Six Scifi Stories Volume Three by Robert Jeschonek

Author:Robert Jeschonek [Jeschonek, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pie Press

When we'd reached a safe altitude, we stopped climbing. We hung in the stratosphere and looked down at the distant ocean, watching the devastation as it spread.

The battle itself had been cloaked from human technology, unseen by the world, but its effects would be felt by millions. When the warships sank and the fusion drives erupted, the ocean floor heaved from the force of the blast. A monstrous quake wrenched the crust of the Earth, slamming out colossal waves in all directions.

As we watched like satellites from far above, a monumental tsunami crashed down over islands and coastlines, obliterating anything in its path. Snuffing out hundreds of thousands of lives in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India.

We opened a radio channel between our craft, but neither of us said a word for a long time. We just watched as destruction swept that part of the world, destruction that we had helped bring about.

"I only wanted to help," said Irina. "I thought I was doing the right thing."

I didn't say a word. Far below, another tsunami was surging up from the sea, lashing toward shores that had already been laid waste by the first brutal onslaught.

"I wanted to free our people," said Irina. "I wanted to end the oppression of communist totalitarianism."

Still, I said nothing. I wondered how the people in the path of the cataclysm felt, gazing up in horror at the sky-high mountain of water hurtling toward them. Would they care which ideology had done the most to set that mountain in motion? Would any of them agree that the sacrifice would be worth it?

"I'm finished," said Irina. "All my efforts have brought nothing but death and disaster wherever I've gone." She sighed. "No more."

Yet another tsunami cut loose in the Indian Ocean. More people died screaming thousands of feet below us.

"Maybe I should just let myself fall," said Irina. "Drop down in the middle of that nightmare and die. I deserve it."

Finally, I spoke. "Shut up, Irina."

I saw her gape at me from her crystalline escape pod. All six of her multifaceted eyes--two silver, four gold--fixed on me in shocked amazement.

"I've been thinking," I told her. "And I've realized something. I couldn't see it before, because I loved you, but now I see it."

"Because you don't love me anymore?" said Irina.

The sun shone through her green and purple clusters of crystals, glittering within the intricate web of facets. Her fiery parasites zipped around her like schools of flaming fish, weaving in and out of her vent slits.

The sunlight and firelight danced when she moved, and I felt again the way I'd felt so long ago, watching her during the pre-mission briefings in the auditorium on our homeworld. For better and worse, it had been the one constant in my life.

Even now, after everything. Even now.

"I will always love you," I told her.

She gave me a look I couldn't fathom. "What did you realize?"

"You need me. You always have," I said. "And the galaxy needs a new Lenin."

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