by Jack Halls
“Code? What kind of code?” asked Takomi.
“All we can do is guess since the explosion destroyed all the evidence. Our best guess is that it would have allowed someone to take control of the satellites.”
Takomi frowned. “Why would someone want to do that?”
“We really don’t know. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Gideon rubbed his eyes. He was starting to feel a sharp pain in his head. “What does this have to do with your ancient order?”
“As Luzariai, our purpose, and now your purpose, is to expand out into the universe and search for the keys to understanding eternal life. By taking our first step out into the stars, we’re closer to achieving our destiny. We think someone is trying to sabotage that goal.”
“Wait a second,” said Takomi. “Did you just force us to join a cult or something?”
“This isn’t a religion,” said Padre. “The Luzariai are guardians of certain truths, knowledge that can help us fulfill our destiny, but it’s all based in science.”
“What kind of knowledge?” asked Gideon.
“For example,” said Devereux, speaking up for the first time, “the location of Valkyrie, and the fact that it can sustain life.”
Gideon’s eyes went wide. “That’s why Valkyrie was in the book. How long has the Order known about it?”
“Since before any of us were born, including me,” said the admiral. “Reaching Valkyrie has been one of the Luzariai’s goals for well over a thousand years. That’s why my father created us, the aionians. It was easier to alter DNA to allow us to survive the trip than it was to create a spacecraft that could reach it within a normal human lifetime, weighed down with meters of radiation shielding.”
“Mom said he did it so people would stop getting sick.”
“She was right. We’re immune to all known diseases, particularly cancer. Perfect for space travel. Otherwise, cosmic radiation would have killed most of us by now. The cover story was that long lifespans were an unintended side effect, but all of it was quite deliberate.”
“So that’s why Grandpa started a space exploration company?”
“That’s right, and when I was old enough, I took it over and expanded it. We thought we had more time to prepare to leave the solar system, but the prospect of genocide tends to speed things up.”
Takomi leaned back in her chair. “My question is, why are you telling us all this? Shouldn’t we be in trouble instead of being invited to the club?”
The admiral leaned over the table and fixed them both with a glare. “Oh, you’re still very much in trouble. You’ll be paying for that little stunt for a while, but right now, we’ve decided it’s best to fill you in.”
“But why?” asked Gideon.
Admiral Killdeer leaned back. “Three reasons. First, you know too much already, and you admitted that you would do everything in your power to find out who killed your mother and Doctor Marcus, no matter what any of us told you. You would inevitably stumble across things that you couldn’t possibly understand out of context, but that would have the potential to cause serious problems for us, or get you killed.
“Second, for over two hundred years, there have always been thirteen of us. Connor and Veronica replaced Doug and Ana Hallows when they died, and Tawny replaced Commander Devereux’s brother, Ivan, when he died twenty years ago.
“And finally, we trust you. At least, we trust your intentions, if not your judgment. Some of us think you’re too young, but with a traitor on board, we can’t risk inviting a spy into our order. Young minds will also be an advantage when you learn some of the more... difficult truths we’ll have to teach you.”
“You mean about the aliens,” said Gideon, pointing to the book sitting in front of Padre.
The admiral glanced at the book. “We’ll get to that. First, you both must swear to keep all of this a secret. Every life in this room might depend upon it, including yours.”
“Hold on,” said Takomi, “we never signed up for any of this. What if we don’t want to be Luzariai?”
“Oh, you most certainly signed up for it. Once you leap from a cliff, you can’t change your mind in midair, whether you jumped willingly or not. Knowledge is not something you can obtain and cast aside. Certain knowledge is so powerful that just knowing it will change the course of your life, and now that you know it, you are obligated to protect it.”
Admiral Killdeer looked at Padre, and the priest picked up the book and held it up. “Before we tell you about what you saw in the book, you need to swear an oath to keep it secret. You are to discuss it with no one, even the people in this room, unless instructed otherwise. Do you swear it?”
