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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 77 - Matches and Books[]
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Need for a Friend[]
Kowloon system, 3067
Janet had a rare moment of respite and with it she found Nikki.
Nikki’s face was a mix of emotion.
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Janet Cameron
“You look like you need a friend.” Janet said as she sat down from across Nikki.
“Yeah. Turns out being displaced for ten years while everyone else only aged one is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“Something in particular happened, I can tell.” Janet probed.
“Jonathan. He didn’t recognize me and being autistic… He didn’t handle it well.” Nikki admitted.
“Tell me he eventually warmed up to you.”
“Only after I told him something only I could know about him but it still hurt and I don’t know what to do with it besides bury myself in the job, especially since there’s a war on.”
“I do not know what to say… My upbringing has left me so unprepared for so many things.”
“Well at least you found someone to help you with it while I was out wandering.”
“Aff.”
“Tell me, honestly, did you choose him because I wasn’t available anymore.”
“Nikki… To be completely honest I still love you. I know you’ll never reciprocate, at least not the way I want. But Ox? He’s not a consolation prize. I love him too. If someone forced me to choose between you two it’d be like me asking you to choose between your favorite dessert and your favorite snack. I love you both in different ways but that does not make one of you more important than the other.”
“As long as it doesn’t get weird we can still be friends, ok?”
“Aff.”
“You and Ox talk about having kids or not yet?”
“I am not completely opposed but…”
“You’re still unpacking some of your old views. One of them being Freebirth.”
“Aff. Part of me is still terrified but I look at Ox and I can not help but wonder what it would be like.”
“For what it’s worth I think you’d make a great mom.”
“What of you, Nikki? Any of the men you come home with strike your fancy?”
“I’ll admit I had my needs while we were stuck and a couple of them helped but we didn’t exactly bring ten years worth of birth control with us, so I had to start being careful and none of them were quite what I was looking for as long term keepers.”
“That sounds frustrating.”
“You have no idea.”
“Then I shall wing girl for you. Come on.” Janet smiled as she grabbed Nikki’s hand.
“Janet…”
“This is why sex is so different with us Trueborn Warriors. We do not know how long or how many times we will cheat death. So we allow ourselves that primal feeling of being alive that is sex. You are about to go to war again. While I would not be opposed to sharing Ox with you since I have him quite well trained and his stamina exceeds mine, you also said as long as it does not get weird we can still be friends and as a friend I consider it my duty to find someone that is not me that will relieve that frustration before you go back to war.”
“You’re sex crazed you know that right?”
“Doctor Huyn says that even for a Trueborn I am a bit unusual in that regard. So if you wish to do something else…”
“Yeah. I just want to sit and talk with one of my friends.”
“I understand. This is your time. I must respect your wishes in regards to how you wish to use it.”
“Thanks. But if it makes you feel better I promise not to go to war before I get laid again.”
“Then tell me. Tell me all the things you haven’t told the psychologists.”
“You sure, Janet?”
“What else do we have to talk about? At least that is as important as that?”
“You’re right.”
Troubling Quandary[]
"What did you discover, Arthur?" Peter demanded.
"What do you mean? We discovered a lot of things…", Arthur spuddered.
"Your daughter came here and asked me to guide her on a moral quandary, it took me a while before it sank in what she was asking. What did you find out?"
"What kind of quandary?" Arthur asked.
"She described what I can only describe as a super-weapon. Cutting off Hyperspace travel, HPG, even black boxes?" Peter stared into his younger brother's eyes, "Any of that ring a bell?"
Arthur frowned, "Some of it." he allowed, "We…didn't pursue that-"
"Really?" Peter asked
"Alright, some of it! But we stopped!!"
"Uh-huh…sure you did." Peter said, "I hope…"
"What did you tell her?" Arthur questioned
"It's not what I told her, it's what she heard that's got me worried." Peter admitted, "Because what she heard was that it's okay, if you can un-do it!"
"Christ." he responded
“Yeah. I didn’t fully consider it and didn’t make it clear enough that even in the best case scenario even with undoing it there would still be a price to pay.”
"We need to go to Helena with this, and you need to remember exactly what her question was."
“******. These pain killers could make that a little troublesome.”
Facing possible Crisis[]
Meanwhile…
"Thanks for the ride, Aunty Jane, I can take it from here." Hannah smiled, "It won't be long, I promise, I just need to see to some data at the Gateway station, stuff we left behind."
