Wow, Max. When you make a mistake, it's a doozy. I guess it wasn't really a mistake, but still, good luck sending your friends back to their time.
Waiting with bated breath, Debbi.....
Sylvia
TAT: In The Beginning (M/L, AU, Mature) (Complete)
Moderators: Itzstacie, Forum Moderators
Um....Oops. Wow, Max. When you make a mistake, it's a doozy.
I guess it wasn't really a mistake, but still, good luck sending your friends back to their time.
Waiting with bated breath, Debbi.....
Sylvia
Wow, Max. When you make a mistake, it's a doozy. I guess it wasn't really a mistake, but still, good luck sending your friends back to their time.
Waiting with bated breath, Debbi.....
Sylvia
Lisa: Do we have any food that wasn't brutally slaughtered?
Homer: Well, I think the veal died of loneliness.
Homer: Well, I think the veal died of loneliness.
-
Arianneleigh
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2003 12:55 am
- Location: CANADA
My word! So Max had intended for this to happen but somehow there was a slight miscalculation. Right place/wrong time. A million years wrong! Well, he's still managed to find his soul mate and there's no way he's giving her up. Debbi, when that branch snapped, it really reinforced how precarious this whole situation is. Wild beasties, marauding tribes and crazy ass thunder storms. It certainly is a hard luck life and I'm not sure I want any of them to stay there. Roswell seems tame in comparison. But then again, there were skins and crazy ass FBI to contend with there so I guess you can't win, either way.
Glad you're feeling better.
hugs ~ Dee ~
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roswell3053
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 162
- Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:35 pm
- Location: Texas
- Contact:
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Breathless
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 254
- Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2001 4:58 pm
- Location: Somewhere in ficland
In The Beginning, Part 19
Hey Loretta! Great to see you! Thanks everyone for sticking with me on this one. Lets get on to it...
In The Beginning
Part 19
Firelight played across Max’s face, highlighting the peaks and contours, bathing his skin in its warm glow. Flames danced in his unfocused eyes. His thoughts turned inward, replaying the night’s events in his mind. Telling them about the crash, his survival, his indoctrination into the clan. Avona’s overreaction when hearing about his injuries. Rafe’s unveiled intensity. Isabo’s quiet introspection. The intimate details about LeeLee he kept to himself, not ready to share them yet.
Wisps of smoke drifted in his direction, occasionally getting in his eyes, but he didn’t turn away or try to settle down for the night. He couldn’t sleep, partly because of memories recently revealed, partly because of new ones that held so much deeper meaning.
Remembering it all now. Estranged from his father since his mother’s death. Preferring to spend weeks or months – or even years - traveling the far reaches of space, and forsaking his duties at home. Knowing his sister was better suited to that role, despite his father’s beliefs. She had the grace and the temperament and the insight, and the will.
Besides, his destiny was never to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Max looked up to see his sister standing beside him. He’d been so engrossed in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Isabo approach. “There aren’t any pennies here.”
“A rock then.” She sat beside him, offering a sparkling stone.
“Pretty.” He turned it over, watching the firelight reflect off its multifaceted surface. “Quartz.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, with only the crackling of the fire talking to the night. She slipped her hand into his, squeezing tightly, a gesture he now remembered fondly from their childhood, when storms of both nature and man had sent her scurrying to her big brother for protection.
“I was so scared when I came out of the pod and you weren’t there,” her voice trembled slightly. “There was nothing; no hint of you in the air, no lingering impression on the ground, or the foliage. I thought sure you’d died in the crash.”
“I almost did.”
“Later, I found a piece of wreckage. A bulkhead, I think. It was hard to tell it was so twisted and burned. But when I touched it…”
She shuddered at the memory. “I got a flash of it hitting you. On the head. There was so much blood. And then the water kept rising.”
When she shuddered again, Max wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Aloo,” he soothed, brushing a hand through her hair. “Gah ahtay elagee.”
“What?” She pulled away, looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Which to her he was.
“Sorry,” he chuckled. “I slip back and forth between the two and don’t even notice.”
“You learned their language? Her language.”
Max stared at her, mouth moving, but no sound coming out.
