Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 37 - Dante

My eyes slowly open to a blinding light. Relief comes over me, the light has finally come to take me instead of letting me sit in a timeless place of horrors.

A shadowy figure interrupts the stream of light. I squint my eyes and the figure becomes clear.

“Dante? You’re...alive,” the strange woman says to me.

I come to the realization that I’m not going to the light, but I’m back in the world of the living...

I jump into a sitting position out of my surprise and look around the room. An excruciating pain overtakes me as I feel my joints crack and snap themselves into working position again. I growl in pain and grit my teeth as I bend forward trying to ward off the pain.

The pain subsides and I roll my shoulders and neck around, making sure they’re finished replacing themselves. I look around the room once and see the faces of people that I just can’t put my finger on as to who they are.

“Wh...who are you?” I ask groggily.

“It’s us Dante, your friends,” the familiar voice says to me.

“It’s me Dante, it’s Ethan”, the old guy says to me, stepping closer. I grin, let out a light chuckle, and smile.

“There’s no way you’re Ethan, he’s only twenty-three,” I respond.

“No Dante, I was that age a long time ago. It’s been eighteen years. You were frozen in time. The ship that saved us hit the Zeus with a wormhole constructor to prevent the infection from getting out,” the man who claims to be Ethan explains. I stare at him as if he’s crazy and delusional.

“I think all of you have a few screws loose if you expect me to believe that,” I say.

“He’s telling the truth, Dante,” a woman’s voice sounds.

The sound makes an instant connection in my mind and I realize who it is. I twist around on the table and stare at the woman. Her face is older, still beautiful, but a wiser look surrounds it. I feel a tear run down my right eye as I come to a sudden realization.

“A...Anika...you’re telling the truth...I remember now...I remember everything up to the final moment,” I say in shock.

I stand up from the table, my legs shaking after all the years of not being used. I slowly walk to Ethan and look him in the eyes. A small smile comes across my face and I place a hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

“Thanks for coming back for me...brother,” I say to him.

Ethan grins back at me and just nods his head, unable to conjure words. I turn around slowly and step over to Anika next. As I stare into her unchanging, gorgeous eyes, they begin to flood with tears of happiness, I assume.

I can no longer resist the urge and I place my hands on both sides of her face and pull her into me, kissing her. I try to make up for all the years I was gone with that kiss before finally releasing it.

Anika says nothing to me either and simply wraps my arm over her shoulder and helps me to turn around. I stare at all the familiar, but older faces staring back at me, smiling.

“So...the first question on my agenda would have to be...where’s my godson?” I say to all of them.

Ethan turns to the side and motions his hand towards a boy who seems to be close to twenty, out cold in a seat that’s highly secured.

“Why is he strapped up like that?” I ask.

“Well, turns out the infection did spread over to him. Don’t worry though, we’re heading to get it taken care of as we speak,” Ethan explains. I sigh in relief and nod my head in acceptance.

“Tell me about him, I’ve got eighteen years of catching up to do and I think I should start with him,” I say.

“Well, I guess it’d be better if Elena did that, she keeps tabs on him better than I do,” Ethan says, looking over at Elena. Elena walks across the room and hugs me while smiling.

“It’s good to have you back Dante, we’ve missed you,” she says. Elena takes a deep breath and begins to describe her son to me.

“Well, where to begin? When he was born, we decided to name him Leon Thomas Blake after Thomas, because of what he did for Ethan and I. He stayed on Earth with us until he was two, then we went back into the field with our ship. Ethan took the title of General while I took mine as Commander for our services. When Leon was old enough, he became a cadet in the academy back on Earth and once he reached high school age he went on the new, experimental, field academy on our ship. The Poseidon. For the first few years he struggled with behavioral issues concerning many ‘accidents’ due to his own curiosity. During the week or so leading up to his eighteenth birthday, Leon really matured up and found himself a girl who is standing just next to Damien, whose name is Stella,” Elena says, with a proud expression, while motioning with her hand towards the girl standing next to Ethan’s brother.

