When N’Elemay sensed that the moment was right, she went to her and placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“You should go,” she said to her. Already Jaymz and his fellow neomen were collecting the extra uniforms from the cruiser’s trunk and preparing to move the vehicle into hiding.
N’Jarra gave her cruiser a last wistful look and picked up her kit-bag. One of the Sisters, who had been waiting with N’Elemay, joined them, and gently guided the woman away.
In an hour, she would be on her way to her new life, with a new identity to match. And her contribution would make all the difference in the success of their operation.
Sacrifice, faith, and an untiring will to fight. Those were the things that really mattered in the end, N’Elemay reflected. That, and God’s steady light.
The delivery of the police cruiser marked the last step in her plans. Knowing that it was to be their last night together, several of the Sisters, and the neomen, celebrated this with a party, followed by an orgy.
N’Elemay was invited to join in, but she politely declined. She wanted to spend her time in prayer and making confession instead, and as soon as she was able to, she sought out Sister n’Avenal, and unburdened herself. When she left the woman, she did so with a light heart, completely free of any lingering doubts or misgivings.
CHAPTER 12
Naval Administration Division, Rixa Naval Base, Rixa, Belletrix System, Pantari Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1049.02|04|09:18:97
Her status as a member of the RSE made it easy for Kaly to get herself a berth aboard a Navy ship bound for Rixa Naval Headquarters. She was away from Bel Sharra and in Null well before the Agency, or anyone else, had even realized it.
A message was waiting for her in her psiever’s virtual inbox when the vessel reemerged into normal space, but she ignored it. The RSE, and her Troop Leader for that matter, could, and would, wait. She had something important to do, and they could all be damned as far as she was concerned.
The moment that she was downside, she found the correct train, and headed straight for the offices of the Naval Administration Division. On the way, she contacted Jana bel Anny. She didn’t explain what had brought her to Rixa, or why she had finally decided to visit her after so long. She wanted to save that for when she was sitting right across from her.
Just as she had claimed in her message, Bel Anny had been promoted. She was now a Troop Leader, and rated her own, albeit tiny, office. She had also filled out a bit; life in Admin was a lot easier than in the field.
Kaly didn’t hold any of this against her though. She was simply glad to see a friendly face from the past who could also help her with her present.
“Jana, “she began. “I need a favor.”
“Anything, Kaly.”
She told her all about Lena, and what had been done to her memories. As she listened, Bel Anny’s expression changed, and became disturbed.
“I knew that something like this had happened,” the woman confided. “A few months ago, when I looked you up to write about Berta, I couldn’t find Lena. I checked to see if she had been transferred or something, and got nowhere. There wasn’t any record at all.’
“When I checked a little further I was called in by my commanding officer and got a talking-to. Lena’s file had been modified, and she told me to let the matter drop—or else. She ordered me to keep my mouth shut.”
A long, pregnant silence passed between them before Bel Anny continued. “Kaly, I’m sorry, but I was under orders. Lena is classified information. Now I guess we both know why.”
Kaly let out a ragged breath. “I have to know about her, Jana. I have to find out about her family. They deserve to know the truth.”
“Kaly, there’s nothing there to find, “Bel Anny explained. “It’s all gone—her personal data, her service record—all of it. It’s like she never even existed.”
“There has to be something,” Kaly insisted. “Please—Jana—I’ve come such a long ways—I’ve got to—“ Her voice broke, and she started to weep. “P-please…”
She looked away, and her eyes fell on a holo sitting atop a small shelf on the wall across from her. It was an image of herself, Bel Anny, Enggredsdaater and another woman that she didn’t recognize. Everyone was in their dress uniforms, hoisting drinks towards the holocam, and the background explained the rest. It was the Sun, Sword and Starship, the bar where they had celebrated their graduation from Basic.
Kaly was also positive that the strange woman depicted standing in their midst hadn’t actually been there. Lena had. She knew that now. The image had been altered to fit the lie that the Corps had created.
Bel Anny saw where her eyes had gone, and guilt shadowed her features, immediately confirming Kaly’s conclusion better than any spoken confession. Abruptly, the woman tore her gaze away from the holo, typed something in on her holographic keyboard, and then rose from her desk. “I have to get some kaafra,” she announced. “Do you want some, Kaly?”
Kaly shook her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“I think you do,” Bel Anny said meaningfully. “I’ll go get us some.” She paused just long enough to punch in one final command, and a holo appeared over the desk. Then she walked out of the room.
Kaly suddenly realized what the file in front of her contained. It was a listing of military benefits and beneficiaries. The servicewoman’s name had been left blank, but not the payees for her life insurance or her other veteran’s benefits. These were listed as Jen n’Taara and Gari bel Haylee, of Loladora, Essylt.
These were Lena’s mothers. The entry also mentioned that the insured had died ‘in action’, earning her a posthumous medal for bravery, but there were no details. Lena had been made into a heroine, and robbed of her identity at the same time.
She quickly took an image with her psiever, and left the office.
