Antiga Prime, 21th December 2540
Official residence of Admiral Jason Davis (retired)
As I had each day following our discussion with the six children (not that I could really call them that anymore), I rose earlier than normal, unable to rest peacefully. Demons that I had thought well buried had returned to haunt me at a time I really didn't want to face them. Slipping silently out of the house, I took a well trodden path to one of the other buildings on the grounds, a rather large one that looked far more utilitarian than the rest of the structures surrounding it. Typing in a code from memory, I slipped inside and lights flickered on, revealing the familiar shape within. A battered, but still lethal, vessel that contained far more than mere memories for me.
The first of the Stingray-class gunships, the Liberator.
When I had finally managed to retire from military service and the public eye, I had been able to keep the Liberator as my personal ship, given everything we'd gone through. I still maintained a small flight crew and ground team to keep her functioning but I was up far too early for any of them to be around. With the hangar empty, I crossed slowly to the old ship still resting proudly on her landing gear. Raising a hand, I slowly stroked the old girl's hull and chuckled softly.
"We've been through a lot together, haven't we?" I said softly. Memories of years, decades even, spent flying together passed in front of me. From the test flights at Terra Firma, small scale battles at Mar Sara and Antiga Prime, our first real combat action at Tarsonis, our numerous battles at Char and throughout the Dominion. Aiur always stuck out painfully; the battering she'd taken there still haunted me and the ships I had been on and commanded while the Liberator was being repaired had never felt like she had. Even when I had finally transferred my command more permanently to the first of the Thylacine-class battleships shortly before the start of the Second Great War, I had always still kept the old girl close, and she had been instrumental in more operations than I cared to remember. Even after all the missions, the Liberator had come out strong when so many other ships and people had fallen to our foes.
Keying open the hatch, I boarded my old ship, still remembering her corridors like I'd only just walked off her. After what may have been called aimless wandering, I finally entered the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat. My hands brushed the controls as the memories threatened to overwhelm me. After all, not all of the memories on this ship were pleasant.
Watching the Cormorant explode. The final frantic scramble of our first escape from Char. Struggling to keep the wounded vessel together at Antioch. A- I cut the thought off before it could form.
That was why I couldn't sleep right now. Now that the kids were looking for answers that I couldn't deny them, everything I had refused to think about was resurfacing. The history I had given them so far, up until the fall of the Overmind, looked like a garden trip compared to what was coming. Most people considered the Hybrid War as the worst time of the wars that ravaged the sector.
I disagreed. To me, the Brood Wars and the years afterwards held that dubious honour. Coming off the high of the successful campaign against the Overmind, it had almost seemed like we had the advantage and the momentum. Together it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't achieve.
Reality had swiftly slapped us back into our place. I had lost more friends during that time than any other and the years after the Brood Wars had been darker than any other, a time when we seemed almost without hope, paying for the mistakes of the past. We had been outmanoeuvred and lost much of what we had fought, bled and died so hard for. As bad as I had had it, I knew the others had endured as much or even more during that time than I had.
Those of us that had survived that period emerged from it changed almost beyond recognition. Much of the amusement and joking that had characterised our initial work had faded, fallen along with too many of our brethren. The pain of that time would live through all of us until the day we died.
Lost in memories, I didn't notice the presence of another until they laid a hand on my shoulder. Whirling, I dislodged it, hand darting for where my pistol had once rested before freezing in horror.
Kath stood in front of me, hands up and eyes wide.
I had intended to shoot my own daughter.
Closing my eyes, I tried desperately to get my breathing, and myself, under control. Despite my best efforts, I was shaking. Adrenaline has surging through my veins and combat instincts instilled by decades of experience were raging. Only mental discipline helped me contain the violence that was trying to break out.
Finally, I managed to calm myself enough to open my eyes. Kath was still maintaining a healthy distance but her eyes were compassionate, if confused. I couldn't blame her. What could turn a man from her loving father to a wild animal, ready to lash out at anything around it?
I prayed with every part of my being that she'd never have to find out first hand.
Slumping back into my old command chair, I buried my face in my hands. Decades of pain flared up from depths I had thought them long buried within. Tears threatened to fall and only barely did I hold them back. I heard Kath slowly approach and kneel beside my chair and I let out a shuddering sigh.
