After the initial excitement of the departure from the Discworld had died down, Nagy, Domino and Zidane took the opportunity to get some sleep in the engine compartment, with Domino and Zidane using the beds and Nagy sleeping on the floor. Only Proeliator and Thunderchild were still awake, but they had important things to discuss.
"Ok Pro…I'm gonna teach you how to fly this thing."
Proeliator raised and eyebrow and stroked his goatee.
"Why?"
"Because I'm gonna need you to fly this thing back to Gaia."
Proeliator sat down in the chair to the left and behind of Thunderchild who swivelled around to face him.
"Why? Where will you be?"
Thunderchild looked down and shuffled his feet awkwardly.
"I don't think I'll be in any state to pilot us out."
Proeliator frowned and leaned back on his chair.
"Look TC, cut the crap, I know what you're thinking…you know Jara isn't going to go down without a fight…and you know that you'll be fighting to the death…and you don't know who's death it's going to be, do you?"
Thunderchild looked up and shook his head.
"I don't…but I've got to prepare for the worst…I fear that I won't be coming back from this battle."
Proeliator nodded, and pulled his chair closer to Thunderchilds.
"Right…so, what do I have to know?"
Thunderchild began teaching Proeliator how to use the controls of the fighter and how it handled, slowing them from lightspeed once or twice to demonstrate and give Proeliator a chance to use the controls. It was during one of these slowdowns that Domino woke up and walked forward to find Proeliator at the controls and Thunderchild standing behind him.
"That's it, you're getting the hang of how she flies now." He said
"What's happening?" asked Domino as she stretched.
Thunderchild turned, a guilty look on his face.
"Oh…nothing…nothing, you go back to sleep."
"You should come get some rest as well…it's your battle more than it is mine." Warned Domino.
He nodded and sighed.
"I guess you're right…I've done all I can here…let's call it a day Pro."
Proeliator nodded and got up from the pilots seat and walked out the back to join Nagy and Zidane, Thunderchild took his place and re-engaged the lightspeed drive.
"You were teaching him how to fly this ship weren't you?" said Domino from behind him.
There was a pause as Thunderchild watched the stars fly past and then he replied.
"Yes."
"You don't have to go…you don't have to leave me." She said quietly.
"I hope that I won't.…but I fear that I will. I have to be ready for both outcomes."
"I don't want to be alone anymore."
She stood behind him, resting her hands on the back of his chair, he reached up and caressed her face.
"We've been over this Dom…you're not alone, and you never will be."
"I know, I know…but still…"
He took hold of her left hand and squeezed it gently.
"I'll be careful…I promise." He said
Domino and Thunderchild fell asleep in each others embrace in the cockpit section of the ship while Nagy, Proeliator and Zidane slept in the engineering room. If any of them felt hungry or thirsty they helped themselves to a pre-programmed food or drink from the ships food processing device. The journey to Terra took seven hours, but Thunderchild was awake as they entered the Terran system, passing through the asteroid belt and approaching Gaia. The computer made a series of distressed bleeping noises and one of the lights went from green to red causing Thunderchild to hastily check the ship's systems to discover the reason behind the fault…when he did, he started laughing but with no emotion, if anything, it was a tired laugh.
It woke Domino up.
"What's the matter?" she asked as she slowly stood up.
"It's the ships computer…it's been monitoring our progress since we left the Discworld and now we've entered the Terran system, it's not receiving any signals from Terra…and so it's confused and thinks there's a software fault," he stopped laughing for a moment and looked sad "I guess it wasn't programmed to take into account the destruction of it's home world."
"I don't think any of us are." Said Domino
Thunderchild nodded slowly at that.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright with this?" she asked as the ship moved along at sublight speed, Thunderchild had decided to return to normal sublight speed whilst in the system to avoid colliding with a planet.
"With what?"
"With going back…after all that's happened."
He sighed and looked thoughtfully out of the window as Gaia glided past, before he could answer he heard Zidane gasp behind them.
"Is…is that Gaia?"
"Yep."
Zidane pressed his face against the window and gazed wondrously at the planet
"It's incredible."
"Is that the first time you've seen Gaia from space?"
Zidane nodded
"What about you?" he asked
Thunderchild shook his head.
"No…but it's the last time I've been this way…since…"
"It's ok…I know."
Thunderchild smiled faintly, glad that he didn't have to continue his sentence, and then he gasped as from behind Gaia appeared the reddened form of Terra. No longer the bejewelled beauty of a planet he had left, with deep blue oceans and lush grasslands, it was now a dull red/brown with blackened areas where cities had once stood. Thunderchild felt his eyes begin to well up with tears.
"Oh Terra…what did they do to you?" he whispered.
