Reformation (31 page)

Gallono had the easy task.  He disposed of relics who repeatedly came after him with murderous intent and violated their most sacred beliefs to do so.  Hastelloy had to face five relics who chose dedication and honor to their beliefs.  Hastelloy held the utmost respect for their integrity, but he couldn’t very well leave Alpha relics with the potential to reanimate alive on this planet, even if they would be entombed behind sealed doors in this place.

Hastelloy did his duty and dropped the remaining relics into the mercury.  He considered resetting the burial casket to make it look like no one was ever
there, but knew the weight of the copper was far too heavy for just him and Gallono to move.  History would just have to deal with yet another unsolved mystery if the chamber were ever opened again.

On their way out of the chamber
, Hastelloy glanced up at the ceiling and instantly recognized it as the night sky he had seen above this planet for four thousand years now. 

“Remarkably detailed isn’t it,” Gallono said. 

“All except for that silver ball hanging down.  What do you suppose that was intended to be?” Hastelloy pondered.

“Who knows, the emperor was clearly a megalomaniac: building this pyramid, the clay soldiers.  It probably represents him ruling his world from among the heavens
like a god,” Gallono answered.

Goron battled through
a complex set of mixed emotions while the profound sense of loneliness he’d endured for millennia on this planet closed in around him once more.  One by one, he lost contact with the relics located in the Far East.

The first to vanish from his mind was Kuanti.  At first Goron reveled in the blasphemous pup’s defeat at the hands of Hastelloy. 
After giving him grief for thousands of years for not being able to defeat the crafty Novi captain, Kuanti was finally humbled at the hands of that extremely capable foe.

In the end, Kuanti spoke his brave, defiant words, ‘death is only the beginning,’ but that was j
ust for show.  When his clay body shattered and his relic teetered over the poisonous mercury liquid, he showed his true cowardice.  Had Kuanti’s mind still controlled the urinary track of a live body, Goron was quite certain the pup would have piddled himself.  As the mercury slowly snuffed out his life force, Kuanti’s mind reached out in an all consuming moment of terror and finally was no more.

Goron privately rejoiced at that moment.  Kuanti violated the most sacred law of Mother Nature
by reanimating.  He got exactly what he deserved.  That moment of elation soon morphed to horror as contact with the other relics soon vanished from his mind.  The ones who chose to reanimate met their end with the same fear and panic as Kuanti.  Those who retained their honor were completely at peace when they met their end, but the end still came for them.

The mental co
mpanionship those relics provided was not much, but it was something.  Anything, even Kuanti’s vile existence, was preferable to being alone again.  A weaker man might have given in to the depressing solitude that crushed in around him, but Goron was strong.  He did not end his existence in his darkest moment.  He would continue to press on with his struggle against the Novi, but knowing he was alone once more in his efforts was demoralizing to say the least.

It took
Goron the better part of a week to cast aside his lamentations and refocus his thoughts on formulating a new plan to hinder Captain Hastelloy and his small crew.  Before he even had the chance to envision his next instrument of anarchy, his mind was overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of nearly six hundred thousand life forces.  The planetary orbits were nowhere near close enough for contact.  This fact let Goron conclude that Kuanti’s short stay on this planet was time well spent.  His modification to the pyramid had succeeded in transporting the relics from Mars to Earth.

Goron was so flabbergasted he could barely communicate a coherent thought.  His mind finally regained control over his emotions to say one word, “Report.
”

“We are all here now,” Noren reported for the newly arrived collective consciousness.  “What is the status here?  We all expected to meet Kuanti, Cora and the others yet do not sense their presence.”

Any lingering jovial emotions Goron felt melted away upon hearing Noren’s question.  Who was he to demand answers from Goron?  Still, it was a fair question that needed an answer.  “They were arrogant and careless.  They disregarded my counsel and as a result, even with a dozen Alpha warriors at his command, Kuanti and Cora were defeated by the Novi.”

“Not to worry,”
Noren declared.  “The Mars colony is only months away from transporting fifty thousand Alpha warriors to secure victory on this planet.”

“No
...they won’t,” Goron somberly reported.  “When the Novi defeated Kuanti’s task force, they not only snuffed out their lives, they captured his ship.”

The minds of so many in the collective were pathetic and weak.  They all thought the words
Noren spoke.  “So what?  The ship cannot space fold, has no communications equipment, and is too slow for its limited life support to keep an occupant alive long enough to even leave the solar system; let alone reach Novus.”

