Interlude #1
Three and only three words were spoken.
AFTER THE END.
26 years after the end of Mira’s story...
15 Days until the End of the Cycle
June 1, 2229 A.D.
Homai Kewhena Memorial Library, Partogan Royal Science Academy, Partoga City
Stomping into the entrance hall, the 12-year-old Crown Princess wanted everyone around her to know that she was angry. She pushed past a librarian to view a large map of the building that was posted on the far wall. Wikitoria Mihaka found the room she was looking for on the map and then walked briskly out of the entrance hall towards a staircase. Up on the third floor, Wikitoria pushed open the door to a study room and spotted the person she was looking for.
Sitting on a stool at the bottom of a tall bookshelf was a middle-aged woman with long silver hair that covered the right side of her face. Her dull grey eye was darting back and forth across the pages of a large book she held in both hands. The title of the book was: “
Circular Time vs. Linear Time – Ending the Endless Debate by Irani Sanbrook”
Wikitoria stomped loudly into the room to announce her presence. The woman closed her book, put it on a table next to a second one, then smiled at the young girl. Just like always, she was ready to listen to Wikitoria.
“Oh, dear.” Said Mira Mihaka, “Why’s my favorite Great-Niece so upset? School got cancelled again?”
Wikitoria dropped down on a couch and folded her arms.
“Another earthquake.” She sulked. “It’s so stupid! I was ready to give my group history presentation today. Manawa and I worked so hard on it!”
Mira closed her book and set it on the end table beside her.
“I felt that quake.” Mira commented, “It was pretty strong. Will your teacher let you give your presentation tomorrow?”
Wikitoria nodded.
“Yeah,” she said, and then whined, “But I was ready today! Now I’m gonna be messed up tomorrow!”
Mira brushed her hair out of her face, revealing the dark green eyepatch concealing an old war wound on the right side of her face. She looked Wikitoria in the eyes.
“Tell you what, honey...” said Mira, “Why don’t you rehearse your presentation with me? I’ll be your practice audience. What’s your presentation about, anyway?”
Little Wikitoria perked up immediately. She had a lot of fun doing research for this project and was dying to talk about it.
“The election of Queen Kendra the Peacemaker!”
Mira put her hands together and looked excited.
“Oh! A good choice!” she said, “Her reign was the stuff of legend! When my mother was Queen, she told me about all of Peacemaker Kendra’s achievements... stuff like the Battle of Aoraki, the Pacification of the Levakian Uprising, and mediating the Taiidan War. She was a very accomplished ruler!”
Mira leaned in closer to Wikitoria.
“But you know... I don’t remember much about her election. What can you teach me about it?”
Wikitoria got excited. She stood up and started talking.
“The story of Peacemaker Kendra’s election is so cool!” Wikitoria was on a roll now. “Her election was really controversial! Kinda like the ones Miranda the Third and my Mother both went through.”
“Hmm...” Mira mused, “Miranda the Third’s election was the one where the Humans interfered and changed the outcome; and your Mother’s election started a civil war that killed almost two hundred thousand people. What could be so controversial about Kendra the Peacemaker? Didn’t people know about her commitment to peace and nonviolence?”
Wikitoria put her hands to her mouth and gasped with excitement.
“No!” she breathed. “Kendra didn’t become a Peacemaker until
after the Levakian Uprising! Before she got elected, she was a decorated war hero named
Amaya Maori! She was wounded in the Battle of Aiowa, so she when she did the Royal Election, she ran on a platform of militarism and retribution!”
“Really?” Mira repeated. “I admit, I didn’t know about that. Would your majesty the Crown Princess care to give her favorite Great Aunt a lecture?”
Wikitoria launched into a longwinded explanation of the mysterious and controversial events surrounding the election of Queen Kendra the Peacemaker. Mira listened with rapt attention, soaking in every word her Great Niece had to say.
After nearly an hour of talking, Wikitoria was starting to lose her voice. Right when it seemed like she was going to squeak into silence, there was a loud knock on the study room’s door and a voice spoke through it.
“Announcing the legitimate elected successor to Miranda the Great, Her Royal Majesty Emily the Second, Queen of Partoga, Custodian of the Great Library, Governor of the Royal Academy of Science, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Triple Alliance-”
“Oh, for Miranda’s sake!” Mira yelled over the voice, “Just open the door!”
