Jennifer screamed as the superheated steam hit her hand and wafted back into her face. She reflexively shut her eyes, and saved her vision, but the burns across her face hurt like hell. She remembered Glen telling her to not shoot at anything under twenty meters of range. There had really been no choice. It was either shoot or die, so she had shot.
Jennifer fell back to the ground, expecting the body to fall on top of her. When that didn’t happen she opened her eyes, barely keeping a scream from her lips from the pain of moving her facial muscles and the skin that overlay them. Then all attention was on the beast, which had fallen down in place like a sack folding in on itself. Jennifer smiled for a moment, the smile turning to a frown as she saw that a half dozen more of the beasts had arrived on the ground and were advancing cautiously on her position.
“Crap yet again,” she said, looking around, trying to find a place that she could defend. But there were only the trees, and she doubted climbing would protect her from things that lived and hunted from them. There were some rocks about fifty meters further to the right, but she doubted she could outrun the creatures to make it to them. Then her decision making was taken from her as two of the beasts, the largest of the sextet, roared and charged at her.
Jennifer swung the pistol toward the nearest beast and sent off a shot that struck it in the face. The head exploded under the assault, sending red and pink tissue everywhere. A glob hit Jennifer on the left hand, burning into her flesh, and she cried out as she dropped that hand from the pistol. She kept enough presence of mind to continue bringing the pistol to bear on the other carnivore, pulling the trigger as soon as it came on target.
This shot was not very good, and the beam missed the beast to the right of its head. It took the right ear off the head of the beast and caused burns to erupt on the side of its face. The beast roared and fell away to the side. Jennifer took the moment of chaos to run for the rocks. The creatures seemed confused for a moment, between her retreat and the damage to several of their own members. But only a moment till they were back in pursuit.
Jennifer jumped over the first rock, a meter high specimen, and plopped down behind it, turning with a quick motion and bringing the gun back to bear. She expected to see four creatures coming her way, maybe five if the injured one joined the assault. She gasped as she saw the ten beasts coming at her, fanned out in a spread that she could not cover completely. She fought down her panic and aimed at the one that looked the most dangerous, firing as soon as the barrel lined up. The shot went wide, not even injuring the creature. The sound of the passing particles must have disturbed it somewhat, because it fell to the ground, rolled away, then back peddled as soon as it regained its feet. Jennifer fired two more shots, also misses, and the creatures backed away and took cover.
They’re smart, thought Jennifer, firing a couple of more shots into the woods to keep them thinking about her weapon. Ape smart? Could be.
There was some rustling in the low shrubs by some trees and the doctor took a shot at them. The part of the bush the beam hit scattered leaves and branches, and the area around the strike burst into flame. She didn’t know if she had hit anything other than vegetation. A moment later the bush shook again and she took another shot, again scattering shrubbery and starting a small fire.
The doctor looked at her left hand, where a piece of the second beast she shot had hit her. There was a nasty burn on the back of her hand, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in a short time. She felt her face and winced at the blisters she felt on her skin. Also something that would heal quickly with treatment. If the damned things don’t get me and eat me first.
Several bushes rustled and she took shots at them. A howl at the second shot let her know she had hit something, though from the timber of the yell and the grumbling roar that followed she was sure it was not fatal. The trees rustled overhead and she fired a trio of shots that way.
A beast came charging from cover, heading her way with a roar and a flash of teeth. Two more followed, and Jennifer almost panicked. She took aim at the first and pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked, but not as much as she thought it should. The beam struck the beast in the lower stomach, and it rolled away with a whine, paws clutching at its stomach region. Jennifer swung the pistol to the next target and squeezed. And squeezed again when nothing happened.
Shit, she thought, looking at the side of the pistol and seeing that the proton charge was empty. She glanced up at the charging animals, joined now by another trio coming behind them, and realized she would not have a chance to reload. Her hand shook as she did the only thing she could, reaching for another proton pack and hoping that she was wrong about the progress of the beasts toward her, or her speed of reloading. Anything that might get her out of this. She mouthed a quick prayer, then an apology to Glen, while watching the first beast jump to the top of the rock and look down at her, red eyes squinting. It reached a large paw toward her and she knew that it was over.
The animal fell to the side at the same time as a quintet of wounds opened on the opposite aspect, blood spurting into the air. The beast rolled from the rock onto the ground, and Jennifer found herself looking at a scene of salvation. Another three of the beasts were down, and the rest were running for the trees. Jennifer caught movement out of her eye and turned toward the four newcomers, all in battle armor and carrying heavy assault rifles.
“Are you OK, doc?” asked one as he bounded to her position.
“I will be now,” she said with a smile, a feeling of relief passing through her body, followed by one of fatigue. “I will be now.”
