Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 9
Frovayn’s team confirmed they planned to look at the computer console Peiun’s team brought aboard . . . after finishing repairs. Fair enough, the operation of the ship came first. While the medical team studied the Draconian blood and tissue samples brought back, Peiun retreated to his office, took a seat, then groaned. His body still ached. A holo screen appeared, listing various notes about his mission to find targets important to the empress. One was a human named Jazz, another was the bastard prince to the Imperial throne, plus one other essential individual. Somewhere in Omega Centauri were those individuals, and it was his job to deliver them to the empress.
And only the empress. Not the emperor.
The thought distracted him from organizing his notes. Because of the growing schism between the empress and emperor, a schism grew within the navy. It was the recipe for an all-out civil war. He wondered if completing the empress’s mission would quell the conflict or make it worse.
Alesyna entered his office, stepped forward, and allowed the sliding doors to shut behind, shutting out the bridge’s chatter and light that had entered. She said nothing at first, just moved closer to Peiun at his desk while holding a depressing frown.
“Alesyna, what is it?”
It took her half a minute to produce a reply. “I tried telepathically reaching a psionic in the empire, as you asked earlier.”
“Ah, okay, what did they reveal? How long have we been in limbo?”
“According to them, we’ve been missing for three years.”
Now Peiun shared her expression, narrowing his red, glowing eyes. “Three years . . .”
“I lost my telepathic connection with their mind afterward.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means the psionic grew too tired to use telepathy, received a sudden head injury, or was killed.”
“Three years have passed . . . Can this psionic be trusted?”
“Not sure, considering that their mind had suddenly disconnected from mine,” she said. “The psionic I communicated with seemed worried too, as if someone were hunting them.”
“A conflict had embroiled the empire in our absence?”
“It would seem so.”
Civil war. It had to have been a civil war, and Alesyna’s telepathic communication must have distracted that psionic from their surroundings at the wrong time, and it got them killed.
“Can you reach anyone from the Johannes Kepler with telepathy?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Not even via QEC?”
“No, our QEC still cannot connect to the network.”
“Well, if three years have passed, that might explain it,” he said. “The humans must have made major reconfigurations to it during our absence. Or.”
“Or?”
Peiun folded his arms and reclined his chair. “Foster’s mission is probably over. That’s why we cannot reach the Johannes Kepler. Perhaps it had been decommissioned.”
“Maybe,” Alesyna said, crossing her arms. “But that still wouldn’t explain why we cannot contact anyone in the Empire with it. Something drastically happened to the QEC network during our absence, Captain.”
10 TETSUYA
Gilgamesh
Apolnar Orbit, Uelaria System
September 14, 2121, 14:35 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Tetsuya was lying on a bed in a dark room. He hoped it was Pernoy’s bed. He hoped that the horrors he saw tearing the city of Hanti into pieces were just a dream. Especially that part about him dying. And looking at a burning stump where his arm used to be. Right, he died. It had to have been a dream since Tetsuya was conscious right now. He could hear the hum of vents on the ceiling and could touch his face. He needed to shave.
Wait.
Tetsuya touched his face with both hands. He wasn’t missing body parts, and making that realization convinced him enough that what had happened to him was just a scary nightmare. Tetsuya opened his eyes and sat up. He was naked. Fair enough. He had sex with Pernoy earlier, so waking up naked was expected. That thought kept the hope that what had transpired was a dream for a while longer. That hope died a quick death. Tetsuya couldn’t find Pernoy beside him on the bed he had awoken on—
The lights turned on suddenly, turning Tetsuya’s world white.
He had to look away from the light source. When his vision adjusted, he turned to the side and observed the room he was in. It wasn’t Pernoy’s hotel suite. It was a chamber of a strange design, its floors, walls, and ceiling made of shiny and reflective material. So shiny that he could see his dangling cock and balls on the floor’s reflection as he walked barefoot and away from the bed.
