CHAPTER 56
May 3, 2100 (Earth/Proxima timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
“Just thought you’d like to know, Dr. Burbank.” Captain Alan Jacobs shut the videos down and turned to Roy and Chloe. Samari was in the backyard playing with one of the Fintidierian boys about her age. Roy had requested some children come to visit the complex and Charles had agreed it would be a good start to public outreach. Roy’s motive was much more selfish: Samari needed a playdate.
“Thank you for showing us this, Captain,” Chloe replied to him and turned to her husband. “They finally caught O’Hearn, the bastard. He slipped up when boarding one of the ships making a run to Mars—his fingerprint tripped an alert and they had him in custody within minutes.”
“Well, they were well funded. O’Hearn, or Gaines, or whoever the hell he really is, he will be in prison the rest of his life for the murder of Thomas Pinkersly and for what he did to your family. Dr. Luce . . . well, he’s been arrested and who knows what the outcome of that will be. And certainly, somebody was pulling his strings. It took a lot of money to pull off what they did,” Jacobs told them.
“We may never know. And you know what?” Roy stood and held out his hand to shake the Space Force captain’s hand. “No hard feelings. You didn’t know me and never met me. Gaines is in prison. Luce, hopefully, will be. We are light-years away and my family is here with me now.”
“That’s a very gracious attitude, Dr. Burbank,” Jacobs said, shaking the offered hand.
“After the long duration of darkness I’ve been wallowing in, this is heaven, Captain Jacobs,” Roy said. Chloe squeezed his arm and slid a little closer to him. “Absolute heaven on, uh, well, Proxima b.”