Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena

by Martin Schiller

  Bel Lissa nodded in satisfaction and throttled the thermal engines to just a hair short of full power. “Take off on my mark…” she said. Then she brought the thermals to maximum and discharged the anti-gravitrons that had been building up in the main engines.

  “--and launch.”

  The JUDI leapt up from the earth with a howl. In seconds, the port was below them and shrinking rapidly to become a pale smudge against the darker background of Thermadon City. Then the city itself transformed into nothing more than a small blotch on the continental face. Then this too disappeared beneath the clouds of the upper atmosphere, and the sky turned black. Stars appeared on the forward screens, first singly, then in dozens, and then hundreds that became thousands, which resolved into millions.

  As the merchanter entered open space, Bel Lissa shut down the thermal thrusters and set their course for the 2nd La Grange point, where their escort ship, the CSS Belle Starr, was waiting. She opened a hailing frequency to the vessel, and the conversation played out over the cabin’s speakers.

  “Good afternoon, Captain n’Jarri,” she said. “We are on course to join you, estimated arrival time one minute.”

  “That’s affirmative, Captain,” her counterpart responded. “We have you on tracking and are beginning our outbound run. Engaging Null-wings and powering up for transit now. Advise us when you are ready for the gate.”

  On the JUDI’s main sitscreen, the refurbished Navy cruiser was moving in a line away from them as they came around on her tail. Ahead of the escort ship, the displays showed the zone where the opening into Nullspace was projected to occur.

  “On your track, Captain n’Jarri,” Bel Lissa advised. “Open the gate at your pleasure.”

  The two ships where now moving together at the same speed towards the target zone. The Starr’s helmswoman engaged the ships Pavilita generators and sent the energy out through its Null-wings. Ahead of them, a brilliant rift of pure light appeared, increasing in size until it dwarfed the approaching ships. In another second, they were inside of it, and entering Nullspace.

  A bare ten minutes elapsed before the tiny convoy exited Null in another part of the Far Arm. The run itself had been completely uneventful. Only one Indweller had been spotted and it had stayed well clear of them, and at the very edge of their sensor range. Neither ship had had to fire so much as a single shot.

  Bel Lissa made a point of thanking the Starr’s Captain for her service, and after exchanging a few more pleasantries, brought the JUDI onto a standby course to nowhere in particular.

  As for Captain n’Jarri, she wasted no time in turning her ship around and heading back into Null. The next leg of the JUDI’s journey was about to begin, and both Captains knew that it was better if the Starr’s crewwomen could swear truthfully, if they were ever asked, that they had left the JUDI behind in normal space, and awaiting another escort ship with an unknown name. It was a useful fiction, and the Belle Starr was receiving additional credits on top of their standard escort fees to play along with the charade.

  The moment that the Starr had disappeared, Bel Lissa checked their long-range scanners. Once she had confirmed that they were alone, she sent a special command and unlocked the Null-wings hidden along the JUDI’s hull. They unfolded out to their full length at the ships bow and stern, and as they locked themselves into position, she glanced over at Zara.

  “Bringing the Pavilitas on line and routing power to them, Captain,” the engineer informed her. The Pavilita generators that the JUDI possessed were quite diminutive in comparison to the Starr’s, or any other Null-capable ship, but they were state-of-the-art, and reached their peak power levels immediately.

  In the meantime, Sarah had called up a holo of the star patterns at their destination, and had memorized their configurations. Then the psi reached out with her mind through the Pavilita’s, and shaped the energies contained within them until they had conformed to the image of their destination perfectly.

  She gave Zara a slight nod. The older woman brought the stern set on line, and discharged the Pavilita’s. Outside, the little wings danced with fire, and the ship’s hull vibrated with a deep hum that everyone felt in the marrow of their bones.

  “Cutting the gate,” Sarah announced in a distant voice. At a command from her psiever, the stern wings released their energy to the pair at the bow. Two azure rays shot out from the JUDI into the darkness, and as the beams conjoined, a gateway appeared.

