Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “Yes, I suggested the idea to her. She was already running it as a shelter, after the Green Zone was bombed. The city helps pay for it, and the girls are happy to help. Most of them have small children to take care of anyway.”

  “Doesn’t have the same glamour though.”

  “It’s not glamour we need,” she swished her drink. “It’s clean water and stable food prices.”

  “Nothing UNAID can’t handle. Though, I couldn’t help notice that the Organization of Independent States have set up their embassy at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Indeed! They’re sending advisors to teach us how to make thorium reactors.”

  “I’ll bet they are. Isn’t it nice, having superpowers compete for your favor?”

  “It’s a weird experience, having people be nice to us. To me.”

  “Well for better or worse, what you’ve had to put up with is why you’re the person you are today – and that’s the person your city most needs right now.”

  “I could have always just been born somewhere peaceful, Jack. Somewhere far away. I could have studied dance; and then married someone rich. Dinner parties and children’s clarinet lessons. A big dog.”

  He gave her a look.

  “Gotcha. So what are Jack Diamond’s plans now? Go home and get paid?”

  “I need to catch the Washington.”

  “The mysterious Commodore,” she nodded. “You know the Union is trying to negotiate permission to launch a ‘retrieval’ mission?”

  “I’ll bet they are.”

  “The Acting Foreign Secretary was an insurgent cleric. He’s not big on the idea. However, at some point the Provisional Government will cut a deal. The Union really wants him, Jack. It’s becoming increasingly clear they’ll do anything to get to him.”

  “Not if I can get to him first.”

  “Want me to see if I can get you a ship?”

  His eyes widened. “Seriously? You can do that?”

  She smiled. “And here I thought this was just a social call. Why not? The UEF’s vessels are all ours, now. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do.”

  “Fantastic! I’d like a dreadnought, if you’ve got one.”

  “If by dreadnought you mean light freighter, then yes. Personal favors aside, we too would really like to know what the Commodore is up to. You and he were pretty close, have you any ideas?”

  “None. I’m not covering for him, I really have no idea what he’s doing. But it sounds like the Union knows. It’s too early to tell, but it seems like he’s heading for the old hedron.”

  “But that was destroyed, by him too.”

  “You can see why this is so interesting, in its own right. I have to get to Gerard.”

  “You’re very loyal to your friend.”

  “He’s very loyal to me. He also wouldn’t take a planet carrier AWOL, unless he had a damn good reason.”

  “If I get you a ship, will you tell me that reason when you learn it?”

  “Well, can I keep the ship?”

  She rolled her eyes, “Sure.”

  “Deal.”

  Sun Tzu XI

  “Your dominion is over. Humanity is free.”

  Dragons filled the air, they twisted and danced like kites. Pillars of smoke rose between them, blackened pyres feeding them. Below, ten thousand, thousand spearmen cheered. Their pennants and lacquered armor were blue as the sky. Their eyes were burning coals, and fire hissed from iron joints.

  “Leave now in disgrace. Know that I will not show you such mercy, again.”

  The snow-topped, iron gates of heaven, swung open. Along the path before it for light years, were robed petitioners. They bowed their heads, beards trailing beyond their feet.

  The first sovereign stepped though the gateway, Suiren; discoverer of fire. The warriors hushed – even the wind stilled itself. He looked across the field with lantern-eyes, but none saluted or knelt.

  “We are your parents,” said the god. “You cast us out, when all we have shown you was love.”

  “Love? Love?”

  The Kublai Khan, the Eunuch God, leapt from the walls and landed before Suiren. He took him by the throat and struck with his gauntlet.

  “You made me a eunuch. Shall I make you one? Then I may return your love, in the spirit in which it was given!” Fire flew from his words and burned Suiren’s face. “I will do it here, before all between Heaven and Earth!”

  “Kublai,” the voice was soft, but deep as a gas giant’s seas. “Let them pass.”

  The Eunuch god looked up and growled, his tail batting from side to side. Then he pushed the god aside and stood back.

  “You are not parents we have outgrown,” said the King, standing over the ramparts. His armor was white, his robes and pennants blue. In one hand was a spear of black, crackling iron. The other held a shield cut from a cyclops’ basalt skull. “You are parasites we have plucked out. You closed the galaxy, giving us hedrons to just hovel stars and crumbs. You stole and scattered our brethren through space, to thrive or die. When the Enemy found them, you abandoned them to burn. Just as you did to us. To me.”

  Nuwa came through the gateway, Fu Xi followed close behind.

  The King leapt down, his cloak turning into great, blue, wings. He landed in front of them, towering.

  “You must pay for your crimes. You will not go from here, without leaving that which is mine.”

  “Wretched child!” spat Nuwa.

  The King’s white visor turned to her.

  “You will give me all the worlds where you have seeded humans. Whether they still live or are but dusts in the wind, I would know. Then, Mother of All Humans I shall let you leave.”

  She glared, eyes burning with fire taken at the Big Bang. Then they dulled and she looked down. From the folds of her robes, she gave him a growing ball of silk worms. They wrote coordinates in blue light, each one a different strand.

  The King took it.

