by Tom Julian
The entrance to Highland was a little less than a mile away, the massive door tiny in the huge rock face. He made his way unhurried to the entrance. There was no need to alert the pilot and have a confrontation that might force him to destroy the ship.
Timberwolf was surprised the door was ajar and he easily slipped in. He was here. He’d made it to Highland. That was easy.
HEAVEN’S LIGHT
The train ground to a creaking halt in front of the next giant door. Like he was by himself, Sergey stepped off onto the dust, not regarding the others. Gray and the rest followed after an unsure moment. Warner corralled the human crew. “Move out! Move out! Let’s go!”
“We can’t prepare you for what’s past here. It’s our Catalog,” Sergey warned.
“Catalog?” Gray asked.
“We used to take buyers through here all the time. Show them our wares. It was perfectly safe.” Sergey stuffed his hands into his pockets. “The place isn’t prepped for visitors; that’s all I’m saying.”
“It was safe? That’s rich. You’re just trying to delay. There’s no one coming. Timberwolf is dead. I would make this easy on yourself!”
“And I would get back on your ship and leave before you die here!” Sergey snapped back.
“When we own this place, you’ll regret speaking to me like that.”
“If you only knew how insane you sounded.”
Gray took a step to Sergey, but Michael grabbed him. “I want to get what we came for and get off of this place alive!” Michael snapped.
Gray seethed a moment, then began to cool. He noted that Sergey was perfectly calm. He felt foolish for letting him get under his skin. He made a mental note. When this is all done. Just kill him and forget it. He motioned for the door to be parted and, like before, two men pulled it open.
Natural golden light, like on a perfect Earth spring day, streamed outward and everyone blinked, adjusting to it. Many of the human crew had never been to Earth, had spent their whole lives on the outer colonies. Warner’s face glowed with a smile and he stared long and hard at the warm light until his eyes watered.
“The light of heaven?” Gray said, smiling. The men laughed uneasily. The party entered into The Catalog and found themselves at the top of a wide, marble staircase. Before them was a huge chamber carved from rock, easily two miles deep and a half-mile high. A light source floated at the top of the high ceiling. It looked like a tiny sun. Beyond the staircase, white dust covered the surface here too. There was a series of delineated testing grounds: squat buildings, gardens, a shattered urban zone, and more. There were also spaces where green grass sprouted from planters, uncovered by dust.
“Okay, let’s be gracious hosts,” Sergey said. From the bottom of the stairs, a woman approached.
“I thought it was just you?” Gray asked.
“Highland is completely automated, but we do have helpers.”
The woman approached, her face classical and dark. A long green dress fluttered around her ankles and she wore her black hair up in a tight bun. A catchy tune from unseen speakers played over her silky voice. “Hello, and welcome to the Highland Industrial Defense Park. Are you ready to hear about all of our wonderful products?”
“This is Meta. She’s in sales,” Sergey said. Meta flickered for a moment, a hologram.
“We’d like to get right to the point, if you please,” Gray said to her.
“I like that. A man who knows…” Suddenly, her face twitched and a look of alarm came over her. Her movements became jerky, her face gaunt and uncolored. Her voice went coarse and mechanical. “Breach of protocol. Incident zero, zero, zero, one. Is there danger?”
“No. We’re copacetic,” Sergey responded. Gray grinned at what he saw as a charade, Sergey desperately trying to scare them off.
The hologram jerked her gaze from face to face, speaking disjointedly. “An Arnock vessel has revealed itself in orbit…Perhaps to pick up their order…Wreckage for the bone yard…There has been an insert…”
“We’re copacetic!” Sergey snapped at her.
She reverted back to her sales rep form like nothing happened and continued her pitch, descending the staircase. Gray’s party followed.
“We’ve got something for everyone here, from the planetary warlord to the regional shipping magnate. Lethal and non-lethal systems.”
“We’re here for lethal.” Gray snickered. The men chuckled nervously except for Windwhistle, who had his rifle trained on Meta.
Sergey sidled up to him. “Go ahead. Shoot. She’s just made of light, dummy.”
