The Osiris Invasion: Book Two of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  Selerael, the voice called, muffled this time but no less forcefully. You are Selerael, and you must claim your power and take control of this world. There is no one to stop you, no one stopping you but yourself and the illusions you live by. You fight me for the sake of a fantasy, Selerael, and you do anything you can to protect your illusion. But the illusion isn’t who you are. You are Selerael, not of this Earth, and you must find the Enorian singularity for me before Sargon captures Selesta. Find the singuarlity, Selerael, look for it. You will go to the East to begin looking.

  She protested; she had no idea what to do! Couldn’t he see she knew nothing, had nothing to do with him? Still the voice assailed her, but this time with a solemn vein of pity.

  Child, we can none of us escape destiny.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "You like it, eh?" Richard Mathieson suppressed an affectionate smile as Erin stared up admiringly at the new armored hull of the dark space cruiser Palatino, anchored in one of the cargo bays of Statue City's largest astroport, where the final touches and systems checks were being made before the Palatino's August departure. Unlike its predecessors, the Palatino looked like a giant elliptical air-boat; it was not aerodynamic at all.

  “Sure do,” said Erin.

  Richard watched his daughter stroll down the deck in pursuit of her subject and laughed when she bumped into one of the starship technicians. It was a profound regret to him that both of his daughters were growing up, that they would be leaving for the Charon front in just a few short years, against their parents' wishes. Neither he nor Sasha had been happy that their children had chosen the elite pilot training program above the engineer's. He did, however, acknowledge that competition was the stiffest for a place among the developmental engineers and technicians.

  "What are they doing over there?" Erin asked, drawing him out of his thoughts.

  "Over there?" he returned, looking in the direction in which she was pointing. "Well, the computers are running cold testing over there to see if anything goes wrong."

  "Cold testing?"

  "Sure." Richard winked. "It's almost absolute zero out at Pluto, so if anything's going to break in that cold, we need to know about it ahead of time."

  "I knew that part," Erin remarked, carefully studying the gears running in the heavy machinery in the far corner of the cargo bay. Erin had always been something of a little adult, Richard thought, regarding her, if only because she had never merely accepted any thing or situation around her without serious contemplation; he doubted if she had ever been capable of living in the moment or being swept away entirely by it.

  He did not feel her to be without desires or ambitions; these she betrayed enough to convince him that only a hard triumph of will mastered them. To his mind, she seemed to be shouldering a burdensome responsibility with great fortitude; why he saw this more clearly in her bearing than in that of the other young cadets, he did not know.

  "Those are the last few components, aren’t they?"

  Richard nodded. "We'll be finished here soon."

  "And on to another one," Erin surmised, in a cheeky tone.

  "Yes, my little vixen, and on to another one," Richard agreed, laughing.

  "So where is everyone today?" Erin wondered. "Roger's the only one coming in?"

  "Grant's around here, too, somewhere."

  "What about all of the others?"

  "We've already relocated them," Richard explained.

  "What? But why? The Palatino isn't finished, is it?"

  "No, but the UESF has decided to up its computerized production."

  "But they just did that a few years ago," Erin protested, upset by this news. If the UESF cut back on its engineer's program, a lot of specialists were going to find themselves out of a job and facing military conscription.

  Richard sighed, suddenly aware that his daughter had every right to be concerned; that knowledge depressed him. Where had his little girl gone? The one that trusted him and depended upon him for protection? He knew he couldn't protect her anymore, and that was something that was constantly eating at his heart these days.

  Was she happy? he wondered. News about Erin's poor practices had reached him a while back, but he and Sasha hadn't said anything to her yet. There was a lot of pressure on her, he knew, for her to live up to her parents' reputations, and he didn't feel like adding to that pressure by reproving her. If she failed this year's exam, there was always next year, he told himself, but his resolve not to interfere was weakening.

  He knew her potential. He couldn’t bear to see her fail!

  "We knew it was bound to happen," he continued, glad she had no way of knowing how concerned he was about her welfare at the moment. "They've been cutting down on engineers and spacecraft builders ever since the program's second year. Really, how many specialists do we need to oversee construction?"

  "I just don't think it's right, letting the computers do everything," Erin insisted stubbornly. "What if something went wrong, something the computers didn't notice?"

  "I see your point, dear," Richard offered. "But construction crews make mistakes, too, and they take a lot longer getting the simple jobs done."

  "But—"

  "Erin, we aren't getting rid of them, we're just sending them to work on the Esperanza."

  "For now."

  "There will always be a need for the technicians, Erin. As you pointed out, the computers aren't perfect." He laughed. It was really strange, he thought, that as important as computers were to nearly every function of human lives, Erin didn't seem to like them very much. However, they made his job possible; he wasn't about to criticize any order that had allocated more computer resources to his division.

  "Don't laugh at me, Dad," Erin protested. "I just think too many computers dehumanize this place, and I'd rather some R&D department came up with a way to make the computers fight our battles for us."

