The Last Hero (32 page)

Trenton stepped forward to introduce his offspring, pointing them out in turn. “My children are Samuel, Madison, and Bethany.”

As Trent exchanged pleasantries, Anna made her way to a flock of young teenagers taking care of several small children. The smallest rested in arms and clutched legs for extra security, given the presence of an unfamiliar man and woman.

“These are your great-great-grandchildren.” She placed a hand on the head of each one while announcing their names. “Jack here is the youngest at four. Kate is seventeen, Jessica is fifteen, Heidi is eight, Stephanie is twelve, Carl is nine, Matthew is twelve, Duane is ten, Dean is thirteen, and Cindy is five.”

This group remained still, offering only awkward grins. Trent, humbled standing before his genetic legacy, didn’t feel comfortable forcing the issue. Apparently, the need to connect with him eroded with each generation.

Anna continued, “The oldest is Susan. She’s twenty. She wanted to be here but couldn’t.”

Anna directed her glowing face behind Trent, focusing on Amanda as if to silently ask, “So who is this?”

“Oh...sorry. This is my....my friend Amanda. She’s in the 1st Legion too.”

“Hello,” Amanda said with a broad wave and uncomfortable smile. She couldn’t help but feel like the “other woman” meeting her boyfriend’s family for the first time after the divorce.

Seeing an ocean of swirling emotion in his eyes, Anna threw Trent a lifeline.

“Dad.” The word wrapped itself around his soul. “Would you like to take a walk?”

“I would love that.”

***

The assisted living complex contained a tranquil garden of colorful flowers. Tulips, daisies, and rose bushes lined the sidewalk. Anna and Trent slowly made their way to a wooden bench under a birch tree still awakening from its winter slumber.

A pair of goldfinches perched on a branch overhead, singing a gentle song.

Trent took a deep breath of the fresh Iowa spring air.

“I really missed nature.”

“Must be hard to spend so much time surrounded by metal walls and recycled air.”

“We managed. All things considered, that was the least of our problems.”

“I see how you managed,” Anna remarked with a playful smirk and an elbow into his ribs. “Amanda seems like a lovely woman.”

The comment caught Trent off guard. It felt like being asked about his sex life by his grandmother, which seemed oddly worse than by his daughter.

“Ummmm...we’re just friends,” he stammered.

Laughing, Anna said, “Please, Dad. I’m not a little girl. I’m older than you.” She poked his shoulder. “I know the difference between friends and, well, let’s say more than friends.” She winked.

“I...I.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t bother me as long as you’re happy. I hope I don’t ever interrupt you two like I did with you and mom the last time you were home.”

Trent slumped at the mention of Madison. He muttered, “Your mother. How...when?”

Anna took a deep, slow breath. “She passed away about thirty years ago. Natural causes.”

“Was she okay? I mean, was she happy?”

“Oh, yes. Her second marriage didn’t last much longer after you left. He finally pieced a few things together and realized she was still hung up on you. But she found love again and was never alone.”

Anna’s words brought a sense of relief.

“Can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. I wasn’t fair to her. She deserved better.”

“So did you. So did all of us. But, as you taught me, life isn’t fair, it just
is
.” Anna took hold of Trent’s hand. “She never gave up hope that you’d return. She always said you were too hard a son-of-a-bitch to kill and would find a way home, even if it took you a hundred years.”

Trent chuckled and said, “She was pretty damn close on that one. I’m glad I was able to shave a few years off her estimate.”

“Me too. Let’s head back inside. The breeze is picking up. I feel a chill coming on.”

“Sure.”

Anna rose as Trent sat watching his baby girl’s worn body struggle to defy gravity. He looked away when the sight proved too much to bear.

For a moment, he closed his eyes to focus on the bird’s sweet song. An ugly thud pulled his attention to the sidewalk in front of the bench.

Anna lay face first on the hard surface. Blood oozed from a bad cut on her forehead.

Terrified beyond comprehension, Trent fought to scream for help.

“
Help
!”

The frantic cry filled the entire garden.

A doctor and a pair of nurses rushed to answer his call. They found Anna, unconscious and face bloodied, resting in her father’s lap.

Trent held her tight, rocking back and forth. He was saying something but what exactly couldn’t be interpreted through his uninhibited tears.

***

His mind spun uncontrollably. He found the doctors words difficult to digest, as if the insulting phrases instigated an allergic reaction within the very cells of his brain. “Massive spontaneous artificial heart heart-attack” and “irreversible circulatory system failure” weren’t terms he was prepared to hear in regards to his daughter. 

