trapped or imprisoned. That counts for a lot,” she thought. “I just have to stay that way.” Her thoughts turned to her parents and the escape plan she knew they had in place. The small island in the middle of the Pacific was a perfect hiding place; the volcano was long dormant, leaving underground passages where equipment could be set up away from prying eyes. The many years of activity before its dormancy had generated an electromagnetic field in the area that generally blocked sensor probing from a distance, and any up-close look by the Omegans would reveal no human habitation.

“As long as they get themselves there, they’ll be alright,” she said softly, her voice barely rising above the hum of the ship. “We’re not the only free humans left,” Gina smiled. “We’re just the only ones who can fly.”

Suddenly an insistent pounding came at her door. “Gina!” More pounding. “Gina!” The voice was half whisper, half-scream, but she realized quickly that it was Kate. Gina rolled out of bed and bounded across the room to open the door. As she did, she saw her friend doubled over in pain, blood running down the legs of her pants.

“Shit!” Gina yelled. “Let me call the Doc!”

“No! No! Just let me in!” Kate replied. Gina moved aside and Kate stumbled forward. She put her arm around Kate and led her inside. Kate slumped down to the floor and curled herself into a ball. “Doc Gray doesn’t need to know about this, okay?”

Gina’s eyes widened. “Know about what? What the hell is going on, Kate? You’re bleeding! You’re bleeding from… oh… oh no.”

“Okay, yes,” Kate looked up at Gina. “I’m having a miscarriage. Happy now?”

“But that’s impossible! No one has had a miscarriage in decades,” Gina replied.

Kate groaned. “You mean no one has had a natural miscarriage in decades. But if you mix up a few chemicals, create an abortifacient…”

Gina dropped to the ground next to her friend. “I… damn, girl. Did you overcook the mix?” Kate nodded slowly. “Come on, let’s get these pants off and start figuring out what to do next.”

“That’s what got me in trouble in the first place,” Kate replied, gritting her teeth through the pain.

“Only you would joke at a time like this, Stinson.” Gina slowly removed Kate’s pants and threw them across the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much blood in my life, Kate. Are you sure we shouldn’t get you to medlab?”

Kate shook her head. “There would be questions I don’t really want to answer,” she said softly.

“What about stopping the bleeding?”

“I got it under control.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

“Bitch.” Gina stood and walked across the room to grab some towels, then returned to her friend’s side and began cleaning her up. “I know this is crazy, Gina. I know.”

“I just don’t understand. I mean, yeah, I get it in a certain respect, but why not go to the doc and - ?”

Kate grunted. “No. No medlab.”

“You mean the place where maybe this could have been done without you exsanguinating yourself? Where a qualified physician could have made sure you didn’t overcook the mix?”

Stinson cut her off. “I just couldn’t, okay? He couldn’t know. He. Couldn’t. Know.”

Gina pulled back, confused. “Jack? Why would he care? Are you kidding, he’d probably be thrilled to see you matching him obsession level for obsession level.” Kate rolled over and looked Gina in the eye. As she did, she shook her head slowly. “Oh, no,” Gina said, realizing what Kate meant. “Oh, no. No wonder you hate him so much. No wonder you tried to kill him.”

“It seemed,” Kate exhaled, “like the right thing to do at the time.” A small tear fell down her face. “So did this.”

Gina threw the bloody towels into a pile and laid down facing Kate. “It goes no further than me. I mean, you’re pretty much my best friend you know.”

Kate coughed. “We don’t exactly have a lot of options. You’re kinda stuck with me.”

“Bitch.”