Paine is Temporary

Paine is Temporary

2980 AF

1

A horse-drawn carriage rolled down the cobble-stone main road of the town of Paine. Emblazoned in silver, cursive text on the carriage’s mahogany paneled doors was the name: Talmid Letter Company.

The old man in the carriage’s booth was 65 years strong. Other men of his day had long passed to heaven, or cremation, or the nexus force, or whichever next world they so believed in. But Isaac Talmid had a job to do. The letter company was responsible for efficient and effective mail delivery across the entire town of Paine, its villages, and two of the three neighboring towns.

The carriage rolled slowly through the misty morning, the driver was careful, and at the horse’s pace they were easily catchable by running feet. Isaac heard the slapping of soles on the stonework before the courier arrived at his window. The courier was breathing heavily, and Isaac motioned for the driver to give the boy a moment to catch himself. Looking out at the dark haired, slightly scrawny and still in the process of filling out teenaged youth, Isaac had it in his heart to smile.

“Take a breather,” the old man said, “and come in if you like.” He reached out to take the courier’s messenger bag and was delighted to find it empty. It meant all the mail in it had been delivered.

He swung open the door to let the boy in, and once he faced him Isaac said, “Ready for another round?”

“Yes, sir.” the boy said.

“This one’s from me personally,” Isaac reached into his coat to procure a letter. “I would have had Ethan or the regular man deliver it, but you’re here now and there’s nothing better than early mail. The address is on the back. Then you can go home, I can imagine the morning’s run has tired you out.”

“Yes, sir.” the boy agreed. He still looked a little winded, but in good spirits. Isaac handed him the letter and sent him off.

Alone in the carriage again, Isaac was content with himself. He knew that past the time he too would pass, the Talmid Letter Company would be in good hands. There was only one thing more important to the old man than the success of his company, and it was the welfare of his only grandson.

2

Ben Allenby was an orphan.

The Paine homestead was new to two generations of the Allenby family, that of Ben’s parents and of their progeny, four children including himself. As the youngest by several years, all of Ben’s sisters were nearly grown up, marriageable as well, until disaster struck. The home was built around technologies such as gas lines and electron conductors, newfangled machinations and schemes that much of Paine’s regulars were too poor to afford or technophobic to entertain.

But the Allenbys were of a wealthy class, hailing from the city of Avante. They settled in Paine for its natural merits, but not at the loss of modern conveniences, hence the technological installations. Such luxury became their undoing at the junction of a leaking pipe and a sparking socket.

Ben survived the fire and his mother was survived by him and her father, a 65 year old man called Isaac Talmid, an old widower. With no further children and no further interest in wives to bear children with, Isaac continued his business as usual, letter sorting and delivery. He was a man of class, but not the type that his deceased daughter wed into. He took Ben in and put him to work with the letters.

Receiving, sorting, and delivering letters. It was an endless effort, but fulfilling at the day’s end, Ben rationalized, and the motions fulfilled his quota for physical activity, and then some. He was still new to it, only starting the job a week ago. He was still new to being alone. Isaac seemed a fine fellow, but he was hardly what the Allenbys considered fine company.

*Stop thinking about them*, Ben thought hard to himself, *think about the job*.

Isaac’s letter was addressed to a certain Jameson at the Tory Smithing Company, another local business in Paine. Like any other letter it was rolled and sealed, and it was not Ben’s privilege to be concerned by its contents. Luckily for him, his destination was barely off the main street where he’d rendezvoused with Isaac, and he looked forward to returning home after its delivery. He dipped into an alley, a shortcut.

Then he heard light whimpering, followed by a huskily hushed voice, “Hush now.”

As soon as Ben turned to look, he was too late to leave with his ignorance intact, and the man who’s eyes he met knew it too. Phineas Tory. One of his large hands held the loose strands of a young woman’s hair that hung out her bonnet, the other kept her corseted torso close in front of him by her waist.

“Got something worth interrupting me, Ben?” Phineas patronized. He had a handsome face for truly a boy only a few years Ben’s senior, while being naturally taller and stronger, features he used to intimidate, attract, bully, and womanize. “Any of your sisters with you?”

“No,” Ben said. Heat flashed in his chest but he swallowed it down.

“Shame. Shouldn’t you be,” Phineas squinted at the letter, “delivering? Unless it’s for me?”

