by Paul Brandis
The Fallen Goddess of Alpene
PAUL BRANDIS
Copyright © 2018 Paul Brandis
All rights reserved.
ISBN: -10:1722135824
ISBN-13: 978-1722135829
DEDICATION
To Bette—always and forever.
CONTENTS
Chapter1 Page1
Chapter2 Page5
Chapter3Page9
Chapter4Page19
Chapter5Page28
Chapter 6Page31
Chapter7Page35
Chapter8Page37
Chapter9Page44
Chapter10Page60
Chapter11Page67
Chapter12Page74
Chapter13Page80
Chapter14Page86
Chapter15Page92
Chapter16Page99
Chapter 17Page104
Chapter18Page110
Chapter19Page116
Chapter20Page119
Chapter21Page122
Chapter22Page131
Chapter23Page138
Chapter24Page142
Chapter25Page149
Chapter26Page152
Chapter27Page163
Chapter28Page169
Chapter29Page179
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Renu Sharma for her beautiful cover design, and to Billie Mazzei for her fine editing.
CHAPTER 1
Phil Dyak squeezed between two stacks of boxes, his blaster-lance held at the ready as the hooded priest neared. The priest rode a hover-dolly, while above in the space freighter’s vast cargo bay, security-satellites kept guard.
When the priest paralleled him, Phil chopped him between the eyes and jerked him into his hiding place.
Then he froze. Did an Eye see him? He heard no alarm but the satellites were probably on silent.
Quickly Phil stripped the priest. The boy was a real beauty. Even unconscious his features glowed from the implanted, luminous makeup.
High up in the immaculate, white bay, inside a bubble of oxygen-rich liquid, danced the most beautiful creature man had ever created. A Temple Goddess.
She stretched and writhed, her long, sinuous limbs practicing the hypnotic dance she would perform suspended above the temple's altar on Alpene. Her naked, blue-white skin blurred in the azure liquid, and her hair, whiter than her skin, undulated around her body like a gossamer gown.
She was the result of the continual removal and inseminations of ova from reigning goddesses. On the rarest of occasions, the right combination of beauty and grace occurred, and a new goddess was created.
She was precious beyond cost, for without a Temple Goddess to mesmerize the Following, they could become unruly, and Cult Corporation would be unable to work them to death in their mines and factories.
A goddess never saw the light of a sun. Never breathed anything but purified air.
She never touched the ground.
The throbbing beat of the hymn reverberated from the plates of the ship, more felt than heard. Phil's body burned with orgasmic desire. Hot blood pumped through him, drawing him toward ecstasy. The hymn promised, always promised the ultimate sexual satisfaction.
Just when he could no longer stand the exquisite torture without a releasing orgasm, the goddess paused, and tiny jets sucked up the liquid.
Slowly the mesmerism of the onlookers passed, and her attendant sisters, less affected by the dance, swooped in to dry her with tiny blowers.
Droplets of golden urine drifted from the elongated figure, and immediately a white-gowned nurse caught the waste and flew down to a lab. Constantly monitored, the goddess's food and liquid intake was balanced to equal her energy output. Excrement was rare and, after analysis, peddled as religious relics. Her exercise water was reputed to contain healing powers and sold at temple-complex stores.
As his mind cleared, Phil glanced around. A platoon of guardian priests clad in robes and armed with lances were picketed around the bay. He shrank back into the doorway.
Shucking the robe and mask, he pulled a filmy face mask from his belt-pack and strapped it on. He adjusted the goggles and tiny mouth tank, then activated the capsule that sucked out the surface air, sealing the mask to his skin.
He glanced into the bay and spied a guard approaching. He had to move fast.
He pulled a couple of tiny grenades from his pack, stepped into the bay, and threw them high into the air. The startled guard, now but a few feet away, whipped up his lance.
Phil dived back behind the doorway as the two concussion grenades exploded, filling the bay with a blinding white light and noxious gas. With the blast, a burst of electromagnetic waves rendered useless all electronic devices.
Phil leaped into the bay. Ignoring the slumping guard, he shot up through the billowing smoke, his heel-jets speeding him towards the goddess.
His goggles screened out the smoke, and he spied her knotted in a fetal ball. Flying by, he grabbed her, fully a head taller than he, by the wrist and heard a high-pitched scream of pain.
Heading into an exit corridor, the goddess’s leg brushed the opening. Again she cried out.
As they fell down the corridor towards the wall of the ship, gravity increased. He ignored the wall ladder and reversed, his heel-jets slowing his fall. As they struck the wall floor, his heel jets deactivated automatically.
The goddess lay crumpled at his feet. As he bent to pick her up, a squad of guardians poured into the corridor after him. He tucked the goddess on his hip and lunged down the wall passageway as concussion bolts exploded where he had been.
At the corner, he paused. Ahead, crouching at the escape pod, waited a big guardian. He wore a helmet.
Phil cursed. A concussion grenade wouldn't stun him.
He glanced back. Guardians pounded down the narrow passageway after him.
