Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 19
Ereshkigal floated upward and positioned her body as if she were sitting on an invisible chair in the air. Behind, her throne chair dematerialized into atoms and rematerialized below her. She sat on her floating chair again and crossed her legs, grinning at Tetsuya.
Tetsuya’s leg started shaking as the dead man sat up. He was certain his face had gone pale too.
Now her psionic powers had impressed him. Worried him.
“Impressed?” Ereshkigal said.
Jainuzei examined his hands then touched his face free of radiation burns. “Of course,” he said. “Your divine miracles always impress me—”
“I was talking to your apprentice, Jainuzei.”
Jainuzei and Ereshkigal eyed Tetsuya.
“Well?” Ereshkigal asked Tetsuya. “Are you impressed? Are you convinced that I am indeed who I claim to be?”
Tetsuya took a couple of steps backward. “What the fuck happened?!”
“She performed a miracle known as the call forward,” Jainuzei said. “Who else but a Goddess could do that? This is why I fear nothing now. Nothing can kill me so long as I pray to the Goddess Empress.”
Ereshkigal’s floating chair hovered before Tetsuya. It approached so close that she reached out and lifted his chin with her index finger, forcing his eyes to peer into hers. It took a lot not to gawk at the pink nipples on her breasts. Her perfume was intoxicating as with her black cosmetics adorning her eyes and lips.
She cocked her gaze to the left, then right, wincing. “You look confused, my child.”
“You can bring people back from the dead just like that?” Tetsuya said.
He had assumed that Ereshkigal’s cult possessed advanced medical technology that could heal and resuscitate someone suffering from what would have been fatal injuries. Using psionic powers to straight up resurrect someone regardless of how they died was a scenario he didn’t consider.
“I do not bring people back from the dead,” she said. “I call them forward so that they may continue serving me. It is a simple task so long as I have their engram.”
“Engram?”
“The consciousness of the deceased.” Ereshkigal pointed at the pods on the wall, one of the hundreds, maybe even thousands. “Each of these containment fields host an engram. Everyone who dies becomes a part of my collection as an engram.”
“Everyone?” he asked, limbs still trembling. “Are you fucking serious?!”
“Yes.” Ereshkigal pulled her soft finger away from his chin, and her chair floated to the wall. She extended her left hand to the side and curled the index finger into a “come with me” gesture. Tetsuya stood beside her throne chair as she waved her right arm in a presenting manner to the pods.
“Of course,” Ereshkigal continued, “these aren’t the engrams of every soul who has died. I have many chambers that house engrams. These engrams here are simply from the souls who died that I have taken great interest in.” She pointed ahead. “That is the engram for Genghis Khan, and this engram over here? I believe that is Albert Einstein. Winston Churchill is behind us.” She opened her palm as a glowing white sphere floated on it. She brought the orb to her face with a grin. “This is Joseph Stalin.” Her psionic powers floated the engram back into its storage pod as she pointed to another tube above. “George III, and right over here.” She glared at a tube toward the floor. “This is Adolph Hitler.” Ereshkigal’s floating chair rotated and faced Tetsuya. “And these are just a few of my Earth-based engrams. On the rack above the entrance are Hashmedai engrams, and the one above that is for Javnis ones. The collection goes on.”
“So when you perform this call forward, what exactly happens?” Tetsuya asked.
“I repair the damage done to the body,” she explained. “And if we cannot recover the body, and should I have their gene map, I can recreate their body as a clone. After that, I return the engram to the deceased or clone and . . .” She waved to Jainuzei. “Restore them back to what they once were.”
Tetsuya eyed the wall ahead, the one behind, the one in the darkest part of her chamber, and the one where the exit was. The shelves with engram containment pods covered every inch of the wall.
“How do the engrams get here?”
“During death, the mind of the deceased enters aether space,” Ereshkigal said. “Once there, Kur can create a small passageway to it, where specially designed engram collectors harvest the engrams of the departed and bring them to the many containment pods here.”
