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ES05 - Eternal Sunder (part 05): The Eye of Time
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 20 December 2003, 5:34 AM
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Note: This is part 5 to Wado's Eternal Sunder series.
The Eye of Time
In falling depths no reason given, she dwells in eternal night, not in heaven. "Hello darkness, my old friend."
"Hello, John my sweet Spartan. I shall not forget you in the bitter end."
John had forgotten what it was like to see an Archon in true light: A vision beyond simple description, frightening beauty and a wicked grin. Long has she cloaked it for his sake but this was not her, it was the memory of her. In full focus she did stand. Dark hair with strands of gold, silver eyes as gray as the night sky and as piercing as an eagle's stare, that was all that could be said for mere words cannot do justice.
"Kira!" shouted John into the now emptiness. Coldness penetrated deep to his spine, there was nothing. Nothing of her but fading memories -- Eternal emptiness, eternal sunder.
"She is gone, John," said the unexpected voice of the Lady. "For our sake you must now wake." John's eyes opened a dozen times, each time into another dream until finally his sight was blurred and he began to feel his breathing. Consciousness came. There before him was the darkened image of the tentacle-faced Nomdian, the Lady.
"We are safe for the moment, John," soothed the Lady. "I have given you nutrients and soon you will be recovered."
John smiled. The young Nomdian was thousands of years his elder but John still pictured her as a child. He did not need to ask, for she could see it in his mind, but for comfort he uttered the question, "More importantly, how am I alive?"
The Lady laid her hands on John explaining, "Moments before your impending demise, I was sent coordinates from Kira. We transported to that location to find you in battle with Cortana. I used my mind powers to cloak our presence until I could find a safe escape. I found this place and brought us all here with less than a split second to spare."
"And Princess Kira?" uttered John with a glimpse of hope.
"She did not make it," replied the Lady, "but her demise allowed us to survive."
"My Lady," started an unsure John, "why do I not remember her?"
"I have suppressed your memories of her," coldly stated the Lady. "I am sorry John, but you were so close in spirit that her loss had left you only a shell of whom you were, to live in a devastated dream state."
John sat up to meet the smiles of his friends. Max the mighty Imperial Elite hugged John and then Croaker the study Sauran gave John a solid smack on the back for good measure. Even that floating blue light, Sparky, fluttered around in glee. But none of this prepared John for what was said next.
"Good to have you back, Chief," said the disembodied voice of Cortana. John felt anger towards this voice but he could not remember why. He quickly looked around and focused on a small box with a strange moving energy sphere contained within it. On the outside of the box, John clearly observed an old storage and processing chip of human design.
"John, before you go jumping to conclusions, let me explain," stated the Lady. "That is the core of our former ship, Eternity's Sunder. It is all we could salvage before the nano-virus destroyed the rest. The core cannot survive without help and it is too complex for Sparky. Cortana was our only hope for fixing it. Her original chip did not scan as being infected by the nano-virus so I transported it with us."
"It's quite amazing," interrupted Sparky. "Due to the combination of Cortana's advanced thought processes and her extreme emotions, the nano-virus could not infect her."
"Are you saying Cortana wasn't infected because she was insane?" commented John.
"More or less..." replied Sparky.
"Thanks for the support, Sparky," interjected Cortana. "Look Chief, I'm truly sorry for everything, my mother didn't raise me to be a rampant bitch, it just happened. But now, because of that, we have discovered a way to defeat the Biomechs. There's only one slight complication."
"Slight complication?" added John.
"Actually, a major complication Chief," clarified Cortana. "The Biomechs have this whole planet surrounded and we are buried a hundred kilometers underground. It is only a matter of time before they find us."
"And oh what a place this is friend," interjected Croaker. His reptilian skin tingled as if sparked by magic. "This is a protected bubble of life inside ancient caverns created by a long dead race. A sanctuary built for the sole purpose of studying a portal, a Portal of the Old Ones."
John felt the power that surged nearby. The Old Ones were the first ones, dwellers of billions of years ago. "A portal," started John. "A Portal of the Old Ones here on Neep 3? Can we use it to get out of here?"