“You can’t hide anything from me big brother,” she said. “You never could. One touch and you’re like an open book to me.” She squeezed his hand and said with wonder in her voice. “You really like it here.”
“No,” he shook his head. He knew how harsh life could be here, living off the land, using primitive tools and weapons to provide for the most basic of needs. He squeezed her hand back and said, “I love it here.”
“You finally found it, didn’t you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“That far away look is gone from your eyes,” she said. “Mother knew. So did I. That empty place you carried around inside you for all those years, it’s not empty anymore. You found something to fill the void. Someone.”
Max’s entire face changed. Worry lines faded into smooth skin. His eyes softened, lit from somewhere deep within, his lips curved upward in one of the first true smiles she’d seen from him in years.
“I love her,” he said. “It’s like, all my life I’ve been waiting for this. For her.”
His face darkened and he cleared his throat, as if he’d given away too much of his inner self. He pulled his arm away from her and stared into the fire.
“I know you probably don’t understand,” he said, knowing he’d revealed more to her than he’d intended. Knowing he’d never been good at shutting her out.
“No, I do –”
“To you, she’s just an alien,” he interrupted, words tumbling from his mouth. “From an undeveloped planet –”
“No, no, that’s not –”
“– you think she’s inferior –”
“Zan, I would never –”
“– and that she’d never fit in on our world –”
“Zan, don’t –”
“– and you’re right. I could never take her away from here. That’s why I have to stay. This is where I belong now.”
“I know.”
He looked up. “You do?”
“I do.” She took his hand again. “I’ve always known this would happen, just not when, or where. Or who it would be.”
“Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.”
“Of course,” she teased. “I’m a woman. We always know more than men. We just let you think otherwise.”
“Father won’t be happy.”
“Father will get over it.”
“I love you, Is.”
She put her arms around him in a familial embrace, cherishing this moment with him.
“I love you too, Max,” she whispered, accepting his new name, and the life that went with it. She wouldn’t try to talk him out of staying, or beg him to put aside the life he’d found here, to fulfill a destiny that was never his. He was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions.
She only hoped this moment of happiness in his life wouldn’t be as fleeting as she feared.
* * * * *
Max stood with the noonday sun at his back, surveying the bleak camp the others had been living in for the last few months. They’d recovered little from the ship, only a few items that had floated to the surface with the stasis pods, like a 12 x 12 heat shield now propped up on poles, serving as the roof of a makeshift hut. And the helmet of an EVR suit, used to carry water from the lake.
There were no flowers, or cultivated gardens. No decorations, or personal touches of any kind, not like in his village in the mountains. Unlike him, the others had no intention of making this place their home.
“It took a few weeks to pin point the location of the ship,” Michaels said, looking out over the calm waters of the inland sea. “We weren’t sure how far the pods floated from the crash site, but the dispersal pattern of the wreckage led us here. Avona is a surprisingly good navigator. She mapped the location. Your little Tessa –”
“She’s not mine,” Max cut him off. “And she doesn’t like to be called Tessa.”
“I don’t know why not,” Michaels snorted. “It’s her title, isn’t it? Wasn’t her grandmother a Countess or –”
“She’s a nice person,” Max cut him off. “You shouldn’t disrespect her name.”
“And what about your name,” Michaels asked. “Why the hell are you using Max–”
“After the crash I couldn’t remember anything. I read the rank on my uniform and decided that was better than nothing.”
“And now?” Michaels prodded. “You’ve got your memories back. Why are you still going by Max?”
“It’s what I’m known by here,” Max answered. He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself, that from the moment he’d assumed the name it just felt right. He couldn’t imagine LeeLee calling him anything else.
“You’re really going to stay here?”
Max looked at the pensive expression on the face of his boyhood friend. They’d been through a lot together, grown into men together, flown into space together. Blood brothers without the blood. He would miss Rafe dearly, and his sister, and even his father, but their paths were going in different directions. He couldn’t expect them to stay here with him, but in his heart, in his soul, he knew this was the place he was supposed to be.
“Yes, I’m staying.”
“Why?” Rafe asked, with the crack in his voice betraying the emotion he was trying to keep hidden. “I’ve seen the native population. You can’t possibly –”
Max lifted his hand and touched his fingertips to Rafe’s temple. The flash Rafe received said more than words could ever explain, more than mere pictures could ever show. Emotions accompanied the vision, revealing a side of Max Rafe had never seen before. A happy and contented man.