"Be careful over there, Hannah, you're sure this is okay?"
"Nothing says I can't, and besides, Her Majesty the First Lord is signing me up for the Special Projects group, so it's right in the job! We'll need the research data anyway!"
“Okay. My core will still take a week to charge so I’ll still be nearby if you need anything after all.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hannah was looking at the known route-maps of the Gateway network, and she checked the timetable.
Right…there. That gives me three hours.
She started work, adding specific components to the circuit, and adjusting the gravitics in the offline sections.
"Hannah! Are you almost done?" Jane's remote called from an accessway.
"Yeah…" she'd been working for two hours, forty minutes, the work was effectively ready. "...almost done here! Meet me up in control, okay?"
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
Hannah closed the link, putting the new circuits into the active loop. "There we go."
It wouldn't even touch the rest of the network, but it would propagate across any side nets that weren't excluded by the design.
"Now, we wait…"
She closed up the last panel and clambered out of the service way and up to the main levels.
Jane was waiting at control.
"What were you doing down there?" Jane asked.
"Science…oh, look, incoming gateway linkage to Gibson!"
"Call an alert! Gibson's in the hands of-"
"The Word of Blake, yeah…" Hannah was grinning.
The gate flickered out.
"What was that?"
"Anyone wants to go to Gibson in the Free Worlds League, is going to have to get there at sub-light speed…and their HPG is cut off. God help them if they had a pirate or secondary net." Hannah told her.
“If they did? What would happen?”
"Then everyone they've linked to with it, is in the same boat, and will be until it's undone." Hannah explained, "The Word uses Gibson as their main Naval base, right? They don't have a naval base anymore."
“That we know the location of. Hannah… This may have just complicated things greatly.”
"If they're linking that base through Gateways, and why wouldn't they?" Hannah asked.
“Because they might have thought about that and put their Gateways a jump away from anything actually important, like we’ve done for the most part. And now we’re going to have to do a lot of shuffling. You really should have asked. We had plans and strategies in place. Some of them hinged on letting the Blakists believe Gibson was safe from us for the time being.”
Hannah looked doubtful, then, "You know what? You can have me charged, guess what else isn't reporting?"
She tapped the screen.
Jane looked.
Sol system's indicator, maintained by HPG pulses on the DRUM network, was black.
"I think they're going to be absolutely frantic to get that system back on the network, don't you? Want to end the war? We're the only ones who can do it."
“Let’s talk to your aunt.”
"Good idea." Hannah agreed.
Scylla looked at Pollux. His left arm was replaced with a cybernetic limb from battlefield injuries.
“Go ahead, say it. ‘I told you so’. We waited too long, we wound up using mishmash relics anyway, we didn’t distract our foes like you said we should.”
"We can't contact Terra." Pollux said. "We can't contact Terra, we can't contact The Five hidden worlds, we can't even contact our leaders…I did not, in fact, 'tell you so'. That is what you failed to understand about me. The parts I predicted that did come true? It brings me no pleasure to be correct about. My concern now is what comes next and what we can do about it."
“It’s up to us isn’t it?” Scylla relaxed a little.
"We don't even know what they did...or even if they did it at all." Pollux sighed, "This is the problem-this could be a natural outcome of their unrestricted researches."
“But we have a good idea where to find the answer. One way or the other.”
"Yes, and it will only take us five years to get far enough from this location to start to try." He scowled, looking out the window at the Gateway's charred husk.
“We’ve failed then. This will be over in five years.”
“One way or the other, yes.”
Network Jam[]
Star League Regional Headquarters, Coventry - 3070
Victor sat to Helena's left.
"Doctor Ngo, can you reverse it?" He demanded.
"Obviously. I don't want to." Hannah stood in prisoner orange, hands bound before her. "We cut their leaders off, their field forces are effectively past-tense, especially since Aunt Katherine's campaign finished in the League, and it's only been two years, so no, I won't."
“Helena?” Victor looked for support.
“I’m sorry but I agree with my niece. We’ve cut them off at the knees. They can’t stand.”
"What about the billions trapped?" Victor asked.
"Alarion. Necromo." Hannah recited, "Galedon, Pandora. Sian, Taurus, did I miss any? Yes, of course I did. Billions, uncle Victor. Worlds. I cut their world off, but they signed off on the deats of tens of billions of innocent people in some of the most horrible ways anyone here can imagine."
