“I believe it was the onset of puberty that triggered the change in the boy. His behavior became hostile, more erratic, and we attributed it to hormones. Then, the physical changes happened. He grew larger and larger, almost before our eyes, and the pain as his bones and muscles stretched was agonizing.
His screams echoed on every deck of my ship. His teeth fell out and new ones grew in as fangs.” Keeler could almost see it. He saw the arms and legs of a very young boy, in agonizing spasm as they transformed. He could hear the screams, but the old man would not let him see the boy’s face.
“We tried to confine him to the infirmary while my doctors and geneticists looked for a cure. We could not find any medical source for the changes. A physicist… and don’t ask me to ever explain this, the technology is far beyond my comprehension… believed that the boy was somehow connected to another dimension, and some horrid creature was emerging through him, gradually taking him over.
“Ziang, of course, had a ready solution. ‘Kill him!’ He said it would be a mercy to Johnny and to my crew. I could not bring myself to give the order. While we argued and searched in vain for a cure, he got out. First, he killed everyone in the infirmary beginning with my chief nurse. We discovered her body next to his bed and the top of her head, above the jawline, in the adjacent lavatory.”
“Lavatory?” Keeler asked.
“Euphemism, as you call them. Everyone else was killed in their beds, usually dismembered. Every piece of equipment was smashed. The beds were twisted and fused together. He had ripped out the intestines of every patient, strung them together, and decorated the room with them… and he had done all of this in a matter of seconds.
“He tore through the ship. Tracking him was easy, a matter of following the trail of screams, smoke and blood, and body parts. When we caught up to him, he had become a raging beast. His head was like a dragon, and he could make your head burst into flame with a single look. He was a monster, and immune to our weapons. He slapped us aside like toys. My security officer died before my eyes, and his entire squad was burned to a crisp. Why he let me live, I can not imagine.
“We fought for half a day with him, as he lay waste to huge parts of my ship and crew. We ejected him into space, and he tore his way back in. We lured him into a section, sealed it off, and blasted it to hell, and still he lived.
“The ship’s physicist, the same weirdo who deduced that some creature was emerging through him came up with the solution. We would have to fire through his dimension, hit him from the inside. He knew a way to do it. Of course, it was dangerous. Of course, it was a long shot, with the slimmest prospect of success. Somehow he pulled it off. Energy weapons didn’t work, so he kept the channel open and sent jagged hunks of metal through. They appeared, piercing through the beast’s head and body. He mewled, he howled, there was a flash of light.
“When it faded, the boy was lying naked in the ruins of my engineering deck. He looked around, and began sobbing. He did not remember what happened. I picked him up and tried to comfort him. He begged us to make the changes stop, to drive the monster back inside him. Despite all the horror inside him, and all the terror he had unleashed on my crew, his eyes were still the eyes of an innocent little boy.
“I promised him I would help him, and we would never let the monster come back again. I thought we could somehow isolate him from the changes, or at least get him to some planet, where we could try and help him and no one would get hurt.
“Then, he screamed, and I looked his hands. They were lengthening into claws again, growing scaled.
The creature was coming back through him, faster than any of us could have imagined.
“I did the only thing I could do to save what was left of my ship and crew. I put my blaster to his head and I vaporized him, instantaneously, and for him, painlessly. For me, I died, at that moment, and I swore a black vow that I would piss on Enoch’s grave.
“The first ship to answer our distress call was the Dawn Dragon, Ziang’s flagship. He never said I told you so, but I hated him just the same, for being right about the boy, for being right about the nature of the war we were fighting. After killing the boy I loved because the Dark Enemy had made him a monster, I could no longer believe that this was anything but an Armageddon, a battle to the death between Good and Evil.