In desperation, he yanked out his gun and fired a couple of stun explosions at the onrushing troops. Then he tossed a grenade at the helmeted guard and ducked into a doorway, lugging the screeching girl with him. Barely waiting for the flash, he dropped the girl and dove into the billowing smoke. He wrenched away the guard's lance and slammed it into the man's groin.
Firing a couple of more rounds at the men down the passageway, he slapped a mine on the escape pod's doorway lock. It blew as he dove back to retrieve the girl. She lay huddled where he had left her.
The guardians loomed. He had to risk his last grenade. He tossed it over the soldiers' heads, then turned his back and held his ears.
The grenade exploded, hurling the guardians forward onto the goddess. He shoved a couple aside, yanked her into his arms, and sprinted for the pod door. Just before ducking through, he banged the cap of a virus canister against the doorway, and tossed it into the corridor. Concussion balls from the Priest’s lances striking the pod door nearly deafened him.
Phil dumped the semiconscious girl into the nearest seat and tore off his mask. Dropping into the pod's control seat, he quickly ran through the launch sequence. He ignited the pod’s engines but, not wanting to become a target for the freighter's guns, kept it in its alcove.
Picking up the girl, he carried her back to a sling and strapped her in. Even in her stunned state she moaned in pain as he touched her.
Now all he could do was wait, hoping the deadly bacteria in the canister would take effect before the priests could get to him.
CHAPTER 2
"Mad Dog. This is Englishman. Over."
"Englishman, you old son of a gun, this is Mad Dog. How you hanging?"
Recognizing the v
oice of Jed Googan, his second-in-command, Phil said, "By my teeth--barely."
"I told you not to brush. You got the broad?"
"I got her. You coming in?"
"Yeah, but so are others. It's going to get crowded around there real soon. Start your countdown on my mark." He paused, then said, "Mark."
Phil activated his wrist timer. "Okay, I'll see you soon--I hope. Over."
"Don't worry, we'll catch you--maybe. Out."
Far out in space, too far for the freighter's scan, Phil's raider, The Frisco Flyer, picked up speed. The Cult's freighters might be slow, but they bristled with armament. They would blast to dust any hostile ship that approached--any ship they could see.
Phil shoved the pod's throttle hard forward, and instantly rockets hurtled the tiny ship away from the freighter; fast, but not fast enough.
Flaming red concussion bolts from the freighter streamed across black space in pursuit. The pod's maneuverability was limited, but Phil leaned on the controls, and the ship veered just as the bolts streaked by. They had been contact charged. The next rounds would be proximity charged.
Blips entered the corner of his screen. The lettering ticking across underneath confirmed what he suspected: Cult pursuit ships, quick and maneuverable; lightly armed but very accurate. He would be in their range in seconds.
Another salvo from the freighter blazed after him. Again he maneuvered away at the last moment, and the blasts arched away into black space.
The gunners still had not used proximity charges. Could the mind-eating bacteria be taking effect? It was a horrible concept: killer germs; long ago outlawed by all the corporations. Phil had bought the canisters from a treasure hunter who found them in the ruins of Terra. He hated to use them, but he hated the Cult more.
Suddenly Phil felt the pod quiver. He checked his watch. Right on time. There would be no more maneuvering now. He would just have to wait while the mesh and dragline from The Flyer tightened.
A tiny light went on above a communication monitor. Phil switched on the sound only.
A trumpet blared a familiar phrase.
With a look of disgust, Phil turned down the volume. The Cult never communicated to laymen without fanfare.
"Greetings, Follower in the escape vehicle," rumbled a sepulchral voice. "This is Lieutenant Solomon Jamal in command of the Flotilla of Holy Intercession. I order you to cease your wayward ways, and allow us to save your soul from the path of sin."
Phil glanced at his watch again. He would have to stall. He switched the audio to follow his voice, and drifted back to examine the girl's sling, talking as he went.
"It is true, oh beloved brother, Lieutenant Jamal, I am a recalcitrant sinner, but it is only because I can't make a living any other way. The Holy Cult has taken all that I earn for contributions."
He bent over the girl. She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open. In shock, she stared past him, her face grey.
He frowned. A dead temple goddess would be of no value as ransom.
"It is the duty of all to tithe," continued the booming voice. "How else can redemption be bought?"
Phil's eyes ran down the girl's lean body. A long, purple welt discolored her shin where she struck the entrance to the corridor, and his grip marks on her wrist and waist blazed red and inflamed.
He kept talking. "But, beloved brother, I then must be totally redeemed. The Holy Cult took my tithe ten times in a row. I have nothing."
He checked her safety straps. So thin was her skin, they chaffed raw welts wherever they touched.
The lieutenant's vibrant tone hardened ominously. "But you possess one thing that is very valuable. Give her up without harm, and you may only die once, and that not too horribly. Defy us, and your descent into a screaming, agonizing hell will be eternal."
Phil pulled a narcopatch from his belt pack and gently applied it to her arm. Even semiconscious she squirmed away from his touch. Then her head drooped, and she slumped into a frowning sleep, her breathing shallow and uneven.
Preparing a sling for himself, he said, "Yes, but she is all I have. Surely she must be of value as an exchange for my life." He knew he had to apply a patch to his own arm to combat the coming pain, but he also had to keep Lieutenant What's-His-Face talking.
