Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena

by Martin Schiller

  “Yes,” Maya replied, “I will.”

  Shara smiled wryly. “Good. I thought as much.”

  ***

  That night, after dinner, everyone headed back to their staterooms for bed and an early start in the morning. Maya was trying without success to fall asleep, when there was a soft knock at the door. She grabbed up her needlegun and walked over to it.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s me,” she heard Felecia whisper, “Let me in.” Maya admitted her and closed the door.

  “I was waiting for a chance to get away from everyone,” Felecia said. “The security people have been watching me like aerhawks, and I never thought I would get a single moment alone.” Then she saw the needlegun in Maya’s hand. “What’s that for?” Felecia asked with an innocent concern.

  “Nothing,” Maya lied, “just a habit I picked up.” The deception worked, and Felecia’s expression changed from unease to affection as Maya laid the weapon down on the night table.

  “Is that a smuggler’s habit?” Felecia asked. “I suppose that a pirate would have to be just a little more cautious about a knock at the door than most other women.”

  She undid her hair and came into Maya’s arms. “I seem to recall a promise I made to you back on the ship that I never got the chance to fulfill,” she said with a sensuous smile. “And I have felt absolutely terrible about it ever since.”

  “Well,” Maya replied with mock concern. “We can’t have that hanging over your head, now can we?” Then she kissed Felecia deeply and pulled her down onto the bed.

  CHAPTER 13

  Thenti City, Sagana Territorial Capitol, Thenti, Sagana System, Sagana Territory, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1043.02|28|05:53:32

  The Athena returned to Thenti and when the ship had put into orbit, the entire crew, with the exception of those required for the ship’s basic operations, was granted a brief shore leave. It was limited to the territorial capital, and only for one standard day; basically time enough to see Dr. Shandra n’Aida safely ensconced in the local hospital.

  Jesu and Mari had heard Jon’s prayers.

  Praising their names, he wasted no time in getting to his rack and retrieving the hair samples from their hiding place. He had sealed them in a simple plastic bag, and he tucked this into an inside pocket of his fatigues and then joined the rest of his platoon at the shuttle bay.

  As fate had ordained, his shuttle was also the same one assigned to carry Dr. n’Aida downside. While this translated into a longer delay at the port as she and her escort of Navy medics was processed through, it also meant that he received less individual scrutiny from the customs officers himself.

  With the exception of their Inoculars, the usual scans for biological hazards and contraband were drastically truncated, and any anomalies that were detected were simply attributed to their strange passenger. This and the fact that the baggie he carried was partially masked by his own body readings got it and him through the port without registering any alarms. Despite a second glance from the customs officers because of his gender, he walked into the main terminal of the spaceport unmolested.

  He quickly made his way to an omni, hoping that his incredible luck would hold. And when he searched the city listings, he found what he had been praying for. It was an entry for one Mari n’Deo.

  N’Deo didn’t really exist, not as a person at least. It was a name from the Revelation of Mari; Mother Mari’s formal name in Standard, ‘Mari, daughter of God’.

  To Jon and any other missionary, this was a clear sign that one of the Faithful was working undercover in Thenti to convert the pagan masses. Depending on the elant, the penalty for such noble work ranged from simple fines, to deportation back to New Covenant, or imprisonment. There were even tales of beatings, and missionaries who had simply disappeared in police custody, never to be heard from again.

  In the Sisterhood, spreading God’s word could be a very risky calling. Despite these hazards though, a Sister had taken up residence in the city and had left this sign for someone like him to follow. Hands trembling with excitement, Jon crossed himself and called the number.

  A woman answered with a somewhat shocked expression when she saw him on her screen. “Blessings,” he said, reciting the simple code he had been taught. “I am new to this world. Can you guide me?”

  “W-Why, yes. I will point the way,” the woman said, giving him the counter-reply. “Come to my shop on Epsilon Street.” She supplied him with the directions and cut their connection.

  Jon left the terminal and walked out into the large complex of domes that made up Thenti City. His movement through the town was accomplished by negotiating a network of moviwalks, tubeways, elevators and mini-trains, but he managed to stay on course through the maze until at last, he arrived at the block where the shop was located.

  That was when a police hovercar landed next to the moviwalk he was traveling on. At a signal from the car, the moving sidewalk immediately came to a gentle stop and two Thentian policewomen got out. Jon felt as if his heart was going to stop beating as they walked up.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been stopped by the local police. In fact, this was a fairly regular occurrence, given his strange appearance and the relative rarity of neomen throughout the Sisterhood. But the presence of the hair sample in his pocket made this particular event a new and terrifying experience. For the first time, he genuinely had something to hide, and he found himself saying a silent, desperate prayer to Jesu and Mari, and all of the saints and martyrs, that the officers would only ask him a few questions, and not subject him to a physical search.

  “You there,” the first officer said as her partner took up a guarding position off to his left and behind him. “Neo! Come here.”

  Jon obeyed without protest, hoping that the kaaper wouldn’t detect his nervousness and become any more suspicious than she already was.

