A year and a half had passed since Sophie had discovered where her siblings lived and gone to visit them. She was eighteen now, and feeling more hopeless than ever. She had spent more time with Rachel and Kris to try to fix things after her long absence in their lives, and they were getting somewhere; but in her other task, of finding her father, well, she didn't feel as if she was getting any closer to the end.
As she stood in the middle of the deserted plain of yet another planet the lost expedition hadn't visited, she pulled out the badge the Alliance had given her when she'd fought alongside them on Matraxa. That was the same organization that had given up on looking for the expedition. Stuffing the badge back into her pocket, she pulled out her star map instead. She looked to all the planets on there she hadn't visited yet, there were so many and she was so tired. Sophie placed her finger on the last planet the Eridanus had visited before going missing. She'd visited all the surrounding planets, and all the ones in the general direction the expedition had gone from there. All she'd discovered was there had been a massive solar flare event, which caused a lot of ships to take detours. The planet Sophie was on right now showed the devastating effects of the solar flares, and a part of her wondered if the ship had perished in the flames, even though she'd already checked for that possibility and come up with nothing.
No, she thought. A feeling in her gut told her they were still out there, and she knew that she just had to find them. She placed the star map away, having made a decision on her next destination, a planet on the edge of the known universe, in its furthest reaches. She'd visited it before, with Aldred at the start of the search, but there had been no one there. But it was more likely than any of the other planets on the map, so there she would go.
Sophie pressed the button on her teleport watch and disappeared.
To her complete shock and surprise, she reappeared in the middle of a war zone. Around her were buildings and bunkers, the result of a hastily built city. Off to her left were the remains of a rather shoddy spaceship, large enough to hold a few hundred people. And overhead were more spaceships, dropping bombs on this already doomed city.
"Oi!" a voice yelled to her right and she turned her head to see someone at the door of one of the bunkers. "What are you doing standing out there? Come on, get inside!"
Sophie didn't have to be told twice, and hurried over to the building, entering the door as the man who had yelled slammed and locked it behind her.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he turned and growled at her.
"I... I'm sorry." Sophie stuttered fearfully. "I only just arrived here, you see. I didn't realise the state this place was in."
The man stared at her in bewilderment. "You only just arrived here? How?"
"I came by teleport." Sophie held up her watch arm.
The man looked from the watch to Sophie's face. Sophie felt a flicker of deja vu as she studied the guy's face, like she'd seen him somewhere before. "Why did you come here?" he asked curiously.
"I'm looking for a ship actually." Sophie replied. "It went missing about six years ago and I want to know what happened to it."
The man grunted and gestured for her to follow him down a passage that led underground. "Six years ago? Well we won't be any help to you. No one here remembers anything before a couple years back."
Sophie's forehead creased as she took this in. "You don't remember?" she looked around at the few other people who were travelling down the passage with them. "Why not? What happened?"
"Those guys." The man pointed to the roof above them and Sophie knew he was talking about the people who were bombing the small city. "They're aliens from another planet, a small one, a pirate planet, and they captured us and made us their slaves, wiping all our personal memories in the process. All we know is our names." He finished bitterly.
Sophie thought quickly as she received this information. "About five years ago, you say?"
"Yeah that's about right." The man replied.
"What's your name?" she asked him.
"Greg." He answered, though he looked at her curiously as he did so. "Greg Raalin."
The name rung alarm bells in Sophie's head but she squashed them, determined to find out everything she could before making any assumptions. "How did you escape them then?" she asked finally.
"It took a long time. Years of being forced to work by those dreadful aliens, but we rallied together and made plans and when there was a huge explosion in one of their major factories, it caused them a lot of trouble." Greg explained, as they turned a corner of the passage. "More than a thousand of us managed to escape; the aliens were so obsessed with making sure their valuables were safe. We made our way to one of the space ports, entered the ships and flew away. Our escape didn't last long though, since next thing we knew our ship was losing power and we had to make a forced landing. We built this town before our former captors discovered us, and we've had to fight this endless battle with the aliens ever since."
