Origin: Eternity's End

by Uneeb Qureshi

  Her face flushed as memories resurfaced of her time here. With her family, when everything was care-free.

  She exited the vehicle donning a jet-black Phoenix Legionnaire armor. She removed her helmet and stood on the main road as her family checked on the commotion outside their villa..

  Her hair fell out of the stuffy helmet instantly and blew into the breeze. She peered up and saw them at the front door, glaring at her in disbelief. She rushed through the city, dodging refugees, soldiers and aid-workers to finally reach the house. A German shepherd barked furiously at the villa from the street.

  Poor thing… Monica could not help but feel sorry for it. It probably lost its master.

  By the time she reached the villa’s plateau her uncle and grand-father caught her in their arms and held her closer than ever.

  “Zio! Nonno!” She held onto them like the last of her kin. Unlike Sheppard, she was not alone in this world.

  “Moni!” Her uncle replied, “We were told you were in Switzerland?”

  She grew confused, “Who told you that?”

  “A man came here, asking about your Nonna. He went by the name Sheppard.”

  Her world closed in on her. Sheppard was alive, all the reports that had labeled him missing in action were wrong. But why would he come here knowing Monica would have been on Denosc Dene?

  She rushed past her uncle, “Is he still here?” The house looked empty, and outside the gardens were lifeless. All she could hear was the dog barking toward the villa gardens.

  “He…disappeared when the ship came.” Her grandfather and uncle looked at one another, heeding Sheppard’s words.

  “What are you wearing?” Asked her grandfather.

  She did not hear him. She was lost in her own thoughts, trying to find a reason for why Sheppard was on the run again. Why did he come here? The thought plagued her.

  Maybe, she thought, he was making sure that her journey would begin now. He was alive somewhere, watching Monica. And deep down she felt obligated to his cause, for changing her life and for showing her a new future…

  Her inter-stellar voyages to come would be long, arduous and full of mystery and danger she had never experienced before. But amidst all the pitfalls she felt secure knowing she had allies, friends in her journey helping her the entire way.

  She had the resources of the galaxy’s most powerful military within her grasp, but despite such power she felt ill-prepared without Sheppard at her side. Her last news of Denosc Dene was grim, the Federation was beginning to withdraw support of Legion activity due to their attacks against the Eri in this conflict.

  Monica knew he would be listening in on the reports in the days to come. If he came all this way for her, then he would forever be at her side. Such knowledge gave her the strength to go on, and for a time grieve for all those she had lost; friends, family, allies.

  Like them, she vowed to persist through thick and thin, to show others they no longer need Sheppard to lead them. And to write his real story, for whatever purpose it was for.

  Now was the age for new heroes to arise. From the sacrifice and example of their ancestors they would learn to be greater, to exceed their example and forge a new future for humanity. And against all odds they will fight against innumerable foes just as their ancestors did before them.

  Their people had survived this long, and she had no doubt they would live for many more years to come. What the future held for them, few knew. But she would chronicle it, like Sheppard asked.

  He may have finally found his place amongst history, but she did not want to disappoint him. This was her time now… this was her story.

  Epilogue

  Several Years Later,

  On a planet in the Gliese 581 star system

  Monica and Avi sat on the edge of a watery beach on a planet many light years from Earth. The two avoided staring at each other and instead gazed into the endless horizon. The thin atmosphere forced them to wear their fully pressurized battle armor.

  “Did you ever think it would be like this?” Avi began.

  Monica did not answer. Her blank stare into the endless expanse cleared her mind. This world was unlike any other she previously chronicled.

  “Like us not going back to earth?” She responded.

  Avi wore a sly grin on his face. He took his time responding.

  “Well.” He thought. “I think that was a good career move for me at least, if I had to listen to another coach telling me how to swim I would have flipped.”

  “But here we are.” She began.

  “Yeah. Far from home.” He replied.

  “Again.”

  “And not for the last time.”

  There was a pause.

  “Do you wonder what it would have been like?” Monica asked.

  “What what would have been like?”

  Avi stood up, stretching his arms. The air was stagnant in his helmet. He looked up into the sky and saw the fiery red menace lurking above him. His visor tint increased to allow safe viewing of the star for his eyes. His initial perception of the star reminded him of his words.

  Monica continued. “You know, about our life on Earth, we’ve been away for so long that I don’t even remember it anymore. It feels so alien now.”

  Avi could not hold back his laughter.

  “Doesn’t that make it exciting! It makes the visit back that much more memorable.” His enthusiasm was nostalgic.

  Monica stood up with him and gazed up at the stars. “We’re too old aren’t we?”

  “Never old enough.” Avi returned as he began to lean and shift all his weight onto her.

  “You loser!” Monica said collapsing under his weight.

  The two radioed in for assistance, but received no reply.

  “Stuck again like always huh.” Avi said while she sat on his back. She had defeated him and this was her prize.

