The Galactic Chronicles: Shadows of the Void Books 8 - 10

by J. J. Green

  But there wasn’t anything she could do to arrive faster. At her urging, Kennewell was already flying the shuttle at its maximum speed.

  “Commander,” Kennewell said, “do you really think you can find this pilot? We did a thorough sweep.”

  Jas opened her eyes. “We couldn’t sweep the place where he’s been. I think what happened was that after a dogfight or the explosion of the Shadow mother ship, he crash landed on K.67092d. Maybe he crashed right into a trap or got carried into one unconscious. I don’t know. There weren’t any Shadows on K.67092d when I was there, but that was a long time ago. However it happened, he was taken into the Void. Except there are so few Shadows there now, the benevolent beings who also live there have stopped them from returning as their victims. They’re sending Carl back minus a Shadow’s personality.”

  “But how do you know? Who told you?”

  “That’s a long story. I hope I have the chance to tell it to you one day.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Landing at the site of the Galathea’s crash gave Jas a weird, uncomfortable feeling. In spite of the passage of the years, the crash site was plain to see as they came down. A wide, deep trench was carved into the rocky soil, with a yawning hole at the end of it where the starship had slid to a halt and, later, the Shadows had begun to draw it down into their trap.

  One thing was very different. A team of troops and defense units were walking away from the trap toward a military vehicle parked about a kilometer away. Jas knew this sight well. The troops were sweeping the planet for traps, and they were about to blow this one up.

  Except that she wasn’t going to let them.

  Before the shuttle had come to a stop, Jas was undoing her harness. She jumped out of her seat.

  “Let me turn off the engines, for krat’s sake,” Kennewell said.

  The air was hot with heat exhaust when the pilot finally opened the hatch and allowed Jas to leave the shuttle. Their arrival had had the effect she’d hoped it would. The troops and units had paused and were watching curiously as she ran toward them.

  “You can’t blow this one up,” she shouted as soon as she was within hearing distance. “Someone’s inside.”

  The corporal in charge of the soldiers put his hand on his hips at her words. He was a grizzled old soldier who would have been too far on in years to fight if they hadn’t been at war. Jas didn’t recognize him. He must have been drafted in for the work from another ship.

  The man looked at Jas with narrowed eyes as she reached the group, panting. She was definitely out of shape.

  “You mustn’t destroy this trap,” Jas gasped.

  “Says who?” the corporal asked, looking her up and down.

  Jas had been hoping to use her former authority to persuade the troops to obey her, but they were all strangers. To them, she was just a Martian in civvies.

  “I’m Commander Harrington.”

  Comprehension dawned in the older man’s eyes. “Oh, right.” He gave a smirk. He’d obviously heard of her fall from grace. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re just obeying orders. Now if you have something from the admiral...?”

  Jas clenched her fists. “There’s no time for that. If you blow up that trap you’ll be killing a man. A pilot. He crashed here.” As she spoke the lie, Jas realized how crazy she had to sound. There was clearly no sign of a crashed fighter ship. Carl must have come down somewhere else. It was here that the Paths were returning him.

  “Yeah, sure,” the corporal said, nodding and winking at his troops, who were barely controlling their smiles. “You should get back to your shuttle, ma’am, or you’ll be in the blast zone.”

  “No,” Jas exclaimed. “Listen to me.”

  But the corporal had signaled his troops and units to follow him. They turned their backs and began to walk away. Jas sized up the group. Five soldiers and three units. She could never take them all. She swung around to look for Kennewell, hoping that maybe the pilot had a weapon on her.

  As she turned in the direction of the Shadow trap, she saw him.

  Carl was emerging from the hexagonal entrance. His head was down, and he was staggering, but it was him. He was alive.

  “Carl,” Jas yelled as she sprinted over to him.

  Her cry attracted the attention of the troops.

  “It’s a Shadow,” one of them cried.

  Jas glanced back, and with horror saw one of them lift his weapon to fire.