* * *
Sean was enjoying this dream. He had been afraid to go to sleep, after the last couple of horrible lucid dreams that had ruined his nights. But this one was one he could enjoy. He had Jana Gorbachev in his room, and was peeling the clothes from her taunt body, his hands lingering over her small breasts, stroking her flat stomach. She was the forbidden older woman, the one that excited him. Through almost three decades his senior she was still a very attractive woman, young by the standards of Imperial society. And totally forbidden to one such as he. In his chain of command, a commoner, and not someone to cement an alliance with another strong family.
Sean leaned down and placed one erect nipple in his mouth, sucking on the tender bud while she sighed. Her hand reached down and started to stroke his rising penis, eliciting a groan from his lips. He teased the nipple with his teeth, then moved up to kiss the mouth and taste the moans that were coming from the soft orifice. And recoiled as soon as her face came back into view, because it was no longer a face, but the sardonic grin of a skull.
The dream shifted, and Sean knew he was in one of the prophetically lucid dreams that were part of the gift. He found himself at his duty station in the control room of the B ring. Jana was again alive, calling out commands and sit reps from her station. The ship was shaking from multiple hits, and Sean was getting out of his seat. Another hit threw him to the floor, and he looked up to see something blast through the ceiling of the chamber and spread fire throughout.
The view shifted, and Sean was no longer inside the ship, but had become an omnipotent observer from outside. The Sergiov was a wreck, breaking up, while in the near distance ships of an alien configuration closed. It took a moment to recognize that those ships were similar to the ones he had seen in an earlier dream. And then a missile struck the Sergiov and plasma spewed in all directions as the ship broke up.
Sean sat up in bed with a cry; the emotional impact of the real seeming dream still with him, though the visuals were now nothing more than memory. When is that supposed to happen? he wondered. The main drawback of the dreams was the lack of a time or location reference. It could happen tomorrow, or ten years from now. Based on his feelings for the Navy, and his appearance in the dream, he would guess much sooner than ten years. Beyond that he just didn’t know.
Sean was still a young man, and in a moment his thoughts shifted to the other, more pleasant part of the dream. She would
kill me if she knew I was thinking of her that way, he thought, a smile stretching his face. Or would she? After all, it would have to be flattering to have the attentions of a member of the Imperial Family. Sean dismissed that thought from his mind as he got up and got ready to face the day. It was not worth the effort. Beside all the social and military obstacles, he was sure she didn’t feel any attraction toward him. She treated him as a surrogate child, and that was all. No matter what he wanted, that was all.
* * *
Purgatory was the one prison planet in the Empire. There were other prisons in the Empire, some even built on moons, but none that dedicated an entire heavenly body for the warehousing of the most dangerous residents of the Empire. An airless rock rotating around a gas giant in an independent orbit of the great black hole of the Supersystem, it was as an escape proof prison as had ever been devised by man. That didn’t mean that no one had ever escaped. One had. But getting through a hundred kilometers of rock and past the patrol ships made it one tough prospect. Add to that the on call presence of the Navy, and it was almost sure death to even attempt getting away.
All of this was going through Lucille Yu’s mind was she sat in her cell, waiting for the interrogators to arrive. She already hated this place, but it was an easy place to hate. She had seen none of the other fifty thousand inmates, having been totally isolated from the general population since arrival. She hated the low gravity of the rock, the cold temperature that seemed to seep into her bones despite the climate control, the food that had a taste of institutional sameness. She hated the skin tight prison uniform they had given her, insurance that she would not hide anything on her body. As if she could, with billions of spy nanites in her system and constant external scans of every description. Most of all she hated being away from her work at such a critical time, when the thinking head of the organization had been all but decapitated from the working body.
I should be thinking about the death of the Emperor, thought the scientist, shaking her head. I should be more bothered by the death of the ruler of the Empire and his family. But it’s so hard to get past the deaths of so many colleagues. It’s just too damned much to deal with. I don’t have any more tears to cry.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the door to her cell sliding open. She looked up to see one of the Imperial Investigation Bureau interrogators standing in the doorway, his cold eyes looking into hers while a tight smile played across his face.
Damned sadist, she thought, standing up from the bed that served as her seat, the one piece of furniture in the Spartan room. She noted that the two guards were with the questioner. There were always two of them, always armed with sonic stunners. As if she would be crazy enough to try to out muscle them.
“I hope you have some new questions for me today,” she told the man as he walked into the room. The floor extruded a chair, the same kind of comfortable chair all the interrogators used.
“I would not make light of your situation,” said the man, sitting in the chair while the two guards flanked him. He activated a flat screen comp he had pulled from his belt, looked it over for a moment, then turned a baleful gaze toward the scientist.
“Oh, I’m not making light of anything,” said Lucille, anger getting the better of her fear. “I’m not making light of the fact that you have come in here to question me fourteen times in the last two days. That you always ask me the same questions. That you have not allowed me to talk with an attorney. I make light of nothing.”
