Hallowed Nebula

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The intercom beeped when she was debating if she had it in her to stop off at the Kepler’s lounge for that drink. She took the message. “Hey, Captain,” said Bailey’s voice. “Please leave room for dessert.”

  “Was gonna pass on it tonight, to tell ya the truth,” she said.

  “I was experimenting with a new cheesecake recipe. I’d really like your input on it, and really would like to deliver it to you, personally.”

  The Chef sounded insistent. Like there was a hidden message.

  “I’d like that, Chef, thanks.”

  Chef Bailey joined her in the captain’s mess about ten minutes later. In his hands was exactly what he promised, a gourmet slice of cheesecake, covered with red berries, dripping with a savory crimson sauce that ran down the edge of the pristine white cake. A big dollop of whip cream was behind the berries, garnished with an herb that looked like mint, but sure as hell didn’t smell like that.

  “Here it is, Captain,” Bailey said, placing it on the table. “Tell me what you think.”

  Foster’s fork dug into the cake and slipped a piece into her mouth. She liked it. “Chef, can we make this a regular dessert item if we get outta this mess?”

  His laughter made her smile.

  “Captain,” Bailey said, looking back at the shut door. “May I tell you somethin’?”

  She wiped her lips clean with a napkin. “Figured there was more to this than this awesome-sauce cheesecake.”

  “It’s about Jainuzei.”

  The two stood beside one another ahead of the observation window, watching the fluffy gasses move and the young stars spread about.

  “He’s Saressea’s replacement,” Foster said.

  She saw his arms cross via the window’s reflection. “Me ain’t like it, Captain.”

  “That Linl Templar, Karklosea, we picked up doesn’t trust him,” she said. “Gettin’ the feelin’ we shouldn’t either since you did meet in Sirius. What’s the story behind that?”

  “Met him in the years following the disappearance of the Carl Sagan and Abyssal Sword.”

  Bailey was part of the Carl Sagan’s crew but had been planetside when it vanished. He was the only member that never disappeared and suffered memory loss. During the sixty-eight-year gap, he received gene therapy, but refused HNI and spent his time living in the Sirius system, periodically going on decades-long spiritual travels with the Poniga on New Babylon.

  Bailey meeting Jainuzei during that time was a big deal.

  “So, he was in Sirius during our blackout years?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “And kept bad company with him.”

  She grimaced at that thought. “Radiance said he was a sleep-in.”

  He shrugged. “I found him sleeping in a Poniga village on my travels. Didn’t think anything at first, until I realized it was impossible for Radiance to be in Sirius.”

  “What year was it?”

  “Twenty sixty-eight if memory serves me correct.”

  Foster had spent a lot of her off hours catching up on what happened in the galaxy when they were gone. Reading up on the fate of Sirius was one of the first articles she fed her thoughts. It was, after all, at the time, the most remote human colony and expedition, one she was in command of, though Williams was the one that officially made the call to settle at Terra Nova first.

  After the Carl Sagan vanished with her and everyone else aboard, the UNE returned with a small fleet of ships to search for it and assist the colonists who were stuck with transports as a means of getting around the system. The other half of the fleet that arrived at Sirius went to construct a wormhole, adding the system to the UNE’s wormhole network.

  The Gerard Kuiper was one of those ships.

  When the wormhole came online, the first Radiance explorers arrived, searching for the Abyssal Sword, which arrived and vanished with the Carl Sagan, and to co-develop FTL technology extracted from the remains of Marduk’s forces and Tiamat’s abandoned ruins. They deposited the infamous missionaries that worked day and night to convert the Poniga, Undine, and Qirak into believing in the Radiance Gods.

  “Twenty sixty-eight is when the Sirius wormhole came online,” Foster said.

  “Radiance came through the wormhole, yes,” Bailey said. “But when I found Jainuzei it was under construction.”

  She ran the scenario in her head. Radiance needed the UNE wormhole to enter Sirius. Jainuzei was there before them. While the Sirius system did have its network of smaller wormholes built by the Lyonria, none of them were able to reach destinations beyond the system.

