The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel

by Martin V. Parece II

  I thought about it for a moment before answering, “No, I don’t think He would. Each of us have a soul, we’re unique.”

  “Then does not physics disprove your mother’s God?” he asked. He always said it that way when he thought he’d won the God argument.

  “I don’t think so,” I answered, squinting my eyes. “God is omnipotent. He does what He wills, and we don’t question Him.”

  “Ah,” my father sighed, “the excuse with which logic cannot argue, because it’s based on no rational facts.”

  I couldn’t help but feel like I had disappointed him then. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Regardless, he didn’t say anything else for several minutes, and when he did, it was about school and if I had decided which university I wanted to attend. I had always wanted to join the service, and he blindly ignored the fact. Later, we were walking home, and something occurred to me.

  “What if the atoms formed in ways outside of their normal behavior?” I asked.

  “Interesting,” my father mused. “Then we would have something completely unexpected.”

  * * *

  I discovered something interesting, incredible really – my “powers of sight” for lack of a better description or name extend beyond the planet to some extent. Let me be more specific, because there is an explicit limit to how far I can go. I can reach out exactly two hundred seventy three thousand kilometers to the centimeter past the outer edge of Arcturus’ outer atmosphere, roughly two thirds of the distance from Earth to its moon. It was possibly the most amazing experience of my life, floating in the vacuum of outer space. It was like spacewalking without need for a suit, though of course I couldn’t touch anything.

  I let my consciousness simply hover, float, out there for a while, experiencing the sights for a time, but eventually I grew curious. Crossing the miles instantly, or so it seemed, I sought out my flotilla in a high, geosynchronous orbit over the northern hemisphere. Nine ships, two Beagles and seven of the larger Explorers hung there, all within a few hundred kilometers of each other, and honestly I was surprised to still see them all. I’d have thought that at least some if not all would have already returned to Aldebaran Gateway Station. I inspected each ship one at a time, and then I knew why they hadn’t left. There was a tenth ship among them. I’m not sure how I missed it at first, but there it was nonetheless. A massive Ark-class vessel hung near the middle of my fleet, but it was unlike any I had ever seen.

  All the Arks were huge as they carried massive cargo containers designed to transport thousands of people and all their stuff at a time. We used them for colonization of new worlds. The ship would land on a planet, unload its cargo of people and their possessions, and then most of the ship would be cannibalized, for building materials mostly. What would then leave the planet’s surface was just an Explorer-class ship not unlike the Herbert Walker with a crew complement of about twenty and a standard Steingartner Singularity Drive System. The Ark was a marvel of modern engineering, any way you cut it.

  This Ark looked like a porcupine based on what I know of porcupines, covered in antennae, towers, dishes and instrumentation of all types. The cargo components that would normally be used for transporting people and equipment seemed to have been fully integrated into the ship giving it the bulbous appearance of a queen hornet with a giant abdomen. It was a sharp contrast to the Explorer-class ships which resembled the jumbo jets of old Earth, though more industrial and less organic. Weapons lined its sides – tube after tube after tube of bays, some of which were simply too large for normal ship to ship missiles. It also had two giant particle cannons on its bow, each at least twenty feet in length, adding to the illusion of a giant, nasty insect. I knew this ship; I’d seen it before. This was the Lin Zexu, the personal flagship of Admiral Zheng. I had forgotten about hearing his voice when Hightower pressed Dix’s picture into my hand.

  What the fuck was he doing here?

  A coupler connected Lin Zexu to Herbert Walker. The stations had these – retractable tubes of next generation polyurethane that created a pressurized, heated and cooled passageway between two airlocks. The engineers had begun adapting them to the ships a few centuries ago, and it was another upgrade I had forgone on my ship. I never wanted to spend the time in layover. The ship mounted versions were tricky little monsters, because they required the most minutely perfect piloting. Two ships had to match exactly their course, vector, roll rate and speed, and any small difference would eventually cause the coupling tube to detach with potentially disastrous results.

