Calling Tower (The Calling Tower Saga Book 1)

by Josh Leone

  Treasha looked around him at the still bodies of the gangers, any one of whom could have ended him. Yet the not-angel had killed them and scared off the rest without even mussing his long, blonde hair. Treasha had no doubt that, if he survived, he could one day run his own gang. He could be feared and strong. But what then? How long would it be before someone stronger, hungrier, or luckier took him down? Today or years from today, Treasha knew his life on A79 was without purpose. The not-angel was offering him another option.

  “”Yes, sa. I’ll be yer blade.”

  “My name is Vashek. Follow me.”

  And Treasha did follow, first to Vashek’s ship, then to years of intense training of his mind and body. Treasha had learned to speak several languages eloquently and received an education that would make the best PoPros appear lacking. When he wasn’t learning political science, psychology, sociology, and other subjects from private teachers in accelerated VR classrooms, he was in physical training learning dozens of fighting styles under the best instructors money could buy.

  In addition to new knowledge, Vashek had also given Treasha a new name, one that he said would allow Treasha to serve him better.

  “Your new name will be Woodard Franks. What do you think of that, child?”

  “It’s rather plain, isn’t it, Caller?”

  “But that’s the point, child. You must be a weapon that can be hidden until needed. You must be forgettable, invisible, so that our enemies never see you coming.”

  “I understand, Caller. Thank you for my new name and for giving me a way to serve you better.”

  Once Franks had reached physical maturity, a process somewhat accelerated by regular chemical and genetic treatments, Vashek had had him implanted with some of the very best tech available. Nothing that would stand out. In fact, part of what made the tech so expensive was that it would be mostly invisible to scanners, except for a few components disguised as standard commercially available implants.

  Franks had endured it all, exceeding even Vashek’s expectations. The Caller was sparse with his praise but every word of encouragement drove Franks to greater effort. At first Vashek only sent Franks out to handle problems in areas of space unlikely to have a significant Primacy presence. Franks became expert in manipulating networks of informants, smugglers, and other rogues. Under various false identities Franks developed his own contacts within most of the larger criminal organizations. In time, though, Vashek introduced Franks as his new Personal Assistant and Franks had served in that capacity officially ever since.

  ◊

  Franks watched in fascination as the nanites finished digesting the last of Dravik’s flesh. He always enjoyed this part. The nanites were perfectly suited to their task. Franks appreciated that. The microscopic bots did what they did and never complained or questioned why. They just did their job and did it well. Franks could relate. Since he’d been found by Vashek on A79, Franks had never doubted his choice.

  Vashek would ascend and Franks would sit at the right hand of the new God. Vashek had assured Franks his place in the new order. It would be glorious. Franks already worshipped Vashek. Soon the rest of the Universe would do the same.

  ◊

  Szoveda Sha was doing his best to communicate the urgency of his needs to the bureaucrat. The man was technically Legion, though his job would be much more suited to the Ministry of Records. Either way, he was a data-pusher, not used to providing information without wrapping it tightly in red tape. But Sha had no time for that. Which was, perhaps, why Sha was using a somewhat unorthodox method of asking.

  Jack Fowler, the bureaucrat in question, was suspended more than thirty centimeters off the floor by one of Sha’s hands. That hand was around Fowler’s neck, which made it rather difficult for the bureaucrat to say much of anything. Recognizing this, Sha occasionally let Fowler’s feet touch the floor.

  “I can’t do it!” Fowler said during one such interlude. “I’ll be terminated.”

  “Terminated, has two meanings, Mr. Fowler.” Sha emphasized his point by lifting Fowler off the floor again. “Loss of your job is the lesser of them.”

  “You… you can’t do this!”

  “I can, I am, and I will. I want the name of the person in charge of maintenance on the shuttle in which Captain Pietra Meot, officer in the sixth fleet, out of Sol, died.”

  “But, Honored One, I can’t access that data. I told you, the file is sealed.”

  “Then you will die, and I will have to find someone else to help me.”

  “Oh, well, perhaps I can help. Yes, yes, I think I can open that file after all.”

  “I suspected you might.”

  Sha released Fowler but remained on alert for any tricks, though Sha doubted the bureaucrat would try anything. Fowler may be a data-pusher, but he wasn’t foolish. Fowler knew Sha could react faster than the human eye could follow if the need arose.

  While the bureaucrat worked diligently to gain access to the needed file, Sha considered his own situation. Thus far, news of Sha’s unauthorized exit from the hospital was being kept quiet. It wouldn’t do for the general public to know that one of the icons of the Primacy may have lost his mind. But as Sha continued in his pursuit of justice, it would become harder and harder to conceal the facts.

  Matters were already more complicated because Sha had no actual intention of killing Fowler. The man may be a worm but that didn’t give Sha the right to murder him in cold blood. Fortunately, Fowler did not know that.

  Sha had fought his way into the building, managing to restrain his strength enough to avoid killing anyone. He looked at the security door leading out of Fowler’s office and saw the increasingly large red spot that indicated those on the other side were burning through. The building was a Legion facility and had been constructed well, but that door would not hold much longer.

  “Hurry up, Fowler.”

