Templum Veneris

by Jeremy L. Jones

  Althea took a long, deep breath and looked for another explanation. She pored through all the data she could, but the more she examined the evidence, the more crushing the reality became.

  Viekko Spade was dead.

  For a man like him, this was nothing unusual or unexpected. Hell, knowing Viekko, losing his life in battle pursuing some foolhardy mission or another was exactly the way he wanted and expected to go.

  And yet, the idea he might actually be dead seemed like a foreign concept. She wiped away tears as she sat staring at the data. A world without Viekko Spade just seemed wrong. To her, it was like trying to imagine a universe where gravity ceased to exist in one catastrophic moment.

  Somewhere, outside the shuttle, something banged against the hull. It was a soft, hollow, far-away sound that compounded her feeling of isolation in this place. She found that, more than anything else, she wanted to tell Viekko she was sorry again. She wanted him to know that on some level she did love him and wanted to be with him. It seemed like such a simple idea now. Why had everything become so complicated?

  The banging became louder and more persistent. Althea tried the door again only to find it still locked. She called out. “Hello?” But the tiny room remained completely still. She sat back down on the bunk and listened; whatever was going on outside was more than just the random noises of the ship resting on a windy, rocky plain. It was as if it were being pelted over and over again with rocks or debris. Althea started to think about her predicament. Could she escape if she needed to? Captain Colton used a unique protocol to rig her door locked from the inside, and the lock itself was electronic. That suggested if she could block or distort the signal somehow, the door might revert to its original settings. Unfortunately she didn’t even have her black medical bag—it was in another part of the shuttle since she hadn’t needed it since they landed—so she had no tools to gain access to any part of the system.

  Althea stood up again and knocked on her door, calling out again. “Hello? Is everything all right?”

  This time, the door unlocked, slid open, and Colton stood in the doorway, looking like a small animal that had just been chased a considerable distance.

  “What’s going on out there?” Althea looked around the Captain at the empty hallway.

  “Friend…” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “I think… I think you need to see something.”

  They both jumped at a sharp bang as something hit the side of the hull with considerable force.

  “What is it? What’s that noise?”

  Colton seemed at a loss for words. “I…can’t… you just have to see this, friend,” and then beckoned her forward.

  He led her to the bridge of the shuttle where several monitors above the main controls on either side of the cockpit windows showed camera views of the hull of the ship. Each one showed Cytherean soldiers in full military dress attacking the side of the shuttle, heaving rocks of various sizes against the metal, or attacking it with metal sledgehammers leaving dings and dents.

  “What are they trying to do?” asked Althea, her eyes flicking over the screens with a frown.

  “I have no idea, friend. They showed up a little while ago. They worked out how to use the intercom near the cargo bay door, but I had no idea what they were trying to say. Then they started throwing rocks at us. Those guys with hammers showed up just recently, and more are coming all the time.”

  Althea watched a couple men attack the side of the ship with the hammers for a few more moments. “Can they actually get in that way?”

  Colton shook his head. “Not with the way these ships are shielded; it would take weeks, friend. But there are weak spots out there. Engine intakes, fuel lines, stabilizers, propulsion systems… It’s only a matter of time before they find one of them and, if they do enough damage, we won’t be leaving this planet.”

  In one of the monitors, a soldier stood by the intercom as if waiting for some response. Althea approached the control console and activated the com on her side. “O que voce quer?”

  The soldier standing by intercom looked startled, then he reached forward to press the button on the intercom. “Nos viemos para Althea. Traga ela para nos!”

  Althea stood back. “They have come for me.”

  Colton looked confused and slightly panicked. “You? What…”

  Althea shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Can we lift off?”

  Colton’s eyes widened. “Well… yes, friend. But what about the others?”

  “Not completely lift off. Just enough to move us somewhere else, maybe somewhere harder to find?”

  “Not enough fuel, friend. We have just enough to reach orbit and get us back to Earth. We have a little extra, but using any of it puts us at risk of…”

  “How about weapons?” asked Althea desperately.

  Colton opened his mouth as if to say something but the words didn’t come. Then a look of realization brightened his face, and he ran to another part of the bridge. He opened a compartment near the rear. “Several hours ago, a Cytherean brought these. I didn’t know what to do so I just took them and held them here.” He turned back around holding Viekko’s shoulder holsters in his hand. “Will these help, friend?”

  Althea felt sick again as she realized what they were.

  The banging outside got louder as Althea took one of the guns by the grip and pulled it out of the holster. She fought back a tidal wave of anger and sadness as she gazed at the beautifully crafted weapon and tried to focus on what needed to be done. “Yes… that will do. I’ll go down to speak to them. Leave the intercom on, and when I tell you to, hit the thrusters.”

  “Friend, I told you. We have very limited fuel…” Colton said, with a hint of panic, as Althea started to walk toward the door.