  Bel Lissa throttled the ship’s engines up and took the JUDI into Nullspace. The mists closed over them and she channeled energy to the ships defensive guns and kept a sharp eye on the battle sensors. But these steps were only supportive functions.

  The main job of defending the ship actually lay in Sarah’s hands, and the psi was monitoring a duplicate of Bel Lissa’s display, using her talents to reach out even further than the ships sensors were capable of, probing ahead for the slightest indication of danger.

  It wasn’t long in coming. Sarah sensed the Indie seconds before the sensors did. It was below them, circling in the mists like the shadow of a physical predator sizing up its prey.

  Then in a rush, the ebon shape rose upwards from the vapor, spreading itself wide, and turning into a giant cloak of pure lightlessness. Bel Lissa prepared to discharge the JUDI’s main guns into the horror, but before she could engage the firing stud, the creature shuddered. Its form rippled as the Indie reacted to an invisible force that was more powerful than anything that the JUDI’s weapons were capable of. With a howl of infernal rage, the monster folded in on itself and retreated back into the safety of the clouds.

  The JUDI flew onwards, unmolested, and Sarah’s eyes fluttered open.

  “There are two others nearby,” she said distantly, “staying just out of our scanner range. I think that they are reconsidering their strategy. I injured the adult severely and this appears to have given its younger companions reason to pause.”

  Bel Lissa took her hand away from the fire control switches and returned her attention to the helm. She didn’t express any gratitude, and Sarah didn’t expect it. They had all been through this many times before. It was simply a fact that Sarah’s amazing abilities were what made the JUDI, and the missions that it flew, possible.

  CSS C-JUDI-GO, Lunar Raw Materials Plant, Virgo, Bethlehem System, Telesalla Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns 1042.12|04|07:02.10

  The C-JUDI-GO came back into normal space at the edge of a small star system. The sitscreens showed them on an approach to a place called Virgo. It was the satellite of a T-class planet that any woman in the Sisterhood would have recognized with instant distaste; New Covenant, the capital world of the Marionites.

  Instead of approaching Virgo at a leisurely angle, Bel Lissa brought the JUDI down in a tight arc, swinging the ship around the dark side of the moon. Then she hugged the landscape, using the sensors to guide the way. Except for the faint stars on the horizon, the terrain beneath and in front of the merchanter was completely shrouded in perpetual shadow, and only the displays on the holos told her when they had crested a mountain range, or dipped into a valley.

  Up ahead, and through the forward view-ports, a bright line of landing beacons came to life. Bel Lissa engaged the JUDI’s own landing lights in response, illuminating a makeshift runway that ended abruptly at the foot of a rocky hill.

  The JUDI rushed down the strip towards the hillside. Seconds before disaster could claim the vessel, a section of the slope began to open, revealing a dark hangar bay hidden inside.

  Bel Lissa brought the JUDI in, entering the space with only meters of clearance to spare, and the moment they had landed, she powered the engines down. Back behind them, the hangar door slid shut and the lights outside winked off. They had arrived at their destination, with no one the wiser.

  “Time to deliver our cargo,” she announced. Everyone got up from their stations and filed out of the bridge to the main access way. Bel Lissa turned to Hari when they reached the ladder.

  “I’ll need yo
u to stay aboard with our ‘guest,’” she told her, “while we go talk with the client.”

  She didn’t give any instructions to Zara. Unlike Hari, Zara knew her job without being told, and did it well. The JUDI’s engineer simply smiled at her Captain and Sarah, and made her way past them, headed for the engine compartment.

  It was obvious from her expression that Hari was not happy with her assignment, but she made no protest. Which was just as well. After the issue with the inner cargo bay hatch, Bel Lissa felt that it was more than fair that she make up for her carelessness by pulling guard duty. Besides which, their mission was on a need-to-know basis, and the temperamental woman had not been included in the information loop. Hari didn’t “need to know” anything.

  They left her there at the ladder and went straightway to Sarah’s cabin. Once inside, Sarah opened the hidden compartment and brought out the spray bottle.