  “Oh yuck… Remember what he always said?” Her triumph over his immaturity gave her an exorbitant amount of confidence.

  “’Enjoy the moment, you’ll never savor it the same way again’?”

  Monica smiled, “We’ll never really enjoy this moment the same way when we get back, and you know it too.”

  “You’re right I’d eventually sit on you for so long and forget about it all.”

  “You’re so mature."

  “Hey you’re still like a year older than me. I can act as childish as I please.”

  “Uh huh, and can you recall another fact about our age?” She said shifting to a spot near the water’s edge.

  Avi fell silent. He looked for the stars in the sky but the planet’s tidal lock permitted little visibility of the constellations. Though the sunlight was bearable thanks to their visors, the odd nature of it all was eerie. The sun’s constant surface activity resembled a vast ocean of blood red waves.

  As he lay to stretch on the rhyolite-like sand, his visor engaged its navigation system. Within seconds, hundreds of star systems and coordinates fell into place forming a relatively accurate spatial position of their location.

  “We’re stranded on a watery planet dozens of light years from home, with no food, unclean water and no other intelligent life besides us. And yet…”

  “Yet?” She asks.

  “It’s been over a hundred years hasn’t it, Monica?” His face went blank.

  Monica realized it too. “Hell of a long time to be alive isn’t it?” She paused. “But then again everything we knew wouldn’t matter on Earth today. No one would know what the hell a ‘college’ was like for us or how we survived ‘back then’.”

  “Monica you would have been the most reproductively fit being on the Earth if you didn’t decide to leave when you did, you foxy lady.” Avi jested, mocking the fact of both their ages. “But then again…I never really thought about it either.”

  “First off, screw you and secondly…yeah the last time we talked like this was nearly a hundred years ago, when he left again.”

  “What do you think he wou
ld say about it?”

  “Well obviously he’s older than all of us, and knows everything about anything. So of course he would say something freaking incredible like always.”

  “Ha, true. But when you think about it, all of our friends…before this, before we even went to college, which seems like a freaking made up memory by now, we were so curious about the world, and then the universe. And now here we are.” She paused.

  “Into that very unknown. We’re living in the very universe we never thought we would get to see. Feels good to be alive doesn’t it?” He added.

  “That’s the only consolation for living so long I guess.”

  He looked at her for a moment.

  “Why didn’t your family initiate?” He asked.

  “Why didn’t yours?” She replied.

  “I hate how we always try to fight with sarcasm, let’s be real for once Monica. We rarely get to be on the same assignment, let alone the same side of the galaxy.”

  She thought about it.

  “Same reason yours didn’t…we were outcasts, and it was a time when he did everything in his power to unite both our worlds. And now here we are, on the precipice of war as always, the sad part of our nature. We’re vile creatures, but at the same time… the best.”

  “Nice philosophical rant Monica. But what would your parents say at a time like this?” Avi asked.

  “My friends and family…are all gone. I mean Jesus, now that I think about it, after the first…” She choked, neuronal synapses in her brain triggered memories she never wished to feel again.

  “At the end of my first century,” He could hear her trying to hold back her tears over the intercom channel, “that was the hardest…”

  Avi turned towards her, not having seen her cry for years.

  “When I thought about who my parents were I realized everyone in this damn society claims lineage from people who live maybe two worlds over! But me? Me! I have nothing!” Her shrieking nearly overcame her, but she paused.

  “My extended family is all but dead, and my grand nephews and nieces would not even know or believe who I was…And the only parents I had… a father who I never knew…and a mother, who was the only thing I had left in this entire universe… and…”

  Avi put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s enough.” He pleaded.

  She smiled for a moment then continued.

  “A mother who gave everything she had in this life to teach her daughter, me, our history. Human history. Man’s inhumanity to man… I think that I’ve finally fulfilled her wish…”

  She chuckled and continued.

  “And then I thought… Thought that, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen my mother’s face for over a hundred years, it feels like a dream or some made-up memory, I can’t even remember if she was ever real or not.”

  As she finished that sentence her arms began to shake. She was free to express one of the most ancient human emotions, sadness. For a few moments she allowed herself to cry, not out of sadness, for she was long over the past, but acknowledgment. Acknowledgment of the fact that she could cry and express those very emotions.

  After a few minutes she renewed her resolve.

  “Earth probably looks so alien to us now. Almost nothing we grew up with would be there now… And I know things will never come back. But this will always remind us who we really are.”

  Avi thought for a moment.

  “Well said, a good thing I recorded that too.”

  As always his attempt to lighten the mood was met inappropriately. As he waves his wrist cuff’s microphone in front of her face she turns away.

  “Oh yuck! You didn’t!” She couldn’t hold back a genuine laugh at his sincere attempt.

  The nostalgia of their meeting reminded them of a time before their existence as immortals, when they had little or no worries about life. For a second they were contempt with what they had.

  As they lay under the beach staring into the sky they turn heads to each other one last time.