“Fueled in vengeance for Johnny, and for my crew, and for that part of me that had died, Enoch became my obsession. I fought his minions without mercy, no quarter asked and none given. I dogged him. I took every chance to destroy him. I laid waste to whole solar systems, I destroyed the stars themselves. When I drove him out of the galaxy, three years later, when I fired every weapon I had into the huge ship of his, the one that looked like a giant black stormcloud, I wasn’t thinking of God, or the billions of lives he had snuffed out, or the worlds he had set ablaze. I only thought of Johnny.” With that, the old man drew his fingers away. The icy needles in his mind withdrawn, Live Keeler was dizzy and confused, the raw emotion of loss, anger, pain and vengeance were lingered like the terror of awakening from a nightmare. “Kumba Yah,” he said, finally.
“Kumba Yah, indeed. You won’t find that story in any history of the Crusades, and if it shows up, I’ll know who to send headfirst into the hardpan.”
“But that story… that’s what made you understand the nature of the war, the real stakes. The simple fact that history has forgotten almost dishonors…”
“Don’t give me that. I would rather keep this truth in my heart than take a chance that it become bastardized by some scholar or poet with his own agenda. Everyone is entitled to some secrets. This is mine.”
Winter – Somewhere
Damp, cold, and a pervasive stench of rusting metal were all Phil Redfire could comprehend of his surroundings.
Blindfolded, he saw nothing, but could hear a distant sound of dripping water. His arms were tied to some kind of metal frame and spread apart. His legs were tied together and secured to another pole. He could barely move.
Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed this.
He felt a hand caress his cheek, a woman’s hand, soft and warm. When it finished its caress, it swung back and slapped him hard.
“Hello, Phil,” said a familiar voice that he could not place, a woman’s voice. “You’re going to have a lot to be grateful for… if you live through this.”
C h a p t e r F o u r t e e n :
Pegasus– Hangar Bay 19– Prudence
“Adjust your trim, good. Now, close to 400 kilometers and reduce speed.” Matthew Driver was giving instructions to his protégé, Trajan Lear. In the simulation, they were taking Prudence into an “Inspection Orbit” of the icy rings of a gas giant planet. Prudence’s training simulator projected holograms on the canopy, and give them the illusion of flight.
“Line a parallel course 200 meters above the rings.” Matthew ordered.
Trajan Lear was holding his right hand at chest level, fingers together, slightly banked, in a an attitude that represented the angle at which the ship was approaching the rings. He eased the hand until it was flat, the ship leveled out also.
Matthew smiled approvingly. “Good, watch your velocity.”
Trajan had to remember to breathe in. He sensed Prudence at work, calculating the perfect orbital velocity. When it reached optimum, the ship gave him a kind of mental ‘thank you.’ It was so smooth, so easy, when Flight Captain Driver was in the seat beside him.
“Very good,” Matthew said. “Now, calculate a trajectory through the rings and bring us underneath them.”
Underneath was relative, Trajan thought, but he acknowledged Matthew, and began the sequence.
First, he strengthened and adjusted the ship’s pseudo-gravity field to protect the hull. Then, he moved his hand, angling it downward, adjusting course. His other hand held a thruster control, which he squeezed to adjust the ship’s velocity.
When the ship passed through the rings, a snowstorm flashed above the canopy, tinted blue in the b
acklight of the nitrogen-methane planet. The snow and light dappled the flight deck. Suddenly, Trajan found himself unable to breathe. He had to struggle for breath. The ship shuddered.
“Steady… steady… “ came Matthew’s reassuring voice.
“I can’t…”
His hand was shaking. The ship was following its motion.
“Can we pause simulation?” he asked.
“Prudence, pause simulation.”
Trajan was staring up at the blue crystals projected in the canopy. His heart was pounding, and it was a struggle to pull in air to breathe.
“What’s wrong.”
It’s like being underwater, Trajan thought.
Mathew turned to him. “Does it frighten you to be underwear?”
Trajan looked at him with a mixture of surprise and anger. ”I thought you said you couldn’t read my mind.”
Matthew’s expression became somewhat embarrassed. “I’m sorry, that thought was so strong. I thought you were projecting it.”
