The ES Window closed. If Tomoro's calculations were correct - and Volfogg had absolute faith they were - Lieutenant Mamoru and Kaidou were safely back in Earth's lower atmosphere. GGG's final and most important mission was complete.
His sensors reported the pocket universe was collapsing faster every second. He estimated from the current rate that they had approximately fifteen minutes left to live. Chief Taiga was rallying the remaining members of GGG to not give up hope, to keep their courage alive in these final moments and bring forth a miracle. Volfogg allowed Operator Entouji full access to his memory banks and settled back to wait. If there was a way out, Entouji and the others would find it. If there was not...Lieutenant Mamoru was safe.
A radio communication pinged him on an unfamiliar frequency. It was with some surprise Volfogg checked the origin and found it to be Tomoro. He hadn't had the time to communicate with the ship AI since they had departed for Jupiter so long ago, and Volfogg could come up with no reason why this was any different. Curious, he answered the hail and opened full communication.
"Volfogg of GGG. Please access the data port by your right hand. I have information I wish to share with you."
"If you have useful information it would be better to give it directly to Operator Entouji and Professor Liger," Volfogg responded, a slight note of reproval creeping into his voice.
"I am already providing all relevant information to the scientists of GGG. This is not relevant. It is...personal."
Volfogg had not been aware Tomoro considered anything personal. Most of Penchinon's personality seemed to have been wiped out when the AI was purified, leaving a cool professionalism Volfogg admired, but saw no need to get close to. He found the data port and plugged in.
Pure data washed over him, a morass of light and sound that swept him along in a tumbling mass. Images flashed past, too quickly to make any sense of, clips of video, the jangling noise of corrupted memory, music and screams all came together in one, overwhelming torrent of information.
Then it stopped and Volfogg hung still in the centre of the stream. He couldn't see Tomoro anywhere. He couldn't make heads or tails of what he was seeing. "What...what is this?"
"My apologies. I forgot how different the AIs of the Blue Planet are." The data around Volfogg arranged itself in neat rows and lines. Screens popped up as abstractions, held in branching circuitry Volfogg remembered from diagrams of the J-Jewel. "Is this acceptable?"
"It...I don't know what it is."
"These are the records of the Tri-Star Solar System. Abel loaded my memory banks with as much of our history, our culture, and our records as possible, so that if even one J-Ark survived, the knowledge would not be lost." There was a pause and under the crisp monotone Volfogg was sure he detected embarrassment. "Much of my memory is corrupted. This is what remains."
"Amazing..." Knowing what he was looking at - and with Tomoro adjusting the alien data for Earth AI consumption - let Volfogg finally make sense of the torrent. He saw the three suns set on the Red Planet in a glorious explosion of color that set the sky on fire, the leaders of all three planets meeting, the residents of the lost Purple Planet, the announcement of the miracle cute that would herald the end of sorrow and pain: Z-Metal. The first victims of the Z-Master were the elated scientists that had created it.
That was what appeared before him, again and again. Every glory of the Tri-Star Solar System, every triumph was lost. Again and again, he watched the zonders win, watched mechanization spread, watched a once-proud people die.
"This...these are your memories." He spoke the words slowly, in growing horror at the visions before him. A man that looked like a younger, smaller J screamed and smashed the Z-Metal in front of him, only to be tied down and forced into the peace he feared. A great ship devoured from the inside out, the crewmembers absorbed and turned against the homes they had fought to protect. A couple killed themselves rather than face mechanization.
The end to all sorrow and pain.
"Yes. These are the final days of my home. I want to share them with you."
Even Volfogg's super AI mind could hardly comprehend what he saw. He had heard Lieutenant Mamoru speak of the Tri-Star Solar System, but the boy was just that. A boy that had the barest memories of the legacy placed on his shoulders. This was...something beyond, something Volfogg could only watch in numb horror.
A small video caught his eye and for a moment he wasn't sure why. It showed a woman with wings like Lieutenant Mamoru's dancing in a style similar to Earth's ballet, her graceful movements and floating jumps enchanting in the midst of so much destruction. Her hair fluttered behind her, her limbs extended beyond the bounds of gravity. Something about the woman seemed familiar, though Volfogg was sure he had never seen her before.
"Ah. The greatest dancer in the Tri-Star Solar System. I cannot remember her name. It was in one of the corrupted sectors." Tomoro paused and finally Volfogg's memory banks responded. Primada. One of the Four Machine Kings. This is what she had been, before. "But she put on shows to the very end. She hoped that if the people's worries were lifted, they wouldn't be able to be mechanized."
She had been so terribly, horribly wrong, but watching her did ease Volfogg's heart. The barest glimpses of the audience showed them rapt to her performance, forgetting their fear for just a moment...before the video dissolved, lost in corruption.
