END of LINE: Humanities Last Stand - part 3 (36 page)

Why am I here? He wondered. The doors opened and Jon walked through only to find a long hallway with paintings along each wall. They showed beautiful landscapes, armored warriors, beautiful females, and the last painting seemed to change before his eyes. He knew each of them because his ancestor had taken them from the cave and brought them to the house. Jon had
loaded them onto the shuttle and brought them with him when he left the house on Haven. Finally he came to the painting he had looked at many times. It
began as a painting of a tall handsome male dressed in silver and black armor, holding a flaming sword in one hand while his other was wrapped around the
beautiful female at his side. Behind them stood a gleaming city of gold. Next the painting showed his ancestor with his mate and the youngling they raised
together. The youngling was Jon's great, great grandfather. Finally the painting became him and Satrina with Talga sitting next to them. In one hand Jon
held a flaming sword while his other arm was pulling Satrina tightly to his side and she had her hands resting on his chest. She was wearing the Connell
House colors and had chosen the most beautiful gown of them all. She looked like the Queen that she was destined to be. The look of absolute love on her
face brought tears to his eyes even though he knew he was sleeping in a tube in the Med Lab on Leviathan. It was exactly as it had been the day it changed
when he had given Satrina his house colors. Still it had changed again because what had been a blurred area above his mountain home now clearly showed the
image of Leviathan surrounded by stars. Jon now wore a black cape, edged in the gold braid of a Master Swordsman, with a hood that covered his face and
instead of the look of innocence that he had before, now the image showed his face as a mask of rage and pain. He was the Death to Satrina's life. The
darkness to her light. The hate to her love. Jon suddenly realized that the look on Satrina's face was not one of love, it was one of a person pleading for
someone to return to the innocence that once was. “I'M NOT THE ONE WHO TURNED AWAY! SHE REJECTED ME!” he screamed out in the dream.

“Take a care Warrior” an angry voice called to him. “The time comes when you must decide to forgive. If you can not, my ship will betray you and you will
be he of the painting knowing only darkness and death when love is calling.”

Then the male voice was gone and Jon was left alone looking at the painting that had changed back to the Umin King and his beautiful Queen with their
golden city behind them. In the sky high above that part of the image that had always been just a blur slowly became sharper until Jon realized that the
painting was of a massive ship far out in space! The ship was the Galaxiey!

Who did the voice belong to and what did he mean HIS SHIP? Was he the Umin King who was the ship's first Commander? Why was he dreaming? His mind was
supposed to be a blank while he was in the tube. Someone was calling,

“ADMIRAL! Wake up sir. Admiral Connell, I need you to wake up now.” the Healer was saying as he stood over Jon. “That's it sir. Wake up now. Medic, bring
me the nutrient drink. Here sir, try to sit up and drink this.”

Jon was feeling dopey and not at all alert. His mind wanted to go back to sleep. The Healer was forcing a straw into his mouth and telling him to drink. He
tried to tell the male that he was not thirsty but his voice was a rattling squeak without words forming through it. He took a sip of whatever the Healer
was trying to give him. It was cool and soothing as it went down his throat. It tasted of something nasty that had been found dead along a road side. He
started to feel more like himself, so he took another sip of the vile liquid the Healer kept insisting he drink. He was starting to feel more alive and his
vision began to clear. Another sip and his taste buds decided that he'd had enough of the foul tasting slop in the glass. He pushed it away and tried to
speak again. “What happened? Where am I?” he weakly asked.

“Well Admiral, welcome back. You really need to drink the nutrient. You've been in the tube for two months with only the liquids we could give you
intravenously to sustain you. It will be sometime yet before you can eat solid food.”

“You mean I have to drink all of this engine lubricant?” Jon asked.

“I'm sorry for the taste sir.” Healer Hukor told him. “You are the first to use the tubes since the humans used them to get to Haven. We had no way to
foresee how you would react. We only knew that you would need the vitamins and minerals in that drink when you woke.”