When Bel Anny returned several minutes later, and saw the empty chair, she smiled sadly, and sipped at her kaafra. She hadn’t bothered to bring more than one cup back with her.
Goddess bless you Kaly, she thought. I hope you find the healing that you are searching for. Then she closed the file.
***
Leaving Bel Anny’s office, Kaly made straightaway for the magnorail terminal, fully intent on traveling to Essylt and contacting Lena’s mothers. As the train pulled away and started to pick up speed however, she began to reconsider her plan.
Did she really have the right to do that, she wondered. Did it really need to be done? Or was she simply letting anger guide her actions? Or even selfishness?
After she had learned the truth about Lena’s death, the agony had been so intense that she had almost gone mad. She had survived the experience, but it had scarred her deeply, and it was nothing that she wanted to visit on anyone else, least of all Lena’s family.
They were innocents, and they believed that their daughter had died valiantly, and quickly. Inserting herself into their lives now, after so long, and telling them the hideous truth would do them no service.
Instead, it would be like sinking a knife in their hearts, and make her just as cruel as the Sisterhood. It galled her to think that what her government had done would be allowed to stand unchallenged, but the alternative was even more unpalatable. Better to leave them in peace, she decided, even if that peace was founded on a falsehood. Oftentimes, lies could be kinder than the truth, and more merciful.
By this point, the train had completed its journey, and she got out, suddenly finding herself with no destination to travel to. Returning to Thermadon and the RSE wasn’t even a consideration.
She was done with the Agency, and her homeworld of Persephone was just as unacceptable. There were too many ghosts waiting for her there.
She needed somewhere else to go. A place where she could grapple with everything that she had been through. As she considered her options, the holodisplays began to update themselves, and one world in particular, caught her eye.
It was a flight t
o Zommerlaand. She had never been there before, and seeing its name flashing overhead made her think about her old plans to visit Enggredsdaater. She had found her destination.
Picking up her kit-bag, Kaly sent a thought to the displays and they responded by creating directional arrows in her visual cortex, pointing the way towards the appropriate terminal. At the same time, her virtual in-box was nagging her again, warning her that she now had a dozen unanswered messages. They were all from Ben Di, Major ebed Karri and Lieutenant ben Soolee.
Without any hesitation, she closed the inbox, leaving them unopened, and walked on.
Residence of Lady Ananzi, Great Nightlands Waste, Morpheus System, Thalestris Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1049.02|04|09:22:35
The Taarq had been trailing Maara elle Ananzi for three nights in a row. It had her scent, and from years of experience hunting other travelers, it knew where she was going, and what route she would have to take. It also had time.
Maara didn’t. In her haste to flee the predator, she had left behind her food and water. All she had now was her Tej knife, and the grim knowledge that she was still several days away from the foot of the Moonspire Mountains, and any hope of rescue.
Working her way through the sagebrush, she came to the lip of a dry canyon, and saw where her death would find her. The canyon bisected the desert and went on for what looked like kilometers. Its sides were twice her height, and looked unstable, which meant that any journey in or out of it would be slow going.
There were also bones scattered along its length. Some, she knew, had come from animals that had been caught in the infrequent flash-floods that sometimes sliced through the Nightlands Waste. Others, including one half-buried mass that was still wearing the shreds of its survival jacket, where human, and the handiwork of the Taarq.
Refusing to enter this death trap, and taking her chances in the open desert, was out of the question. She knew that the predator would simply stay with her and wait for her to tire. Then it would take her.
It was the canyon, or nothing, and they both understood this. The fight between them would take place there, and one, or both of them, would die in the process.
She could hear the creature behind her, increasing its pace. It had become less cautious now that they were nearing its killing field, and it wasn’t concerned about betraying itself. A pebble dislodged here, a dry branch pushed aside there, and over it all, she caught the rising sense of hunger and expectation. Not thoughts exactly, but close enough for Maara to recognize and comprehend.
Picking her way down the side of the canyon, she searched for the right ground to make her stand. She settled on a level patch of earth that offered her a good, solid footing and a clear view of the area around her. The Taarq would not have the chance to sneak up on her.
Her Tej knife was also out and at the ready, its silver crescent gleaming in the light of the two moons, and she marshalled all the calm that she still had within her. If this was where she was going to die, then she wouldn’t do so screaming, she vowed. She would face the monster bravely, and do her best to take it into death with her. This wasn’t the end that she had envisioned for herself when she had set out on her Tej, but it was the only glory that fate seemed to be willing to offer her.
A second later, the Taarq came out of the brush. When it caught sight of her, its eyes glowed with anticipation, and a low growl issued from its throat.
Then it scrambled down into the canyon. But when it reached the bottom, and she failed to break into a run, it stopped. Her confidence had unnerved it, and she knew that it was taking her measure before committing itself. Finally, it bared its fangs, and Maara saw the muscles under its fur tensing as it readied itself to make a leap at her.
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she lowered herself into a fighting stance and grinned right back at the beast, showing it her own teeth. Come on you bitch, she thought. Let’s do this thing.
