WHAT FATE HOLDS FOR US

 In a realm where space and time are constructs without meaning, Richard Blaine and the Spartan 300 head for their destiny on Omaha Beach.

WHAT FATE HOLDS FOR US

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”

– William Shakespeare

 

“Now, what?” Nurse Reynolds cried, echoing my own question.

‘One school of Celestial Thought actually negates time: it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than as a present hope, that the past has no reality other than as a present memory.’

‘Say again?’ I mind-asked Sentient.

‘No.’

Sentient’s murmur took on a musing tone. ‘As I played God just now, I also had a dream simultaneously.’

‘You can dream?’

“Hush.’

My cheek stung as invisible fingers slapped it.  

‘A dream of a long game of chess. The players were not two persons, but two mysterious families. The game had been going on for centuries. Nobody could remember what the stakes were, but it was rumored that they were enormous, perhaps infinite. The chessmen and the board were in a secret tower, whose turrets slowly began to take shape.’

Sentient’s voice grew sullen. ‘And then ….’

‘And then, what?’

‘And then, that shrill voiced Nightingale asked that inane question.’

Our perpetual questioner cried out, “Major, where the hell are we now? Back where we were?

“No, Taylor. That was the Outer Realms, a place that was not even a place. According to Sentient, this … region is beyond space and time … where those constructs don’t even exist, much less have meaning.”

Reese snorted, “I’m so glad Stew asked, Major. That cleared everything right on up for me.”

Amos frowned, “Why are we here then?”

I turned to him. “Rabbi, isn’t that the question you’re supposed to answer, not ask?”

“Very not funny, Rick.”

I ironed my face with a bandaged palm.

“Right now, those battleships and destroyers are shelling Omaha Beach. Sentient wanted to prevent rattled officers from blasting us to bloody rag dolls by accident.”

“Or on purpose,” muttered Porkins.

I nodded. “Or that, Franklin. What’s worse is that those shell are landing in the water, killing fish but no Germans … or landing beyond the cliffs. NONE are hitting the beach and creating fox holes for us to hide in or destroying the gun emplacements.”

Theo started to order Porkins to drop and do fifty for speaking out of turn.

I shook my head.

“Everyone, keep hold of those scooter handles. They are actually Inertia Dampeners … as is the whole of Rocinante. The handles just intensify the effect, keeping you from flying over the sides.”

“What would happen to us, then?” asked Pvt. Kent.

I shivered at Sentient’s answer within my mind.

“Alfred, you would stall in mid-air, looking as if you were in a still photograph. All of your essence would … stall. Caught endlessly experiencing your past, present, and possible futures all at once … for all eternity.”

Pvt. Evans snapped, “Ah, Franklin, hold onto those damn handles!”

Porkins rasped, “My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there not hanging in some hellish limbo.”

Reese grumbled, “I’ve noticed what we plan often takes a nose-dive into the ditch beside the road of life.”

Dimitri scowled, “Yes, I have noticed what we will is sometimes merely soap bubbles blown by fate elsewhere.”

Pvt. Dickens nodded. “I concur. I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.”

Evans groaned, “Chuck, you know what my idea of Hell is? You explaining life to me for eternity!”

Pvt. Stew Taylor shook his head negatively (for the 1000^th time that I could recall).

“Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure.”

Amos chimed in, being a rabbi how could he not? “Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.”

Sentient mocked them in my mind. ‘I would laugh to hear ants wax philosophic if it were not so tragic.’

‘As far as I can see, Sentient, it's not important that we have free will or not, just as long as we have the illusion of free will to stop us from going mad.’

I mind-sighed, ‘Besides, can’t you see? They’re scared through and through down to the marrow of their bones. All this talk of free will is to distract them from the fact that they have none in avoiding Omaha Beach and the death awaiting them there.’

I called out, “Make sure your packs are cinched tight and your rifles stay slinged! I don’t want to get shot in the butt until I tell you to unsling them.”

Theo grinned lopsided, “Language, Major.”

I turned to Amos and froze. He was as pale as a leper … and trembling. If he was like this, how were many of my Spartans reacting to our approach to Omaha Beach?

Sentient murmured in my helmet, and thus, in all of the Spartans’ helmets.

“You shall not be the worse for this - I promise you. You will be much the better for it. Just believe what I say and do as I tell you.”

Beside me, Amos was spilling all the bullets he was trying to push into his pistol clip.

I smiled sadly at him. “A good friend listens to your adventures. A best friend makes them with you.”

I gently took the gun from his trembling fingers, and my artificial fingers tingled as if touched by a live wire. I felt bullets form in my palm.

I started thumbing them into the clip of his .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

He rasped, “Th-There were no bullets in that hand a second ago.”

“It’s a kind ….”

“Of magic,” he weakly grinned. “I know. I’ve heard it before.”

I took his shoulder gently, for I no longer knew how strong my new fingers were. 

“The most beautiful people I have ever known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.”

I squeezed his shoulder a bit stronger and since he didn’t wince, it was just enough.

“Amos, you, Theo, and the others will make it through this. I don’t know exactly how, mind you, but ….”

I stiffened as Sentient told me. It was wild, crazy. Like something out of the Old Testament. But she had never lied to me.

“All right, Gentlemen! That ramp is just about to drop. When it does, I want you to run onto that beach as if the Angel of Death were right at your heels … for she will be.”

I cleared my closing throat. 

“The path will be cleared for you. Do not stop for anything. If a brother stumbles, however, you pull him back up onto his feet and run with him. We are a family, and family leaves no one behind.”

Suddenly, Helen Mayfair’s delicate, haunted face appeared before me, and I smiled with all the love I had for her as if she could actually see me.

Sentient murmured within my mind.

‘How lucky you are to have someone that makes saying goodbye so hard.’

I took a deep breath. “That ramp will drop at the count of three."

 "One …. Two ….