Tetsuya moved to the nearest wall, which was a dusky gold color. It became transparent like a sheet of glass when he approached it. He could peer into the neighboring room and see that it looked like the one he was in, a small chamber with a bed. One of the invading aliens was on the bed, free of its suit.
It was an Amphibian. The creatures who attacked the colony were Amphibians.
He walked to the next wall, and that too became transparent, becoming a looking glass. Pernoy lay on the bed in the room he peered into. Her pale and dead gaze faced the ceiling. Congealed blood covered Pernoy’s naked torso where her wound was. Someone was kind enough to remove the shrapnel from her belly—
“I was like you a few years ago,” a voice said from behind, Aryile accent.
Tetsuya spun away from the sight of Pernoy lying dead in the next room. He saw Jainuzei idling at the entrance to the chamber he awoke in. Jainuzei was still wearing the strange combat armor that the aliens, the Amphibians, wore during their assault. Tetsuya lowered his left hand before his cock and balls swaying about during the sudden turn.
“Dude, ever heard of knocking?” Tetsuya snorted.
“Her miracles had frightened me and my wife, Alisha,” Jainuzei continued, ignoring Tetsuya’s words, and moved closer. Tetsuya backed up until his ass cheeks pressed against the wall. It was cold as ice. “That fear did not last long once we accepted Her for what She is.”
“And who is that?”
“Why, Ereshkigal, of course.” Jainuzei stopped moving, and for that Tetsuya was grateful. “Ereshkigal called me forward to walk with the living. She did the same for my wife and countless others. Ereshkigal can do the same for your Hashmedai partner, but only if you allow me to take you under my wing as an apprentice.”
“Apprentice?” Tetsuya said, one eyebrow raised. “Why would you want me as that?”
“Because you have impressed me,” Jainuzei replied. “You bested our finest Holy Soldiers using a weapon you had never been trained to use. You had the opportunity to flee with the Hashmedai, yet you chose to sacrifice your life to save children who weren’t yours and carry this woman in your arms, hoping to find a doctor.”
“So you find me impressive because I actually give a shit about people?”
“I have battled countless Hashmedai during the War Without End, an era in Radiance’s history where we sought to exterminate the Hashmedai from existence,” Jainuzei said. “I have been to countless worlds to battle their kind and defended many Radiance worlds from their counterattacks. Never once have I seen a fighter like you during my battles.”
“Probably because your past opponents weren’t human.”
“Oh, I have fought humans.” Jainuzei sounded happy to reveal that. “In truth, I was never impressed with human fighters. Until now.”
“Let me get this straight,” Tetsuya said, one hand still covering his naked junk. “You want me to help you?”
“No,” Jainuzei said, shaking his head. “I want to help you become the warrior you were destined to become. The man who helps set Captain Rebecca Foster on the path to righteousness and surrender the tablets of destiny to the Goddess Empress.”
“Rebecca Foster? Never heard of her.”
“You will soon. Foster is the captain of the Johannes Kepler, a ship with technological advancements that not even Ereshkigal possesses. In addition to surrendering the tablet’s ancient power etched into her body, Foster must share the technology in her ship with us so that we may construct a prosperous utopia that will rid the galaxy of its endless wars once and for all.”
Johannes Kepler. Rebecca Foster. Those were names of Earth origin. Tetsuya and his crew weren’t the only people from Earth who traveled to Omega Centauri. Earth found a way to send another ship to the edge of the Milky Way.
“You have doubts about my proposal, I take it,” Jainuzei said, his Aryile eyes catching a shift in Tetsuya’s body language. “That is okay. Ereshkigal foresaw you would and asked me to show this to you.”
Jainuzei fetched a palm-sized object from the storage container on his suit. Holding the device in the palm of his right hand, the tall and robust Aryile man pressed a small button on the device and forged a floating hologram above his hand. Tetsuya moved closer to better view the hologram and scrutinized it carefully. It was a projection of Tetsuya, a bit older, but it was definitely some kind of recording of himself. In the projection, Tetsuya wore the same combat armor Jainuzei had on. The holographic projection skipped forward and displayed footage of Jainuzei and Tetsuya chatting and laughing together like they were drinking buddies then later wielding beam rifles and hunkered down in cover inside some corridor, clearly constructed by the hands of people from Earth.
