Gar spent not just one night, but every night with Sarah after that first training day. They made love each night, sometimes more than once, but they never spoke about the future again.

Sarah’s training continued, learning new guns in the morning, and new hand-to-hand techniques after. She learned to fight with a staff, and a sword. It was rudimentary of course, only five days total of training, but it really might be enough to keep her alive if she couldn’t depend on Gar for any reason. They could be separated, or he could be injured. She didn’t want to think it but her brain snuck it in anyways. Or killed. This was a war, she had to be honest about such things. She could even be the one to die. If it came down to that, she needed to make sure she stopped the Aeon’s first. She had to destroy their weapon. She wanted to save Gar and his people.

And she hated the Aeon’s. She thought about Henry nearly every day, about how he had used her, how he had influenced her mind to take advantage of her. She had made love to him, all because it was what he had wanted, and whatever an Aeon wanted, they got. He had violated her mind in order to violate her body.

It was nice having Gar around, but they were both obviously tip-toeing around the future. There could be no future, they were both very sure of that, and so the whole time they were together they had an air of bittersweet hanging over them.

And even with Gar there, Sarah could not keep from worrying about what the next few days would hold. She would be taken to space once more. This time straight to the Aeon home planet. Where she would… do what exactly? Use her crystal to stop them? That was all she knew. She was sure they would fill her in long before she ever found herself on a ship, but she wished they would hurry. Not knowing and letting her brain fill in the blanks by itself was worse than just knowing what was expected of her. She could think of all the horrible things that could go wrong, and all she could do was hope the real job wasn’t as bad as the one in her head.

Four days after Gar began to live with her; though he was gone for most of the day, having stopped coming to her training sessions in favor of his own work, whatever that may be, instead of heading straight to the armory and firing field, Sarah was driven to the other side of the military base, near the landing field. Gar had left early that morning, before she had even woken. She was surprised to see him standing near the door of a silver and blue dome-shaped building.

“Come on,” he said, when she looked to him with an eyebrow raised, and without another word he stepped inside, leaving her to follow. They entered a massive room that was built somewhat like a few of the lecture halls she had gotten to know from her brief time in college; circular, raised along the outside with a series of benches facing a central point. At floor level was a long table with ten chairs, eight of them currently taken. A handful of other Zaytarian’s sat on the raised benches. Every one of the aliens were looking at her as Gar led her to the table.

Admiral Hawkel sat at the head of the able, and the only open chairs were directly to his right and left. Gar took the chair on the right, waiting for Sarah to sit in the one on the left before he himself sat down.

“Now, we may get to work,” Hawkel said, smiling at the Earthling.

“I’m ready to be done with this,” Sarah said, stopping herself before she could finish the sentence and looking to Gar. She was going to say that she was ready to be done with this all. But she felt as though that would hurt her lover, and even thinking the word, as homesick as she was, she wasn’t sure. She needed Gar. She had pushed him away, but it had been the wrong thing to do. She needed him, and she wanted him. He would help her get through this.

“We feel the same way,” Hawkel assured her. “The Aeon’s have been a thorn in our side for far too long. This will rid us, and the universe at large, and multiple universes, perhaps,” he added, glancing to Sarah before continuing, “from the Aeon threat for all time.”

There was a small outburst of applause, from a particularly embarrassed looking female Zaytarian on the benches. She blushed and lowered her head, and Hawkel went on, the medals and pins he wore on his sleeve jingling as he motioned to Sarah.

“We have worked out what we feel is the safest course of action for you, but please understand, that safest does not mean without danger.”

Sarah nodded her head. She couldn’t turn them down, could she? She had spent the last few nights wishing her father had never found the damn crystal, and she instinctively reached up to touch it through the front of her shirt.

“I understand,” she said.

“Good,” Hawkel said. “I introduce you now to our chief strategist, Colonel Silt. He will walk you through what we are thinking.”

Silt was the same gray tone as Gar, though he was shorter and much less muscular, his hair cut only to his shoulders. His eyes were a piercing blue, and Sarah got chills as the alien gazed at her, without knowing exactly why. His gaze was piercing, as though he could see through to one’s soul.