“The dream said I have to learn to forgive. So I'll forgive you, but only if the next one of these cocktails you give me tastes more like bacon and eggs
instead of gear lube!” Jon told the Healer jokingly as he took another sip and his face twisted up into a scowl.

“I can't promise you bacon and eggs, but a nice Delouvian salad maybe.” the healer joked back. “Of course it will be a terrible brown color that looks more
like what is left behind after a case of diarrhea.”

“Did it work?” Jon asked. “Can I walk again?”

“Why don't you try for yourself and find out?”

Jon carefully slid off the table placing his bare feet on the deck and feeling the cool metal under them for the first time in nearly a cycle. He took a
tentative step and feeling no pain he tried another, then another and another until he was prancing around the Med Lab with a huge smile on his face. “I
think it fixed my back!” he finally told the Healer. “I can feel my legs and feet again. I also have no pain in my back at all!”

“Good, very good” the Healer told him. “Still, I want you to take it easy. Your body is still weak from being in the tube for two months and you haven't
really used you own legs since the Canari raid over a full cycle ago. You'll need to rebuild your strength. Drink.” Jon took another sip of the nasty
liquid the Healer kept insisting he drink. “Admiral, nothing more than walks from the command bridge to med labs or the mess room at first, and always have
your wheelchair close. Don't over do it. You'll tire yourself too quickly and probably fall down. You're much too large of a male for most of your crew to
be able to pick up.” Looking directly at Jon, the Healer continued, “Whatever you do, do not fall in front of your Chief Flight Engineer. Captain Phillmma
has been in here every day since we put you under. That female has a very foul mouth on her when she is unhappy! If you fall and she cannot lift you, I
hate to think how she will terrorize the crew because they let you be so foolish. She already has that Libirian warrior they call Jackal wrapped around her
fingers! He follows her around like a lost youngling!” Pointing at the drink again the Healer made lifting motions and Jon took another sip. Finally
resigned to his fate, he popped the straw lid off the glass and downed the entire thing in a few gulps.

“AAARRRRHHHH!” he roared “I should find the person responsible for that stuff and throw them out of the nearest air lock!”

“Actually I am responsible for that stuff” the Healer proudly told him. “It is high in nutrients and easily digested. Its perfect for people recovering
from an extended period of deep sleep.”

“It tastes like yesterday's garbage!” Jon complained.

“I'll work on that some more.” the Healer promised and then handed Jon his clothes. “Get dressed. I don't need my female assistants dreaming about the huge
human all day and all night instead of doing their work.” Pointing at Jon's maleness he asked, “How do you ever manage to use all of that?”

“Very carefully at first, then with extreme vigor and lustiness.” Jon smiled as he remembered his time with Satrina. The thought of her for even an instant
took the smile away from his face. He was lost without her, and she would never be his again. She was to be the Queen after all and he was just a human
Warrior. Not at all a proper mate for the Lexonian Queen. “So, how much younger am I now? Should I wear a youngling's covers?”

“No warrior. You didn't grow any younger in the tube. Maybe a few minutes, but that's all. You weren't in there long enough,” the Healer told him, “but it
did fix a small problem in your heart. One of the wounds you received was very close to your heart, too close for your military healers to fix, so they
left it to heal on its own. It was one of the reasons why you'd get tired so easily. The tube fixed it and now your heart is as healthy as it was before
the raid. Then there is this.” the Healer told him as he showed Jon a tablet with a picture of his back. “Not only are the scars mostly gone, but you now
carry the image of a fierce dragon. It wasn't there before and no one can explain how you ended up with it. I took these scans just before we woke you up
and it was there just as you see it.”

“I never knew anything was wrong with my heart.” Jon said slightly surprised by the news that he'd had anything wrong physically with his heart. “Did
someone decide to use me as a place to paint?”

“You probably wouldn't have noticed your heart as long as you didn't stress yourself. With your legs not able to do the work as they normally would, you
were only using half your strength and only experiencing half the normal stress.” The Healer paused before saying; “Now that your legs are working again,
you'll begin to feel the effort of using them much more than before your spine was nearly severed. At least until you build your strength back. That's when
you'll start to notice your heart working harder to keep your blood flowing. You're still not totally recovered; remember what I've told you. Take it
slowly at first and build yourself up gradually. You'll be back to your old self in just a few months if you do. If you try to stress yourself too much,
you'll end up back in the tube and then drinking more of my miracle nutrient!

