A gathering of Gaians

[Marburg]

Damien watched as the twin suns of Edinburgh began to decend into the water.

He turned his head to his flanks & smiled to himself as he looked at Nature's Last Hope all sitting in a line at the banks of a small isolated loch hidden in one of the moutian ranges somewhere on the surface of Gaia, & allowed the moment to burn into his brain as a happy memory before it passed into the next.

Reaching out his arm, he places his right hand on the shoulder of the man closest beside him.

"Well, Sean...it's time."

The Gaians rose in unison to their feet & fell into position behind Sean, & all faced Dimi with his back to the loch as the the suns sank under the horizon and allowed the night to fall.

"I'm gonna keep the formalities short so we can get to partyin"

"Sean Dawson came from a life of privilege," said Damien to the group, "but I don't hold that against him."

"As far as I'm concerned, his life didn't truly begin until the age of twenty four, when he defected from Planetform & came home to Islay."

"What's more," Dimi continued, "is that he really came into his own two years later when he formed the NLH Fighter Group."

At that, a chorus of hearty cheers erupted from the others

"He's given the Gaians back their pride, and allowed us to return to our roots...& I don't know enough languages to even be able to really find the words that can express my gratitude enough."

Still facing Sean standing in front of the others, Damien McEwan dropped to his haunches & unsheathed a large dagger from his hip.

He closes his eyes & lifts his head to the sky, while wrapping the fingers of his free hand around the blade as he continues to speak:

"I am only one insignificant man & I bleed for Gaia....I am Nature's Last Hope, & I am one of many."

As he talks, he tightens his grip around the blade while quickly pulling it away from his grasp.

He throws the dagger off to the side & holds his clenched fist above the soil & allows his blood to flow freely into the dirt.

"Alone, I am nothing...but tonight, here & now, I am a force of nature that faces a gathering storm, & my blood belongs to the Gaians."

He rises, opens his eyes & again stands in front of Sean while quietly opening a one-way channel on his neural net to a small group of Gaian pilots sitting patiently in a low geosyncronus orbit above the planet, as he pulls a bandage from his pocket & wraps up his hand. --

'Channel open boys! Drop the dingleberries.' the pilot ordered his wingmates from his position above the planet.

-- "Sir," said Dimi, "I with all honor & humility, accept from you the mantle of leadership, & from this night forward will lead the NLH to the best of my ability, and to the limits of my life."

Damien salutes the man & states: "Sean Dawson...You are relieved"

"I stand relieved, Sir" Sean replied with a reciprocating salute of his own.

Hearing the final words over the open comms, the orbiting Gaians begin to detonate twenty one brightly exploding mines on the edge of the atmosphere.

On the surface, the NLH look up to the sky & cheer as the darkening sky temporarally glows with twenty one coronas of green.

"Alllrrriggghhtt!!" Dimi growls to the others with a wicked smile. "Screw all this ceremony crap...R&R time!"

The NLH lift Sean on their sholders & again cheer, whoop & hollar, and carry him to a large group of people quietly laying in wait down at the bottom of the ridge, impatient for the party to start.

Moments pass in lighthearted brevity & appreciation to their former leader as the night progesses, & the NLH and the Gaians as a whole approach the dawn of a new era; nearby the banks of a small isolated loch hidden in one of the moutian ranges somewhere on the surface of Gaia.

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