Jonothan Crowe - Everdark
"May the Great Watcher guide your way" Jonothan Crowe saluted the prayer and responded with the traditional reply, "and may the Old Guardian shield you." As he switched off his comm screen, Jon knew those would be the last words he would exchange with another human being. Just hours before, Jon had been briefed on an important mission to sabotage the warp drives of the enemy Tyton fleet. The small, old frigate he now piloted alone had been fitted with warp drive of their own that was modified to act as an EMP bomb when activated. "Bloody liars" he said to himself, followed by a string of curses at their Abominable Gods. No way they would send him of all people alone on a mission this important. He had failed nearly every military exam with the lowest scores in history, and yet he still was recruited. There was only one possibility, and it was obvious even to Jon; This was a suicide mission. Jon reiterated the curses, and added a few more that would have gotten him executed for heresy. He let out a sharp laugh at the ironic morbidity of his thoughts as he pulled at some levers on the console before him. The sublight engines rumbled alive and he saw the capital ship above him quickly scroll out of view. In sixteen hours of full sublight throttle he would be in range of the Tyton tractor beams. Leaning back in the command chair, he closed his eyes and reflected on his situation. He always knew he would die in the military; that was his very intention even long before First Contact with the Tytons, but he never guessed it would be a death carefully and secretly planned by his superiors.
"Matriarch, the Treeles-Ape's craft is within tractor range." Matriarch Hellwing stood at the helm of her Nestship, unmoving and silent as she had been for the past hour since the craft had been detected. She flicked her tail in acknowledgement to her brother, signalling him to wait for her command to bring the craft aboard. It was a trap, that much she new, but the nature of the trap still evaded her. She reached out with her telepathy once again, but as before she detected no conscious bodies aboard. Where was the crew? The craft's trajectory was too imprecise for it to be mechanically piloted, unless that indeed was the trap. She knew the Apes would resort to such treachery. An empty ship could mean a bomb, again believable treachery, but probes of the craft showed nothing out of the ordinary. Except for no detectable consciousnesses. Again she reached out with her mind, grudgingly expecting failure once again, but this time she felt something. In one tight motion Hellwing straightened, instinctively pulling her feathers flat against her body. Behind her she felt her family do the same. She heard the faint echo of thought, groggily sorting between dream-memory and reality. "It sleeps into battle!" she chattered, surprised at the implications. She felt the eyes of her family questioningly boring into the back of her head, attempting to read her own thoughts. She dropped her mental barriers and allowed them in, adding their telepathic ability to her own, and together they probed the Ape's mind.
Jon stretched and let out a disappointed yawn. He switched off the blaring alarm of his ship's computer and looked out the primary view-port. Just ahead of him were hundreds of spacecraft flocking around the largest ship Jon had ever seen. It was roughly egg-shaped and lit with a soothing green-blue light. A pang of fear shot through him followed by a feeling of wonder. Jon had never fully agreed with the war; he had been a recruit on Striatthura when the Tytons had first landed, and they fascinated him. Early Human speculative depictions of aliens were relatively unimaginative: The famous "Space Lizards" came to mind. So when the Tytons first stepped off their embassy ship there wasn't a soul present who wasn't surprised at the familiar form of a bird of prey. Jon had even become close friends with a younger bird who, as he inferred, was from a lower social class than the rest. Even still she carried herself with an attitude of royalty. Brighttail was her name. She was a brilliant bird, assigned to him as a sort of cultural guide. He learned much in his studies with her, from the basics of the Tyton language, known as Albanic, to the dynastic social hierarchies and symbolic nature of their spacecraft and architecture. The sudden memory of his alien friend made him realize the full gravity of what he was about to do. Murdering hundreds of thousands of beautiful aliens nor what? No other reason than to say we can? What if Brighttail was aboard one of these ships in front of him? How would he live with himself after this? He wouldn't, he realized. That's the whole point of a suicide mission. As if on cue the communications panel in front of him blinked on. Startled, Jon hesitantly accepted the hail and the imposing form of a particularly beautiful Tyton appeared on his comm screen. Its deep-blue eyes and maroon-patterned feathers gave it a strikingly royal appearance. It cooed with a smooth voice and his limited knowledge of Albanic told him it was questioning his presence. Startled, he paused for a moment and remembered his orders. In the event of direct communication he was to read a script with the details of surrender and diplomacy. He reached for his personal terminal and quickly pulled up the script, which was provided in several language including Albanic. He opened the Albanic version and began attempting to dictate the alien script: "Ooo-" tongue click, "ho eemo ah-" trilled m "haa..." and he was cut off by trilling from his communicator. In surprisingly-good Eclyptic the Tyton spoke: "Talk your speech, Hu-Man. Mother-of-Mothers will know your words." A Matriarch! Jon gasped to himself. Brighttail had told him of the Matriarchs, or more literally the "Mother-of-Mothers." They were the highest-ranking individuals in Tyton society and, as far as Jon was aware, no Human had seen or spoken with anyone close to a Matriarch. Incredibly honored at the revelation Jon thanked her, bowing in the way Brighttail taught him to bow to royalty, and he resumed his message in his own language: "From the High-Senate of Eclypsis Prime We, the Human Species, both Full-Men and Beast-Men, do hereby accept unconditional surrender to the great Empire of Alban. We accept full servitude under Tyton control and do pledge ourselves to the illustrious High-Matriarch of Superdynasty. Thenceforth we relinquish all decision-making, territory, technology, and scientific understanding to the discretion of the High-Matriarch. Please accept Lieutenant Jonothan Crowe" Jon looked up and gestured to himself, "as ambassador of our species and proof of our new relationship." And with the last word he felt guilt wash over him. He abhorred lying.