Sophie was speechless. Her hands curled into fists as she thought of the aliens dropping bombs on these people who they had kidnapped and forced into slavery. If the people in this shelter were the people she thought they were, then no wonder they hadn't come back. They couldn't even remember where to get back to! She felt like turning back, going outside again and putting those aliens in their place. But she knew she couldn't. "That's.... horrid." Was the only way she could think to reply to Greg.
He gave her a small sad smile, and then they turned another corner to find themselves in front of a door. "Come in." Greg pushed the door open.
Inside was what looked like a refugee camp; it was a large room, obviously underground, with people crammed inside, sitting in groups next to blankets and other personal belongings. Sophie could see people in distress everywhere, glancing up worriedly as the sound of bombs sounded far above them. Yet again she felt angry at the thought of those cruel aliens overhead.
There were a few groups of people boarding up doors and preparing devices of some sort, in case of damage to the bunker, and Sophie's attention was drawn to one of these groups, with a red headed woman explaining their objective to them.
"Who's that?" she asked Greg about the woman.
Greg followed her line of gaze and his face bore a look of pride as he realised who Sophie meant. "That's Captain Charlotte Minnet. She piloted the ship along with a few other people. She's the one who's responsible for us being here in one piece. She's practically in charge around this place."
"Wow." Sophie said softly, watching as Captain Minnet led her group out the doors; obviously to do something heroic related to fighting the aliens. Sophie wasn't just amazed at Captain Minnet, she was also absolutely positive that she'd heard the name before. In her mind's eye, she could vaguely see one of the reports on the lost expedition, and the name at the top of the page, was Captain Charlotte Minnet. She was renowned for her piloting skills back at the Science Institution, and had naturally been the perfect choice to pilot the Eridanus.
Sophie started to hyperventilate as she realised what this meant, Charlotte Minnet being there. She'd done it, she'd found the people from the lost expedition. It still hadn't registered fully in her mind yet, and she knew she was going to have some form of incredible reaction later, but for now all she could do was look around excitedly for her father. Her face fell as she couldn't see him anywhere.
Sophie finally noticed Greg's worried voice trying to get her attention, and she jerked out of her trance state, turning to him.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "You're crying."
Her hand went to her face and she cringed at the wetness of her cheek. "Sorry, it's just... I think I've found what I was looking for."
Greg's brow creased in confusion and Sophie hurried to explain.
"You said your memory was wiped right?"
"Yes." Greg replied. "Everyone's memories were."
"Well, I have something to tell you about your past." Sophie grinned ecstatically.
Greg looked immensely interested, and pulled her over to the side of the room, where they sat down on some chairs and she began to tell her story. Sophie took a long time to tell it and half way through, the bombings stopped on the surface.
By the end of it, Greg's mouth was open in shock as he tried to take the information in.
"So we're from the planet Earth, we're scientists, and our entire ship went missing without a trace six years ago?" he asked incredulously.
"Well not all of you." Sophie glanced again around the room. "There's more than a few aliens here, but a lot of you were on the Eridanus, from what I can tell."
"Thank you, so much for telling me this." Greg's eyes were lit up in joy. "Without you, we would never have known about where we came from."
"It's nothing, really." Sophie waved her hand distractedly. "I just need to know, is there a man called Asif Lestari here?"
"I... I don't think so." Greg replied, after thinking for a moment. "Is he a relative of yours?"
"He's my father." Sophie said sadly. "He's the reason I came looking for the expedition in the first place."
"I'm sorry." Greg placed a hand on her shoulder. "But from what I know, he isn't on this planet."
"He must be dead then." Sophie bit her lip, a tear tracking down her face.
"Not necessarily." Greg answered; causing Sophie to jerk her head up to face him. "When we escaped the aliens, there were two ships that left. One came this way, and the other headed the opposite direction."
Sophie stood up with a start. "I have to go find it then." She strode over to the exit, preparing to leave, but Greg chased after her.