  “Don’t lift off. Just fire them enough to bounce us off the ground and throw a bit of dust around. On my signal.”

  She ran from the bridge and down the spiral staircase to the cargo hold until she stopped at the intercom on the other side of the outer door. She paused for a moment to translate the words. “This is Althea. I’m coming out.”

  She waited for a moment and listened at the door as the Cytherean leader shouted orders, and the hammering stopped; she heard a short scuffle and then silence. She held Viekko’s gun behind her back as she pressed the button to open the door. At least ten soldiers stood in formation with one in front. Four or five of them cradled sledgehammers while the rest aimed spears at her.

  The one in charge stepped forward. Althea shouted, “Pare!”

  The soldier stopped, and one hand went for the sword in his belt.

  Althea revealed the gun and pointed it at the ranking soldier’s head. She glared at him and shouted the order again. “Pare!”

  The soldier with the crested helmet smiled, took a step back and raised his hands. Then he muttered a few words to the soldiers nearby at which they laughed. Althea started to get the feeling that they were not taking this situation seriously. The lead soldier shouted a few more orders at his men, and as one, they all started to move forward.

  “Colton! Hit the thrusters!” Althea shouted.

  The soldiers looked confused for a moment, and a few laughed as they watched Althea brace herself on a hand-hold near the doorway then, once again, they started to converge on her. A high pitched whine appeared to come from everywhere at once and an instant later there was a blast like a bomb going off. The world outside the door was lost in a storm of flying dirt and dust as the shuttle lifted off the ground. Just as fast, the floor felt like it dropped from under her feet and she had to hold on with all her strength to keep from being thrown to the floor.

  It took a second before she felt steady again and she walked outside the open cargo bay door. As intended, the quick jolt from the thrusters knocked all the soldiers off their feet. Althea aimed and fired a few shots into the dust-filled air. They were warning shots fired over the soldiers’ heads or at the ground near their feet, although one bounced off a shield. Bu
t it sent the right message. As the soldiers scrambled to their feet, they sprinted away from the ship toward the relative safety of the city. The lead soldier yelled at his retreating men but, after a bullet grazed the bright red crest on his helmet, he decided that being the only one left standing was not the way to live a long, healthy life. Althea leaned against the open door for a few moments watching them flee and then hit the button to close it.

  Colton pounded down the spiral staircase. “Did it work? We don’t have enough fuel to do that again, friend. Not enough that I would want to risk…”

  “It’s fine.” Althea put Viekko’s gun in the pocket of her white coat. “At least for now. We’ve got to figure out what the bloody hell is going on before they send more of them.”

  Althea activated her EROS and selected Isra’s channel. She tried hailing the team leader several times, but she didn’t respond. Finally, she switched to Cronus’ channel. He picked up almost immediately. “Althea! Are you okay?”

  Althea held her hand to her ear. “I’m fine Cronus for now. Isra is not…”

  “Isra is gone.”

  Althea and Colton exchanged fearful, panicked glances. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “She has become a tool of the Rainha. She is her servant now. She wishes to start a war with Earth. She has lost all connection to reality or her former home. Joana is helping me escape the city. We must be ready to leave when I arrive.”

  “And just leave her here?” Althea was not sure she believed what she was hearing.

  Cronus paused. “It is possible she is working within. We can wait for a signal. Some sign that she is well and trying to escape. All I know is, if she tries to bring us to the city or the Rainha’s Sala, we must go.”

  “I understand, Cronus. Keep me posted. Let me know if we can help.”

  She switched off her connection and turned to Colton. “Get us ready to launch. We might not have much time when Cronus arrives.”

  Colton nodded and started climbing back up the spiral staircase. He looked back. “You really think Isra would just turn on us like that?”

  Althea swallowed hard. “No. She has a plan. I can’t imagine what it would be, but…she wouldn’t do that.”

  She looked again at icons on her EROS computer showing all the available channels. Viekko’s was dark red, indicating that there was no signal from that device. “Viekko,” she whispered. “I know you’re out there. We need you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The new Corporate war policy was like nothing the Brazilians had yet encountered. A post on social media from a woman in the state of Esperito Santo on July 6th of 2105 describes the scene.

  “At dawn, there were hundreds of birds in the air over the sea. They were so thick you could hardly see the sun rise between them. It was only later that we realized they were not birds at all, but Corporate drones. My husband had been listening to the Lady of Fire that morning and ran outside to try and shoot some of the drones out of the air with his rifle. I collected the children and fled the city, barely escaping the missiles and bombs that the drones rained on us. When we dared look back, there was literally nothing left of our city. Every building had been reduced to splinters and gravel. There is still no sign of my husband, and I don’t think I will ever see him again.”