“No,” Ben said, and Phineas gestured him away like a pest, letting him off easy.

So Ben ran.

3

Isaac returned home for supper, which Ben had already set on the stove. “I thank you,” the man regarded the boy with a smile as he brought the warmed stew to their wooden dining table. “I have matters with you to discuss.”

“Oh, yes, sir?” Ben responded.

“I received word from Philip,” Isaac said of Ben’s uncle, Philip Allenby, his father’s brother. “He has declined to challenge the ruled claim to your guardianship.”

Ben stirred his bowl aimlessly.

Isaac finished tying a napkin over his neck and picked up his own spoon, but not to utilize it yet. “That secures your place here,” the man concluded.

Ben half shrugged. “That figures, sir. No one else wants me.” He said that for Isaac’s credit, as the man had given him his home and his work.

“I mean this not as a criticism of Elisha, or her choice in marriage,” Isaac sighed, “but it would seem your cousins worry less about you as a person, than your stake in their estates.”

“It’d be different if I were female,” Ben grumbled. “Then they could marry me.”

Isaac grunted. “Perhaps better by the Allenbys, they accepted my daughter after all, but perhaps worse. I wouldn’t let a girl do your work.”

Ben nodded. “I like the work.”

“I’m delighted you do,” the man said. “It’s all I’ve got for you, at present.” He stared at Ben and raised his eyebrows while sipping his stew.

Ben recognized the prompt. “What do you plan, sir?” he asked.

Isaac wiped his mustache and snorted. “The shareholders think I’m expiring shortly. The fools are wrong, but it pleases their optics if it looks like I have a successor lined up. It’s just another way your presence blesses me, you should know.” He paused another spoonful. “Of course, you can earn the position too, if you desire it. There’s no one else in my payroll I rather desire it go to.”

Ben knew better than to commit rashly. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

“The towns pay well,” Isaac said. “You’ll need it to support a family of your own, in the years to come. There’s many fair ladies about. I may not be in *that* field myself no more, but consider me a source for some wisdom, when it comes to it.”

“When it comes to it,” Ben repeated. Life with Isaac may be different, but at least Isaac was looking out for him. It was easy to accept his guidance and follow like a drone whatever plan the man laid out for him. Ben’s aspiration and ambition had burnt out when his home burnt down. It felt like a long time ago, even if only a week had passed.

Ben sighed and went back to eating. He had a long life ahead.

4

“This one’s for the bloke in the woods,” Ethan huffed. The middle-aged postal worker stuck the envelope toward Ben, nearly hitting him in the face as he wasn’t even looking at him, preoccupied with penning out the return lines on several identical envelopes himself, working his way through a stack.

Ben took it before it could stab him in the eye. “Who?” he asked.

“The bloke,” Ethan repeated, “in the woods. There’s only one of him. I’m fudging surprised anyone’d be writing him, even the township. He’s a total nobody.”

Ben read the named address and went to the town map. “Damn it, he really is out in the woods.”

“I said so,” Ethan grunted. “You can take B Route on the way back, the satchel’s already loaded. It’s the only one I finished so far, these census forms are gonna take all day.”

Ben shouldered the knapsack and eagerly made his way out. Ethan was pissy when he was pissed, today being no exception. Ben almost gave in himself. The load was heavy today, like it’d been filled with rocks. The Talmid Letter Company made no exceptions, however. The mail, any mail, was guaranteed to be delivered, it was their edge over lazier competition.

“I’m taking the buggy!” Ben called back into the office, hoping Ethan heard him, before changing his direction towards their horse-drawn carriage. There was no way he was lugging literal rocks or objects of similar weight across the entire town and half its perimeter back. He threw the satchel inside and grabbed the reins.

Banditry was low these days, according to Isaac, especially since the militia put up a fort in the forests. So Ben relied on. He knew how to drive, courtesy of the Allenby homestead’s stables. His cousins inherited the horses, doubtlessly. Ben resisted frowning. *Think about the job*.

The job took him past the town’s opposite border and into that part of the surrounding woodlands, where the bloke in the woods had his shack. He was a total nobody, just sticking to himself and living off the forest’s natural resources. Still, Ben had no temptation to know the contents of his letter. Well, coming from the census collector made it pretty obvious, but his service was indiscriminate. All mail had to be delivered.

The horse suddenly halted.