  “What are you doing here?” the woman demanded. “What’s your business? Do you understand me, Neo?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” Jon replied. “I’m on a one-day shore leave from the Pallas Athena. She just put into orbit upside. I’m on my way to a local shop to buy myself a guidebook.”

  “You’re on shore leave?” the officer retorted disbelievingly. “You’re with the Navy?”

  “The Marines, ma’am,” he answered. “If you scan me, you’ll confirm my service number and assignment.”

  “Yeah, sure,” the woman behind him said doubtfully. “More like someone dressed you up in that costume as some kind of sick joke.”

  “Now, Maarva,” the first officer said wagging a finger at her, “he might actually be some kind of pet, a mascot. We had a pet scavvas on the ship I served on. But we’ll see one way or the other.”

  The blue light of the officer’s data monocle played over him for a second. “I’ll be damned by the Goddess and my soul set to wander,” she declared. “Sh--he’s a Marine all right.”

  “Wait,” her partner interjected “Now, I know what’s going on here. He’s that Neo freak that was on the news a few weeks back. He’s the one they’re trying out as a test to see if Neos can make the grade.”

  The first woman spat on the ground. “What’s the service coming to? Goddess blast it!” Then she addressed Jon. “All right Neo, your story checks out--for now. Just the same, we’ll send word to your CO that we stopped and questioned you for suspicious activity.”

  “Yes, of course, ma’am,” Jon replied.

  “And you keep your nose clean here on Thenti, you hear me? I’d love to hook you up just out of loyalty to the Corps. Do we understand each other?”

  Jon nodded meekly as the two policewomen got back into their ‘car and flew off. Then he suppressed a shudder. If they had taken things any further…

  Jon didn’t finish the thought, and quickly moved on. He wanted to gain as much distance as he could before they decided to come back and question him some more.

  But he reached his destination without further incident.
The shop was small, and specialized in offbeat realies, holovids, and even a few genuine books. The holosign over the entrance read: “The Guiding Stars” and three four-pointed stars accompanied the fanciful lettering. To the uninitiated, they were only decorations. To the Faithful though, these stars represented the Father, His Son and Mother Mari. He had reached a place of safety.

  The woman he had spoken with was waiting for him inside the deserted store, behind the counter. Jon knew better than to take any chances though, even at this stage. He made a fist with his right hand, and placed his thumb over the top of it, so that only the tip extended into space, and held this a little ways out from his right side.

  It was the traditional sign that one made before making the Cross of Blessing, and the woman noticed it. Cautiously, she placed her right hand on the counter, and duplicated the gesture. Had she placed her thumb inside her fist, and let it protrude between her fore and index fingers instead, it would have made the sign against evil, and warned him that they were being listened to, or watched. For a little while at least, they were alone and free to speak with one another openly.

  “Greetings, Sister,” he said. “I have something that must be sent back to New Covenant as quickly as possible.” He took out the plastic bag and passed it over to her.

  She took it from him without asking any questions and gave him a copy of The Stone People in return. The hologuide was a compendium of the myths and legends surrounding the odd geology of Thenti, and a general guidebook.

  “You’ll need this to make the reason for your visit a convincing one,” she informed him. “The local authorities might be watching the store. We’ve had word that one of our flock may have lapsed back into her pagan ways and I can’t ignore the possibility of danger.”

  “I understand, Sister,” Jon replied. “May Jesu and Mari watch over you as they have watched over me.”

  He wasn’t alone when he left the store and made his way back to the port, but he also wasn’t surprised. His talent had revealed that someone, probably with Ships’ Security, was following him all the way back to the port. He only hoped that the shop owner, whatever her real name was, would move quickly and succeed in the mission he had given her. As he re-boarded the shuttle, he made a small, discreet sign of blessing, and prayed for her.

  ***

  The Athena and her sister vessels headed out from Thenti late that evening and made an immediate transit into Null, coming out above Persephone. There, they took up station for another day, giving a company of Marine engineers the chance to go downside with their equipment to set up an improved anti-space defense system. Once the engineers were downside, and had started to settle in, the battle group resumed its journey and made for the furthest star system in the Sagana Territory, Phantasma.

  Lilith was particularly excited by their destination. Although Phantasma 9-A was uninhabited, the planet was the site of Dr. t’Sharalese’s alleged find of Old Gaian artifacts, and she was eager to visit the dig herself and see it first-hand.

  Before she would be able to avail herself of this pleasure though, duty had its demands. Phantasma was also at the edge of an unclaimed zone of space between the Sisterhood and the Hriss Empire, and the area was the perfect location to drop off replacement surveillance probes.

  In the raid on Persephone, many of the original probes had been damaged or destroyed, and the Athena’s mission was to substitute them with stealthier, improved devices, and also to monitor any transmissions coming from inside of Hriss space. Eavesdropping missions weren’t the most glamorous affairs, but they were vital to the defense effort. Even the most trivial sounding communication could have tremendous strategic value. Not that that made this duty any less tedious.

  While the ship headed towards open space and its first jump into Null, she promised herself that once they were done with their spying, they would return to Phantasma, if only for a few hours. In the meantime, she resigned herself to a long and lackluster shift, and settled herself into her command chair.

