Lunar Crisis: Age of Expansion - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Shadow Vanguard Book 2)

by Tom Dublin

  Before long, the temple was awash with beeps. After a few moments the golden platters reached the far ends of the benches, where more wardens were waiting to retrieve them and spirit the digital collections away.

  Jolio Phisk waited until the room fell silent, then swept the congregation with an accusing stare.

  "All present here today are thankful for the Goddess Persha's constant presence in our lives and of the joyous judgment she so gracefully bestows upon us."

  The faithful bowed their heads as one.

  The High Priest paused for a second before continuing in a darker, more malevolent tone. "She is aware that there are sinners among us. She is ready to judge."

  Heads remained bowed throughout the temple.

  "Let those who can identify a sinner speak now, on pain of punishment."

  Swiftly, the entire congregation lifted their heads and looked around the room, studying loved ones and strangers alike.

  Hushed whispers and quietly muttered conversations echoed from the vaulted ceiling high above.

  Then, slowly and hesitantly, a man in the fourth row raised his hand. He cleared his throat and spoke as if reluctantly revealing some precious secret. "My wife..."

  He paused to throw a brief glance toward the suddenly horrified woman on his left. "My wife took the Goddess Persha's name in vain when she forgot to check on the dinner she was cooking and everything burned."

  A collective gasp rose around the temple. The worshippers were very aware of the punishment for cursing with either deity's name.

  "Bring her forward," Phisk commanded.

  Blinking away the sweat dripping into his eyes from his forehead, the man grabbed his wife's hand and pulled her to her feet.

  "No, Corlon, please! No!" she begged as people farther along the pew tucked in their legs to allow the couple to pass. "Please, Corlon. You know I didn't mean it. I was just disappointed I'd ruined our special meal, is all. I love you, sweetheart."

  After dragging his wife into the aisle, the man glanced at Jolio Phisk. When he turned back to face his wife, his expression had changed. It was softer, more loving, and full of regret.

  "Merfel," he said, "I can't—"

  "Bring her forward!" Phisk repeated.

  Nodding, Corlon found his confidence once more. He tightened his grip on his wife's wrist and led her up to the front of the temple. There she sank to her knees, tears streaming down her face.

  Her husband released his grip and stepped back a few paces, leaving his wife to face Persha's glorious judgment alone.

  "Name?" demanded the High Priest.

  "M-merfel Strumm," stammered the woman. "But Corlon—my husband—he's wrong, sir. I really didn't—”

  "Silence!"

  "Did you take the Goddess Persha's name in vain?"

  "Please, sir, I was only—”

  "Did you take the Goddess's name in vain, yes or no?"

  "Yes, but—”

  "Then I shall pray for you."

  Phisk closed his eyes and lifted his face to the ceiling. "Glorious Persha, gift this unworthy disciple, Merfel Strumm, with your divine judgment through me, your humble servant."

  Merfel gazed at the High Priest through her tears, trying hard to ignore her husband’s sobs from behind her.

  After a moment, Jolio Phisk opened his eyes again and looked down at the terrified woman. "The Goddess Persha has spoken."

  The congregation held its collective breath.

  "She has kindly judged that you are to be delivered to her sister, the Goddess Hann," finished Phisk as he withdrew a long golden knife from beneath his robes. The blade glinted in the sunlight streaming through the high stained-glass windows.

  "NO!" screamed Merfel. "Please, no!"

  Phisk was unmoved by her desperate cries for mercy. "Take the Dagger of Hann!" he commanded, flipping the knife in the air and deftly catching the blade between his fingertips.

  The woman stretched up a hand and grasped the cold metal handle with trembling fingers.

  Merfel Strumm looked at the High Priest for further instruction, although as a regular churchgoer she already knew what she had to do.

  All Jolio Phisk had to say was, "You have been judged."

  Nodding, Merfel wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and tore open the front of her shirt, the buttons audibly scattering across the marble floor in the imposing silence of the temple.