The door swung open and two people stepped inside. The first was Tui “Toa” Rangi, the former commanding officer of the science ship
Midak, a vessel that had taken Mira on an incredible adventure 25 years ago. Tui Rangi was dressed up in the traditional green and silver uniform which marked him as the Kuhina Nui of Partoga. (leader of the Government and second-in-command to the Queen)
The second person to come in was Mira’s niece, Queen Emily the Second. At 39 years old, Queen Emily II was the youngest adult in the room, yet everyone showed their respect to her. Crown Princess Wikitoria ran across the little study room and hugged her mother tightly.
“Mo-om!” she whined loudly, “They closed school again!”
“I heard.” Said the Queen gently. “That’s why I was looking for you.”
Then Queen Emily looked up at her aunt.
“Thank you for looking after her, Mira.” Emily said. “I always knew I could trust you.”
Mira stood up and bowed to her niece. By way of greeting, she recited some literature from memory.
“‘There is no barrier between my family and the ones I trust. It’s our shared love that binds us together.’” Mira recited.
“You’ve been reading the Orange Book again, haven’t you?” asked Tui Rangi.
He looked around and spotted a copy of the text he'd mentioned sitting on a table, right next to the book about time. The second book was titled: “
Quotations of Tantomile, the Last Empress of Levakia”
It was opened to a section titled: “After the Battle of Aoraki” and the line Mira had just quoted was marked by her own fingerprint, lightly applied to the page as though she’d been giving the line a lot of thought for some time.
Queen Emily II took her daughter’s hand.
“We’re going home now.” she said. “Mira, you know my offer still-”
Mira waved a hand dismissively.
“Thank you, but no.” She said. “You know how I feel about
him. I can’t go back to the Palace just yet.”
Emily and Tui gave Mira a sympathetic look. They both understood. As they turned to leave, the Queen said over her shoulder,
“It doesn’t matter what you think of my husband, Mira. The Palace door will always open to you. No matter what.”
Then Mira was alone in the study room once more. She picked up the book about time and returned to her own thoughts.
Meanwhile, all around the Academy campus, volcanic ashes began to flutter down towards Partoga City like snowflakes.
SO IT IS, AND SO IT SHALL ALWAYS BE.
==========
12 Days until the End of the Cycle
June 4 , 2229 A.D.
The Royal History Museum, Partoga City, Partogan Homeworld
The volcano couldn’t be ignored anymore.
In every room of the museum, workers moved frantically to dismantle exhibits and secure them in protective coverings. The Royal Saber was sheathed and secured in an insulated cylinder. The battered hull fragment of a Riri Nui-class Planet Killer was wrapped in heat-resistant foil and relocated to the basement. The severed head of a statue of Queen Lucy was boxed up and loaded onto a transport vehicle.
While the myriad exhibits on the lower floors of the museum were taken down and moved to safety, Mira Mihaka arrived on the top floor where the important work was being done. She wasn’t alone. Following Mira up the stairs was her adoptive sister Moana Mihaka. Two decades ago, the woman formerly known as Moana
Ranginui had served aboard the science ship
Midak with Mira. The two endured many hardships, had several adventures, and had even shed blood together. Their bond was very close.
As soon as Mira and Moana arrived on the staircase landing, the Curator of the Royal History Museum broke off his task, greeted Mira and Moana with a cheer, and hugged them both!
“Mira! Moana! It’s so good to see you!” shouted Arapata Kirikiri, the former helmsman of the
Midak.
In the 26 years that had passed since the Second Battle of Archer’s Canyon
, Arapata had never flown in space again, instead choosing to make his living by publishing a memoir of the
Midak’s journey and his part in it. The book had been so popular that Arapata had been offered a job at the Royal History Museum. Once the dust of the conflict had settled, Arapata and some 200 Partogans had travelled to the battlefield and recovered the remains of the
HMAS Bushranger, a Human gunship that Mira had brought back to Partoga from Earth. The 190-year-old spaceplane was then re-assembled piece by piece inside a custom-built room at the Museum.
“And now you wanna take it apart AGAIN?!” Moana groaned. “You’re a friggin’ masochist, Kirikiri. You know that?”