"No!" he exclaimed. "Please, don't go yet. Stay a while and tell your story to the others here. They'll want to hear it."
"You can tell them!" Sophie protested, desperate to go find her father.
"They're less likely to believe me, and it will sound better coming from you." Greg insisted. "Please."
So Sophie agreed to stay for a while, and for the rest of the day Greg introduced her to almost everyone in the bunker. Many of the people there were not human, somespecies she recognised, some she didn't, but there was an array of colours and eyes and limbs and tentacles and everything. She tried not to panic at the vast number of them. They all seemed in awe of the story, and excited to hear about their origins. Sophie was so touched, to see these people hanging on to her every word. She showed them her maps and notes of places they'd been on the Eridanus. Sophie realised that not all the people there had been on the expedition, but a large majority were. She kept hearing familiar names, seeing familiar faces, and just generally getting excited as the realisation started to settle in. After all this time of searching, she had finally found the people who she had been looking for; she'd discovered what happened to the Eridanus. She felt so sorry for what had happened to these wonderful people, and she wondered what had happened to the other half of the expedition, the people on the other ship Greg had mentioned. Near night time, Sophie was sitting at the centre of a large circle of people, yet again retelling the story of the expedition. Occasionally some person would call out that they seemed to remember something, or thanked her for coming to tell them about their past. At one point, Charlotte Minnet and her group came back from whatever they had been doing, and Sophie was introduced
Shaking her hand, Sophie found herself completely in awe of what was happening. Charlotte listened to her story with interest.
"You're a hero, Sophie." She told the younger girl. "It was so brave of you to come all this way to find us."
"No," Sophie replied, addressing all the humans. "I'm not the hero; I'm just the person who came looking for the expedition. You're the ones who have been fighting for survival all these years. Seriously, it is such an honour to finally meet you all. And I'm sorry, but I do have to go now."
Protests sounded from the people gathered around her.
"I'll come back," She assured them, touched by their outcry. "and I'll make sure that something is done about your situation. But first I need to go find where the other ship went."
"It was good to meet you, Sophie." Charlotte Minnet said solemnly.
"Oh no, it was good to meet you." Sophie insisted with a grin. "Bye everyone!" she called out as she left the bunker, and then headed to the surface.
She ran desperately, typing coordinates into her teleport watch as she went. The moment she reached the open air, Sophie pressed the button on her watch and disappeared.
She reappeared on an asteroid, orbiting the planet which she now knew as the pirate planet. She gasped for air, as asteroids don't have an atmosphere, and the teleport watch was the only thing sustaining her for now. But she knew she had limited air, so she quickly took her bearings and prepared to leave.
Disappearing yet again, she ended up suspended in space, with one huge asteroid belt behind her, and another in front of her. Using her scanner, she locked on to her next coordinates. Once again, Sophie found herself standing on the side of an asteroid, and glancing down at her teleport watch, she realised her air supply was almost depleted. She glanced into the void of space in front of her, knowing she'd have to find a place to land (preferably with an atmosphere) soon, or she'd die out here in the crushing emptiness. She pulled her scanner out and used it to scan the area in front of her. It didn't pick up any form of celestial body able to support life anywhere close, and so Sophie increased the range. Her teleport watch began to beep, alerting her that she would have no air in just over a minute.
"Damn it." Sophie muttered, swinging the scanner around and zooming in again.
Suddenly it picked up a life bearing planet a light year away, and, squinting, Sophie could just make it out among the stars. She quickly locked onto its coordinates, with barely seconds of air left, and disappeared for the fourth time that day.
She did it this time. Sophie found herself standing on an empty plain, the wind whipping through her hair and cutting her cheeks. She stared around at the ravaged landscape and brought her scanner up to her stinging eyes, this time, instead of life scanning for any signs of advanced technology on the planet. After a minute she had a result, though something was odd about it. She shook off her worries and put the new coordinates into her watch. She was so close to discovering the truth, and then she'd be able to take the news back to the Science Institution, and the Alliance, and make sure the pirate planet was brought to justice, and their victims were rescued.