“Now do you understand?” Max asked, lowering his hand.
Rafe nodded, for once in his life at a loss for words.
“Then let’s get this ship raised,” Max smiled. “You have a life to get back to, and so do I.”
* * * * *
The twisted wreckage of the ship floated toward the shore, covered in sea vines and dripping with water. A shimmering field surrounded it, with the sun’s rays causing rainbow like patterns on its surface, a vibrant display that pulsed with a type of power alien to this world. As the wreckage beached itself on the sand, Max and his companions let out exhausted sighs of relief.
Max sank down to his knees. Rafe leaned forward at the waist and put his hands on his thighs.
“You’re rusty at this,” Rafe chided.
“Out of practice,” Max panted. “Don’t use my powers much.”
Isabo dropped down onto the sand to catch her breath.
Avona waded into the water and touched the chard hull of the ship. “We’ll never get this thing to fly again.”
“We don’t have to.” Max took a deep breath and climbed back to his feet. “We just have to recover the comlink to the Granilith.”
Max moved to join Avona at the ship, but Rafe grabbed his arm to hold him back. He lowered his voice so the women wouldn’t hear. “If what you said before is true, how is that going to help? If we’re a million years from home…”
“Relax,” Max answered with easy calm. His family had been entrusted with the Granilith for untold millennia, protectors of its secrets, guardians of its gifts. Generation after generation, since the end of the Great War.
“Trust me,” Max smiled. “I know how to get you home.”
* * * * *
Max moved around the shattered remains, treading carefully among the wreckage, remembering the last time he was in this ship.
The explosions.
The bulkheads collapsing.
His agonizing injuries.
Of course, if it hadn’t been for those injuries, he might not have ever met LeeLee. Would she have approached him if he’d floated safely to the shore inside a translucent pod, or would she have run away, frightened by him?
No, he had no regrets. He’d do it all again, suffer every broken bone, endure every agonizing breath, if it meant in the end being here, where he knew he belonged.
“So how’s this gonna work?” Rafe asked, poking through the rubble of the ship. “Because clearly, this thing is toast. How is contacting the Granilith going to help if we don’t have a ship to return home in?”
“You won’t need one,” Max said, sloshing through ankle deep water.
He made his way deeper into what was left of the command module, hoping his station was still intact. As Commander, his pod maintained a direct link to the shipboard computers, though they were of little use now. But as Heir to the Granilith, his pod station had been fitted with an additional device, one impervious to power surges, or bound by the limitations of distance, or space. Or time.
He reached the pod module, not surprised to find it relatively intact. After all, his shipmates had escaped unharmed, sustaining none of the life threatening injuries he’d suffered in the exposed cabin when the ship went down. This was the most fortified part of the ship, built to withstand catastrophic assault, to protect the ship’s most precious cargo.
At first glance, the chamber looked vacant, devoid of the pods that leant it purpose. Even the membrane he’d torn through while still in space was gone, but the pedestal appeared undamaged, much to Max’s relief. He crossed the space quickly and knelt beside it, laying his hand on the metal surface.
His palm glowed, sending out his unique biological signature. A hidden compartment opened, revealing an oblong sphere with a familiar swirling symbol carved into its surface, glowing with the same warm tones produced by Max’s own hand.
“Is that it?” Rafe asked from beyond Max’s shoulder.
Max felt the object’s familiar vibration. The intimate connection experienced each time he’d initiated the link. The Power. The Devine Energy. It’d been known to drive men mad. Once, in the distant past, a despot had seized control, corrupted by the Power. The Great War had ensued, and from it had come the Priesthood, and the First Order.
Max said, “Yes,” in answer to Rafe’s question. He’d violated the First Order, the only one to do so in untold millennia, but it wasn’t from corruption, or an attempt to seize power. For Max, it’d been the most basic reason of all. He’d done it for love.
Cupping the orb in his hands, Max closed his eyes and initiated the connection. As had happened on other occasions, his mind expanded, released from the constraints of his physical body. When you melded with the Granilith, you ceased to exist.