“Sarah,” Silt said, as every other Zaytarian did. It did not appear as though any of them had more than one name. It was just Gar, or Silt, or Hawkel. “I would love your feedback with this plan, so please, interrupt with any thoughts or concerns as we go on,” he said.

“Sure,” Sarah replied, but she doubted she would have anything to add. She didn’t even know where the hell she was, technically, other than ‘not on Earth,’ and she definitely was not a strategist.

Silt lifted his hand, and the lights in the room dimmed as he stood. An electric hum accompanied a slim screen which came from the ceiling, coming to rest directly behind Silt. He stepped to the left so most in the room could see the screen.

“This is the Aeon home planet,” Silt told them, as the screen came to life. There was a shot of a planet from space, and Sarah could not keep from gasping. It looked like no planet she had ever seen before. Where Earth was green and blue, and she was sure Gar’s home world was similar, this one was… angry looking. That was the only way she could think of it. Angry.

It was mostly red, the land, the sea, everything, and there were thick black clouds obscuring large portions of the planet, the same way that white ones may do so in a picture of earth.

“The planet, Sarah, is volcanic.”

That made it all click for Sarah. She had been thinking of something, and that was exactly it. Volcanic. It looked like something out of a Star Wars movie. The black clouds weren’t from the atmosphere, they were from the thousands of volcanoes which dotted the landscape.

“It looks awful,” Sarah said truthfully, and Silt didn’t bother to suppress a smile.

“It is,” he said with a nod. “The planet’s surface is treacherous, and is sure to cause us some problems. But, it will ultimately be our saving grace.”

“How do you mean?” Sarah asked.

Silt paused for a moment, looking to Hawkel, Gar, and then back to Sarah. “They’ve weaponized the largest volcano on their planet.”

“Weaponized it?”

“Yes. They’ve built it up, basically turned it into a massive… battery. The eruption can exit their atmosphere, and take to space.”

Sarah let her mouth fall open. “It can erupt into space?”

“Yes.”

“But, still, they’re too far from you, are they not.”

“Originally, yes. Technically yes, I should say. But they’ve developed another weapon. It’s a portal. It’s massive, and it will create a variant of a black hole. The blast can be directed into the portal, and then another portal transports it. They are bringing the exit here, even now.”

“They’re going to erupt a volcano at your planet?”

“Yes.”

“And what does this do?” Sarah asked, jumping ahead a bit, reaching into the neck of her shirt and pulling the crystal her father had given her out. She pulled the chain it hung on from around her head and held the crystal out for everyone to see. She heard some in the benches above her gasp.

“It can overload the weapon,” Silt said truthfully.

“How?”

“It’s as simple as throwing it in. The crystals that grow on the planet, they react to the volcanoes. Well, I should say grew. The Aeon’s destroyed them all, save this one. It was smuggled away by the engineer who developed the super volcano. He had a change of heart, took a little sliver from the last of the stock of crystals before it could be destroyed, and ran. They found him, but not before he shot that crystal into space, where it impacted your planet.”

Sarah sat in stunned silence. They watched her, waiting for her to speak.

“So, I go and drop this into a volcano, and it stops the weapon?”

“It destroys it, permanently,” Silt said. “In fact, we think the breakdown of their weapon will be so catastrophic that the planet will be completely destroyed within hours.”

“Why do I have to do it? Why do I have to be the one there? Can’t anyone just throw the damn thing in?”

“If only it were that simple, you would be home in bed right now. The Aeon’s could not touch the crystal, due to superstitions. We cannot take it from you and do it ourselves because the crystal is alive.”

That was not the first time Sarah had heard such a claim. She remembered being told the same thing when Gar and her had first come aboard the ship which had brought them to Gar’s planet.

“So what?” she asked. “It likes me?”

“In a word, yes,” Silt said. He motioned with his hand once more, and the picture on the screen changed. Gone was the Aeon planet, and in its place a crystal, but drawn, and bisected to show its innards. There was a brain, and a network of nerves.