Gideon and Takomi both nodded.
“Say it.”
“I swear,” they each said in turn.
Padre waited for the admiral to nod before he continued. “This book doesn’t have a name, but unofficially it’s called the Book of the Luzariai. This copy is over five hundred years old, but it is only the most recent edition. Versions of this book have existed in some form or another for at least four thousand years, probably much longer.”
The priest opened to the first few paintings of different monuments from Earth’s past. “The history of the Order weaves through many ancient cultures. Its purpose has been to guide humanity through various stages of development, from stone age tools all the way up to the procedure that made your DNA what it is today.”
Gideon leaned forward. “Guide humanity? I assume you’re getting to the part about the aliens.”
Padre scowled. “Don’t jump ahead of me. I was about to say that we may call ourselves the Luzariai as a matter of convenience, but we are in reality only members of the Order of the Luzariai.”
The priest turned the page to show the one depicting the tall aliens descending from the golden spacecraft. “The actual Luzariai are an advanced alien species. They’ve been watching over Earth for millennia. In ancient times, they were more directly involved in human affairs, but as humanity progressed, their visits grew increasingly rare, allowing us to develop on our own.”
Takomi snorted. “You actually believe all of this?”
“There has always been proof,” said Padre, turning the page to the maps of Valkyrie. “How else would we know where we are going?”
He let that sink in for a moment as Gideon and Takomi looked at the map again. Try as he might, Gideon could only think of two explanations. Either this was an elaborate hoax put on by their parents for some reason, or Padre was telling the truth.
“Hold on a second,” said Takomi. “You’re a priest. How can you believe all of this and still believe God’s the one calling all the shots?”
Padre smiled. “I think most people have a simplistic idea of God. Even before I knew of the Luzariai, I believed that Earth was only one of God’s many creations, and that He has other children. But we digress; this isn’t a theological discussion. The point is, the Order keeps the secret knowledge passed down from the Luzariai, and uses it to help advance our ultimate goal.”
“Which is?” asked Gideon.
“To rise to the level of our teachers. The pupil is to become the equal of the master. When our culture is sufficiently advanced, we will become allies with the Luzariai, and both will be stronger for it.”
Gideon looked at the book. “When will that be?”
Padre shrugged and looked at the others seated around the table. No one seemed to have an answer. Finally, Sophia spoke up. “The thing is, we don’t know much about the Luzariai. What you see in the book is pretty much the only clue to what they’re really like. Our ancestors saw them as gods, but if one of us showed up in ancient Egypt with Sentinel Armor and a rifle, they’d probably see us as gods too.”
“So none of you have actually met them?” asked Takomi.
“The last person to have any contact with them was my father,” said the admiral. “They sent him a message at the end of the twentieth century, about twenty years before I was born
. As far as we know, they haven’t physically visited Earth since the Renaissance.”
“What did the message say?”
“It was surprisingly specific,” said the admiral. “Half the message was about how the aionian DNA procedure would work, and the other half was about how to reach Valkyrie, and what to expect when we get there.”
Gideon’s jaw dropped. “Are the aliens on Valkyrie?”
“If by aliens, you mean the Luzariai, then no. At least, we don’t think so. Valkyrie is apparently teeming with life, but there shouldn’t be any intelligent life there. My father was told in the message that Valkyrie has been set aside as humanity’s first interstellar colony because of both its proximity and similarities to Earth. For all intents and purposes, we were meant to come here.”
“And you probably should stop calling them aliens,” said Tawny. “Call them Luzariai.”
Gideon nodded but didn’t say anything.
Takomi was staring blankly at a spot on the table in front of her. “This is nuts,” she muttered.
“It might be nuts,” said Diana from the seat next to Takomi, “but it’s your new reality, so you’d better get used to it.”
“She’s right,” said the admiral. “We assume the Luzariai have a way of knowing that we’ve arrived, or that they’ve been keeping an eye on us all along. Either way, there’s a good chance they’ll contact us before too long.”