Moments later, with the information transfer complete, Max blinked his eyes and sagged, exhausted by the power drain. He lifted his head and refocused, noticing Rafe’s worried countenance hovering over him.
“Pack up everything,” Max instructed. “Put it all inside the wreckage of the ship. You can’t leave anything behind after you’re gone. No evidence that you ever existed.”
“What about the things that floated down river?” Rafe asked.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Max said. “If I find anything, I’ll change its molecular structure into something organic to this planet.”
“You’re really going to do it?” Rafe asked. “Stay here?”
“Yeah,” Max nodded.
“So what happens now? How do we get back?”
“Tomorrow, when the sun reaches its zenith, the three of you need to take your positions in the pod chamber of the ship. The Granilith will open a portal, a rift in space and time that will return you to your present in nearly the blink of an eye.”
“It can do that?” Rafe marveled.
Max nodded, smiling, revealing the awe in his own voice. “And so much more.”
“So this is it?” Rafe asked. “After all our years together, this is goodbye?”
Max cocked his head, an impish gesture straight out of childhood, with a matching smile. “We still have tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Rafe agreed. No need to get emotional yet, and ruin his macho image.
* * * * *
Asleep under the makeshift canopy the others had been calling home for the last few months, Max was enjoying pleasant dreams. LeeLee. His son. His mother’s smiling face. Everything felt right, just exactly as it was supposed to be.
Until he was jolted awake, startled to see his sister’s worried face floating above him.
“Max! Wake up!”
“What? What is it?” He sat up, chasing away the last of his dream, trying to focus.
“You have to go.”
“Go? Now? What are you talking about?”
“Something’s wrong.”
The good feeling from his dream evaporated, replaced by a gnawing dread in his gut. LeeLee.
“I wanted to know her,” Isabo said with a strangled sob. “To get a sense of her, to reassure myself you were in good hands.”
“You dreamwalked her?” he asked, senses on high alert.
“No. She wasn’t dreaming. The baby was, so I used him to form a connection.”
“And?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Has your village had problems? Fighting?”
A cold sweat broke out on Max’s brow. “Before I arrived, there were problems with neighboring clans. Attacks.”
Wide awake now, he grabbed his sister’s hands and demanded, “What did you see?”
Her eyes looked haunted. “Screaming. Fire. People running. She’s not safe.”
“Is it happening now, or something you just see? A future event?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know this place, or its people, well enough to tell. I’m sorry.”
Max bolted to his feet. He retrieved the silver orb and pressed it into her hands.
“It’s yours now,” he said. “Tell Father I’m sorry.”
She grabbed his arm, clawing her fingers into his biceps. “What if –”
“No, don’t say it. Don’t even think it. I didn’t come all this way just to lose it all. She’ll be okay. She has to be okay.”
They embraced, knowing they were undoubtedly holding each other for the last time, and then Max tore himself away and disappeared into the dark.
Running with the wind.
Next week, the conclusion
In The Beginning
Part 19
Firelight played across Max’s face, highlighting the peaks and contours, bathing his skin in its warm glow. Flames danced in his unfocused eyes. His thoughts turned inward, replaying the night’s events in his mind. Telling them about the crash, his survival, his indoctrination into the clan. Avona’s overreaction when hearing about his injuries. Rafe’s unveiled intensity. Isabo’s quiet introspection. The intimate details about LeeLee he kept to himself, not ready to share them yet.
Wisps of smoke drifted in his direction, occasionally getting in his eyes, but he didn’t turn away or try to settle down for the night. He couldn’t sleep, partly because of memories recently revealed, partly because of new ones that held so much deeper meaning.
Remembering it all now. Estranged from his father since his mother’s death. Preferring to spend weeks or months – or even years - traveling the far reaches of space, and forsaking his duties at home. Knowing his sister was better suited to that role, despite his father’s beliefs. She had the grace and the temperament and the insight, and the will.
Besides, his destiny was never to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Max looked up to see his sister standing beside him. He’d been so engrossed in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Isabo approach. “There aren’t any pennies here.”
“A rock then.” She sat beside him, offering a sparkling stone.