“An Imperial judge has waived your right to counsel,” said the interrogator, leaning forward.
“Waived my right,” said Lucille, shocked that such a thing was possible. “But it’s a, right.”
“Not in a case of regicide,” said the interrogator.
“But I’m innocent,” said Lucille, putting her face in her hands and feeling the tears she thought were exhausted come dripping from her eyes.
“All the tests agree with that statement,” said the interrogator, looking down at his flat pad.
Lucille felt shock again, followed by rage. She started to stand up, to tower over the man, but the guards waved their stun guns and she was forced to retreat back to her seat. “If everything you have proves my innocence,” she stammered, “then why are you doing this?”
“All tests showed that everyone aboard that fighter were totally loyal to the Imperial family,” said the man, shaking his head. “Everyone was clean to the best of our ability to detect, by processes that had never failed. But they failed, and the Imperial family died at the hands of their own protectors. Which gives us little trust in the tests that have cleared you as well.”
“That’s insane,” screamed Lucille, pounding her fists into her legs. “That’s fucking insane. You can’t prove I’m guilty, and by all the tests you can devise I’m innocent. But you don’t trust the fucking tests. So I’m supposed to rot here forever.”
“That seems to sum it up,” said the interrogator. “If you had stayed in the chamber and died we would of course clear you of any complicity.”
“So If I died I would have been cleared,” said Lucille, her voice rising in hysteria. “That sounds like a fucking witch trial solution. Why don’t you just dump me in the water, and if I drown I’m innocent.”
The interrogator shook his head and got to his feet. “If you would just cooperate we could finish here, and get on with our lives.”
“You mean confess,” said Lucille, shaking her head. “Confess to something I know nothing about. And then I will be set free?”
“Of course not,” said the man, walking toward the door, the two guards following while keeping their eyes toward the prisoner. “Then you will be executed, and the rest of us can go back to life as normal.”
“But not me,” said Lucille, watching the chair collapse back into the floor. “Because I will be dead.”
“The alternative is to spend the rest of your life here, being questioned,” said the man, the door opening before him. “I would not wish that on my worst enemy.”
With a last look at the prisoner he was out the door, the guards following. The door slid closed, and Lucille was once more alone. At least for the moment. Until they scheduled the next session, and she was again confronted with the nightmare that her life had become.
Chapter 6
In ages past many predicted that man would no longer have any need of God. That science would explain everything that needed explanation. But as science has progressed, and man has progressed, it seems that the Universe is just as mysterious as ever, if not more so. And man still has a need of God.
Pope Charles IV, Reformed Catholic Church.
Sunday was a day of rest. At least in theory, and when he was not at reserve training. But today Katlyn had wanted to attend church, voicing the opinion that they needed to get into a congregation for support and comfort. So here they were, in their best clothing, sitting in the pews of one of the churches that had sprung up in the village of Neu Romney, that nearest to their farm.
He had to admit that the minister was good, if not what he was used to. He and Katlyn had been Neo Methodists on New Detroit. There was a church of that denomination in Frederick, but not out here in the village. And it was too damned far to travel just to sit in an hour service.
“And God said that we should love our neighbors as ourselves,” intoned the Minister of the Reformed Christian Church of the Stars, a portly looking middle aged man with bright eyes and a ready smile. “And that means all of our neighbors, human and alien. Christ said that if a man strikes your cheek you should turn the other to him. But what of the man who makes ready to smite you with his sword?”
The preacher stopped talking for a moment, letting the question sink in to the congregation. There were over three hundred people in the church for the service, about three quarter’s capacity, which was very good for a village this size with more than a dozen houses of worship.
“The old testament shows that our God could be a warrior God,” said the preac
her, looking from eye to eye in the congregation. “He did not condone murder, or violence for its own sake. But he also did not allow for enemies to kill his faithful with impunity. The Israelites formed armies, and smote their foes, and God smote their foes. As we are expected to smite our foes, to protect those that we love.”
“That was a great sermon, preacher,” said Cornelius, shaking the man’s hand as he and Katlyn left the church.
“I’ve not seen you around before, have I?” asked the minister, looking Cornelius in the eye.
“I don’t think so,” said the Walborski, returning the gaze. “I work a farm outside of town. About the only time I get into town is when I have to pick up supplies, or during militia weekends.”
“They’re good to have around, those boys,” said the minister, keeping a tight hold on the farmer’s hand. “I’m retired Imperial Army myself. Got to be a colonel before they decided I needed to do something else.”
“It seems like every other person on this planet is retired Army, Navy or Marines,” said Cornelius, as the man released his hand.
“Once you’ve seen the Galaxy it’s hard to go home,” agreed the minister with a nod. “Good to see you. Come by the rectory someday and we’ll have a talk.”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 Page 10