Years ago, a new strain of virus had struck her heart. The infection inflicted considerable damage. While the installation of an artificial heart tempered the symptoms, it couldn’t fully repair the damage. The lingering effects of the virus’ impact on her entire body conspired to overtax the stopgap measure. In her advanced age and state of decay, a new heart wasn’t an option.

After forfeiting decades of time with Anna, while in the service of the Legion, his sanity perilously clung to the hope of resurrecting some measure of a relationship with his daughter in her final years. Now with that prospect of time reduced to mere minutes, he could feel himself slipping away.

Amanda watched the slow motion descent into madness from afar, powerless to do anything about it.

The gathered family members, who knew this day would come, filed into Anna’s room to say their good-byes. Trent, unable to absorb the situation, leaned against the wall just outside her door. He contemplated entering but felt unworthy to take any of the precious seconds she had left away from her “real” family.

Sensing her time was short, Anna weakly called out, “Daddy. Daddy.”

She spoke so softly that if not for the nanos, he wouldn’t have heard her call.

Trent summoned all the courage his shattered soul could muster and marched into the room as if he advanced toward to his own execution. Standing at her side, Anna motioned for him to take a seat by her. With a wave of the other hand, she signaled the others to leave them alone.

Anna’s dying.

Her stare was all too familiar to Trent. Whether on the field of battle or in a hospital bed, the stare was always the same. As if the person passing over looked into two distinct universes simultaneously. Even if they stared directly at you, they seemed to look through you.

Trent tried to speak, but Anna shook her head.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweet pea.”

“Sing to me. Sing to me like you did when I was a little girl, when I was scared.”

Unabated tears flooded his cheeks, but Trent pushed through the pain to muster a voice, a father’s smoothing voice.

“You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When the skies are grey

You’ll never know dear

How much I love you

Please don’t take

My sunshine

Away

The other night dear

As I lay sleeping

I dreamed I held you in my arms

When I awoke dear

I was mistaken

So I hung

My head

And I cried”

The life dripped out of Anna with each lyric.

At the end, she raised her fingers to touch his cheek. With the last of her strength, she whispered, “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, so much.”

Her eyes closed, and her hand fell to the bed.

Anna was dead.

Burying his face in the white sheets, he held onto her hand as if it could somehow keep her tethered to this world. The pain flowed out freely.

Trent’s agony notified the others.

Their cries seamlessly blended with his.

***

A funny thing about time was that its relativeness wasn’t only determined by ones proximity to the speed of light. Trent would have sworn that he spent hours holding Anna’s hand as he wept, when only minutes passed.

Fresh tears still poured from his eyes, but he managed to stop making mournful sounds as he staggered out of the room. Amanda, herself crying, immediately wrapped her arms around him. Squeezing tight, she offered what comfort she could.  

Out of his red eyes, Trent saw the rest of Anna’s family crying. This of course didn’t surprise him. What did was the pair of Legion officers walking down the hallway toward him.

Still embracing Amanda, he spun her around as if putting his back to them could somehow conceal his presence.

The sharp officers walked to within a meter of him. The family quieted, though a few of the younger ones still whimpered.

The higher ranking of the two, a major, spoke first. “Colonel, there’s a situation that requires your urgent attention.”

The callous words lacked even a hint of remorse or sadness for his loss. The selfless sentence, after sacrificing so much in service of the Legion, sparked a blood rage deep within.

Now! They bother me now! I see my daughter for the first time in over eighty years, and she dies. And the bastards can’t even give me a few moments to grieve! To hell with them all.

The pressure inside built at an exponential rate. Trent could feel himself reaching critical mass. Amanda sensed it to and hugged him tighter.

“Colonel Maxwell. There’s an emergency. I have orders to return you to the Pentagon as soon as possible. Please, come with me.”

In less time than it took his heart to beat, Trent turned and lunged at the major. Taking the man’s throat into his hand, he gripped hard, throwing him against the wall and lifting him off his feet. The move would have killed any man not in the Legion.

Looking at the major filled Trent with anger and hatred. The black uniform in this moment of grief represented everything he hated. Everything he hated about himself.

He spoke as if he spat venom, “What do you want from me now? My daughter is dead. She died of old age.
Old age!
I missed her life and you sons-of-bitches can’t give me time to mourn. What is wrong with you people? Has the Legion forgotten its humanity? Haven’t I given enough?”

The major tried to speak but couldn’t. The wide-eyed captain did for him.

“Colonel, it’s your prisoner. Something has happened. He’s demanding to speak with you. We think it’s about something very important, but he’s enraged and will only speak with you.”

This did little to calm Trent, who held the choking major to the wall even harder. Amanda slowly grasped Trent’s wrist to loosen the death hold.

Her gentle touch pulled him back from the brink.

Falling to the floor, the major covered his aching throat. Trent walked away without a word.