“It’s not like we’re consigning these systems to death. They all have healthy biospheres that can support their populations. There will need to be some adjustments for some of them to their lifestyles but that will keep them too busy to do anything like this ever again.” Helena added.
Kitsune Kurita, sitting in Theodore's old seat, asked, "This is a parole hearing? Do we grant her parole and a pardon?"
“I vote in favor.” Helena was first.
"Neg." Samantha Clees stated, "The Khanate will not grant pardon to someone so obviously defiant and unwilling to seek to make right their deeds."
"No." Sun-Tzu Liao said, "or yes. It doesn't really matter if the deed is not undone. This way, at least, we know where she is."
“No. If she’s not willing to act in good faith we cannot accept pardon or parole.” Victor hung his head. “Yes. Helena has the right of it. There is no real damage done to these people. And keeping her locked up provides no incentive to act in good faith.” Rachel voted.
"Let her go." President Calderon of the Taurian Concordat said, "She ended the war."
"Put on pause, more like." Mitchell Avellar said, "and created a new set of nightmares for everyone here…but yeah, let her go."
“We now have the opportunity to roll up what remains of the Word of Blake, concentrating our forces where we wish. Let her be free.” Ariel Suvarov voted.
"Clan Blood Spirit…abstains."
Alaric chuckled. "Clan Wolf says no." he said, "She has made Terra a physical impossibility, for everyone here. If she does not offer to undo that, she can rot in Blackgate for eternity."
"No big loss." Hannah said just loudly enough for the mics to pick it up, "Not in trade for what it stopped."
“If you could selectively undo this, on a case by case basis would you?” Nichol Minh asked.
"It has to be done selectively anyway." Hannah allowed, "the targeted gates I used aren't working anymore-part of the process, really."
Tseng of the Ghost Bears scowled. "The Rasalhague Dominion votes 'aye' conditionally…"
“Sol needs to be freed before I can vote yes on behalf of the Metis Congress.” Nichol granted. “Hell even then I still might have to vote no just so blackmail won’t work.”
"Andurien, Carver." Hannah paused, "I remembered two more, it's such a long list…take me back to my cell, guys, thumbs down on parole this year."
“I know Hannah. But you’ve trapped an innocent population too. Think about that.” Nichol pleaded.
"I did…and I did it anyway, and I'm not ready to un-do it." Hannah stated, "Not for the people I love, even. Have you asked Dad to solve it?"
"He's working on it." Victor said.
"Well, then we can revisit this after he's solved it, and remove extortion as a motive for my release, am I right? Of course I am. My great grandfather spent five years in Blackgate and never told them what they wanted. I figure I can at least match that before I give in."
"What would change your mind?" Kitsune asked.
Hannah's expression changed. "Huh, not sure what, honestly." she said, "I would guess that it would take someone provably moral to supervise them once the interdict is lifted. Somebody who can tell the Earthers to knock it off and expect to be listened to, someone who knows the score, and can spar with any of you other Lords."
Victor couldn’t help but look at Helena.
"It isn't going to happen, of course." Hannah said, "because that would also be blackmail, wouldn't it, Aunt Helena? Or is it extortion? Anyway, two more years, we can discuss where things are, and maybe I'll change my mind."
“You’re right. We can’t make decisions based on bribing you. Until we solve this problem on our own we can’t offer you parole.” Helena agreed. “But I’ll still write and visit when I can.”
"Fair.” She looked to her guards, "Gentlemen? I understand it's recycled green jello tonight."
“Take the prisoner back to her cell.” Helena Cameron rough the proceedings to an end.
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First Lord Helena Cameron
“She’s not wrong about one thing. You’re still our best shot at really and truly stopping this, not just buying time.”
“I know. I’ll talk to her in private to see if we can at least establish communications. We can’t negotiate if we can’t talk.”
“God, Kitsune looks so much like Omi now.” Victor mused.
“Must be complicated.”
“Feudal politics. It’s a day that ends in y when it gets complicated. Go. Talk to your niece.” Victor nodded.
Setting off to save the Human Race[]
“Not changing my mind, Auntie, even for you.”
“And I don’t actually expect you to. I tried to warn them. Even your mother. I’m not First Lord material. Not for as long as I have been anyway. The innocents trapped in those systems will be fine. The Belters have been through worse for longer.”