“There’s one thing I still don’t get,” said Gideon in a deliberate voice. “What does all this have to do with Mom and Doctor Marcus being killed?”
Admiral Killdeer fixed Gideon with a pensive stare while everyone waited for him to respond. He finally took a deep breath and spoke. “The Order isn’t the only secret society that knows about all this. Centuries ago, a group split from the Order to form another group, one that has been covertly undermining everything we’ve been trying to accomplish. They’re called the Anthroproti, and they’ve been able to secure positions of power over the years. They backed the movement that eventually led to the aionian extermination policy on Earth, and though I can’t prove it, I think they’re responsible for my mother’s death all those years ago. We believe that at least one of their members found their way onto the Leviathan and has been biding their time for a century and a half, waiting for a chance to seize control.”
“In fact,” said Commander Devereux, “we’re fairly certain that your mother and Doctor Marcus aren’t their first victims aboard the ship.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gideon.
“Well,” said Devereux, “only eighteen out of the three thousand aionians on board have died in the time since we left Mars. Five of those eighteen people were part of the Order. Your mother and Doctor Marcus, Connor’s parents, and my own brother, Ivan, all killed in freak accidents. That can’t be coincidence.”
“But why would anyone do that?” asked Takomi. “What are they trying to accomplish?”
“That’s a good question,” said Padre. “This mysterious society split from the Order during the Renaissance in Europe, when intellectuals seriously challenged the idea of divine influence. They saw the manipulations of the Luzariai as a crime, robbing man of his right to self-govern. Of course, we’ve all thought the same thing at some point. I bet you two are thinking the same thing right now. The difference is that this society allowed it to grow into an obsession. They think of us as puppets tied to Luzariai strings.”
“Now you understand why you must keep all this a secret,” said the admiral. “This enemy is willing to kill members of the Order if they can. Years ago, we agreed to stop wearing the symbol of the Aeternal and we rarely gather together. If this saboteur knew you were part of the Order, your lives would be in danger.”
Takomi cleared her throat. “So what do we do?”
“Act like you don’t know,” said the admiral. “You’ll go about your lives like you normally would.”
“With one slight difference,” said Hiro. “We still haven’t talked about your punishment.”
“Ah, yes,” said Admiral Killdeer. “How could I forget? Devereux, would you like to tell them their fate?”
A crooked smile crept onto Devereux’s face, then quickly disappeared. “You’ve proven that you can’t be trusted with too much free time, so we’ve come up with something for you to do when you’re not training. As we get closer to our orbit around Valkyrie, we’ll have a lot of systems to check, some of which haven’t been used in decades.
“Our engineers are finding a lot of the ship’s mechanisms are in need of fresh grease and oil. It’s a hot, messy, nasty job, and I’m having a hard time finding volunteers. Luckily, I don’t have to now. Starting tomorrow at 1500 hours, you’re to report to CENTCOM. I’ll have someone show you the ropes. I figure with you two working on it five hours a day for the next six weeks, the ship should be in beautiful shape for our rendezvous with Valkyrie.”
“Six weeks?” said Gideon. “Are you serious?”
Admiral Killdeer laughed. “That’s a pretty lenient penalty, if you ask me. If you’d broken into the captain’s stateroom on the high seas, you’d be walking the plank. Since our ‘plank’ is an airlock and you’re my only son, this will have to do.”
CHAPTER TEN
Valkyrie
AFTER SIX WEEKS of pinched fingers, burnt hands, and hours spent scrubbing grease off their skin before collapsing into bed, Gideon and Takomi finally finished their penance. If Gideon had his way, he’d never look at another drive shaft or hydraulic piston again.
But the last month and a half hadn’t been totally horrible for the two of them. Despite everything, they’d still been allowed to begin flight school. Gideon walked with a bit of a swagger as he stepped out of the latest simulation, since he’d managed to survive the battle for more than a few minutes. Takomi and her gunner, on the other hand, hadn’t just survived, but also logged six kills and broken the record for first-year cadets.
