Alien Shore Chapter Thirteen
GRID Traveler Trinity: Alien Shores
Author: J Carrell Jones
Table of Content
Chapter 13
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there were one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow, or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, “You promised me, Lord, that if I followed You, You would walk with me always. But I noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of prints in the sand. Why, when I have needed You most, You have not been there for me?” The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints is when I carried you.”
- (FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND, By Mary Stevenson, written in 1936)
- (FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND, By Mary Stevenson, written in 1936)
Chapter 13
Sean shook himself awoke and rose. He saw Loggar’s body, motionless, on the floor in front of him. He ran over to it. He knelt beside it and lifted a lifeless hand. He reached out and cradled her head in his lap and a flood of grieving emotions washed threw him. He couldn’t stop the tears. They just kept coming.
Robin stopped laughing when she heard Sean sobbing. She turned. “I didn’t kill you? Pity. Well, anyway, you like what I’ve done?”
Sean sobbed harder. He never had to face death like this. The death he faced was in the line of duty. You had your orders, did your duty and you died. That was easy to cope with. This was different. There was no war, no mission stamped with ‘enemy contact.’ The hurt was beyond anything he’d ever felt. “Oh Goddess.” He said. “You can’t be dead. No you can’t. We have a life together. Goddess, please, wake up. Kathy, don’t leave me!” The tears flowed harder. “No! No you can’t be dead. I love you! This can’t be happening. Please, come back to me! Wake up!” He continued to cry. This was the first time in his life he could not stop the tears, the pain or hurt. Wave after wave after wave of despair washed over him. Kathy, the one who gave him a reason to live was lifeless, in his arms. If only he had Magick he could have stopped Robin. Tears flowed down his cheek and he kissed Loggar on the forehead. The nanobots failed. She is dead. Sean lifted his head up and looked at Robin. She killed her. He gently placed Loggar’s head down and got up. She is dead. He faced Robin and began to feel an intense rage burn within him. It was a small fire at first, but with each heartbeat it grew hotter. She is dead. “Why?” He said.
Robin stood staring at him. “Because I hate both of you.”
She is dead. “You didn’t have to kill her!” He was getting warm. He could feel his temperature rise. He wiped his eyes with a sleeve, drying the last of despair and grief away. “You didn’t have to kill her!” He shouted again. He took a step toward Robin.
Robin lifted a hand and he crashed into the wall again.
She is dead. Sean got up, a rage so intense and hot that he felt his skin burning. “You didn’t have to kill her, you silly stupid ass bitch! You didn’t have to kill her!”
Robin laughed and said, “What are you going to do about it? Fool!” And she flung him into the wall again.
Sean felt it. It was hot and intense. It was like a pop deep inside him. The sleeper had awakened. He got up slowly and stood straight. He clenched his fist tightly, said with a closed jaw, “This, you fucking psycho!” And pushed a sizzling red fireball at Robin.
Robin put her arms up to protect her face. The fireball exploded around her. She slid about three meters from the impact. Her uniform sleeves were blackened and flaked to the floor. She saw Sean standing over Loggar’s body breathing deeply. He so much as growled at her. He took a step forward. A blue light pulsated around each tightly closed fist and a light seemed to shine behind Sean. Under other circumstances, Robin would have enjoyed the scene. Sean was lit in divine light.
Robin pointed a finger at Sean. A string of thick electrical branches sprung from it.
Sean’s surrounding light brightened as the electrical bolts approached within inches. Sean stepped closer as the bolts sizzled and popped off and away from him. She is dead. Sean’s eyes seemed to glow white.
Robin shot another electric bolt at Sean. It crackled and fizzled into nothing.
Sean stepped closer. “I stand as your Judge, Jury, and Executioner. As your Jury I hereby find you guilty of treason and betrayal. Kathy trusted you and you repaid her by going behind her back.” She is dead. Sean lifted his hand and slammed Robin against the far wall.
Robin hit hard and felt her shoulder dislocate.