Meta continued, “No need to actually purchase full systems. At one-tenth the cost we can send a simulated receipt to your adversary. ‘Flaunting the bill’ has a ninety-seven percent capitulation rate. I guess our name precedes us. You’ll hear our catchy tune every time you approach a display area. Not to worry, we’ll be able to tell…”
Mid-sentence, she fizzled again, her face momentarily like a dead woman, her voice mechanical. “Facility set to live-fire!” she barked.
Like nothing happened, she continued her previous pitch, “…to tell our guests from the demo targets! Have a nice stay!” Meta vanished and her tune stopped.
“I told you I couldn’t prepare you for this,” Sergey said to Gray.
“We’re walking through a live-fire proving ground?” Michael snorted.
Gray had had enough with the delays and the circuitous routes and now this hazardous detour. “You know I can still use your DNA in the control room if you’re dead?”
“Of course you can, but you’d never get there,” Sergey responded.
Gray leveled a pistol at Sergey’s head. He could see beads of sweat on the small man’s temple. “I see you’re sweating. You know I’ll do this.”
“It’s hot in here. I’ve got to adjust the sun a little,” Sergey scoffed, motioning to the light source glowing at the top the chamber. Gray kept the weapon leveled. “It’s best we get going. If everyone’s careful, they will survive,” Sergey said.
Gray shook his head and put his weapon away. “Fine.” He turned to the men. “Let’s be sharp. Raise the banner. I want control of this place before the Arnock land.”
“They’ll never land!” Sergey said, shaking his head with frazzled confidence.
Michael pulled Gray aside, whispering, “The Arnock followed Timber here. You should have let me kill him on The Outpost!”
Gray’s nostrils flared, but he just turned away from Michael without responding. There was no way Gray was admitting Michael was right. Then there was the larger truth, that making things right with Timberwolf was Gray’s blind spot. That keeping him a part of this story had been profoundly selfish and dangerous. Gray looked to the glowing orb above and felt the perfect soft light fall on his face. Your shadow still falls, friend.
Two men raised a pole topped with a Believer symbol and the party began to walk along the dusty path. Warner kicked into the dust with his boot, curious to what was underneath. His left foot was artificial and heavy, blown off forty years before in the ducts on Ceres. His kick uncovered golden cobblestone bricks. It reminded him of a story he’d heard once, but he couldn’t remember much about it. Maybe a robot and a witch and a girl. And there were little people too, Sergey’s size but lots of them.
Didn’t everyone die in that story? he asked himself with a shrug. Warner had a habit of surviving, of being left unscathed when everyone else fell. He wasn’t worried about dying; he just always expected to live. So far that had worked out well for him.
“We’re off to see the wizard!” he said to Izabeck, remembering the story. The man didn’t respond. He looked pained and held his arm. Izabeck moved to the side of the path, slowly hobbling away. He stood like a statue, letting everyone pass by him.
THE BURNING
Izabeck had his electronic notebook out. He wasn’t writing. He was reading. Cardinal Jacob had been sending him messages and he had been ignoring them. Izabeck thought that once he got down to Highland
, Cardinal Jacob’s messages would be blocked, but the communications continued as well as something else. Cardinal Jacob was angry. He had been burning Izabeck—spinning up the device buried in his arm until it singed his flesh from the inside out. He finally responded.
Izabeck613: Cardinal, everything is beautiful. We are so close.
Samar1483: Wonderful my son. But I must ask why you seem to have forsaken me?
Izabeck613: Events have been moving very fast. My apologies.
Samar1483: You’ve felt my nudges though. It pained me to send them. Did you think I wasn’t going to be able to contact you on Highland? You know the power of our technology.
Izabeck613: Please forgive me.
Samar1483: This does not show closed eyes!
Izabeck613: I beg forgiveness.
Samar1483: And you have sent no updates, but I can tell you have been writing. I can’t see what, but I can tell.
Izabeck613: My heart is overwhelmed by what I am experiencing. I am sorry.
Samar1483: Have you fallen for Gray’s lies?
