Four days into the journey, he had found a worn path leading deeper into the jungle. The debris left behind by humans passing had led him along the path towards a native village. The village was nearly gone by the time he reached it though. Thatched roofs had collapsed under the weight of ash and dust from above. He had found an old tico hiding in the village who had told him of his village’s demise. The young people had left first to fight the aliens. As food grew scarce and the sky had turned dark, the others moved further into the jungle. He had stayed here to die in the house he had been born in. The only glimmer of hope was a story of a woman who came down from the mountain occasionally to trade. The old man had not seen the woman in nearly a year, but was sure she would still be alive.
Alfredo journeyed deeper into the dying rainforest for another two days, following the route the old man had told him. The signs of habitation faded and the jungle had grown less thick the higher he went. His own food supplies were running thin. He had doubted his task from the beginning, but now began to feel the pain of despair. He continued climbing out of habit now, not really paying attention to his direction but allowing his legs to push on. The jungle was too badly damaged to recognize anything, but he felt he was nearing some destination.
Abruptly, the jungle fell away to an open clearing he hadn’t seen. The canopy still clung to the sky over a small cabin in the clearing. Alfredo’s heart rose in his throat as he recognized the fragile building. He saw boards he had nailed together decades before. The building seemed intact despite the years. As he circled the cabin warily, he noticed subtle signs of habitation. There were tools, newly sharpened and leaning against the outside wall. A row of vegetables was growing alongside the building and looked carefully tended. The ash had not fully penetrated the overhanging jungle here, and it was nearly the first patch of green Alfredo had spotted since he had returned to Earth. As he came to the front of the cabin, he heard the squeak of a worn hinge.
There was a boy standing on the narrow porch of the cabin, staring at him. He was tall, and Alfredo estimated in his teens, with broad shoulders and a narrow face. The closer he got, though, the more he realized the boy was younger, barely ten or eleven. The boy’s piercing eyes struck Ortiz with their brilliant blue intelligence. He had hair browner than the native black and an expression of fear on his young face.
“Abuelo!” the boy cried, keeping his eyes on the new arrival.
Ortiz released his fingers from the heavy straps of the backpack and let the bundle fall to the ground. He took a deep breath of clear air while looking the boy over. He appeared to be wearing a patchwork of clothing sewn together from scraps. Care had been taken to ensure the boy’s modesty, and a pair of hand-tooled boots adorned his feet. There was something too familiar about the boy’s narrow face, and Alfredo’s heart began to ache with recognition. He was afraid of whatever happened next. It had been too long since he dared to believe in God.
A woman emerged from the cabin. She was thinner than Alfredo remembered but looked healthy. Her coal-black hair had turned to streaks of white and grown long down her back. She had worn her hair like that nearly a decade ago when they had been married in the now submerged Catholic Church in town. She wore a threadbare sundress he remembered her buying just before he had left.
“Sofia?” Alfredo said, his voice a croak from his dry throat.
“Yes?” the woman replied. “Do I know you?”
Alfredo stood in the clearing with a puzzled expression on his face. He looked down at his clothing and realized he was coated in gray ash and mud. He had neither showered nor shaved in six days, and must appear to be a wild man to the woman. His mind raced as he looked around the jungle clearing. His voice had refused to open after his first word and he began to cough. Spasms erupted from his chest as the dust from the journey threatened an escape. The woman spoke a few words to the boy and he ran to the side of the cabin. Sophia took a few tentative steps towards him, raising her hand to her mouth in a gesture more familiar to Alfredo than any of his own.
Icy cold water sprayed on him from a bucket, thrown by the boy. The needles of water forced him to take a sharp intake of breath. He wiped the water from his face and beard, sluicing off grime and soot. He waved the boy closer as he brought the nearly empty bucket to Alfredo. There was a hinged lid on the bucket to keep the soot out. Alfredo raised the lid, cupped his hands and reached in for a sip of water. The cool liquid raced down his throat, clearing away ash and dust.
“Sophia,” Alfredo said to the woman, who now looked at him with surprise and wonder. “It’s me. I finally came home.”
