Ravens of Eternity

336 Earth Calling, Side B

Three Years Later

The First Feathers were in the Nest, on their weekly Earth Call. This time however, there were much more than the initial seven. In fact, their numbers had increased by six, which more or less reflected how much the fleet had grown as a whole.

The Republic had become nearly a thousand strong, and constantly expanded with every major excursion.

Aurora found herself among the First Feathers, along with a few other civilians. Though most everyone present were holographic in nature, and attended remotely from their own ship.

Up front were the usual three who participated in the weekly Earth Call – Freya, Azrael, and Raijin. Though the others were right around them.

By this point, most of the fleet knew about the Earth Family, and adored them in the general sense. Some were a bit more enthusiastic than the rest, and absolutely loved to hear about their personal dramas. A few even cataloged everything they knew about them, in an almost historic fashion.

As though they were preserving something noteworthy for future generations to enjoy. Perhaps there was value in doing that. Also, maybe not.

To the three up front, it was simply their old lives slowly slipping away to time, week after week.

Despite their wide smiles, their hearts felt heavy and worn. Azrael’s was heaviest. She couldn’t help but feel anguish as she watched their now significantly older matriarchs on the holographic ‘screen’. Her heart winced at seeing them doddering more and more.

.....

At seeing the sharp selves of their past dulled, seemingly, by the moment.

Mack and his family, as well. He now had a prominent streak of gray in his hair, wrinkles around his eyes, and had a rather typical dad bod physique. What was truly striking for them was how much Mack’s kid, Eva, had grown in all that time.

She was now ten years old, at least in Earth Years. Three in galactic standard. She was cute, precocious, and almost always sat next to her dad during every call. The First Feathers practically watched as she grew up, most with utter awe and delight.

“Dad!” she said happily. “Tell ’em ’bout the pod! Tell ’em that you own Bellum now!”

She turned to the camera with a joyous face, filled with the exuberance that only a child held. The kind that disappeared more and more as the harsh realities of the universe slowly pressed down over time.

Before he could even respond, she continued talking.

“The VR pod finally came the other day, after soooo long! It looks so ancient! Are we gonna turn it on today, daddy?”

“Yeah, sure thing, kiddo,” Mack replied.

He scratched the back of his head, and chuckled sheepishly at the rest of the Family.

“I, uh, didn’t want to bring it up before,” he continued. “But, um, Jackson Stone died a while ago. Heart failure. Didn’t really wanna depress anyone with the news about that.”

“It’s alright,” Freya replied. “We understand.”

She sat in the middle between Azrael and Raijin, and held them as they spoke to the family. And did her best to act as glue.

“Also, sorry to hear that about him,” she continued. “We know he meant something to you.”

Mack cleared his throat, and fought back the urge to tear up.

Jackson Stone was the quintessential crazy uncle. The kind that was always absorbed about something, and everytime he spoke to someone, it seemed like he was only halfway in the conversation itself. Opinionated, brash, and sometimes a real pain.

But on the good days, he was the absolute life of the party.

“And I apparently meant something to him, too,” Mack replied. “He left his percentage of his company to me, as thanks for my being there for him.”

“That’s a hell of a show of appreciation,” Freya said. “Isn’t that company worth billions of dollars or something? Wouldn’t that make you a billionaire?”

“Ah, I wish! Company went bankrupt after... well, you know... you all, ah, left.

“It regained stability. Eventually. But it barely had a budget at the end. Could say I took on debt... Anyway, all I really got was a whole bunch of servers and code and some of those old VR pods we used to play in.

“Which I honestly don’t know what to do with.”

“Daad!” Eva interrupted. “Turn ’em on so we can play! I wanna see what old VR games look like!”

“I will, I will!” he replied frantically. “But yeah, I think he just handed ’em over to me because he literally couldn’t let the game die. I thought about maybe writing a new version of it, based on all the old code. And that seriously got me thinking...”

Mack paused for a few moments, as though he was trying to collect his thoughts. Or, perhaps more accurately, he was trying to choose his words more carefully.

“What if...” he began, cautiously. “What if this game does get preserved, over time, over hundreds of years. Thousands. What if it’s constantly iterated on, as technology grows, and becomes the best simulated experience of all time?

“What if the galaxy you’re in, is actually a future version of Bellum Aeterna? Like, I know that sounds really crazy... But it also kinda sounds like it makes sense, right? What if we reach a kind of existence that we could create simulated galaxies, just for the hell of it?

“And all your minds got uploaded to it all those years ago. But it doesn’t actually happen for millennia from now. My mind is just-”

“I thought you said you were trying not to be a downer,” interjected Miko’s mother. “Can’t you see how much you’ve depressed them with your story? Still haven’t learned how to read a room...”