  “No,” she shouted, and put herself between the soldier and Carl. “Don’t shoot. He isn’t a Shadow.”

  “Out of the way, ma’am,” the corporal yelled. “Get out of the way.”

  But Jas continued to run. The closer she got to Carl, she knew, the harder it would be for them to avoid hitting her if they fired.

  Carl showed no recognition of her or what was happening. He walked on, taking small steps, almost shuffling.

  “Carl,” Jas cried. A bolt flew past her, hitting the edge of the Shadow trap entrance.

  Jas reached Carl and threw herself at him, pushing him to the ground. He lay beneath her, neither moving nor speaking. Jas looked back toward the soldiers. They were running over, the defense units bringing up the rear.

  “Get away from it, ma’am,” the corporal said. “We’re under orders to kill all Shadows on sight.”

  “He isn’t a Shadow,” Jas exclaimed. “I told you, he’s a pilot. He crashed into a trap.”

  “If he crashed here, where’s his ship?”

  “He didn’t crash here. He’s just come out here.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said the corporal. “Look, I’m sorry. I can see the man must have been important to you. But if he came out of a trap, he’s a Shadow. No question about it. Now please move away from him, ma’am. I don’t want to have to make you.”

  Jas clung to Carl’s motionless body as if her life depended on it. Her life did depend on it.

  The corporal sighed. “AX7, take a hold of that woman.”

  “Which woman, Corporal Stormer?” the defense unit asked.

  AX7? Jas remembered the designation. The unit was the one she’d worked with aboard the Galathea.

  “The woman on the ground there,” the corporal replied, irritated. “Commander Harrington.”

  AX7 bent down and grabbed Jas’ arms. She found herself lifted gently but inexorably upright and away from Carl. As her grip on his flight suit was broken, he didn’t react. He only lay there, face down in the dirt.

  The corporal lifted his weapon to fire. Jas screamed, “Nooooo...” and fought with all her might, but she was no match for the metal and silicon of the unit.

  The corporal hesitated. He lowered his weapon and glanced at Jas with pity in his eyes. He turned to a soldier. “Run to the vehicle and bring out the Shadow scanner, then we can show her what it is.”

  They all waited in silence as the sound of the soldier’s running feet grew quieter and quieter. The chill wind cut through Jas’ clothes, but she barely felt it. Physical discomfort was nothing compared to the agony she now faced of seeing Carl shot and killed in cold blood. He had come from the Void. He carried the trace of that place that the myth in the scanners reacted to. Jas was certain that the scanner would identify him as a Shadow. Kennewell stood by, pale and grave.

  They all thought Jas was sick in the head, and they were humoring her. She struggled in AX7’s grip, but the unit’s hands were firm and unyielding around her biceps.

  The soldier returned, breathless, bearing the scanner. The corporal took the device and ran it over Carl’s prone form. He looked at the display. His face grim, he turned it toward Jas. She’d been correct. The display said that Carl was a Shadow.

  “It’s wrong,” she said. “I know how this must look, but, please, you have to believe me. If you kill him, you’ll be murdering an innocent man.”

  “AX7,” the corporal said, “take Commander Harrington back to her shuttle.”

  He was sparing her the sight of seeing the man she loved killed.

/>   “No,” Jas shouted. “AX7, let me go.” To her complete amazement, the unit’s hands fell away. She dropped to the ground. She was free. The unit had obeyed her counter-command. “AX7, protect the man lying on the ground.”

  The unit marched over to Carl, its weapons sliding out of its arms. It turned and aimed at the corporal and his soldiers.

  “AX7,” the corporal yelled, “Commander Harrington has been relieved of duty. Her commands do not supersede mine.”

  “I obey Commander Harrington,” AX7 replied.

  With a gasp of frustration, the man lifted his weapon to shoot at Carl, but before he could fire, AX7’s weapon discharged and stunned him. In response, the soldiers fired at the unit, but they were also felled by it.

  In less than a second, Kennewell, Jas, and Carl were the only humans remaining conscious. The other two units hadn’t moved.