As they drew closer to the planet Thunderchild was able to make out areas of red ground that where slightly darker than the others where he knew that oceans had once been. He wondered how the planet could sustain an environment that was still hospitable, but according to the scans now coming in from his sensors, that is exactly what was there.
He felt Dominos comforting hand on his shoulder and felt glad to have her presence here…it was hard for him to accept that the ruined planet in front of him was his home…the place he had grown up, the place he had fallen in love…many of his friends, and perhaps even his family, were on that planet…what had become of them? His scans showed no lifesigns on the planet, except for one area near what was left of Hallis city which he couldn't read with his sensors.
"That must be where Jara is." He said softly.
Domino looked at the blackened area and nodded.
"Yes…she must have a sensor scrambler."
"Why can't be just run in and blast her to bits with this ship?" asked Proeliator from behind them, Thunderchild turned to see him and Nagy standing in the entry into the engine room.
"Because she'd have expected that…she'd most likely have anti-aircraft defences…the planet must be littered with old weapons sites that the Borg didn't destroy….this ship is damaged enough as it is."
Nagy nodded.
"So…where are we landing?" he asked
Thunderchild enlarged a section of the map, a load of complex symbols that only Domino, Zidane and Thunderchild could read as Terran flickered across the map.
"There…we will land in the city square of Hallis…Jara is within a mile of the outskirts of Hallis, we can walk from there."
Hallis…why does that sound familiar? asked Domino
It was the city I used to live in…Jara knows that, that's why she's nearby. Hallis was the place we first met as well.
When I escaped?
Thunderchild nodded
That was Hallis? she asked
Yep…I was on Echo squadron ground duty at the time.
Domino put an arm around his shoulder as the craft dipped into the atmosphere of Terra, a red glow appearing around the ship as the temperatures outside climbed high. Then they burst through a layer of clouds and into the skies over Terra, passing through the odd cloud of smoke from fires which had burned for a decade, here and there the frameworks of a lost civilisation could be seen, a road snaking through the desert like landscape, a ruined town and then the city of Hallis. As they reached the outskirts of the city, all of the crafts passengers were looking down through the windows at the destroyed city. Ruins of skyscrapers poked up from scattered rubble, fires burned out of control in several areas, but here and there a tree or some other vegetation had poked itself through the destruction and began taking over the ground around it. The skies were a leaden grey and had been for many years, lit up only by the glow of orange from the fires, in the distance lightning flashed in a violent storm.
The craft touched down in a ruined plaza, the draft from its engines blowing small bits of rubble away from the landing zone. Then the engines died down and stopped.
Thunderchild was the first person to step out of the craft, gently stepping down onto earth that he hadn't trodden on in almost six years.
He looked around, trying to picture in his minds eye how the place had looked when he had last walked on this planet. The buildings rising up into the sky, the people strolling around the paved garden, the cars travelling down the roads. All gone…
Welcome home YissanHe blinked, was he hearing things…or was she after him already?
Looking around again, he tried to orientate himself and then as Domino walked out of the ship he darted off into the ruins.
"Thunderchild!"
She ran after him, leaving the ship and the others behind, scrambling over broken walls and dodging shards of broken glass, they ran for about a mile into the city before she lost sight of him. She stopped and looked around but it wasn't her sight that found him, it was her hearing.
It was that sound again, the sound that haunted her dreams…the sound of sorrow, of someone crying. She followed it through an empty street with broken houses lining both sides of the road, about halfway down this street she found Thunderchild sitting on a slab of rubble holding something and crying almost hysterically.
She slowly picked her way through the ruins of the garden and over to him, as she did he put his hands over his eyes and dropped the sheet of paper he was holding, as it fell slowly to the floor she reached down and caught it.
It was a holograph, of a brown haired woman holding a baby, standing next to her, barely four years old, was a brown haired boy with a large smile on his face, it took her a moment to realise that she was looking at her husband.
"This…this is your home?" she said after a while.
There was no response except for tears from Thunderchild and then Domino began crying too, not because she felt a loss from the ruins around her, because she felt his loss, it echoed through their psychic link and slammed into her consciousness. She felt so alone and abandoned, and it saddened her, even more so to realise that it was her husband thinking these thoughts.
She sat down next to him and hugged him close, pulling his head down to her chest and cradling him as he cried, ignoring the warm feel of her own tears trickling down her cheeks.
"There was nothing you could have done." She said softly to him, rocking him backwards and forwards, in a bid to sooth him as she soothed herself.
"I should have tried harder! I should have died trying!" he wailed
"And what does dying ever accomplish? Nothing except tears and misery."
He looked up at her, his eyes raw with crying.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being there."