  “You will give me the hedrons,” he turned to Suiren. “The codes to every single one. The secrets to opening and closing them. Then, lord of physics, you may pass.”

  Suiren pulled a key from around his neck. It was made of crystal – each facet a view upon a different world. The King took it, and put around his own neck.

  “May we pass now?” asked Suiren.

  The King looked past him.

  “The wise, the mad, the brilliant, the witless Fu Xi. You were always the one in charge, weren’t you?”

  Fu Xi – for the first time – said nothing.

  “You will give me the history of the galaxy. What caused the Unfinished War, and how you fled from it and came here. You will teach me of the Hungry Plague, and why I am now the Witch of All Creation.”

  Fu Xi looked upon the King, and smiled.

  “The minnow grows to a whale, the mother is crushed. No blame, victory through nurtured blood.”

  He held out a black, leather-bound tome. He opened it, and light leapt from its pages. The thousand moving trigrams formed and scrolled before the King.

  The King took it, and smiled back.

  “Go now. Hide again, somewhere far away where my descendants will not find you. If they do, they will not believe such craven beings brought us so close to extinction. They will slay you as a child slays an ant, instantly and without thought. Know that my mercy is undeserved.”

  The Sovereigns turned, heads bowed, and began to walk the light years.

  “You should not have let them go,” Kublai Khan folded his arms, eyes flaring. “They have committed great crimes.”

  “There is a time to punish, and a time to be gracious,” replied the King. “Had I punished and acted with force, then I would be no better than an invader. An invader has no honest claim.”

  “And grace gives you claim? It shall be read as weakness.”

  “Perhaps. But because of grace, they left willing and fulfilled my demands. Their actions sanction my accession.”

  “You are wise, Sun Tzu.”

&nb
sp; “Let us hope there is enough wisdom in Heaven and Earth, for what must come.” He turned, and looked out across the field at his legions. “My brothers and sisters, today we ended a war, but started a crusade. We must find those who were taken from us. We must stamp this galaxy with the human seal, that none may question our birthright. Out there, the Enemy waits. Shall we keep him waiting?”

  They answered and the galaxy trembled.

  Saint II

  The Crossbow transport – repainted white and red spun down quietly in the sand. The pilots stared outside and looked at each other. Then back outside again.

  “This can’t be the right place,” Diamond shook his head, speaking into his mike.

  “I’m sorry Sir,” said one pilot. “These are the exact coordinates for the old church in our maps.”

  “Your maps are wrong!”

  “No Sir, this is the place.”

  “Does this look like the place?” he gestured about. There was an old church here, but the roof had collapsed probably decades ago. It was a mess now of rafters, desert plants, and fork-tongued lizards. Next to the ruined church was the collapsed skeleton of a barn. Its planks and roofing long since plundered by opportunist scavengers. To the other side of the church was an orchard of dead trees.

  “This can’t be the place,” Diamond said to himself. He walked around the church.

  Behind it, was a row of graves. He ran over to them.

  “Is everything alright?” the pilot said, behind him. “We saw you running. Mr. Diamond? Mr. Diamond?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry, did you know these people?”

  “No, they’ve been dead for years. But I knew of them. We took their ride,” he pointed at the deep APC tracks, going off into the desert. “We definitely made those.”

  “So this is the right place?”

  “Yes,” he wiped the dust from the wooden cross before him. “And this is definitely the right guy.”

  The pilot crouched beside him and looked for himself.

  “Father Eduardo Escobar,” he read. “The man has been dead for almost seventy years.”

  “That’s what it says,” said Diamond.

  “I don’t understand. I thought you met this guy.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “Maybe it was some kind of AI trick?”

  “Maybe. There’s been a lot of those lately. But then, maybe not. Either way, I don’t think I’m ready for the answers. Let’s go.”

  Home

  “Iswari, you’ve lost weight! Aren’t you eating properly?”

  Iswari Koirala rolled her eyes.

  “Ama, I’m fine.”

  “Jhaare! Child, they don’t feed you in the army,” the plump woman with a sari and bindi heaped more rice on to Koirala’s plate. “Shall I send some lunch packets? You can keep them frozen and microwave them when you want. You can share also with your roommate, Carey.”

  “Ama! I’m fine!”

  “No, no. Have you been taking your medicine? It’s real Ayurveda, your father had to look all over to find it. Very good for your nerves also, maybe it’ll make you stop shouting at me.”

  “Ama!”

  “Don’t let her bother you,” an older man walked in, his face beaming. “Your mother does not know how to say thank you.”

  “Did anyone ask you?” the older woman spat, hand on her hip.

  “Namaskar Buwa,” said Koirala. “Back from the council meeting already?”

  “There wasn’t much I wanted to hear. Mostly people who liked the sounds of their own voices. I told them my daughter is here on leave, and that I wanted to spend time with her, not a bunch of arrogant buffoons.”

  “You’re father always has such a way with people,” Ama rolled her eyes. “Sit! Did you wash your hands? Come and eat.”

  The family sat down to eat together.

  “Well?” asked Ama, pouring yoghurt over her rice, “K cha khabar? Did you all talk about our Iswari’s medal?”