“It does have a f
unctioning fusion reactor,” Goron pointed out for the others.  “I am quite certain that Captain Hastelloy will employ that reactor as a weapon of mass destruction against the Mars colony.”

A wave of panic slowly overtook the collective consciousness.  The brighter relics understood the dire situation instantly
, and their comprehension eventually informed those with slower intellects.  “We need to do something; we need to warn them,” the collective insisted.

“Why
, what an excellent idea,” Goron mocked.  “We will not be in range to reach the relics still there in time.  These humans are many hundreds of years away from building a communications device capable of reaching Mars.  Then of course we would have to disable the Novi’s jamming signal to get that message out.”

The doomed state of affairs hit home for most, but Goron added one last statement to remove any doubt.  “The Mars colony will be lost, and there is nothing to be done about it.  All we can do now is look to
ward our future on this planet.”

“What fut
ure?” Noren demanded.  “We are locked away inside this chamber with no way out.  Even Kuanti’s reanimation process is blocked by copper sealed doors.”

“Then my followers will just have to come to the rescue,” Goron answered.

Hastelloy sat in
the pilot’s seat of the Alpha craft studying the controls, navigation and communications equipment while Gallono saw to the mechanical components.  Everything was in fine working order to make the trip back to Mars.

Gallono leaned in through the side exit hatch.  “The fusion reactor is pretty element
ary in design, but it clearly got the job done for them.”

“The only question I need answered is will it get th
e job done for me?” Hastelloy asked.

“That’s hard to say, Captain.  Mars is barely habitable, but the Alpha
have been at it for three thousand years.  Their base could be pretty large by now.  Worse yet, it could be completely buried inside of a mountain and nearly impossible to reach.  That said, I can’t see anything surviving when this reactor goes critical.  Who knows, it might set off a few others they are using to power their base.”

Deep down Hastelloy already knew the answer to his next series of questions, but he asked the
m all the same to give himself a glimmer of hope.  “What about the escape capsule you added?  Do you think it really has a chance of making it back here?”

Gallono shook his head slowly.  “I give it one chance in a hundred.  There i
s enough air to make the three week flight back to Earth, but there are no controls or propulsion.  It will be a function of jettisoning at the exact time to take out the Alpha base and hurl the capsule away on a pin point accurate course to hit a moving object some forty million miles away.”

For a silent moment he look
ed Hastelloy square in the eyes and the optimistic bravado between the two gave way to an honest moment.  “Captain, we’ve served together for over five thousand years.  I am not going to let our final moments together be filled with false hopes.  We both know this is a one way trip, and the Nexus range does not extend much beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.  This mission is the end of the road for the pilot, and it needs to be me.”

Hastelloy closed his eyes and took in the full magnitude of things. 
They had spent years, sometimes decades, apart while serving on this planet.  They all were immune to the emotion of long goodbyes by now, but this truly was the end. After all these thousands of years, this was the last time they would engage in friendly banter or share a disarming smile.  They would never again shake hands out of respect or embrace one another in friendship and devotion; there were no adequate words of description in any language.  The moment demanded honesty, not false hopes.  “You’re right. This is the end of the line for me.  A little over ten thousand years is a pretty good run though.  I reached the big five digits.”

Gallono punched his fist against the bulkhead in defiance.  “Goron is still wreaking havoc on this planet.  Tomal still needs handling.  First contact with the humans and final contact with
the Novi still needs orchestrating.  You are the only one capable of making it all happen.  The greater good demands that you stay and I go.”

The difficulty was
that Gallono made a good argument; Hastelloy was certainly in no hurry to end his existence, but he couldn’t give that order.  “Both you and Valnor will manage just fine.”

“No,” Gallono declared and took a step into the ship as though he
would attempt to rip Hastelloy right out of the pilot seat.

Hastelloy raised an outstretched hand to arrest Gallono’s progress.  “I’ve given the order for others to die because there was no other way: our assault on the Beta sector shipyards, sacrificing the Onager ships so the
Lazarus device could escape the battle.  I would have gladly made those sacrifices myself, but was in no position to do so.  Now that I am, what sort of hypocritical coward would I be if I ordered someone else to go in my stead?”

“
Besides, I am the first Novi in ten thousand years to dishonor himself by committing suicide and intentionally reanimating in an altered form,” Hastelloy went on.  “The four of you are innocent of those charges because I forced you to do it.  I made the choice and did the deed of my own free will.  We both know that once I get back to Novus I will be found guilty of the crimes and my existence will end anyway.  This is just accelerating the inevitable by a few hundred years.  My place is on this ship.  I will make this sacrifice for the greater good I aspire to promote.”