She smiled and hugged him close again, it looked as though he was beginning to stop crying now, the wave of emotions that had hit her were lessening and she hurriedly wiped away her tears and stood up, spotting something partially buried under a fallen piece of masonry. She walked over and pulled it out of the rubble, it was a small brown fluffy toy, and it looked like a cat.
"What's this?" she asked
Thunderchild looked up and a smile crossed his face.
"It's Mr Mooba. Deis loved him…she…"
His voice wavered and some more tears fell from his eyes.
"She would never have left him behind…"
Domino understood what he meant, and knew that it was probably very likely both his mother and sister were dead…gone now for all eternity.
They stayed at the house for another half an hour while Thunderchild searched through the ruins for any memoirs of his home, having a small cry whenever he found one at the memories that object brought back, and the reality that it hammered home.
Then they walked back to the craft, meeting the rest of the group gathered around outside it, they looked subdued.
"You guys ok?" asked Proeliator
Domino nodded
"We are now."
Nagy was sitting on the wing of the craft.
"Where next?" he asked
Thunderchild leaned against the side of the ship and stroked his chin, before going inside and checking the map.
"We head southwest, towards Branbul."
"Branbul's gone," Said Zidane "Kuja destroyed it."
Thunderchild shook his head.
"Kuja destroyed the genome city Branbul…but not the Terran city. I checked the scans, there's a giant mass of blackened and burnt landscape about ten miles from here…I reckon that is where the genomes built Branbul…but where we're heading is an old Terran city…abandoned even before the Borg got here."
"I know," said Domino "It's where I was 'born'."
Everyone turned to look at her.
"What?" asked Thunderchild
Domino sighed
"The Project Recall laboratories were located underneath the city."
"So that's why the cops were so eager to chase us off the city limits." He replied with a fond smile.
Domino gave him a strange look but nodded.
"The genomes must have moved away from the laboratory deliberately to get away from the memories of the place."
"Or it was destroyed by the Borg." Said Nagy.
Domino nodded slowly.
"It's a possibility."
"But anyway…that's where we've got to go."
They gathered together their food and water supplies and set off, walking through the deserted and ruined streets with only a man who hadn't set foot on the planet in six years as their only guide, but they made good progress and within an hour they were nearing the outskirts of Hallis city, or what was left of it.
The group stopped to eat some of the provisions around one of the fires that had been burning for years, Thunderchild explained that it probably was burning from a natural gas seam and could continue burning for years more to come. The sky glowered a dark grey, threatening a storm ahead, Thunderchild knew he had more than one storm ahead of him as he looked to the horizon and saw a light blue construction that towered partway into the sky.
"Another crystal palace." He muttered
"She sure likes her crystal." Agreed Proeliator.
As they stood looking at the palace, Thunderchild heard a clink of metal on metal behind them, turning he saw a small grey ball bounce across the ground towards them.
"Gre-!" he managed to shout before the ball erupted in white light and the world went dark.
Domino struggled to wake up, whatever had hit them, had hit them hard…for a moment she was inclined to believe the gas seam had exploded but when she looked around herself she knew that the explanation wasn't as simple as that.
Thunderchild was missing from the group.
Zidane, Nagy and Proeliator lay semi-conscious on the floor, in a similar state to her but there was no sign of her husband.
"Thunderchild!" she shouted, standing slowly up, her world wobbling uncertainly.
There was no response…where could he have gone to?
"Thunderchild!"
Nothing.
"Perhaps he's gone on ahead?" said Nagy, as he gently sat up.
Domino looked around, unsure.
"Perhaps…"
Proeliator and Zidane now bit by bit stood up and looked around.
"At least all our stuff is still here…so, do we carry on to the palace?" asked Proeliator.
"We've come too far to turn back now." Said Zidane.
"What was that anyway?"
Domino didn't know, she had heard Thunderchild start to shout something which had indicated that he knew but then she had been knocked off her feet and into unconsciousness.
"I don't know…but I think Jara is behind this…and I can't shake the feeling something's wrong with Thunderchild."
"It's ok! I'm here!" yelled a voice from nearby, Domino jumped to the top of a nearby rock and saw Thunderchild walking towards them, she leapt down and hugged him.
"What was that?" she asked him.
"I think it was a stun grenade…I got less of the blast because I wasn't looking at it but you guys copped the full whack, you've been out for two hours."
Zidane scratched his head.
"It felt like only an hour."
Thunderchild shrugged in response.
"Well, that's Terran stun grenades for you. A different result every time."
He laughed and tugged on Domino's arm.
"Come on, Jara's waiting for us."
"I know, I know…the crystal palace." She said.
Thunderchild nodded and smiled, there seemed something strange about him but Domino couldn't put her finger on it…if anything he seemed slightly happier than before.
She shook her head and ignored the feeling, grief had many different outlets.