Just one more trip, she closed her eyes and didn't even notice the dimensional displacement before she opened them and saw before her... a monstrosity.
Before Sophie lay a vast wreckage. She could make out charred wings and broken stabilisers, large hulls of ships devastated by laser-fire, and her heart dropped out of her chest and to the depths of the planet.
She picked her way through the crashed ship and saw obvious signs of looting. It seemed the pirates hadn't been keen on having their technology taken from them. They'd downed their quarry and taken what they could. The other thing Sophie was more obvious, yet far more distressing. The bodies. So many bodies.
Some hunched over controls, others in piles in the main body. Broken and bruised and stinking. Many were in various stages of decomposition.
Sophie tried not to breath in the putrid air, closing her eyes and whispering some sort of prayer to recognise all of these deaths. Not that it made a difference. But it felt... wrong... to be a witness to this without some sort of spiritual acknowledgement. Her mum would have said that was the thing to do. Pray. So she prayed to deities she didn't know to recognise these deaths, and protect these people in whatever was... after.
Afterwards she stood, tearstained but holding it together, knowing that she now had to face the obvious. Her father was dead. End of the line.
And yet, as she searched her feelings, besides the current shock from the sheer amount of death around her, she found herself able to confront something that she'd accepted a long time ago. Here she was nineteen, ten years after her father had abandoned her family, six years after the expedition had gone missing... had she really expected him to have survived? She'd known for a long time, although she hadn't known she'd known, that her father was most likely dead, and now, from the sounds of it, he'd lost all memories of her and her family and all his life, become a slave and ultimately died in a gory and tragic death. There was nothing she could do about it. It didn't cause her the pain she'd expected. She had been toying for a long while with the possibility that her dad had been, well, less than noble in going on this expedition. Sure, the work was better, and he'd been able to send back a better salary than he would have with the limited opportunities back on earth, but it wasn't that significant, really, and in retrospect Sophie could see that her father, her ambitious, bright father, had possibly looked at the idea of passing up on the trip of a lifetime to do a worse job and look after a terribly ill wife and three children as chafing and not right. Had her father acted selfishly in abandoning them? Had she, following in his footsteps, acted selfishly in abandoning her siblings to find him? She suspected the answer to both was yes, although, despite years of self-loathing, she was able to recognise that she had been a foolish and grief-stricken teenager who had grasped at what little hope she had left, and who wouldn't have been able to stay with her siblings in any case. Did her father have an excuse? Maybe, honestly, she didn't know him well enough, but the fact was that parents have a responsibility to their children, not to mention their dying spouses.
Now, of course, Sophie didn't think that he'd deserved... this. However, unlike her younger self had believed, she didn't need him to be okay. Somewhere along the line, her quest to find the expedition had become less about her missing father, and more about the opportunities the trip gave her to do good, like with Flauraan, Tiberius, Matraxa and Quoan, not to mention the important scientific research she'd been part of conducting. And of course, the expedition had contained more than her dad. Infiltrating the Eridanus II with Abigail had shown her that; there were so many other people she had been looking for, and even with this less than satisfying ending, there were still plenty of people alive, back on the other, struggling, colony, and perhaps even more still in captivity. Her mission hadn't failed, and although it wasn't ideal, she was faced here with closure to the past six years of her life, and that made it all worth it.
She ran her hands down her face and pulled herself up from where she'd been crouching, shaking and trying to come to terms with everything. She had to steel herself to go share the news, report the people in need and the abuse of the pirates. Death hanging over her, she documented everything she could both there and then also when she returned to the survivors.
Time passed; she shared her news over and over again, organisation after organisation, filling out reports, forms, uploading data, work, work, work. She received lots of congratulations, at the Science Institution, and at the Alliance, when she went to follow up the relief efforts for the stranded survivors of the expedition, and the rest of the pirate's victims. She gave more in depth and personal testimony to Ronan Schofer, and of course to Louise, Kris and Rachel.