“Pretty.” He turned it over, watching the firelight reflect off its multifaceted surface. “Quartz.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, with only the crackling of the fire talking to the night. She slipped her hand into his, squeezing tightly, a gesture he now remembered fondly from their childhood, when storms of both nature and man had sent her scurrying to her big brother for protection.
“I was so scared when I came out of the pod and you weren’t there,” her voice trembled slightly. “There was nothing; no hint of you in the air, no lingering impression on the ground, or the foliage. I thought sure you’d died in the crash.”
“I almost did.”
“Later, I found a piece of wreckage. A bulkhead, I think. It was hard to tell it was so twisted and burned. But when I touched it…”
She shuddered at the memory. “I got a flash of it hitting you. On the head. There was so much blood. And then the water kept rising.”
When she shuddered again, Max wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Aloo,” he soothed, brushing a hand through her hair. “Gah ahtay elagee.”
“What?” She pulled away, looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Which to her he was.
“Sorry,” he chuckled. “I slip back and forth between the two and don’t even notice.”
“You learned their language? Her language.”
Max stared at her, mouth moving, but no sound coming out.
“You can’t hide anything from me big brother,” she said. “You never could. One touch and you’re like an open book to me.” She squeezed his hand and said with wonder in her voice. “You really like it here.”
“No,” he shook his head. He knew how harsh life could be here, living off the land, using primitive tools and weapons to provide for the most basic of needs. He squeezed her hand back and said, “I love it here.”
“You finally found it, didn’t you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“That far away look is gone from your eyes,” she said. “Mother knew. So did I. That empty place you carried around inside you for all those years, it’s not empty anymore. You found something to fill the void. Someone.”
Max’s entire face changed. Worry lines faded into smooth skin. His eyes softened, lit from somewhere deep within, his lips curved upward in one of the first true smiles she’d seen from him in years.
“I love her,” he said. “It’s like, all my life I’ve been waiting for this. For her.”
His face darkened and he cleared his throat, as if he’d given away too much of his inner self. He pulled his arm away from her and stared into the fire.
“I know you probably don’t understand,” he said, knowing he’d revealed more to her than he’d intended. Knowing he’d never been good at shutting her out.
“No, I do –”
“To you, she’s just an alien,” he interrupted, words tumbling from his mouth. “From an undeveloped planet –”
“No, no, that’s not –”
“– you think she’s inferior –”
“Zan, I would never –”
“– and that she’d never fit in on our world –”
“Zan, don’t –”
“– and you’re right. I could never take her away from here. That’s why I have to stay. This is where I belong now.”
“I know.”
He looked up. “You do?”
“I do.” She took his hand again. “I’ve always known this would happen, just not when, or where. Or who it would be.”
“Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.”
“Of course,” she teased. “I’m a woman. We always know more than men. We just let you think otherwise.”
“Father won’t be happy.”
“Father will get over it.”
“I love you, Is.”
She put her arms around him in a familial embrace, cherishing this moment with him.
“I love you too, Max,” she whispered, accepting his new name, and the life that went with it. She wouldn’t try to talk him out of staying, or beg him to put aside the life he’d found here, to fulfill a destiny that was never his. He was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions.
She only hoped this moment of happiness in his life wouldn’t be as fleeting as she feared.
* * * * *
Max stood with the noonday sun at his back, surveying the bleak camp the others had been living in for the last few months. They’d recovered little from the ship, only a few items that had floated to the surface with the stasis pods, like a 12 x 12 heat shield now propped up on poles, serving as the roof of a makeshift hut. And the helmet of an EVR suit, used to carry water from the lake.
There were no flowers, or cultivated gardens. No decorations, or personal touches of any kind, not like in his village in the mountains. Unlike him, the others had no intention of making this place their home.
“It took a few weeks to pin point the location of the ship,” Michaels said, looking out over the calm waters of the inland sea. “We weren’t sure how far the pods floated from the crash site, but the dispersal pattern of the wreckage led us here. Avona is a surprisingly good navigator. She mapped the location. Your little Tessa –”
“She’s not mine,” Max cut him off. “And she doesn’t like to be called Tessa.”
“I don’t know why not,” Michaels snorted. “It’s her title, isn’t it? Wasn’t her grandmother a Countess or –”
“She’s a nice person,” Max cut him off. “You shouldn’t disrespect her name.”