Tetsuya and Jainuzei exchanged fire with armored UNE marines by the looks of it. A window off to the side captured a glimpse of Jupiter’s great red spot on the horizon. It was a UNE outpost on one of the moons of Jupiter. After the battle had concluded, two UNE marines held their hands up in surrender. Tetsuya, in the projection, lifted his weapon to the ceiling and shouted, “Ereshkigal is eternal!”
Jainuzei pocketed the holographic projector. “This was recorded in the future. I admit I’m not sure how many years from now. I would have to ask Ereshkigal about that later. However, what I do know is that your experience in the HLF allowed you to rise in the ranks here and become my strongest apprentice.”
Tetsuya shook his head and tried to back his naked ass away. He backed into the same wall from earlier. “The future? You have a time machine now?”
“No, we do not. We have Ereshkigal. She is all-knowing. She saw that event and brought it forward into our present. It is what led us to the planet Apolnar and our operations on it.”
His mind flashed back to the carnage, all the Hashmedai dying in the city streets of Hanti and probably elsewhere on Apolnar. “You sons of bitches . . .” Tetsuya gritted his teeth. “You’re fucking killing people!”
“We are cleansing the nonbelievers. The Hashmedai are savages and need to learn their place. Ereshkigal is confident that the Hashmedai will accept Her as their Goddess Empress in time.” A scowl contorted Jainuzei’s face. “Personally, I’d much prefer that we glassed Apolnar from orbit. Only the Celestial Order could make the Hashmedai abandon their atheist ways, as demanded by Imperial law. But the Celestial Order is gone now. So, Tetsuya Ishihara, do you accept my offer?”
“I suppose you know the answer,” he replied. “You already know my full name, and I haven’t even told it to you. And you supposedly know my future.”
“No, Ereshkigal knew that. She merely shared that knowledge with me.”
Tetsuya wanted to say no, but Pernoy was dead because of him. She could be alive because of him too if he were to understand the situation correctly.
Ereshkigal called me forward to walk with the living . . . Ereshkigal can do the same for your Hashmedai partner, but only if you allow me to take you under my wing as an apprentice.
Pernoy must have died in a way that was treatable with the technology Ereshkigal possessed. And the kids? The ones he was teaching how to play baseball? What were they doing? He spent so many years fighting for Hashmedai rights on Earth and committing acts of terrorism to get it at times. To sit back and let the Hashmedai colonists die would be hypocritical; why help one displaced group and ignore the other? Tetsuya spun back to the wall and watched as it turned into a looking glass again. He saw Pernoy’s naked and dead body lying on the bed in the next chamber.
“This Ereshkigal woman,” Tetsuya said, his eyes never leaving the sight of Pernoy. “She can heal her, right?”
“Yes,” Jainuzei confidently said. “Let me take you under my wing, grow you to become the general you are destined to be, and Ereshkigal will, as you put it, heal this woman.”
To help Pernoy and the other Hashmedai suffering on Apolnar, Tetsuya had to help Ereshkigal achieve her goal. Whatever the fuck it was. Ereshkigal must have a weakness, he thought. Everyone does. If not, she should have secured victory by now. But if Ereshkigal has a weakness, then she has to play it safe. She has to operate slowly and steadily and learn from lost battles.
Getting closer to Ereshkigal might be the way to find her Achilles heel. After that, it’d be a matter of committing terrorism on Ereshkigal’s forces. After she resuscitates Pernoy, of course.
“I accept,” Tetsuya said, spinning back to Jainuzei.
“Good.”
Not that Tetsuya had much of a choice. Jainuzei would have spaced him then asked this Ereshkigal gal not to revive him. Clearly Ereshkigal had formed a cult and had people like Jainuzei convinced she was the almighty. Said cult was probably like the people who ran the Radiance Union and Celestial Order.
