Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (38 page)

Immediately behind him, Sergeant Weatherly guided the casket of Commander Montero, the Aurora’s original Executive Officer. Next was Vladimir escorting the casket of his mentor, the original Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Patel. Finally, there was Jessica, who stoically guided the casket carrying the remains of her trusted friend, Ensign Enrique Mendez of Special Operations.

In fact, nearly all of the Aurora’s surviving crew had come down, in the best uniforms they could manage, to accept the gracious offer from the Corinairans to bury their fallen warriors amongst the Corinairan heroes of the past. Only a handful had remained behind to man the ship, which was not going anywhere due to the amount of damage it had sustained in recent days. The Corinari, who were well aware that there were Takaran agents still operating on Corinair, had insisted on assigning a full company of men to guard the Aurora and keep her safe.

When number of surviving members of the Aurora’s crew had proved insufficient to escort her dead, members of the Corinari eagerly volunteered to do the honors. They had mixed in nicely with the Aurora’s crew, and it sent a message of cooperation and respect to both their peoples.

The decision to bury their dead here on this alien world so far away from their birth place had been difficult for Nathan. In the end, the decision had been a political one, as the Corinairans had been rather insistent on bestowing such honors upon the Aurora’s fallen crew.

Nathan suspected that the event would be a cathartic one for his people. They needed to get over the trauma of the last two weeks. They needed to move on. If they had been back on Earth, they all would have been required to report for stress debriefing. Out here, the luxury of that type of psychotherapy was not available. They still had much work to do in the days ahead. They had a ship to repair and they had a war to fight. Nathan only hoped the Corinairans would be able to provide the assistance they needed in order to accomplish their goals and somehow, eventually, get home again.

The procession reached the first empty grave sites along the walk. As they did so, the bagpipes ended their repetitive melody, leaving only the drums pounding their incessant beat as the two columns of casket bearers continued on until the last casket reached the first empty grave site. With a heavy strike of the drums the beat ended and the procession stopped. The bearers rotated their caskets ninety degrees inward toward the center of the broad walkway and then stepped backward until the caskets were positioned over the open grave sites.

A new beat started and the bagpipes began a burial hymn. In unison, the caskets began to descent toward the gravesites below them. The caskets themselves were equipped with levitation devices that Nathan guessed worked on principles similar to the artificial gravity plating they used on board the Aurora. It was something that had been discussed on Earth but had yet to be tested in practical applications. The devices were being controlled remotely, and the presence of pallbearers had been more for show and tradition than for anything else.

As the caskets began their descent, Nathan and the others stepped back, all in unison with the hundreds of pallbearers performing their duties that day. Then he felt the urge, as usual, to ‘wing it’, as Jessica would say.

“Crew of the Aurora,” he bellowed, “AH-TEN-SHUN!” Every member of the Aurora’s crew in attendance snapped to attention at their grave sites. “COMPANY, SA-LUTE!” Again, in perfect unison, the members of the Aurora’s crew raised their hands to the side of their heads in perfect military salute, holding it until the caskets reached the bottom, and Nathan dropped his hand back to his side. Following Nathan’s example, the Corinari had repeated the same gesture for their own fallen comrades. Finally, all the dead heroes were laid to rest. Normally, their holographic projectors would have already been active and would be displaying their images. Recent events, however, had made it impossible to get such measures in place in time. The Corinairans promised that, eventually, every member of the Aurora’s crew would have a holographic image on display as well. That thought alone had made Nathan feel much better than he had expected.