  She tugged the shirt from her shoulders, baring her ample breasts. Then, pressing the tip of the dagger over the upper left side of her chest, she spoke out loud.

  "I offer my thanks to the great Goddess Persha for my holy judgment and entrust my soul to the Goddess Hann and unbridled pleasure for all eternity."

  She plunged the dagger deep into her heart.

  "NO!" cried Corlon Strumm, but it was too late.

  Jolio Phisk watched as the sinner before him fell to her side, the knife still protruding from her chest, her heavy right breast almost obscuring the handle.

  Two more wardens dashed out of a side door and grabbed the dead woman beneath her arms. Without a word, they dragged her across the polished stone floor and back toward the room from which they had appeared.

  Jolio Phisk didn't look at them or even glance at where concerned parishioners were doing their best to console Corlon Strumm. His body was wracked with violent, harrowing sobs.

  "The service is at an end," Phisk pronounced, holding his hands high in the air, palms forward. "Go forth from this place and spread the word that all shall be judged and endure eternal pleasure in the company of the Goddess Hann.

  "This is the proclamation of Persha."

  "Blessed is the Goddess Persha," responded the congregation, then they began to gather their belongings and ready themselves to leave the temple.

  The High Priest watched his flock for a moment, then, with a bow toward the altar, he stepped down from the raised platform and made for the side exit. He took care not to tread in the still-moist trail of blood.

  Once inside the room, Phisk removed his robes and hung them on the closest of a row of hooks attached to the wall.

  Turning, he looked down at the body of Merfel Strumm. The female lay on her back in a plain wooden casket, the golden dagger still embedded in her chest.

  "Do you think she really did it?" asked a voice. "Did she blaspheme?"

  Phisk looked up to find his deputy Dabriel Yagash standing before him. The shorter man was holding a small and ornate golden casket in his hands, its heavily-decorated lid open.

  "Who knows?" replied Phisk with a shrug. He gripped the handle of the knife and pulled it free with a visceral schlupp. "Her husband said she did."

  He handed the weapon to Dabriel, who winced as he took it. Placing it carefully inside the casket without cleaning the blade, he closed the lid and set the golden box aside.

  Turning back, his eyes flicked toward the female’s corpse, his expression grim.

  "How did we do with today's donations?" Phisk asked, pulling Dabriel from his reverie.

  Dabriel snatched the top tray from a large stack beneath the window and produced a card similar to those used by the worshippers. He pressed it to the metallic surface.

  After a beep, the surface of the tray rippled like a still pond after a stone was dropped into it. A number written in swirling black figures shimmered into view as the disturbance calmed.

  Dabriel raised his eyebrows. "Very well indeed, sire. 120,307 credits from today's service alone. That makes just under half a million credits overall this past week."

  Phisk produced a card of his own from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it out.

  "Sire," began Dabriel, "I must protest. You can't really expect me to—”

  "I do believe the seasons are changing," interrupted the High Priest, locking eyes with his subordinate. "Which means young Hamble's birthday is approaching, does it not?"

  An icy chill ran through Dabriel. "Indeed, your worship."

  "How old will she be this time arou
nd? Six years old? Seven?"

  "Eight, sire." Dabriel’s mouth was suddenly dry.

  "Eight!" exclaimed Phisk. "My goodness, Dabriel. How quickly they grow. We must pray to the Goddess Persha for her protection, mustn't we?" He waved the card at his subordinate.

  "Yes, sire," said Dabriel with a deep sigh. "We must."

  Taking the card, he pressed it against the tray. After another beep the figure on display was zero.

  "May I inquire what your plan is for this money, your worship?" asked Dabriel. "I know there is good work being done in the township of Forlium, where volunteers are building a new shelter for the homeless. And, of course, the city's soup kitchens are in dire need of a cash injection."

  Jolio Phisk nodded. "Both very worthy causes."

  "Indeed, sire."