“The Hell, Missus?” Ben looked up from the envelope to address the horse. He followed the twitching of her ears to look into the forest past the roadside, and there he saw it, a glare like a candle in the night, or a fireplace in a dark chamber, but green like a barium firework, bright as the sun’s rays in the day, and massive like a bonfire.

“Hell,” Ben repeated. It was magical, but the mail had to be delivered. He cracked the carriage’s whip but the horse neighed in protest. Shaking his head, Ben reached behind him for the horse’s blinders and dismounted to attach them.

As he did so, a motion caught his eye in the forest, a young man sprinting toward the glare. Ben froze when he recognized Phineas Tory’s well-to-do clothes and of course his handsome yet horrible face. The boy slowed as he approached the glare closely, revealing its massive size as it silhouetted his figure. He stepped into it until the glow swallowed him completely. Then the glare disappeared.

Ben stared into the empty space. He was less concerned with the ruffian’s wellbeing, he deserved whatever his stupidity wrought unto him, than to the ramifications of his vanished form.

The glow suddenly started up again, starting as a spark hovering in the air and expanding into the swirling green vortex of its previous state. As Ben watched, another person approached out of the woods, clad in a tight brown jacket and leggings that betrayed their wearer was a woman, along with a small satchel and a green fedora. She headed straight for the green glare, which Phineas had just disappeared into.

Ben felt a sudden bout of distress. Then he surprised himself by leaving Missus and the road, and his job behind, trampling towards the glare himself. His distress had transformed into something he forgot he could feel – ambition. Phineas being here was bad enough, but letting another young lady fall into what could be his machination was worse, but not as bad as doing nothing.

“Excuse me,” Ben huffed, disappointed in his own gasping voice. The underbrush was tough to traverse yet the woman was nearly into the glare herself. “Wait!” he called.

He thought he saw her look over at him, when the glare flashed, expanding in all directions so rapidly that all he saw was green light.

5

“Are you okay?” asked a feminine voice.

Ben blinked quickly and tried sitting up, only for his head to fall backward onto a hard surface. He hadn’t realized he was lying down. It was dark, like night had fallen.

With a start, he realized it was nighttime. The letters! “Oh no, no, no!” Ben groaned.

“You’re talking at least, that’s good,” the voice continued, and Ben turned his head to find her direction. It took a lot of effort as his entire person was tingling itself out of the devil’s needles, paralysis.

His eyes landed on the woman from the forest, he recognized by her jacket, leggings, and hat. She was staring at him intently, her young face lit up by a clear white light from a strange tube she held, unlike any lantern he’d seen before in design or warmth of light. They were still in the forest, too. Phineas was nowhere to be seen, for better or worse.

Ben managed to prop himself onto his elbows. “How long was I out?” he asked her.

“Only a minute,” she responded.

“A minute?!” Ben yelled incredulously. It had been daytime!

“You’re from Paine, aren’t you?” the woman responded with another question, although by her obvious young age, probably close to his own, Ben was beginning to consider her a girl. He nodded either way.

“Are you not?” he reciprocated. He hadn’t heard of any foreign travelers arriving, as her radical attire certainly indicated.

The girl nodded back, her brown hair bobbing in the glow of the strange candlelight as she did so. “No, I’m not from around here. I doubt you’ve heard of Yorkanton.”

Ben shook his head. “Is it far?”

“Several thousand lightyears away,” the girl said.

Ben’s expression must have betrayed his confusion because the girl laughed.

“It’s from another planet,” she explained. “The one we’re on now is Elistra.”

“I knew that much,” Ben retorted. “Are you saying you’re some sort of alien? Because that’s insane.”

“I’m as human as you, maybe more in a way,” the girl said without a hint of offense, and she even extended a hand. “Lucy.”

Ben accepted her hand carefully, it was soft and smooth. “Ben Allenby.” He let go quickly, feeling awkward. “How did it become night so fast?”

 “Wait,” Lucy said, bringing a finger to her lips, and the light suddenly extinguished.

Plunged into darkness, once Ben’s eyes adjusted he was able to make out Lucy’s silhouette in only the moonslight. With their silence, he also paid attention to the forest noises. Then something growled in the distance. It was followed by several more growls from multiple directions. Lucy shifted and he felt her hand touch his shoulder, and she spoke softly, “Be very, very, quiet.”