  "That would be a miracle," Richard agreed. "But unfortunately, we haven't figured out a way to do that, and I don't think we're going to any time soon. You'd probably have to give a computer human thoughts and memories to get it to react in hand-to hand combat or to understand what self-preservation is all about—and I doubt it would be any happier about going to the front than any of us, then." Richard laughed, then stopped at the unamused expression on Erin's face.

  "Well, I think it's about time for a break," Richard suggested, taking her arm and circling it with his own. "What do you say to a trip into the city? We could go to the wildlife park and look around. I'll buy you an icicle pop with my rations, what do you say?"

  "Playing hooky?"

  "I'll come back tonight and finish up.”

  "Well, in that case, Dad,” she beamed, “you've got yourself a deal."

  * * * * *

  With nothing more than a small bag of clothes and toiletries, Erin left her pilot training base for a shuttle that would take her to New Cairo, Egypt. The hypersonic transport lifted off the tarmac at Central City, and four hours later, Erin found herself in New Cairo. From there she took a transport southwest to Giza to look at the Great Sphinx, and to visit the Giza Necropolis with the three pyramids there.

  The Sphinx was a long figure hewn out of the sandstone with the body of a lion and the head of a man, temple guardian of the tomb of Khafra. Behind it the Great Pyramid of Khafra towered against the desert sky. It was quite an impressive sight. Imbued with the power of the goddess Sehkmet, the Sphinx was the eternal guardian of the mummified Egyptian King.

  After spending some time looking at the Great Sphinx, Erin got another transport to take her closer to the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaura. She toured the largest pyramid of Khufu first, then went on to the pyramid of Khafre. Lastly, she toured the pyramid of Menkaura, significantly smaller than the other two pyramids. She spent the night there in the nearby city.

  From there, Erin took a
major shuttle transport to Sakkara to visit the Pyramid of Djoser, the Pyramid of Unas, and also the incomplete step pyramid, the buried pyramid of Sehkhehemket among many others. She then journeyed on to the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, many miles south along the Nile River, where the New Kingdom pharoahs including Thutmose, Amenhotep, and Tutankhamen were buried. The first day she arrived late and didn't get to tour. The next day, she visited 12 of the 16 or more pyramids there. She spent another night in Thebes where she also visited the temple of Khonsu, the falcon-headed moon god, at Karnak. That afternoon, after touring Egypt and reading intensively about the hieroglyphics and various translations of the pylons, Erin took a shuttle on to Baghdad.

  Erin arrived in Baghdad late the fourth evening of her visit to the Middle East. She visited the nearby ziggurat of Agargouf, then went to the white temple in Uruk. Lastly, she boarded a shuttle to see the Great Ziggurat at Ur and then on to the more modern Khorsabad, the fortress of Sargon II. She went to the local museums and looked at the cuneiform tablets, critically, and got some information as to how the language was spoken. She liked the guardian to the door to the world of the underworld, the horned serpent snake Ningishzida.

  The whole excursion changed her life. In the books she read of the death and ressurection of Inanna, or Ishtar, which was awe-inspiring as well as disturbing:

  “My lady abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,

  To the nether world she descended,

  Inanna abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,

  To the nether world she descended,

  Abandoned lordship, abandoned ladyship,

  To the nether world she descended...

  Inanna walked toward the nether world,

  To her messenger Ninshubur she says:

  'Go, Ninshubur,

  The word which I have commanded thee'...

  Neti, the chief gatekeeper of the nether world,

  Asks the pure Inanna:'Who pray art thou?'

  'I am the queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises.'

  'If thou art the queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises,

  Why pray hast thou come to the land of no return?

  On the road whose traveller returns not how has thy heart led thee?'...

  The Anunnaki, the seven judges, pronounced judgment before her,They fastened their eyes upon her, the eyes of death…”

  After this Erin stopped reading.

  She took a transport to the city of Nippur to visit Enlil’s temple. It was there that she visited the ancient artifacts museum at the Innana temple.

  And there that her steps were guided by a force greater than herself. She felt literally guided by some supernatural force making her do what it wanted her to do.

  A strange image was suddenly in her mind’s eye, of a man with eyes that shone in multi-colors—the face of a man she had never before seen! Then, just as suddenly as he had flashed through her mind, his image was gone.

  Erin spent the next several days looking over the city, when at last, in one of the ruined pylons of the temple, was a strange etching that caught her eye. It was that of a small arrow, that looked like cuneiform but was not. She scratched the wall and found that part of the wall was at last crumbling. She got out a laserknife and sliced at it, with no one looking to stop her, and part of the wall crumbled away. Behind it was a strange cavity that contained some ancient artifacts, among them a small box, no larger than a pill box, etched with strange swirling designs that looked like cuneiform but were not.

  The designs seemed strangely familiar…

  Ignoring the other artifacts in the cavity, Erin picked up the small clay box and opened it.

  There was a small seed inside, of something unidentifiable. Erin put in her bag, and left the temple, feeling guilty all the while about defacing an ancient monument.

  * * * * *

  "So where were you last week?" Colleen asked, as Erin came in with a dusty, scratched-up bag and dropped it on her bed.

  "I had to go somewhere," said Erin evasively.

  “Huh?

  “Nothing. What are you up to?"