  “I can’t believe how time has passed.” She continued.

  Avi did not say a word, he finally felt the seriousness of her questioning and bid her on. He glanced at her for a moment then turned toward the stars.

  “We are God’s greatest creation aren’t we? Theologians, even atheists, have to agree that evolution favored us. The universe is ours, and we have yet to take it all.”

  Her mind was teeming. Was she as cunning as Hermes’ son Odysseus, or as poetic as Saga? She liked to think so. It emboldened her resolve to be the guardian of human history and folklore. As she turned her head to the stars the sky littered with silent explosions, it was as if all the stars in the sky were ending in quick fiery blazes. Their radio channels flooded with communications.

  “Doctors Bianchi and Brownstein, sorry for the late rescue. We’ve just fortified orbit and are beginning operations, please prepare for extraction.”

  “Affirmative.” They responded.

  “Looks like our ride is here.” He said.

  Monica looked around one last time.

  “Doesn’t this remind you of the fall of Adam and Eve. But this time they actually choose to leave paradise.”

  “This planet reminds you of paradise?”

  “This planet is peaceful, isolated and free of human influence for light-years to come. The only thing that has prevented colonization is its strategic defensibility to the dominion.”

  “Pirates don’t even bother with it yet but what’s new? We go from place to place seeking answers and security from the unknown. We’ve chronicled this for centuries, even our ancestors on earth did the same thing we’re doing now. The desire for knowledge can never be satiated, or our desire for power … but who knows if it will ever fail.”

  The thick atmosphere quickly lit up as debris from orbit fell toward the surface. The ‘stars’ were finally falling from the sky. All Monica and Avi could make out was the figure of a small ship maneuvering through the whole mess. The two turned to each other effeminately. Separated by their helmets and armor, they could not embrace each other like they did so long ago. As the ship landed they were hurriedly forced aboard, forced to leave their tranquil paradise.

  The radio traffic picked up again.

  “Your vessel being shot down was unfortunate, but lucky for you two we were less than a light year away.”

  The two did not care. They sat next to each other looking out the windows toward the battle that was unfolding.

  “They showed surprising resistance, but then again they are nomads. Galaxy is going back to hell eh? This would have never happened if Sheppard was still here.” The radio fell silent.

  “You think that too Monica?”

  “No. I think this is how it always will be, remember what James Madison said?”

  Avi thought for a second, it took him some time to recall U.S. history.

  “If men were angels, there would be no need for government.”

  She did not have to say a thing; a smirk grin on her face said it all, though he could not see it behind her visor’s nearly impenetrable tint.

  The space that surrounded them was alien, but since their eternal journey into the stars began their lives had never been the same. Their losses and triumphs, their families and stories and even their bodies had changed. They were not there at the beginning like the ancients were and they could only wonder if they would be there at civilization’s end. The long and lonely road that was immortality was never lenient, but so it was and for them always would be.

  “The children would love to hear about this.” She said.

  They were hurried aboard and the drop ship immediately took off.

  “We’re accelerating to point in a moment.” The pilot interrupted.

  “Maybe we’ll find him soon. He is alive undoubtedly.” Avi replied.

  “I know, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we came together on this mission.”

  “He left that message on Aldarus, and Leos, and even Apophis. Nob
ody else could have written that.”

  “Which is why you think he wants to be found, right?”

  The ship shielded its windows and all fighters disengaged from combat as it entered the main Fleet Runner. All personnel aboard the ship braced for the singularity.

  “Yeah, he always said life will always be too short to live alone.”

  Before he could say another word they jumped from the planet’s orbit into deeper space.

  “He’s not gonna be happy, that rescue was way too quick.” One of the nomad pilots said in a foreign dialect.

  “Well he told us not to attack the main ship so we had little time to prevent the escape. He didn’t pay us enough to stop them.” The captain responded.

  “Get him back on the ship, we’ll discuss what to do next.”

  “I’ve already returned.” Said a robed figure behind the captain in the old tongue.

  “Well your plan left us little chance to allow your meeting, what did you wish to do with them anyway?” The captain responded as best he could in the old language.

  “That information was not part of our agreement.”

  The robed figure moved forward somewhat and pulled out an elongated rectangular case. He placed it on the table in the ship’s command room and expressed his regret.

  “Your pay for the services. I’m sorry for the men you lost.”

  “We lost few, but we would have lost more if you didn’t tell us their flight patterns and the radar scrambling codes. We kept them as long as we could.”

  “I didn’t expect them to send the distress beacon that quickly, I guess they were smarter than we thought. But I will find them again, in time.” He opened the case he laid down, “These cells will last you greater distances than your previous cores, and I left the programs for their maintenance as well in the cell sheet. In the meantime I wish you the best in your peoples’ travels.”

  “Where will you go?” The pirate captain asked.

  “I haven’t really thought about that, I suppose I’ll head north.”

  The phrase was rather nostalgic to the pirate captain, yet he could not pinpoint where.