The Hellwing family felt the meaning behind the Ape's words: it was all lies. Disconnecting from the collective consciousness, the Matriarch considered the situation. This "Jon'Than of the Crow" was clearly being exploited by his non-familial superiors and he disapproved. She felt his sadness over the young explorer Brighttail and the indifference over his own life. He merely wished to join his family in The Beyond, a desire she recognized and respected. Maybe these Apes aren't all bad she thought briefly before pushing away the sentiment for real thinking. She re-linked with her siblings and drew on their knowledge of the Apes' language: "Thank you Jon'Than of the Crows. You may perch on-ship. Sky-Queens accept you... Am-bas-tator" the last word she attempted to mimic from Jon's words before, but she from the Ape's sudden private amusement she had mispronounced it. The Ape again bowed respectfully and his screen went dark. A bombardment of screeching protest filled the command-nest. The Family felt the death-intent of the Ape and feared for their own lives. The Matriarch snapped out her massive wings in a gesture of command. Instantly her siblings silenced themselves, and she calmly cooed an order to quietly abandon ship. "Let them have their victory" she brooded as her family carried out the order. "They will not cripple Alban."
Jon shut off the communicator with a sigh. A confusing blend of emotions coursed through him. Ultimately the crippling weight of the lies he had just told and the genocide he was about to commit overwhelmed all else. In the back of his mind he felt the scolding of his beloved mother. She raised me to be better than this he lamented. His ship lurched as the Tytons' remote guidance took hold. He set his hand on the warp throttle and closed his eyes, a last comfort before the embrace of death took him. In the darkness of his eyelids he saw a vision of the Tyton Matriarch, his eyes piercing his very soul. She spoke in words Jon did not understand, but he felt their meaning: "Worry not, young one. My family is safely on their way home. No one but you will die today. The hatchling you know as Brighttail is safely home, and I know as future Matriarch of her family she will beg for peace between our peoples in your name. Go now, and be with your family knowing yours was not a vain sacrifice." She sounded like his mother. Somehow he knew it wasn't just his imagination. Exactly how she spoke to him, or how she knew about Brighttail or his late family was beyond him, but it was her. He opened his eyes to find tears floating in front of his face in the low-gravity. He would not be a mass-murderer. His mother would be proud. And with that last thought he activated the warp drive. Jon felt nothing but searing pain. Every molecule in his body screamed in terror as he was torn apart and put back together in countless, unfathomable ways. He saw his entire life laid out in front of him and experienced every moment simultaneously. In an instant he remembered a lifetime of events, even those that were long forgotten, and over and over he felt each moment until gradually he became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of memories that were blending together. And then it was black. He flailed with his senses to discover where he was, but he felt nothing. The echoes of his body were still there but it would not respond to his brain's commands. He merely perceived Darkness, and within that Darkness his lifetime of experiences faded away. He became nothing more than a void consciousness; experiencing nothing. Thinking nothing. He was Nothing. From that Nothing-Darkness there rose the presence of powerful beings, so ancient they did not conceive of time. The Nothing that was Jonothan Crowe absorbed the collective consciousness into his own. He became Them. They saw the demolition of entire galaxies. Darkness engulfed even the brightest of stars. Whole civilizations succumbed to the might of the Infinite Nothing. Humans, Elves, the Mi-Go, sentient clouds, and even the immortal Gods, Infinities of consciousness that all fell and became part of the Nothing. They saw and heard the echoes of infinities of consciousnesses, all playing out their lives in instantaneous retrospection. In this perception of reality, time was merely an irrelevant aspect of reality, but still there was an Order. All these infinities were Before, and They turned their focus to the Now. They watched the universe become born. Muddled elements and disorderly particles gathered to form stars, and the stars came in to form Galaxies. All ran in the eternal cycle of life and death until finally civilization rose. They saw evolution become sentience, and that sentience wrought its own evolution. The mortals ran about their worlds, and gradually entire galaxies, all the while killing themselves and each other. Gradually civilization collapsed and the stars burned out, and all matter in the universe began to collapse on itself once again. The Infinite Nothing saw this and ruminated. HE would not have His way this time. They reached out with the invisible tendrils of thought, corrupting civilizations and seeding events to open a Gate. It opened and the Darkness streamed through, once again blacking out stars and consuming all. Soon enough the entire galaxy was Theirs and They turned their sights towards the next galaxy. Again they seeded dissent and orchestrated Gates to be opened, but this time there was true resistance. On one side of the galaxy They were encouraging the Humans to detonate a warp drive to open a Gate, while on the other side they battled with mortals from another Gate opened centuries before. It was then that the Children of Twin-Toads Alnod appeared, wielding a power that surpassed that of even the Gods. Their very voices rocked the entirety of the Nothingness, and gradually Jonothan Crowe found himself again. As Jon slowly recovered his self identity, he saw the great eye of Vildu, blazing with light and intelligence. He did not speak but Jon felt the urgency of his gaze and he knew what he had to do. With the last shred of power he retained from being joined with the Darkness he willed himself return to reality. Jon started awake, disoriented as the aliens surrounding him. The large frogs he knew were Children of Alnod and a group of multi-armed invertebrates stood in front of him, wary of Jon's sudden appearance. He felt his energy leaving his body, so in a decisive use of the last of his energy he spoke, drawing on lingering memory of the movements of the universe: "The Darkness found us. It used me to open another Gate. In 3 days a worm hole will open beside your star that will transport you to my home world. Go there. Save us."He spoke Eclyptic but he saw the understanding in the aliens' eyes. Satisfied, he accepted his fate and his body died. And, as Matriarch Hellwing's blessing directed, he was with his family.
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