Something sounding like crumpling paper crackled right next to them and Lucy shouted, “Shit!”

A phantom male voice followed. “Serenity to scout, we’re reading high maelstrom levels in your area, please standby for a rapid clearance, over!”

The growls became louder, accompanied by the obvious tramplings of their sources through the underbrush around them, towards them.

“You’re an idiot, Danvers,” Lucy spoke into the air before hoisting Ben to his feet. He looked around for the man she addressed but saw nobody except for them, even though the trampling grew louder.

“Who are you talking to?” Ben hissed.

Lucy’s gaze was darting around them, seeing things he couldn’t, when her arm suddenly pointed just north of the horizon. “Look.”

Twin streaks of light like a pair of shooting stars shot across the sky. Ben craned his neck as the streaks slowed to a stop directly above them. Something was up there in the sky and Ben grabbed his head, waiting for it to fall on top of them. Craning his neck, he saw it coming down.

“That’s our ship,” Lucy said. “Get ready-”

It moved as fast as a real shooting star, a purple beam that struck the ‘ship’, exploding into an orange fireball. The shockwave sent tremors through Ben’s entire body and he nearly stumbled. The fiery light illuminated the ship’s frame, vaguely birdlike as it careened towards the ground, but now away from them.

“We can’t land here,” Danvers’s voice returned, “follow us to coordinates-”

Another ear-splitting explosion rocked the forest from a shockwave ballooning out of the ship itself. Lucy shouted another vulgarity that went unheard as the ship disappeared into a shower of flaming particles. Then Lucy was shoving Ben in the opposite direction.

“I can’t hear you,” Ben called. His ears were ringing.

“There goes our ride,” Lucy repeated. “We’ll make our way to the city ourselves.”

“Which city?” Ben asked.

“Phoenixburg,” Lucy answered.

“Never heard of it,” Ben scoffed.

“It was only built last year,” Lucy said. “after the battle in 3026.”

“The what?” Ben stopped and Lucy skidded around, probably giving him a perplexed look invisible in the darkness, which would be mirroring his own.

“Oh that’s right,” she realized with a nod. “What year is it for you?”

“For *me*?” Ben squeaked. He gulped his voice back to its proper pitch, so he hoped. “It’s 2980,” he said less waveringly.

“Damn, you’re old,” Lucy said. “It’s actually 3027.”

6

“Are you saying I’ve been sleeping for…” Ben did a quick calculation, “forty-seven years?”

“No,” Lucy grabbed his arm and began pulling him along. She was strong and for a second it was all he could not to tumble behind her. “You were only out for a minute, and this confirms it. We time traveled.”

“But how?” Ben demanded. “Can we go back?”

“I used this,” Lucy withdrew a small rock, glowing green in her hand, half of it smooth and the other half crystalline. Ben reached for it but she quickly pocketed it somewhere he was uncomfortable reaching for. “I was sent here to get it. It’s going to the nexus force.”

“Are you serious-” Ben started. Nexus force was one of the heavens, hells, or purgatories that the religious believed in, according to Isaac. Isaac! Was he still alive forty-seven years later? He’d be a hundred and… twelve?

“Duh, I work for them,” Lucy said. “Venture league adventurer here.”

Ben nodded to nobody in particular, it was the least awkward thing to do although nothing she said made sense to him. “So can we use your crystal to go back?” he asked again.

“No, it has to go straight to the nexus force,” Lucy said firmly. “And don’t try leaving my side. There’s still darklings all around us.”

Ben figured the darklings were the source of the growls, which he recalled sounded pretty malevolent. As he listened, he could still hear them in the distance, but not from any single direction. “Hell,” he invoked softly.

Lucy dropped his hand and something glinting appeared in her own instead. “Stay close,” she instructed. “We may be in for a fight.”

Then he heard the ping of gunfire, from Lucy’s revolver. Her shot was true as it was immediately followed by a demonic squeal. Ben whirled to face it, and he saw it, a pair of red eyes glowing in the darkness, blinking out from the injury.

Another pair of red eyes appeared next to it. Then another behind it. Then another and another.

He counted five more gunshots before his companion dumped the chamber. There was a rustling from the red eyes as they bounced up and down, rushing closer.