“This isn’t yours,” Silt explained, “just something one of our scientists worked up, showing the nervous system of the Aeon crystals. That crystal was dormant until it made its way to you. It responds to thoughts, much the same way the Aeon’s do. In fact, it appears as though all life on Aeon has at least some aptitude to gifts of the mind; whether it be reading one’s thoughts, sensing others, or full on control. Dormant, we are pretty sure the crystal will not create the disturbance we need to destroy the weapon. Awake, and linked to you, it will.”

“So you’re worried that if I leave, this thing will go back to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“And that it’s been alive the whole time? Since I was a little girl?”

Silt nodded. “Yes.”

“And you want me to kill it?”

Silt nodded again. “It will not survive.”

It was a strange thing. A wave of uncertainty washed across Sarah’s body at the thought of throwing the crystal into a volcano. It would have given her pause even before, since it had been around her neck every day for most of her life. It was her good luck charm. It wouldn’t be easy to get rid of it in such a final way.

Knowing it was alive? A creature of some sort? Made it that much harder.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Hawkel asked from beside her in a kind voice. She looked to him, and then across the table to Gar, who was pouring water from a pitcher into a glass and sliding it across to her.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head as she took the glass. “I can do it.”

“Okay.” Silt took over once more. The picture beside him changing on the screen. It was another shot of Aeon, but this time much closer; an overhead view of a massive volcano.

“This is the weapon,” Silt said. “We designated it Point A One, but the Aeon’s call it by a different name. Hell Bringer.”

Sarah shuddered. There could be no mistaking the Aeon’s intentions. They were out for blood.

“Here,” Silt said, and a red circle appeared near the volcano, maybe a mile or two away by Sarah’s estimation, “is where the strike team will land.”

“Strike team?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. A very small team. We think that will be the best course of action. Security around the weapon is surprisingly light, according to spies we have on the planet.”

“You have spies? Zaytarian?”

“No, Aeon. Very few, but yes, we do. Some do not wish to go down the path their leaders are taking them. Of course, on a planet where everyone can read each other’s thoughts, they prune these types out.”

“Gar and I… he came to save me, I was on this planet,” Sarah said suddenly, realizing what had been bugging her since she saw the shot of the Aeon home world from space.

“That was a planet under their control, and it has been for millennia, but it was not their home world,” Gar said. Sarah frowned. Why hadn’t he explained that to her before?

“The Aeon’s. Couldn’t they have killed me and taken the crystal to destroy it? I know they’re scared to touch it, but if they destroyed the others…”

Silt looked to Sarah. “They wanted to use the crystal to transform another volcano into a super weapon, on the other side of their planet. After firing the weapon once, it will take years for the volcanic forces to build up again. Having two of the weapons would prevent anyone from trying to take them out while the first one recharged. They used another crystal to make the weapon in the first place. They vented it and formed it with machinery, adding on to it, but the crystal was needed for reactive reasons. They have not completed the same process with the other volcano, but they were keeping you alive until they were ready for it, and then they would have killed you.”

Sarah felt her heart skip a beat. Knowing just how close she had come to death was enough to cause her blood to run cold.

“Okay, so a small team lands here?” she asked, getting the briefing back on track.

“Yes,” Silt said. “We are going to attack the planet with everything we have. Space assault, on-planet assault, everything. Away from the super weapon though. We will distract them, and hopefully the small strike team can get the job done.”

“I want Gar with me,” Sarah said, looking across the table to the gray-skinned alien. Her lover smiled.

“I’ll be there,” he said. “Along with two of our best soldiers.

Two aliens further down the table raised their hands; a man with blue skin and a woman with light orange skin, like a sunrise. “That’s us,” the woman said. “I’m Fibina, and he’s Char.”

“Thank you for coming with me,” Sarah said.

“Thank you for helping us,” Char replied, and then Silt spoke up once more.

“Four people. Four people is the perfect number according to our simulations. We can do this with four. We have to do it with four. Everyone will have a part to play, but this happens, and the war is over.”

“So no pressure, right?” Sarah asked, and Silt laughed.

“No pressure,” he agreed.

“When do we go?” the Earthling wanted to know.

“In the morning,” Gar said, reaching over and taking her hand. “We leave at dawn.”