  I wanted to find Zheng, find why he came to Rumedia. I merely thought it, and it seemed to happen instantaneously. With the passage of no time at all, I searched most of his ship and finally found him in “Briefing Room A”, and he was not alone. It was a stark gray metal room with industrial fluorescent lighting that only added to the lack of emotion and a matching rectangular steel table. In the middle of one long side sat Hightower, and on the other were three stone faced men, all Chinese or of Chinese descent.

  They wore Special Fleet Ops uniforms – black deck boots polished to the highest shine, slacks so navy blue as to be almost black and pressed and creased so firmly that you’d think it would hurt you to bend your legs within them. They wore long sleeve jackets of matching color that came up high like a turtleneck and buttoned across then down the left breast. As much as the uniforms seemed to be Dress, they carried no rank insignia and no decorations of any kind. They looked like an interrogation panel or some sort of Chinese Ghestapo.

  Behind them, his face as emotionless as theirs, stood Admiral Zheng Huojin. We quietly called him the Iron Chinaman, partially for his bearing but also his politics and fleet edicts. Everyone in the fleet knew that he was the single most powerful man in SACA, though not all powerful. Zheng was relatively short at one point six meters and narrow of frame. His round face and full, neat white beard contrasted sharply with his jet black hair which I’m sure he dyed and kept in a “jarhead” style cut like my marines. He watched everything, knew everything and betrayed nothing except when he was ready.

  “How many times are you going to ask me the same bloody questions?” Hightower asked, his voice full of tension and barely restrained anger.

  “Until we are satisfied with the answers, and please watch your tone,” crisply stated the center inquisitor. “Now, tell me again -”

  “Go’an fuck yourself,” replied the Brit, and the inquisitor showed wide eyed shock for just a moment before he regained his blank composure. Hightower pushed his chair away from the table with a screeching of metal on metal as he continued, “I’ve told you everything I know several times. This debriefing is over.”

  “Sit down or I will have you arrested, Doctor.”

  “I said it once, and I’ll say it again. Go’an fuck yourself. I am a citizen of SACA and Mars, not a fleet officer. You have no authority over me.”

  The two faced each other silently for a moment. Hightower’s face flushed bright red with righteous indignation, and I could see that fire raged through his nerves. His pupils dilated, and he looked like he was ready to jump out of his own skin. The fight or flight reaction had kicked in, and Hightower made his choice. His hypothalamus had let go, stimulating his adrenal glands, and it was the first time Hightower had ever seemed dangerous to me. I wished I had been there from the beginning, to see what had brought him to this point.

  The inquisitor slowly and deliberately stood from his own chair, no sign of his thoughts or emotions on his face. His hand went to his sidearm, a standard service issue weapon, and he drew it from the leather holster. He removed the magazine, checked that it was full and reinserted it into the handgun. He chambered one of the forty caliber rounds and held his arm out stiffly to point the gun right at Hightower’s face. I have to give the good doctor credit; he neither backed down nor showed a hint of fear. I guess he was pissed beyond that point.

  Zheng’s hand appeared on the inquisitor turned gunman’s right shoulder, and the ma
n quickly turned his ear toward the Iron Chinaman. Zheng leaned in to whisper something in Mandarin, and one could almost see the man process whatever order he’d been given. He nodded very slightly, and Zheng removed his hand and again stepped back. As he saftied and holstered the weapon, the inquisitor said, “Doctor Hightower, the Admiral thanks you for your cooperation and says you are free to go. Remember, you are not to discuss this proceeding or any of your knowledge of Arcturus V with anyone under penalty of criminal charges.”

  As Chronicler, I’ve learned that my eyes and ears can be many places at once, I think due to the massive amount on instrumentation available in this facility. I followed Hightower while keeping an eye on Zheng and his men. The red haired Brit really didn’t do anything exciting. He marched through the Lin Zexu under guard until he reached the umbilicus that connected to the Herbert Walker, grumbling inaudibly the entire way. Once aboard, he returned to the infirmary and busied himself with reports and other minutiae.