"I'm ok." I managed to get out, still struggling for emotional control.
"No, you're not." She said quietly. "You've kept yourself restrained for so long, but it only takes a crack to weaken a wall. You've been holding this all in for how long, nearly 40 years? I can't imagine what you've been through."
I shook, old memories still tearing at me. "I pray you never do."
Kath shook her head. "I know you've kept this secret for so long, but that mightn't be the best thing to do, you know."
I looked at her, still somewhat blurry-eyed. She continued, "How much did it hurt, keeping Louise and her story secret from Jim and Sarah for so long? I know you, Dad. You're not one that can just shove that aside, and I doubt that was the hardest thing for you to deal with from the war. I'm sure you and Mum talk about it between yourselves, along with Jim and Sarah, as well as the others. I've always thought there was a trace of pain within you all."
I swallowed. All three of our kids, along with all of Sarah's and Jim's, had inherited the psionic gifts of their mothers to varying degrees. While the Ghost program and its successors were far more humane than they had once been, we had still elected for our children to be trained outside of it. Too many bad memories haunted all of us because of it and, with our Protoss friends, we could do a better job of teaching them to control their powers anyway. But that wasn't to say we wanted them to go into the military. We had fought our wars so that they didn't have to.
So, it didn't surprise me that Kath had sensed our pain, even after decades of controlling our thoughts and emotions.
"All these years later and you still haven't managed to find full peace for yourself. I doubt you've changed that much from those days, have you?" She smiled slightly. "If you really think that it's best we don't know, then we won't push. But do you think that's best for us, and for you?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I didn't know the answer to that question myself.
With little effort, she stood and reached out a hand to help me out of the chair. "Come on, it's time for food, if nothing else."
Sighing, I nodded, standing and walking slowly back beside her to the house, but my mind was not on the views around me, but on the past that lay behind.
Throughout the day, I continued to ponder the question. Was it better to keep the past secret, or to let it loose, for all the chaos it would generate? Even within the family, I knew that it would change everything. Pain was an old friend by now, but I had also seen that a burden shared was a burden lessened. Towards the end of the day, I found myself wandering back to the Liberator, taking in the familiar memories and sensations again. We had fought a war so that the sector could be free from slavery and destruction and, against all odds, we had won. But were we free ourselves?
"You look like you never left." My wife's soft voice came from behind me and I smiled slightly, far more used to her presence in the Liberator's cockpit than almost anyone else's. Turning, I beheld her familiar appearance. Tall, thin frame, long blonde hair even now and with sparkling green eyes that still constantly captured my attention, Nova Davis nee Terra was as much of a force of nature as she had ever been. Just because her voice was primarily softly spoken now, didn't mean she was any less a warrior than she had once been. In fairness, though, none of us had ever lost that. Even Jim and I still retained much of the skill and ability we had once honed to a razor's edge. Medical science kept us fighting fit well into years that would once have seen us in retirement homes.
"Some days, I feel like I never left." I replied, standing and embracing her. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad, to be honest."
She sighed and led me back over to the pilot's chair, sitting down beside me. "Neither am I. It still seems as though there's issues all around us. Rumours."
I nodded. Even though I was retired, I still had enough contacts that much of what was known across the galaxy still crossed my desk at some point. Many of the Protoss leadership, especially Selendis, still kept in touch regularly. Similarly, much of the Terran command structure, particularly Matt Horner, now an Admiral in his own right, were also close friends and correspondents. Even among the Zerg, I still had contacts, even leaving out Sarah still being the nominal leader of the Swarm, though she had delegated much of the day to day work to her underlings. What I had heard from some of them was enough to make me uneasy.
The Defenders of Man, an organisation that emerged after the End War and that I had thought stomped into the ground years ago, had slowly resurfaced, though it was rarely mentioned more than in whispers. The Tal'darim, both foe and friend in the past, had also begun to raise their heads and attract attention. Even the Zerg, still considered by many as the bogey-man after all these years, were having, and causing, their fair share of trouble.