“And what about your name,” Michaels asked. “Why the hell are you using Max–”
“After the crash I couldn’t remember anything. I read the rank on my uniform and decided that was better than nothing.”
“And now?” Michaels prodded. “You’ve got your memories back. Why are you still going by Max?”
“It’s what I’m known by here,” Max answered. He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself, that from the moment he’d assumed the name it just felt right. He couldn’t imagine LeeLee calling him anything else.
“You’re really going to stay here?”
Max looked at the pensive expression on the face of his boyhood friend. They’d been through a lot together, grown into men together, flown into space together. Blood brothers without the blood. He would miss Rafe dearly, and his sister, and even his father, but their paths were going in different directions. He couldn’t expect them to stay here with him, but in his heart, in his soul, he knew this was the place he was supposed to be.
“Yes, I’m staying.”
“Why?” Rafe asked, with the crack in his voice betraying the emotion he was trying to keep hidden. “I’ve seen the native population. You can’t possibly –”
Max lifted his hand and touched his fingertips to Rafe’s temple. The flash Rafe received said more than words could ever explain, more than mere pictures could ever show. Emotions accompanied the vision, revealing a side of Max Rafe had never seen before. A happy and contented man.
“Now do you understand?” Max asked, lowering his hand.
Rafe nodded, for once in his life at a loss for words.
“Then let’s get this ship raised,” Max smiled. “You have a life to get back to, and so do I.”
* * * * *
The twisted wreckage of the ship floated toward the shore, covered in sea vines and dripping with water. A shimmering field surrounded it, with the sun’s rays causing rainbow like patterns on its surface, a vibrant display that pulsed with a type of power alien to this world. As the wreckage beached itself on the sand, Max and his companions let out exhausted sighs of relief.
Max sank down to his knees. Rafe leaned forward at the waist and put his hands on his thighs.
“You’re rusty at this,” Rafe chided.
“Out of practice,” Max panted. “Don’t use my powers much.”
Isabo dropped down onto the sand to catch her breath.
Avona waded into the water and touched the chard hull of the ship. “We’ll never get this thing to fly again.”
“We don’t have to.” Max took a deep breath and climbed back to his feet. “We just have to recover the comlink to the Granilith.”
Max moved to join Avona at the ship, but Rafe grabbed his arm to hold him back. He lowered his voice so the women wouldn’t hear. “If what you said before is true, how is that going to help? If we’re a million years from home…”
“Relax,” Max answered with easy calm. His family had been entrusted with the Granilith for untold millennia, protectors of its secrets, guardians of its gifts. Generation after generation, since the end of the Great War.
“Trust me,” Max smiled. “I know how to get you home.”
* * * * *
Max moved around the shattered remains, treading carefully among the wreckage, remembering the last time he was in this ship.
The explosions.
The bulkheads collapsing.
His agonizing injuries.
Of course, if it hadn’t been for those injuries, he might not have ever met LeeLee. Would she have approached him if he’d floated safely to the shore inside a translucent pod, or would she have run away, frightened by him?
No, he had no regrets. He’d do it all again, suffer every broken bone, endure every agonizing breath, if it meant in the end being here, where he knew he belonged.
“So how’s this gonna work?” Rafe asked, poking through the rubble of the ship. “Because clearly, this thing is toast. How is contacting the Granilith going to help if we don’t have a ship to return home in?”
“You won’t need one,” Max said, sloshing through ankle deep water.
He made his way deeper into what was left of the command module, hoping his station was still intact. As Commander, his pod maintained a direct link to the shipboard computers, though they were of little use now. But as Heir to the Granilith, his pod station had been fitted with an additional device, one impervious to power surges, or bound by the limitations of distance, or space. Or time.
He reached the pod module, not surprised to find it relatively intact. After all, his shipmates had escaped unharmed, sustaining none of the life threatening injuries he’d suffered in the exposed cabin when the ship went down. This was the most fortified part of the ship, built to withstand catastrophic assault, to protect the ship’s most precious cargo.
