"I told you how most of us got here. It's easy to judge now, but you weren't around when people were starving after the civil wars, or homeless, or lost everyone. You didn't hear—" she stopped, considered the irony of what she had to say, then went on, "You didn't hear our Trevor Stone promise a new world, a chance at glory, a chance to start over."
Trevor thought about that. He did not require his bank of genetic memories to recall a destitute Germany in the 1930s falling sway to promises of a new world, of glory. Of course, he also realized what role that meant he played.
"They lied to you, Nina. The universe is moving you around like pawns."
Either she felt berated into silence or stifled the urge to argue, but whatever the reason she said no more for some time, following him around quietly as they examined the caves in search of a home for the night.
Eventually they found one that fit their needs. From the outside, the pile of rocks covering the entrance made it appear to be something of a talus cave, but inside they found a well-sculpted cavern that seemed more sandstone, albeit not of natural creation. Regardless, a solitary Chem Lantern lit and heated the sphere-like cavern. They unrolled their sleeping bags and stowed weapons and rations in separate corners.
Nina mixed two chemical compounds on a small flat plate. The plate sizzled for several minutes allowing them time enough to heat a couple of meat tubes. Trevor sarcastically told her that on his Earth they called them "hot dogs."
Nina replied, "On my world we call them franks."
The two paused for three seconds then burst into a fit of laughter.
After dinner, Trevor asked to hear more about Sirius. She took his hand and led him outside. There were no clouds overhead. The stars shined bright, one most of all.
"There…look…see the blue-white star just next to the three ones…yeah, there."
It was bright and beautiful, glittering like a precious jewel. As he gazed at the shimmering flicker he felt a shiver, probably from the cool breeze blowing over the crater’s rim but possibly from the realization that he looked upon mankind’s first home.
"So far away," he pondered.
"Eight point six light years."
"Eight point…wow. So what I’m looking at right now is you almost nine years ago. What were you doing nine years ago? Were you still on Sirius or were you here already?"
Nina thought before answering, "I was still on Sirius, fighting in the Unification War. I think it was about this time eight years ago or so that I learned to fly. Oh yeah," she smiled. "I remember because we all got in this big bar fight. I mean, we were young and stupid then."
He looked over at her. The Major’s eyes remained glued to that flicker of light in the sky.
"I should have never come to this place. But we…"
She stopped.
"Go on. But you what?"
"But we were convinced you were the man who would build an Empire on this planet."
Nina stopped talking and walked inside with her shoulders slumped, perhaps thinking she spoiled an otherwise pleasant moment. Trevor followed and they sat around the Chem Lantern.
After sitting in silence for a minute, he said, "I remember saying to my Nina that maybe the invasion was about how dangerous mankind is, maybe some power in the universe needed to wipe us out. Well maybe I was right after all, only it isn’t just humanity that’s a threat. It’s the Chaktaw and the Hivvans and the Geryons and the rest."
"Oh."
He tried to ponder that thought for a moment while the whisper of outside wind slipped into the main chamber. The Chem Lanterns kept things warm, but the sound of that wind made him feel chilled, if only in his mind.
"You miss your Nina very much. I can see that. You carry her with you, like a wound."
Could he deny it? Maybe the Old Man had been right, that losing Nina would make him all the more potent a fighter, one fueled by rage for what he had lost.
Slaughter them all, Trev. Maybe if you kill enough of em' you'll feel better.
He answered, "It's the way it happened. If she had died…if we had just broken up or something, I would have moved on a long time ago. They stole her memories, do you understand? She didn't stop loving me; she just forgot that she ever had. Do you know what kind of torture that is, knowing you're the only one who remembers?"
"Do you ever talk to her? See her around?"
"Don't you get it? She doesn’t exist any more. All the things that made her who she was are gone; she’s gone, turned back to a person who never even knew me."
The Major countered, "She still has her body and her mind. There are parts of that person inside her, right?"
He answered tentatively, "Yeah. I guess."
She seemed waiting for him to say more, but he chose to avoid the discussion. Since coming to this world he had had his mind and emotions twisted more than enough, particularly in regards to who was who and differences running more than skin deep.
Nina said, "I want to give you a gift."
Her sentence hung in the air for a moment with no noise to intrude, the wind had paused momentarily and the Chem Lantern gave off only heat and light, no sound.
"You what?"
Nina stood and walked around the light. Her feet shuffled on the dusty cavern floor as she moved in front of him and knelt as he sat with his legs crossed.
"I want to give you a gift," she repeated.
"A…A gift?"
Nina stripped off the top of her battle suit revealing a white undershirt.
"Close your eyes," she instructed.
"Nina, I don’t know what you’re—"
She placed a gentle finger on his lips and, in an almost motherly tone, calmed, "Shhhh."
He looked at her blue eyes and saw real warmth there. Real, honest human warmth. Compassion, even.
Trevor closed his eyes.
She turned and sat in his lap, leaning against his chest and pulling his arms around her in a hug. With his eyes closed, he felt her heart beat, he felt the gentle in and out of her lungs, and found that her scent was, in fact, identical to that Nina from another world.
