The end of the circle.

An Axis of Time story.

Hey all. Remember when I promised to do some more short stories this year? Did I mention I might call in some help occasionally? Cos that happened today.

Below is a lovely little piece by Jason Lambright, a writer friend of mine who’s helped me through some tougher passages on my last few books.

Jason is giving away the first book in his Storyteller series at the moment. It’s a great sci-fi tale at an undeniably great price - at least for the next few days.

Get on it, here.

But first, enjoy this piece from the Axis of Time story world, and try not to get any dust in your eyes.

The End of the Circle. Jason Lambright.

Tom Perkins dreamed once more. He’d been born in the heart of a war that never happened; he’d travelled through time into one that had. Sunlight shone through his eyelids. He slumbered in his wheelchair upon the black deck of the ship he had once called his home. The scarred old brute of a war machine rested at anchor. A floating museum now, the storied survivor of countless campaigns.

In a time barely remembered, Tom Perkins had been a young man straight out of Pensacola, an aviation structural mechanic, wet behind-the-ears. He’d been assigned to this ship, the USS Hillary Clinton, for his maiden cruise. He vaguely remembered the hot wash and disorientation of the Transition, the shock, the fire, and the panic that followed.

Hell of a thing that’d been, and as far as he knew, he was one of the few still alive who could tell the tale.

He was half-awake as people gathered for this commemoration. Eighty years ago today, the Multinational fleet had arrived in this universe, and here he was now, one of the distinguished guests.

Tom blinked open his eyes and looked around. He was seated on a podium, and his great-granddaughter Anna sat beside him. She’d been born before he was; he always got a kick out of that. He smiled at her, resplendent in her Navy whites. Tom had struggled into his best suit; his grandson had helped him. Tom sighed. There were so many memories, and they were all he had left.

His near century had been filled with such change. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smelled vehicle exhaust from a combustion engine, a stink he well recalled from his adolescence, a decade before back upwhen. Eighty years ago now. Even after all this time, it confused him. Filled him with wonder, too.

He shifted in the warm morning sun, medals jingling quietly on his chest. Anna had pinned his ribbons to his best suit that morning. They were as familiar as his spotted, gnarled right hand. There was the sunburst Transition badge, along with others. The ribbons themselves. So many of them. He’d been a career man. His eye caught a few. A Bronze Star. A Navy Commendation Medal with V device. The sky-blue Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Service Medal. Asia-Pacific Service. World War Two Victory. The scarlet red World War Three medal. So many stories. So much time.

He drifted in and out things. Someone was speaking. The assembled crowd settled down. His thoughts floated away from the here and now.

He was on leave. The Big Hill was being retrofitted; it must have been 1943. Young Tom Perkins wore his sailor’s whites. Old Tom smiled at the memory; so much was a novelty back then. Travelling cross-country on an actual steam train, he remembered the hard wooden benches and the braces of men in coarse brown woollen dress uniforms. The questions. The wariness. The conversations getting easier as those men found out he was a regular Joe, just like them.

Sort of. He kept his E-reader hidden away.

On the deck of the Big Hill, he frowned at a memory. He’d visited his hometown on that train. He wanted to track down his family. His forebears, he supposed. When the train pulled in at Steubenville station, he stepped on to the platform and suddenly found himself at a complete loss. He had no idea how to get to Mount Pleasant, where he thought his great-grandparents lived.

He remembered feeling lost, and strangely abandoned as he looked around.

A voice had saved him.

“Hey, sailor, you need a ride?”

He turned and saw a middle-aged man leaning out of the window of a black Chevy sedan. The fellow looked him up and down. He saw Tom’s “USS Hillary Clinton” patch. The man’s eyebrows climbed a notch, but he said nothing.

“Hate to be a bother, sir,” Tom nodded.

“I remember coming home,” the other man said. “And feeling a bit lost with it. I was in the Great War.”

Tom Perkins shook his head. “I don’t know that I am home, sir.”

He felt tears welling up, and embarrassment at them. His family was gone. His whole world. Strangers had replaced them.

“Yeah, you got the look, son. Name’s John Forrest. I work the ticket counter here. You got family to go to?”

“Maybe,” Tom said. “In Mount Pleasant, once upon a time. But I don’t know them. They died long before I was born.”

The man nodded, pulled out a pipe, and packed it. “So, you’re one of those fellers from up in the future.”

“Yeah. I am.”

The man shrugged and lit up. “Well, from what I hear, you folks still eat. You’re probably hungry. Why don’t you come on home with me? We can figure out where you folks might be at. Meantime, there’s always room for one more at our table.”

Tom hesitated. “Sir, I don’t…”

John tossed his head towards the Chevy. “Come on, it isn’t a bother. Really, I insist.”

What the hell, why not, Tom thought. He shouldered his duffel bag and climbed in.

Ancient Tom, seated in his wheelchair on the deck of his old ship, smiled again. That’d been the luckiest day of his life. When he climbed out of that Chevy at the Forrest house, the first person he saw was a beautiful young woman with victory rolls in her hair. Mr. Forrest’s daughter. Dorothy. She would be his wife, his anchor point, and the mother of his children.

He shed a tear at her memory. Gone five years now. His granddaughter, who favored Dot in her looks, glanced over at him and spoke quietly.

“Grandpa, are you alright?”

He reached over, patted her hand, and spoke. “I’m fine, my dear. I wish Dot was here, that’s all.”

Anna smiled. “We all do, Grandpa.”

The speaker said something, maybe even about Tom, but Tom Perkins wasn’t paying attention. He remembered when Dot came out to San Diego before he returned to the Pacific in ’44. She saw the ocean for the first time and they married. She went home pregnant when he shipped back out. He saw his firstborn when the war was over. Anna, the eventual result of that coupling, spoke in his ear.

“Grandpa, can you stand? They’re going to play the Anthem.”

He didn’t know if he could, but he would damn well try. “Help me up, darlin’.”

She stood before him and held out her hand. She was strong. He took it and willed himself upward, strained with all his nearly extinguished power. With a grunt, he stood. Anna looked at him, her head tilted. He nodded to her. He could do this. She stood aside and faced the flag, along with the others.

The music played.

Tom Perkins saluted the colors beneath the blue Pacific sky.

It would be the final time.