  Therefore.

  “Jainuzei was either in Sirius the whole time,” Foster said, and cringed as she selected her next words. “Or he arrived on one of the UNE ships.”

  “If he was there the whole time, then how? Was he aboard the Carl Sagan?”

  “Impossible, especially if what Karklosea said was true,” Foster said. “We left for Sirius in twenty thirty-three, Karklosea insists Jainuzei was present during the end of the Celestial Order wars, that and the dawn of twenty forty-one in the Barnard’s Star system. We were in cryo in the middle of interstellar space at that time. She was either wrong or . . .”

  “He came with the UNE fleet,” Bailey finished for her. “Or perhaps the Abyssal Sword?”

  “No, same deal with that ship,” she said. “The Abyssal Sword vanished from Proxima Centauri around twenty thirty-two and turned up in Sirius after we got there in twenty fifty. So yeah, he had to have snuck aboard one of the UNE ships that came to build the wormhole.”

  Jainuzei was also the one that gave the order when Foster left him in command, which resulted in the Kepler’s discovery of the Gerard Kuiper’s distress beacon, a ship that was part of the UNE fleet sent to Sirius. She kept those thoughts to herself for the time being.

  With the exception of the humming air recyclers and chatter from the mess hall behind them, there was peaceful silence, just like the nebula’s clouds and stars the two continued to gaze at.

  “You’s still standin’ here, Chef,” she said to him. “So, there’s more, ain’t it?”

  “Radiance sent missionaries on New Babylon and Meroien, tryin’ to convert the Poniga, Undine, and Qirak to their religion.”

  “UNE shut them down with the protected worlds accord.”

  “But not before they harassed the locals,” Bailey said. “They were telling them that prayer to Tiamat or Marduk was evil. When that didn’t work, they went after their pickney to poison their minds. Jainuzei was always there when the missionaries were like he was scouting for them.”

  “Scouting what? Their villages?” Foster asked. “Because those ain’t hard to find on New Babylon.”

  By rights, New Babylon was a hostile world baked by the intense heat, light, and UV radiation from Sirius. Scattered energy domes across the surface with terraformed terrain within them provided the livable conditions for the Poniga people. Just find an energy barrier dome on the surface, and there was guaranteed to be at least one Poniga village.

  “The missionaries that I saw spent most of their time speaking with Poniga that prayed to Marduk,” Bailey said. “Jainuzei, I’m sure he was looking for those villages specifically, and whenever he traveled off-world, I’m willing to bet he tried to find Marduk-loyal Undine.”

  Bailey had nothing more to report. She thanked him for the intel, and he returned to the mess, he needed to eat as well, and Foster needed to consider her next move.

  The Radiance missionaries, according to Karklosea, had a change of heart and praised Marduk, dropping the Radiance religion once they met with Marduk-loyal Poniga. From there, it looked like they secretly brought in exiles to the system to join their cause. It wasn’t hard as Sirius, at that point, would have been connected to the wormhole network. Exiles just needed to be smuggled into UNE space, and then it was a transport flight through the wormhole network. The Morutrin system, being the largest safe haven for all Radiance exiles in the galaxy, was part of that network too.
r />   Adding to that, during the colonization rush, the UNE gave a number of Radiance exiles UNE citizenship to assist in the huge demand for construction laborers to build the hundreds of new cities that were popping up on newly discovered planets, more so after FTL was made standard. Some of those exiles might have found their way to Sirius, becoming the robed gunmen and women Foster, Odelea, and Pierce were nearly killed by. Like the Terran Legion, the SOM was a threat nobody knew was growing until they made their strike.

  This is all my fault . . . Foster groaned internally.

  It was her leadership that led the Carl Sagan into conflict with Marduk when they arrived in Sirius. Once he was removed, and the Poniga and Undine that prayed to Tiamat were liberated from slavery, she saw to it that the remains of Marduk’s forces were suppressed to prevent them from continuing Marduk’s work. Apparently, enough survived and went into hiding, just to convince people from Radiance to join their cause, start a new cult, and infiltrate the Radiance Union.

