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Guynemer
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Some nutty chick on the ship... can't remember exactly, but I think the implication was that she was a Spartan.
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Guynemer
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Let's see...
quote:
Journey to Centauri : Episode 35 part 3
"Release the landing pods." The voice was calm, resonant, and very youthful. Garland couldn’t tell if the speaker was male or female.
"I already have. The pods are jammed. It’s a mechanical failure."
"Oh?" the figure paused, processing this. "Then there isn't much time."
"We have to get to the center of the ship, to the nexus," Garland said urgently. "I know the…"
"Quiet!" came the sharp retort.
A chill washed down Garland’s spine. She doesn't care.
The figure stepped forward and Garland could now see the face. It was a young woman, her face pale and very smooth and clean, but bland. Her eyes seemed dull, lifeless. "Turn around and walk down the tunnel."
Garland shook his head. "I don’t think anyone can get down here in time, don’t you see? We have to…" A shot cracked the air, a one-off from the shredder pistol, deforming the floor by Garland’s left foot. He began to sweat…she was using compacted slugs, and this tunnel was not immune to a breach.
"Turn and move," she said.
Garland turned and began walking down the tunnel. The woman continued speaking. "They sent us into the sky on a hope, a hope based on vanity and self delusion."
He turned back to look at her. "We have almost made it, don't you see?"
She laughed, and the laugh’s harshness unsettled him. "I see a square-jawed parody of a Captain, picked for press tours and photo shoots and net views. You are a token, unfit to lead. You were never meant to do anything."
"You're wrong," he said, shaking his head.
"The people that built this ship never really cared if we made it. We are a violent people from a violent world, put into this metal cage to create the illusion of hope for a dying planet. If they really thought the Unity would make it, they would be on this ship themselves."
A chill ran down Garland’s spine.
She continued. "Better men and women than you were passed over, believe me. And look at you now…your leadership stolen from under you by others with vision and the will to survive. Now open that hatch."
Garland stopped in front of the hatch, his hands shaking. They were deep in the center of the ship, crossing narrow maintenance ducts that soon would tear away into space.
He pushed the hatch open stud using a sequence that would cause the hatch to close again after five seconds. The hatch opened and a bright, brilliant light washed over him. He put one hand in front of his eyes, blinded.
One second...
"Hands up! Step forward," she barked at him. He lifted his hand again and opened his eyes slowly. He found himself looking into an exterior observation shaft, circled in glass, and outside those panels he could see…
Planet, huge and radiant, a brilliant eye filling the void of space, a living jewel bathed in the light of the Centauri suns.
Three seconds, four...
"Step forward, Captain," she said, "and look at what you lost."
Five seconds!
He dove forward, into the chamber. He heard her yell and saw her lunge, saw the shredder pistol swivel...
Why isn't the hatch closing?
He felt a sharp pain in his throat, and then a wave of ice and fire ran down his torso and up into his face. I'm hit!
The hatch hissed closed, locking her away from him, but he knew she'd have it opened again in seconds. He looked around frantically, saw blood, his blood, on the glass panels, saw a maintenance locker...
The hatch began to open. He threw open the locker and grabbed a closed extensor pole with a gripping vice on the end. Where is the activation stud?
The hatch opened and she came through, her face twisted with rage. He tried to hit her with the handle of the extensor pole and felt it strike her shoulder, than she fired again and he felt himself thrown to one knee.
She stood above him, looking down, death poised to strike. He turned the pole toward her and his thumb found the Activate switch.
The pole lanced open. The kickback rocked through him as the vice struck her beneath the chin, lifted her up and smashed her back into the edge of the hatch. He felt the pole move in his hand as she twisted towards him, her eyes hollow and empty, the vice caught in her throat.
Her body twitched twice and then stopped. Captain Garland looked at her, staring at the shredder pistol in her hand. Was she sent for me? Has it come to this?
He turned to look at Planet again. It was beautiful, so alive, so pure.
He sank into darkness.
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Guynemer
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and later...
quote:
Vision swimming, Captain Garland knelt down and patted over her. He saw her ID tag on her sleeve.
Sarah Jaydo. |
and the end...
quote:
Deep in the center of the ship, alone, Captain Garland felt the warmth of his friend's voice through the distance of the quicklink. "It is up to you..." He broke the link and tried to breathe.
They will fight and battle for generations, he knew, the violence spreading across all of Planet's surface. Maybe there will never be peace.
But, if there was a chance…
He struggled to rise but could not, and so he crawled through the narrow accessway to the first rung of the ladder. He reached up to grab it, focussing on his gloved hand, on the feel of the rung., trying to ignore the inner surfaces of the ship spinning wildly around him. He reached up, to the second rung, and the third, heading for the ship's axis.
With every step he left something behind…the dream of peace, memories of the wife and the children he had left behind on Earth, his anger and hate at those who had usurped his crew, the shame at his own failure, his fear, his guilt. One by one, step by step, he felt the weight lifting from his shoulders.
Until, at the last rung, his ego seemed to drift away, his very identity dissolving into the mass of humanity around him, and the space beyond.
He let out a breath and lifted his hand, which now held the last concussion grenade. He activated it and watched the countdown calmly. He measured the last moments of his life with it.
At one second to go he squeezed the grenade in his hand and slammed it into the nearest explosive bolt. And then he let go of the ladder.
Captain John Garland fell away from the Unity's axis as the explosion he planted rocked the center of the ship and blasted through the explosive bolts like a chain of fire. He saw the landing pods split out and away from the useless superstructure of the Unity and into the black space beyond.
As he fell away he watched the beautiful sequence of fire on the eternal night beyond, and then the flames reached out to him, turning from fire into white light, and the scream in his skull faded to a hum and then a silence.
His last sight was of the landing pods, breaking apart, and thrusters firing one by one. He imagined them, arcing their way down to the new world, bringing humanity's curses with them, and humanity's gift…
Hope.
Sarah Jaydo's Journal
Why have we come to the stars? Why didn’t we surrender when we had the chance? Are we so blind, that we believe this new world will be different, immune to suffering and crime and violence?
The Unity mission was a feeble candle flickering in a blasted night. We rode this illusion into the sky, and now we will die here, or, perhaps worse, die on Planet. Those of us onboard rode an illusion into the night; those who stayed behind took their chances on a dying world.
As for now, we continue to do what humans have always done. We eat, sleep, make love, hone our skills, pass the time. And deep down we wait for someone, some special human, to rise above it all and make the thousands of years of history, of suffering, all worth it. To enlighten us, by which I mean end our pain, heal our wounds, take away the uncertainty.
But I have seen the sweep of history, and we are no better off now than we have ever been. Just more aware. Planet will be no different.
Unless...
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Guynemer
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So perhaps not a Spartan. From her journal, sounds like she might fit in more with the Believers than anyone else; but even then, more just-plain-nutty than fitting any particular faction.
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SlimXero
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Sounds to me like she is either a Gaian (just a feeling i guess) or a Believer...but its meant to be generic i guess.
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05-04-2004 00:45
Shameless plug? 
I want to read that one someday.
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