"We can," replied the Lady, "only there is a problem. This particular portal is locked to a time tunnel. It can only lead us to one place and one time. We have been discussing the ramifications of this quandary, John. I believe I have an answer."
"By all means my Lady, fill me in," said John.
As the Lady speaks with glowing purple orbs for eyes, she stares into oblivion saying, "As theorized, the science of the Old Ones was the science of paradox. All that we cannot comprehend as possible is what worked for them. Long did they attempt to master all, including the paradox of time. They traveled through time using Shadows of themselves but their true self was still locked into a time continuum until such a time as the true self perished. You have Shadows of yourself John as do many Archons that used the portals during the Great Shadow Wars."
The Lady gazed around and then continued, "However, what we have here is not something noted even by the Shadows of Archon. This portal leads to a nexus where time stopped approximately nine-hundred thousand years ago. If we enter this portal we will enter that time and all the future we know will be a shadow. Something very important must have happened nine-hundred thousand years ago for the portal to have frozen that moment in time."
"Chief," interjected Cortana. "The only thing keeping us alive is the fact that the Biomechs have not found us. They will not destroy this planet without knowing first if we are here. It is not in their nature to make assumptions."
"How long do we have until they find us?" asked John.
"Odds are that in twenty to thirty-two minutes one of their detailed scans hits this area," replied Cortana.
"My Lady, when we go through the portal, will she be there?" asked John.
"The records are a bit obscured but most likely that time is well before her first incarnation," stated the Lady.
John stood up and paced saying, "You must forgive me, I don't remember her but I had to know."
His long time friend Max comforted John. "Yes we all do miss Princess Kira, John," Max said, "but we do what we must."
"What are we waiting for?" remarked John. Then he walked towards the giant archway filled with multi-colored energies. The Portal of the Old Ones spewed energy towards John as if to blend with him or suck him in.
"Chief, we are ready," said Cortana. "However, when the Biomechs discover this portal they will send units to investigate. I just finished the calculations to make it very difficult for them to trace where we are going."
The Lady gazed toward Cortana. "It should buy us some time," the Lady said, "but realize that although the time tunnel closes once we use it, there will still be an active portal in the hands of the Biomechs."
"You should all be going now," added Cortana.
"Hold on," ordered John. "You say that like you aren't coming with us."
"I'm not, Chief," replied Cortana through sad eyes. "The Lady is right, we leave an active portal and Biomechs can use it to send Shadows of themselves everywhere, including after us. If I don't go I can lock down the portal and then..."
"And then what?" demanded John.
"And then I use Eternity's Sunder's core to create a bomb, a super-bomb to blow myself up and everything around."
"This war has enough dead heroes," commented John.
"You've changed Chief," said Cortana.
"Have I?" questioned John. "Don't forget that there is some reason that the Archons put a sleeper in my ancestors and Sparky chose me as a Reclaimer. That same something caused Princess Kira and the Great Council to appoint me as leader of this group. There is something inside of me and that something is telling me that we don't leave anyone behind, and that's an order."
"I can't believe you would pull rank at a time like this," uttered Cortana. "Well I wasn't part of your mission, was I? You aren't the boss of me, Chief."
Max the mighty Imperial Elite stepped forward. He began to speak, slowly at first, but with intensity. "Cortana, you are as hard-headed and beautiful as ever. We all chose John as leader. Once you also believed in something inside of him. Once you had faith."
"Max, faith is for the weak that can't handle the harsh truth," snapped Cortana.
"Yet after hundreds of years you still call him Chief," remarked Max. "A reference to a rank he has not used in quite some time. Is that not a sign that deep inside of you there is faith -- The faith that past wrongs will be made right. And is it not true that you still place that faith in the one you call Chief?"
"One can still hope and yearn for more innocent times," replied Cortana. "I only wish there was another way."
"There is," bellowed Croaker. "You know this already, but I will say it again. Saurans are the children of the Old Ones. Our mind can almost comprehend the science of paradox; it is possible for a Sauran, like myself, to remotely lock down a portal if given enough time and the proper coordinates."
"That can be arranged," interjected the Lady.
"Let's go, all of us," said John.
Once again a team, the united friends headed into the portal. Next stop over nine-hundred thousand years into the past. All the universe became a shadow and eternity sundered.
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