The Fathers Read online

  “I do not understand how she, the Queen Princess, can do what she does. Just with her thoughts. It is the unexplainable magic that we tell tales of to the newborn.”

  The Admiral remained silent; his lips clamped together. Taman realized they reached the limits to what the old Admiral could disclose. Those secrets she wished to understand were not hidden in myths of superstitions from worlds shackled from ignorance, but inside the wondrous energy they called love.

  She lowered her head. “The years of my life. Of yours, Admiral. Lost to hate. Lost forever.”

  “It is best to live for a little time in glowing love than forever in lightless hate,” he said.

  “Yes,” she sighed, rubbing an imaginary pain in her chest. “So true, yet quite hard to accept at times.” She stood. Moving to stand before the Admiral’s chair, without hesitation, she then kneeled before the surprised old man.

  “This is not like you, Madam Taman. I am not a Lord or a Knight of the Queen Princess.”

  “Admiral, so much has changed. For both of us. The way we grew up. Our servitude to the Fathers. Our commands in the Might Armada. Our so misguided loyalty we both would have gladly died for. I must ask you a question. Should you choose to answer, I will answer the same. When and how did you receive your whisper?”

  “Ah,” he leaned forward to place a wobbly hand on her shoulder to brush some imaginary dust from the band of rank clusters. “You know, Vice Admiral, why. A soon to be Full Admiral based on my sterling recommendation. A whisper is quite personal. Matched for each heart inside each person called. I assume you also understand the Queen’s Law to keep such things inside one's heart. And we both know not all who follow her flag receive a whisper. Some just fall in love all by themselves. Lucky as they are.”

  Her face sagged, regret replacing the innocence of her question.

  “But for this once, our Queen Princess will look away, given our near death at the hands of the once Might Armada. May the Fathers rot in their pods. You speak first of your whisper. Be mindful we are on the bridge. Most are tending repairs, and some have young ears, unlike you and I.”

  Taman nodded agreement and said quietly, “I was inside the Prison Planet Gelroria. Stripped naked, chained to the moss walls. Crawling bugs leisurely chewing my flesh. Slated for the pain chambers as soon as one became available. A clear indication of the state of the empire, not having facilities available to correct wayward thinkers. They came for me. Morning or afternoon or evening I do not know. Always so dark. Then the blazing light of the pain chamber. Hoses inserted, probes attached. It began in a way I cannot give words, Admiral. Every fiber of my body and mind received pain at the same moment. Again and again. Wave after wave. When welcome unconsciousness came for me, drugs pulled me back into the pain. For how long, I cannot tell you.

  “I begged for death. I heard laughter. Then silence. Sweet silence. A light breeze soothed the burning. I smelled the scent of flowers. Light at first, then strong, so strong that I felt nothing of any pain any longer. A light from somewhere peering into my mind, as if a laser knife burning away a tumor. I was no longer afraid. For awhile this occurred until I heard a voice.”

  The Admiral's hand squeezed her shoulder with surprising strength. “Do not speak what you heard, Taman. What Queen Princess said is for your thoughts only.”

  She nodded, then continued, “I understand. A wave of refreshing cool water swept over my body. It took with it all the hate I had. Just as rain washes away the dirt. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the hard bloody floor covered in dirt and someone’s blood. A Royal Freedom Guardsmen standing over me with a smart pistol in my face.”

  She blinked as if something was in her eye. Tears threatened. She had hoped that the Admiral didn’t notice. “The blood on my hands Admiral,” she said, “I can still feel it. I can see it in my dreams. Will it ever wash away?”

  The old man sat back in his chair as if he were a grandfather about to tell a story to the children gathered. He spoke slowly, with humility. “No, old friend, our path to reconciliation is paved with our service to the Queen Princess. To free all worlds under the hateful hands of the Fathers. The blood you see on your hands drips the deepest red from mine just the same. Yes, we did the Fathers’ bidding, bonded to their hate, blinded by our own hate. Yet for all our damming dreams, there is one man reborn in the light of her love who accepts the guilt of us all. She recovered him from the hate. Now he walks with her love over his head.”

