Tag

It was the evening hour in Atlanta when Crawford's visit ended. After he and his staff returned to the Aurora Robert arranged a return transport for himself, Gina, Leo, Richmond, and the Spencers with Kusko.

They were met in the transporter room by Dr. Tusana and the Williams sisters. Rose's red hair was again pulled into a pony-tail. Lily's hair, while still short, was combed and brushed into something other than the mess it'd been before. They were still arm in arm and looked like it would take a tank to separate them. Her grungy clothes had been replaced by a cleaner and brighter ensemble of a yellow skirt and sundress.

"We've talked with Dr. Tusana, and we've decided to take up your offer of a place at Tau Atrea," Rose said to the group, particularly to the Spencers. "It sounds like a good place to start over."

"The Corps in general is. Though you might be in for a bit of a culture shock. I hope you like Soviet realist art…" Kusko replied.

"It has to be better than the stuff the New Confederacy plastered everywhere," she replied. "And the Unies' stuff is terrible."

Robert chuckled. "It reminds me of old motivational posters in my school days. Not nearly as motivating or inspiring as intended. Although I admit I felt the same about what I saw on Tau Atrea. I've never been one for that kind of art."

"Hey now! You be nice! That's decades of capitalist propaganda talking." Abigail protested with good humor. "In all honestly though, it's a rough and tumble frontier colony, but growing. Think American West with clean water, sanitation, and any bandits who do show up won't live long enough to regret their life choices."

"It's not rubble, at least, and our parents won't be showing up." Rose ran a hand through Lily's hair, tousling it much to her sister's enjoyment.

"I basically went straight into the military, I'm just waiting on my home ship to be commissioned." Kusko said "But there's a lot for civilians to do, and the Corps will make sure you have something that suits both your skills and what it is you want to do. So you won't be bored either."

"I really like being a nurse," Rose confirmed. She turned her head to Leo and bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Doctor, for everything."

"And I'm sorry for trying to kidnap you," Lily added.

Leo's response was a friendly grin. "No harm was done in the end," he said. "And it brought you two back together, so I figure everything worked out."

"You're one of the good ones," Rose said. "I think that's really why Hab-Kuzad wanted you gone. You were making people in the camp willing to think well of outsiders again. He wanted to turn everyone against ban… against non-telepaths."

Leo nodded. "That's how people like that work. They use fear and hate to control the rest of us. It's why it's so important that we don't act on our fears, even if it means we might get hurt."

"Basically a telepathic space-Nazi… which isn't something I ever thought I'd see. Don't beat yourself up too much Rose. Most of us would love to have a sister who's willing to do what you did for our sake… just not, you know, going that far." Thomas added "As to nursing, we've got you covered there. We'll get you up to speed. Any thoughts of your own Lily?"

"A lot of thoughts. It's good to have my own brain back," she said. "Although I feel really bad for Regina, whoever she was. I'm… I'm not sure she was one of the survivors." Lily brushed away a tear and, at Rose's concerned look, hugged her tightly. "It's okay. I know that I'm lucky in a lot of ways, and I want to live up to that. Maybe I can help people like Mister Sinclair or Dr. Tusana helped me, or protect them like Kusko or Commander Richmond."

Richmond inclined her head. Her expression was pleasant and she spoke quietly. "You'll find your own way, I'm sure."

"There's no need to decide right now. We have a thorough curriculum that should give you a taste of everything you can do, and from there decisions can be made. I hope you liked school as a kid… both of you, because there's gonna be a lot of that." Abigail grinned. There would be a lot of those motivational posters.

"Sir." The Dorei transporter chief, a purple-skinned woman with blue spots and light teal hair and eyes, looked up from her console. "The Father Xabier just signaled. They're preparing for their return jump to E5B1 and are awaiting the passengers' transport."

"Looks like it's time to go." Rose and Lily started with Leo, giving him a hug and moving on to the others. Gina accepted hers with slight bemusement but a legitimate warmth.

Kusko wasn't so much of a hugger but accepted their hugs anyway. Don't go into engineering on the ship. Chaos reigns there. She glyphed them warning imagery of a ramshackle engineering section kept together with strong vocabulary and quick thinking.

The other two were far more enthusiastic about hugs.

Where did the ship gets it name? Did Father Xabier have something to do with Jenny Winters? Lily actively thought.