“Not everyone who dies ends up here then,” he said, his eyes still examining the tubes.
“If my collectors do not capture their engram, then no, they are lost to aether space.”
“Is this what you did to me?” Tetsuya said, turning to face her. “Did . . . did I die, and you scooped up my engram from aether space?”
Ereshkigal rested her chin on her clenched fist and grinned at him with narrowed eyes.
“This is why we cannot lose,” Jainuzei said. “When our soldiers fall in battle, there is a chance Ereshkigal can call them forward.”
“Provided I have their engram and a body that can be healed,” Ereshkigal said. “Again, if I do not have a body, then I must construct a new one with the gene map we have on file. And that takes time.”
“Or have a body to serve as a host,” Tetsuya said. “Byikanea is not your original body.”
“This is true.” Ereshkigal nodded to him. “The engram just needs to be planted in a host. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the body of the one they perished in. There is one caveat, however. Psionic engrams must be placed in a psionic body that is almost as strong. Placing a psionic’s engram into a host that does not have psionic potential or a host with a weaker psionic mind will cause reactions that could lead to insanity. This is why I never offered to call my beloved consort Nergal forward and never will.” An evil grin stretched across her porcelain face. “I have no hosts with a brain capable of handling his power, and I do not possess his gene map, making it impossible to recreate his body.”
“So Byikanea’s body and mind were as strong as your original body?” Tetsuya asked her.
“Almost. The modifications Marduk’s cult made to Byikanea’s mind make her a close candidate. But no, Byikanea is not as powerful as my original form, just close enough that I can resist . . . a few of the drawbacks.”
Tetsuya wasn’t convinced. The way Ereshkigal laughed and looked at him . . . Ereshkigal wasn’t connected in the head. Byikanea’s mind and Ereshkigal’s engram had some minor incompatibility issues that she was desperately trying to push back. On a good note, that meant that Ereshkigal wasn’t as powerful as before. Her psionic powers were limited until she found a way to strengthen the mind of the host she took. Or find the gene map of her original body and recreate it, though he doubted that was an option. If so, then Ereshkigal would have done it already, and locating the remains of her original body would be pointless. DNA decayed over time, depending on how it was preserved. He assumed Ereshkigal’s death was sudden and violent during the war between Tiamat and Marduk or perhaps during the war’s aftermath. All that happened several thousand years ago, more than enough time for her DNA to deteriorate.
“Speaking of bodies,” Jainuzei said. “As of now, many bodies are piling up on the streets of the planet below. Bodies of the infidels who will not be called forward. We can repair their corpses and use them as hosts for our fallen warriors who don’t have gene maps on file.”
Tetsuya backed away from the two. They officially scared him shitless. “Am I still needed here?”
“You may leave,” Ereshkigal said. She never stopped smiling at him. “But do not forget what you have seen. I can call the deceased Hashmedai woman forward. The one with the blue hair you cared so much for. But . . .”
“I need to be the general for your future army,” Tetsuya finished for her.
“Right,” Jainuzei said. “The call forward can restore her. I suppose Ereshkigal could restore some of the dead Hashmedai below as well, provided they accept their place as devoted worshippers to our cause and aid us in constructing a better galaxy.”
Tetsuya spun around, found the exit, and darted out of the chamber.
Gilgamesh
High Apolnar Orbit, Uelaria System
September 21, 2121, 20:12 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Tetsuya returned to the Gilgamesh and entered his sleeping quarters. There was a bed on the wall and a table and chair on the opposite side of the room. It reminded him of his bedroom closet when he was a kid. It was that small. He pulled his laptop out from his bag on the table, opened it, and gasped. The laptop loaded the movie he and Pernoy watched before everything went to hell and resumed playing from where they had left it. The movie’s rolling end credits. He couldn’t bring himself to turn it off and minimized it.
From there, he used the laptop to send a message to the Marauder and hoped they would receive it in time. The message was just one line: stay away from the Uelaria system. Attached to the message was a data file he was supposed to deliver to his crew about some derelict ship he found in space.
