The Legend of Corinair

by Ryk Brown

  She entered one of the two doors and stepped into a small confessional booth. After closing the door, she turned, sat down, and waited for someone to come. After waiting for several minutes, a bright blue beam of light washed across her, traveling from her head to her toes in less than a minute. She knew instantly that she had been scanned. It was not an uncommon precaution, considering how deep into the Ta’Akar controlled Pentaurus cluster the Darvano system was located. The Legend of Origins was still a forbidden practice under the order of Caius, and all caught in its practice were summarily executed.

  Once the scan completed, she heard the sound of the third door in the room as it opened and closed, followed by the sounds of footsteps as someone—a man by the weight of his footfalls—made his way across the small outer room, opened the door to the adjacent booth, and closed it behind him.

  A moment later, the opaque screen on the wall between them began to glow, the silhouette of the occupant in the next booth showing on its surface.

  “Why do you seek counsel?” a benevolent male voice came from the adjacent booth. The screen was nothing more than a piece of cloth casting a shadow of the occupant; hence the man’s voice came through quite clearly.

  “I’ve had a dream,” she began.

  “We all have dreams, child.”

  “Perhaps dream is not the right word.”

  “What word might better describe what you experienced?”

  Jalea paused for a moment, feigning hesitation for an unknown emotional reason. “I’m not sure,” she lied.

  “Are you unsure, or unwilling to admit the truth?” the man prompted.

  “A bit of both, I suppose.”

  “Do not worry, for you are not judged, at least not by me.”

  “It was not a dream, really. I want to call it… a vision, but I’ve never had such and have no way to tell if that description might be any more accurate.”

  “What makes you think it was not a dream?”

  “I was not asleep at the time,” she admitted softly.

  “I see,” the man said. “Perhaps, if you tell me of this experience, I might be better able to help you identify it, to understand its meaning.”

  “It was a voice,” she told him, “a man’s voice. An old man, I believe. I’m not sure.”

  “And what did this voice say to you?”

  “He told me to look to the sky on this night. To the level of the first moon, but a quarter rotation to the north. At twenty-eight thirty, on this night,” she told him. Jalea was pouring all her emotion into her performance, playing the tortured and confused soul for all she could muster.

  “What is it that you are supposed to see?” the man asked.

  Jalea could tell that the priest’s curiosity was peaked. “He said a sign would be given. And that on the next day, a gift would be bestowed upon us all, a gift that would save us all from evil,” she told him, almost in tears. “Oh, father, do you think me insane?”

  “Of course not, child.”

  “But father. I think the voice… I think it was God, father.” There was no response from the man after that, and for a moment, Jalea feared she had overplayed her hand.

  “I’m curious,” the man asked. Jalea could hear the doubt in his voice. She was probably not the first person to tell him that God had spoken to them. “Why do you tell this to me?”

  “I do not wish this burden,” Jalea told him as she sniffed. “I am not a strong woman. I am a nobody. I fear persecution. Someone else must deliver the message.”

  “Deliver it to whom?”

  Jalea pretended to think for a moment, as if she had not considered that possible question until now. “I’m not sure,” she told him, making it sound like an admission. “Other believers, maybe? People who believe in the Legend of Origin?”

  “And to what end?” he challenged.

  “If something bad is about to happen, or something good for that matter, shouldn’t the people know?”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed.

  After another moment of silence, interrupted only by her occasional sniffle, Jalea spoke up once more. “Father? Do you think me insane?”

  The man felt pity for the woman. If she was telling the truth, she was obviously upset by this revelation. Perhaps it challenged her beliefs, or perhaps it confirmed them, even after she had long suppressed them out of fear of reprisals by the Ta’Akar. If she was lying, then he simply pitied her for her foolishness.

  “Who is to say that God does not speak to people such as you and me?” he told her.

  “Thank you,” she sniffled one last time before she quickly exited the booth and ran out of the room.

  The man sat in his booth for several minutes after she had left. He had counseled many during his service to the order, and many had claimed to have visions, to have received messages from their Savior. They were almost always simply the tortured souls of ordinary people that were seeking some sort of forgiveness, some sort of redemption, at least in their own minds. He had never begrudged any of them that which they sought. But none of those that had made such claims before had spoken of impending signs, and never of signs that were to occur at such an exact time and in such a precise location. It gave him cause for thought.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nathan lay stretched out on the couch in his quarters as he continued to skim through the video recording collected by the signals intelligence team. But unlike his previous sessions, he wasn’t really looking for anything in particular; he was just looking.

  The door buzzer sounded. Nathan paused the video feed, rose, and went to the hatch to open it.

  “Hi,” Cameron said. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure, come on in,” he invited, returning to the couch.

  “You still watching that stuff?”