A hint of forgiveness crept into Jamal's voice. "We are not without compassion, and understand human frailty. We may deem to grant you your life with only a term of eternity in one of our Retreats of Dedication. Now standby to return our beloved goddess."
Phil slipped back into the pilot's seat to check the screen to see if they had approached close enough to launch boarding craft. They had. Time to bluff.
His voice hardened. "All right, hood-head, cut the crap. Either you stop where you are, or I blow the woman away, and you'll never be able to dedicate the temple on Alpene. And take that ridiculous augmenter out of your mouth and talk straight, or we don't talk at all."
In a moment the voice came back, high and with a lisp. "We ran a voice check on you and know who you are, Phil Dyak. You were troublesome as an acolyte, and you're still trouble. We've allowed you to get away with your minor thievery because you just weren't worth the effort."
"And besides," Phil interrupted, "you couldn't catch me."
The lieutenant continued peevishly, "But now you've gone too far. However, if you give up the goddess, confess your sins, and return to the fold, we may be willing to deal leniently with your transgressions."
"No deal, priest. I'm not spending the rest of my life at the bottom of one of your stinking mines, or Dedication Retreats, as you call them. You want the woman, come and get her, and I guarantee you there won't be anything but blood and guts left when you do."
Suddenly something in the back of Phil's mind triggered alarm, and he knew what they were doing. They were subliminally playing the Domination Hymn under the audio.
The hypnotic effects of the music did not capture his mind completely. That took all the trappings of the Cult ritual, the Glad Hand, the drugged incense, the dancing goddess, but it did slow his thinking; tranquilize him.
He strained to reach the transmitter's off button, but couldn't move. He fought for anger, a scalding passion that would burn out the lethargy and wake him up. He had to get to the sling and strap himself in before the net and cable that stretched behind The Frisco Flyer tightened.
The hypnotic music swelled and became audible. The blips on the screen moved closer. Though thousands of leagues away, they would be visual within minutes.
He struggled to recall the outrages the priests had done to him, anything to rekindle a rage that would reawaken his mind. But his thoughts slipped away.
As he sat idly, three streamlined pursuits glided into formation next to the pod, and attack sleds streamed out.
CHAPTER 3
As the sleds pulled alongside, the escape pod suddenly accelerated. The pursuits immediately fired, but the pod's speed became so rapid that it disappeared from sight, then off their screens.
The incredible propulsion crammed Phil deep into the control chair. The chair tore loose, and plowed back through the seats, uprooting them as it passed. He crashed through the cabin’s back wall, and ended up flattened against the aft bulkhead of the pod's tiny lavatory, still wedged in the chair.
The flesh of his face stretched back, and the wrinkles of his clothes embedded into his body, ripping open the skin. He bled from a hundred wounds.
Without a narcopatch, the pain would have been unendurable, snapping his mind. But the Cult's Hymn of Domination had numbed his brain, and he slipped into painful unconsciousness. Unfortunately, he did not sleep long enough.
The Frisco Flyer had flown by at top speed, streaming a mesh of pliant filaments behind. The net snared the pod, stretching thousands of leagues to allow for a gradual acceleration. Even so, without the security of a sling inside the pod, the sudden explosion of G-forces was deadly.
Phil awoke, gagging for breath. The Frisco Flyer had reversed and was powering against its acc
eleration, slowing down. It made no difference to Phil. The crushing weight on his chest remained as acute. In his cupped position, he was suffocating. He blacked out again.
* * *
He rose slowly to consciousness, and into Kim Copperfield's concerned gaze. He stared up at her for a moment and, after another of concentrated thought, said, "Is she...?"
Checking her monitors, the doctor's expression did not change. "She may live, and she may not."
"What the hell's that mean?" He tried to sit up, then doubled up with a groan.
Kim caught him as he started to fall from the examination table. She shoved him back and strapped him down. "I mean she's incoherent and in shock. What did you hit her with? She has terrible scratches and bruises. Some will need plasticizing if she's to keep her value. She's in such pain I had to suspend her in emollients like a burn victim."
Opening his eyes, he tried to sit up again and encountered the strap. "Loose me and let me go," he snapped irritably
"My, my; you still have a tendency to talk in Cult when you get angry. Are you sure you can stand up without doing a half-gainer onto the floor?"
"Just do it."
She helped him to a sitting position.
He spoke through clenched teeth of pain. "Yeah, I saw those bruises. Things were happening pretty fast. She must have gotten hit."
The doctor had a thought. "When you were an acolyte, did you ever see a goddess with her clothes on?"
"I never saw a goddess. I never saw anything. They kept me pretty well locked up. Why?"
"Well, I don't think she has ever been touched by anything, not even clothes."
He shrugged. "Okay, then don't give her clothes. Just make sure she stays alive."
"Fine, but you keep the crew away from her. And what about food?"
"Yeah, I could use a bite."
She grimaced. "Not you, dummy; her. What does she eat? I can't get her to talk. I don't even know if she knows how to talk. This may just be harder than we thought."