“This is Lieutenant Commander Dixon of Guangzhou calling all Sino American Colonization Authority ships in orbit around Arcturus V. We’ve all seen the transmission sent by the Chronicler, Lieutenant Commander Paul Chen, and its implications are plain. By the oath I swore to SACA upon my commission, I must now take action upon the allegations put forth.
“Vice Admiral Zheng Huojin, are you present, sir?”
“This is Captain John Cho of Lin Zexu. The Admiral is indisposed.”
“I thought my message was clear enough, Captain,” Dix said, almost trembling as she felt the adrenaline begin to flow. “I require the Admiral’s attention.”
“I may need to brush up on my fleet etiquette, Commander, but I don’t believe a Vice Admiral answers to a Lieutenant Commander,” Cho responded.
“Regardless, I require him.”
“As I said, he is indisposed.”
“Thennnn,” Dix lingered on the word, drawing it out for a moment, “I’ll wait patiently while you go fetch him.”
“You are speaking to a superior officer, Commander, and your tone is highly insubordinate. I’ll have you -,” Cho’s voice was suddenly cut off.
“This is Admiral Zheng,” said a different voice, higher pitched than Cho’s. The English was heavily accented, spoken by someone who learned the language well after learning his own native Chinese.
Dix took a deep breath. “Admiral, I am placing you under arrest for multiple violations of SACA law, including but not limited to tampering with SACA official records, genetic experimentation on persons and the murder of countless SACA citizens. I ask that you surrender your vessel and turn yourself in to your marines. Captain Cho, you share in at least some of these charges. I ask that you do the same and prepare to transfer my command to the Lin Zexu.
“Sirs, if I may note, I find the name of your vessel somewhat ironic. I looked up Lin Zexu, and as I understand it, he was a politician who espoused the ideals of moral government and opposed the opium trade in nineteenth century China. Interesting that your vessel should bear his name in light of the crimes you must answer for.”
“Stand down, Commander,” came Zheng’s voice. “Stand down now, and I’ll forget your actions.”
“I’m sorry Admiral, but I can’t do that.”
Her response met silence. She imagined the other officers listening in to the exchange, wondering which side they would pick. None of them made a peep, and neither did Zheng nor Cho. She was about to speak, and then an alarm siren sounded in her command center. Liu minimized his radio screen for a moment to pull up what looked like a tactical display.
“Sir,” he said anxiously, “we have been painted. Lin Zexu’s external missile hatches have opened.”
“Stand down, Commander.” The voice was again Cho’s. “I have my orders. If you do not stand down, I am to destroy the Guangzhou and any other ships that attempt to arrest the Admiral.”
“It will only go down as another crime against SACA,” Dix returned. “Captain Cho, you might get off with life in prison, but if you follow this order, it’ll mean your death as well, one way or the other.”
“Then you will not stand down?”
“Stand down?” she almost screamed. “Who has weapons aimed at whose ship here? I can do nothing against your ship, Cho, and you know it. It doesn’t matter. Destroy us if you have to. I will not fire on you or attempt to board Lin Zexu. Everyone in SACA will know what he’s done. Paul Chen saw to it.”
“Commander Dixon,” interjected Martinez’s voice, “I’m in position, just in case.”
“In position?” asked a surprised Cho.
“Oh, I thought Admiral Zheng may not go quietly,” explained the Pilipino, “so, I trained my missiles on the Lin Zexu. Before you say so, it’s not a bluff. I removed the safeties and targeting system protocols from the warheads, so they’re just dumb fire missiles now. And if you check your range, you’ll see that Herbert Walker is only about twenty three hundred meters away. If you open fire, I’m gonna put big ugly holes in your soft underbelly. Do you think you can maneuver that big ugly bitch out of the way in time?”
“Lieutenant Martinez, I warn you about throwing in with this traitor,” said Zheng’s accented voice.
“Negative. I’m upholding the laws and constitution of SACA. Please disarm your weapons.”
