Текст книги "Hastrom City Rising (The Adventures of Letho Ferron Book 2)"

Автор книги: Doug Rickaway

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Epilogue

Shortly after the battle, Bayorn had returned with the others to Haven. It was, after all, the final resting place of Zedock Wartimer, friend of the Tarsi, and the dormitories deep beneath the surface had reminded him and his fellow Centennial Tarsi of the underneath from their beloved Fulcrum.

Bayorn had been resting in his domicile when the lightning blast struck him. A new vision of his forefathers. As before, he watched it through someone else’s eyes—the eyes of a distant ancestor.

And in the vision, the true purpose of the Fulcrum stations was revealed.

It was time at last for Bayorn to complete the mission that his forefathers had begun so long ago. Even as their civilization fell in flames, they had looked to the future. They had wanted both to save a planet dear to them, far across a sea of galaxies, and at the same time preserve their own race so that the Tarsi might one day return and rebuild what had been lost.

“You ready?” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Bayorn replied. “Take me to the Centennial Fulcrum.”

He boarded Deacon’s shuttle, and it wasn’t long before they were racing away from the surface, the details below growing smaller as the Fulcrum station above grew larger.

Deacon docked his shuttle at the bottom of the Fulcrum station, and memories flooded Bayorn so strongly that he had to hold back tears. He now looked upon the very airlock from which they had launched Fintran’s remains.

They made their way to the underneath through a series of tunnels that Bayorn had not known of before his vision, though he had always believed that he knew every nook and cranny of the bowels of the Fulcrum station. Now they discovered an entirely new section of the station, one that had not been entered since the Fulcrum stations had left Tarsus so many millennia before.

The lights here were a pristine white. The walls were made of a smooth material that looked like marble but felt cold like metal. Bayorn led Deacon forward into this strange, sterile facility, until at last they came upon a single door with a touchpad in its center.

“Can you open it?” Deacon asked.

Bayorn closed his eyes and recalled the memory that had been shared with him. The code came to him, just as clear as his own name. He wondered if Fintran had been privy to this knowledge. What visions had been shown to the former Elder? He had whispered to Bayorn, just before going to his death at the hand of Alastor, that the visions would come.

Bayorn pressed the numbers into the keypad. Pleasant, affirmative Tarsi song-speak played from unseen speakers, and the door slid open.

Bayorn and Deacon stepped through the doorway into a room stacked high with small cylindrical containers. It wasn’t really a room—it was some sort of channel, built into what was likely the very center of the Fulcrum station. Bayorn looked up, and could see no end to the stacked cylinders above him.

“We must be in the center of the Fulcrum station,” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Bayorn answered.

In the center of the room was a large pedestal with a keyboard—just the right size for Tarsi hands—and a computer screen. Bayorn moved toward the computer and closed his eyes, again recalling his ancestral memory. Alastor had done this very thing—using knowledge he had gained from absorbing Fintran’s essence. But he had not done what Bayorn was about to do, either from ignorance, or deliberate intent.

Bayorn began to type, and strings of Tarsi pictograms appeared on the screen. Bayorn read them, followed the instructions, and continued typing.

“So… what’s going to happen here?” Deacon asked.

“We are going to land the Fulcrum stations on the surface of planet Eursus. This is the intent of my forefathers,” Bayorn said. “The coordinates for each station are already programmed. They will touch down at strategic points all across the planet. The Centennial Fulcrum is to land very close to Hastrom City.”

“Then what?” Deacon asked. “Are people going to come live in them again?”

“Be patient, Deacon. All shall be revealed in due time.”

****

The day when the Fulcrum stations came down to Eursus was a day that would long be remembered in the annals of Eursan history, for it was the day when life returned to the bedraggled planet. Citizens would recount the tale to their children, who would recount the tale to their children, and so forth over millennia. Footage of the Fulcrum stations entering the planet’s atmosphere like benevolent meteors would play on news sites for generations.

The stations touched down with a grace that could only mean they were operating as they were designed to. And once they were nestled on the surface of the planet, like the eggs of a great avian creature, they began to unfurl. The portions of the station added by man, built to suit his own needs, was cast aside, shedded like old skin, as the perfection of organic Tarsi engineering was fully realized.

In the center of each Fulcrum station was a great spire, and out of this spire a nutrient and moisture-rich substance began to spew. For the first time in centuries, rain fell on Hastrom City. The people rejoiced, dancing in the streets, feeling the sweet relief of precipitation, catching it on their tongues like children.

The canisters that Deacon had seen in the very core of the Fulcrum station were launched high into the air, where they exploded. Seeds coated with nutrients that would both protect them and hasten their growth began to fall to the earth. In a week, verdant fields would spring up all around. Saplings would shoot up faster than they had any business to, and before anyone knew it, forests would return to the planet Eursus.

The air was sweeter, the ground kinder to bare feet. The dull grays and brown of all things were soon augmented with the supple pinks, purples, and crimsons of budding flowers, their sweet scent filling the air wherever they deigned to sprout up.

It was a new world, and the people of Hastrom City were ready to rebuild it, promising not to fall back into the old habits that had first wrought the world’s destruction.

Only time would tell if they would be able to hold up their end of the bargain.

In October I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the production costs of this novel. This book would not have been possible without the generous contributions from the people below:

Mike Fisher

Danny and Victoria Kilpatrick

Phillip and Jenny Hintze

Michael and Melanie Janis

Errol Ronje

Vinh Diep

Matt and Judy Strepka

Tyson and Vicki Wanjura

Steven Stacy

William Henderson

Paul and Alison Meiller

C. Scott and Angie Elfstrom

Sarah Rickaway

Jeremy Hicks

Wade Treichler

Tiffany Green Jarmon

Michael Kamion

Dan and Lisa Dible

Tyler Rickaway

Forrest Curran

Scott Early

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Shing-Lu Yue

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John-Paul Hayworth

Terry Julian

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Andy Sherwood

David and Tricia Rickaway

Tawn Gale

Maury McCown

Kelley Barnard

Cathy Lucas

Carl and Becky Henderson

Daniel Bush

Zach and Heather Rickaway

Thank you so much!

Thank you, dear reader, for joining me on Letho’s second adventure. It has been great fun spending time in Letho’s world and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed discovering it. If you feel so inclined, please leave me a review on Amazon and/or goodreads. Every review helps!

Sincerely,

Doug Rickaway

@dougrickaway

http://www.dougrickaway.com

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