The family chuckled and laughed as she teased Mack, and easily lightened the mood in both galaxies.

“Ahh, sorry, sorry!” he pleaded. “I should’ve just never said anything!”

“We’d better go before we make it worse,” Amal’s mother added. “We’ll talk to you all next time, alright?”

They all gave their goodbyes to each other, then one by one the Family disconnected from the call.

Azrael sighed deeply and slumped in her chair. The calls were getting harder and harder for her to take. And it had dawned on her that they weren’t the only ones feeling it.

“I think it pains them to see us,” she said after a moment. “Like this, I mean. Unchanging, undying. They grow older and older while we never do. Maybe not like vampires. But maybe something like that, y’know?”

“Yeah, I get you,” Freya replied. “It’s hard seeing us like this... Is that why you keep doing that?”

She turned to Raijin, who was wearing a body that appeared to be in her early 20s. She wore something that looked like what Miko would’ve, at that age. She was still slender, but taller, and her face more defined.

Raijin nodded, then reorganized her body back down to her usual form – her 13 year old self. Except her entire surface was a silvery blue-gray metal. Skin, clothes, everything.

“It occurred to me that they never got to see us grow, me especially,” she replied. “I wanted to give them the experience of seeing me change. I believe my okasa enjoys it.”

Azrael leaned forward, her eyebrow arched with curiosity.

“So why haven’t you told them how you are now?” she asked. “Show how much you can change, what you can do. I’m absolutely sure they’d be proud of you, of what you can do.”

“Because they would not understand,” Raijin replied. “And also, because they do understand. They know it is physically impossible for any of us to physically change. Which means my changing signifies something had to have happened.

“We are all code, wrapped in finely-tuned machine bodies, and optimized slowly over time.

“Our parents don’t need any details. What they need is to see a measure of growth that they understand, and can accept.

“And besides, I wish their thoughts of me to be positive, and not to be unnecessarily bogged down with questions such as ‘what constitutes a human being’. All that matters to me is that they see their daughter as she grows. Think of it as my long goodbye to them.”

“Okay,” Freya said after a few moments. “So why do you keep using that old body, then?”

To which Raijin shrugged.

“My default form has been the most efficient thus far,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’m exploring multiple ages and bodies, and will likely set a new default when I find a superior version.”

“So you’re saying there’s potential for you to become a six-year-old child detective? Solving crimes across the fleet? Maybe wearing a little bowtie? Have a sniffing wolf for a companion?”

Raijin scoffed playfully.

“I would never be that crude,” she replied. “I would be a six-year-old girl genius with a secret laboratory. With a lightning wolf for a companion.”

She then pushed up a pair of glasses up the bridge of her nose for emphasis. Glasses that weren’t there a few moments ago. And a few moments later, they dissipated.

“Fair enough,” Freya grinned. It wasn’t as though she shared her shapeshifting abilities with the family, either.

Before the First Feathers could continue with their meeting, their holographic comm flashed with an alert.

–

INCOMING

Secure Communications Request

Classification Omega-Tau

–

All the seats from the rear slid forward until all 13 of them were in a semicircle around the holocomm.

The hologram of a gruff middle-aged man appeared in the middle of the comms. He stood tall and strong and young.

Though they didn’t have any uniforms, nor did they want them, everyone in the Republic wore their insignia on their breast.

The pips and symbols on his insignia revealed that he was a ship captain.

He gave a slightly awkward salute, unsure if that was something he was supposed to do.

“Apologies for the interruption, First Feathers,” said the man.

“Not a problem, Captain Jax, at ease,” Aurora replied, concern deep in her voice. “Why’re you reporting in? Are you alright? Your crew alright?”

“We are, Admiral, yes. For now anyway,” Jax replied. “Wanted to report that the Stalwart Fiddler recently entered Sector DCX-02, to continue our trade runs. And on arrival, we’ve discovered that the Federation is pushing hard into it.

“They were all over the Hegemony port beacon when we arrived at Tarsus, and they were hitting the defense fleet hard with a whole lot of destroyers. Fighters everywhere, too.

“One of the Fed ships began to gun for us, so we had to punch through to get down planetside. Local comms channels were flooded with emergency evacuation requests from every township, so we landed at one to help. And down here, our long-range sensors are picking up a whole lotta Federation warships all around.”

He then sent his report to the First Feathers, and displayed its data directly over comms.

There, they watched Federation warship signals grow and multiply as time passed. There were cruisers and destroyers and frigates and fighters, most of which descended down, and spread across the planet itself.

.....

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