I looked at my darling wife. "Can we just say it's not our problem anymore?" I almost pleaded.
She smiled knowingly. "Of course we can. No one would argue that we've done our fair share of the hard work over the years. Everyone would accept that we just wanted to stay out of it." But Nova's eyes locked onto mine sadly. "But, would you?"
I groaned, knowing she was right. Even now, I wasn't someone to sit back and wait out a crisis.
"Kath is right, in a way. Much of what's happening is down to history being distorted by those who want to use it for their own agenda. People are forgetting what we worked so hard to achieve. It's almost ancient history to them all. Even the Protoss are guilty of that, to a degree. As much as I hate it, putting the truth out there might help us and them at the same time."
"It would cause a lot of headaches, though. So many people believe things as they stand, they won't want to believe the truth, even if we told them it." I pointed out.
She snorted. "There will always be those who refuse to believe. You only have to look at history to see that. People looking for conspiracies and hidden agendas, distrusting everything. But we straddle virtually all the factions. Even though we've been quiet, we still have enough of a reputation to be taken seriously, especially if we work together with the various governments. Explain to them our reasoning for releasing the truth. People listen to us, even now."
I considered that. It was true, certainly, but that didn't make it easier. So, I settled on a compromise. "We tell the kids first. Fill them in on the rest of the story, one step at a time. The next part is going to be the hardest anyway, I think."
Nova shuddered. Her own memories of the Brood War, and the years that followed, were just as painful as my own, and we both knew that Sarah and Jim's would be just as bad. "A test case?"
I sighed. "If we can't convince them we did the right thing, what chance do we have with anyone else?"
A quick message to Jim had invited the Raynor household over for dinner and we were all gathered once again. A much quieter occasion than the birthday party a week before, it was no less special for us. After the years of the war, we had refused to take for granted that we would always be around. Perhaps our children had picked up on this too, since they all still lived with us, though given the size of the estate, there was more than enough room for us to find some privacy if we wanted.
The meal itself was like normal, almost eerily similar to the breakfast before our last major discussion. It was after that I knew things were going to get 'interesting'.
James, for once, took charge. "I'm sure you want to know what we thought of what you gave us." He said firmly.
I nodded. "Naturally. I'm sure you have a lot of questions about it all. A lot of it does seem pretty unbelievable."
"That's one way of putting it." Rory muttered.
Liddy slapped the back of his head. "Behave," she rebuked him.
Ignoring the byplay of his younger siblings, Matt continued the conversation. "I guess there's one thing that stands out above everything else. Louise. Why did you just trust her? There was no way to really prove what she said was true, especially when you let Mum get infested. You essentially sacrificed her 'for the good of the sector', when you had no way of knowing whether or not it was right. I know there was the whole visions thing, but given where they came from, how could you trust them?"
That was probably the hardest question right there. While later events had proven them correct, I had no way to verify them at the time and no sane leader would have believed it. So why had I?
"Part of it was as I said before. Louise was, and is, powerful enough that if she wanted, she could have pulled my mind out and played me, and everyone else, like a puppet. Probably, so could the Overmind. But neither of them did. Yes, it could have been a misdirection and we could still have been played. In honesty, we probably were played, to a degree. We were guided to the road that they wanted us to take and forced along it." I looked at Sarah, the pain of years before apparent between us. "I didn't plan to move as fast as we did because, like you, I wanted something concrete before we all decided to take such a risky option. But events conspired against us. I never intended for Sarah to get captured like she did."
Sarah interrupted before I could continue. "But I did get taken. So, everything had to be forced forward. I never saw the visions from Louise, so I couldn't judge those, only rely on the belief of someone I trusted. But I did see the ones from the Overmind. That deep in his mind, and with the kind of power I have available, it wasn't possible for the Overmind to lie. I could sense that Jason had some sort of connection to someone else but, with Nova in the mix, I could be certain his mind was his own, especially since I had a good comparison to him before and after the visit. But it tallied with what Jason had told me." She glared lightly at me. "You may feel responsible for it all Jason, but it was my decision. I accepted the risk, and the consequences."
Only the older generation saw Sarah's shudder. We all knew what those consequences had been and none of us remembered them with any fondness. I wasn't alone in my feelings regarding those dark years.