In the embrace and tears that followed, Alfredo Ortiz finally felt the war was over. As he wrapped his arms around his grandson and wife, he decided not to call Rowling. The Terran Hope could get along without him for a while. For the first time in his life, he realized that he could get along without his ship as well. He was finally home.
Epilogue
Earth
The man who stepped through the metal doorway into Jack Cole’s office looked nothing like the Jon Sandoval that Jack remembered. He wore his hair long and it looked unwashed. A thin beard covered the gaunt hollows of the man’s cheeks, giving him a raw and dangerous look. The man wore a white shirt and sleeveless vest of hide, and tough, well-worn trousers. The only thing Jack recognized was the man’s eyes.
“Jonny?” Jack asked. “You look like hell.”
“I look like Connor Jakes, Jack,” Sandoval replied. “That’s all that matters.”
“You don’t have to anymore, Jon,” Cole replied. “The war is over. Your friends saw to that.”
“If you really believed the war was over, I wouldn’t be standing her, would I?”
Cole surveyed the man again. Sandoval had been one of the finest field agents in the Confederacy from the moment they had graduated from the academy. When the news had reached Cole that Sandoval’s family had been murdered by the pirate Connor Jakes, he had hoped his friend would be able to return to duty quickly. When Jon had come back, he seemed to have a sharper edge. Cole had been assigned to keep an eye on his friend during their next field operation, and he had done so with the same clinical method he used for any other surveillance mission. Sandoval had turned more brutal than he thought was warranted, but still within the parameters of the mission.
“Connor Jakes killed your family, Jon,” Cole replied. “You aren’t him and you don’t need to be. It’s time to come in for a debrief, Agent Sandoval.”
The other man moved faster than Cole thought possible for a human. He practically leapt over the desk, grasping the lapels of Cole’s suit and lifting him from the floor. Cole dropped the file he had been holding and the papers fluttered to the floor. His back slammed against the wall behind his desk. He saw a rage he had never thought possible on the man’s face as he brought his lips close enough to Cole’s ears to whisper.
“Agent Sandoval died on Harpy Station six years ago,” Jakes hissed. “Connor Jakes made sure no trace of that man was left.”
“Put me down, Jon,” Cole said calmly. “I get it.”
It took a long moment for Jakes to release him. He stared into Cole’s eyes steadily as he let go of the suit and stepped back to sit on the edge of the desk. The two men looked at each other for nearly a minute before Cole finally looked to the floor. He knelt down to pick up the scattered papers. Jakes watched as Cole gathered the sheaf of printouts. It seemed quaint to use the old-fashioned methods, but Jakes guessed it was all they had left. Earth’s resources were nearly exhausted and the recycled method provided security against rolling power failures.
“What do you want, Jack?” Jakes asked, glancing at a few of the pages. “I’m thinking of retiring.”
“I heard something about that,” Cole replied, standing and straightening the papers. “Does this Petros woman know who you really are?”
Jakes tilted his head slightly as he stared back at Cole. He finally stood from the desk and walked back to the door. He leaned ag
ainst the metal frame of the door as if to threaten Cole with leaving.
“Not all of it,” Jakes said. “Some things I think she suspects. Other things I keep well hidden.”
“I have to say, Jon, I never thought you were that good at hiding,” Cole replied with a grin. “I’m glad you proved me wrong.”
“What do you want, Jack?” Jakes asked pointedly. “I ain’t got time for this.”
In response, Cole flipped the file at Jakes. The other man snatched the file from the air, keeping the papers together. He opened the file and looked at the photos and information. Nearly a minute passed with no words being spoken. Finally, Jakes looked back to Cole with a question in his eyes.
“Why me?” Jakes asked.
“You’re it, Jon,” Cole said. “You’re all we’ve got left. You and your Corsairs are the closest thing I have left to an intelligence section and I need you.”
“The Corsairs ain’t much more than a bunch of ex-cons and pirates,” Jakes said. “We don’t exactly fit in to your new Alliance military structure.”
“And that’s why we need you,” Cole said. “I need someone who can be a pirate when we need it. The galaxy is a dangerous place, Jon, and we need dangerous people to do what we can’t.”
Jakes looked back at the file. He shifted some of the papers around until he brought one to the surface. It was an image of Terpsichore Station. An involuntary shudder went through Jakes as he remembered the station. He glanced up at Cole with a raised eyebrow.