  "Practicing. Got a new program to work on. They worked on it over ten months at R & D. Some of it is even based on what we know of the battles of ancient cavalries and foot soldiers in the days of land armies—can you believe it? Dad says our squadrons fly in phalanx form just as soldiers have fought in phalanx form for thousands of years—”

  “Until all hell breaks loose in battle.” Erin interjected.

  “Of course, battle does tend to be chaotic,” Colleen admitted with a shrug.

  “But my Dad says R&D has been brushing up on everything they can learn from surviving records about ancient offensives, since we haven’t been successful with our big nuclear guns and our Charon alien friends don't seem to want to bring out their big guns—”

  "Yet," said Erin.

  “Do you think that’s because they really want to colonize our planet?” Colleen wondered, with a shiver.

  “I don’t know. I wish I knew.”

  “Blaine Richards says the Charon aliens are just trying to terrorize us and get us to surrender so that they can rule over us and make us all slaves, or worse—”

  “Shit, I can't think about it. I mean I’m perfectly happy right now dealing with whatever comes when it comes. I’d rather not speculate.”

  “Okay, okay.” Colleen laughed. “Anyway, the programs were shipped out to the simulation testing centers only five days ago. You can try it if you like.”

  “Have you?” Erin asked.

  "Not yet. I mean I was just about to. But I know they used information from the Charon front line to simulate the exterior. The inside details are just a guess, of course. Here, you try first." Colleen said with a yawn. "My reflexes aren’t working yet, but I'd like to see how the program operates before we go to the observatory."

  She tossed the helmet over to Erin and slid off the pilot's seat. Erin sat down and adjusted the controls on the simulator's forward panel. Colleen began to explain what she knew of the game as it initialized a new scenario. A three-dimensional virtual reality holofield materialized around them, transporting them at once to the Charon front line.

  "I think you're supposed to maneuver in and out of the alien single craft. If you're lucky, you can find a gap in their defense and reach the ship's hanger as they send out more planes."

  "You're supposed to infiltrate the enemy ship?" Erin asked, incredulous.

  Colleen nodded. “Your object is to siege the enemy and hit him before he knows you’re coming. And dodging seems almost more important than fighting because your fighter can only carry five missile salvos and two laser pulse cannons. Once you're in, your scanners should be able to tell you where the main power sources are, so you can really set the place on fire."

  "I see—you're trying to blow it up," Erin said, nodding. "Too bad no one's really figured out how to do it."

  "I suppose," Colleen shrugged.

  Erin looked at her askance, then shook her head. Erin wasn't really given to entertaining idle wishes.

  Erin was already busy playing the game. Colleen watched fascinated as her friend moved from level to level. Almost before Colleen had even seen the alien single-craft, Erin had avoided or destroyed them, still going at top speed. Colleen's head began to ache as she watched the corridors speed closer and then turn right, left, up, or down and her friend's zigzagging motions as Erin dodged aliens with insect-like agility.

  The game had such a hypnotic effect that Colleen had to blink when Erin's fighter suddenly reached a power conduit leading to the main engines. Erin released a full salvo of missiles and continued firing her cannon at the conduit until it ruptured, then ignited; she quickly turned back in the direction she'd come from to escape before the ship's engines blew.

  In the end, she narrowly escaped before the interior of the ship ignited into a fiery blaze; as sh
e flew out of the docking bay, her plane was bombarded by searing hot shrapnel in the explosion set loose by the inferno. A moment later, Erin's plane emerged into space and then redocked on the small space cruiser that had been hovering on the far side of Charon while the simulated battle raged.

  The game flashed a random message, and the three-dimensional holofield around them terminated. Colleen shook her head, and rubbed her tired eyes. She felt as if she were experiencing motion sickness. "Time lapse: Two minutes, thirteen seconds." The female computer voice informed them.

  "So, this is what your Dad’s friends have been spending all of their time on." Erin commented, dropping the helmet. "Did you want to take the sub-shuttle to the arboretum?" she suggested, her thoughts turning to the day ahead. “Or do you still want to go to the observatory?”

  "I knew it." Colleen declared in triumph, ignoring her. Her tone, however, suggested that she was slightly annoyed. "Why don't you fly this well in training? Why would you deceive people—deceive me?" She did not like what had she had just witnessed; it made her feel as though Erin had betrayed her somehow.

  "Colleen—” Erin said guiltily, sensing Colleen’s feelings, then shook her head. “It's not important."

  "Don't you care what people think about you?" Colleen persisted, taking offense.

  "Actually—no."

  "I don't believe you.”

  "Who wants to alienate everyone by being too good at everything?"

  "It doesn't bother me if other people are better at something than I am."

  "But you're not the jealous type. Other people are. Then they naturally try to hurt you back."

  "So, you do care what other people think," Colleen said, triumphant again. "Only not what they think about you, I suppose." She added, slightly skeptical.

  "Erin,” Colleen protested, privately marveling again at Erin’s strange brand of integrity, “you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t care about how you’re perceived by other people. Everyone has some pride, you know, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “All right, maybe I do care—maybe."

  "Then why risk being left out of a good position at the end of training?"