  Today, New Babylon’s population views Tiamat as their almighty, and the Draconians as her divine will.

  The siege of Sirius was a Pandora’s Box. Foster opened it and misplaced the hope that was supposed to be at the bottom of the box.

  Foster really needed that Jack Daniels, now more than ever.

  She made her way to the lounge where all the booze on the ship was stored. It wasn’t far from the mess hall, and a trail of blood led right into it. Once inside the lounge Foster found Karklosea, the source of the bloody trail.

  She was in pain by the looks.

  34 Karklosea

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Hallowed Nebula, Divine Expanse

  November 2, 2118, 19:25 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  The pain in Karklosea’s body distorted her recent memories. She had forgotten the way back to the elevator, back to sickbay. Her body made it abundantly clear she needed to be there and not here. Aimless limping through the corridors of the Kepler sent her in through the sliding door to what she hoped was an elevator. It wasn’t.

  She had fallen over when she entered the room. It wasn’t until she pushed herself back up, she noted blood had been dripping out from an implant that came loose from her body. Looking behind, she saw a trail of blood leading right to her. She took some comfort in knowing that perhaps someone might follow it and help her.

  Karklosea had to look at her surroundings twice when she was back on her bare feet. The room she had entered appeared as if she was on another planet. It looked like a house made of tree logs, with windows that peered out into a boreal forest. Beyond the forest was a blue flowing river, with clear blue skies above.

  She waved her hand through a coat rack, literally right through it. The object wasn’t real, it was a hologram. The pictures on the walls, most of the decorated furniture and bookshelves, none of it was real, she was in a large holographic projection.

  There were a few things that were real, such as the leather couch she collapsed into when her body wasn’t able to take much more. Human music played over the speakers, she couldn’t understand what the singer was saying.

  She heard the sliding door open and a figure enter. Someone had followed the trail of blood. Help was on the way at last. The human voice that spoke sounded like Captain Foster, looking to the source of the voice confirmed the presence of the human woman in her blue jumpsuit uniform with short brown hair and blue glyphs on her hands. Foster spoke frantically into her wrist terminal, she hoped it was for the doctor to come.

  Odelea joined Foster first. The Aryile girl looked at Karklosea, holding her hands over her mouth in sheer panic and terror before rushing to her. For a moment, she thought Foster had called Odelea over the doctor. It wasn’t until Karklosea smelt the scent of apples from Odelea’s mouth was when she realized she had probably arrived from the mess hall which wasn’t far.

  Kostelecky did show up a moment later and quickly examined her utilizing a med kit that was stored on the wall. The doctor spoke some human words to Odelea and Foster, then ran out, likely to grab medical tools from the deck below.

  Foster spoke next to Odelea, she translated for Karklosea. “The captain and doctor aren’t pleased to see you here.”

  “I had to speak with the Muodiry,” Karklosea said. “At the time, I couldn’t believe you allowed him aboard and to walk freely.”

  “He’s saved us many times,” Odelea said. “Regardless what the ancient texts say, Tolukei is allied with the Gods.”

  Karklosea examined the layout of the holograms around her, reminding herself she was still on the Kepler, not a log cabin on Earth. “This projection is very convincing,” she said.

  “This is the lounge,” Odelea explained. “There’s an option to dress it with holograms like this. It’s used by the crew when they wish to forget they’re aboard this ship. As I recall, both Miles and Doctor Pierce use this particular layout to make them feel as though they are back in a region of Earth called Canada. None of it is real, however. Take care to not walk too far, or you’ll run into the lounge’s walls or the bar counter.”

  A lounge that could create the illusion you’re not aboard the ship. She liked the concept. A sense of normalcy when one was imprisoned within the three decks of this ship, making long voyages across the stars, waiting in orbit, or stuck on a planet with a hostile environment.

  Foster spoke to Odelea again.

  “What does she want?” Karklosea asked Odelea.

  “She wants to know why you left sickbay.”

  Karklosea snorted. “Let her keep guessing.”

  “And.” Foster pulled out a bloodstained data crystal from her pocket. “She wants to know why Jainuzei is interested in that.”

