Dean Wesley Smith - Final Fantasy, page 17
She opened her shirt and looked at the holographic image of the alien particles trapped in her chest. The membrane was still there, but the alien particles had vanished. In their place was a complete spirit wave.
“I have it!” she shouted. And she knew exactly what had happened.
“Aki?” Gray said, turning toward her. “Are you all right?”
He turned back and fired at another nearby Phantom.
“Gray, can you come in here closer?” she asked. “I need you.” Then she called for Dr. Sid. She was going to need his help as well.
Gray backed toward her, never taking his eye off the closest Phantom.
“Dr. Sid, are you there? The wave pattern is complete. It happened in the dream. It was the dream.”
“That is wonderful,” he said, his voice clear.
Aki rigged up a wire from her chest plate to the Quatro com system, downloading the information she had to Dr. Sid. “Data coming in. The spirit found me, Doctor.”
Gray killed two more Phantoms before Dr. Sid’s voice came back strong. “Oh, my word,” he said, clearly looking at the data she had sent him from her chest plate. “I see it now. How logical.”
Gray fired again, vaporizing another Phantom, then turned. “Well, I don’t understand. What is going on?”
Aki turned and started to work on the equipment just inside the Quatro door. “Give me an ovo-pack,” she said. “I need to power up the shield.”
“But we’ll be defenseless,” Gray said, looking at the last ovo-pack in his rifle. Aki could tell it was the last one. His other rifle lay discarded on the ground a few feet away.
“Just do it,” she said.
Gray pulled the ovo-pack out of his rifle and handed it to her.
“Get in,” she said, moving as fast as she could to get the shield up and running.
Gray climbed in and sat, alternately watching her and the Phantoms that were coming closer and closer. “I hope you know what you are doing.”
“I do,” she said, slapping the shield back to on position, hoping it would kick on quickly. “We have to project the completed wave from me out into the alien Gaia.”
“What?” Gray asked.
“Dr. Sid’s theory was right,” she said.
“Thank you,” Dr. Sid said over the com line.
“I’m cured. I have the eighth spirit.”
“Are you sure?” Gray asked as she got the last wire in place and hit the control for the shield to turn it on.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“But how could you know that?”
“A dream told me.”
He turned and looked at her, still clearly puzzled as she worked as fast as she could.
Around them the shield kicked on just as a Phantom slammed into the side of the Quatro. Sparks flew, but the golden, shimmering shield held.
“That was what I call close,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
“I might have been,” she said, pulling him toward her and reaching up to pull his head down for a kiss. “But does this feel dead?”
He couldn’t answer her, but she was pretty sure of his response.
After a moment she pulled away. “Now we have work to do.”
It took them ten more minutes, with some help from Dr. Sid, before they got the energy wave just the way they needed it, taken from her and put out through the Quatro’s shield to the alien Gaia.
“Ready?” she asked.
“I’ve been ready for years,” Gray said, checking over the control board in front of him.
Aki hit the switch and watched as, outside the Quatro, the new wave slowly started to purify the Phantom Gaia, turning it from an angry red to a wonderful, peaceful blue.
The same blue Aki was sure it had started out as, before all the fighting, before the destruction, before the long eons trapped in space.
Before the alien Gaia had become so angry.
Now it would only be a matter of time, and the alien Gaia would be at rest.
A moment later Aki realized they didn’t have the time.
“Incoming!”
Dr. Sid’s warning filled the small Quatro.
“Oh, no,” she said.
Gray yanked her to the floor, covering her and protecting her with his body as around them the world shook.
And then came apart.
General Hein sat in his command chair, watching the Zeus cannon fire on the alien creature in the crater. It had taken him longer than he had wanted to override the safety controls to get this shot. But now he wasn’t going to let up until the creature was gone from the face of the planet.
“Warning! System overload!”
“Would someone shut off that computer?” Hein shouted, not taking his attention from the screen and his target.
“Can’t, sir,” the major said.
“Warning! System overload.”
“We need to stop firing, sir!” Major Sinn yelled over the computer voice.
“No!” Hein said. He studied his board. He had complete control of the firing and he was going to keep at it.
“Warning! System overload!”
“It must be done!” Hein shouted, keeping the beam firing into the creature. He wasn’t going to let up until it was gone, no matter what damage it caused to this weapon. The damage could be fixed after the alien Phantoms were gone.
“Warning! Warning! Warning!”
“Contain that, Major,” Hein said, “whatever the problem is.”
The Major said nothing.
One soldier from the back of the room shouted, “Major, we have ovo-packs staring to react.”
“General, we must shut down!”
