Jack "Lone Wolf" Carter

"Yeah, looks kinda like a regular joe, huh?"

"Yeah, but I hear he was the sole survivor of over twenty''five missions before they gave him his own scoutship."

"You'd think they'd have him before a board with a record like that."

They did, but the results all cleared him. I heard they stopped sending him up after the twelfth time."

"Kinda regular looking....but he gives me the creeps."

"Me, too."

As Captain Jack Carter strode down the hall, he overheard the two station techs whispering. He'd heard it all before. The whispers, the accusations, the innuendoes. On every duty station he encountered, the talk was all the same. No one wanted anything to do with him. They tagged him as either the luckiest man in the fleet or the most jinxed. Either way, Jack Carter preferred it that way.

He named his ship the Lone Wolf, and most people, even command, had begun referring to him as such. It all started on his first mission, when the McGovern crashed on an uncharted planet. He was the sole survivor and would have died had it not been for the Ghenans''''a race of people who had saved his dying carcass. Then, each time Jack's missions seemed doomed to failure, a member of the Ghenans would protect him while all around him died. He was invincible.

But at what price?

As he entered his quarters, Jack felt her presence. He still wondered at how her people could bypass fleet security, enter where they wished undetected. Without looking for her, an action he knew was pointless, he crossed to his things and finished packing them up.

"Jackkkk." Her voice was a clash between silk and a circuit breaker tripping. "Ittt isss time."

Jack knew, had always known that this would come. He'd counted his missions. This was his one hundred and twentieth. The appointed time to pay back the Ghenans' gift. For not only did they restore his broken body and mind, not only did they guard over him on every dangerous mission he ever took, they also had exacted a steep price for these services.

Jack Carter would become one with the Ghenans. He would add to their race of diversified beings. He would give them the human element they needed to finally face the rest of the universe. And over the years, Jack realized what this would mean. All the races that made up the Ghenans were peaceful. Man alone, in all the settled stars, were most warlike.

A glow built up around the room. He turned and stared at the bipedal image forming in the center of multiple concentric rings.

Jack never felt so at peace, so content. Her name was enveloped rather than heard. But he imagined it to be Ch'ellena. It flowed, as she did. Those many years ago, Jack had felt her presence; had felt her after they had repaired his body, his mind. Even then, he knew they had opposing gender, though they denied it. Now, as he stepped through the portal into their realm, Jack Carter thought he could finally end his "lucky" life. Too many years, too much death. Death mocked him in every disaster. It called his name in the cries of all those who died in his stead.

Jack's mind wandered over the years. His first crash, the McGovern, cost ninety lives. And the future he thought he had with his children. After Lise had declared him dead and barred his children from him, there was nothing but the Explorer Corps left for him. He returned after a brief recuperation. Then came the ground car accident on Mars. He lost a friend in that one. The Corps investigated and found nothing wrong. They even found he'd uncovered a lost relic from an older space faring race.

After several more death defying accidents, the General Staff decided to station him on a ground base on the moon of Alpha Centurai Prime. That's when the Bonaventure Freight company sent a new test engine, illegally, aboard the ship Orlanda. When the navigation master went haywire, Jack was sent to stop the small frigate from crashing into the base. Instead, his ship was sent spiraling headlong into a crater by the rogue ship. The Orlanda smashed into the base and killed all the people there. While awaiting rescue, he found evidence of a race called the Jukqs, who were about to begin a war with mankind.

His missions thereafter, though successful, were solo. Though the Corps regarded his skills highly, they could not believe there wasn't a connection between him and the disasters. Mission after mission, ended in the loss of his ship. They also ended with him near death, yet miraculously returned to life.

Now, after one hundred twenty missions, his benefactors, the Ghenans, had come to claim him. Ch'ellena had come for him. And he was glad. Glad to finally get his life over with. No more miracle returns from the dead, no more near brushes with death. The end. Over. Finito.

"Commmme, Captainn Jackkk Carttter. Itt isss time."

Jack stepped forward into the light. The luckiest man in the fleet. He gave one final "harrumph" at the gullibility of man, who would probably never know what hit them until they were faced with the rest of the universe.

"Wellllcoooooommmmmmme, Jaaaaaaacckkk," Ch'ellena's soothing tones teased his mind.

That's when he saw it. He was now fully in their realm. He was in a vast room, suspended out over a station in orbit. The red and green planet below swirled with a beauty unlike any of the dozens of worlds Jack had been sent to explore. But it was not the body below that brought his eyes wide. It was the fleet of ships arrayed in a war ready state between him and the Ghenans' world.

They were all the ships he had seen destroyed over the years. The McGovern, the Orlanda. The scoutship he had named the Flying Bull. Even the heavily armored star cruiser Bastille, which had run amok during the first war between the Jukqs and Earth. He turned to face Ch'ellena, and looked into the face of betrayal. Then he looked back at the fleet, catching another reflection in the glass. A second face of betrayal was trapped in the wide pane.

His.