He lifted his hand high in the air. Robin rose. “As your Judge I sentence you to death.” She is dead. He slapped his hand down hard.
Robin hit the floor with an impact that snapped femurs, tibias, and fibulas.
Sean stood over her. His eyes still glowing white. Intensely burning with hatred and anger. Robin looked up at him, in pain. Her pride told her to not let him see it, but she must have shown something. Sean looked down upon Robin Spaarin, his once friend, lover and now enemy. “As your Executioner . . . as your Executioner, I fulfill the sentence of this court.” Sean smiled, “May Goddess have mercy on your soul.”
And he sliced his hand sideways across Robin’s chest. Her back snapped in several places. Robin heard several audible loud cracks. She screamed for several seconds and fell silent. Sean looked down on the now lifeless body of Robin. Now she is dead. He dropped to his knees and tears started flowing down his cheek. It was almost like grieving for Kathy. Despair covered him like a wet blanket. The anger and hatred drained away. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Adruqu. “How?” He said between sobs.
Adruqu lifted him up. He looked over to his right and noticed the Pillar of Light in the distance. Necron-ten was no longer a dead world. “Sean, my descendant, why do you cry for your enemy?”
He looked into her eyes. “My enemy was once my friend. Robin deserves that I mourn her death. She was a comrade in arms. We may have disagreed on some things, but she was still a comrade. I cry for many reasons. Friend and love lost, a fellow warrior lost, and in having been the one to exact revenge, a bit of myself and soul lost. Killing in anger is not honorable. And I don’t feel any joy in having to do this one. But it came down to ‘kill or be killed.’ And the one thing that hurts most is that I killed out of anger and hatred, not out of principle, duty or bushido.” Sean’s eyes still wet from tears. “I should have been more controlled.” He dropped his head in shame.
Adruqu considered what Sean told her. Though she had over ninety-nine thousand years over him, she knew it amounted to no more than a hundred years of pure empirical thought. Sean spoke from his heart and that was what mattered most. “Sean, I understand Bushido.” She smiled and grabbed his hand. “Follow me. We are going to make things right.”
Sean followed her to two containers. Both were luminescent. He stepped up and saw Robin in one container and Kathy in the other. He spun around and looked into the distance for Kathy or Robin’s body. Both gone. He turned around and looked at the two, peacefully sleeping. He shook his head. How it occurred was beyond him. Adruqu probably wouldn’t tell him.
Adruqu smiled. She guessed at his thoughts and said, “Ask me and maybe I will tell you.”
Sean turned to her. “Am I to choose which one lives and which one dies?”
This stuck Adruqu as funny. She laughed. “No, you just choose. The body you see of Robin now is not the body you killed. This is a body that has been here for six of your months. The body of Kathy you see now is the body that was killed today. Robin has been with us for a time and has witnessed all that has transpired. She saw her death and understood why she died. Now she understands. Kathy wants to be with you.”
Sean’s eyes welled with tears again. “What must I do?”
“Believe Sean, you just have to believe; only a pure soul will awaken both.” Then she vanished. Not a trace.
Sean looked around but didn’t see her. He then looked at both containers. Sean stood between them and relaxed. He inhaled deeply, held it and exhaled deeply. He let his mind find the middle way and thought of . . . nothing. He counted each inhalation and breathed smoothly and evenly. His mind was in the middle state, he was in standing meditation. Then he saw his Truth. The Here and Now were as profound as anything he had ever felt. He said out loud, “All the evil karma ever committed by me since of old, on account of greed, anger, and folly, which have no beginning, born of my body, mouth, and thought -- I now make full open confession of my deeds and wish to find forgiveness. I pledge not to commit evils, but to do all that is good, and to keep one’s thought pure -- This is the teaching of all the Buddhas. However innumerable beings are, I vow to save them; however inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them; however immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to master them; however incomparable the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it.” He opened his eyes. He saw a soft blue glow around him. He reached out to the two containers. He closed his eyes again and spoke, “Thus.” And touched them. He felt energy flow from his body into the containers. Then he blacked out.