“Where did you get this intel?” Jakes asked. “I never sent any report of this place.”
“Just because Earth has lost its spies doesn’t mean there aren’t other races out there willing to share.”
“Look, Jack,” Jakes said, stepping away from the wall and closer to Cole. “If I do this, I choose my crew, my ship, and my missions.”
“Deal,” Cole said, stepping around the desk to face Jakes.
“I don’t work for Chang or you or anyone else,” Jakes said. “I choose where I go and what I do and none of you will order me to do anything.”
“There has to be some kind of chain of—”
“I ain’t kiddin’ with this, Jack,” Jakes said, stepping inside Cole’s personal space. “It’s my way or the space-way.”
“Fine,” Jack said after a long pause. “We’ll send you things we want investigated and you can choose what you want. Deal?”
Jakes looked at his old friend for a long time. Finally, he raised his hand and Cole shook it. After a few seconds, Jakes pulled Cole in tighter, wrapping his other arm around the man’s shoulder. The embrace was awkward, but both men needed it. When they separated, Jakes looked back at his old friend.
“One more thing, Jack,” Jakes asked. “My name ain’t Jon anymore. I wasn’t kidding about that either. I’ve been Connor Jakes for so long I don’t think I remember how to be that other guy.”
“It’s a pity, Jo—Connor,” Cole said. “I always liked Jon Sandoval.”
Jakes stepped to the door with the file in his hand. He turned the knob and pulled. The doorframe had been slightly warped during the attacks during the war and he had to yank hard. As he turned back to Jack, Connor waved. There was an exchange of respect from his eyes as the door slammed shut. Jack Cole stepped to his desk and pulled out a drawer. He tapped a few keys on a tablet and a holographic image sprang to life.
“Jack?” Ronald Chang said. “Is it done?”
“Yes, sir,” Cole said. “He’s on board.”
“Does he know who he’s working for?” Chang asked.
“No, sir. He thinks he’s got his independence on that ship of his. I know him, though. He’ll play our game. It’s part of his personality.”
“I’ve seen his personality up close, Cole,” Chang replied. “Are you sure he’ll work for us?”
“No problem,” Cole said. “We’ve got him on a short leash.”
“Fine,” Chang said. “Now I need to get back to the negotiating table. Setting up a new Alliance government is harder than winning a war.”
In the hallway outside the room, Connor Jakes leaned against the wall. He tapped the nearly invisible earpiece to shut down the transmission. The microphone he had planted on Cole’s suit had worked exactly as Melaina had said. He smiled as he walked down the corridor towards the exit.
Life was going to be interesting from here on out.
A note from the author
Is that it? Is there nothing more?
The war for Terra is over. I can’t bring it back nor do I have any desire to. I can promise you, though, that the Resolute saga is not over. I have grown attached to these people over the last year or so and I want to see what happens next. Just because Lee and Alice are together again does not necessarily mean the princess will live happily ever after. Life just doesn’t work that way.
Life does have a tendency to leap out and yell boo when you least expect it. The galaxy is a dangerous place and our heroes have not seen the last of what it has in store for them. In fact, I have already begun writing a new series. I left a lot of unanswered questions about some events in this book and some of the others. I can’t think of anyone better suited to answering those questions than our old friend Connor Jakes. The Adventures of Connor Jakes is up next. When I finish there, I will likely go back to Lee and his friends. Until then, kick back, grab something to drink, and enjoy what I get our favorite pirate/spy/rogue/misanthrope across the galaxy. I think you will enjoy what I have in store. The new book is a little different from the others but it is a different series.
This series has made me very aware of how writers can affect their readers. I hope I can live up to your expectations. Thank you and have a great day.
About the Author
James Prosser is the author of four novels in the War for Terra Series. He lives and works in the Space Coast of Florida with his wife and five inappropriately named cats. He has noted this inappropriateness in previous volumes and wants you to know their names: Punkin, Itty Bitty, King Kong, Stormy and the newest addition, Zorro.
He is hard at work as well as writing another novel as you read this. He hopes you enjoy reading his books as much as he enjoys writing about himself in the third person.
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