“Warning! Warning! Warning! All personnel to emergency evacuation posts.”
Suddenly the weapon shut down.
General Hein stared at the screen. The alien was still there.
He stabbed at the controls on the panel in front of him, trying to get the cannon to fire again.
“Warning! All personnel report to evacuation posts at once.”
General Hein turned to stare at Major Sinn. “What is that blasted computer talking about?”
Sinn just pointed out the side port at the ovo-pack containment area of the station. As Hein watched, the entire section of the station exploded.
The station rocked and then went dark. Hein barely kept himself in his command chair.
A moment later the emergency power came back up, followed by the screens and control boards. Maybe not all was lost.
Major Sinn righted himself and looked at the general. “You’ve killed us all, you know?”
“How do you mean that, Major?”
The station again shook.
This time the explosion was closer and harder.
Major Sinn did not answer.
Another explosion shut the lights off for good and rocked the command area like a hard earthquake.
This time Hein didn’t manage to stay in his chair.
He flew across the room in the zero g, smashing into a control panel.
A moment later, the last explosion ripped the entire station apart.
General Hein didn’t even know what hit him.
Below the station, the angry red colors of the alien Gaia pulsed and surged and expanded out of the crater.
chapter 27
Aki came to lying faceup on the rock surface, one arm dangling over the fissure that lead down to the Earth’s Gaia. Her head hurt and her back hurt, and she was bleeding from both elbows and a dozen other cuts and scrapes.
But she was still alive.
She pushed herself to her feet and looked up. The alien Gaia was red and angry-looking over her. The wave they had started had been stopped by the firing of the cannon. At least for the moment, the smaller Phantoms were not around. But she had no doubt they would be soon.
Aki turned to see if she could see Gray and the Quatro. Then she understood how she had gotten outside of it. The machine had been smashed and crumpled.
Panic washed through her. He couldn’t be in there. No one could survive in that kind of twisted metal.
“Gray!” She started to run toward the wreck when she saw him leaning against a rock ten meters away. Quickly she scrambled to him.
The closer she got, the more she could tell he was hurt badly. Blood was dripping out of the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were rolled up into his head. His breathing was shallow and raspy. He clearly had internal injuries.
“Gray!” she shouted as she knelt beside him. “Don’t leave me, Gray!”
His head rolled forward and he opened his eyes slowly. A weak smile followed when he saw her. “I told Dr. Sid this was a one-way trip. Looks like I was right.”
Aki held him against her, trying to keep him conscious. She couldn’t let him go. He couldn’t die.
She searched around her for any sign of the communications link she had been carrying. It was nowhere to be found. And even if she could find it, Dr. Sid couldn’t get the ship down there through that Gaia.
“Well,” he said, his head rolling a little. This feels like a fine time to leave. I love you, you know.”
“I know,” she said, holding him even tighter. “But you can’t leave. Hang on, please. I need you!”
“Aki,” he said, closing his eyes. “Don’t.”
“No, listen to me,” she said, not letting him talk. “I’ve still got the alien wave inside of me. I need your help getting it into the alien Gaia.”
His eyes opened again, and he looked at her, blinking in a effort to clear away the fog.
“That’s right,” she said. “I still have it. All I need to do is reach up and touch the alien. The wave inside me will transfer.”
Aki looked at him. His eyes were there, his mind for the moment was there. She could see that. But the pain was clearly bad for him. She had to get him help. “Hold on, Gray. Help will come for you as soon as I’m done.”
“No!” he said, his voice firm. “I’m not going to make it, Aki.”
“You’re going to make it.” She couldn’t let him talk like that. He had to stay positive.
“We both know that isn’t true,” he said. He looked past her at the angry alien above them. Then he moved, trying to get into a position where he could get up.
“But I have an idea on how we can solve this and you can get out of here. Help me stand.”
“I don’t think-“
“Help me.” The command in his voice was back, and strong. “We need to make it to the edge.”
She looked over her shoulder at what he had seen, then started to understand what he was trying to do. “Gray, please.”
“Listen to me,” he said, leaning against her as his legs gained strength under him. “You saved my life once. Now I want you to save yourself. And this world.”
Gray held her around the shoulders, his weight against her. Then he turned her and together they moved to the edge of the massive crack in the ground. Below them the wonderful blue of the Earth’s Gaia was welcoming. Above was the angry, swirling red of the alien, expanding out and coming closer and closer every moment.
He pointed down to a ledge a few feet below where they were. “Jump down there and hold onto me.”
“Gray, no!” she said. She couldn’t handle the thought of being without him.
“Let me do this, Aki,” he said. “You have to trust me.”
