D. MacHale - The Pilgrims of Rayne

It wasn’t so much fun telling her of the Flighters, and the destruction of the pilgrim ships, and ultimately about the dados that were going to swarm the island. Her plan worked… up to a point.

“It’s the turning point for Ibara,” I concluded. “Saint Dane convinced the Flighters to attack and destroy the pilgrims. The dado invasion won’t be far behind. That’s why we’re here.”

Aja paced. She didn’t waste time fretting over past problems. She was already looking for solutions.

“It’s simple,” she declared with confidence. “I’ll change the equation. If the people are going to follow my plan, I’ll make a better plan. I’ll get them to build stronger ships. Or arm them with weapons. Or better, the pilgrimage should begin earlier.” She was getting excited. “This is incredible, Pendragon,” she said, her eyes wild with enthusiasm. “I know what’s going to happen, so I can counter it from the past! I can control the future. “

“No, you can’t,” I said flatly.

“Why not?” she argued. “We’ve got the tools; we should use them.”

“It won’t make a difference. That’s the whole point. Halla has become fluid. If we change one thing today, Saint Dane will counter by changing something else tomorrow. He has the overall vision of Halla. It’s how he found all the turning points. No matter what we do now, Saint Dane will counter it. If you tell the people to build stronger ships, the Flighters will get stronger weapons. If the pilgrimage begins earlier, the Flighter attack will come earlier. I tried to get Courtney to stop Mark from inventing the dados. It didn’t work. Uncle Press always told me things should play out the way they were meant to. That’s exactly what Saint Dane is trying to disrupt. He’s making sure nothing happens the way it’s supposed to, by tearing apart the natural order. Convergence. Chaos. When Halla implodes, he’ll rebuild it the way he sees fit.”

“So then, why did you come here?” Aja asked.

“I’m going to fight him, Aja.” I pointed to Siry and said, “We’re going to fight him with the people of Ibara. His rules. His war. He said the destruction of Ibara will kick off the Convergence. Fine. That means we have to stop it. Not by skirting it or trying to do something clever by changing history, but by meeting him dead on and beating him with his own tactics.”

Aja kept her eyes on me. I was ready for her to argue. “You’re not the same person, Pendragon.” “I’ve grown up.”

“That’s not it,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m sensing, I don’t know, anger. Bitterness. Are you letting your emotions cloud your judgment?”

“It’s hard not to be angry after seeing what I’ve seen,” I answered honestly.

“I get that,” she said. “You know how badly I want to beat Saint Dane. But I haven’t lost my ability to operate logically.”

“I am being logical!” I snapped.

“Then I’ll ask you again, why are you here?”

“I need to know everything about Ibara. It was once a military base. I need weapon information. And maps. Anything you have. If we’re going to defend the place, I want every advantage there is.”

Aja nodded thoughtfully. “There are old plans of the island that describe miles of underground tunnels and give a complete listing of its defenses.”

“Perfect!” I shouted. Things were looking up.

“Is that all?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to say what I needed to say. I counted on the fact that she was going to be as logical and unemotional as always, because what I had to tell her was going to hurt.

“I want you to come back with us. We need you. The people of Ibara need you. This is the last stand, Aja. You should be there. It’s your second shot at Saint Dane.”

I watched her, hoping she would give me a simple, “Sure!” She looked up at the master control panel of Lifelight, turning the idea over in her head.

“I can’t,” she finally declared. “What would we tell the people? That I’m a ghost from the past? A time traveler? Talk about mixing territories!”

“We won’t tell them who you are,” I countered. “We’ll say we found you in the ruins of Ibara. Yeah, that’s it! You’ll be a Flighter who changed her ways and wants to helps us beat the dados.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Aja scoffed.

“I know why he wants you to come,” Siry said softly.

“No, you don’t,” I barked at him.

“Talk to me, Siry,” Aja said.

Aja was right. As usual. The plan didn’t make sense. I should have known she would see through my flawed thinking. We had to tell her the whole truth. Siry gave me a sheepish look. I shrugged, giving him the okay to go on.

“You’re going to be assassinated, Aja,” Siry said. “Just before the forty colonists leave for Ibara, you’re going to be killed. You’ll never set foot on Ibara. I’m sorry.”

Aja stared at the wall. I had no idea what was going through her head. How could I? Imagine opening a fortune cookie that said: “You’re going to die soon. Enjoy your egg rolls.” Talk about a buzz killer. Nobody said anything for a long time. Aja needed to input this information and calculate her choices. That’s the way she worked.

Finally Aja looked at me and spoke softly and clearly. “You’re right, Pendragon. Saint Dane is all about disrupting the natural order of Halla. I agree that trying to change history would be a mistake. At best it would be futile, at worst a disaster. For that reason I’m having second thoughts about giving you the maps of Ibara. But I can justify it, because the maps exist in the past of Ibara. Who knows? Maybe the tribunal already has them. So I’ll give them to you, but I won’t go with you. If I’m supposed to die, I should die. Who knows what I’d mess up if I didn’t play out history the way it was meant to be.”

I fought back tears. I couldn’t imagine life without Aja Killian.

“We all have to die, Pendragon,” she added. “I want you to go back there and rally those people, the way I know you can, and destroy him. Destroy his robots. Destroy his evil. If you do that, this war might finally be over.”

We spent the night in the home of Evangeline, Aja’s acolyte. We needed the rest, and there was no rush to get back. I explained to Siry that it wouldn’t matter how long we were gone, the flume would put us back on Ibara when we needed to be there. That’s why I told Genj and Telleo that we would be gone for only a few hours. He understood, sort of. Heck, I didn’t understand myself. But I believed.

When we woke up the next morning, Aja was gone. She’d left a note saying how she didn’t want to say good-bye. The next time she heard from us, she wanted it to be all about the great victory on Ibara. In the letter she added a note of caution: “You have fought this war the right way, Pendragon. We all have. We may not always have had success, but we’ve fought for the right. It is our duty to insure that Halla continues to exist in peace, but we must do it in a way that was meant to be. I know you will make the right decisions. Good luck.”

The note was attached to a thick role of paper. The maps of Ibara.

The last line of her note stuck with me. She felt strongly about beating Saint Dane, but also in sticking with our principles and the principles of Halla. I trusted her judgment, but with all due respect, she hadn’t been through what I had. I knew that if we wanted to beat Saint Dane, we had to find a new way. Any way. In other words, we had to stop playing fair.

Siry and I went back to the flume feeling rested and full. It still seemed like the calm before the storm, but there was no pressure, because the storm wouldn’t arrive until we returned to Ibara. We found the manhole, climbed down, and found the star. In no time we entered the gate and stood inside the mouth of the flume, ready to go.