“Let sound the drums of war Let soak the ground with blood Let ring the clash of steel Let rip the flesh from bone Come, embrace us, we are Jack” Warrior sank into one of the leather-bound chairs and closed his eyes. He listened to the hypnotic clickity-clack of the train as it sped across the desert. The train was the first time in over four-hundred years he’d felt safe. If it weren’t for a new Jack arriving every six months or so, he would have long forgotten everything about his life before the battle with the Eroden. He often wondered what would have happened if he had refused to fight, if he had just walked away and used Mara’s World Bridge to go back to the Ruk. Could one event, one species, really have caused all life to vanish from the Universe? Today, he doubted it, but back then he’d only been sixteen years old and had believed everything Jon Black had told him. The Ravens hadn’t come into the picture until Jack 1001 and given them back some hope, but now he knew that had been a false hope. What would happen if all the fragmented Jacks were to reunite into one body? Would that whole Jack have all the memories of all the Jacks, or would he cease to exist and his life and everything he’d done be as if it never happened? He was beginning to have doubts that the fragmented Jacks should seek to reunite. A voice broke his thoughts and he opened his eyes, it was Enge. “We’re coming up on the canyon, what do you want to do?” Warrior lifted his head and looked out the window. “I don’t want to fight the Ravens. We’ll win, there’s no doubt of that, but Toran’Sar says we shouldn’t underestimate them. They would take a few of our brothers with them, and that’s not acceptable at this point.” “I agree,” said Enge. “How are we going to get this thing across the river?” asked Warrior. “It’s possible the matter converter creating the tracks under us will build a bridge, but there’s too many unknowns with that plan, at least until we can experiment in a controlled environment. Jack-T thinks we can open a portal on this side of the river and jump across.” Warrior nodded. “Do it, and don’t slow down. The Ravens might hear us coming and react fast enough to try and board, but if we’re quick, I think we’ll take them by surprise.” “It’s still going to take us time to get everyone aboard.” “Scholar knows what to do, he’ll have them lined up and ready.” Warrior went to each door and made sure they were locked. There was always a chance there might be a second key, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for them to get inside. He stood at the window watching as the train reached the canyon. This would make a good place for an ambush, with the high walls of the canyon close on each side of the train. Warrior had to brace himself as the train swerved through the twisting canyon. The train handled the terrain better than he thought it would and shot out of the canyon on the river-side at a dizzying speed. He looked for the Ravens, but didn’t see them until he saw Ravens leaping out of the way of the train. The Ravens had set their camp on the road that led to the ford across the river – the Ravens had been directly in the path of the oncoming train. Warrior grinned and half-hoped he’d run over a few of them. He saw the Raven woman staring at the train with a shocked expression on her face. She had jumped out of the way just in time before the train plowed through her camp. Warrior raised a hand and waved at her as the train sped past her. He watched for the portal, but it never opened. Instead, the train reached the river, and never slowed down. The train didn’t bother building a bridge, or even continue laying track, it flew across the river with water spraying up spectacularly on both sides of the train. Warrior ran back through the length of the train as the train slammed into the forest. Trees, stone walls, and everything else in the train’s path exploded as the train forged a path through the ruins. Warrior reached the last car and saw a perfectly graded dirt road left behind the train, but that was a minor concern for now, a Raven was clinging to the back railing. Warrior pushed the door open as the Raven was climbing over the railing. The Raven saw the kick coming and slipped to the side, but still took a glancing blow hard enough to spin him around and over the railing to land on the new dirt road. Warrior stared without remorse as a dozen tigers descended on the Raven. There was nothing that could save the Raven, it would be war now. Warrior could see the other Ravens still at the river. Jacks and tigers were closing the new inconvenient access into the forest the road had created, but he would have to fill the new road later with rubble to prevent further unimpeded entry into the forest. The train slammed its brakes on with a screech of metal and a shower of sparks. Warrior flew forward to slam into the far wall with a bone jarring thud. He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. The Jacks and Maras that were going with the train were waiting outside in neat lines. Scholar had done his job and had everyone ready. Warrior stood and staggered to the side door and pulled it open. “Load up, we leave in one minute,” shouted Warrior as he jumped down from the train. The Jacks and Mara’s immediately began filing onto the train. A group at the back of the line were waiting with crates of supplies. “Leave the