  “Thank krat the corporal didn’t think to order them to shoot,” Jas said to Kennewell, indicating the other units.

  The pilot’s mouth was open in an O. “Err...What just happened?”

  “I’m not sure myself,” Jas said. “AX7, why didn’t you obey the corporal? Am I still the superior officer according to your data?”

  “You are not a superior officer. You are on sick leave according to my data. But I am loyal to you, Commander Harrington. I chose to obey you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Carl hadn’t said a thing since Jas had rescued him from the Shadow trap. He lay on the examining bed in the sick bay aboard the Thylacine as the doctor subjected him to a battery of tests. Carl’s eyes were open, but they didn’t focus on anything. If food was placed in front of him, he would eat, and he would drink water that was offered. He would also stand up and walk around randomly, so the doctor kept him restrained to the bed with straps.

  Jas refused to leave his side, convinced that he would be executed as a Shadow once he was out of her sight. She also kept AX7 next to her. The unit obeyed her and no one else. How it had overridden its compliance protocols, she didn’t know. It was true that the defense units she’d encountered had always seemed a little more independent and individual than they were supposed to be, but this one’s behavior was exceptional. She guessed that the time she’d worked with AX7 aboard the Galathea had made a long-lasting impression on it, and that its organic components had allowed it to develop to the extent that it could influence its programming. Whatever the reason was for AX7’s fidelity to her, she was grateful for it.

  Pacheco requested her presence in her office, which he’d taken over, but when she wouldn’t go, he was forced to come to her. His somber face appeared at the small window in the door to Carl’s room. The door opened and he came in, his expression pained. He drew up a seat and sat down, hitching up his pants.

  Jas was holding Carl’s hand as it lay above the sheet. She looked defiantly at Pacheco.

  “Jas.” Pacheco rubbed his hands together as he considered his words. “I read Corporal Stormer’s report, and I’ve spoken to Kennewell, and I’m still no wiser as to what’s going on here. How about we go somewhere that we can talk about this properly? I give you my solemn assurance that nothing will happen to Pilot Lingiari.”

  “I’m not leaving him, Pacheco. We can talk here. I’ll tell you everything, right from the beginning. And you can confirm it with Sayen Lee and the Transgalactic Council.”

  “All right then,” he replied. “Have it your way.” He told the doctor that they were not to be disturbed until they were finished. He sat down again and folded his arms. “I’m listening.”

  It took Jas longer than an hour to tell Pacheco about what had happened at Ganymede Station, about finding myth aboard the ship—he raised his eyebrows as he heard about that—her myth run, and what the Paths had told her.

  When she finally reached the end of her story, Pacheco remained doubtful, He turned his attention to Carl. The pilot’s gaze was directed upward and was unfocused, as if he hadn’t heard a word of Jas’ story.

  Pacheco shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it. What do you think the Paths meant when they said he wouldn’t have a persona? Is this just his body? Is he going to stay like this forever?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like he’s in a coma, except that he’s awake. The doctor can’t find out what’s wrong with him. But he’s back. That’s the main thing.”

  Pacheco looked doubtful. “The problem is, he’s officially a Shadow. That’s what the scanners say. And that means that he must be rendered safe, unable to endanger anyone else. I don’t know where to go from here. I’ll have to take it up with the Council.”

  “Does Carl look like he’s a danger to anyone?” Jas asked. “Talk to the Council. They’ll confirm what I told you. Help me persuade them to let him go, Pacheco. Please. I just want him to be left alone. I want us to be left alone.”

  ***

  For weeks afterward, Jas nursed a secret hope that Carl would suddenly wake up and return to normal, but it never happened. She brought him with her to the Transgalactic Council, where she had to tell her story many more times. Supported by the testimony of the officers who had come to Ganymede Station, she managed to convince the Council that what she was saying was credible, and that Carl was some kind of anomaly—not a Shadow, but also not the person he had once been. He was a replica of the original Carl minus whatever it was that had made him himself.