Abigail answered that one. He was a Basque Catholic priest who sheltered telepaths from pogroms, both when we were first discovered and then fifty years later when we made contact with the Centauri. Jenny Winters is… a long story. Short version; a young telepath who was enslaved, rescued and indoctrinated by a terrorist cult, before she was finally liberated from them. Later, she went into our Education division and made a name for herself talking people off the Sleepers, drugs people can take to suppress their telepathic talents.

With Lily's curiosity sated, the sisters stepped up on the transporter pad. With a final wave they disappeared in twin bursts of light, their departure marked by a short electronic buzzing sound.

"We'd better get back down to the camp," Leo said. "Things are looking better, but there's still a lot of work to do."

"Right." Robert noted his omnitool light up. He read the message and took in a breath. "And I've got something to see to." He gave a significant look to Gina, who recognized what he meant immediately. When she checked her own omnitool, she found the same message.

Finished decoding new section. Need to see everyone ASAP. - Lucy

It was late in the Aurora's formal day, with Beta Shift on the duty watches, when the group assembled in Science Lab 1 at Lucy's summons. Robert and Gina arrived just after Jarod, and Talara came a moment later. Meridina appeared with Kaveri and Bet'tir coming last. They approached the central holo-table of the lab while Jarod confirmed the final lines of Lucy's decoding work.

"It's a… poem?" Gina asked, surprised.

"It looks that way."

The words hung in holographic light in front of them.

In Doom, In Ruin, In Broken Despair;
Queen of the Fortresses! Flower of the Rim!
To go to Reshan's Temple, first to leave
Time, space, and fair stars.
By the Wings of Infinity
Travel to madness, travel to wastes
Travel to the End of Sanity
Travel to the Limits of Pain
To reach Reshan's Temple
First Afam'oso must be gained
Where Hope Met Darkness
The Path must Begin

Robert felt the surprise in Meridina and Gina. He glanced toward them, as did Bet'tir, Lucy, and Talara. "What is it?"

"Afam'oso." Gina swallowed. "I read about it when studying the Order's history. It's a legend from Swenya's day."

"It's a great battle Swenya is said to have fought," Meridina said. "It was said she led a great army to victory against overwhelming odds. The legend speaks of her arrival at the battle as being 'living hope'." Meridina drew in a breath. "It's always been a mystery. There is no place on Gersal or its earliest colonies by that name. Some believed it to be part of the great war she fought in, but it was never associated with that war in the surviving accounts."

"The other theory was that it was a lost localization, or from one of the languages that died out after Kohbal's uprising," Gina said.

"It's not Gersallian," said Jarod, looking at the book itself. "It's Portuguese."

All eyes turned toward him.

"A Famoso. It means 'The Famous'," he continued. "It was a nickname of the Portuguese fortress at Malacca during the height of the spice trade."

"What does a sixteenth or seventeenth century Portuguese fort have to do with any of this?" Lucy asked.

"Probably nothing," he admitted. "But it might have been the inspiration for the name of another fortress or structure that was named in the original's honor."

Robert finished tapping away at his omnitool and projected the results as a secondary screen on the holo-table. It was an article of the Encyclopedia Solaria from S0T5. "It's a legend there too," he said.

Kaveri read the text. "The Earthreign, again," she murmured.

"Looks like it," Robert agreed, not enthused at all with the connection. "It looks like it's some legendary fortress that was said to have survived the Reignfall. But nobody knows where to find it in the Fracture."

"So the poem refers to some legendary lost space fortress that a lot of people have apparently died trying to find." Lucy let out a frustrated "ugh". "Why can't it be a simple starmap? They might as well want us to find Atlantis." She tapped at the controls to the computer. "Maybe I can set up a search wide enough to find out something more?"

"That might not be necessary." Jarod pointed at the poem. "Consider that line, before the bits about traveling."

"'On the Wings of Infinity'," Bet'tir read. "I fail to see the significance, Commander?"

Robert breathed out in frustration and lowered his head.

His action was noted, but for the others' benefit Jarod brought up another image, showing a stylized winged Moebius strip.

"Winged infinity," Kaveri remarked.

"Exactly." Jarod nodded. "But better known as the logo of Pan-Empyrean Holdings, a major megacorp on Solaris. The megacorp."

"Sidney Hank," Robert sighed.

"You still owe him a favor for the information that led to us rescuing Julia, don't you?" Lucy asked him.