He winced. Before hitting the send button, Tetsuya added one more line. Jainuzei and Alisha are alive. He deleted that part. Mentioning Jainuzei and Alisha being alive would just encourage his crew to ignore his warning. He opted to send the warning not to come along with the file attachment and hoped they stayed away. The alien entity, Ereshkigal, who possessed the body of the former Radiance councilwoman, had tapped into a level of science, technology, and psionic power that made everything around her look like magic.
“May I come in?”
Alisha stood at the door, grinning at him. Tetsuya shut the laptop quickly and was 90% sure the message hadn’t been sent. And he was 100% sure if Alisha saw what he was typing, she’d have his ass thrown out of an airlock.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said. “I mean, you already walked in here.”
She approached him, gesturing to the laptop. “What do you have there?”
Fuck, I’m doomed. “Just entertainment from Earth.”
“Oh?” A grin. “Can I see? I haven’t seen anything from Earth in ages. Could go for a movie right now or some music.”
He spun away from Alisha, hoping to hide the sweat that gushed down his forehead. “Well, let me recharge it first. Its batteries are about to die. That’s why I shut it just now.”
“Ah. Okay, fair enough.”
Alisha didn’t leave, and he had a feeling she was sticking around to see if he would charge it. Or worse, ask to watch a movie with him while the laptop was charging. He needed a topic change, and fast.
“Hey, so,” he said.
“Yes?”
“What happens now that the Johannes Kepler sucker punched us and escaped?” he said. “This looks like it’s going to be a major setback.”
“Not so.” Alisha crossed her arms. “The Johannes Kepler escaping was part of the plan. Foster’s resolve still needs to be weakened, which I am confident will happen soon. You and my husband boarding the Johannes Kepler have likely set that in motion.”
“You sure about that? Sounds to me like Foster is ready to fight until the end.”
“Ereshkigal’s predictions always come true. Everything She plans, as odd as it may seem, is for a reason.”
“If it’s all part of the plan, why doesn’t she just explain everything?”
“Have faith. Ereshkigal has never let us down. Everything is going according to plan . . . We’re slowly breaking Foster by doing things like this. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Enlighten me.” Now he was the one crossing his arms. The conversation was getting interesting. And the best part? Alisha seemed less interested in his laptop.
“Well. Jai is alive again, right?” Alisha said. She leaned closer to him. “Just imagine the look on Foster’s face when she realizes she is facing an opponent who will always receive Ereshkigal’s call forward. Jai can’t die. You can’t die, and neither can I. Foster can destroy us over and over all she wants, but Ereshkigal will call us forward to continue our campaign and issue us a new ship. What would you do if you faced someone like that in a war?”
“Lose my shit . . .”
Alisha chuckled. “Exactly. People who lose their shit lose their control over a situation.”
23 FOSTER
XSV Johannes Kepler
Omega Centauri Interstellar Space
September 22, 2121, 17:19 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The Johannes Kepler had been in FTL for a day, destination: who the hell knew where. They had no place to go. They couldn’t return to Earth, Earth-controlled space, Amicitia Station 14, Radiance space, or Imperial space. Foster didn’t want to risk returning to the Hashmedai colonists of Luictoura’s Voyage out of risk of leading Ereshkigal there, so Chang picked a random location and went with it.
Nobody had shot at the Kepler since then.
The downtime gave Saressea and Rivera time to make repairs and Chef Demarion Bailey to cook comfort food to soothe the crew’s rattled nerves. Bailey wasn’t happy to learn that Jainuzei was involved when he talked to Foster to confirm it. The chef grinned, having learned that he spaced himself, though he then frowned when Foster told him Jainuzei claimed to have died already and that Ereshkigal simply brought him back. It’d explain why Kur stayed and why Jainuzei spaced himself.
Once EVE confirmed that the Johannes Kepler was in the clear for a second time, Foster called a meeting with the crew. They had a lot to discuss.
LeBoeuf entered the briefing room last and staggered to a chair. Her flushed face and frizzled hair had seen better days. Foster started the meeting by recapping what Jainuzei had told her when they talked privately in her office.
