Chapter 7 - Arrival

Pummeling vertically into the blueish wormhole at breakneck speeds, Jacques was barely able to hold his stomach. The ship entering the wormhole was similar to a plane encountering turbulance, he closed his eyes tightly throughout the rocky ride. The cabin slowly stabled itself and Jacques felt it was safe to open his eyes again, he was pretty much ovewhelmed by the sight before his eyes. The ship was travelling through a tube in bright blue, its substance seemed semi-solid, reminiscent of the jello that he had earlier. As it approached the point of the hole, the bluish glow emmanated from the front right to the back of the ship and had its surrounding colour was completely changed into blinding blue momentarily before fading away.

Looking through the slightly rounded square window, Jacques was greeted by the contruction of several buildings and facilities on the planet Mars. The foundations of a square-shaped building had already been set up and other smaller dome-shaped buildings already had occupants inside, judging from a large signboard place outside the entrence of the building. Jacques blinked and saw other similar vehicles had passed by them, but heading in the other direction. The view then changed to a star-filled background for several minutes before a small, blue dot emerged from the glittering darkness. The same dot slowly began to enlarge itself, the blue seas and wispy white atmosphere were now visible. Through the clouds, very large areas of the Earth were scorched black and dead, the remaining green parts showed the hope of life still living, vast areas of the seas were still contaminated and political boundaries were now almost non-existant. The whole Earth had aged four hundred years since he last saw it.

Approaching using the same method as the previous descent during 1601 A.D., the city of Kharak now came into view. Jacques almost had his entire face crammed up the window pane in order to have a better look at the city.

The megacity was truly a great work of careful construction. The ship swerved to pass in between tall and huge buildings that reach out miles high into the air, all constructed of steel and glass, and cramped together, it was very similar to the superstructures back in Jacques' time, guess that some things doesn't really change much. Between the buildings of all shapes and sizes, were the networks of connecting roads. Cars and other vehicles cruised, or rather hovered along the well-maintainted roads. Here and there, were a few garden parks, created for recreation for those who needed a break from the bustling city life, all seperated from the roads by a safety barrier. The parks provided a small change of landscape, filled with green grass instead of the usual grey cement on the pavements.

There were several small ships flying alongside them in the air, mostly cargo ships which were supposed to enable efficient and quick transport of goods from the ports to the city. There were also a few advertising blimps floating around, each flying banners advertising household products or fast food restaurants. Advertising was still alive and kicking after all of this while, Jacques thought.

Near the outer edges of the city, were the numerous blocks of luxurious apartments and villas of the wealthy, high-classed citizens, who were rich enough to to afford a home that was not in the centre of all the noise and activity of the city. Most of these villas or homes had little gardens and swimming pools of their own and the area had more security compared to the inner city.

Approaching the city borders or limits, vast fields of lush brown grain and wheat filled the entire landscape, farmers were tending to their machinary and grain silos were plenty in the countryside. The stalks waved side to side gently in the wind, greeting the ship. A bit after the fields was the Kharak air force military base, just a few kilometres from the actual border.

The rough mix of light and dark green colours painted on the building reminded the personell of the history of the Earth, which had large amounts of forests and vegetation before the wars happened and also reminded them of the pledge of peace that they intended to keep for the Earth itself. Several large hangars housed military spaceship and aircraft and some of the aircrafts were brought outside for training and testing purposes. The shapes of the aircraft were close to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and were obviously descendants from the original aircraft. Some helicopters were parked at a corner of the area, they were still in use for Kharak's military, modified and evolved to become into one of the most lethal mechinary that Jacques had ever witnessed.

Flying deeper into the the military base, the ship headed towards a large landing pad which was painted in bright yellow. The boosters on the ship turned and with a slight bump, it landed vertically and safely on the ground. Once the dock had been opened, the occupants of the ship stepped out and returned on Kharakian soil again, escorting Jacques, his son Mark and a little box carried from his hands. Several other military personell emerged from the vehicles parked around the ship and took all three of them by the arms into the same vehicles.

Despite the closeness of the desert, with a little help from the nuclear winter sometime ago, the climate in the area had been changed from scorching hot to moderately cool, with the Kharakian themselves managing to stablise the temperature of the city to avoid getting freezed to death. Plantlife was quite abundant in every single corner of the city, and the inhabitants were encouraging the planting of trees in suitable areas.

The three entered the sleek black vehicle which was hovering several inches off the ground, and they were greeted by a general in a dark green uniform. The car took off once the doors were shut.

"Welcome to Kharak, I'm General Michinski of the Kharakian army, my only duty is to protect our citizens from any likelyhood of any danger. The Queen has requested for your service, which is generally a good news, as few have ever received a chance like this."

Jacques shook his hands and he took note at the number of decorations pinned on the general's heart.

"Thank you General. But why are we exactly here for?"

"I'm afraid that you can only get that answer from the Queen herself, we have not been inform of the exact reason or situation. We believe that you could have played a part in the construction of a certain kind of weapon, very dangerous if fallen into the wrong hands."

All of the memories flooded back to Jacques, the amount of time spent at the Canadian Military University as a researcher working on the construction of different kinds of top secret military weapons. Apart from some weapons and equipment that were eventually revealed to the general public, he never really talked about his work there to anyone else.

He received a letter from the University a week before the whole thing started. He was contemplating their requests to rejoin the group again but he never really reached a conclusion. After all, he thought he had all of the time in the world. He was wrong.

"I'm not working on any of these things anymore. I've already quit."

"But that was before you eventually gave into their requests."

"I did?"

"Yes."

Jacques contemplated at the eventual outsome of the situation. There was an slight opposition at the back of his mind. Turns out it won over time.

*****************

The clatter ouside slowly stirred Jacques from his bed, telephones were ringing and people were talking. He grudgingly opened his eyes to see the source of the noise. The door to his room was wide open, and a nurse strolled past by. It took him a moment before he realised he was in a hospital! He turned his head to the other side and saw a familiar face look at him, with a reluclant but glad kind of smile. His brother had come to visit him.

"Tim! Where's Elily? Where is she?" Jacques was flustering and attempted to get out from the bed but a terrible pain tore through his leg. He winced and looked down towards it, it was enveloped in a white coloured cast.

Tim held his brother by the shoulders and placed him back on the bed. "You've got to stop moving around. The doctors had just placed the cast on for you. Rest now."

"Tell me! Where is she!?" Jacques yelled worriedly.

There was no reply. Tim sat down and gazed towards his clasped hands. The noise was sliding quietly into the background. His hands were getting colder by the second. He drew a breath and opened his mouth slightly but no words came out. He didn't know what to say. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"No..." Jacques was shaking his head side to side.

"NOOOOO..." He dropped his head and his two hands found his face. He started to sob uncontrollably, tears streaked down his face, his body was trembling.

"The doctors couldn't save her in time, she had lost too much blood when she arrived at the hospital." Tim was finally able to explain. Every single word seemed to pierce Jacques, but the silence earlier was the first and deepest cut.