He looked into her eyes, and she saw complete love. She did trust him. She just couldn’t lose him.
“Don’t leave me, Gray.”
He laughed, then coughed up more blood before going on. “You’ve been trying to tell me from the first day we met that death isn’t the end. Don’t back out on me now.”
She looked at him as he smiled.
“Now that I finally believe.”
He motioned that she should jump down onto the shelter of the lower rock ledge.
She did as she was told, landing on the ledge hard. Then she reached back up and touched his leg, holding onto him. She knew what he was doing was right, yet she didn’t want it to happen. There had to be another way.
One of the tentacles of the alien Gaia was swinging back and forth over his head.
He looked down at her as the angry red of the alien swept toward him.
“I love you,” he said.
The next moment the alien Gaia’s tentacle smashed into him.
And then through him.
His blue energy merged with the energy inside of her, pulling the wave out of her and up and into the alien Gaia.
For an instant, they were one.
Joined forever.
Then he was gone, his body slumped to the rock surface, dead.
“Gray!” she shouted, her scream echoing through the fissure.
It was sudden and clear, what was happening.
Gray had used his body to transfer the completed wave inside of her to the alien Gaia.
Now the light particles of the completed spirit wave swirled the alien Gaia into a wonderful whirlwind of blue color.
The color twisted upward, converting more and more of the angry Gaia as it went.
Higher and higher into the sky the beautiful blue energy flew.
Aki could feel it radiating from the Gaia. Love, understanding, peace.
The red of the anger was being transformed.
Aki watched as the Gaia slowly became a vertical river of blue and greens and silvers, all swirling upward toward the heavens.
The alien Gaia was leaving.
It had finally attained the peace it had never had on its homeworld. It was now going home again.
Aki watched until there wasn’t a particle of blue or green or silver left to be seen in the sky. Then she climbed up onto the ledge above and stood at the edge of the fissure, next to Gray’s body.
Below her the blue of the Earth’s Gaia was slowly settling back into the ground. She knew Gray was there now. He had died to save the planet.
She would make sure he was never forgotten.
epilogue
It took her a while to slowly climb up the side of the crater toward where Dr. Sid and the Black Boa were. Her shoulder ached, and she was bleeding from a dozen small cuts. But somehow she had to get out of there.
She looked back down the side of the crater. They were going to have to go back and get Gray’s body and give it a hero’s burial. But there would be time for that later.
Finally she reached the top edge and sat down to rest on the hard rock outcropping that looked out over the impact crater. The sun was slowly coming out from behind some clouds. The Zeus cannon had made the crater deeper, and destroyed the asteroid the alien had arrived on. Yet now the crater didn’t look as dead, as ruined as it had when she and Gray went down into it.
Over her head a hawk circled. Its cry made her look up at the wonderful blue sky. The clouds were gone and
the warm sun was shining. Not the heat of the alien sun, or the desert sun, but the comfort of a life-giving warmth. It felt good on her shoulders.
Below her feet a weed was growing out of a rock, sprouting so fast she could see it grow.
She looked around. Life of all kinds was taking hold again, sprouting as if pouring from the ground. Even in the impact crater she could see the green of weeds exploding in life from the barren earth that just a few hours before had held the anger of an entire alien planet’s Gaia.
The hawk cried again over her head, reminding her she had to move, to get things done that needed to be done.
“All right,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. A few hundred meters away, Dr. Sid was coming out of the hatch of the Black Boa. He knelt at once and studied the ground. Even from this distance, she could see the carpet of green springing up around the ship. She had to admit that, after all the years of always worrying about being killed by a Phantom, it felt strange to walk outside like this.
And even stranger to see green grass and plants growing wild.
She had no doubt it would take everyone time to learn again how to go into the fields and the mountains without fear. But the human race would eventually come out of its shell and live the life the planet was offering.
Gray had given the human race a great gift. He had given everyone back life.
Clearly, death was not the end. In Gray’s case it was the beginning.
About the Author
Dean Wesley Smith has written over sixty novels, among them the blockbuster novelization of the X-Men movie and a brand-new Spider-Man novel. Dean has been nominated for every major award in science fiction and fantasy, and has won the World Fantasy Award. In Star Trek, besides collaborating with Kristine Kathryn Rusch on the Star Trek: Voyager novels Shadow and Echoes, Dean has also written the Captain Proton novel, the original script for Star Trek: Klingon, and the very first Star Trek: SCE e-book, as well as books with two other authors. He also currently edits the ongoing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds new-writer anthologies.
Table of Contents
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 1 8
chapter 1 9
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
epilogue
The Spirits Within, Dean Wesley Smith - Final Fantasy
