Titan Encounter (18 page)

“I’m an FTL
engineer.”

He nodded. “That’s a
good job.”

“Frustrating is what
it is. We think we have the new engines properly assembled and installed, but they
require a human pilot for initialization. We’ve never found the interface or
the plans.” He flushed just a bit. “We even searched your ship, but…well we
never found one so we don’t know how it works.”

Justin looked at
Mara, but said nothing.

Jon followed his
gaze and asked Mara, “Are you an FTL engineer?”

She shook her head.

“The human
interface, are you familiar with it?”

Mara nodded. “Very.”

“Do you know what
one looks like? Can you give us a diagram?”

“I can’t diagram it
but,” she pulled up her hair, “it looks like this.”

Jon’s jaw dropped,
as did the spoon in his hand. “
Ahhhh
…”

Apparently enjoying
the reaction, Mara chuckled, let her hair fall and turned to
Becca
. “The food looks lovely.” She reached for the salad
bowl.

“Can I, ah, how
does
it….” Jon took a deep breath. “Perhaps we could….” He
turned to his wife, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“You’re the
engineer. You think I knew what that thing was? I’m a doctor. It had nothing to
do with her injury. I noted it and moved on. And besides, Mara is my patient. I
can’t go telling you things about her.”

Jon continued his
stumbling request for Mara’s assistance. 

Justin wanted to ask
his sister to help them, but would she be willing?  She seemed calm, even
amused, sitting across the table from a very animated Titan, but just days ago,
she had tried to kill herself when she realized she was one.

Becca
sighed and placed
her hand on her husband’s, stopping his ramble. “Mara, I’m sure you’ve read my
thoughts over the last few days. I hope you’ve learned that the Titans aren’t
the monsters that you’ve been taught.”

“I have been reading
your thoughts. I don’t know how to stop.”

Justin made a mental
note to teach her. 

“It’s because of
your thoughts that I will help. Seeing your love for Jon and seeing history
through your eyes, I understand that what I thought I knew must be wrong.”

“Or simply a lie,”
Naomi added.

Jon looked at
Becca
and Mara. “Thank you, both.” He touched his wife’s
shoulder, “Can I borrow your patient tomorrow?”

“Yes, but I’m coming
with her.”

Jon gave his wife an
approving nod then picked up the loaf of bread and broke it in two. “May the
God of Justin and this house, bless this meal and our guests.” He leaned back
in his chair and dished up food.  

Ensuring his mind
was closed to those around him, Justin pondered the meaning of the simple
blessing.  Long before the Alien and
Titanomachy
wars, belief in science and reason had supplanted the supernatural.
Whatever else the Titans were when they left Earth on their long
journey to war, they had certainly been atheists, but today, faith is woven
into their culture.
  Were they killers early on, but time
and a belief in the supernatural had changed them? Perhaps tomorrow I’ll learn
the…

“Come on Justin.”
Naomi thumped his arm. “Must I tell the whole story?”

“Huh?” Justin
reached for his fork.

“Naomi was telling
us how you got lost today,” Mara said.

“I wasn’t lost.”
Justin gave his version of events and reached for the interesting cheese dish
that seemed to be the main course.

After several
minutes of eating and small talk, Naomi turned to
Becca
.
“How many norm humans are in the Titan fleet?”

“I’m one of the
last. The Titan genes have never been isolated, but they’re dominant. If one
parent is Titan, the child has psychic abilities.”

“So both your
parents were norms?”

“Yes. They were
doctors working in the colonies.
EarthGov
drafted
them to treat Titan wounded toward the end of the Alien War.”

“They were only with
the Titans because they were drafted?”

“At first, but by
the end of the war, my parents understood that Titans were, well, human. 
After that war, Titans were ordered to return for decommissioning, but it
didn’t take long to learn that decommissioning meant killing.” She took her
husband’s hand. “My parents sided with the Titans and I’m glad they did.”

“Why would
EarthGov
want to kill
their own
soldiers?” Naomi looked doubtful.

Becca
shrugged.

“How can we know the
motives of others?” Jon took a deep breath. “Many people think they had grown
afraid of us.” 

“They do fear you…us,”
Justin said. It all made sense. Nearly a million experienced combat veterans,
now with psychic powers, returning to Earth. If they were allowed to integrate
back into society, they could easily take over the Confederation—if they wanted
to. So,
EarthGov
planned to kill them as they came
back for decommissioning. But, the Titans discovered the plan and fought
back—the
Titanomachy
War.  Justin wanted to
ponder it deeper but, as he looked around the table, everyone ate in silence.
I
need to lighten things up.
   Looking at
Becca
he asked, “Could we meet your parents?”

She frowned. “My
mother went on the vanguard mission to Lepanto. My father died just last year.”

Justin bit his lip.
Well
that didn’t work.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Silence hung heavy
for several moments only broken when Naomi asked, “Could I get a slate? I want
to read the history of the Titans from the Titan point of view.”

“I’ll get you one
after dinner,”
Becca
said. “The Alien and
Titanomachy
wars will be very different than the history
you have been taught.”

“You should read the
history of the Prophet,” Jon added.  “That is a vital part of who we are
as Titans.”

“I will,” Naomi
said.

The conversation
lagged and Mara asked, “What else can we talk about?”

Something
that’s not a political or emotional minefield.
Justin decided to
let someone else try for a topic. 