"I do," he replied. He lamented the fact, but not the reason for it. "Let's hope he doesn't want another one." Robert used his omnitool to activate a connection to the IU communications network. "I'll see if he'll answer a message about this."

"What does a Solarian business tycoon have to do with all of this?" Kaveri asked.

"Honestly, there's more to Hank than just that," Jarod noted while Robert worked. "He's a peculiar individual. Some of the evidence we've seen indicates he's existed in some form for at least two thousand years. Nobody knows if it's true, or how it could be true. The best theory is that he uses mind-state computer backups and clone bodies, but it shouldn't be possible to retain that much memory in a Human being's brain."

"Well, that's unexpected," Robert murmured. Before any of them could ask he projected the incoming call onto the holotable.

The visage of Sidney Hank appeared, wearing a fine business suit and seated in a high office chair emblazoned with the winged Moebius. He took a small sip of what looked like his favored brandy. "I've been waiting for this call," he said. "You finished decoding the book up to the poem?"

A number of the others blinked in surprise, but Robert simply nodded. "I'm not surprised you know," he said. "But yeah."

"I always thought the poem was a little self-indulgent," Hank remarked, as if confiding a secret. "But the old man had his quirks. Anyway, now you need the directions to A Famoso. It won't be easy. It's at a meta-stable point in the Fracture. Think of it as an oasis of space-time stability. You won't enjoy the experience getting there."

"Oh, I was already sure of that. But Ledosh was ready to die to get us the book," Robert replied. "So we'll go anyway."

"Good for you, Captain, that's the spirit." Hank grinned. His eyes never moved, nor did his hands, but Robert noted data coming in on an encrypted subchannel. "These are the necessary coordinates to find the fortress. Be there within forty-eight hours. Hank out."

After his image disappeared Robert relayed the coordinates to the system. "Looks like it's outside of NEUROM or Aurigan space," he said. "We should be safe taking the Jayhawk, but we'll have to leave now to get there within the time limit."

"Then you had better depart immediately," Kaveri said. "I imagine that given the message left in the book, you will be bringing Commander Meridina and Commander Jarod?"

"I think it's wise to," he replied. "Will you be okay with that?"

Kaveri nodded. "Commander Locarno has command experience, and Lieutenant Tra'dur has filled in the role before. We will be fine. Better, perhaps, than you, given what I have learned of the Fracture's effects upon telepaths and metaphysically-gifted people."

"Oh, this part is going to suck, no doubt about that." Lucy stood alongside Jarod.

"I will have a jump to S0T5 prepared for you," she said. "The spatial aspect of an attempted jump to Kerkyra should get you within the range you need, if we are fortunate."

"Thanks." Robert nodded to her. He followed it up with a nod to the others. "It's about time we received answers."

They agreed, and as one they left the lab.

In his private office on the Villa Straylight, Sidney Hank stared into space for a few moments. A small sigh of resignation came next, after which he stood. "Dionysus."

"Yes?"

"Alert Black that I need Green's services. Blue's as well, if he can find her. And have Ms. Montague report to him as well. And for the hard part, activate the hyperwave transceiver." As he spoke Hank approached the control to his secret room. It opened. He stepped in and let his eyes wander to the images on the wall. Remembering the good times, and the desperate, that the images represented, he went to the box in the middle of the room. He considered the vast amount of time he'd waited for this moment and all it portended before he picked it up.

When he emerged back into his office, the blue outline of a figure in repose appeared. The Alekto looked relaxed and confident, which was not uncommon for her, but which Hank's own brutal experience told him was highly deceptive. Hank ignored the part of his mind that recognized he should be intimidated as hell by her power, even with the logic routines from Dionysus bolstering that sense.

She surveyed him, curious and expectant. He held up the box. "It's time," he said. "Dale and his people are on the way to A Famoso."

"Very well." The look on her face was not quite contentment, nor satisfaction. Just a faint bit of eagerness, he thought. "We'll meet you there, and I'll decide once and for all whether these children are the ones we've waited so long for."

"Why do you think you're the one who gets to make that decision?"

The Alekto laughed. "Well, the Doctor isn't going to be there, is he?" She paused, and then looked at him with an expression that conveyed earnest seriousness, an almost impossibly rare emotion in the mercurial and dangerous creature he now faced. "Hank, we have to get this right. Trust me for what I'm good at."