  He said only one thing, “Why did you drag me into this, Paul?”

  The left inquisitor called for Lieutenant Martinez, and the man arrived swiftly and professionally as he did with everything. It didn’t take long before I understood Hightower’s anger, for the panel of three men fired question after question at my second in command. The questions followed no discernible order or script and jumped around throughout the timeline of events going back to my discovery of life on Arcturus V. A question would be asked only to be repeated another way by one of the other men fifteen minutes later.

  Sometimes, one would even start a question by saying, “Again, Lieutenant Martinez, you do understand that any lie told to this panel is a court martial offense for the crimes of Treason, Obstruction and Disobeying a Superior Officer,” or, “Before you answer that, Lieutenant Martinez, may I remind you of your oath to SACA.” Always honest and unflappable, Martinez answered every question as it came, and his answers never varied regardless of their implied threats or attempts to make him misspeak.

  Admiral Zheng merely stood, watched and listened impassively as they debriefed and interrogated the lieutenant. All of this over the mission? Something didn’t add up. After two hours, during which time Martinez had twice asked for water and the head, I grew bored. I wanted to know why Zheng put my crew through this harassment, but I didn’t think I would glean that answer from the inscrutable man.

  I found myself on another Explorer-class ship, and I knew it to be the Guangzhou. She was newer than my own ship, Martinez’s ship I guess now, and looked it on the inside. The titanium and steel walls and decking of the Herbert Walker were old, scuffed and would not shine no matter how often the crew polished them. This ship’s corridors gleamed with an almost mirror-like reflection.

  Lieutenant Commander Kristine Dixon, or Dix as everyone called her, was asleep in her bunk. Her quarters, like mine once, were relatively small with one five meter by eight meter room to serve as living and sleeping area, and a two meter by three meter lavatory adjoined it. The bunk, barely big enough for one person, was bolted onto the wall and came out by about a meter, and underneath it was a tiny desk also bolted to the wall. A four inch synthetic foam mattress, the height of comfort, lay atop the metal slab. The place didn’t leave much room for mementos or knick knacks. With the exception of small items of exceptional personal value, we always kept such things in storage at AGS.

  Dix was asleep, clearly off duty. I’d never had the pleasure of sleeping with her, which was mostly my fault I guess. I looked at her now, and it almost felt as if I stood over her, watching. Dix slept almost nude apparently, sprawled partly on her side, partly on her belly, and she wore nothing but a pair of plain, white cotton panties. Her parents had hailed from somewhere in the American Midwest (Nebraska maybe), and she encompassed all the best features of women from that area - beautifully straight blond hair, skin that glowed, an athletic but not muscular build with gorgeous breasts and ass to match.

  I thought of the picture that Hightower placed in my hand, the picture that was still in my emaciated hand, and I’ve never felt such longing. I just wanted to brush her cheek, touch her hair and perhaps trace my finger down her perfect back. I’d have given everything just to kiss her once, not even on the mouth. I considered that I could likely make myself known to her. I could reach out to her as I did certain people of Rumedia, but that felt too much like control.

  I’m such a moron, because she was always there. She was in my class at the academy, and I realize now that we were always around each other. We had some classes together, but even outside of those, she was always in my peripheral vision. We had many of the same friends, and we always ran into each other at parties or social outings. She taught me how to play this brutal game called ice hockey, and I taught her the basics of chess.

  We shared a kiss once. Many of the colonies celebrated the Earth New Year with drunken gatherings that counted down and sang. She kissed me hard, whiskey on her breath, and I reciprocated. Through my own stupidity (shyness?) nothing came of it, and I think I made her uncomfortable.

  “Earth tradition,” she said with a shrug. “Everyone should have someone to kiss on New Year’s.” She walked away from me, pushing her way through the crowd, and I just watched her go. I didn’t know what else to do.