Izabeck didn’t respond for a while. He felt the whirring and the heat in his arm as Cardinal Jacob grew impatient.
Izabeck613: Please stop burning me. Please. Bishop Gray is a heretic. The others are under his sway. But not me.
Samar1483: I’ll be clear. You’re a vessel now. Your salvation depends on what you do. You can have the Kingdom of Heaven with me or you can perish with Gray.
Izabeck613: I am an unworthy vessel. A dry leaf longing to be burned.
The rest of Gray’s party trailed off around a bend in front of him. Izabeck fell to his knees in pain, his arm burning and vibrating worse than ever before as Cardinal Jacob punished him. Finally, the heat subsided, leaving Izabeck’s arm throbbing.
Samar1483: I am so glad to have you back in my fold! I’ll pray for you.
SHOOTING WAR
D.P.E. Archangel—Thirty-Two Hours Out from Highland
Captain Les Tirani strode quickly through the engineering corridor. Crew snapped to attention as he passed. He wasn’t going anywhere, but he wanted to get away from this conversation with Dr. Tier.
“Les, we have to act now!”
He stopped at a bulkhead, inspected a maintenance chart he knew was up to date. “You’re talking about a shooting war, Doctor.”
“It’s avoiding a shooting war. Challenger is ahead of us in the stream. They’ll get to Highland before us.”
An hour ago, they’d found that one of the ships Secretary Bozeman had diverted to Highland was actually traveling ahead of them in the same sub-light stream. Sub-light was a single file transit system and they were gaining on Challenger. It was doubtful they were even aware Archangel was behind them. Scans sent backwards in sub-light didn’t bring back much and usually only friendly vessels shared sub-light streams.
Captain Tirani hurried up a ladder to the galley. When he appeared, the boisterous clamor stopped and all were silent. Dr. Tier was suggesting knocking Challenger out of sub-light and disabling the ship. She sidled up to him in the chow line, taking a tray like he did.
Tirani filled his plate with some sort of slop. Dr. Tier took a protein bar. The crowd of crewmen parted before them and cleared out of a table in the corner. The mess was quiet. Usually officers ate in their own lounge. Dr. Tier was forced to whisper. “I assure you. There will be shooting if they beat us to Highland.”
“I know Captain Jephtah. She’ll turn Challenger on us so fast we’ll be Swiss cheese in five minutes,” Captain Tirani countered.
“That’s if you miss. If her engines are down, Challenger will be out of commission for days.”
The room began to rumble with conversation again. “You want me to attack an Assault Corps ship, now? You want me, a captain working for the Department of Peace Enforcement, to fire the first shot in what’s looking like a civil war?”
“I can order you to do this,” she said.
“I can have you confined to quarters for mental health reasons. Are you suggesting we bounce them with a nuke?”
“No, nudge them with our sub-light plasma shield.”
Tirani stared at her. “Can we go back to nuking them?”
“It won’t be a shooting war,” she responded.
Dr. Tier was suggesting flying past Challenger and using their plasma shield to literally push them through the ion particle wall in the sub-light stream. This would fry their engines and require a manual restart.
“But it’s probably the most dangerous thing I can imagine. Two giant spaceships getting within, like, seventy-five feet of one another. What if their plasma shield isn’t calibrated right? We might both explode.”
“I know Jephtah too. Her ship’s tighter than yours, which is a feat, Captain.”
“What’s this gain us?” he asked. We’ve got Defender and Tranquility coming in on other streams. Maybe fifteen unharried hours over Highland?”
“It’ll be the most important fifteen hours of our lives.”
“By the angel, I knew you’d say something like that.” A few crewmen looked over from an adjacent table. They’d heard bits and pieces of the conversation, but pretended not to. “We have to do this now.”
“Agreed,” she said. “That’s what I was hoping for.”
SABATIN
The party made its way along the dusty path. They passed beaten-up vehicles used for target practice, some wheeled trucks and other hover jobs. The skeletons of apartment buildings and houses stood along the side of the route. A mailbox at the end of a driveway had its red flag up. Warner slapped away the hand of one of the men who was curious to what was inside. “Might be a bomb,” he said matter-of-factly.