“Shit,” Lucy cursed again, dropping the revolver and some ammo into Ben’s hands while a larger weapon appeared in both of hers, a glistening longsword, which she swung in front of them and slicing an inky black enemy in half. An ooze splattered onto Ben’s arm and he sucked in his breath at its stinging chill, while Lucy continued hacking and slashing at the onslaught.

The bullets just fell out of Ben’s hand as he fumbled with reloading the revolver. *Accursed weapon*, he thought, letting it all fall to the ground. Then he saw the felled darklings weren’t dead. Even as they degraded into pools of sludge, they still oozed towards them, grasping hands popping out of the blackness and reaching for Lucy’s ankles.

“Get back!” he shouted and she jumped to do so, narrowly escaping a lethal touch. “Give me a better weapon!”

She shoved the sword into his hands while a totally different pistol appeared in hers. Ben had no idea where they were coming from, but he accepted the sword and whirled around to cover their rear. Red eyes were approaching but the weight of the sword disconcerted him. He was weak and didn’t think he’d be good in a fight but having something was better than nothing.

“This way,” Lucy called and he spun back to follow her. Running was a better idea, he agreed, appreciating that she found an opening. She moved through the brush quickly and by sticking to her path so did he. She turned around a few times to fire dazzling flares from her pistol past him.

They ran like that for several minutes. It turned into ten minutes, then twenty. Ben pushed himself against his exhaustion. It was run or die, and while he’d considered the embrace of death prior, he didn’t want it at the hands of the darklings.

Lucy suddenly stopped. “We’re here,” she breathed, and Ben fell to his knees. Several projections of white light, like from Lucy’s strange lantern, danced toward them. Their wielders were human, friendly, dressed in different colors of uniforms, red, blue, yellow, and green, most armored but some not.

“Alpha team is routing out the darklings,” said a woman with strawberry blond hair and a cropped jacket barely covering an undershirt that exposed her midriff. “That was unexpected resistance from them. I wonder if they knew what you were going for?”

“Possibly. Thanks for the relief, Melodie,” Lucy said.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t respond sooner. So, did you get it?” Melodie asked.

Lucy nodded and held out the stone, revealing its green glow but only for the second it took to exchange hands.

“The *Renaissance* is ready to take you back to Nimbus.” Melodie reported. “Who’s the kid?”

Ben pushed himself to his feet. “A recruit. I want to join you.”

Lucy stared at him with a surprised look which Ben honestly related to, as he surprised himself with his statement as well, but there was no going back now, neither from it nor to Paine. “I’m an orphan, my family is dead, my town is gone. There’s nothing left for me here, but to come back as a Nexus Forcer and rid my planet of the scourge of the darklings.”

Melodie looked him up and down while Lucy started, “Well, actually-”

“I really have nothing left,” Ben interrupted. The Allenbys didn’t want him forty-seven years ago and certainly didn’t want him now, if they even still lived. But Isaac had. Ben closed his eyes and tried removing the memory of the man from his mind. The old man was surely dead now, by the darklings’ hands if not his own advanced age. At least he had cared, like a father, and Ben realized he missed him.

“What’s your name, son?” Melodie asked.

He opened his eyes. “I’m Ben Talmid.”

7

*Renaissance* was a Venture Explorer class starship, Ben went on to learn. As it hurtled past countless moons, planets, and stars between the planet of Elistra and the world known as Nimbus Station, he took on himself the challenge to learn as much as he could about the future he’d been flung into.

Lucy was aboard as well, along with the green crystal, although just as she was somewhere else it too was stowed somewhere safe and secured, away from any chance of his own investigation. Such desire no longer mattered, as Ben doubted he could use it even if he wanted. There was so much to learn, which he did on his own.

He let his discoveries take him to every corner of the ship. He saw its engine room containing massive reactors fueled by an energy called Imagination, pumping out endless streams of thrusts powering their velocity through outer space. He could hardly believe he was in space, but the viewports didn’t lie. Next he navigated the ship’s cargo bays, situated in the ship’s belly. He looked into the supply crates, noting the different supplies. There was food and drink, weapons, stasis chambers.

One crate opened up to reveal a man, and Ben’s heart stopped.

“At last!” Phineas Tory exclaimed, jumping out and grabbing Ben around the throat. Ben kicked out, tripping the bigger boy and tumbling the both of them into a bulkhead. Phineas’s hands slipped off Ben and he used the opportunity to scoot away, until Phineas delivered a kick to his rear end, sprawling him.