She whispered, "When you open your eyes, speak to the woman you loved. She’s here, in me. I have all the things that made her who she was, they’re just arranged differently. Take your memories and make me into her."
Trevor felt a shiver but he could not discern if the tremble came from him, or her. Nonetheless, he kept his eyes shut tight.
"Tell her…tell her everything you never had the chance to say. Tell her what you would tell her…if only…if only you had one more moment with her. Just one moment."
The Major fell silent. She would say no more for a long while.
Trevor sat perfectly still, unsure how to react. His first instinct was to reject the very notion, the idea that—but yes, she was in there, wasn't she? Since coming to this planet, he had hoped this twin could be the real thing. In so many ways, they were different, but if there was any place in the universe—in all the universes—where he might possibly reach the soul of Nina Forest, it was here; it was now.
A touch of fear stroked across his spine as he unclenched his eyes, seeing first the soft, liquid glow from the lantern.
She did not look at him, her eyes remained open but staring at the floor. To face him would spoil the illusion. She could be his Nina, but only at a sideways glance.
He rested his chin on her shoulder and soaked in the moment.
Armageddon had robbed him of many things, including a sense of wonder. When he first came here the very concept of a parallel universe failed to shock him. Years of facing all manner of nightmares eroded his ability to be astonished or surprised by whatever new turn his path took. Fighting for survival allowed no time to marvel at the greater picture.
For this one moment, his mind opened again to the possibilities. The possibilities that this woman sitting quietly in his lap was more than a physical duplicate of Nina Forest, that she was a spiritual one as well.
His heart beat…a lit
tle faster. His arms hugged her tighter. He tilted his head to better gaze upon her profile, bathed in the warmth of the lantern's light. She became a still-life portrait of Nina Forest, a snap shot of the one person who had held his heart. Except this portrait was more than a mere image. He felt the heat of her body, the rhythm of her pulse.
And for a moment…just one moment…he could speak to her again.
"Nina…" he found his lips suddenly dry and licked them. He felt a lump in his throat. Such powerful magic would not last. Yet after so long, what would he say?
"I miss you."
He stopped, considered, and as his breath grew short, he told her, "You…you gave me balance. Since you're gone, I've got nothing but the fight. I've become…" he paused in part to find the right words, in part because he felt embarrassed at the answer.
The Nina Forest he knew back home was a warrior, she understood the focus and brutality of soldiering, but even she would wince at the darkness into which he had descended since crossing the universal divide.
"I'm drowning in this war. It's consumed every part of me. You asked me to remember. You told me…I must remember. To make it all mean something. To me, now, memories mean only misery. I'm angry all the time, and now I'm afraid of who I really am."
The wind whistled outside the cave in a forlorn cry from a breeze that was all alone in a dark night. Her hands—Nina’s hands—stroked the goose bumps on his arm. Each caress of her finger tips felt like a shock of electricity.
"I was supposed to be the hero, but I don't feel like a hero at all."
The illusion broke as he closed his eyes and bowed from the weight of the emotion within, led by guilt with a sharp pang of self-loathing.
Nina Forest swiveled around in his lap and cradled his head against her chest.
The gift had been so much more than a moment for him. It had been a moment for the Nina from Sirius.
For that moment when he had been with his lost lover, she received the gift of understanding; understanding the true depth of the tenderness her other self had shared with this Trevor. For that moment, she had been his Nina and felt pure, genuine love. The honesty to lay everything bare; the courage to place oneself in another’s mercy and feel safe.
It was the first time in her life she felt such power. She envied the other Nina and determined that for however long her life might last, she would accept nothing less for herself, even if she never found it.
So she took him, in her arms, and cradled his head and she cried with him. For all the things he had lost, for all the things she had never known. For that moment, he was with his Nina. For that moment, she felt loved.
Just one moment.
---
The sun announced a new day. Its rays crept up the horizon like veins of golden ivory climbing across a canopy of white and blue. The whole of that brilliant ball of celestial life followed, rising over the mountain range to the east to bring warmth to a cool morning. A thin frost that had crystallized during the cold night melted away leaving behind memories of moisture lingering in the air.
Inside the cave Nina stirred awake. Another day on an alien planet.
She studied the sleeping face of Trevor Stone. How much he had given to her in two days. Major Nina Forest had known from the moment she had brought him to her universe that the day this Trevor Stone looked upon the gateway at Thebes would be a day that changed him. She had never known—never guessed---that that day would have meant change for her, too.
Nina hoped that, if only for a brief moment, she managed to give him something in return, to pay some small penance for her sins against him.
She quietly slipped out from the sleeping bag they shared and put on her battle suit top again. A quick rummage through the survival rations kit produced a cup as well as a tin foil packet filled with liquid. Before slipping out of the cave to survey the new day, she also snapped on her utility belt, grabbed both pistols, and hoisted her assault rifle.
As she exited the cave she twisted the foil pack enough to pop two interior bladders, mixing the contents and causing the liquid inside to warm rapidly. A few second later, she ripped open the corner of the packet and poured the steaming contents into the cup.