  “The Traitor,” she said dryly. “I still fear to speak his true name.”

  “I have spoken too much, you clever woman.” He tried to feign irritation, but his warm eyes gave his heart away.

  “I am sure you will receive a Lordship under the Queen Princess’ hand,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Please share with me, Admiral, your whisper.”

  “Well, it is as simple as this. After resigning my Might Armada commission, I joined an obscure outer belt group. That did not last long. My escape shuttle tried to run through a blockade of a competing rebel group. I woke up inside a damp, dark cell. There was endless interrogation, but I was never beaten or abused. Then, I was sentenced to death. On the day of my execution, a thought occurred to me as the guards dragged me to the axman. How quaint, now that I think of it. A real burly man with a giant curved ax to cut off someones head. A thought occurred to me. The thought was so obvious. Why did it not occur to me before? All I had to do was say no to hate. Just like deactivating a control by pressing a key, so it was the same with the decision to resist. When the heavy blade pricked my neck, I said as loud as a scared, naked, and drained man could, ‘Forgive me.’

  “Just as you described, Taman. Lights and sounds and the wind. I think my heart stopped.” Edson leaned back in his chair, eyes closed as he imagined that day again. A few minutes passed before he slowly returned to the bridge. “I heard her voice. I cannot tell you the words. Etched with fire into my heart they are. The axman pulled me to my feet. Twitching from head to foot as a newborn barely able to stand. There she was before my undeserving eyes. The Queen Princess herself.”

  Even as she covered her mouth, Taman couldn’t stop her audible gasp.

  Edson continued, “Taman, I have seen much. So many things. Clusters of rainbow nebula. Stars in birth. New worlds evolving. Native-born children from the womb. But I have never seen the beauty of such a woman. No words could possibly describe her. She said—no, sang—‘You are free. Bow to your knees. Vow your life to the Dragon Throne.’ I did. She smiled, and for the first time in my entire life, I felt something so different. When the guards hustled me away from her presence, I asked about the feeling, if it would last. One of them ruefully laughed. He said, I’ll never forget, ‘Love, you fool. Get used to it. Never goes away. Only gets worse.’”

  His old, bony hand, finally warmed from the spiced tea, reached to Taman’s cheek. She was trying to smile around quivering lips, as tiny tears slipped down her face.

  “My eyes are wet. Must be the smoky air. Forgive me, Admiral.”

  “None required, Taman. Get used to new emotions. They come with the freedom.”

  “Long live the Princess,” she said softly. Then she spoke the words again, louder. She stood at full attention, her hand raised to her chest, tears streaming now. Then once again with all her might, she shouted, “Long live the Queen Princess!”

  Admiral Edson, summoning the last strength he had, stood beside her and with hoarse voice joined in.

  The others on the bridge soon added their voices. Someone switched the internal comms to fleet wide. The chorus of jubilant cheers, somehow through the unexplainable mysteries of a random mischievous universe, reached the Queen Princess’ ear.

  Chapter Three

  The carnage of dying men and women of the Might Armada, the once proud invincible ships of the line, was recorded by wide range deep penetration sensors in cloaked surveillance drones, then transmitted in a compressed Near Time Data Stream to a moon bunker some eighteen thousand light years’ distance. The encrypted, thin signal arrived within a standard day to a hidden star system, masked by the static halo of the small core black hole, given the dull name of X-Beta-8A. The data stream was cleaned of any possible piggyback RFF virus, then relayed deep inside a hollow moon circling a giant gas planet of blue-green thousand-year-old storms, all utterly unaware of the billions of years of rising and falling cruel human overlords.

  The colors of destruction danced like a gruesome play across shocked human faces as the data stream reassembled. Disbelief followed the shock, then denial, then finally, acceptance of defeat. This time, unlike the last, no words of revenge filled the chilled chamber air. Chests fell inward, eyes lowered, as charcoal hearts filled with despair.