As previously instructed, the pallbearers assembled in the center of the broad path and marched up to the front of the podium that had been erected in the middle of the Walk of Heroes. Several hundred of them lined up several rows deep along either side of the walkway, with the twenty members of the crew of the Aurora that had attended in the front row. They stood there proudly as the Prime Minister of Corinair, who was eventually confirmed as the most senior surviving member of the government, made a moving speech in Corinairan. Jalea and Tug, who had come along, were standing behind Nathan and the others, allowing Jalea to translate for the crew of the Aurora. The Prime Minister spoke of the hardships they had all endured over the last few days, and he spoke of the difficult times that lay ahead of them. He recalled the decisions his predecessors had made to surrender to the Ta’Akar thirty-five years ago in order to prevent their complete destruction. He told the people of Corinair that a new parliament would have to be formed in order to begin discussions on how to handle the current crisis as well as the looming threat that the Ta’Akar now presented. He spoke of the possibility of maintaining the peace through reasonable negotiations, and how he believed that the inappropriate actions of one Takaran nobleman did not have to unravel decades of peace and prosperity.

The crowd was not buying the Prime Minister’s opinions as he might have hoped. Even Nathan, who did not speak a word of Corinairan, could tell that the crowd was growing more discontented with each word the Prime Minister spoke.

“What the hell is this guy talking about?” Nathan whispered as he stood at parade rest, his hands held squarely behind his back like everyone else in the formation. “Peace with the Ta’Akar? Does he really believe that’s possible after all that’s happened here?”

“He is looking for a way out for his world,” Tug said. “He doesn’t believe the people will support going to war. He doesn’t think the people believe they can win.”

“You mean
he
doesn’t believe they can win,” Jessica corrected.

“If these people aren’t willing to fight, then what the hell are we doing here?” Nathan wondered.

“They are willing to fight,” Tug promised him. “They just need someone to lead them.”

Nathan looked at the crowd. They were continuing to grow impatient, some of them beginning to talk amongst themselves in louder and more disgruntled tones. Nathan recognized one of the Corinari, the man from the airship that had taken them on that wild ride from the Aitkenna spaceport to the command center. It was Chief Montrose. He had carried his brother to be buried here today, just as Nathan and his people had carried their shipmates. Their eyes met and the chief nodded respectfully. Without warning, the chief yelled, “Na-Tan!” at the top of his lungs.

The Prime Minister stumbled momentarily in his speech but did not stop. A strange look of surprise made its way into his expression for a moment before the politician in him overcame the momentary distraction and he returned to his confident and serious demeanor.

Someone else in the ranks did the same, hollering, “Na-Tan!” Nathan looked around but couldn’t see who had yelled the second time. Then there was a third, this time someone in the general crowd. Then a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth.

Chief Montrose stepped forward and began yelling, “Na-Tan!” over and over until the entire crowd eventually joined in.

Nathan was astonished by the chanting. It was just as it had happened before, when he had first arrived at the Aitkenna spaceport after the initial bombardment and subsequent battle with the Yamaro. But that had been a few thousand people at the most. This was tens of thousands of people, and they were all chanting his name, or at least the legendary version of it.

“I think they want you to speak,” Jessica yelled.

Nathan looked at Tug. The man had become somewhat of a father figure to Nathan over the past week.

“They just need someone to lead them, Nathan,” Tug repeated, “and that someone is you.”

“How can I lead these people? I know nothing about them. I don’t even speak their language.”

“More of them speak Angla than you might think,” Tug assured him, “and I will translate for the rest. I do have some experience in speaking to large crowds, even Corinairan ones.”

Nathan looked at him again, his eyes pleading. “None of this was supposed to happen this way.”

“You can’t outrun your fate, Nathan,” Tug reminded him. “Sooner or later, it catches up to you.”

Nathan turned around to look at Vladimir.

As usual, Vladimir flashed a smile his way. “Go, Nathan. You can do this.”

Nathan looked back out to the crowd chanting his name. He took a deep breath, pulled his uniform shirt down to present as good an image as the worn uniform allowed, and he took his first step forward on his way to the podium.

The crowd roared in approval. Half of them were screaming, the other half were still chanting, “Na-Tan!” as he made his way to the podium, with Tug following closely behind.

The Prime Minister had already given up trying to finish his speech and stepped back out of the way, gesturing with both hands enthusiastically toward Nathan. It was obvious to him now what the people of Corinair wanted, and what they needed; and it wasn’t him.