  -From The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe

  The first thing Viekko was aware of was an all-encompassing agonizing pain. It felt like someone poured five hundred pounds of molten steel right into his ribcage and white-hot hooks tore at his chest with every short, desperate gasp. He was lying on something hard and realized they must have left him on the battlefield. There were voices; soft whispers that seemed to come from every direction but almost disappeared when he tried to focus on them.

  He didn’t open his eyes at first. He just lay there, willing himself to give up and let the inevitable happen. He wanted to die as he always intended. Not strung out on some hellish drug in a puddle of his own urine and vomit in the alley behind some seedy club, but as a warrior honorably cut down in glorious combat.

  But he didn’t die. No matter how long he waited.

  Viekko opened his eyes. He wasn’t on the battlefield but inside some sort of domed cavern. A hole at the top let daylight stream in and provided just enough light to see in the dark room. He wanted to get up and figure out where he was, but even the simple act of raising his head caused a thousand firecrackers of pain to explode in his chest. He groaned and set his head back down. Something moved quickly out of the corner of his eye.

  “Good. You’re awake,” said a feminine voice in Cytherean.

  A small woman walked into his view and looked down on him. Her arms and face looked like someone stretched a thin layer of skin over a human skeleton. Her eyes were sunken, with heavy bags underneath, but there was a hint of youth there as well. She looked like a person who had lived a short time on this world and faced hardship during every moment of it. She held out a crude earthenware bowl in her hand. “Can you drink?”

  Viekko swallowed. He could almost feel his throat cracking it was so dry. “Yes. Er… Sim. I think so,” he replied, with a croak.

  The woman carefully put the edge of the bowl to Viekko’s lips so he would have to lift his head as little as possible and she tilted it until the liquid hit Viekko’s lips. It was lukewarm and tasted awful; like someone took a handful of rotting weeds and filtered the juice through a dirty sock. Fornocha; he was beginning to despise the stuff, but it was liquid, and Viekko drank it down until the bowl was empty. Then he sighed. “I thought the Cythereans were the only people who would drink that horrible stuff.”

  The woman lowered her eyes. “It dulls pain and stimulates healing.”

  Of course it does, thought Viekko. Fornocha was a painkiller without the groggy after effects. Just the opposite, in fact, it gave a man a decent jolt so that he could get a good start to his day of killing helpless people. No wonder the Cythereans loved the stuff.

  “Would you like some more?” asked the woman.

  Viekko gulped. “Sim, please.”

  The woman brought three more bowls of fornocha over the next several minutes, and Viekko drank every one as fast as the woman would pour it down his throat.

  “Are you feeling better?” asked the woman after the last bowl.

  He was, he really was. The pain in his chest was almost bearable as opposed to excruciating. He felt like he could sit up but, when he started to move, the woman put her hand on his shoulder. “You need to rest. You were very badly hurt in the fight with the Cythereans.”

  “What happened?”

  The woman took the bowl and walked to the center of the cavern where the beam of light from the ceiling illuminated the floor. Children scattered as she walked across the room. Three young boys watched Viekko while attempting to hide themselves behind several sacks of grain. The woman carried the bowl to an older girl who washed it off with a rag soaked in water from a nearby wooden bucket. A younger girl of around five peeked her head up from the edge of where Viekko was lying, and he became aware he was resting on a raised stone slab. He realized, with some horror, that these people probably considered it a bed.

  The woman returned, wiping her hands on her long, tattered dress. “A Cytherean soldier stabbed you. There was a bright flash, and three of them fell. Nobody ever saw anything like it. The Cythereans retreated out of fear. It left a hole in their line, and we were able to fight through and escape. How did you do that?”

  Viekko shook his head as much as the pain would allow. “I don’t…” He stopped mid-sentence as a thought occurred to him. “Where is my medical regulator? Big metal thing I was wearing right here.” He winced as his hand touched a white linen bandage wrapped across his chest.

  The woman perked up and spoke to one of the boys by the grain sacks. He got up and retrieved something from the foot of the bed. “Your armor? Yes. We had to remove it to tend to your wounds.”

  The b
oy held it out in front of him. “Is it… magic?” he asked, in a small voice.

  Viekko rolled over just enough to take the remains of the RX5. He examined a large, charred hole where the battery was supposed to be. Damn thing had enough energy to run continuously for weeks without recharging. With that much energy being released all at once, it was a miracle that he was alive. Althea was going to be pissed.

  He felt a rush of panic. Without the regulator, Isra and Althea had no way of finding him. For all the rest of the team knew, he was dead. What’s worse, he had almost certainly stirred up all sorts of murdering bastards inside the city. Relations were strained before he attacked the Cytherean army. If diplomatic options became nonexistent, Isra could rightly determine that it was time to leave. If it was possible to get away, they were likely to leave him behind.