Trajan slumped back. He didn’t know why he was afraid of the water, but he had been ever since his Passage. “How was I doing?”
“You’re getting better,” Matthew answered.
Trajan sensed that there should have been a “but” at the end of that sentence. “What am I doing wrong.”
“I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong.”
Trajan tapped his interface. He could not possibly have detected any critical thoughts from Matthew through it, but it made the point.
Matthew answered him. “You still are trying to control her too much, trying to force your will on her. Prudence wants to work with you, as a partner, but you only listen to her when you want something.
You have to work with her, cooperate, not force your will on her.” Trajan could not get what Matthew was saying. “How can I fly her without forcing my will on her?
Isn’t that what piloting’s all about.”
“She has a mind, you know,” Matthew told him. “All she wants to do is fly, and all you should want to do is fly, and together, you can make her…” he stopped. “Let me ask you, why do you want to do this?”
“Why do I want to be a pilot?” Trajan said for clarity. Dave Alkema had once asked him the same thing, and he had been able to come up with an answer to satisfy that time. He wanted to get away from his mother, but that was only partly true. If he said it was because he wanted to be like Flight Captain Driver, that would be closer to the truth, but it would be like admitting his mother was right.
“I just think piloting an Aves is the best job on the ship,” Trajan told him. “I don’t want to be in Operations Core. It’s boring. Everything’s boring, but Flight Core.” He looked expectantly toward Matthew to see if the answer was acceptable.
“There is no other position on the ship I would want to have,” Matthew told him. “But, do you feel a passion about actually flying?”
Trajan squirmed, not comfortable being under Matthew’s scanners. “Why did you become a pilot?” he said, thinking to divert the conversation.
Matthew had clearly not expected this. He leaned back in his seat, and his gaze fell across the control panels of the ship he loved. “I remember first seeing Prudence on the final construction floor of the CloudBuster Avian finishing facility, on the Sapphirean moon of Hyperion.
“It’s an underground complex, mostly. They built it inside a large crater. The floor is smooth, and they built a huge glass dome over the top. When they put the final markings and coatings on the spacecraft, they move them up from the finishing area and into the delivery area. It’s almost pure white, the floor I mean. Mechanoids shine and buff it every day. The way their sun catches the light is exactly like the crystal in the dome over the Inhabitation Decks. It catches the light and splits it into prisms… I don’t know how to describe it, but you know what I’m trying to say.”
Trajan nodded.
“There were two Aves being prepped for delivery. Prudence, and her sister ship Prowess which was going to Pathfinder Four . Her skin had just gotten its final polish. It gleamed. I… I had just never seen anything so beautiful. She was made for flying. She looked like she wanted to leap right up into the sky. I had this mental image of Prudence flying through the crystalline dome, running toward the sun, shards of broken crystal raining down like snowflakes. It was as though nothing would restrain her.
“And she would be my ship. We would travel between worlds together. We would share in that miracle that is spaceflight, her hull keeping me alive and warm, her engine, making awesome speed. My ship. My home. My life. I had flown ships before, trainers, defenders, shuttles… but she was greater than any of them, and I knew we would do great things together. She wanted to fly.” Matthew’s tone grew almost religious. “Sometimes, I think, we have these bodies that slow us down. I wonder if death frees the spirit inside of us, that once we are free of the physical limitations of our bodies, we freely take wing and explore all the planes of the universe, of Creation.”
“Kumba Yah,” said Trajan.
Suddenly, Matthew became all embarrassed, and pulled back. “I guess it’s just… do you want to fly,” he told Trajan, like a seal to cap the confidence he had just shared. “I believe we were born to fly, and as pilots, we get closer to that than anyone.”
Winter – Habi Zod
Specialist Gotobed was stranded on Winter, inhabiting a modest garret in Lord Tyronius’s estate for as long as the quarantine endured. As she watched the snow falling — again! — from the graphite sky outside, she pondered immortality. Was eternal life worth an endless succession of short, and dismal afternoons. After living here long enough, wouldn’t you trade your hyper-extended longevity for just one afternoon on the beach in the warm sunshine? Was having a sure thing worth enduring this miserable climate, rather than risk that at the end of mortal existence, there was no more?