Dix smiled just slightly at the thought of Martinez, both his loyalty to SACA and his sudden improvised tactics. Even still, the line was again dead silent, and she knew that the fate of her ship and crew was buried in that silence. The only sound was the soft, hurried breathing of Liu and the alarm that continued to sound. As it continued interminably, Dix wanted nothing more than to latch onto the closest person and kiss them as hard as she could, but she was an officer. It would be unbecoming conduct.
The alarm stopped.
“Their missile hatches are closing!” Liu nearly shouted, and Dix allowed herself a mere smile when she wanted to jump and scream. She happily overlooked Liu’s lack of proper address.
“Admiral,” Dix said, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath, “I will prepare Guangzhou for docking act-“
A sudden jolt to starboard knocked Dix off of her feet, cutting off her words in mid-sentence. She fell back and to her left and landed hard on her back, the titanium alloy deck knocking the wind out of her. She rolled onto her hands and knees, fighting the pain that shot through her back and trying to find enough air to speak. She crawled toward Liu, who fought to climb back into his chair, and Dix had the sickening sense that the ship was in motion, though everything appeared stationary. Some sort of alarm sounded throughout the whole ship, a proximity alarm.
“What is it?” Dix called out.
“Sir, Lin Zexu has activated her Steingartner. A singularity is forming,” Liu reported.
“Cho, stop it now!” Dix shouted over the sudden chatter of the other ships’ captains. “We’ll let you go. Let us get clear or you’ll destroy the fleet!”
“She figured it out,” wryly, calmly answered Cho.
“All ships, emergency hop clear of Lin Zexu!” Dix shouted as she jumped into an interface chair and brought up the navigation panel. With no time for careful calculations and slow Steingartner warm-ups, she brought up a three dimensional holographic display of the Arcturus system. She selected a coordinate point at random that appeared to have a clear path, and input the selection into the computer.
She heard Liu shout over the ship’s intercom, “All hands brace! Impact imminent!” and she rammed the Steingartner drive up to full power. Guangzhou screamed as singularities, infinitely large masses in infinitely small spaces, formed all around it, and forced the ship to move toward them all, a dozen different directions at once. Finally, the Guangzhou’s own Steingartner reached critical mass, and the ship shot off toward its own singularity at a speed apparently well over that of light. The immediate release from the other singularities nearby caused a sudden lurch, and Dix’s head impacted the bulkhead next to her interface chair.
* * *
“…coming around.”
“Commander, can you hear me?” asked a voice that was directly in front of her, but Dix couldn’t see it for all the light. Bright, white light flooded everything, and it hurt. A lot. She felt something cold pressed to her forehead, and the light began to fade little by little. Purple stars exploded like celebratory fireworks at the edges of her vision, but the painful light finally subsided into normal, ship standard lighting. The big bull head of Lieutenant Schmidt and the less bullish heads of two medical techs hovered over her.
Dix tried to stand, but they gently pushed her back down. “Get off of me,” she croaked.
“You’ve sustained a head injury, Commander,” said one of the techs - a pasty faced Caucasian with fair hair. “You lost some blood, might have a concussion.”
“Get off of me,” Dix ordered more firmly.
The hands released and turned into aid, helping her to her feet. She realized suddenly that it may
have been a bad idea, as the command center spun around for a moment and made her extremely woozy. Schmidt subtly placed a hand on her lower back to help steady her, and the room slowly ceased its devilish whirling.
“Status report?”
“Some hull damage, sir, but no breaches,” explained Schmidt. “Loss of electrical power and gravity to two sections, but restoration expected within the hour.”
“Excellent,” Dix said with a nod. “Injuries?”
“Minor to our knowledge. The crew was banged about like the ship, but they’ll be fine.”
“The fleet?” Dix asked, and Schmidt turned to Chief Liu.