Arapata shrugged,
“We can’t fly it out of here.” he said, “Those nuclear ramjet engines are shot. In hindsight, it’s a miracle you didn’t crash in this thing all those years ago. Don’t worry, Moana. We’ll cut it into small pieces so even people with bad backs can pull their weight.”
Arapata winked at Moana, then he moved off to call some of his workers. Moana instinctively reached up and massaged the back of her right shoulder, as though the 26-year-old stab wound had suddenly started to hurt again.
The whole project took about four hours. Mira, Moana, and Arapata chatted about anything and everything while they and about 40 other museum workers tore the
Bushranger to pieces.
Arapata wanted to talk about the past. He reminisced about those long days aboard the
Midak and asked Mira a lot of “what if” questions. He explained that Human tourists were dying to know how Mira would have acted in a wide array of “alternate history” scenarios.
Moana wanted to talk about the future. She made plans for re-opening the museum once the volcano fell silent, explained her plans to teach Mira’s Great Neice Wikitoria how to sail a boat, and reaffirmed her promise to attend the astronavigation class Mira taught at the Royal Science Academy.
Mira had eyes only for the present. She explained her lesson plans for the week and complained about the school’s best space telescope being damaged by a recent earthquake. She finished by mentioning a strange dream she’d had the night before.
“A dream?” Arapata said while pulling a control rod out of the
Bushranger’s nuclear reactor. “Was it
that dream again?”
Mira took a deep breath and pulled as hard as she could. Finally, the nuclear launch computer came free of its housing. 26 years ago, Anika Aranui had used this device to kill thousands of Partogans aboard the Mothership
Tantomile. Mira tossed it unceremoniously into a box and then ticked it off her checklist. Looking down the
Bushranger’s fuselage at Arapata, she said:
“Yeah, I dreamt that I was in the Shroud again-”
Before Mira could continue, Arapata and Moana both groaned loudly.
“Not again!” Moana moaned, “Mira, you tell us about that stupid Shroud dream every day! Can you just give us one day where we don-”
“This time was different!” Mira interrupted, “I swear, Moana! Something different happened this time!”
Moana and Arapata stopped their complaining at once. They had known Mira for almost three decades and had long ago figured out how to recognize her “
pay attention, this is serious” moments. Arapata stopped trying to dislodge a control rod and gave Mira his full attention. Moana stopped detaching a missile pylon and looked up at Mira.
“Look,” Mira admitted, “The dream did start out just like all the others. Just like for the past twenty years, I was in the Shroud alone, and it was quiet.”
“Right,” said Moana, “Then you heard a noise in the distance and started walking towards it. I remember that part.”
Mira nodded. She had recounted the dream to her friends so often that the two of them could repeat various parts from memory.
“But you never got there.” Arapata chimed in. “Didn’t you say you’d always wake up before you could see what was making the noise?”
Mira nodded.
“Last night was different.” she said in a low voice, “Last night I finally got over that mountain. I saw what was making the noise.”
Moana and Arapata dropped what they were doing and walked over to Mira, their mouths hanging open.
“Well...” said Moana impatiently, “What did you see?”
Mira chose her words carefully.
“I saw a battle.” Mira said, conscious of the tone of awe in her voice, “A monster... a
huge monster the likes of which you can’t possibly imagine... it was so terrifying I almost woke up right then and there... but I saw what it was fighting...”
Mira trailed off. Moana and Arapata had leaned in so close to Mira’s head that they could have kissed her.
“What?” Arapata hissed. “What was it fighting?”
Mira spoke in a whisper.
“A Human. It was fighting a Human girl.”
Moana shuddered.
“Oh, man. That monster had her for a snack, didn’t it?” she asked,
“No.” Mira replied. “They were... at a stalemate. At least I think they were. The Human couldn’t kill the monster, and the monster couldn’t kill the Human. Then the Human looked at me. She saw me, even though I was so far away... and she yelled at me... but I couldn’t hear what she said.”
Moana and Arapata gave one another a serious look.
“Then what happened?”
“I woke up.”
Arapata and Moana gave each other a concerned look.
The three worked in silence for the next hour. Piece by piece, the
Bushranger came apart. When she threw the last chair out of the crew compartment, Moana shot a nervous glance at Mira. She was checking to see if Mira’s eye had turned red again, just as it had done for about six hours during the Second Battle of Archer’s Canyon. No, Mira’s eye was still grey.
