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Time to Go!

So it is finally here. I stared at my portable communicator and without opening the message I knew, by the header address, what it meant. I had been cooling my heals for the last 3 months at the cabin. I have owned this cabin at the edge of an abandoned military reservation since my early days in the force. My wife and I had come here with our son many a weekend for fishing and BBQ. This was in the days before open fire cooking was outlawed. Before it was deemed by the powers that be that the smoke from BBQ was dangerous to the environment and could cause cancer in people downwind. It was way before eating animals was outlawed and fishing, even in my private pond, was deemed cruel to the fish, therefore a violation to the human rights of the fish.

This was before I lost my wife to an undiagnosed uterine cancer growth. The doctor lamented that had she gotten a test 6 months before, he could have saved her. Too bad there was a 2 year waiting list for pap smears.

It has been 8 years since I lost Jenny. The lost hit me hard. I had lost troopers in the far out corners of shit hole countries. But at least my troopers died doing what they believed in. The love of my life died for lack of a 30 credit test. All that kept me going was my son, daughter in law and 3 grand kids. I am still shocked that my son had actually won his fight with the UN Population Control Agency and gotten permission to have all 3; 2 girls and a boy. My son was determined to have a boy and refused to allow the doctor to do a gender selection procedure on his wife Linda. The third time was the charm. John Patrick Henry Seaworthy III or little Jack was a bright boy and the pride of his grandfather. Little Jack held my hand during Jenny’s funeral and sat quietly and strong by my side. Jack was strong and smart. He was fiercely independent, just like his father. And that independence is what cost him his life.

The PoliScy teacher had started a discussion praising the confiscation of all privately owned firearms. Little Jack, using history and the constitution as his guide, argued that the confiscation was unconstitutional. The shocked teacher forwarded the e-com to the BATFE-C with a note claiming that Jacks family must be a bunch of illegally armed radicals. I was in an offsite dig when the vid arrived via wireless. The UNWG enforcers raided my son’s house in the middle of the night. Fearing a home invasion, my son ran downstairs armed with a flash light and a baseball bat. The UNWG-E responded with fully automatic fire followed by rifle grenades into the bedrooms. They claimed it was necessary for their safety, since junior had shown overt aggression. There were no weapons in the house (my guns are buried out here in the cabin). They issued no apology. They claimed the officers committed no crime.

After staring at the five white coffins, laid side by side at the family plot, besides my Jenny’s tombstone, I have had enough. An old friend from the force, works security for the CEO of the mining company I work for. He pulled me to the side after the funeral and offered me a way out. I would travel in secret to an off site and start over. My only entry fee is going to be the labor I can provide once we get there. A fresh beginning, away from the ghosts of my past. I have nothing left on earth. Nothing left to loose. I have lost it all.

Packing was easy, as I had nothing to take. My years in the force had taught me to travel light and do with very little. The material things on earth only give me pain. I carry a back pack with clothing, a memstick with my favorite vids and family photos, and my Jenny’s wedding ring. I need nothing else. As I flew away from the cabin I fought the urge to look back. Too many memories, too much pain. It was time to go.

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Colony: Alchibah is a science fiction blog novel.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Probably.

All Contents (written or photo/artwork) not attributed to other sources is
Copyright (C) 2006 - 2011 by Jeff Soyer. All rights reserved.