"The Message"
Dr. Xadium (drxadium@DEATHTOSPAMgate.net)
April 20th, 2005
Naoko Takeuchi is hereby thanked for her involuntary contribution to this fanfic.
RATED PG-13
Author's note: This is another in an open-ended series of vignettes that will feature all the Suburban Senshi. The first round will deal with the notion of family in some way.
DECEMBER 15th, 8102 B.C.
In the darkness of space, two glistening jewels of light hung in the darkness, the artificial lights from their interiors piercing the curtain of night. Tiny capsules of life suspended in the silent oppressive void, they lay, trapped in the massive gravity wells of the gigantic balls of gas that loomed behind them. They were Miranda castle, in orbit around Uranus, and Triton Castle around Neptune.
While most nights in these far-flung outposts were dull and tiresome, tonight was worse, hollow, and empty. For precisely one hour and ten minutes earlier, Sailor Saturn had shattered her bonds and risen from the forbidden world that bore her name, her body rising of its own volition into space before warping out at the speed of light towards the Earth-Moon complex. One minute ago, she had ground to a halt, casting her dark gaze over the shattered remnants of the once-glowing Silver Millennium. Thirty seconds ago, she had raised it. Ten seconds ago, she had dropped in. One second ago, a massive shockwave erased her, and almost all the vestiges of the greatest civilisation in this corner of the galaxy, from existence. And the wave of death was still coming for the other worlds, a shell of energetic dark death that was exterminating everything in its wake, clearing the way for a new history to be born.
In this direction from the Earth, Mars would fall first. Then Jupiter. Then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. It was inevitable. Unstoppable. And unfortunately, Predictable.
From the instant the three talismans had broken free of their bonds and left the outer worlds, converging on Saturn and awakening her, Uranus had had her computers do the math. She knew that after the death cry of Silver Millennium, the Silence wave would reach her world in precisely two hours and forty-five minutes, hitting Neptune about two hours later.
Uranus didn't know what the hell to think. Here she was, a hardened combat veteran who had seen more battles than any one of the Guardian Soldiers, dodging death on thousands of occassions, suddenly resigned to death by the numbers. She knew the exact hour, minute and second when she would cease to be. And there was no way to avoid it.
What was worse that she was alone on her orbital station. All the staff had gone to Earth for the peace negotiations which had obviously failed, as she knew they would. Only she, Neptune and Pluto had stayed at their posts as they had sworn to do. There had been no word from Pluto all day, leaving Neptune alone in her castle, probably also monitoring the news of her sealed fate.
Once she knew in her heart that the Empire had fallen, Uranus sighed and began transmitting a message to her partner, friend and lover.
TRITON CASTLE
"We did our duty... and... I was proud to know you. Perhaps in the next life..." Uranus' image cracked and hissed, as interstellar interference distorted the image slightly. The screen went blank as the message ended, showing the sigil of Uranus in yellow over a navy blue field. There were no messages of love or final sentiment. All these emotions had been conveyed silently in Uranus' eyes, saying all that needed to be said. The message was stilted and terse, a letter written in video, non-interactive and thus formal to the end.
Forty-five minutes, Neptune realized. By the time the message had made the two hour trek from Uranus to Neptune, the silence wave would have advanced on Uranus' home planet, leaving her only 45 minutes of life left. And there was no way her return message could reach her in time. No way for her to comfort Uranus, to be with her, even virtually at the end, no way to do anything about anything!
Neptune balled up her fists and sank to the ground in a corner, not even feeling the hardness of the steel floor under her bottom. Tears of impotent fury welled up in her eyes and clouded her vision in a blurry liquid haze. She sobbed loudly, the sound of her pain insignificant in contrast to the void.
Slowly she stood up and made her way to the console, hitting "transmit." It was a futile gesture, she knew, but she had to do it.
Taking a deep breath, she intoned "Uranus..."
The message screamed forth from the tower's transmitter, hurtling into the void, but erased en route, swallowed up and obliterated by the oncoming silence wave which had already consumed the intended recipient. Within minutes, the sender was gone as well, the words lost to history.
THE PRESENT DAY
"...I love you", Michiru said softly as she caressed Haruka's chin, gazing into her eyes as they sat in a Paris cafe' celebrating their engagement.