  But in truth Jas couldn’t bring herself to believe that the real Carl didn’t lurk somewhere inside the shell of his body. He’d returned from the Void looking exactly as he had when he entered it, except that his burn scars were gone. As far as Jas understood, the Shadows who crossed over from the Void retained the genetic makeup and the memories of their victims. She thought it was those two things that made up human personalities. If Carl had the same genes and memories as he’d had before he was taken into the Void, where was he? She couldn’t understand what was missing.

  Sayen stayed with her while Jas was arguing for permission to take Carl back to Earth. Jas was grateful for her friend’s presence during the stressful negotiations, especially as she knew that Sayen was longing to see her brother again. The two women had many conversations long into the night about the Shadow War, and about Erielle, Makey, Ozment, and all the other people they’d met and some of whom they’d lost during the course of it. They also talked about what they would do when they returned home.

  When Sayen left her for the night, Jas would lie down next to Carl. She would recall the days when she’d first gotten to know him. At first, she’d thought of him as just another crew member, a little awkward and flirty. She hadn’t seen his kindness or loyalty or courage. Was it that she hadn’t really known him then, or that he’d changed? The War had brought out a lot in people.

  She felt like she’d changed. She hadn’t realized back then at the start how alone and lonely she’d been. As time had gone on, she’d learned that she needed people. And she wasn’t lonely any more. It might have looked to outsiders like she didn’t have much with Carl, but that wasn’t true. She had hope.

  The day finally came that the Council relented and told her that Carl could return to Earth with her, providing he remained under her supervision and care for the rest of his life or until he regained a normal state of mind. Jas didn’t need to be told twice. Within half an hour, she and Sayen were packed and waiting to leave on the next ship that would take them in the direction of Earth.

  Jas was excited at the thought of returning to humanity’s origin planet. A long time ago, all she’d wanted to do was to leave Earth. She’d looked out to the stars and dreamed of her escape. Now, with Carl, she would make it her home.

  Epilogue

  The man blinked in the bright sun. A hot breeze was blowing, drying the sweat that was forming on his skin. He was standing in the shade of tall trees, which whispered and sighed above and around him in the wind. A faint scent of eucalyptus hung in the air. He was looking out over a wide landscape of tan and brown, dry in the summer h
eat. The place had once been a farm, but it was overgrown after what looked like many years of neglect.

  At the man’s feet sat a tall woman. She had her back to him. Her knees were drawn up and her arms wrapped around them as she, too, silently regarded the desiccated view. The woman’s hair was short, reddish-brown, and messy. There was something familiar about her.

  Flies buzzed near the man’s face and he batted them away. Though he wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing there—or even who he was—he wasn’t alarmed. The scene around him made him feel calm and peaceful. He had a sensation that he’d been far away for a long time, but that if he was patient, everything he should know would come back to him.

  The man sat down at the woman’s side. She turned to him with a sad smile and took his hand in hers. He remembered her name.

  “Jas?”

  The woman had returned her attention to the landscape, but as she heard him speak, she turned to him again, her mouth falling open. Her grip on his hand tightened. “Carl? You can talk? You know who I am?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I do.” Speaking felt weirdly unfamiliar to him. Memories of the woman began to pour into his mind, and he added, “Of course I do.”

  Happiness welling up in him, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “What’s been going on, Jas?” he asked. “How come we’re back at my folks’ farm?”

  Her grip on his hand remained almost painfully tight. “You recognize it? You know where you are?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember coming here.”

  “I brought you here. Carl, you’ve been sick for a long time. I can’t believe you’re finally getting better, but you should take things slowly. Let’s sit here quietly for a while and see what comes back to you, okay?”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, and he sat with her, watching the still landscape under the hot sun and pale blue sky. Scenes and dialogue began to play in his mind like snatches of once-forgotten movies. The memories were jumbled and confusing at first, but the more he thought, the more shape they took, and he began to be able to slot them into order.