  “Yeah. You know, it’s kind of amazing, really.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, their society. They’ve got music, sports, movies, and news. They’ve got families, schools, hospitals, celebrities. Hell, they’ve even got politics. It’s just like on Earth. I mean, it’s not; it’s very different. But then again, it isn’t. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Yes, actually, it does. I noticed the same thing back on Earth. I grew up on the European continent. We had all these little countries, and each one of them was very different: different languages, different foods, different music. But they were still basically all the same. Why should it be any different out here?”

  “Come on, Cam. Not only are we a thousand light years away, but a thousand years have passed since these people left Earth.”

  “They’re still human beings, Nathan, just like us.”

  Nathan sat quietly in the dark room, the light of the flickering video monitor dancing across the room.

  “Listen, I hate to ruin your viewing pleasure, but I thought you should see this,” she said, handing him a new data module. “Vlad and Allet got the base’s comm-array linked into our systems. This is one of the first signals we collected.”

  Nathan took the module, got up, walked over to the control unit, and swapped it with the current module. It immediately began playing. The camera work was shaky and it was difficult to watch. It was obviously made up of clips from many different sources. Some of it was obviously done by amateurs and other bits were from news cameras on the scene, but both showed the same death and destruction. It was destruction on a massive scale. There was footage of huge streaks of red-orange balls of energy raining down from the sky and flattening buildings. There were bodies everywhere. Some of them had been torn apart by shock waves and debris, while others were burned beyond recognition. There were even some mounds of red, maroon, and black goo that Nathan later realized were people that had literally melted from the sudden intense heat of the energy blasts. Then, suddenly, the view cut to the weapons cameras of what Nathan assumed were either Ta’Akar fighters or rebel ships. They showed intermittent shots of the battle in orbit above the world that was being decimated. And it showed the Ta’A
kar ship—the same one that he had rammed only minutes after accidentally arriving in the middle of the raging battle. It showed that very same ship raining the deadly balls of energy onto the helpless planet below.

  Suddenly, Nathan felt great satisfaction that they had somehow managed to destroy that ship. “Is this what I think it is?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes. This is footage from the attack on the last rebel base, the attack we jumped into the middle of. It was broadcast on the news networks on Corinair less than an hour ago.”

  Nathan looked at Cameron. She had never seen such incredible guilt in anyone’s eyes. “Did we—” He had to stop for a moment to get control of himself. “Did I cause this?”

  “No, Nathan. We didn’t cause this. These images are from before we arrived. If anything, we stopped it.”

  “But why? Why would they glass the planet? Surely they knew they were slaughtering far more innocents than rebels.”

  “They don’t care. As best I can tell, it’s their way of making sure that no one dares oppose them again.”

  “How are the people on Corinair reacting? Surely something like this has to enrage them.”

  “Surprisingly, they’re not reacting much at all. The few comments we’ve seen are supporting the action.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “Personally, I think they’re too scared to speak out. I mean, come on. After seeing that, wouldn’t you be afraid as well?”

  Nathan continued to watch the recording, which by now was showing the aftermath of the devastating attacks. After a few minutes he had to ask. “So what happened to these people? Did anyone send them any aid?”

  “No,” she answered flatly. “The entire world has been quarantined. If they’re going to recover, they’re going to have to do so on their own.”

  No more words were exchanged between them over the next few minutes as they both sat watching in fascination and disgust.

  “Anyway, I just thought you should know,” she told him as she rose to exit.

  “Why? To scare me into running away or to make me want to stay and help them seek retribution?”

  “I wasn’t trying to make you do anything, Nathan. I was just giving you the facts. You do what you think is right with them. That’s your job as Captain of this ship.”

  Nathan stared at her for a moment, not knowing whether to thank her for trying to help, or curse her for forever searing the ghastly images into his mind. He finally decided she was just doing her job.

  “Thanks, Cam.”

  Cameron looked at him. His expression was as dour as she had ever seen it. “Goodnight, Nathan,” she said softly, after which she departed.

  * * *

  The priest of the Order of Origin was still troubled hours after his last counseling session. In fact, he had been so disturbed by that session that he had closed that day and gone home to spend time with his family. Later that evening, after dinner when he saw the news broadcast about the Ta’Akar attack against the last remaining Karuzari base, his concern grew deeper. He had always avoided choosing sides. He knew that the Doctrine of Origins was a complete falsehood. He knew it in his very soul. He risked his life every day in his role serving the Order, but it was a calling like no other. He was preserving a belief that had lasted for thousands of years across the galaxy, and no one man could dissuade him or his fellow worshipers of their belief.

  Now that he had seen the footage of the near biblical destruction at the hands of the forces of Caius Ta’Akar, he well understood the evil of which the unknown woman had spoken. The evil was Caius the Great, as he liked to call himself. But even more so, the evil was in any one man being able to tell others how they must believe. The one truth he knew above all else was that faith had no power unless it was chosen freely.

