The little prop racing plane was zooming along at almost two hundred and sixty. She banked sharply around the large balloon and began the final lap. There were three planes in front of her, so she had next to no chance of victory in this race, but Alana didn’t care. She was on leave, and she was having fun.

A bright light high above blinded her for a few seconds. During that time, her engine cocked out completely. When she could see again, all her instruments were disabled. Another racing plane zoomed by, obviously in trouble, as it was falling out of the sky like she was.

Pulling on the stick as hard as she could, she guided her blunt-nosed racer toward a mountain lake off to the side of the racecourse. Although her racer could reach exciting speeds (when the engine was working), it didn’t glide well with the short, stubby wings and the heavy, high-powered motor weighing down the nose.

Despite those handicaps, she managed to drop her craft onto the lake surface. One other craft struck the water ahead of her, so she wasn’t the only one to think of this avenue of escaping death.

An enormous splash and the crushing weight of tons of water smashing through her windscreen were the last things she remembered.

~~~~~

She couldn’t breathe. Opening her eyes, she discovered she was in a tank of bluish water. The surface was only a little ways above her, so she thrashed anxiously upward, thrusting her head up above the water.

‘Where am I?’ she thought, still lost in the ancient dream of her pervious life. ‘This isn’t the lake – I’m in a vat – a restoration tank! I must’ve been seriously injured in that crash.’

Then she was too busy choking and coughing the liquid nutrients out of her lungs to think about anything. She managed to find her voice to cry out a weak protest as the netting came up beneath her and gently raised her up and out of the tank.

By the time she was deposited on her birthing table, Alana was fairly certain she knew where she was. She managed a weak smile, recognizing Elaine and Jeff. There were also several techies she didn’t know who seemed to be unable to leave her alone for the next minute or two as they poked and prodded, pulling tubes and wires out of her arms, legs and chest.

“Béla, Goddess of the Land,” Jeff grinned, “Welcome back. You look wonderful.”

‘Welcome, Sister,’ Elaine thought into her mind. ‘There is someone special here who wants to greet you…’

Elaine stepped to the side and Alana could see someone lying on a birthing table similar hers. This someone was male; very young looking and somehow extremely attractive.

Sibilius lay on his birthing table and watched the young female being lifted from her nutrient tank and carefully deposited on her own birthing table. Then friends from her earlier life surrounded her and he couldn’t see her.

Suddenly her bright green eyes met his, and he fell in love all over again.

‘Alana – my beloved…’

‘Sibilius? Is that really you in there?’ Alana laughed into his mind. ‘Did we truly make it?’

‘We are together, if that is your question, my Love,’ Sibilius thought back.

‘I can hardly wait until I am strong enough, Beloved,’ Alana thought back. ‘I want so badly to touch you again!’

“You don’t have to wait, Captain,” Elaine grinned at her.

The two technicians moved Alana’s birthing table up along side of Sibilius’. Alana needed help to move her arm, and Elaine pressed their hands together, momentarily sharing the elation as Alana and Sibilius mind-linked before stepping away to let her captain and her father have their privacy.

The wedding took place three weeks later, and it was truly a royal affair to match the ancient annual Sumarian celebrations of which King Sargon and his priestess Enheduana partook each spring. Instead of a hand carried litter, however, Alana rode in a horse-drawn open carriage surrounded by her requisite six ‘handmaidens’ (Elaine, Annalisa, Lisa, Tanya, Tabatha and Jackie) to join with her beloved Sibilius at the head of the street.

Not having been able to wait, she’d flown with him last night, happily becoming impregnated with his child. But today, she would fly with him again – officially, this time, creating a new tradition for wedding ceremonies amongst the New Viragoans, which the hybrid goddesses were beginning to call themselves as they were permitted to recover their lost memories, and as more male crewmembers reincarnated into the hybrid bodies created just for them so they could rejoin their long lost female lifemates.

The celebration lasted long into the night, and there was much drinking and making love throughout the land. In the weeks that followed, New Eden became a kingdom as the populace demanded it, and Sibilius was crowned along with his bride Alana, King and Queen.

The other goddesses continued in their roles as justices if they desired, and, of course, as they were needed to handle local disputes.

The third expedition into Earth’s prehistoric past returned with a trophy Tyrannosaurus, which was stuffed and mounted at university. Eventually, a museum of natural history was built to house the trophies that were collected.

Frank and Tanya actually did build an inn up against the cliffs of their first prehistoric campsite and spent many years there entertaining and housing the various explorers of ancient earth, listening to their excited expectations of each coming safari into unknown lands, and enjoying the stories of their adventures as they returned.

In time, the sun did go nova. Even the combined power of a dozen Phoenixes couldn’t prevent it, but the little moon suffered no casualties as was originally predicted as it was now able to travel freely throughout the solar system with its newly designed magnetic star drive. It was expertly guided through most of the solar chaos, protected by Tabatha’s shielding enhanced by the power of the Phoenixes.

Six hundred years later, when the Arcadian scientific expedition arrived to study the new dwarf star, they violently attacked the Viragoan-contaminated colony, as predicted. In the first time-loop, they blew the little artificial moon open, venting the atmosphere into space and instantly killing almost everyone inside (except the Phoenixes, of course). In the second time-loop, they were annihilated before they could fire a shot by thirty-five fiery, angry Phoenixes, who made short work of the Arcadians advanced weapons and technology.

After the annihilation of the Arcadian expedition, a general wave of righteous indignation swept through most of the citizens of New Eden, and several ships fitted with an experimental interstellar Wormhole Drive were designed and built to carry the New Viragoans and their Phoenix children out into the galaxy. New Eden itself was fitted with the same interstellar drive so that the entire colony could go wherever they pleased, as the inside of the little moon was beginning to become overrun with humans, and they needed to find an actual planet to populate.

Their queen, Alana, captained the flagship of that glorious venture of retribution against the evil Arcadian Empire, bravely setting forth from tiny Sol and its remaining four gas giants seven thousand years after they had been driven here from their homeworld, fully intent on carrying this ancient war back to the Arcadian homeworld and ending it there, once and for all.

But that, as they say, is another story.

The End

---