"It's not your fault, sweetheart." Jim said, reaching forwards and grabbing Sarah's hand. "Surely, you know that by now."
Sarah snorted. "In my head, yes of course I do. But my heart isn't so easily convinced. If I'd fought harder, been more alert…"
Nova sighed. "I think we're getting off topic. We had no reason to trust Louise, that's fair to say. We went through that discussion at the time."
Matt nodded. "Yes, we gathered that much. So why did you trust her?"
I sighed. "Because we didn't have much choice but to take her seriously."
The younger generation looked confused at that, before I elaborated. "She had already intervened to make sure Sarah escaped New Gettysburg alive and not in the Zerg's clutches. Without her warning, that wouldn't have happened. That was enough to attract our attention. From there, it was simply weighing up the risk. With the information she gave us, it wasn't really altering what we were doing all that much. But when a warning like that comes, you do not leave it unregarded. If we had and we were right to, nothing much would have changed. If we took it seriously and it wasn't right, then we might have looked like fools and that would have made things a little harder. But if we'd ignored it and been wrong…"
Kath nodded. "It could have been disastrous, for you and the sector."
"Right. The risks associated with ignoring it were too great to be borne."
"Add to that the other circumstantial evidence we had, the little skirmish in the Shiloh system and what we learned from there, there was too much evidence backing it up for us to dismiss." Nova added.
The children were quiet for a moment as they considered this. "Still, joining forces with the Zerg, that's a hell of a call to make." Rory said quietly.
"Yes, it was." Sarah said. "It was risky, and we knew it could well lead to the hell we were trying to avoid. But at the end of the day, even without the full picture that Jason and Nova had, I trusted in what I had seen and my friends." She smiled softly at all of us. "Despite the results, I'd make the same choice again. Because they came through, against all the odds. They trusted me, never gave up when things were at their worst. How could I not do the same?"
It was silent for a moment. Kath broke the silence. "How bad did things get?" She stared me in the eyes. "How bad could things get that, decades later, all of you still have to deal with the results?"
I swallowed, reluctant to confront that particular issue. It was Jim, so far almost silent on everything, who replied. "I hope you never have to find out first hand. All of us still have nightmares from those years and I doubt they'll ever leave." He snorted and looked at me. "Even now, I'm not sure which one of us had it the worst."
I shook my head. "I don't think it's a competition. We all endured much, from whatever side we were looking in from."
Sarah nodded. "Agreed. That was as bad a time as I've ever seen. Even the war with Amon didn't trump those years before."
"Those years were about as brutal, but we were all together then. We...didn't have that advantage through the Brood Wars and after." Nova said quietly.
Shivers ran down the spines of us veterans at Nova's words.
James broke the silence. "There's a lot more that I think we need to talk about, but probably one step at a time. I don't think we're going to understand without knowing what happened over that time frame."
I closed my eyes. Even though I knew this was coming, I wasn't happy about what it meant. Slowly, reluctantly, I pulled out another data drive before handing it over. "You want the full story of the Brood War? That's it. But I warn you. The first drive is going to look like sunshine and daisies in comparison to this. Like we said, these were probably some of the worst years of our lives."
James quietly accepted the drive, before the young adults stood. Before they left, however, Liddy spoke up. "Can I ask something?"
I nodded.
"The first drive was labelled 'When One Domino Falls'. Why?"
I shrugged. "It seemed appropriate. One simple action at New Gettysburg twisted the entire fate of the sector. From there, things cascaded as a result."
"Fair enough. So, do you have a title for this one?" She nodded at the drive in James' hand.
I thought it made sense to keep the theme running, after all, it's all resulting from the same action. After all, after the domino falls, the obvious next question is ''Where The Domino Lands'."
Author's Notes
Well, it's official. The sequel to When One Domino Falls is now live. I do have a few plans for this story, and I hope it won't take as long to complete it as the original, but I'm exciting to get to this. This entire project is proving to be far more intensive than I ever expected when I began but I'm keen to dive into this leviathan and see where it takes me. So please, read, follow, favourite and enjoy this new part of the saga.
Until next time.