  A bunch of us went out the night that we graduated the Academy. We cockily sauntered out to the bars in our new dress uniforms, slapping each other’s backs and using our new ranks in sarcastic, high handed tones. Of course, newly commissioned officers were everywhere celebrating and getting drunk, but our particular circle of friends included about eight. Dix spent all night glancing my way as if she wanted to say something, and I spent all night trying not to look at her.

  I was scared, but scared of what I don’t know. It’s not like we would’ve fallen madly in love, but even if we did, so what? What then? Resign our new commissions? Quit the service before we even began? Maybe become a farmer and raise a litter of kids? No, she wouldn’t want that, and neither would I. There’s nothing wrong with such a life, but it wasn’t what either of us wanted. I was so young and dumb. I know some of the other guys “woulda hit that in a heartbeat”.

  As I looked at Dix sleeping there, I realized that I had probably missed out on something that not everyone has the joy of finding. Maybe she could have filled the hole I feel in my soul, the hole I’ve always tried to fill with a god that does not answer.

  20.

  Lady Feri lazed in her bed, completely unwilling to move, for she knew what this day would bring. Sovereign Nadav had crushed and eliminated over half of his lords so far across southern and eastern Losz, and now he marched on Veron. It was not a large city as compared to Ghal, numbering perhaps only ten thousand, but it had kept her well fed and comfortable for forty years. All of the larger cities had two, three, even four nobles that had to split the power and wealth, but Feri was sole lord of Veron. Her black tower, standing about two hundred feet over its streets, was the only one of its kind in her city.

  She yawned deeply and stretched her long limbs as far as she could reach, extending easily ten feet across her total length. Feri was attractive to a Loszian’s eye, completely hairless of course, with pale skin that barely hid the blue veins that ran underneath it. She had a notable triangular face with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. She had no breasts that a Westerner would notice, and it was only her slightly feminine face that would lead someone unfamiliar with Loszians to recognize her femininity. Of course, there was no mistaking her sex when she was naked as she was now. Ceasing her yawn, Feri rolled over to see her lead servant regarding her quietly, respectfully.

  “Good morning, My Lady,” Kalie said crisply. She was of mixed stock of course, roughly half Loszian, and seemed to have inherited the most beautiful traits of both races. Unfortunately, both Loszians and Westerners found the combination of traits unsettling.

  “Pleasure me,” Feri commanded.

  “I shall if you so desire, My Lady, but I’m afraid we have lit
tle time.”

  “He’s here then?” Feri asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

  “Yes, My Lady,” replied Kalie, and she bowed her head toward the west archway that opened onto an open balcony.

  Feri sighed as she pushed herself up from its warm place on her plush mattress and threw her legs over its sides. Her long Loszian legs had no trouble reaching the floor, and the purple-black stones were cool to the bottoms of her feet. She then stood with an almost languid moan and another stretch, pointedly displaying her nakedness to her servant. Feri casually walked around the side and foot of her bed, almost swaying her bare backside as she did so. She parted the silk drapes that masked the archway and stepped onto the balcony to look over her city.

  Veron was quiet this early in the morning with only servants and commoners moving about its streets on their mundane daily tasks. The sun had risen some time and still crossed the eastern sky, throwing a great shadow of her tower across those below. A cool breeze blew in from the sea only a few miles behind her, and the air had a notably salty scent. Seabirds winged this way and that over her city, likely looking for discarded remnants of meals. Her gaze floated to the thirty foot basalt walls that surrounded the city proper perhaps a mile from her tower, and she gasped involuntarily at what she saw beyond them.

  Even in the bright, warming morning sunshine, the entire western countryside as far as she could see was black with an army the likes of which she had never dreamed. While Feri could not make out each and every figure, she felt that they did not live, that they stood still awaiting some order from their master. She had seen the host of dead Nadav had risen from underneath Byrverus and Martherus, and it paled in comparison to what she now saw. This army was not mere tens of thousands. Tears traced their ways down her cheeks unbidden from each of her wide eyes. Then Nadav’s voice shook the entire city, and the very ground underneath it as it hollowly emanated from over a million dead servants.