Now get dressed and get out of my Med Lab before my female assistants decide to rape you!” the Healer joked. “As far as the dragon image.. Only the makers
of this ship know how that happened or why. The same thing happened to your ancestor and many of the other humans of that time.”

“What are you taking about?” Jon asked.

“Before we decided to try this on you, we went over all the old medical logs from the last people to use these tubes.” the healer told him. “It seems that
the last ones in them were the humans from Earth in what they called the Sol system. The original
Jon Connell
went in them as a terribly wounded
warrior and came out with his back healed and the same dragon image on his back as you now have. If you're interested, I can show you the records. Your
ancestor must have been the strongest warrior to have ever fought in any battle. His battle marks covered his entire back and some even wrapped around to
his chest. What we here in medical thought was interesting was his back had the same spinal injury as yours did. Also, instead of his heart being damaged,
it was one of his lungs. Of course, he'd had several cycles of recovery behind him and he could walk again whereas you had only just started to walk with
the eckto-frames.

Everything I've seen in the records and now on your back just confirms something I suspected from that very first series of tests I ran on your blood. You
carry Umin blood in your veins Admiral Connell. You were born with it. I have no doubts about that now.”

If felt good to be able to stand and walk without those hated eckto-frames Jon thought as he pushed the wheelchair in front of him on his way to the mess
room. The Healer was right Jon was hungry. There had to be something to satisfy his hunger that didn't taste like what was usually flushed in the relief
chambers. He was also getting very tired and every step was getting harder and harder to take. He had made it down one corridor, taken the elevator and now
was forcing himself to keep going for the few more steps to reach the mess room doors.

Pushing the doors open with the wheelchair in front of him, Jon barely managed to turn the chair so he could fall into it with a sigh of exhaustion. He
felt his heart pounding as if he had just run all morning instead of taking a short walk and an elevator ride. He was just starting to calm his gasps for
breath when both Phillie and Jarrieal rushed over to him. “Boss?” Phillie looked worried. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah sis, I'll be fine. I just pushed too far.” Jon reassured her.

“The Healer just commed me to say he'd released you.” Phillie said. “Why didn't you go to your stateroom and relax?”

“Because I'm starving and I was hoping to find something I can eat instead that glop the Healer gave me.” Jon confessed.

“I know just the thing.” Jarrieal told him. “Its called chicken noodle soup. I haven't got any idea what a chicken noodle is, but Jinkly found several packages
of the stuff in with the other food stocks in storage and its still good. I've been eating it with every meal. Jinkly always has some on the serving line.
Everyone loves the stuff. You go over to the table and I'll get you some.”

“I'll take him,” Phillie announced. “Make sure you bring some of that stuff Jinkly calls bread too.” She instructed Jarrieal. “Jon, how did it work? Are
you whole again?” she asked while she pushed Jon in the wheelchair over to a table that already had Phillie and Jarrieal's trays sitting on it.

“Maybe.. The Healer says I need to take things slowly and this little experiment showed me that he is right.” Jon told her. “Phillie, I got up and walked
here from Medical. No frames and I pushed this chair the entire way too until I fell into it just now.” Jon beamed. “I guess it did some good because I
know I couldn't manage that before.”

Phillie's smile turned into a frown. “Jon Connell. You will do what the Healer tells you to do. I need you, heck we all need you to get strong, but it
doesn't have to happen today. DO YOU HEAR ME JON CONNELL!?!?”

“Yes Boss.” Jon smiled at her and she slapped him only to pull her hand away and yelp.

“Damn! I forgot how muscle bound you are. That hurt.”

Jon and Jarrieal both laughed while Jarrieal placed a steaming bowl of the soup in front of Jon before taking a seat next to Phillie. “Want me to make it
better?” Jarrieal asked her.