  She uncapped it and brought it to her nose, dispensing some of its contents into each nostril. Then she picked up the case and concealed it under the folds of her traveling cape.

  Leaving together, they headed for the cargo bay, where Bel Lissa activated the controls for the ramp. It opened up on an enclosed chamber of grey rock, covered with a light coating of lunar dust. A ring of high intensity lights surrounded the ship, marking the landing circle, and obscuring everything else in the chamber with their glare. As they stepped out, the lights dimmed and a smiling woman came forwards to greet them. She was dressed in an immaculate white jumpsuit with a symbol embroidered in gold above her left pocket. It was a four-armed star; the insignia of the Marionite Church.

  Sarah spoke first. “We had a little trouble getting your order filled, Sister, especially since the material has become so closely monitored. But your prayers must have been with us, because we managed to procure what you needed.”

  “Praise Mari,” the woman exclaimed, “She must have heard our humble entreaties. I mean no offense, but may I inspect the case, please?”

  “Of course,” Sarah nodded. She produced the case and opened it. Inside, nestled in thick foam, was a row of sealed containers.

  The Sister reached in and carefully removed one. Its label read: Xi-Gen Labs: Enhanced Genetic Materials, Class 5 Restrictions Apply. Unauthorized distribution carries a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years. Title 51117, Sec. 13

  The Marionite’s expression became positively blissful. “Bless you, Sarah. And bless you also, Captain bel Lissa. Truly, Mari has seen fit to grace us with women who can see through the unholy blasphemy of the Sisterhood. I know that you will both have a seat in Heaven with Jesu and Mari at the Creator’s side.”

  “Perhaps,” Sarah agreed. “And now, may we discuss the fee that we decided upon? I’m sure that you would also agree that we need to attend to our material concerns until God calls us to His side.” She said this with a smile, and handed the case over to the woman, who took it gratefully.

  “Yes. Of course,” the Sister replied, “We can take our ease in my offices while I have your funds transferred.” She led them away from the landing circle towards a prefab office module set against the wall of the chamber.

  “I do hope that you and your crew will be remaining with us for a while. I am sure that after your long trip, you would want to avail yourselves of the opportunity for some prayer and meditation.”

  “It would be my pleasure, Sister,” Sarah answered warmly. “I have missed the Holy Garden of the Immaculate Conception, and the long quiet hours that I spent there on our previous visits.” Then, she sneezed.

  “God bless you,” the Sister said.

  “Thank you, Sister. It must be the dust in here that is affecting me.”

  The Marionite smiled, and showed them into the office, certain that she understood Sarah’s situation. In reality, she did not understand a thing. Sarah had been trained in many arts, including the ability to trigger otherwise involuntary functions. Her sternutation had been carefully timed for the precise moment when they had been passing beneath an air exchange vent.

  And with this action, thousands of microscopic spybots that she had sprayed into her sinuses had taken flight. By the time everyone had seated themselves, the little nanobots had already winged their way deep into the laboratory complex. There, they began transmitting information back to the JUDI for later review by her employers, and their experts.

  The Sister, completely oblivious to the fact that their security had just been compromised, leaned back in her chair. “Then it is settled,” the woman announced, “I’ll make sure that a shuttle is sent up from the Mother World to take you to Marristown. In the meantime, my assistant, Gari will attend you.”

  While she said this, a neoman entered the cubicle. He was dressed in the same white jumpsuit and bore a silver tray laden with a pitcher of hot kaafra and matching cups.

  Sarah had encountered many neomen in her career, and their utter strangeness never failed to affect her. It was their appearance, she reflected, so quasi-human, and at the same time, so oddly proportioned, and utterly non-female. Where the eye expected to find breasts, there was nothing, and the rest was a collection of hard angles, instead of soft curves.

  She found their voices to be equally as strange. They were far too deep to be normal, and seemed almost as if they were imitating a spoken language, rather than genuine communication.