Louise had pulled her aside after the formal reporting of her findings, and looked her up and down.
"What you've found is amazing Sophie, I can't believe you've finally done this... but the result is also terrible." She said, and Sophie couldn't help but agree. "I know you'd been holding onto hope for a while. But Asif is dead. I can't imagine how you must feel.""Honestly," Sophie began slowly, meeting Louise's worried eyes with a cool, steady gaze. "I'm fine. It's tough but really I should have known that he was dead a long time ago."
"Sophie, I'm hearing you, but you know how badly you dealt with Aldred's death. And you were absolutely broken after whatever happened on Halapatov. Besides, coping with loss isn't easy at any stage and you're still so young."
Sophie shook her head. "Look I'm not saying that I'm dealing with everything well but this is... different. Aldred;s death was sudden and shocking, and arguably my fault." Her eye twitched and she took a breath, looking at the ground to compose herself. "But I've had years to come to terms with this, and I've grown up a lot from when he left me."
Louise surveyed the girl with a sad smile. "You're right. You have."
Telling her siblings about her failure to find their dad was not so easy. Like Sophie, though, they had long since learned to cope with his absence in their life.
"So I guess we're officially orphans now." Rachel said, staring at the table in front of her after Sophie broke the news.
"Cos that changes so much." Kris rolled his eyes and then stopped, sighed. "I'm sorry... I really don't know what to do with this information."
Sophie empathised with him. "You don't need to do anything. Our lives don't really change because of this. We just have... more closure now, I guess."
"You're right," Rachel looked up and searched her sister's face. "Except that your life is really going to change now, right? You've been working on this ever since ammi died. What are you going to do now, keep working for the Science Institution?"
Sophie adopted the expression she'd put on a few times when she'd been asked similar questions and scoured her thoughts for an answer. The truth was she didn't have one. Her whole youth had been building towards this event, and she hadn't planned anything for afterwards, maybe because she hadn't really expected an end. "I- I don't know. I guess I'll try to find a job? I've got some skill with machines; I could work at a spaceport, or stay here, or do something completely different. I've still got a lot of things to follow up with this though, so I guess that's something to figure out after."
Rachel nodded. "Whatever you do, please make sure you visit us. You're all we have left now." Sophie blinked and looked down.
The next few weeks continued to blur, until finally, her part was done. She'd received news that the Alliance had successfully rescued everyone Sophie had found and brought the villains to account. Processing and plans for resettling were occurring. Sophie couldn't have been happier, and more relieved. She went in for a few final interviews with authorities and then she left, a weight lifted from her shoulders that she hadn't realised had been there.
Later, she sat in her part of Louise's house, tinkering with her scanner, when the old lady came into the room holding something that made Sophie light up.
"The teleport watch!" she smiled and crossed the room, taking the device from Louise's outstretched hand. She shot her an inquisitive look. "So, did they decide anything?"
"You can keep it, for now." Louise informed her. "The department has decided that their test run with that technology has been quite successful. I mean you'd hope so after you've been using it all these years. They've made all sorts of copies, better ones I hear. They'll be keeping tabs on you if you use it but I think they understand you feeling attached to it."
Sophie nodded her understanding. "Thank you." As she moved back to where she was sitting, she realised that there was one loose thread that she hadn't quite fixed up yet. She turned back to Louise. "There is one trip I need to make; we'll have to let them know."
Louise raised an eyebrow.
The next day, Sophie stood on a hill, far from Earth, the wind rippling through her hair and making her smile. She looked over to the view of the forest and fields that led out from where she had landed, and then in the other direction to her best friend's house. Abigail. She'd come to tell her everything, and now, with nothing to occupy her time or mind, she'd be able to simply spend time with her on Flauraan, like she'd longed to for years. Unable to keep the smile off of her face, she moved towards her friend, and into the future.