  The hours passed slowly, with the battle group making short transits through Null, dropping listening devices, returning to Null, and repeating the process at another spot. Even the Indwellers seemed bored by it all, and only once did one even deign to make a brief appearance before apparently losing interest in them, and turning away.

  Finally, when the probes had been positioned, the Athena took up station at the first of its listening posts. This was a point in space that was distinguished only by its coordinates and the presence of a small, non-descript star system nearby. While the ships opened up their electronic ears to listen in on the conversations of their enemies, Lilith decided it was finally time for lunch and retired to her office.

  She had just ordered it up, when Caleda bel Tridis from Navcom called her. “Commander?” she said. “We’ve located some very interesting space debris that you might want to take a look at.”

  “Oh?” Lilith asked. With so many spacefaring races inhabiting the Far Arm, space junk was an unwanted, but ever-present byproduct. Out in interstellar space however, stellar rubbish was comparatively rare. And Lilith also knew that her Senior Helmswoman wouldn’t have bothered her about it unless she had found this particular piece of debris worth examining.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bel Tridis answered. “It looks like it’s part of one of our ships.”

  Lilith put down her spork.

  “I ran a metallurgical analysis of the object, and it came back with a 97% confidence that it was manufactured in the Sisterhood. The alloys all match what we use.”

  Lilith nodded. “Send it over.”

  A holo came up over her desk. It displayed a curved piece of metal, half a meter in length and a quarter wide, with jagged edges, tumbling end over end. The object was travelling on a trajectory that was taking it away from a star system which the Athena’s charts labeled as HSL-48 2124A. According to the data, it had been in space for the last 20 standard years.

  “I see,” Lilith said. “Do we know what kind of ship this came from?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Caleda returned. “I had the Ships Computer run a comparison, and there’s an 80% confidence that it’s part of the cowling for an in-system drive unit from a Model 3 SVER ship. It also looks like it was hit by some kind of explosive.”

  Lilith nodded soberly. The Servis a Vaste Éteine Reshersche, the Long Range Exploratory Service, specialized in hunting for habitable worlds, and making first contact with other races. It was a dangerous venture, calling for a special kind of woman, and many SVER ships had gone into uncharted space never to be heard from again. The SVER even had its own monument in Thermadon dedicated to all of the missing crews. New stars were added to it every year.

  “Do we have any idea which particular ship this was?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Caleda said. “I checked the SVER records and there were several vessels that came through this quadrant during that time period. Only one of them went missing though. It was the USS Atalanta.”

  Another image popped up, showing the vessel itself, along with its particulars. Fifteen women, three officers, and the rest cross-trained sailor/scientists.

  Lunch was over. “I’ll be right out,” Lilith said.

  When she exited her office and retook her command chair, she saw that Caleda had already anticipated her next set of questions. The main sitscreen was lit up with a diagram, showing HSL-48 2124A and all of its satellites.

  It proved to be a G2V type star, a yellow star like Sol in the Old Gaian system. But unlike Sol, it had only three small worlds in attendance. The only other remarkable feature was that the second world was a T-type planet, making it very similar to Old Gaia herself. It was exactly the kind of thing that would have attracted a SVER ship to come in for a closer look.

  And they probably ran into a Hriss anti-ship missile for all their troubles, she thought grimly. Being as close as they were to the Imperium, that much was almost a certainty.

  Survivors however, were not. Not after 20 ye
ars, and not if the Hriss had been involved. Crash landing on a Hriss-controlled world was the modern equivalent of ancient mariners washing ashore on an island filled with headhunters.

  Lilith also knew what the Navy would expect of her. The battle group would have to make an attempt to locate the crew, and if the Hriss were occupying the little star system as she suspected they were, their presence would have to be noted in the Athena’s surveillance log. Even though HSL-48 2124A wasn’t within the Sisterhood’s boundaries, it was still close enough to the Sagana Territory to merit some concern.

  She called Katrinn up to her chair.

  “A habitable world, then? And a missing crew?” Katrinn asked, just as intrigued as she was.

  “Yes, it would appear so,” Lilith replied pensively. “And probably crawling with Hriss. Nav? Are we picking up any energy signatures in that system?”

  Again, Caleda was ready with the answers. It was one of the qualities that Lilith appreciated the most in her senior officers.

  “Ma’am,” the senior tech informed her. “We have warp trails going in and out of the system. The newest one is 6 months old. We also have energy readings coming from several of the moons, and from the second planet. Nothing large, but they’re there.”

  Lilith’s eyebrows rose. “Warp trails?” Like the Sisterhood, the Hriss used gravitronic drives for in-system travel, and Nullspace transits for long distances. So did the T’lakskalans and everyone else. Warp-based drive hadn’t been used for centuries by anyone, anywhere in the Far Arm.

  “How about that?” Katrinn said, clucking her tongue. “Well, Lily, at least we can’t say that we’re bored anymore.”

  “No, we can’t” Lilith agreed. Whoever or whatever was inhabiting HSL-48 2124A were not Hriss. Instead, they were an unknown. The only certain thing was, that at one time at least, the natives had been hostile. It was the only explanation for the object that they had found.