When the landing gear was removed, Arapata helped his workers cut the fuselage into chunks. From his vantage point on top of the spaceplane, he watched Mira from on high. He monitored her hands for any sign of the semitransparent fog-like wisps of Psionic energy that had once radiated out of her hands, but there was none to be seen.
Finally, as the sun started to sink lower into the sky, the job was done. Dismantled into thousands of pieces and loaded into boxes, the
Bushranger was relocated to the basement and stacked up in a corner. Arapata thanked Mira and Moana for their work, then he asked them to wait in the lobby while he got their payment ready. Exhausted and in need of fresh air, Mira and Moana left the lobby and stood just outside the front door. They wanted to take deep breaths, but the air was choked with volcanic soot. The smell of sulfur was so overpowering that both women had to pull their shirts up over their noses.
“That,” Moana panted, “... was not worth 40 Dirams an hour. We should ask him for more when he gets out here.”
Arapata rapped his hand on the door to get their attention.
“40 Dirams can buy a lot these days.” Arapata said, “All the money on the market just evaporated once Riri Nui started acting up again. This’ll keep you two going for a long time.”
He handed Mira and Moana 360 Dirams each, then waved a worker over to him.
“Hey Mira,” he said, “But before you go, I wanted to give you something. Last week we got box with about fifty historical documents from Earth, and I thought you’d appreciate this. It’s a real piece of Earth history and we, the
Midak expedition, were part of it! I don’t know if you remember, but you and Moana both met this infamous Human before she died. So, I had my people set this copy aside for you. Thought it might have some... sentimental value.”
The worker handed a rolled-up poster to Mira. She started to unroll it and looked down at the paper. It took her just a moment to read the English letters and mentally translate them into Partogan. When Mira realized what the poster said, she let out an audible gasp.
Arapata nodded excitedly.
“I know right?” he said, “It’s like you're back in 544! Or 2059, as the Humans would call it. It’s cool, right? I know she was really, really old when you met her, but it’s clearly the same Human, right?”
Mira looked up at Arapata and gave him a big smile.
“You’re right.” She said. “That’s definitely the Mazama Abbess if you subtracted a century-and-a-half off her age. This is really interesting, Arapata. Thanks!”
As Mira and Moana left the museum, Mira tucked the 170-year-old wanted poster inside her jacket, protecting it from the volcanic ashfall that was now descending on Partoga City almost continuously. Moana eyed the lump in Mira’s clothes cautiously.
“Alright,” Moana said after a few minutes. “What’s up, Mira? You recognized the Abbess really quick in that picture. Tell me how you did it or I’m going to
literally die from curiosity.”
Moana gave Mira a playful look that transitioned into a more serious one. Mira sighed.
“Promise you won’t laugh.” Mira wagged a finger at Moana, who raised her arm and said in an overly dramatic voice:
“On my honor as a retired Chief Petty Officer of the Partogan Royal Navy, I swear I won’t laugh at your explanation!”
“Okay...” Mira inhaled, “I think saw her... in my dream.”
The laughter of both women echoed off the ash-covered skyscrapers and into the sky.
SO IT IS, AND SO IT SHALL ALWAYS BE.
==========
9 Days until the End of the Cycle
June 6, 2229 A.D.
The Great Library, Partoga City, Partogan Homeworld
The Great Library is one of the most iconic landmarks in Partoga City. The colossal structure marked the boundary between the Royal Palace and the Royal Academy of Science, while the Royal Gardens adorned the Library’s main entrance, splashing the urban environment with warm colors and relaxing aromas.
Up on the fifteenth floor of the Great Library, there is an entire section dedicated to “Premonitions, Precognition, and Prophecy.” It contains nearly 8,000 books on the subject, most of which were written by Gifted Levakians before the Second Hyperspace War. Yet somehow, Mira couldn’t find the book she was looking for. She had long since given up on finding her book and wasn’t doing any more research tonight.
Looking out the window, Mira saw that the ashfall was starting to abate, and city workers were already moving into the streets with shovels and plows. A bus pulled up in front of the entrance to the Great Library and a small mob of Human tourists entered the building.
“Uhg. Time to leave.” Mira said to herself.
Ashfall was easier to deal with than Human tourists.