The dust covered the place like snow here, thick and almost in drifts. Maintenance machines cleared some places of the dust, but it fell again onto the cleared spots soon after. Michael had scanned the substance and advised that they shouldn’t be breathing it in. It was almost lunar in its consistency and gritty. The men pulled air from small breathers around their necks and brushed it from each other’s shoulders.
Back on the path, Izabeck spun about, taking in the view as he wrote frantically in his notebook. He was telling Cardinal Jacob every mundane detail now, every step and stubbed toe. We saw a sign ahead in the path, the reason for our journey! Sabatin this way!
Across the path a sign read Sabatin Products in a cursive arc of purple neon. Soft illumination came from streetlights in front of several squat buildings. They looked like boutique shops with large display windows showing off their goods. A fine dust landed here and was caught in the streetlights like falling snow.
Old-fashioned wrought iron benches lined the way and Gray noticed circular green wreaths hanging on the streetlights. The Phaelon spun about in the street, flame-throwers out and primed. The humans moved warily in front of the displays, covering each other, weapons hot. Behind them, Wrath calmly traveled the path, clearly used to this place.
In the first window, a suit of Sabatin armor was on display, bathed in tiny golden lights. Meta’s sales tune played, here a holiday variation on the jingle from before. She appeared in the street from between two buildings and began her pitch. “Looking for that special gift? Currently in testing, Sabatin armor lives up to its pedigree. Exceptionally resilient. Can insert into atmosphere. Full package, holoprojector, kinetic pulse driver, plasma cannon, nuclear survivable, non-targetable. This rig is a thousand-to-one force multiplier!”
“We’ll take all you’ve got,” Gray said.
Izabeck floated to the back of the party and read the message from Cardinal Jacob that appeared in his notebook.
Samar1483: Gray’s after things that are haram, Jude.
Jude? Cardinal Jacob had called Izabeck by his first name, like he knew him as a friend. He had never so much as said good morning to him back on Haven.
Izabeck613: He sees everything here as a means to an end, regardless of whether they are sinful or not.
Samar1483: He’d take your life if you off
ered it. Without thinking. Would you send me your full writings now, please?
Izabeck looked to Gray, spinning in the street and slapping others on the back, pointing to the displays and crowing. God was showing them new wonders around each turn and Gray was letting himself be awed. Izabeck saw a flawed instrument in him, unbearably human and feeling in the darkness for the means to God’s ends. He embodied the rejection of sloth. He was a servant to the Almighty, always in action.
He considered this a stark contrast to Cardinal Jacob. He’d begun to dislike the cardinal very much. Burning and threatening him from afar was just part of it. Izabeck knew Cardinal Jacob thought him a fool; but he saw all the cards in the cardinal’s hand. He knew that the cardinal’s sole focus was on regaining the prime cardinalship and control over The Clergy’s bank. He seemed almost casually content to have Izabeck die to achieve his personal goals.
Izabeck wondered how God looked down on Cardinal Jacob, if he judged him harshly. He scolded himself. How dare I even…but was Cardinal Jacob building God’s kingdom? Were his eyes closed but for God’s Word? Was he not resting while others carried his burden? He was deficient by all these measures. “Sloth,” Izabeck said aloud to himself.
Izabeck looked into the display of the Sabatin rig. It was gross to him, fusing man and alien together into an abomination. Timberwolf had been disgusting in his eyes, willing to step into such a machine. He imagined thousands of men donning this armor under the Believer banner. For a moment, the absurd image of legions of them sitting in church in full Sabatin rigs came to his mind.
Izabeck shook that image, looking once more to Gray, arms folded and nodding approvingly at the next display. A verse slipped through his lips. “If you are in any doubt concerning what’s sent down to you, truth has come to you from your Lord. Do not be a waverer.” I have to trust that God is moving through that man.
He sent Cardinal Jacob something he had written a week before, the standard prattle about having closed eyes and surrendering one’s will. That’ll hold him, Izabeck thought.