  In the middle of the cold, dimly lit chamber, surrounded by command staff and aides, sat twelve preservation pods, each one filled with murky fluids connected by dozens of pulsing supply tubes. Inside each pod floated a Father, time-weathered skin, bald, swollen head protruding like a shelled creature, eyes sunken deep inside the skull, thin lips covering gums long void of teeth, and tiny holes where ears once hung. Each mortal body was kept alive by the will of minds. They, as all humanity, were born of flesh and emotions in subjugation to the forward crawl of time.

  Now they lived as Near Immortals, god-like in mental powers, escaping the grip of death by force of sheer will. Hearts devoid of love, they were filled with blind, vengeful hate. Fierce, thirsty anger soaked their minds and evil hearts. As they watched the death of the Might Armada, their rage-filled hate reached out with intensity, dimming the local star just as a hand briefly covers a flickering flame.

  Known as the Fathers, they ruled the Empire of the Fathers with absolute, unquestionable authority.

  A murmur of fear spread arou
nd the attending officers and the staff of the once invincible Might Armada. The smartly dressed and decorated admirals and generals straightened their black-and-red-trimmed tunics, expecting death to arrive at any moment while lesser ranks of power-hungry men waited to step into their vacated superiors’ shoes. After all, those upward crawling men and woman were still human, subservient to the Fathers’ hateful ways, but still humans. As all humans everywhere, these, too, fell under the subjection of creature emotions that call Hate and Fear their master.

  “Silence!” bellowed Pathos, using his real voice. Instantly, the room went space silent.

  A smell of courage-rotting fear filled the mortals’ nostrils. Fear that did not focus on the approaching wall of rebel forces, but fear of angering the god-like beings, the Fathers of everything the simple-minded humans lived and breathed for since the Civil War three thousand years past. With a simple thought, the ancient minds could kill another human from the inside out, a most painful fire that smoldered, taking time to eat its way through. It had been demonstrated many times on failed admirals and generals since the war with the Freedom Forces began four empire years past.

  At least a hundred worlds, many more on the verge, stood against the Fathers, spreading freedom through the galaxy under the combined flag of the Freedom Forces. With one voice they said no to the hate of the Fathers. With one body they stood between that ancient hate and their Queen Princess, the embodiment and personification of love.

  The Fathers’ reign stood unopposed for over four thousand years by Empire reckoning. The early years were spent consolidating their hold over the once beautiful homeworld Droxonia, the solar system’s twelve planets, and a plethora of moons. Once the resources of the rich planets, moons, and asteroids filled with rare elements were exhausted, they began to reach tentacles of greed into the nearby system Panoxra, near to Droxonia in relative terms for the utter vastness of space. It took time, but that was a commodity they had in abundance. With each achievement in space travel, their feet drew closer to resources to fuel the growing population.

  The system Panoxra was a barren, lifeless collection of gas planets and frozen rocks. By sheer chance, a deep exploration ship detected exotic particles radiating from a planetoid closest to the hosting dwarf star. The scientists soon agreed; it was not an anomaly, but a beacon. They speculated an advanced race once visited when the planets had the potential for life millions of years past. For the first time, life other than themselves both intrigued and frightened the Fathers.

  After years of digging, a cache of sealed containers made from unknown materials surfaced. It took another half-century before the Fathers stumbled upon the key to unlock the secrets the container held. With one mind they focused all the hate they had into the containers. Out flowed many secrets, but not all stepped into the light; many more lurked just below the surface, teasing the Fathers with that which they could not grasp. What gems of knowledge came from the key of hate opened the gateway to the Fathers’ wildest dreams: extending life, methods to harnessing mental powers, and most importantly, the ability to travel interstellar progressed from tens of years to tens of days, then tens of hours. Relativity bent its iron knees to the will of superior technology driven by quantum threads of the darkest kind. Soon what seemed impossible, the debilitating distance of space, brought the entire galaxy into view. Shortly after, the new ships set out to discover new worlds, preferably inhabited worlds. As the wave of superior technology spread, the Fathers’ greed soon found civilizations, some with technology, most in a slow evolutionary path. None held against the growing strength of the Fathers. All fell to the fiery juggernaut. Some with their inferior military dissolved like ice before the flame, some with white flags in the hope of peace, all eventually bending knees to the Fathers. The Fathers were giddy with the power they wielded, and they only had reached a mere hundred light years from home.