  "Please offer both charities my best wishes in finding a donor," Phisk told him, holding his hand out for the card.

  "Of course, sire." Dabriel tried to hide his disappointment as he laid the card on Phisk's waiting palm. "And where may I contact you, should they respond to your kind words?"

  The High Priest tucked the card into his pocket and reached for an expensive overcoat and hat hanging beside his church vestments. "Today's distressing events have left me spiritually drained," he replied, making for a door marked PRIVATE at the back of the room. "I shall need time to reflect and pray to the Goddess for her divine guidance."

  "Indeed, your worship."

  Phisk nodded. "I'll be on the Moon of Hann, at the Blue Diamond Casino."

  Dabriel lowered his eyes. "Of course, sire."

  The High Priest paused in the doorway to glance at the corpse of Merfel Strumm. "And ship that thing to the usual place, will you? I want it gone by the time I return."

  Moon of Persha, Highway B78

  Trace Byrn sat in the back seat of the taxi and watched the desolate gray landscape rush by. She checked her watch for the third time in as many minutes, confirming what she already knew.

  In fifteen minutes' time she would be arriving at the gates of the maximum-security prison.

  This was the first time she had visited the Moon of Persha. In fact she'd only been off-world once, when her school class had taken a trip to a nature preserve on the moon's sister satellite.

  Today's excursion was for a very different reason indeed. Trace was here to meet her fiancé for the very first time.

  She had found Vimor Malfic through a lonely-hearts ad in the back of her favorite celebrity gossip magazine. The ad had been placed in a section where convicted felons could request letters and gifts from pen pals across the planet.

  Trace always scanned the ads, laughing as she pictured the type of sad, lonely reader who would be desperate enough to strike up a friendship—and possibly more—with someone locked up in a jail cell.

  And then she'd seen his photograph.

  She could tell he was big, even from a poorly-printed black-and-white snapshot taken from the chest up. His forearms bulged against the taut material of his regulation prison shirt, shoulders too wide to be contained within the pulse-quickening image.

  Thick curled hair hung around his face, the dark tresses almost begging to have her perfectly manicured fingers brush through them. Due to the low resolution of the grainy image it was difficult to tell where his hair ended and the beard began, not that she really cared that much.

  Not since she had looked into those eyes.

  They should have been as dark and brooding as the rest of his funereal features, but instead they were pale pools of perfectly pure pleasure. She imagined they were a bright vivid blue, as sparkling as they were clear. They threatened to hypnotize her. To burn deep into her soul, capture her heart, and devour it whole.

  And she wanted to be devoured.

  Her first letter in response to the ad had been short and guarded. He had requested friendship with a view to something more, so she had been friendly. She'd told him a little about herself: where she had grown up, what she did for a living, and what she liked to do in her spare time…but then her writing had stalled.

  What could she possibly ask Malfic about? Her research told her that he had been convicted on five counts of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

  If Taglen hadn't repealed the death sentence a decade earlier, he would now be providing nutrients for the trees growing among the unmarked graves in the prison cemetery located on the uninhabited side of the moon.

  She couldn't inquire after his career or hobbies, and she certainly didn't want to ask about his past—although there was a nagging voice at the back of her mind that wanted to know every gory detail about the crimes he had committed.

  Shaking herself free of such despicable desires, she had asked after his health, whether he enjoyed reading and what his favorite books were, and how often he managed to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.

  His reply had been swift and wonderful. Vimor Malfic's letters were long, detailed, and crafted to provoke feelings of boundless hope and love in ways she could never have imagined.

  He was a poet.

  Trace had read his beautiful words over and over and her heart had soared. He had sent her a photograph to replace the coarse image she had clipped from the magazine, and yes, his eyes were blue—a brilliant sapphire blue that caused her to hear the angels sing.

  She had written to him again and again, tucking pictures of her own into the envelopes before mailing her missives to the penitentiary. She had included several she had taken with the help of a timer, rose petals and revealing lingerie.