“Forgot about me?” Phineas taunted.

“No,” Ben gritted, turning around weakly. The older boy was already on his feet. He grabbed Ben by the shoulders and hoisted him against the wall.

“We’re in the future, Benny boy,” Phineas said with a wild, animalistic grin. “Have you seen the chicks?”

“They can kick your ass,” Ben huffed.

“Maybe. But you can’t,” Phineas smirked. “You know, we might be all that’s left of our time period. That’s kind of romantic, don’t you think? And I’ve never been just a ladies’ man.”

“Get off me,” Ben warned.

Phineas’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Or what?”

The ship shifted, knocking Phineas backward and sending light cargo smashing into each other as red lights began to flash. “This is the captain speaking,” came a voice over the technology Ben identified as radio. “We are under attack by space maelstrom. All hands, please secure yourself and prepare for emergency landing. I repeat, we are under-”

An explosion that rocked the ship cut off the captain’s broadcast, followed by sparks erupting from behind the bulkheads, from shorting electrical lines. They didn’t hit him, but Ben froze as he realized the network that was all around him, powering so many functions of the ship. The lights, screens, and sliding doors – it was all electricity, the invisible energy, the invisible enemy. He had to get away from it.

He amazingly left Phineas behind in his mad dash up the stairwell to the primary level. But not even that kept him away from the sparks of death. Electricity was everywhere, powering everything. More sparks fell around Ben as the ship came under more fire. Flames licked the outside of the hull, their orange tongues visible through the portholes and the massive front windows. The fire surrounded them.

“It’s just re-entry,” Lucy’s voice came from behind him. She was hunkered next to a low bulkhead, strapped into a seat and gripping the handlebars. “You need to brace yourself!”

Ben spotted an open spot across from her and went for it. He almost made it when the ship made a sickening downward lurch and he was flung off his feet and into the air. Glass shattered around him but he kept flying. Blue sky was all around him. He couldn’t scream from the rush of air in his face triggering his airpaths to close, so he squeezed his eyes shut himself.

He was going to die, and in the moment before he lost consciousness he was alright with that.

8

“Are you okay?” asked a gruff, male voice.

Ben opened his eyes. It was dark again, but not from the cover of night. Thick, gray smoke filled the air like deep, dark clouds. He could taste the embers burning in the air, it was full of it, dancing sparks blowing out from the hulk of the crashed starship, embedded a thousand feet away into a formerly green field, now stained black with burning debris and purple with the presence of Maelstrom.

“You were ejected,” the voice continued flatly. “I need to know if you’re injured, uninjured, or even worth the energy saving.”

“Worth saving?” Ben yelped, quickly getting to his feet. That itself proved his limbs were working, and he tested them further to face his potential rescuer. The man wore an assortment of mismatched gear: green aviator pants, a red chainmail shirt, a burgundy breastplate, and a spiky silver helm. It was different than any of the Nexus Force gear he’d seen so far and revealed no faction allegiance.

“Looks like you’re in good shape after all,” the man noted.

“Are you Nexus Force?” Ben asked.

“Barely,” the man replied. “Was there anyone alive in that ship before it went down?”

Ben thought back. He’d seen Lucy, and admittedly Phineas, but who knew how long ago that was? “Yes,” he said, making a move toward the ship, but the man yanked him back.

“If they haven’t rebuilt here, they’re dead by now,” he muttered.

“No!” Ben shouted, wrenching away from the man and sprinting toward the ship.

“Idiot!” the man cursed, but he was thudding behind Ben. “Look out, Stromlings coming up!”

Ben glanced to his sides, then he saw them, skeletal hands with claws for nails digging themselves out of the ground, followed by decayed arms and partially decomposed torsos. The Stromlings’ heads were the worst, wearing grotesque facades of formerly human faces, greasy with bacterial effuse and the corrosion of Maelstrom. Yet they were animated, breaking into runs and swinging their blades for arms, charging Ben.

Loud bangs from the Nexus Forcer’s firearm dropped several of the Stromlings in their tracks, but the rest still homed in on Ben. He swerved, trying to juke the ones in front of him, when the Nexus Forcer suddenly sped past him, a jaggedly curved sword swinging in front of him. He cut Stromlings down and even took some of their slashes, crying out but not being felled, as if he were protected by some force. The rest of the Stromlings converged on the Nexus Forcer, and Ben used the reprieve to gain more ground on the fallen starship.