The Major sipped the concoction allowing the warmth to slide down her throat and radiate through her body. She felt good. Better than she had in a long time. Maybe because, finally, she found honesty. Nina no longer fought to maintain a lie, in more ways than one. The future was unsure, but she saw things differently after the last two days on the run.
Nina scanned the horizon as she drank the instant brew. Her position inside the crater's rim limited her view but she could still see a fair distance to the east. Of course, that made no difference. She only saw a stretch of featureless plains that—
What is that?
A tiny black dot in the east hiding in the aura of the morning sun.
The Major rested her cup on one of the many boulders littering the slope and retrieved binoculars from her utility belt to scan east.
Nothing but open wasteland. Nothing but…
The sight through the lenses confused her eyes. At first she saw a big black blob. No…not a blob, a big creature of some type with a tail wagging behind as it walked…no not a creature…a caravan. A caravan of humanoids and larger beasts—huge lizards—wobbling side to side as the line approached, their numbers hidden by single file formation.
Trevor emerged from the cave fully dressed. She handed him the glasses and pointed.
"They’re coming," the Major said and any good feelings over her fresh start dissipated with the realization she probably had only a few minutes left to live, regardless of bargains Trevor thought he might drive.
"Yes, that's them," he said, peering through the binoculars. "The Chaktaw are here."
Too far out to be seen in detail but unmistakable nonetheless. Their giant pack lizards carried their burdens and infantrymen led the way.
While Trevor remained fixed on the distant procession, Nina cocked the bolt on her rifle.
"Put your gun away."
She insisted, "They can’t see us."
Trevor took one last long look through the glasses then turned to her.
"They can see us," he said. "They’re already here."
Trevor did not need to see them to know they were there. He felt them rise from hiding spots on the rocky hilltop above and around the cave entrance, some just a few feet from where they stood. They wore camouflage ponchos turned a dusty tan to match the dusty soil and rock of the ridge.
Nina glanced around and saw a dozen Chaktaw. She had stood there and drank instant coffee without sensing their presence.
She resisted the instinct to raise her weapon knowing not only would it do no good, but also knowing that if the Chaktaw had wanted to kill her, they could have done it already.
The caravan reached the far side of the crater, resembling something like a band of merchants arriving at market for a day of trade. However, instead of wares and goods they brought guns and soldiers.
The scouts behind them descended and approached. Trevor waited patiently, secure in the knowledge that he may very well be facing the last moments of his life.
The Major grunted a pout as her rifle and pistols were pulled from her grasp by the hooded soldiers. The Chaktaw then herded Trevor and Nina down the slope toward the wide, flat floor of the crater.
The main group of Chaktaw descended the far side of the pit along a sloping path. When they reached the bottom of the gully, they fanned out to form a receiving line of sorts.
Trevor and Nina walked slowly to meet that assembly. The balance of the Chaktaw infantry jogged and stumbled across the rim of the crater high above to either side. Trevor found it a surreal sight.
Ahead waited an entourage. No doubt Fromm’s entourage. They formed two lines so as to funnel the strangers to the center between a corridor of bodyguards and officers
Trevor felt their hatred for him. He could feel it through their heavy combat
ponchos, from behind the goggles that covered eye slits. Their anger at the invader, the murderer, the killer.
It did not surprise him when one of his escorts shoved him from behind. First a hand that sent him stumbling, then a rifle butt knocked him to a knee.
He stood with his hands held high, empty palms plain to see.
Nina took a punch in the shoulder and fell forward, but they did not stop moving; the escorts drove them forward as if they were obstinate beasts in need of encouragement but deserving of no compassion.
The guards lining the high ridge of the crater watched like an audience in the coliseum eager to see the lions feed.
Another shove, then a kick. This time Trevor fell to the dirt. A small puff of smoky dust rose from the impact.
A guard slapped Nina’s head. A rifle jabbed in to her back. She coughed a cry of pain but kept on her feet.
Stone wiped away the dirt with one stroke, held his hands high once again, and stumbled forward amidst another shove. Another hate-filled push.
Two walls of Chaktaw closed in on either side of the contemptible prisoners. Some wore their combat gear, their eyes hidden behind hoods and goggles. They stood like statues as the escorts drove Trevor and Nina forward.
Some did not cover their heads. They wore simple but rugged uniforms that lacked any flare. They were human in general shape and design, but with puffy faces and barren scalps surrounded by tufts of hair.
Another nudge; another trip and Trevor fell to the ground with Nina beside him. He tried to stand but a rifle smacked into his knees. Apparently the privilege to stand had been revoked. He and Nina knelt before the leader of the Chaktaw.
Every thing stopped. The wind whipped overhead as it dipped into then out of the crater.
Trevor recognized Fromm. The Chaktaw leader stood out from his brethren in the same manner that the Fromm he had killed at Five Armies stood out: one green eye and one of hazel.
To his surprise, however, a human woman—skinny and malnourished—stood among Fromm's entourage. Her messy brown hair and sad brown eyes suggested a beaten woman despite any sign of wounds. While he did not recognize the face, he certainly recognized a slave. The leash around her throat held by a Chaktaw soldier accentuated the fact.
Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels Page 42