  “I almost have it. I have a friend in the Ministry. I’m using her passwords.”

  “Make it quick. If that door comes down before I have the data, I’m using you as a shield.”

  Seconds later a sweating Fowler handed Sha a data-chip with what he claimed was the correct information on it. Sha watched Fowler closely, noting eye dilation, heart rate, body heat, and other factors that would tell him if the man was lying. It wasn’t a perfect lie detector but it would have to do. Sha did not have time to check the chip. The door was beginning to sag on its hinges.

  Sha tore the security panel from the single window in Fowler’s office. He was on the ninety-seventh floor and knew that such a fall would damage even his enhanced body too greatly to afford him a reasonable chance of escape. Fortunately, he had planned ahead.

  The air-cycle was in position by the time Sha leapt from the ledge of the office building. Sha accelerated to maximum speed, not caring if he burned out the power cell on the stolen vehicle. Now that he had the information, the important thing was to get to his private ship and go somewhere where he could plan his next move.

  His exit was so abrupt that he was not immediately followed. He knew that the Legion trackers could use the vast network of satellites maintained by the Civil Authority to follow his trail. Sha’s hope was that he would have ten or so critical minutes between when the Legion requested authorization to use the network and when the Civil Authority grudgingly granted it.

  If he was very lucky the Civil Authority would not immediately give up jurisdiction, preferring to make the Legion ask a few times. Sha had always despised the petty bickering common between the Ministry of Records, the Civil Authority, and the Legion, but now that pettiness would act in his favor.

  By the time Sha approached the private field where he’d left his ship, the air-cycle’s power-cell had heated up so much that it was burning the fabric that covered the inside of Sha’s thighs. Had Sha’s skin been normal he would have suffered second degree burns over much of his legs. Sha brought the air-cycle to a less than graceful landing that insured the vehicle would require its frame be strai
ghtened before it could once more take to the skies.

  His ship was called the Starlight and it, like its owner, was state-of-the-art. A simple, graceful teardrop shape, the ship had been built both for pleasure and for speed. The Starlight was Sha’s single extravagance, the one thing he used his wealth and privilege to indulge in. Manufacturers of the very best and most advanced equipment were eager to send Sha their latest products for use in his ship. The entire vessel in fact, had originally been a gift from a manufacturer whose sole request had been a single photo of Sha standing next to the shinning new craft.

  That photo had not even been used in public advertising campaigns. It had been placed on the wall of the office of the company’s Director of Sales and Marketing. A letter Sha later received had informed him that the photo had been a deciding factor for many of the shipbuilder’s wealthiest clients. Such was the notoriety of the Honored Returned. But that same notoriety would soon become a serious hindrance to Sha. Everyone knew his face, even to the farthest reaches of the Primacy, and almost as many knew his ship on sight. Finding a place to lay low would be a challenge.

  Sha would not have considered himself an expert data-thief. Most of what Honored Returned did was more physical in nature. However, that being said, the computer assisted brain of an Honored Returned was more than a match for a system like the one that managed data on all registered commercial and private ships. Sha accessed the registry and deleted all record of the Starlight. Backups would fill in the data gaps in minutes, but those minutes in which his ship effectively ceased to exist would be enough to let him open a phase gate and be gone.

  When the Starlight was safely into phase space, Sha accessed the data-chip. The name of the person most directly responsible for the maintenance of the shuttle Pietra died on was there. So too was another piece of information that added yet more proof to Sha’s conspiracy theory. The man had been promoted and reassigned within days of Pietra’s death. Sha set course and let his mind fill with ideas for what he would do to those responsible for killing his wife. The images were grim, graphic, and entirely unbecoming of an Honored Returned. In other words, they made Sha feel better.

  ◊

  The Enduring Journey exited phase space directly into orbit around the planet. Like most worlds this far out, this one had no official name and was identified with a simple alpha-numeric designation. P30-6 was an unremarkable world, approximately two-thirds Earth-size. Gravity was lighter and there was enough oxygen to support human life, though without a supplemental supply a person would quickly tire.

  Jonah knew the ship was equipped with environmental suits that could provide oxygen and protection from the somewhat high UV index of P30-6, but he did not require either. His own internal re-breather would handle his oxygen needs and his skin could easily resist ultraviolet radiation that would leave a base-liner burned and dying.

  “We’ll set down here,” Seth pointed to a location that the topographical display showed was reasonably flat. “And here,” Seth pointed to another spot on the map, “Are the coordinates you gave us, Jonah. It’s mostly rocky terrain between our landing spot and there. We have a small quad-wheel down in the box you can use.”

  “Thank you, but I will walk.”

  “That’s thirty-two kilometers, over rough ground, kid.”

  “I assure you, Captain. I will be fine.”

  “Okay,” Seth said. “We’re just the taxi. You want to spend the next several hours hoofing it there and back, it’s your funeral. When you decide you’ve had enough of the local scenery, give a call and I’ll come pick you up on the quad-wheel.”