“Five ships besides ours report minor damage. Houston has a severe hull breach and is working now to repair it. She lost at least twenty of her crew, but we do not have final word. Ashikaga has total power loss, and we’re moving to commence rescue operations before they run out of air. Lin Zexu is gone, sir. Her Steingartner reached mass, and she hopped away. I computed her course as AGS.”
Dix listened and nodded occasionally as Liu spoke, but something didn’t sound right. Maybe it was the blow to her head, but she missed something. She couldn’t figure out what it was. She thought back over his report, Five ships besides ours. Five plus us makes six. Houston and Ashikaga make seven and eight. Where was nine? Which ship?
“Who’d we lose?” Dix asked.
“Herbert Walker, sir,” clarified Schmidt. “She was too close to Lin Zexu’s singularity plane. When she launched her own singularity, the competing forces ripped her in two. We’ve confirmed the wreckage. Total loss.”
The command center started to spin again, and Dix closed her eyes, silent for a long moment. Those who watched her thought she might have been praying, though she didn’t know if she even believed in such a thing. She wondered if by chance Martinez had found Chen’s message; his last actions had shown impressive creativity. When she opened her eyes again, they stared directly at a solid and unmoving deck. She touched the back of her head behind her right ear and found a hot, sticky substance coating her hair.
“Commander, that’s going to require some attention,” said the pasty medtech.
She nodded slightly and turned her eyes to Schmidt. “Lieutenant, would you continue rescue and repair operations while I tend to this. Let me know when the fleet is ready to make way for AGS. Also, pull up Herbert Walker’s crew manifest. Mark them all deceased with honors, commendations recommended.”
“Aye, sir,” Schmidt saluted as only a marine could.
Epilogue
Dahk waited in his leather recliner on his white beach, looking over the blood red ocean. He’d come to this beach on a vacation with some friends from school, and they spent a week getting wasted and just generally partying. One morning, he’d gotten up early and walked along the beach, just enjoying the sounds and peacefulness as it caressed his hangover induced migraine. He’d come across a girl named Henrietta, a Teutonic beauty of about nineteen. He smiled, she smiled, and they ended up making love on the beach that morning. Dahk didn’t see his friends at all over the last three days of their trip, as he spent them all with her.
Once, just once, he wished the waters would appear as blue as he remembered them from his youth. For that matter, he wished Henrietta was there too. Oh to be sure, he could make her appear, but it would just be a facsimile, a wet dream with no purpose or value, no emotion or feeling. It would only serve to pass time that had no meaning. He grabbed a beer from the plastic cooler.
As Dahk twisted off the cap, a man appeared before him wearing stark white woolen robes tied at the waist by a brown sash. The man was fair skinned and the absolute picture of ancient Greek beauty, tall and strong under his robe. He had straight black hair, cut short and kept neat, and a perfectly clean shaven face with a hard, defined jawline. His silver eyes sparkled in the yellow sunlight.
“You’re late,” Dahk said. “What took you so long?”
“It means nothing to us. Time has no meaning to us,” Garod replied shortly. He looked around the beach, absently taking in every detail. “For why did you call me here?”
“For Christ’s sakes, can we drop the Goddamned pretenses for once?” asked Dahk in annoyance. He snapped his fingers, and Garod’s robes disappeared to be replaced with almost knee length swim shorts. His body did in fact look like one of the ancient marble statues from antiquity. Dahk motioned at the empty recliner to his right and said, “Sit down, have a beer with me. Is the attire okay with you? I know you’re somewhat vain, so if you’d rather something more revealing…”
Garod crossed his arms, his body mimicking the annoyance that was plain on his face. “I feel no need to waste my time drinking unreal beer with you.”
“Why not? As you pointed out, time has no meaning to us, so you may as well relax for a few minutes at least.”
“Why?” Garod asked, dropping his arms.
“Because now that you’re here, I’m going to track down Cor Pelson. I thought you’d like to congratulate him yourself on his great victory, at least be present for it.”
“Why should I care?”