“I read your diary. I don’t think mom ever read all of it. If she did I think she would have hidden you away in some uncomplicated life where no one would ever find you, let alone hold you to your name.”
“To be fair I didn’t share that with her right away. It was only at her wedding. By then it was too late.”
“So why still do it? Why not step down? You could make them.”
“Because despite everything, despite not wanting it, despite my anger issues, despite not having any love for Terra anymore? I’m in a position to make sure no one else ever has to experience this pain ever again. So if I don’t stay? It falls apart. The cycle continues unabated. History has proven that.”
"Then you really do understand." Hannah nodded. "At least someone will."
“I do. Jane does too. Truth be told if you shared your plan, you’d probably still be free and I’d be in there instead.”
"Unlikely. You're the First Lord and they'd have to admit that as a mistake before they could put you in here." Hannah leaned forward and propped her elbows. "They're not going to do that, they'd lose control in a heartbeat."
“I know.”
"Tell you a secret, Auntie?" Hannah said, "They're recording so it won't be a secret for long, but you might find it amusing."
“Sure. I could use a silver lining today.”
"You can go back, but you'll never return to where you left."
“That is a hell of a thing to think about.”
"Isn't it?" Hannah's eyes glittered in amusement. "The problem isn't going back, it's that you erase where you started from-at least, from your point of view. It's observer effect, don't you know? Even seeing it first-hand, changes it, cancels your starting point."
“So I could theoretically go back, prevent all of this, but in doing so I’d never see you or any of the other people I’ve come to care about in this time ever again.”
"Imagine being able to go back, and stop Richard." Hannah told her, "Of course, there will be unforeseen outcomes. Drop a big rock in a river, the river diverts around it. Changing the past can have knock-ons you wouldn't anticipate, but the general flow? That's predictable." “And there’s no guarantee I could keep trying if I divert too much of the river.”
"Is it worth trying, or should I shut up now?" Hannah asked.
“I think I know where to drop the rock. If I fail, well at least it won’t matter to everyone here.”
"We won't exist, so it won't be noticed." Hannah said, "I killed billions figuring that out."
“Then we better be quick before we’re interrupted by the guards.”
"We have all the time in the universe." Hannah corrected, "Check your pocket."
Helena fished into her various pockets until she found something she didn’t remember putting in any of them.
"There you are, Helena, simplified. Input the date and hyperspace coordinates, connect it to a jump drive, and you're off." Hannah told her, "Happy un-birthday party."
“Thank you, Hannah. I wish I could bring you with me.”
"You might see me…or a version of me, anyway. Good luck."
“Won’t be you. I love you.”
"I love you too, and you deserve to be happy." Hannah told her. "Scuttle on then, you're racing my father."
“Yes I am.” Helena nodded and made for the door.
Helena stood over the navigational board.
“You sure you’re okay with doing this Jane? I can always find another ship.”
“The loss of family I have made for myself versus what we could prevent? While I love them dearly and will miss them I am certain. The worst case scenario is that this reality will continue without us. While it will be terrible in the short term it will find its own way. If we’re successful, the trillions of lives we will improve will be worth it.”
Helena’s other hand went to her lower abdomen.
“It’s a bold plan. High risk but high reward. The memories I have unlocked from the misjump that brought us to this time combined with Hannah’s discoveries, we have everything we need now to give trillions better lives” Jane reassured.
“I wonder how far back we’ll be erased.”
“It can be anything from us never being born at all up to the day we go back to.” Jane nodded.
“Then I need to stop stalling.”
I hope I’m right about this. I need to approach this as if I only have one rock.
She inserted the object to the readerport and tapped in the time space coordinates she had decided upon.
/\/\/\/\uNrEaLItY/\/\/\/\
"...one of the greatest conspiracy theories from the Star League era revolves around the effective disappearance of Helena Cameron and her older sister the same year their father died. While we know that Richard was the heir, and was raised by Aleksandr Kerensky, the fate of his sisters is the subject of rumors and speculations going back the nearly three centuries since the death of Simon Cameron.
It is truly one of history's great unsolved mysteries…"-Amanda Cartwright-Ngo, age 13
"What happened to the Cameron Sisters?" - 2981 entry into the outer system literature contest, 4th place
The End