Mara took a bite of
her food and chewed slowly. “Since we are Titans we must be related to people
in the fleet.”

A smile spread
across
Becca’s
face. “Yes, you must.” She asked her
husband to clear the dishes while she retrieved her slate from a nearby table.
With fingers flitting across the screen she asked, “Do all three of you want to
know what I find?”

Everyone nodded.

Mere moments later,
she stopped. “Well this is interesting.”

“What?” Justin
asked. He looked at Naomi. “Are we all cousins?”

“No.” She paused
still staring at the screen. “It’s just…the
intel
division has already done the DNA genealogy on
all of you.”

Why would they do
that?
“What
did they find?”

“Well, Mara and
Naomi, you’re related to a family on the transport ship Victorious. I don’t
know them, but I’ll send the contact information to the slate we give you.”

Naomi grinned. “I
can imagine our first meeting. Hello, we are your relatives from four hundred
years in the future.”

Becca’s
fingers came to a
sudden halt. “This just gets more interesting all the time!”

Mara gasped, then
looked at
Becca
and blushed. “Sorry. I can’t stop
reading your thoughts.”

“I’m used to
it—believe me.  Justin, you’re a direct descendant of Leonidas.”

“Leonidas?”
He let the
information soak in for several moments.
Leonidas?
His
living ancestor was the most reviled mass murderer in the empire and CFS.

Jon reached across
the table and touched his hand. “Leonidas was…is a great man.  He saved us
all when he led the mission to capture Exodus.
Becca
told me what you’ve been taught. It’s not true.”

True? What is truth?
At
the moment, he wasn’t sure he knew the answer. He felt numb.

“Do you want to
leave?” Naomi asked.

He shook his head.
“It’s just going to take time to sort out.”

Looking at Justin,
Mara said, “Perhaps we should talk about something else.”

Jon nodded. “We have
a cocoon,” He looked at Mara, “The place you lie when connected to the ship.
That’s what you call it, right?”

Mara, her mouth
full, nodded.

“We found it on a
wreck in the debris field. We were still trying to figure it out when your ship
landed. We used the one on your ship as a guide to repair it.”

Becca
patted his hand.
“Save that one for later.” Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the
others. “There was an announcement this morning that the ship will be at
its
closest to the Lepanto sun tomorrow.” Her face seemed to
light up. “There’s going to be
a praise
and
thanksgiving celebration and Leonidas said he will open the sky shutters. We’ll
be able to see the sun.”

“Why is being close
to the sun a cause for celebration?” Mara asked.

“Well, one reason is
that many of us have never seen a star.”

Justin was still
trying to figure out exactly what she meant when Jon explained.

“Actually, everyone
has seen them as tiny points of light, but most people my age or younger have
no memory of a sun as other than a distant star.” Gesturing toward his wife he
added, “We were infants during the
Titanomachy
War.
Because of my work retrieving engine parts, I have been in the habitable zone
of the Lepanto sun, felt its warmth and seen it as a fiery orb.”

“But,”
Becca
leaned forward, “the most important reason is that
Justin tells us that it was here in the Lepanto system, with his Titan brothers
and
sisters, that
he came to know God.

Justin raised an
eyebrow. “Have Titans been here before?”

“No.”
Becca
shook her head. “Well, other than our vanguard
mission.”

“But this prophet
you talk about, didn’t he die hundreds of years ago?”

“Yes,” Jon nodded.

“Then how could he
say it was here that he met God?”

Jon shook his head.
“We don’t know. It’s a mystery, but many are convinced that the Prophet will
return when the fleet reaches
periapsis
, the closest
point to the sun.”

Justin tightly
closed his mind to those around him before allowing himself to mull that idea.
A
man dead for six hundred years, miraculously reappears here, hundreds of light
years from where he lived, and somehow encounters God.
Justin glanced at
Naomi. Her face betrayed not a hint of emotion, but he could imagine the
skepticism and sarcasm that boiled in her well-shielded mind. Mara merely
looked confused.  Justin grinned. “I guess we’ll know tomorrow.”

I’m not just a
Titan,
I’m the descendant of their genocidal leader.
Justin shook his
head.
But, Leonidas doesn’t seem like a killer. He seems harmless. 
Using
a borrowed slate, Justin navigated his way through the superstructure’s
labyrinth of passageways, to the cabin of Leonidas.
He admitted to being the
leader of the attack on Earth, but he doesn’t seem to be in charge now. Why is
Admiral Cottrell giving orders?
More questions to ask. Justin yawned and
fatigue swept over him like a wave, but he pressed on.

As if he had a fairy
resting in his hand, the image of a woman appeared atop the slate. “Turn right
and proceed 10 meters down the passageway.”

Staring at the
image, he turned and stumbled over a dog. Managing to stay afoot he said,
“Sorry.”
There I go talking to dogs again. It almost seems normal now.
 
He stopped, turned, and watched the animal trot down the hall.
Why are dogs
telepathic? How did that happen?
With a shake of the head, he continued on
his way. He looked down as the little woman in his hand pointed and told him to
go left. He turned and looked up in time to come nose-to-nose with a guard.

“You have arrived,”
the little woman said and disappeared.

Thanks.
He stepped back.

“Can I help you,
sir?” The guard, about his age, stood against the wall in an entryway.

“I’m…ah…Justin
Garrett.”

The guard announced
him over an intercom and he was quickly admitted.