  Jonah had come to like the crew of the Enduring Journey. He could tell that the relationship between Seth and Vig was more than friendship. It was more that of a father and a son. It made Jonah think of his own father. Iyanna had been something of a mystery though. She was clearly not ‘one of the family’ so to speak. Jonah could not figure out what her role was and he had not wanted to be intrusive by asking.

  Iyanna was young, around his own age, but she had obviously seen much more of the greater universe than he had. His curiosity had prompted him to use his tech to look her up in the registry of citizens. He’d not been very surprised by what he’d discovered. She was well educated and had come from a decent family. She’d advanced in the PoPros and could have eventually risen to a position of significant authority. But instead she’d decided to leave it all behind to pursue a life as a freelance operator on the outer fringes of Primacy space.

  What would prompt a person do such a thing? As Jonah ran he maintained a pace of just over sixty kilometers per hour, slow enough that he could let his neurotech manage most of his course while his thoughts were on Iyanna. Truthfully, Jonah had found his thoughts wandering back to Iyanna quite often. Often enough to make Jonah uncomfortable. “Focus on the mission, Jonah,” he said aloud. There was no point in thinking of her that way. As soon as he had completed his mission for Caller Vashek he would never see her again. Instead he focused on what he knew of P30-6 and his target.

  P30-6 was technically in Primacy space, though that was a very recent change. The planet was near what, until recently, had been the center of a small collection of star systems controlled by the Pash.

  Jonah knew the Pash had once dominated a mighty empire that included much of what was now Primacy space. But that empire had been in decline for more than a thousand years before humanity had launched its first extra-solar space flight. Century after century the Pash had grown more insular, letting other species bite off chunks of the empire.

  By the time the Primacy had first encountered the Pash, more than seven hundred years ago, the great empire had been reduced to a loose collective of nomadic groups. Little was known of Pash culture before humans encountered the winged felines, but some xeno-archeologists suggested the Pash may have once been a highly religious species. Strangely, P30-6 had remained unsettled. Not even a refueling station had been built in its orbit.

  Jonah did not know why the planet had remained barren, but there was something on it that Vashek wanted and that was all Jonah really needed to know. Though why Vashek would task an Honored Returned to retrieve it was still a mystery to him.

  ◊

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Who?” Vig was elbow deep in the guts of the Enduring Journey.

  “Jonah,” Iyanna was helping Vig as best she could, but given how much more advanced his knowledge was beyond her own, her help amounted primarily to handing the engineer tools and parts.

  “Seems like a good kid, if a bit out of his depth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Vig kept working, dividing his attention easily between the conversation and his repair of one of the Journey’s backup systems. “The kid doesn’t want to be doing what he’s doing. But someone’s got a leash around his neck, just like the Legion has one around ours. My guess is that the same people are holding both.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Experience. I’ve lived most of my life with a Legion leash around my neck. They called it ‘duty,’ and it’s a tight one. Worse, it’s one you don’t see until someone yanks on it hard enough to choke you.”

  “You think Jonah is Legion?”

  “No, he’s something else.”

  “What?” Iyanna lost focus for a moment and handed Vig the wrong tool. He never even looked at it. Vig could tell his tools by feel alone. He just held it back out to her and waited until she replaced it with the correct one.

  “No idea. But whatever he is, he’s new at it.” Vig pulled his arms out of the compartment and looked at Iyanna. “You be careful. Jonah’s not a bad person, but his leash is a powerful one. More powerful even than duty.”

  “What’s a more powerful leash than duty?”

  “Faith.”

  ◊

  The ruin came into view but it wasn’t what Jonah had expected. The biggest surprise is that it wasn’t a ruin at all, not really. It didn’t look new, bu
t nor was it the pile of stones Jonah had imagined. The structure was essentially a single dome with a tall spire extending from its apex. The dome was no more than thirteen meters in diameter and perhaps seven meters in height. The spire reached another twelve meters above the dome. The entire construction appeared have been made from a single seamless piece of polished obsidian.

  The only disruption in the perfection of the dome, other than the spire, was a short entry tunnel with two large double doors made of the same volcanic glass. Standing before those doors was a single figure that appeared to be waiting on Jonah’s approached.

  The Pash was approximately ten centimeters taller than Jonah and also broader in the shoulders, which made the felinoid much larger than the average Pash. The Pash’s backward bending legs ended in the hooves usual for his species and the bat-like wings the Pash used for gliding on low gravity worlds were folded back behind the alien’s body.

  Most of what accounted for the feline appearance of a Pash was the shape and structure of their heads. The head and face of a Pash was unquestionably similar to that of Earth cats, specifically that of a cougar. Otherwise, much of the upper body looked more or less humanoid with a covering of fine hair ranging between individual Pash from light blonde to pitch black.

  The fur of the Pash standing by the temple (for Jonah sensed it was indeed a temple of some kind) tended toward lighter shades. The felinoid was dressed in a simple tunic and pants secured by a plain belt.

  Jonah approached the temple at a walk. The last thing Jonah wanted was to appear aggressive. Best to avoid conflict if possible. It would only get in the way of his mission and Jonah did not want to hurt the Pash. For all Jonah knew the Pash did not know that hostilities had ceased between his people and the Primacy.

  “Greetings,” Jonah said, keeping his tone light.