I can’t help but smirk in pride myself. I don’t even know Leon, but he still means a lot to me. As if he were my own blood. He seemed to be all I thought about while asleep. I wondered if he was healthy and leading a wonderful life.

“What’s he good at?” I ask Elena.

“He has a mixture of both Ethan’s and my skill-set. He’s an excellent rifleman, but he can hack and repair electronics as fast as I can, sometimes even faster. His hand-to-hand combat has to be where he has the most skill. His speed is incredible and the way he throws his kicks and punches is extremely accurate. Both his legs and arms are at peak strength for a man his age but his legs are where his power truly shows,” Elena answers.

“Good, good,” I say.

“We’re nearly there, you may want to get to the transport ship,” a voice sounds from the cockpit. A puzzled expression comes over my face.

“Why did that voice sound like a Sekrid?” I ask.

“Because it is. That’s Command Master Rin’Gal. We’ve rescued him awhile back. Don’t worry, he’s friendly,” Ethan explains.

I shake my head and accept the explanation reluctantly not wanting to cause unwanted conflict. Ethan must’ve done it for a reason. Anika turns me around and begins leading me downstairs to the transport ship while everyone else follows behind.

She opens the door and sets me down into a seat and sits herself down in the seat next to me. Everyone else takes their own seat, Leon’s girlfriend, Stella sits directly across from me. Damien and Ethan take the cockpit seats and start prepping for launch. Stella looks over at me and hesitantly speaks to me.

“Mr. Hall, would it be okay if I talked to you about something? I know you’ve just woken up, so I figured I would ask first,” she says to me, shyly. I just grin and look over at her.

“It’s no problem at all, Stella, discuss away,” I respond and Stella grins.

“Well, I’ve read a lot about you and your service as a pilot. I actually wanted to become a pilot because of you. I planned on going to the Flight Candidate School after my time on The Poseidon was done. It’s just that...no matter how much research I do, your record always just stops halfway through your career, and then it pops up later on with you as a security officer aboard the Zeus. I would just like to know what happened to your piloting career. You were a prodigy pilot, you took out everything and anything in the skies,” she says to me. I contemplate the question for a moment.

“Well, I guess eighteen years qualifies me for being out of the military, so I’ll tell you. After that last mission, I was recruited into a group of soldiers that many of the people you see in this room were a part of. We were project DARC. Demolition Assault Recon Co-operations. I was recruited to provide air support for a two-man operation called Hunter Two. None of us had any idea who the other person was, all we knew was that we were fighting to win this war, behind the scenes, where no one knew. But I did research myself while on the Zeus and found out that Hunter Two, was Ethan and Damien. I never said anything because I didn’t want to bring up the past for them. They were ordered to do some bad stuff that’s hard for them to relive. I’m included in that myself...I bombed some places that I wish I never had, and I’d take it back if I could. Anyway, Elena’s group, the Raven Agents, worked very closely with us. I provided air support for her once or twice and I discovered it was her after Ethan found out about her being a Raven Agent back on the Zeus. I was told that there was a sleeper agent on the Zeus, but I had no idea who it was, simply because we never had any contact with Raven Agents. Anika here, was the mechanic for my partner and I, after he was recruited of course. She was the best damn mechanic I had ever seen. She knew a jet better than the back of her hand. Most of us just couldn’t do what they wanted anymore, so we transferred to different places. I figured security was easiest for me. So, I guess the answer to your question is that for a while, my career never existed,” I say, concluding my explanation.

“Wow...that’s an amazing story,” Stella says to me, amazed.

“That’s the thing about real life, sometimes it beats fantasy,” I respond, smiling.

“Alright everyone, we’re prepped, strap in!” Damien yells to everyone behind him.

“Well, Earth here we come,” I say as the ship comes out of hyper-drive to a sight I haven’t seen in a very long time...Earth...

Beautiful Earth.