  She knew the guards would check each letter as they arrived, but she didn't care. Let them get a few moments of titillation from her snapshots. All that mattered was that they safely reached her mighty man.

  After almost three months of sensuous correspondence, the moment she had been waiting for arrived. Vimor's latest letter had asked if she would visit him in prison after doing him a small favor.

  She had danced around her apartment at that, letter clutched to her chest as she tried to imagine that first embrace. The feeling as his big, thick arms wrapped around her slender frame.

  Trace had replied the very same day. Of course she would visit, she had promised. And, as for the favor, she would do anything for her guy. Anything at all. It would be her pleasure.

  She had to admit that she had been taken aback when Malfic's next love note had detailed how she could find the illegal backstreet chip manufacturer who could manufacture what he needed.

  3

  ICS Fortitude, Bridge

  Jack clung to the sides of his seat while the Fortitude banked hard to the right . There was a clearly audible hisssss as the heat-seeking rocket on the tail sped by, becoming visible on the forward viewscreens as it turned in the air for a second try at destroying them.

  "Solo!" shouted Jack over the noise of the ship's bow-thrusters working overtime. "What are the odds of us avoiding this twatting rocket?"

  Her face appeared on the screens around the bridge. "The odds, Captain Marber?" she asked with a frown. "Isn’t this an inopportune moment to take up gambling?"

  "I meant the scientific odds!" Jack retorted, leaning hard to his right as the ship heeled violently to port to avoid another heat-provoked assault. "I want to know our chances of making it out of this alive!"

  "Ah, understood, Captain," Solo responded. "From what I can ascertain, the software controlling the missile is studying our evasive maneuvers and adapting its own movements to try to counter them. As such, I predict our chances are around eighty-two percent."

  "That's not bad," Tc'aarlat commented with a dark smile. "An eighty-two percent chance we'll survive is pretty good."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," said Solo. "I thought you meant the chances of us being blasted into billions of individual atoms. That is the outcome I was predicting with the figure of eighty-two percent."

  Tc'aarlat's eyes grew wide. "You mean the odds of us not dying are only eighteen percent?"

  "
That is correct," replied Solo. "And please accept my congratulations on the speed at which you calculated that figure."

  "My brain works faster when it learns it has just two minutes left in one piece!" the Yollin barked.

  "That conclusion is, however, incorrect," Solo told him calmly. "We passed the two-minute mark a little over ninety seconds ago."

  "We've got thirty seconds left to live?" exclaimed Jack. "Why didn't you tell us?"

  Solo adopted a serious expression. "I didn't want to worry you, Captain."

  Jack ignored the excuse and hit the button that would allow him to talk over the speaker system in the cargo hold. "Adina, get the kids away from the sides of the ship and brace for impact!"

  Tc'aarlat snatched Mist from her perch.

  SKAWWW!

  He clutched the bird tightly to his chest, leaned forward in an effort to protect her with his exoskeleton, and cried, "Good luck!"

  "Thanks!" said Jack from the pilot's seat.

  Tc'aarlat glanced in his direction. "Yeah, you too."

  This time it was Jack's eyes that widened. "You were talking to your fucking bird?"

  "Hey, I've known her a lot longer than—”

  Solo's voice interrupted their conversation. "Missile impact in five, four, three—"

  A huge explosion rocked the entire ship. Jack and Tc'aarlat covered their heads with their arms as the screams of terrified children echoed along the corridors.

  After a moment Jack opened his eyes again. "We made it," he breathed. "We're still alive!"

  "Solo!" croaked Tc'aarlat, "what happened? Did the missile hit us?"

  "It did not," Solo responded. "My sensors show it was shot out of the air less than a few hundred meters behind our main engines."

  "Shot out of the air?" repeated Jack. "Who's responsible for that?"

  "That would be me!" announced an unfamiliar voice over the comm. "You can thank me in person once I've docked in your rear hangar bay."