  Time took its toll on the Fathers since their origin as simple humans. Their bodies did as all flesh does in submitting to master time. Decay, disease, and eventual failure by death loomed. As powerful as death was over humankind, death came calling but returned empty-handed.

  In the many secrets discovered in the ancient moon complex of Panoxra, advanced science showed the way to release the powers hidden in the fabric of the universe. The energy needed to fuel the science found its source in the growing hate the Fathers drank from the subjects under their boots. The more hate grew, the more they hated back, and the more powerful they became. Hating became natural, justifiable, and the galaxy was filled with targets.

  Just as their greedy fingers planned to reach for the unseen, distant stars, a crack in the Fathers’ unity appeared. Not all subscribed wholeheartedly to the carnage of simple worlds they subjected. It was subtle at first, mostly in simple disagreements, then progressing to outright opposition. Not all of the original Fathers believed the future contained only death, destruction, and hate. Two sides developed. It was as if mercury tried to exist with water. One side, where hate collected, drew blackness around it as a thick blanket made with the bones of humankind, and eyes set in disgust over everything that spoke of love, kindness, and mercy. On the other side, this infant love took up arms in defense, calling hate for what it was; the pure evil side of humankind. They called themselves Laamorians, a word long lost in Droxonia’s history that described new love between lovers.

  War was inevitable. The empire turned inside itself as if a virus chewed away the muscle from bones. When dominating hate loomed over the infant love, just as the hammer of utter and everlasting destruction swung, the love spirited away. With knowledge they released from the containers using a new key called love, they opened a fissure in the universal energy fabric to live as energy in dominions only lovers could imagine. With them they took those secrets, melting the containers into nothing, sealing the door to knowledge on the Fathers’ fingers. The Laamorians were never seen again by mortal eyes, nor could the remaining twelve Fathers follow in angry revenge, no matter how much savage hatred they rode upon.

  The Fathers consolidated themselves and the tiny empire. Born again in the baptism of pure hate, they exacted unforgiving revenge over any who dared to resist. Billions on their homeworld died. The simple, innocent moon where the secrets first existed was smashed into dust—just because they could. Yet somewhere only energy can exist, far from the reaches of death and the tick of time, Love cloaked the Laamorians, hiding them away to wait for its righteous revenge. For every wave of hate that snuffed away human hearts crying for relief, Laamorians felt each teardrop. They waited. They planned. War would come again.

  Such was the fear the Fathers had for the Laamorians that the very name was banished from all history. The noun, the four letters that spoke of all that humankind was worth, became unspeakable, exiled with the Laamorians. They were forever known as “Them.” Then the Fathers turned their attention to the rest of the galaxy. And humankind suffered.

  For all the advances in space travel, weapons and such that came before the “Them” stole away the secrets, the methods to preeminently reverse the body’s aging remained elusive. This angered the Fathers more, feeding the growing powerful hate, becoming the dog that chases the tail. With the combined powers of the Fathers, the aging process slowed, then halted, leaving them mostly blind and deaf, unable to physically move, hearts shriveled and useless. Just as the bodies withered with age, so did any remnants of human decency, disappearing into long forgotten memories. Memories they wished never to recall. The minds became powerful with each voracious meal of hate. Minds that could reach out with invisible tentacles moved hateful energy with thoughts.

  In all the hateful power they possessed, death still lurked waiting for any softening of will, any crack in concentration, any opening to assert its rightful, everlasting claim. Time, the undeniable master over all the universe, tapped the celestial timepiece with an eye cocked, saying the day of end must be respected. Yet that certain something that would give them what they wanted most, far above the adoration of simple-minded human drones, beyond the vastness of conquerable space, was the ability to throw away the flesh. To deny the master of death its rightful due. Stop the tick of master time. To become like the imaginary gods of all the worlds they crushed. To have life itself, without the wrapper of meat and bones. To be immortal, timeless, with all the power to create and destroy and no one to say no.