Ben knew what he was getting into, fire and furious sparks. But he wouldn’t do nothing to save those trapped within. Against all odds, he had to have been kept alive for a reason. He wouldn’t fail it now.

The *Renaissance*’s forward windows, now missing their glass, provided him an entry into the ship’s tilted interior. From the bridge, Ben continued to run. Fire had spread to the floors below him, but he had a clear path on the ship’s elevated walkways. He remembered where he’d last seen Lucy, strapped to a bulkhead near the supports for the higher levels. If he survived impact, she had to have as well.

There he found her, ripped from the wall and inches from the encroaching flames. With all the strength he could muster, Ben grabbed her arms and pulled, to little use. He was weak and could never lift the girl. “Nexus Forcer!” he yelled in desperation.

The fire licked over her boots. Ben shook the sweat out of his eyes. This couldn’t be it. He had to save the day. He had to save her. He crouched down, pulling her shoulders over his, and heaved. The ship shuddered, or he shuddered. But he was moving, she was moving with him, and he took step after step behind him, dragging her along, away from the fire, the danger.

“Lucy,” Ben panted, “help me.”

“Allow me,” came a new voice, from a young lady dressed identically to the male Nexus Forcer outside. Ben hadn’t seen where she came from, but he presumed from outside. The newcomer hoisted Lucy’s legs and as a team they moved her to the windows. Another Nexus Forcer, a blond male with his helmet removed, received Lucy’s limp figure on the ground. The first Nexus Forcer continued to battle the Stromlings.

“She’s alive,” the blond reported. “Good job, newbie.”

“Yeah, good on you newbie.” the girl agreed.

Ben exhaled in relief, nearly collapsing as his exertion caught up to him. Was it over?

It wasn’t. Not far from the ship, a green crystal glinted, it had to have been ejected from the ship as well. As Ben eyed it, the glint steadily grew into an expansive glare, taller than a man and swirling with mystical, beckoning energy.

“What is that?” the blond boy asked.

“It’s for me,” Ben realized, there could be no other reason for the chance encounter. He gulped back his tears as he began an unsteady walk toward the portal. It wasn’t even a definite that it would take him back to Paine, to his time, but he knew it had to, as there was no other explanation for the seemingly coincidental occurrence. He’d been brought to the future accidentally, but now he entered the portal with purpose. He’d done his job, and now it was time to return home.

The green glare surrounded him, filling all his senses, before fading into familiar woodlands, bright and clear as the day he’d left. On the nearby road, latched to a mahogany carriage emblazoned with the text of the Talmid Letter Company, was a white horse named Missus, nickering nervously until she spotted his arrival.

“Yes!” Ben shouted, pumping a fist into the air and jumping for joy. “Hoorah! Boo-yeah! I’m back, Missus, I’m back!”

“We’re back,” a feminine voice said behind him.

Ben whirled and tripped on a root, tumbling backward until Lucy grabbed his arm, catching his fall and pulling him back to his feet.

“What are you doing here?!” Ben demanded. “The portal’s closing!”

Lucy looked over her shoulder at the diminishing glow, then turned back to Ben. She opened her other hand, revealing the shattered pieces of the green crystal, disintegrated and devoid of any more power. Ben took a shuddering breath, understanding the ramification for his companion.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

She met his gaze. “When you said you had nothing left, you reminded me of someone. Everyone she loved was killed by Stromlings, and with nothing left, she joined the only cause that gave her purpose. You’re not the only one who’s alone,” she said. “But perhaps, we’re not meant to be alone, not by ourselves. Perhaps, we’re meant be alone together.”

Ben stared at her. “There’s a few ways to interpret what you just said,” he said.

Lucy smiled. “Let’s try them all.”

9

**2986 AF**

Ben and Lucille are wed.

**2989 AF**

Tiberius Talmid is born.

**2991 AF**

Abe Talmid is born.

**2995 AF**

Marie Talmid is born.

**2999 AF**

Killian Talmid is born.

**3012 AF**

Abe and Hafwyn are wed.

**3013 AF**

Shira Talmid is born.

Aiden Talmid is born.

**3014 AF**

Evelyne Talmid is born.

**3015 AF**

Alex Talmid is born.

**3019 AF**

Chloe Talmid is born.

And the story continues….