Nathan stepped up to the podium as the crowds continued to cheer. He waved to them, just as he had seen his father do countless times in the past at any one of the numerous political speeches he had been forced to attend. Now he was thankful that he had done so. He continued to wave for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, his waves became gestures pleading for the noise to die down so that he could speak. The cheering eventually subsided, leaving only the repetitive chants of “Na-Tan”. Finally, those too fell in volume to an almost whispered chant before they died out completely.

At that moment, as he was about to open his mouth, every speech ever recorded in Earth history, from both before and after the great bio-digital plague, came flooding back into Nathan’s mind. He was a student of history; it had been his subject of study during his higher education back on Earth. He had read speeches from men and women, both great and small, from all the pivotal moments through the course of humanity on that small blue planet from whence they had all come. Many of them were simply variations of the same theme; the very same theme that was at the root of this pivotal moment in, not only the Corinairan history, but in the history of the entire Pentaurus cluster. At that moment, Nathan knew exactly what he had to say.

“History is replete with struggles between good and evil, between right and wrong, between freedom and oppression. These battles are not new to the human animal. The spirit that is humanity must be fed. It must be nurtured. It must be loved. But above all else, it must be respected. Any person who tries to put themselves above humanity and impose their will, their beliefs, upon the body of humanity shall be defeated. It may take years. It may take decades. It may take centuries. In the case of the great plague that forced your migration to the Pentaurus cluster, it took a millennia. But it was defeated.”

Nathan looked out across the great park, scanning the sea of faces. He recognized only a few of them, but he noticed a familiarity in them all. They were just as he was. They were distraught. They were traumatized, and they needed something to believe in.

“The Ta’Akar came after us for one reason, and it was not because we represent a truth that their leader had been denying for over a century. They came after us because they knew that our ability to jump between the stars represented the most powerful weapon imaginable. They knew that if they could capture that technology and incorporate it into their own ships, they could conquer not only the Pentaurus cluster, but quite possibly the entire galaxy. But more importantly, they knew that the very same technology could also be the key to their ultimate defeat. For the jump drive is more than just a way to travel amongst the heavens. The jump drive is hope—hope for an Earth reborn and for worlds oppressed. It is hope for our future. And
hope
is the most powerful weapon imaginable.”

The crowds again cheered a mixture of affirmations and the recurring chant of “Na-Tan”. After a minute, Nathan again motioned for quiet, a gesture that was eventually obeyed by the masses in attendance.

“Many great men over history have reminded us that the price of freedom is the blood of those that seek it. Today, the people of Corinair, the crew of the Aurora, and volunteers from the crew of the Yamaro have all made the first payments. It is now time for us all to pay the balance due. You have been held down under the boot of Caius for far too long. The time to fight is NOW!”

The previous cheers and chants were nothing compared to the final approval now offered by the tens of thousands gathered on the Walk of Heroes. Their ovation roared as a mighty thunder that shook the morning dew from the trees. The people of Corinair were united once again, and they were ready to follow their new leader, the one they called Na-Tan.

* * *

Nathan sat in a comfortable chair next to Cameron’s hospital bed where she still lay in an unconscious state. The doctors of Corinair had spent hours in surgical repairs of her broken body. They had even coaxed millions of microscopic nanites to repair the damaged portions of her brain, but even with all their medical wonders, in the end, it all came down to a waiting game. Commander Taylor would either come out of her coma with all her mental faculties intact, or she would spend the rest of her days in a comatose state. She had shown signs of waking for more than a day now, and the doctors felt comfortable enough to predict that she might wake up at anytime.

Nathan had nearly refused to attend the funeral ceremonies, preferring instead to be at Cameron’s side should she suddenly wake. In the end, Vladimir had convinced him that his duty was first to his crew, and second to the people of Corinair. Although his friend assured Nathan that Cameron would understand, it was not until Abby had agreed to come down and stay by Cameron’s side in his absence that he finally agreed to fulfill his obligations at the funeral.