Tears welled up in the corner of Gallono’s eyes and ran down his
grease smudged cheeks.  He, more than anyone else Hastelloy ever knew, was a man of honor.  Gallono understood the reasoning and resigned himself to it.  Without another word the two friends, brothers in arms for hundreds of lifetimes, embraced for the last time.

Hastelloy absorbed the show of respect
and devotion from his friend.  “I understand.  It’s an order you cannot give,” Gallono said softly and then rabbit punched Hastelloy at the base of his neck causing a moment of disorientation and paralysis. 

He was still conscious
, but try as he may Hastelloy could not cause his body to move.  He was a helpless observer of events while Gallono dragged his limp form out of the ship and laid it gently on the ground between a set of statues.

“
You understand that letting my Captain give his life when it could be my own is an order I will not follow,” Gallono defiantly declared to his captain.  He then climbed into the ship, sealed the hatch and Hastelloy watched helplessly as the craft effortlessly took off and punched a hole in the ceiling of the gigantic chamber to reach the open skies. 

As the ship grew so distant that it shrunk to the size of a grape, Hastelloy regained enough of his mobility to reach toward his friend with a wavering right arm.

**********

Gallono’s hands danced over the controls as he made his final orbital pass around Mars.  He ran through the burn-in sequence for the thousandth time and hesitantly locked it in to the ship’s central computer and let the countdown
begin.

He knew the computer was infinitely more precise than the reaction times of a living person could ever be, but he still hesitated every time he turned his life over to the machines.  He glanced back at the countdown and saw he only had two
minutes, the moment of truth was at hand.

A rush of stale air greeted Gallono as he squatted down low and sat on the lightly padded floor of the
jury-rigged escape capsule.  He pulled his legs in, closed the door behind him, and wrapped his arms around his legs in the fetal position to wait. 

Time seemed to draw out in front of him for an eternity.  His honors, humiliations, joys and sorrows rolled through his mind without end
.  The first time he played ball as a boy, every single one of his thirty six weddings.  The birth of his children came next.  He could vividly picture his first child being born, but then the other sixty two ran together.

Then there was his first meeting with Hastelloy.  It was
at the academy, and Gallono hated the man at first sight.  He was so capable, confident, yet accommodating and unassuming; all the things Gallono was not at the time.  He was insecure and ambitious.  He viewed Hastelloy as an opponent, a threat to his career path.  It took a lifetime for Gallono to finally realize his rightful place as a complement, an instrument to the great man’s unparalleled abilities.

 
A sudden jolt brought him back to the moment.  Gallono looked out the tiny viewing window and watched the ship dive toward the red planet below while his miniscule four foot cubed cylinder sailed away with only the faintest hope of finding Earth once more.  Making a safe landing was not necessary.  He only needed to be within range of the Nexus, and the device would see to his regeneration.  Getting within range, however, was the real trick.

Time sped up
once more as the ship grew smaller and smaller until it was lost altogether against the red backdrop.  Finally, far below he saw an energy ripple cascade out from the center to encompass a thousand miles in all directions.  Then another even larger explosion reverberated across the planet’s surface and sent a plume of ash soaring high enough to actually achieve escape velocity and eject particles into space. 

A second reactor inside the Alpha base must have gone critical from the explosion as well.  That was wonderful news for the destruction of the Alpha colony, but
terrible for Gallono’s prospects of survival.

He
felt his tiny capsule begin vibrating and soon lurched and kicked in all directions, tossing a weightless Gallono about like a pinball.  When the bucking finally subsided Gallono steadied himself in the middle once more. 

What
miniscule hope he held onto about reaching Earth was completely gone now.   Even if the computer launched the capsule at the precise moment needed, the shockwave from the blast of two fusion reactors nearby most definitely threw him off course.  Even a computer couldn’t possibly account for all the course alterations that the competing shockwaves would throw off.

Rather than filling his head with false hope, Gallono embraced his end. 
For the next three weeks he reflected upon the honorable life he lived.  It was a life of purpose and distinction.  Most important of all, he made a difference in safeguarding the lives of twenty million Novi housed inside the Nexus.  How many beings could boast that sort of accomplishment?  He carried that feeling of distinguished pride with him all the way to the very end.