Almost as if it had heard this challenge, the creature charged, and she sidestepped, managing to get in a slash along its side that made it howl in pain and anger. Faster than she thought it was capable of, the thing spun around in mid-stride and snapped at her leg, hoping to cripple her.
But Maara was even faster and pulled the limb away at the last second. She could tell that the Taarq was surprised by this.
It came at her again, and as she pivoted to defend herself, she stumbled over something, and fell. Seeing its chance, the animal leapt onto her. The only thing that saved her from having her throat ripped wide open was her reflexive attempt to ward off its fangs with her arm. The creature bit into it with all the force that it had in its jaws.
Maara screamed in agony, and as her Tej knife fell from her grip, blood dripped down into her eyes. It was her own blood, she realized. There was a lot of it.
Abruptly, the Taarq released her arm and tried to push its shaggy head under her guard, going for her throat once again, but she called up her strength and rolled out from under it. An instant later, she was back up on her feet, and with her one good hand, retrieved her knife and braced herself for the next assault.
Then, from somewhere back behind her, she heard what seemed like a second predator coming through the brush to join them. The damned thing had a partner, she thought. It wasn’t common for the Taarq to run in pairs, but it was still known to happen.
She backed herself up a few paces, and angled her body so that she could spot the new threat and still keep an eye on the old one. Her injured arm hung uselessly at her side now, leaving a trail of blood that glinted evilly in the moonlight. She was also beginning to feel dizzy. This, she knew, was from the shock setting in.
The last of her luck had deserted her, and her end seemed near. In just a few more seconds, she would join the other corpses on the canyon’s floor and no one but the Goddess would ever know what had happened to her.
An instant later, another sound reached her ears, and she realized that the new arrival wasn’t a predator at all. It was a human, shouting a set of seemingly nonsensical syllables, and then something that felt very much like the wind shoved past her.
Whatever it actually was, it hit the Taarq and sent the monster spinning head over heel. The thing tried to rise, but now it was plain that it had been injured. A second cry followed this, and to Maara’s astonishment, the predator exploded like a dry clod of dirt, its fur, bones and guts splattering everywhere. Darkness claimed her at the same time, and she felt herself collapsing.
Some time later, she returned to consciousness, and looked up into the eyes of a woman who was busily bandaging her arm. This was the first time that she had ever met Lady Kaala elle Ananzi, the figure who would later become her teacher, and her life-long friend.
Instead of allowing her to die alone in the desert, the Goddess had seen fit to spare her life, and had granted her the chance to attain wisdom.
But this wasn’t really the past, Lady Ananzi realized. The actual event had occurred many decades earlier and her arm had long since healed from the Taarq’s ravages. Her teacher was also dead. Like all mortals, Lady Kaala had finally grown old, and had been taken back into Elatsha’s dark embrace.
Now, she was the old one, and this had to be a dream of some kind, she concluded, but much clearer and more lifelike than any vision that she had ever experienced before. Then, in a flash of insight, she understood what was really happening, and who her savior actually was.
The dream changed with this. The canyon was replaced with the hilltop that overlooked her home, and the open desert. And the being that resembled Lady Kaala was standing next to her.
“There was no one else that you would listen to,” the figure explained. “Not when it came to something this important. Maara, you need to send Fa’Teela with the others. To the Tree. There is a thing that he must do there.”
“What is it?” Ananzi asked.
“He needs to make a decision,” the Galaxy Mind told her. “It concerns Maya n’Kaaryn. Shall we discuss the future together, and all of its po
ssibilities?”
Lady Ananzi nodded, and the dream-desert vanished. Another scene took its place.
***
After being a fugitive for so long, Jon wasn’t surprised when his ‘guardian’ came into the living area and made an abrupt announcement. He would be leaving Thermadon immediately. The police detective didn’t tell him where he would be going, only that it was ‘somewhere safe’.
He didn’t expect this information either. He just accepted it, and began to pack his things. This transition was made easier by the fact that he would not be travelling alone. Instead, he would be accompanied by Sisters Tereysa and Beatriss so that they could continue to work with him.
And for this, he was immensely grateful. He had come to cherish the time that they spent together. They had not only provided him with companionship, but they had also helped him to find his way back to his faith.
He understood now that his Church had been misled, and that the Redeemer he had believed in was nothing more than Shaitan’s attempt to hijack the True Faith for his own evil ends. He also realized that the Church had strayed from its origins and become proud.
This was the only explanation for the terrible error they had made with Project Advent. That he had played a part in that debacle had bothered him deeply—at first. But Sister Tereysa had managed to persuade him that he had only been following the mandates of his elders, and convinced him to forgive himself. The Redeemer, she had said, would have arisen without him. Shaitan was simply too eager to establish his reign of evil for it to have turned out otherwise.
The only thing that he was still struggling with was the concept of forgiving the Sisterhood for all of its transgressions. Although the Revelations urged the Faithful to turn the other cheek and exonerate wrongdoers, he had a hard time accepting this. He had suffered at their hands, and he had borne witness to the ravages that they had perpetrated.
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