“When do we get started?” Tetsuya asked.
“Right now.” Jainuzei motioned his hand in a presenting manner to the room’s only exit. “Let me show you to my dojo.”
Tetsuya looked down. He was still covering his dick and balls with one hand. “Uh, can I get some pants at least?”
11 FOSTER
XSV Johannes Kepler, en route to the Uelaria System
Omega Centauri Interstellar Space
September 21, 2121, 09:21 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster deactivated her shower’s faucet, ending its therapeutic spray across her pale skin wired with alien tattoos. The tablet of destiny as Nergal had called them. Today was the day EVE predicted that the Johannes Kepler would arrive at the Hashmedai colony, and Foster had been taking her sweet time bathing.
She leaped out of the standup shower in her quarters, without toweling off, to look at the clock. She snarled when she remembered leaving her wrist terminal near the bed. Foster streaked naked and wet across her quarters, leaving behind wet footprints, and viewed the current time. Still an hour left before the Kepler dropped out of FTL. She still hadn’t had breakfast.
Foster activated the coffee maker, returned to her washroom, performed the quickest towel-drying job ever, and got dressed. She had to get undressed when she found her undergarments on her bed. Once that mix-up was over, Foster reached for the brewed coffee waiting for her and mixed in two creams and two sugars. A double-double as Pierce and Miles would call it.
As Foster drank, she stood at her personal computer terminal and skimmed various online news articles transmitted to the Johannes Kepler via its QEC. The QEC was their only link to Earth and the rest of the inner Milky Way worlds. A news report about the Rezeki’s Rage captured her attention. She thought it was news of Peiun and his crew returning from their space bridge jump, but the clickbait headline took her to an editorial talking about the Rezeki’s Rage’s disappearance from the Ueijelico system after Draconian forces annexed the system from the Empire.
A quick news search revealed that there was still no new information about the whereabouts of the Rezeki’s Rage, which made sense. Sometimes it took years, even decades, to rematerialize after a space bridge jump unless the ship you were in didn’t have a lot of mass to it. When Foster last checked, the Rezeki’s Rage faced a hectic situation despite having an MRF that could lower the ship’s mass. The Rezeki’s Rage jumped out of the system while under attack by numerous Draconian ships, which ended up dematerializing with the Rezeki’s Rage.
Peiun and his crew were still in limbo. If not, Peiun would have contacted her right away. Foster was sure of it. She wondered how long it would take for Peiun’s ship and crew to reappear inside Omega Centauri. Four months had already passed. Was it going to be another four months before she heard from Peiun? A year? Three years? Would she have completed her mission during that time?
Foster wrote an email to Empress Kroshka requesting that she keep a psionic or five constantly trying to reach out to the Rezeki’s Rage’s shipboard psionic Alesyna. The second the Rezeki’s Rage returned, Foster wanted to know about it. She could use an ally out in these parts.
She was about to shut down her email client when she noted an unread email sitting in her inbox. It was from Odelea, sent to Foster last night while she slept. Their Amphibian guest, who was recovering inside sickbay, was talking.
Sickbay’s sliding doors opened, allowing Foster to cross through, move past several medical beds that once held dead Amphibians and Primates, and stride toward Odelea. The Aryile scholar sat cross-legged on a stool beside the medical bed where the surviving Amphibian recovered on. She was flipping through about six or eight holo screens around her. Foster never counted exactly how many. As Odelea interacted with the screens, she chatted with the Amphibian and even chuckled a few times. Foster couldn’t understand a word of the extraterrestrial language.
Ahead were sickbay’s medical cryo pods, now full of dead Amphibians and Primates for future study. Might as well, the Amphibians and Primates were new alien life, and there were lots of things to learn regarding their anatomy.
Foster stood beside Odelea, just an inch away from the many holo screens orbiting her. “How’s our friend doing, Odelea?”
Odelea gasped and looked up at Foster. “Oh, you didn’t have to come down already. I emailed you so that you could sleep then visit me when you awoke.”