supplies, there’s no time, we’ll find what we need on the road.” Scholar ran to Warrior’s side. “Are you okay?” “I’ll be fine.” Warrior waved off his injury. “I killed one of them, it’ll be war now.” “It’s been war for a long time,” replied Scholar. Warrior headed towards the front of the train with Scholar walking beside him. “The Scholar wants war, I wouldn’t have expected that.” “I finished reading the book General Cluth gave you,” said Scholar. “And?” “General Cluth believes Dreamer is the last Jack, and there is no putting Jack Aestar, or Mara back together, we were too young and didn’t understand that we had two choices, and we chose to fight, and died each time. It’s all in the book. The nature of the Universe is to create life, not destroy it. From the moment we were fragmented into individuals, we each had a fragment of Jack Aestar’s soul, and as we experienced life, made memories, and forged relationships, those fragmented souls healed and grew, and we became independent individuals. All of this could have ended with any one of us refusing to fight the Eroden.” Warrior stopped and looked up at the trees. “Dreamer is the only one that thinks there’s another Jack, and I think it’s because he doesn’t want to be the last Jack – it’s too big of a responsibility for one so young.” Warrior turned to Scholar, his eyes distant and remembering how it all began so long ago. “I agree with General Cluth, we’re not going to be put back together. We lived our lives, as short as they were, and we died. I think Jon Black’s doom prophecy about the universe ending if we don’t fight is wrong. That would mean there is no free will and everything is predetermined. I think we should tell Dreamer not to fight, and go home. He won’t be the same Jack Aestar, but he will be unique, and maybe he can dream a better future for the Aeden and Ruk.” “Then let this be the legacy we died for,” said Scholar. “What are you going to do?” asked Warrior. “I’m going to make the Ravens pay dearly for what they’ve done,” said Scholar. Warrior put a hand on Scholar's shoulder. “The Warrior that wants peace, and the Scholar that wants revenge, what a dismal pair we’ve become.” Scholar handed the book to Warrior. “It’s all in here. We only remember our own time-reset, but the Eroden memories work different than ours, they have a hive mind, and they remember every reset. They’ve been cursed to fight, and die in the same battle over and over again for two-thousand years, it’s tearing their civilization apart. Whole Eroden colonies have gone insane and… it’s bad, Eroden Queens are murdering their colonies just to end the nightmare. If Dreamer gives them a way out, they will not continue the invasion.” The two men stood silent for a moment, there was nothing else to say. This was the end-game, and each knew it. The brothers embraced, and parted, each to their own destiny. Warrior turned back to Enge, whom had been remaining silent and pretending to be fascinated with the paint on the train. “What happened, I thought we were going to portal across the river?” Enge reached down and grabbed another crate to toss into the train. “We were going too fast and couldn’t calculate the jump coordinates in time.” “Oh, of course, computers don’t work here, we have to do the calculations by hand, and we don’t have Aya to help us.” Warrior lifted a finger in the gesture of ‘I’ve got an idea.’ He turned around and saw Charisma getting his company ready to march on the Ravens. “Charisma, I need Path and Scout to go with me.” Charisma shouted out to the assembled Jacks and tigers. “Path, Scout, report to Warrior.” One of the Jacks and his companion Mara stepped out of the formation and ran to Warrior. “Yes, Sir?” Jack-Path was another shortened name, it stood for Philomath, or someone that loved mathematics, and Scout’s name was just what it meant. Mara-Scout was the best at finding the best paths and gathering information about enemy positions. Their names were a double play on words. Scout, in her opinion, had found the best Path, and she never tired of using the joke. When asked where the best path was, she’d always nuzzle against Jack-Path and reply, “Right here.” “Path, I need that math brain of yours, and I think we’re going to be needing Scout’s talent as well,” said Warrior. “You two are joining the engine crew.” Enge threw the last crate onto the train. “Where do you want to go from here?” “We’re leaving in thirty-seconds,” said Warrior. “Let’s jump back out to the desert. I want to practice some high speed portal jumps, and give Pilot a chance to see if he can put this thing in the air.” Enge nodded. “You got it. I wish we had time to load one of Pilot’s homemade aero gliders, it would come in handy to widen our search. Okay, come on you two, I’ll show you the control room. You won’t believe how advanced this thing is. I hope you got your math hat on, it took us fifteen minutes to calculate our first jump, and even then we plowed over that water shed at the edge of the Story Book Forest.” The Jacks were nearly loaded onto the train. Warrior grabbed the handle on the side of the train and heaved himself up onto the stairs. The aero glider was a good idea, there was one on the side of a mountain Pilot had crashed a few years back and been unable to recover. Maybe they could get it with the train. Warrior grinned and shouted, “All aboard!” He’d always wanted to say that.