  All that evening he wrestled with his thoughts, with his conscience, and with his beliefs. His wife knew that something was troubling him. Normally a hearty eater, he had barely touched his dinner. And when queried about his thoughts, he simply assured her it was nothing of concern—which usually guaranteed the exact opposite was the case. But she also knew that during such times, it was best to let him sort it all out on his own. As always, in time, he would share with her what troubled him. What she couldn’t figure out was why he kept checking the time.

  Around twenty-seven thirty, his conscience overcame his disbelief, and he locked himself in his study. He immediately began making calls to others he knew in the Order, instructing them to watch the sky around twenty-eight thirty this night, as well as the quadrant to monitor. He even contacted one of his worshipers who worked at a local observatory and convinced him to not only monitor that area of the night sky, but to record everything around the appointed time. By twenty-eight fifteen, he had more eyes and devices monitoring the quadrant in question than he could count and each of them in turn had promised to contact others. And contact others they had. By twenty-eight twenty, the net was already abuzz about the upcoming event. A new net frenzy had been created before the event had even happened.

  One thing was certain. If there were to be a sign this night, he would not be its only witness. By the night’s end, in the eyes of his world, he would either be a prophet or a fool.

  * * *

  “Yes, sir. I have already locked all sensors on the target area,” the equipment operator assured his boss over the comm-unit. “Yes, I have sent out verification requests to any and all observatories with a clear line of sight to that area to monitor for any and all anomalies as well. Yes, they have. At least twelve on Corinair alone. Sir, might I ask what it is that we’re looking for? Well, can I at least inquire as to why you think something is going to happen? It just seems odd to be looking in that exact location at that exact of a time. No, sir. I don’t mean to question your— Sir?”

  The equipment operator looked at his comm-panel in disbelief when he realized that his supervisor had hung up on him. He still had no idea why he had been instructed at the last moment to train all sensors on a small area in the northern sky at twenty-eight thirty hours. At this point, he only hoped that nothing would show up. At least then he might have a chance of keeping his job, despite his having questioned the director of the facility.

  He looked up a digital readout of the local time. Twenty-eight twenty-nine. On his network monitor, requests were coming in from all over the planet from other observatories wanting to know more details about the strange confirmation request he had been forced to send out earlier. He quickly composed a response and prepared to send it in bulk to everyone currently online. It read ‘Never mind.’ He was confident that in just a few minutes, he would be able to send it out and the evening’s circus would be over and done.

  He looked back at the time readout. Twenty-eight thirty exactly. He stared at the screen for a full minute, the smile of satisfaction on his face growing wider with each passing second. Once the time readout changed to twenty-eight thirty-one, he reached over to click ‘send’, but his hand instinctively withdrew when he heard an event alert alarm beeping at him. His eyes quickly drew to the display from the visible light telescope. There was a sudden, bright, bluish white flash of light. It was at least four times bigger than the biggest star in the night sky, and it was gone as quickly as it had come.

  His satisfied smirk having fallen off his face, he reached over and changed his message to read, ‘Did anyone else see that?’ and then clicked ‘send’. It was going to be a long night.

  Within an hour, the event had been verified by at least ten of the twelve Corinairian observatories that had been monitoring the target coordinates as requested. All had described it as a sudden flash of blue-white light. Sensors had shown it to be a massive burst of pure energy that, like the visible light, had come and gone in only an instant. One of the science stations on one of the moons of an outer planet had already dispatched an automated probe to the location of the event. But it would take days for the probe to reach the location, and even then it was doubtful that anything of c
onsequence would be found.

  But thanks to the work of the Priest of the Order that had originally contacted his worshiper who just happened to be the director of one of the most prestigious observatories on the planet, the word was already spreading like wildfire across the net. And if this Prophet Priest was correct, a gift sent to deliver them from evil would arrive within a day.

  CHAPTER 8

  Since the Aurora was tucked away, safely moored to the Karuzari base deep inside the asteroid, the bridge was not fully staffed. Other than the comm-officer and the marine at the entrance, the only other people on the bridge were Abby and Deliza, both of whom were busy working out the bugs in the new jump plotting system.

  “Good morning, sir,” the comm-officer greeted as Nathan entered the bridge.

  “Good morning. Any news?”

  “Shuttle is on its way back to Corinair. They should be landing shortly. Other than that, nothing.”

  “Where’s Kaylah?” he asked, noticing her absence. Of the few bridge staff he actually had, Kaylah had been the most dependable. She had been at her station every waking hour since the crisis began. Cameron had commented that Kaylah was perhaps the one person on the ship that slept even less than she did. Nathan hoped the ensign’s long hours hadn’t finally caught up.