The dawn sky over New Liberty was chasing away the vestiges of night over Julia's head while she led Miko through another set of forms. She found special enjoyment in going through them herself given her stress over Dr. Schneider and her concerns about the psychiatrist's motives.

When the final form finished, Julia was pleased to note how well Miko went through the entire set. As much as Miko preferred more direct exertion of energy, Julia thought she was clearly coming to grips with the principles of t'ai chi. "Miko, maybe it's time to try something new," she said, putting confidence in her voice to encourage her student.

"A new form, Sifu?" Miko asked politely.

"Yes and no. Come here."

Julia led Miko to the lake shore while admiring the shimmering dawn light on its crystal blue surface. Once they were up to the shore she moved into a stance and made a push-pull motion with her arms. Miko stated doing the same. "I want you to concentrate on that," she said, stopping for the moment. "Keep that motion up."

"This is a Waterbending push-pull teaching form," Miko said. "I… it's never worked for me." Her eyes focused on the water, as if she could command it to obey with the intensity of her stare alone.

"Don't focus on the water," Julia said. "Focus on your form. Feel the fluid motion in your body as you follow the form. Think of what it means to be fluid, to be water. Imagine your energy ready to shift itself in any given direction and follow the flow of the environment around it."

Miko did as instructed. She continued the movements and was clearly frustrated at the lack of results, but she didn't give up. Julia watched her breathing relax. Her movement became more fluid, not relaxed but not rigid. Her arms were a continuous flow, forward and backward, push and pull.

The surface of the water rippled.

Julia heard it instead of seeing it. She turned her head and looked down. Miko's eyes journeyed in the same direction. They widened as the surface of the lake rippled in time with her arms, moving back and forth as if a wave generator was working on its surface.

She did it, Julia thought, and a broad smile crossed her face. After weeks of worry that she would ultimately hold Miko back, trying to teach her a skill she could never actually perform herself, she finally had proof she was doing right by her new friend and student. She's doing it! She's moving the water!

The water movement stopped because Miko stopped. She lifted her arms in triumph and shrieked joyfully into the air. "I'm Waterbending! I'm actually Waterbending!" She turned and threw her arms around Julia in a tight hug.

"Run!"

The cry pierced the air and drew their attention, confused as it was. Julia recognized Liara as she ran up the lake path toward them, a mass effect pistol in one hand while the other waved frantically. "Run now!" she shouted. "They're tracking you, they're after you!"

Julia still wasn't sure what Liara meant. But given the year she'd had, and what the others had gone through over it, she wasn't about to stand around. She grabbed Miko by the hand and raced in the same general direction as Liara. Behind them, Julia heard gunfire, and the sound of projectiles striking the ground behind them. Once she knew Miko was following she brought her left forearm up. "Omnitool, emergency call to Colony Security, now."

The omnitool's screen came up with an error. There was no signal. She was being jammed.

Something must be jamming the planetary comms, she thought, as that was the only thing that made sense. We have to get back to the Colony.

They met up with Liara as they approached the clearing before the park exit. There were no trees here for at least forty meters in any direction and the concrete path was laid out.

At the exit the trees came back together, creating a wall of said trees for the exterior view of the parik. From those trees came two figures. One was, like Liara, an Asari, of a purple complexion, and the other was a red-colored Salarian. Both were in white and yellow uniforms with a big black circle insignia. They both raised firearms where they stood.

Julia stopped, trying to keep them from opening fire while she considered new options.

Their situation only got worse, however, as their pursuers came up behind them. They were another pair of Salarians carrying assault rifles with the same armor.

"Eclipse mercenaries," Liara said, sounding as if she would hiss the words.

There was no reply from them while more movement came from the trees. Julia looked in horror at one of the figures. He was one of the young Cameroonian musicians who played in the square. But now he looked pale and gaunt. His eyes were covered by a set of sunglasses, and his face was vacant of emotion.

The figure beside him had the same pale skin and sunglasses, although the skin tone was much lighter. She smiled viciously. "The Dawn-Bearer, as expected."

Her voice rasped and crackled. It reminded Julia of the 'Pretender' she'd fought on Noveria, who'd nearly killed her, Angel, and Richmond with inhuman strength. "Nyuru, I give you the Dawn-Bearer." She pitched her voice to the mercenaries. "Kill the others, Contain Captain Andreys!" The woman idly produced a pistol as a personal shield glimmered around her. "We have five minutes to kill them before there's a response."

The musician began to advance toward Julia with a snarl.