FFA Part 7. Puppet to the Lie...

[silentWitness]

The End has come and some of you won't like it at all!


FFA-7 - Puppet to the Lie.

It’s strange, my mind was drawn to the myth of me… This ‘Colonel Nicole Xique’ the new me that now exists... or was it always me? Our histories certainly bore similarities, right down to the flight jockey ex-boyfriend. Eleanor smiled as I nervously stood in the door to her quarters “So are you going to hover there all night or are coming in?” The standard officers quarters was compact yet managed to contain enough room for entertaining guests. “You know Brennan secretly loves me… while we broke off our relationship even before it even began he desperately regrets that we never got together… after all this time a part of me loves him but in my heart I know that our friendship is stronger than any love we might share… It kills him to lie to me… I felt the same from you, from the moment we met.” “I…” “Your apology is accepted… Now you need to decide what you want to do next.” I didn’t know what to say to her… I hadn’t lied… or if I did I couldn’t remember this life, “The moment we shared was real” her smile became more whimsical “well are you going to sit down and have a drink?” That night Eleanor was just as warm as she was the first night we had spent talking, in although we were just a stones throw from Earth, it was as if we were in Home of Light or on the shuttle to Argon Prime, but all too soon it was over and I was to report to ordinance for assignment of a vessel. The Thor, was the poster ship of the Earth Fleet, up to now only used to fighting pirates but now would represent the first line of defence of Earth against the Aliens. Soon I was in space, the blackness offered a strange comfort to me, but where was I to go? What was I to do? No answers were forthcoming.

As Eleanor suggested I headed down the Elysium of light where the Goners were all too happy to equip my ship with a Terracorp Jump Drive for free and furnish me with a map of the universe, for it would be many months before Terran forces began fitting jump drives to their ships as standard. From there it was to Home of Light, my one connection to the entire universe… Eleanor knew at once why I was here… “A Blue Pulsar? You say? Hmm… I know of only one such location, it’s a Xenon sector… 382… The sector itself has been abandoned by the Xenon for some time, but with no entry other than through a high density Xenon sector, it will probably stay empty for some time to come! Even with your ship it will take several jumps to reach it” “It seems my fate has something in store” “Fly safe my friend, I can’t be there to rescue you all the time you know!!” With a special Terracorp pass refuelling my jump drive was simple, it was all handled electronically. Each jump took me further and further from known space lanes into the New Territories where the unknown still held sway. As I entered the sector I noticed the something was off… there was no pulsar… only darkness… I tried to swing the ship around but the controls were non-responsive… I felt the odd presence again… the Sohnen were here! The powerful Sohnen ship seemed to float effortlessly around me, by it’s size I would have said it was some kind of support ship or carrier. “Why look who it is? The Human Meatskin. We meet under preferable circumstances, the council is not here to censure me this time… Your pitiful nature shall not protect you this tiiiii…”

Before it could even finish its sentence time had already began to slow to a stop. I stood in a field of stars, each whisp held countless galaxies that swayed in the wind, the air was scented with roses. She stood in front of me a smile on her face, “I think we’ve both had enough of them don’t you?” The Sohnen ship and my little Thor appeared in the space above our heads… The Sohnen fired its powerful main gun, I must have fired missiles as they streaked across the sky smashing the Sohnen in a powerful shockwave. When the bright explosion subsided neither ship remained in existence but in the distance a small fighter ship twisted end over end, the Sohnen had survived but was trapped in a crippled vessel with no aid in sight. “And thus it begins.. who would have thought that such a simple act would shape the beginnings of a war of pacification… These Rogue Sohnen shall no longer hold sway and history shall repeat itself.” I stared at her “Who are you?” a little laugh escaped from her lips “You have no idea how difficult that question is… back when I held corporeal form my name was Aeryn… but now I answer to another name too…It’s complicated… I guess we have one last task to perform apart… Come” she reached her hand out to me at first I felt worried for that ship had contained me… if this dream would end would I also? But her smile made it so simple… I felt my body dematerialise and suddenly my mind was free… I felt like I was touching the universe directly… Aeryn was here with me… still holding my hand

Xenon sector 382… it’s bright blue pulsar flashed as brightly as in my dreams, the light reflected off the solar orbital arrays of the Terraformer constructs each one in a state of decay as the pulse twists and turns through the region, bathing the sector in deadly radiation.