At first glance, the chamber looked vacant, devoid of the pods that leant it purpose. Even the membrane he’d torn through while still in space was gone, but the pedestal appeared undamaged, much to Max’s relief. He crossed the space quickly and knelt beside it, laying his hand on the metal surface.
His palm glowed, sending out his unique biological signature. A hidden compartment opened, revealing an oblong sphere with a familiar swirling symbol carved into its surface, glowing with the same warm tones produced by Max’s own hand.
“Is that it?” Rafe asked from beyond Max’s shoulder.
Max felt the object’s familiar vibration. The intimate connection experienced each time he’d initiated the link. The Power. The Devine Energy. It’d been known to drive men mad. Once, in the distant past, a despot had seized control, corrupted by the Power. The Great War had ensued, and from it had come the Priesthood, and the First Order.
Max said, “Yes,” in answer to Rafe’s question. He’d violated the First Order, the only one to do so in untold millennia, but it wasn’t from corruption, or an attempt to seize power. For Max, it’d been the most basic reason of all. He’d done it for love.
Cupping the orb in his hands, Max closed his eyes and initiated the connection. As had happened on other occasions, his mind expanded, released from the constraints of his physical body. When you melded with the Granilith, you ceased to exist.
Moments later, with the information transfer complete, Max blinked his eyes and sagged, exhausted by the power drain. He lifted his head and refocused, noticing Rafe’s worried countenance hovering over him.
“Pack up everything,” Max instructed. “Put it all inside the wreckage of the ship. You can’t leave anything behind after you’re gone. No evidence that you ever existed.”
“What about the things that floated down river?” Rafe asked.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Max said. “If I find anything, I’ll change its molecular structure into something organic to this planet.”
“You’re really going to do it?” Rafe asked. “Stay here?”
“Yeah,” Max nodded.
“So what happens now? How do we get back?”
“Tomorrow, when the sun reaches its zenith, the three of you need to take your positions in the pod chamber of the ship. The Granilith will open a portal, a rift in space and time that will return you to your present in nearly the blink of an eye.”
“It can do that?” Rafe marveled.
Max nodded, smiling, revealing the awe in his own voice. “And so much more.”
“So this is it?” Rafe asked. “After all our years together, this is goodbye?”
Max cocked his head, an impish gesture straight out of childhood, with a matching smile. “We still have tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Rafe agreed. No need to get emotional yet, and ruin his macho image.
* * * * *
Asleep under the makeshift canopy the others had been calling home for the last few months, Max was enjoying pleasant dreams. LeeLee. His son. His mother’s smiling face. Everything felt right, just exactly as it was supposed to be.
Until he was jolted awake, startled to see his sister’s worried face floating above him.
“Max! Wake up!”
“What? What is it?” He sat up, chasing away the last of his dream, trying to focus.
“You have to go.”
“Go? Now? What are you talking about?”
“Something’s wrong.”
The good feeling from his dream evaporated, replaced by a gnawing dread in his gut. LeeLee.
“I wanted to know her,” Isabo said with a strangled sob. “To get a sense of her, to reassure myself you were in good hands.”
“You dreamwalked her?” he asked, senses on high alert.
“No. She wasn’t dreaming. The baby was, so I used him to form a connection.”
“And?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Has your village had problems? Fighting?”
A cold sweat broke out on Max’s brow. “Before I arrived, there were problems with neighboring clans. Attacks.”
Wide awake now, he grabbed his sister’s hands and demanded, “What did you see?”
Her eyes looked haunted. “Screaming. Fire. People running. She’s not safe.”
“Is it happening now, or something you just see? A future event?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know this place, or its people, well enough to tell. I’m sorry.”
Max bolted to his feet. He retrieved the silver orb and pressed it into her hands.
“It’s yours now,” he said. “Tell Father I’m sorry.”
She grabbed his arm, clawing her fingers into his biceps. “What if –”
“No, don’t say it. Don’t even think it. I didn’t come all this way just to lose it all. She’ll be okay. She has to be okay.”
They embraced, knowing they were undoubtedly holding each other for the last time, and then Max tore himself away and disappeared into the dark.
Running with the wind.
Next week, the conclusion
Behr's Bitch
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BelevnDreamsToo
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
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- Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2001 4:58 pm
- Location: Washington, USA
Thanks J 