Another video appeared. This one showed a small girl, about Lieutenant Mamoru's age - Volfogg's processor jumped when she turned around and he recognized Palus Abel's face. Then, on a second look, he noticed the differences from the cruel child they had fought. This one's eyes were rimmed with the red of long weeping, her shoulders trembled, and her mouth was set in a grim line. She looked fragile.
A small identification string popped up next to the video. Abel, ruler of the Red Planet.
She walked among a group of adults, all of whom seemed scared, miserable, and desperate. The accompanying audio was filled with pops and hisses and routeinly broke apart into noise, but Volfogg could catch a few words. "Green Planet...fallen...hope...Cain dead..."
"Cain's not dead!"
The shout came through clearly, as if Abel had screamed it in front of them. Her mouth shook and her eyes glistened, but no tears fell. She drew herself up with a grim dignity that didn't belong on a girl of that age and called out to someone off camera with words lost to time. The last word Volfogg could catch was "...over..."
"That was recorded just after the fall of the Green Planet," Tomoro provided. "It was one of the final meetings of the ruling council - forgive me, the exact terms do not translate into your tongue - when they decided to give up on a rescue mission to the Genesic Crystal. It is unknown how long Cain and the survivors of the Green Planet held out before the end. If any of their records survive, they are not within my data banks."
Volfogg had regretted that one of the 11 Sol Masters had borne Cain's face, if only for the pain it brought Lieutenant Mamoru. He now wished he could know more about the mysterious alien man - and the girl who had held a planet together through an apocalypse. If she was an Earth girl...she would be the same age as Lieutenant Mamoru and Kaidou. They might have gone to school together. The calculation sickened him.
His attention was inexorably drawn to another video. In this a tall, lanky form stumbled into what Volfogg recognized as Tomoro's computer block, carrying a small bundle of rags. It fell to its knees, yelping in a voice that was tone-shifted match for J's. It - she laid the bundle in front of Tomoro with a gentleness bordering on reverence.
"Tomoro," she started, then doubled over in a coughing fit that left a spreading puddle of blood on the floor, "the order has been given. You are to evacuate the planet with this: the last Arma. Abel...Abel will cover your escape." The room around them shook and the female J flung herself forward to cradle Arma - Kaidou - in her arms. She turned her pale, dirty face up to Tomoro and there was no light left in her eyes. "Run. Escape. Arma must survive. There...will not be another..."
Her head fell to the floor as the room shook again, her battered armour dyed red by the emergency lighting. The entire Ark screamed in protest as it took off, Kaidou's high, desperate cries rising above the sounds of destruction as they left their home to burn.
"J-017. My original J." There was the faintest edge of pain in Tomoro's voice. "Our original Arma perished in the proceeding orbital barrage. She rescued Arma-022 and brought him to me for evacuation. She died a warrior."
Surrounding videos showed the outside feed - other J-Arks broken and useless on the dock, a mass of zonders overwhelming the few remaining defenders, Abel wreathed in light watching the J-Ark take off with calm acceptance in her young eyes before turning, raising her arms, and throwing herself against the mass in a flash that blinded the cameras.
The video ended.
"I was overtaken just outside of planetary orbit. The zonders ripped out my core, but the J-Ark's autopilot was able to fire the ES Missiles to bring it to your planet, where it ejected Arma and slept until we reawakened it." There was another embarrassed pause. "It is possible that Heart Primeval followed it here. I apologize for that. Had I not been zonderized..."
"What could you have done without J or Kaidou?" Volfogg reached out a virtual hand in comfort. "Don't blame yourself. You completed every part of your mission."
"Thank you, Volfogg. I do not know why, but...it is a relief to hear you say that."
The remnants of the Tri-Star Solar System surrounded them. The Red, the Green, and the Purple Planets had struggled until their very last breath...for what? To let two infants escape. To let that hope continue to the future. To believe until the end that someday, somehow, the calamity they had unleashed would be brought down.
It had gone wrong. The Z-Master, the 11 Masters of Sol, all the Tri-Star Solar System's attempts at fighting off death and pain had twisted on themselves and become mockeries of their ideals. In the end, there had been no escape, only further darkness.
But in that darkness, a man had given up his son to ensure the universe had a future. A girl had walked into the jaws of death to let her greatest creation live. And all around them, hundreds, thousands, millions of fellow creatures had faced their fate with tears, recriminations, and desperate, futile, glorious bravery.
Earth was the Tri-Star Solar System's true legacy...and Volfogg could look upon their predecessors with pride.
"Tomoro...when we get back, I want to extract your archive and make it accessible to the people of Earth. I want us to know your people's history, their culture...and their courage."