“Because you had a hand in the victory,” Dahk explained. “It was the power you brought to the world, coupled with the resistance he naturally has from me, that shielded Cor Pelson from the Others. When he was born those years ago, I hadn’t really hoped he could take it so far, and I thought it would be his son. But even gods are wrong sometimes, I suppose.”
“You pushed him to it,” Garod accused, raising his voice. “You made him aware of what he can do with his strength. You’ve made him a danger to all of Rumedia, even us.”
“Perhaps, but Cor has already shown more wisdom than me. I’m impulsive, but he thinks before he acts. Now, shut up, sit down, and get a beer.”
“Since you are going to force me to it,” Garod said with a sigh, but he did as he was told.
“You know, we all got so caught up in being gods that we forgot we were once just people,” Dahk mused. “You’re bad about it, Jared. You’re very… stuck in the pomp of it. You enjoy it.”
“The experiment required it,” Garod replied sullenly.
“Oh, bullshit. You love it, and you know it. And then there’s Hykan and his people. I’m not even sure they remember what once was. I know I didn’t until recently. It’s our own kind of madness, I guess.”
“Can we get on with this?”
“Surely,” Dahk agreed.
With a quick flip of his right hand, a gray skinned and dark haired figure appeared, naked except for a loin cloth. He stood facing the two gods, surprise showing on his face for just a moment. As Cor looked at them, his jaw hardened, and his lips grew tight. He narrowed his eyes at them in consideration.
“Why do you keep bringing me here?” Cor asked, his tone unfriendly.
“Don’t be that way,” Dahk replied cheerfully. “My friend Garod and I wanted to see you for just a minute. What you’ve done is truly incredible, and we wanted to congratulate you.”
“What I’ve done, I had to do,” Cor replied succinctly.
“Of course you did. You always have. That’s why I chose to share with you what I did. I knew you would do what you had to, to rid us of the Others.”
“It had nothing to do with you,” Cor said, crossing his arms over his chest, much like he’d seen Thyss do a hundred times. “I did it for us – the people of Rumedia – not you. I do not care about you or your war.”
“This had nothing to do with the war,” Garod said defensively. “We left that behind millennia ago.”
“And if I understand the Chronicler, your own people brought the Loszians down upon us because you left it behind,” Cor answered. “I will no longer have my life shaped by others, not Queens, Emperors, swords nor Gods. No one controls me anymore. The people of Rumedia will be free from you just as we are free from the Loszians. There is no more room for Gods. Do you understand me?”
“How dare you speak to us that way?” Garod blurted, his voice thundering over the
sounds of the wind, waves and ocean birds. He stood and seemed to suddenly grow in height by several feet.
“I fear you about as much as I fear your voice,” Cor said, unflinchingly. “You are nothing. You lord dominion over we mortals, but you have so little real power. You affect so little, but claim to be so great. In truth, that power is so easily broken.”
“You wouldn’t, couldn’t!” Garod exclaimed, suddenly taken aback such that he almost fell into the leather chair. He regained his balance ungracefully, causing Dahk to smile ever so slightly. “Without us, the people of Rumedia would lose all of their wonderful powers.”
Cor watched the lone bead of sweat roll down the side of Garod’s perfectly chiseled face, and then he looked to Dahk. The blood god did not move except for a very slight twitch at the left corner of his mouth. Cor shared a gaze with the god, and he saw the truth in Dahk’s eyes, confirmation of what he already knew.
“You’re lying,” Cor accused, turning his eyes back to the anxious Garod. He shifted his arms to plant his hands on his hips victoriously. “We carry our power through our blood, passing it on from parent to child. All you do, all you’ve ever done, is give a select few a sense of it, but now we don’t need you anymore. I will teach any who will listen that they no longer need the gods, and that, that is what makes me the most powerful of the Dahken, the most powerful man in the world. I bring knowledge!”
“What would you have us do?” cried Garod, anxiety turning to desperation as the understanding of what Cor said took hold.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 29