  But perhaps the most telling difference was their scent. Sarah had a hyper-keen sense of smell, and despite the masking effect of cosmetics, neomen always smelled a bit too musky to be considered to be anything but abnormal and animalistic. The neoman in front of her was no exception, and she tried not to wrinkle her nose when he leaned in close to set the tray down.

  It was easy, just on the basis of physical attributes alone, for her to appreciate the necessity behind the prejudices that neomen faced in the Sisterhood. Although any woman understood that males had once been part of the human race, Sarah agreed with the forward-thinking idea that Womankind had simply evolved past the level of lower order animals. There was simply no longer any requirement for multiple sexes to exist in order to successfully reproduce. In her estimation, neomen were at their most basic level, redundant, and nothing better than genetic throwbacks that had no place in a modern, progressive society.

  Naturally, she kept these thoughts to herself and accepted her cup from the archaic creature with a pleasant smile. She also found herself wondering, as she often did, how his kind would fare in combat. She had never had the opportunity to fight a neoman, and she always made it a point to size up their strengths and weaknesses in the event that that day ever actually arrived.

  Sipping her beverage, she observed him carefully. Like most neomen, Gari had a powerful upper body. In fact, his muscles were grossly overdeveloped compared to a female physique. She knew that this lent him greater upper body strength, which was potentially deadly if it were applied correctly.

  But he was also slower and less fluid in his movements than a woman would have been. Overall, this made him, without the training to compensate for his obvious genetic deficiencies, vulnerable to attack by anyone with faster reflexes, and more readily off-balanced.

  Satisfied with her analysis of the creature, and her kaafra, Sarah let herself enjoy the respite. She was quite pleased at how things had transpired so far; their mission had concluded successfully and she was eager to receive the information that the spybots would send.

  As for the Garden of the Immaculate Conception, she had been genuine in her desire to visit it. Of all the sanctuaries that she had ever been to, it was, without qualification, one of the loveliest. And because it was used by the Marionite leadership to conduct their most important business, it was also one of the best locations to plant additional listening devices.

  ***

  Between the chase at the port, venting her frustrations on the contents of the cabin, and her confinement, Maya had thoroughly exhausted herself. For a time, she had simply sat on the deck, but as the minutes had stretched into hours, she
had finally surrendered to her fatigue, and slept.

  The realization that the JUDI had made planetfall was what woke her. The hum of the engines was gone, along with the thousand other small noises that a ship made when it was in flight.

  They had been replaced by other sounds. Although layers of metal and plastic muffled everything, she recognized the high pitched whine of a hovercarry being operated, and the deeper rumble of a cargo container making contact with a floor as someone set it down. There were also voices mixed in with all this; distant, and strangely low pitched.

  She pressed her head against the bulkhead and listened for a while, trying to decipher what the people were saying, and to piece together what it all meant. But as hard as she tried, she was unable to assemble a coherent picture.

  Another sound, this time from a slot opening in the hatch behind her intruded on her spying, and she looked over her shoulder to see a food tray waiting for her. Someone had decided to feed her.

  For a moment, Maya was tempted to leave the tray right where it was, just to show her captors that she wasn’t completely conquered. But her body had other ideas. It had been hours since she had eaten, and when her stomach growled at her insistantly, she stood up and went over to the tray. She hated the fact that she was dancing to someone else’s tune, but the odors coming from under the plastic cover were irresistible. And when she removed it, the food inside made her mouth water.

  She took an experimental bite and found that it was just as good as it appeared. Then she ate, slowly at first, and finally with increasing enthusiasm until the tray had been picked clean.

  When the last morsel was gone, Maya looked at the cameras that she knew were there, and smiled at her hidden audience.

  Then she threw the tray down onto the plasmetal floor. There, she thought, I ate and FEK you!

  She started to add in an obscene gesture, but caution intervened. She was still a prisoner, she reminded herself, and at the mercy of the Black Witch and her sinister minions. It was better to wait, and see if there was a way to work the situation out to her advantage. Freedom would only come if she appeared to be compliant.