“And then he spaced himself . . .” Williams said, folding his hands together.
“More and more, I’m starting to believe that this really is Ereshkigal we’re dealing with,” Chevallier said.
Foster sighed. “Was afraid you say that.”
Chevallier continued. “We’ve encountered Marduk, Nergal, and almost met a resurrected Tiamat, so it’s safe to say the ancient Sumerian goddess Ereshkigal is also real, and probably others from myth.”
“I’m not quite versed in Sumerian myth,” Maxwell said.
“According to legend,” Pierce explained. “Ereshkigal was the goddess of the underworld known as Kur, where the souls of the dead ended up.”
Maxwell raised his eyebrow at Pierce and crossed his arms. “So, she’s the female version of Satan?”
“Not quite,” Pierce replied, “as Kur was a place for everyone who died, regardless of if they were good or evil. Some argue that the stories of Kur served as the inspiration for the afterlife featured in various cultures on Earth as time went on.”
“I’m assuming, like Tiamat, Marduk, Nergal, and probably others, Ereshkigal was a psionic alien who visited Earth during ancient times,” Rivera said.
“That would be my assumption,” Pierce said to her. “As we learned from the Hallowed Nebula incident, and just recently, Kur exists. Only it’s not the underworld but rather an ancient starship, likely a repository for engrams of those who died, like Tiamat, Marduk, and Alisha’s daughter.”
“Hmm.” Odelea rubbed her chin. “Ancient humans must have heard about Ereshkigal’s ship and its ability to somehow collect engrams from those who died.”
Pierce went on, and the team listened closely. “But since humans back then couldn’t grasp the concept of starships, the story of Kur being a ship of the dead became the underworld of the dead. As time went on, stories of Ereshkigal and Kur circled around the globe, but the message changed just like how messages changed when we all played that telephone game as a kid.”
“Kur simply became the afterlife that matched whatever belief system you were brought up in,” Williams added.
“And Ereshkigal’s persona changed as well,” Pierce said. “The ancient Greeks, for example, referred to Ereshkigal as Hecate, the daughter of Asteria.”
Foster narrowed her eyes and put it all together. “And then, somewhere down the line, Ereshkigal died, and her engram ended up on Kur.”
“And with her no longer in command of Kur, it drifted into the Hallowed Nebula,” Pierce said.
“Or perhaps our Gods did it?” Odelea added. “The Hallowed Nebula is part of the Divine Expanse, the home of our Gods. Perhaps they tried to assist Kur and pulled it into the nebula?”
Odelea never failed to surprise Foster. Science-minded one moment and fully supportive of the Radiance Gods the next. Though, if the aliens that claimed to be Radiance Gods had intervened, it would explain why Kur drifted to the center of the Hallowed Nebula of all places. Kur sure as hell wasn’t home to the Radiance Gods and couldn’t be, since the legends of Radiance Gods predated Babylon and the stories of Ereshkigal by several thousand years.
Foster kept that to herself. She didn’t want to offend Saressea, Odelea, and Tolukei’s beliefs.
“Byikanea didn’t meet her end when we fought in the nebula,” Foster said. “She came in contact with Ereshkigal’s engram, and the consciousness of the psionic alien within it took control of her body.”
“I’d still like to know exactly how engrams end up on Kur?” Saressea asked. “Especially if it’s been lost in the nebula for thousands of years.”
“Hmm, as I recall, Empress Kroshka of the Hashmedai Empire wrote a book about an alternative plane of existence called aether space,” Pierce said. “She claimed to have been able to use her psionic powers to astral project into that world and speak with the dead. Kroshka had always insisted that her book was nonfiction, despite many claiming it was fiction based on reality. But . . . if there is truth to what the Hashmedai empress experienced, then maybe, just maybe, that’s how Kur is doing it. When you die, your consciousness falls into aether space, where Kur, using a psionic device, pulls them onto the ship and converts them to engrams.”