Amanda, not feeling sympathetic either, coldly said, “Give him a minute.”

Chapter 34: Revelation

A
ngry steps pounded against the hard floor of the Pentagon. Only the soft soles of Trent’s civilian shoes prevented a loud sound from echoing ahead of him. 

Each stride brought him closer to Hido. Brought him closer to the reason why he wasn’t allowed time to mourn the loss of a daughter he no longer knew.

Guards surprised at the casualness of his dress, recognized his face and more importantly the look of a man in no mood to suffer fools. They let him pass a series of security checkpoints. He stopped at the final one to gain access to Hido’s cell.

The officer on duty at the time of Hido’s outburst hurried to cut Trent off so he could relay the incident details. Trent didn’t have the patience for such delays. He’d come to speak to the source of the issue. Raising a hand, he held off the eager soldier who backed off.

“What the hell is this about, Hido?”

Hido stood and walked to the bars separating the unlikely friends. Staring at the guard, he said, “Give it to him.”

The guard handed Trent a sheet of e-paper with a hole in it. On the screen, a picture of the Kitright Ambassador and US President stared back at him.

“Will someone explain to me what the hell is going on here?”

The officer on duty spoke up, “When he saw this picture, he went crazy. We don’t know why, and he won’t tell us. He’ll only talk to you, sir.”

Confused and still angry at being pulled away from his grief, Trent failed to comprehend the significance of Hido’s reaction to the Kitright – a species he shouldn’t be aware of. 

“What is this about Hido? I’m in no mood for games.” The burning look in Hido’s eyes scared Trent, but he didn’t show it.

“Do you know who this species is?” Hido asked, hot breaths heaving in and out.

“Yes.” Trent began to understand. “They are the Kitrights. This is their ambassador. They’re the first intelligent race we made contact with, decades before you attacked us.”

“You have never been at war with them?”

“War? No. They landed on Earth when I was a young boy. They came in peace, and we’ve been allies ever since. They don’t fight. They’re pacifists.”

Trent paused to examine the pale white faces of the guards. The gravity of the discussion slowly sank in.

“How do you know the Kitright, Hido? After you attacked New Earth, we went to them. They said they had never before met your people.”

Hido’s temperament calmed, as if in shock.

“They are not the Kitright to us. When they met my people before my birth, they called themselves the Calths. Our peoples have been friends for generations. We know them as pacifists as well. As honorable warriors, we pledged to defend them against their enemies should they ever find any.”

“You are allies with the Kit...or Calths? Why would they tell us they’d never meet your species?”

Hido paid no attention to the question. “One day, not long ago by our perspective, the Calths came to my people and told us they had been attacked without provocation by a new race. By a people calling themselves...humans.”

“
What
?” Trent shouted. He felt dizzy. “They told you that
we
attacked them?”

“They asked us if we would defend them against this new race of savage warriors. Our honor demanded that we fight to protect our friends. We asked them if they knew where you came from. The Calths claimed to not know the location of the human home world but did offer the coordinates to a colony.”

“What colony?” Trent asked though he already knew the answer, but he needed Hido to say it.

Locking eyes with him, Hido said, “The one you called New Earth. We attacked it in retaliation of the human first strike against the Calths.”

Hido’s rewrite of history knocked the wind out of Trent’s lungs. He struggled to breathe, to keep his balance.

“Let me get this straight.” Each fresh word came out with greater emotion. “The Kitright or Calths, or whatever the hell their name is, told your people that we, humans, attacked them, and they asked you to go war with us to save them? Then they told you where to find New Earth?

“Yes.”

Trent spun around. He felt compelled to do something, go somewhere, but didn’t know what or where. Stopping he walked over to a chair and ripped it off the floor.

“
Uuuugggg
!” He slammed the chair against the wall. Again and again, he hammered the metal chair into the solid surface.

The sound of clattering bangs filled the small space. Flecks of the old foundation shattered off.

Trent believed Hido. That meant the war that had taken so much from him had been based on nothing more than a lie. All the needless death, needless sacrifice suffered to date in the service of humanity, was for nothing other than a clever ruse to provoke an unnecessary war between two races.

For what?

Only the Kitright could answer that. It was an answer Trent would get one way or another.

He stopped. His rage was spent—for now.

He still gripped the bent and disfigured chair in his sweaty hands. His chest heaved in and out with deep breaths.

He dropped the chair.

Collapsing onto his knees, he hammered a fist onto the floor. He could hear the bones in his hand crack.

“What does this mean?” Hido asked.

His chin against his chest, Trent sat motionless.

“It means that our war is over and a new one will begin. I swear on my daughter’s grave that it will. The butcher’s bill must be paid in full. I made a promise.”

End of Book One