“How far off are they?”
“Only a few hours once we're on our way. They'll be meeting us on the way to the space port.”
“I'm wondering, can I get a copy of your map of the area? I checked the Regent Galactic command database and there's nothing about them in there.”
“You won't find anything. Even the city planners didn't know all of the old tunnels. I used to hunt all over the city, the abandoned places beneath us made good nesting places for rim weasels and a few other things.”
“Lucky you're with us then.”
“I would say not. The bots attacked the humans first and I had a chance to take my family into the mountain. When the explosion struck inside we were already down the transit line because a friend of mine, Roman, was able to warn us. If we have any luck it's by being near humans who seem to have no luck at all. Roman went after the saboteur to stop him from causing the detonation you saw.”
“So it wasn't a bomb inside the Mountain?”
“It was a micro fusion reactor that had been set to overload.”
“I'm sorry. It sounds like Roman was a friend.”
“He was, but loss seems to plague this world. Even when the Carthan drop ships came on Tartan Isle, their initial casualties were in the thousands just in the first few minutes from what we could see from the mountain.”
“So the Carthans have already made an appearance?”
“Over a week ago now, and they're still fighting in the Tartan cities, but the drop ships stopped after a few hours. As far as we can tell their support in orbit either left or was destroyed. With no communications until recently there's been no way to confirm that until yesterday, and well, their communication bands are silent.”
“I noticed. It's like our two groups of refugees are all that's left.” Jake said as he felt a call notification through the connection he had unconsciously made with his command and control unit. It was like his arm had brushed up against something, barely grazing it, and in the act he knew who was trying to contact him, on what channel, how secure the communication was, what kind of communication it was and what band it was on. The command interface popped into his head, marking the origin of the transmission less than a hundred kilometres away and forty two meters down.
“I'm sure there are other survivors, even just before the mountain exploded there were signs of fighting on other islands. They must be using short range proximity radios or none at all since we haven't been able to-” Alaka was saying.
“Can you handle this on your own for a while? Ayan's calling.”
The tall nafalli nodded, his pointed snout exaggerating the gesture. “Humans are very light, even two at a time.”
Jake let another refugee take his place to help gently lower survivors. The crowd was already thinning behind him with the constant but slow flow of people being lowered and climbing down the long rope ladder.
“Jo-Jacob?” Ayan's voice came over his subdermal communicator. The sound of it was lighter, more feminine than he remembered.
“It's me. How's your group doing?”
Lalonde, Randolph
Spinward Fringe Frontline
“We've just come out into the older tunnel thanks to the directions that Alaka gave Oz. We would have never found it if it weren't for him, we even had to break through an old rotten grate they put up behind a big air compressor. Everyone made it though, we're fine.”
“Is it secure?”
There was a pause before she answered. “I couldn't imagine soldiers finding their way through behind us. We're safe. How are your people?”
Jake couldn't help but chuckle at the way she asked; “I wouldn't call them my people. Alaka and his wife seem to have taken charge here, I feel like a minor consultant really. They're doing well.”
“Somehow I couldn't see that.”
“You will when you meet these nafalli. I think I heard someone say they had eleven children, so I think they're used to controlling a crowd.”
“Eleven children?”
“Unless I heard wrong. Looks like I'll have at least one large family aboard the Triton after all. Probably more, there are a few orphans and single parents here.”
“Do you have anyone aboard that would take them? I mean is there anyone who could take care of them?”
“I'm pretty sure there are, there are civilians aboard, they live around the botanical section.”
“There's a botanical section?”
“More like a park. I was hoping it would be enough to entice you to stay aboard, that or the engineering section.”
“I don't need to be enticed. Freeground may have given me an assignment, but I was ready to come on my own. I was just lucky Minh was headed the same way.”
“How is he?”
“He's the same. Once we get him to a medical center he'll be fine.”
“The infirmary on the Triton is more like a small hospital, we'll get him back on his feet.”
“Thank you Jake.”
“I'm just glad I can help him.”
A silence settled on them. Jacob Valance stood separate from the quiet, diminishing crowd, staring down the tunnel as it extended into a darkness that may as well have gone on forever. He was so unsure of what to say. An uncertainty and fear filled him that was unlike anything he could recall.
Jacob's memories of her felt like his own. At the same time he could clearly recall comforting Ayan on the Triton as the life faded from her. Yet she had been reborn and she was on the other end of the communique, waiting for him to say something. How could he possibly convey his relief, his amazement, his joy to her without putting her off? Was it even right to express any of it under such dismal conditions?
“Are you okay?” she asked finally, quietly.
His mind was filled with every possible way to answer the question and for a long moment he struggled to narrow it down, to at once figure out what she was referring to specifically and what his best answer could be. “Um,” was all that came out.
“I mean, do you remember? Laura said you do but-” Ayan said in a nervous rush.
“It feels strange when I hear someone call me Valance now,” Jake blurted. He had barely started to realize it but ever since he last introduced himself to Alaka and his people by his full name, it was a feeling that he couldn't shake.
“Okaaay,” Ayan sounded a little confused, and very unsure.
“I mean I remember everything, now it's like it's all my own life, and the years where I didn't have those memories just fit into the missing time,” Jake sighed and sat down on a power cable box beside the unirail. “It's like someone turned out the lights for six years and I had to make my way in the dark, then someone started turning on switches and when I remembered you everything started coming together. When you died, I mean, when the other you died-”
“Oh my God, were you there?”
The pain of the moment, the last bright smile he'd seen on her face came back to him then and he forced what he needed to tell her out. “I pretended I was Jonas. That was the first time I felt like everything was real, like I wasn't just struggling day to day for nothing,” he hesitated before going on. “When I was with her, watching her fade away everything else disappeared. Then she was gone and I was lost all over again.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“You couldn't have done anything and I'm glad I was there. She passed away smiling,” he didn't know if he was saying the right thing, for once he didn't have time to plan his strategy, to pick and choose his words carefully. Instead he just kept talking. “Now you're just a few hours away, but for all I know you barely remember anything.”
The quiet that followed was soon broken by the sound of her quietly crying. “I remember everything. I've