  “I don’t want a medal!”

  “Child, we want you to get a medal,” said Ama. “You won’t get married no? So at least take the medal. For our sake darling, for the family you saved, all the families.”

  “You risked your life to bring us back,” said her father. “The Union had given up on us, but you went on, even when you didn’t have the fuel to come back, and you found the colony back up. If you hadn’t done that, none of us would be back here today.”

  “I did what anyone would have done.”

  “No child,” said Ama. “You didn’t. You did what Iswari would have done. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost. Now eat child, you’re so thin.”

  I cleared my throat and spoke to the cowboy riding the dinosaur.

  “Have you seen my wife?”

  It was warm on the steppes, the grasslands rolled on for infinity. Herds of bison, aurochs, and giant ostriches ambled about absently. The T-Rex put down its tree-length hunting rifle and turned to glare down at me with red, glowing eyes.

  “She’s in the sculpture garden, in the palace. Be careful what you say, she’s in a bad mood.”

  I thanked my father in law, and flew up to the palace in the sky.

  I found my wife in the sculpture garden. It was in a courtyard with a large reflecting pool in the center, blue crocodiles and green mermaids swam beneath it while very tiny men in turbans and belled shoes played ancient ragas on floating, lotus leaves made of crystal.

  My wife Farida was sitting at a wooden table, geometric sketches were burned in the air around her, and a wire diagram of a half-finished sculpture was slowly spinning right before her.

  She turned back and looked at me, her eyes like coals matching her hair.

  “Jahandar darling, I thought you were shipping out?”

  I shook my head. “I changed my mind.”

  “You can – you can do that?”

  “Right until I set foot on the transport, yes. I can, and I did. This war is important to me, but I won’t be away from you. You are my wife, Farida. First and foremost, my duty is to be a good partner. I thought that meant being a good soldier – and maybe it does – but I find that hard to believe right now.”

  I went over to her, her eyes were filling up. I put my arms around her.

  “I love you. And I will never leave your side again.”

  “You know this is not what they would have wanted?” Kublai Khan beheld the data system. It glittered and spun, a sphere of ten thousand sparks. “They have problems with being thrust into a digital existence with edited variables. They would not call it ‘real’.”

  The King cast it into the dark void and it drifted away.

  “But it is real, just because they do not understand that their position is simply physical world bias, does not mean they are right,” he watched the sphere disappear. “And to have their loved ones back is all they ever wanted.”

  “How long will it last?”

  “It is in place around a white dwarf star. I have also closed the hedron that leads to it. They will be undisturbed till the heat death of the Universe.”

  “An extravagant gift for two, mere, baselines.”

  “It is less a gift and more a penance. They have suffered enough because of me. Now, at least, they can be happy.”

  “They are not the only ones you have wronged,” said Kublai. “What are you going to do about him?”

  The King regarded him.

  “That depends entirely on what he does about me.”

  Cullins XIII

  “Commodore, the Washington has arrived.”

  The room was cold, far colder than he had remembered it. He slowly flexed his ankles and wrists, turned his neck from side to side. The tendons were cold and tight, a quick movement and he would strain them.

  “I think you’ll definitely want to see this, as soon as possible.”

  He opened his eyes for the first time in two years. The room was white, antiseptic, small. Instruments lined the walls, most of them
medical. A series of screens showed vital signs – all green. He heard the humming of med drones beyond his line of sight. Sitting on a bench before him in boxers and a vest, was Viegas. He was holding a data pad.

  “Lieutenant,” he rasped.

  “Good Morning, Sir. Just myself and a few officers are awake. They rest of the bridge crew should be awake within the half hour. Thawing for the rest is on standby, pending your orders.”

  He raised his hand slowly and pointed at the data pad. “What is it? What do I need to see?”

  Viegas held up the screen for him.

  “It’s still there, Sir,” he replied. “And sensor readings suggest that it’s working fine.”

  Cullins reached out and the Lieutenant helped him out. He stood unsteadily on the cold floor, hand against the freeze pod. He looked down the row – most of them were open. Med drones and other crewmen monitored the recoveries. The officers stood to attention and saluted.

  “A boxer shorts salute,” Cullins took a test step forward. “That needs to go into a calendar.”

  “Sir?” Viegas cocked his head. “The hedron Sir, it is – “

  “I understand Lieutenant. Water?”

  A med drone brought him a plastic cup. He downed it in one go, and the drone refilled it.

  “You know this changes everything?” he said. The other officers had gathered around as well.

  “We’re with you, Sir.” There was steel in the Lieutenant’s voice.

  “Let’s give everyone twenty four hours to decide. Anyone who wants to, can take the hedron back to Union space. There are only two conditions. One, they can’t fly direct to a military base. They have to transit via a civilian hedron, first.

  “Second, they have to broadcast the Deep Space 325 logs, and all of Sun Tzu’s related files. I’m also going to prepare an address to go with it. They keep broadcasting that till someone with a missile lock, orders them to stop.”

  “Do you think that will be enough, Sir?” Lieutenant Grimes, Strategic Weapons.