by Isaac Stone
“Not the same Babalon,” Haddo returned. “This one is mentioned in the book of Revelations; although the prophet who wrote down what he saw was so terrified by her power he made her out to be evil. She is neither good nor evil, but a force of nature. She is the power of desire itself and the force behind all life. Babalon will help us because these creatures would destroy her as well. Our reality is not without its own denizens who are more spirit than flesh.”
“Explains the dragon with seven heads bit of that dusty old book,” Ash commented. “But Barbara Ann just got vaporized. I think that ends her participation in this show.”
“She will find another way back onto the stage. She always does.”
“And those weird letters and designs you’ve drawn all over the place?” Kris asked him. She still appeared skeptical.
“Ways to attract the Enochian angels, or demons, depending on your perspective,” he told her. “Some of them will respond to those designs, some of them are almost impossible to attract. Even when you do get them to appear, they won’t do anything they don’t want to do. I’ve discovered over the years I’ve worked with them that they can be very specific on what they want. These beings have their own free will, but it exists in a form we can’t understand.”
“So how does the corporation trap them inside the slip stone crystals?” Jack wanted to know. “If these things have their own ability to reason, surely they could see the trap.” It was a good question.
“I haven’t figured that one out,” Haddo told them. “Magick is fundamentally a mystery, and for each magician to set himself against the unravelling of a problem there will be a multitude of answers.”
“How are we going to fly across the system and locate these beacons?” Ash wanted to know. “Our gunship is on the surface and we’ll have to fight our way back up there. You have any ideas how we’d be able to do this? Providing we agree to it.”
“You are standing in the means right now,” Haddo laughed. “Yes this starship is operational. It was built to explore the near stars, and no human can fathom exploration in any terms but militarized, and so it has the firepower. The designers perfected the jump drive before they abandoned the project, but it’s operational. It has enough ordinances to take out any of the beacons, no matter where the corporation has hidden them.”
“But we don’t have a crew,” Costa pointed out, “other than us.”
“You will do fine; the ship can run with a skeleton crew in the system. The larger crew was for voyages between stars.”
“We need to talk about this among ourselves,” Ash told Haddo. “Please excuse us for a moment.
The team pulled to a far point away from Haddo where they could watch him and talk among themselves at the same time. Ash pulled everyone in close.
“What does everyone think?” He asked them. “I would say this is all nonsense a month ago, but now I don’t know what to believe.”
“I say let’s do it,” Kris sounded off. “We have the ship, who needs the corporation? Use it to destroy those beacons he claims to be out there and go after the corporation.”
“I’m with her,” Costa agreed. “Time to take down those bastards.”
“Me too,” Theo spoke. “I don’t think Haddo is telling us everything, but we need to do something.” He nodded his head.
“It sounds crazy,” Jack pointed out. “But I’m going to vote in favor of going after the beacons, then the corporation.” He paused. “So I guess it’s up to you, Boss.”
“I’m with them,” Makulah stated, “The world is upside down, so we might as well play by the new rules and see how far that gets us.”
“You’ve got a crew Simon Haddo,” Ash spoke as he stood up to face the fugitive magician, “First we blast this facility into dust, then we start hunting those beacons.”
“In that case Team Omega,” said Haddo as he smiled wickedly and spread his arms wide, “Welcome to the Starship Paradiso.”
FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for taking this adventure with me, take a quick break and if you liked what you just experienced check out some of my other work.
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