  There was only one data crystal Jainuzei and Karklosea were aware of, and he would want to know. The one she took from the Soldiers of Marduk’s camp on Aervounis. It was on her when she last checked, stored in the storage compartments of her armor . . . which lay in pieces in the corner of sickbay.

  Foster took it, and she knew of the contents. If she was the smart captain Karklosea hoped she was, she wouldn’t have shown it to Jainuzei.

  “I found that at the Soldiers of Marduk camp,” Karklosea said. “I never got the chance to see what was on it.”

  The captain of the Kepler inserted the crystal into her wrist terminal. A small holographic projection floated above her wrist, she moved closer for Karklosea to view it.

  “I browsed through a copy of it recently,” Odelea said, looking at the projection of a dazzling nebula. “It’s a detailed map of the Hallowed Nebula within the Divine Expanse.”

  “The Divine Expanse . . .”

  Odelea nodded, pointing at a red dot within the center of it. “There’s an object labeled Kur—”

  “As I said, I don’t know,” Karklosea cut in. “But if the Soldiers of Marduk are drawing maps of it, then there’s something of importance to them there. That region hasn’t been heavily guarded since the ceasefire with the Empire.”

  “We’re also currently in the Hallowed Nebula,” Odelea said.

  Karklosea forgot she was in pain briefly when she heard her words. “You can’t be serious?” she asked. Odelea nodded and briefly explained how the Kepler arrived in it. “May Livie be merciful to us with his divine cock.”

  “What about Jainuzei and his interest with the data crystal?” Odelea asked for Foster.

  “He saw me take it. That was it. Given what I discovered, he might know more and is keeping it a secret. He’s already proven himself to be a man that withholds important details.”

  “He’s also the new liaison officer.”

  “Oh, my Gods . . .” Karklosea wanted to facepalm but knew it would hurt too much to raise her arm. “Is he here? Now?”

  “Yes,” Odelea said with a grimacing glare.

  “Does he know we have this data?”

  “He’s asked Foster for it, she lied about having it.”

  “Keep it from him at all costs.” Karklosea sighed, releasin
g the tension that had been building up in her. “Whatever this Kur is, he must want it. Maybe that’s why he’s been a nemesis to the cult. Us being in the nebula now will only make it easier for him to get it.”

  Odelea and Foster spoke together in the human tongue. Odelea turned to face Karklosea. “Foster understands,” she said. “She wants to know if it would be wise to inform the council—”

  “No!” Karklosea roared, maybe a little too loud, her chest flared up in pain. After coughing rapidly, she finished, saying. “Jainuzei is the liaison officer, remember? They might confirm with him, it’s too risky. Nobody must know, except us.” She wanted to say more until her HNI sent her warnings about the state of her cybernetics. “Ugh, my implants will be the death of me unless they get repaired.”

  “We can have EVE take a look at them.”

  “No, these were custom made since my body was heavily augmented with the older models.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember those, they were quite bulky,” Odelea said. “Where can we take you, then?”

  “Wenadei,” she said after a pause. It’d been ages since the two spoke. “He’s a cybernetic specialist, the only one in the Union that can tend to them and anyone else that received his upgrades.”

  Odelea ran her hands through the waves of her burgundy hair. When she reached the back of her head, the Aryile girl smiled. “Does he specialize in cybernetics that doesn’t require HNI?”

  “Yes, he also—”

  Odelea leaped up and down before the captain, speaking happily to her in human words. Foster smiled at whatever it was Odelea told her and then spoke into her wrist terminal after shutting down the hologram of the Hallowed Nebula.

  “We have a wounded member aboard that needs this doctor,” Odelea said. “Can you show us the way?”

  Using her HNI, Karklosea conjured the location in question via a holo screen and pushed it floating to Odelea. She slid the holo window into her head, acquiring the new data.

  “He’s on my homeworld, Pria,” Karklosea said. “Have you been there?”

  “Not recently,” Odelea said as she sent the location to Foster’s wrist terminal. “Foster will have us en route once we find a means to leave the nebula.”