We travelled fast… shifting through the system through asteroids and shattered planets till we reached our destination… it wasn’t very assuming… a simple black ship like the xenon ones we had passed but different… this one had a sense of purpose to it… as we moved close I saw the space suit still strapped into the broken cockpit section, this xenon ship had been piloted here… It was then that I realised, as I stared into her decaying emaciated face through her broken visor, Nicole Xique had never left her ship, even if she had lived her oxygen was almost exhausted, trapped in this hostile universe alone. Aeryn willed me to touch Nicole’s face, my caporal form softly materialised around my mind… her skin was brittle and dry, My touch seemed to shatter her face into a million little particles that danced around the shattered open cockpit enclosure like star fairies.

The memories didn’t come back straight away I remembered the stars first, the beautiful starscape as we left our Homeworld for the last time, forming myself into pure energy and feeling the supernova tingle around me, the familiar of feeling the future and the past merging into one before me… the others… all around me… the greetings of those that had come before. I remember the first feelings of skin again the shocks of tingles of physical form against my consciousness, the tears of myself as I finally letting a piece of myself become ‘her’ for the first time. The Sohnen reacted exactly as expected as my sleeping form was stolen away before the Terrans knew of my presence. For a moment I was like them… I was Nicole, I cherished ‘her’ for that. It was if I had lived a lifetime as her, but all of it was created by the Sohnen from the so called memories that inhabited me in her form. When their charade fell apart around them I refused to suffer their trespass, instead ensuring that fate would take its course and the Terrans would be connected to the new universe of inhabited planets. A little tear formed on my cheek as I let it dissolve merging back with myself once more… feeling the warm greetings of the others. I was Aeryn and she was me… but now I was also Nicole… for a part of me was now her and would live on inside me through the eternities safe in the knowledge that the future and the past had been kept aligned… that our race would successfully transcend many billions of years from now, all things up until the past present formed today… Flames from ashes… for a moment separate but now I was both flames and ash. It had been a big gamble on my part, ensuring our existence was very much out of our hands but a Terran could do it… one of these times, while success was fated we were unsure if one of us would have to die for the future to persist. And now we knew… and there was but one last thing to do… say goodbye…

I slipped into Eleanor’s office, forming into Nicole’s form in front of her. She smiled “I wondered if I would ever see you again” “You should not have doubted” “I have one last question for you” I formed a soft smile on my face “If it pleases you” “Is Nicole happy where she is?” I hid the sadness from her, feeling her genuine concern for me… she knew not of the women I had imitated “Yes… she is…” “I’m… I’m going to miss you.” I turned away from her, hiding the tears as they streamed down my cheeks. We had met for the briefest of moments she would never forget me her entire life … the Sohnen regard them as mere primitive toys, but they are so much more than that… such beauty in thought… each a work of art in its own right, each worthy of note. “Aeryn” Eleanor’s voice brought me back to her “How did you know my real name?” she smiled softly “I have dreamt this moment many times before… I never believed it would come true… that I would meet an Old One” I brushed the tears from my eyes, the Terran’s had constantly surprised us throughout history… of all the races they would bend fate in unexpected places… their sight… those waking dreams of theirs would one day become their guides… “You know I’m as much the Nicole you knew as I am Aeryn… we are not so different you and I.” “I know…” she closed her eyes holding back the tears “but you would not be crying if you had not come to say good bye”


So there you have it... Read the story though and tell me what you think...


1. Flames From Ashes: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=81586

2. Day Like Any Other: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=85680

3. Dawn: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=86009

4. An Awakening: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=91593

5. Beyond Terra: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=181350

6. Reunion: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=186983

7. Puppet To the Lie... The end of this little tale I hope that you enjoyed it.

[ninjitsumonk]

Wow..... That's the only word I can think of to describe.... Wow....

[silentWitness]

Thanks for replying!! I'm glad atleast you liked it!