After navigating through the zero-gravity corridors of the flight simulator down to the stronger gravity of the main training level, Gideon jogged to catch up to Takomi. “When we finally get assigned our flight partners, I want to be your gunner. That way, you can keep me alive.”
They entered the locker room, and Takomi laughed as she removed her Sentinel Armor. “No thanks. You’ll find a way to get us killed, I’m sure.”
Gideon stashed his helmet and removed his gloves. “Flying just isn’t my thing, you know?”
She stuffed her suit into her locker. “You’re doing great. We’ve barely been doing this for a month, Gideon.”
Joseph Uritumbo gave Takomi a high five as he walked into the locker room. “That was some sweet flying, Takomi. I think my gunner overheated his rail gun trying to take you down.”
A big smile broke out on Takomi’s face as her cheeks flushed. “Thanks, Joe.”
Joseph turned to Gideon and slapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. “Where were you, Gid? I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“What are you talking about? I was your wingman.”
He hadn’t noticed that Joseph was doing all he could to hide a smile. Gideon’s ears turned red as the other two burst out laughing.
“Ha ha. Why don’t you kick me while I’m down, Joe?”
Joseph doffed his armor. “Sorry, Gid. I couldn’t help it. Hey, are you guys going to be at the party tonight?”
“Of course,” said Takomi. “Why wouldn’t we be there?”
“Well, you two weren’t at the last one. I looked everywhere for you.” Joseph looked over his shoulder at the two of them as he put his suit in its locker. A sly smile crept over his face. “I didn’t realize you guys needed so much alone time.”
Takomi turned red, and she punched Joseph in the shoulder. She immediately cried out, clutching her hand. “Dammit, Joe, are you made of rock or what?”
Joseph straightened up and grinned down at her. He rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. “Only up here. But hey, that was your own fault. I
can’t help it if you’re used to being wrapped up in Gideon’s doughy arms.”
A snort came out of Gideon’s nose as Takomi rolled her eyes and stormed out of the locker room.
Joseph chuckled as he finished packing away his suit. “Sorry about the jab about your arms, Gid, but I think Takomi was more offended than you were.”
Gideon was bright red but still snickering. “Don’t worry about it. The look on her face was worth it.”
As they walked out of the locker room together, Joseph leaned in close and took on a conspiratorial tone. “Seriously though, are you two a thing now or what?”
“Me and Takomi? No way. What makes you ask that?”
Joseph shrugged. “You two have always been close, but lately you’re always together. She definitely looks at you differently now.”
Gideon blinked. “Really? Like how?”
“You know, she just does. Ever since you two got detention or whatever.”
The official story was that Gideon and Takomi had spent the last several weeks greasing engine parts because of a practical joke they’d played on Commander Devereux.
“I think you’re imagining things, Joe.”
Joseph shrugged, and they walked on together toward the exit. Gideon didn’t say anything else, but he couldn’t help but wonder about what Joseph had said.
A skinny boy with jet-black hair sat apart from the other cadets in the conference room, and they went over and sat next to him.
“Hey, Raj,” said Joseph. “What happened to you? I didn’t see you in the simulation.”
Raj looked up at them with a scowl on his face. “My armor malfunctioned. I couldn’t even move. Connor had to hot-wire it to get me out.”
“What?” asked Gideon. “Sentinel Armor never malfunctions.”
Raj shrugged. Before they could press him further, the back door opened and Connor and Veronica Hallows stepped into the room. When the room quieted down, Veronica spoke.
“Unfortunately, something came up and I wasn’t able to watch your sim today. I’ll go over the recordings, and we’ll debrief tomorrow. That means I’ll have more time to analyze each and every one of your mistakes, so be prepared to be grilled about it. Until then, enjoy the party tonight. Dismissed.”