It had been twelve years since the first wave of Human visitors had arrived on Partoga. Mira didn’t mind, since a nearly equal number of tourists had gone to Earth in return. Presumably, the United Nations government was being annoyed just as much as many Partogans. Sadly, after the first five years, the novelty of seeing Humans on the streets of Partoga City had worn off. Now they were just an everyday part of Mira’s life. Every Human that visited Partoga City wanted to meet the Partogan who had reconnected their two civilizations and take pictures with her. Mira had long since lost count of how many pictures she had taken with tourists from Japan, China, Australia, India, Russia, Germany, France, England, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, or Canada.
The Japanese tourists in particular were eager to have Mira re-enact her arrival on Earth aboard the Midak... in front of a camera... with aforementioned tourists. That awkward television interview she’d given 27 years ago had come back to haunt Mira with a vengeance: Japanese tourists had developed the ability to repeat Mira’s words to her with frightening accuracy. She never got used to it. Tonight, however, Mira wasn’t in the mood to be treated like a living tourist attraction. She would take advantage of the lapse in volcanic activity to return to her apartment.
Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, a thick ceiling of volcanic smoke had blocked out the sun and thrown the city into darkness. Partogans recognized Mira on sight and stepped aside, yielding the sidewalk to her. A few of them raised their arms in salute as she walked by. Mira recognized these people. Some of them were veterans of the Second Battle of Archer’s Canyon. Others had been part of the great Solidarity March that had occurred on the day when Mira lost her title of “Crown Princess.” Mira returned the salutes and friendly looks. Some of these people had brightened her day, so she returned theirs in return.
Mira lived in a penthouse apartment at the top of the tallest building in Old Town, a section of Partoga City that had been almost continuously inhabited since the Wars of the Famine. The skyscraper she called home was named “New Mihaka Tower” and it was a modern day copy of a structure had been built during a time period when Mira’s family enjoyed massive amounts of wealth, political power, and prestige. The original Mihaka Tower had been flattened by the Invaders during the final months of the Second Hyperspace War.
When Mira got to the top floor, she had to walk down a curved hallway to reach the door of her apartment. Rounding the corner, Mira was looking down at her purse and grabbing her keys for several seconds as she approached her apartment door. When Mira looked up, she saw a Human standing in the hallway and looking at her door.
Mira wasn’t used to Human tourists being this high up New Mihaka Tower, so she immediately took note of the person’s appearance. This Human was an Asian female somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16. She had very long black hair that fell down to her waist. Curiously, every article of clothing the Human wore was white. Tee-shirt, jeans, running shoes, and her hairband were all pure white... but on closer inspection, Mira realized that the Human’s tee-shirt had many dark, blotchy stains that had dried out and were heavily faded.
When Mira looked up and saw the Human, the Human turned her head and looked back at Mira. For a moment, they just stared at one another. Then Mira spoke up.
“Uh, hello?” Mira asked, “Are you lost?”
The Human cocked her head to one side and spoke. The words were alien and initially made no sense to Mira. In a stroke of very good luck, Mira realized the Human was speaking Japanese, one of the two languages Mira remembered from her brief stay on Earth. (The other being English) Focusing hard, Mira tried to remember the strange Human language and converted her Partogan thoughts into Japanese speech:
“Um... Wah...tah...shi... uh, watashi wa... um... ni-hon-go ga hana...sema...sen. Yeah, that’s it: Watashi wa nihongo ga hanasemasen. Anata wa watashi no gengo o... uh... hanashimasu ka?”
The strange Human tilted her head and frowned. Then she opened her mouth and replied. However, the Human spoke so quickly that Mira completely missed what she said. Mira’s head spun.
Had Japanese always been spoken so quickly?
Mira tried again,
“Uh, Yukkuri hanasu koto ga dekimasu ka?” Mira asked.
The Human shook her head, still smiling. She pointed to the door, then at Mira, and then she said slowly:
“Anata no namae wa Miradesu ka?”
Mira understood that one! The Human had asked:
Are you Mira?
Okay. Now Mira got it. This person was clearly another Human tourist looking for a picture with history. Mira gave the Human a warm smile and said in Partogan:
“Yes. I am Mira. What is your name?”
The Human took Mira’s hand and shook it politely. Looking up at Mira, she said in slightly broken but understandable Partogan:
“Hello, Mira. I’ve looked for you. My name
Akira Jaqueline Robinson. Remember me? We met 25 years ago.”
Mira dropped her purse.