Which brought her, uncomfortably to thoughts of the Afterlife. Could an afterlife, any afterlife, hold out more promise than this? Even if heaven was a wondrous expanse of light and beauty beyond her wildest dreams, was it a place in which she would want to spend sempiternity? Forever was such a dambed long time, after all. She thought of the people here, and what boredom had driven them to. Some believed in the afterlife, all would live as one, and all would be in peace in the same place. There were plenty of devout Theologians, Iestans, Saints, and Buddhists she would rather suffer for a year from a painful, rectal itch than spend an afternoon with. Would they be there, in her paradise? How could she exclude them and still remain a good Theologian (of Christian Aspect) and want to exclude anyone from her version of the perfect Elysium.
She took another drink of the olive liqueur Tyronius had gifted her with before the trial. Her hair was out of the bun and flowing freely around her face and shoulders, and she was glad to no longer look like a human groundnut. Without Redfire to defend, or Keeler to abuse, she had nothing to do. Maybe a hot bath would make her feel better.
A knock at her door made her turn. Lord Tyronius was already inside the room. He owned the castle, and owed privacy to none of his guests. “Good Lady, with all that has transpired, I have not been able to inquire as to your comfort. Are you well? Are the quarters comfortable enough?”
“I am fine, … Lord,” she had never really been comfortable addressing the Ancient by his title, but it was less awkward than “Tyronius,” which struck her ears as like the kind of nickname you shared with a lover in the heat of passion. She wondered what his original, colonial, name had been, but had never found the right moment to ask.
“I didn’t realize until now you had opted for such a small room,” Tyronius said, almost musingly.
“It has windows on three sides. The Night of the Parliament Ball, it seemed like an appealing choice…
at the time.”
Tyronius reached for the snifter of liquor, covering her hand in his. “I believe it is too small, and since you may be on this estate for some time… the chambers adjacent to mine
are larger and warmer.” Gotobed was surprised to find herself blushing. It must have been the olive oil.
He stroked the back of her hand with his thumbs. “Forgive me if it seems forward, but it has been a long time since I have felt the incomparable caress of a woman’s hand.”
“You caught me by surprise.”
Tyronius seemed genuinely bemused. “Have I? I saw those looks you gave me when you first came into the castle. I thought I was imagining it, but there you were again, on the tour, moving close to me, listening to me as I spoke. Your interest took me, by surprise, and I surprised myself when I realized your attraction was not unwelcome.”
She had to admit it was true. The very ancientness of his being had drawn her to him, he seemed so wise and in command. Was there more than just a spark of attraction?
He maneuvered closer to her, took the glass from her hand and set it on the table. “I have a confession to make. I have had carnal knowledge of thousands of women on this planet, a few for love, many more for lust, many more than that out of boredom, and some more out of pity, but you … you are like a beautiful yellow flower pushing your buds into the sunlight of a belated spring.” He fell to his knees, took her hand, caressed it, kissed it.
There was another knock at her door, and it was flying open before she could decide whether to tell the new visitor to come in immediately or lose himself. Lord Brigand burst into the room. “Christina, come with me, back to my estate. There’s no point in waiting in this dreary alcove. I will teach of you pleasures only gods have imagined…” He stopped himself when he saw Tyronius, on his knees, his lips still on Gotobed’s knuckles.
Gotobed whipped her hand back. “This is awkward,” she said accurately.
Winter – Somewhere
“I know what questions you have,” the unseen woman continued, in a voice at once commanding and condescending, like a bad teacher trying to ruin a good student. “If I had to wait for you to ask them I would be bored very quickly. So, let me answer them on your behalf.” Redfire tugged against his restraints, just to test them. They proved to be very tight, and very strong.
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