Chapter 7

My car was a simple one. It sat four; two in the center and one on each end. All of the seats spun one hundred-eighty degrees, but only allowed you to sit in two directions; forward or backward in the center, and left or right in the front and back. The controls to operate everything in the car were located only between the two center seats. Unlike more expensive cars, mine had carbon fiber for the body instead of plexi and was painted matte black. Its plexi windows and roof were the newer kind that could be darkened or lightened as needed, but it didn’t have the gradient option that allowed you to have one part darker than another. From the outside it looked like a rectangular box with rounded edges, and the super cooling system for the magnetic drive was visible from either side.

When I bought it, I could have afforded a much more expensive car, but I could never understand the reason to do so on Venus. Each city’s central computer would take charge of the driving and almost every car didn’t even come with a stick or steering wheel. If I couldn’t drive the car, why pay for a more powerful engine or more accurate steering? I viewed the overall looks in the same way. If I couldn’t fly it, why pay more to make it look more sleek and stylish. The only extra I could ever justify was comfort, so my chairs were top of the line for that model.

Celina and I sat side by side in my car, but faced opposite directions. This made conversation easier and allowed both of us to have access to the controls. My car jerked slightly as it sped up to merge into traffic. All the windows were heavily darkened so Celina could clean up and change clothes without anyone outside the vehicle seeing her.

While she changed, I made a full report about the incident but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep myself from glancing at her. Beneath her suit she wore sport style underthings. What really surprised me about her though was the level of muscle she had. Every inch of her was toned muscle; stomach, arms, legs, everything. The suit she had laid out to change into was a perfect match for the one her grandfather had been wearing at Medical.

She was struggling to get the remainder of the blood off her face and out of her hair. The mirror in her hand shook slightly. I passed her a water bottle almost absent mindedly as I finished my report and sent it. She thanked me, chugged half of it, and then used the rest to assist in blood removal.

The transfer of the holo-cam file to my personal computer took only a second. “Okay,” I said, “it’s ready to go. Do you want me to start it from the beginning?”

Celina glanced up at me from her mirror and shrugged. “If you’re going to play it, the only place to start is at the beginning.” Then after a heart beat or two she said, “Actually, do you think you could just play the audio? I don’t fancy watching that crazy rub herself all over me.”

I switched the settings to audio only and then played it. It took a little bit for the computer to adjust the audio to an acceptable level and normalize it all. “What are you doing?” we heard a panicked woman say. Then a man said, “He’s Protectorate. That woman out there is going to die. If they’re going to interrogate her, they’ll need to record it.”

“Smart guy,” Celina observed.

“Not smart,” I corrected, pausing the playback. “This recording is inadmissible in a court of law because it was taken without permission. Furthermore, if we give it to the Senatorial or even the Governmental Protectorate, they’ll destroy it so it cannot be used in any way against Lucifer or anyone else that might be convicted of a crime related to this.”

“All I meant was that he was right we did want it recorded,” Celina said. Having finally finished cleaning herself off, she handed the water bottle back to me and collapsed the mirror. “I know more about the law than you do, Captain. I schooled in law.”

“Oh.”

She continued the playback after giving me a wink. There were some muffling and bumping noises and then Celina’s clear voice came on. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”

“What… what was that Sol?” was the woman’s reply.

“Wait,” Celina said and I paused the playback again. “What kind of car is this?”

A little confused, I said, “A Cheshire, why?”

She rolled her eyes. “What did you name the computer?”

Then I understood. “Junker,” I said to the computer and it beeped, “recognize passenger Celina Lacy.”

It beeped again and Celina said, “Hello, Junker, my name is Celina. How is your day?” Four beeps followed. Celina looked at me. “You disengaged the vocal response?” I shrugged and she sighed. “Junker, identify Jewel in the recording and single out her audio.” A beep replied.

This time when I hit play we got a totally different understanding of what was being said. “Jewel. Lucifer, she is light-bringer, Day-Star, Daughter of Dawn. She has ascended to the heavens. Among the planets of God she has set her throne on high. She will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of space. She has ascended above the height of the clouds. She will make herself like the Most High. Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, Lucifer, prowls around like a lioness, seeking someone to devour. Her tail will sweep down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to oblivion. And Lucifer will stand before the woman about to give birth, so that when she bore her child she might devour it. How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased.”

“War,” I said.

“Worse,” Celina said. “Civil war. That’s what Lucifer is after.”

I nodded, “If a pirate takes out the most loved politician, the man that has been such a strong voice to get military here on Venus, the people would be enraged.”

Celina put her hand to her chest. “They would blame Earth for not protecting us better and things would heat up too quickly to be quelled.”

“The Senatorial Protectorate would side with the people and that would be that,” I confirmed. “Civil War.”

Celina looked back at me. “But why the poetry? I don’t get it. I very much doubt the drugs I gave her would have that kind of response. Of everything I’ve read, it just relaxes the Sol out of Uranians and makes them heavily suggestible.”

“I’d say she was that,” I said, considering. “I don’t think it was poetry.”

“What do you mean? It sounded like poetry to me.”

“That isn’t exactly what I mean,” I hedged. “It’s not like she was spouting something off the top of her head.” I thought for a moment. “It’s more that she was repeating something she had heard again and again.”

“Okay.” Celina gestured for me to continue and leaned forward, interested.

I considered for a few seconds before I continued. “I could quote you the entire Protectorate Doctrine without thinking. On graduation day, Valkyrie and I screamed it off the top of the Capital building too drunk to stand without assistance. When something has been drilled into your head like that for a long time you don’t need to even think about to repeat it.”

Celina’s head bobbed in understanding and she leaned forward a bit more. “So you’re saying that this was more of a speech or maybe even part of the Pirate Doctrine, if such a thing exists, and she was just quoting it.”

“Right. You prompted her by asking about Lucifer.”

She leaned forward even more. “She made the connection in her drug induced euphoria and just started repeating it. But some of the things she said made it sound almost like she thought Lucifer was a God or something. You don’t think the Uranians have started viewing people like Gods do you?”

It was at this moment that I realized I had been leaning forward too. Not only was most of my field of vision eaten up by her face, but I could smell her subtle perfume and could feel her breath on my lips. It also made me remember that she was mostly naked. I leaned back in my chair very slowly before I continued. As I spoke, Celina leaned back slowly too and returned to putting more clothes on, her cheeks turning pink. “I don’t think they look at her as a God necessarily. Maybe as a powerful person, sure, but I don’t think they would even go as far as calling her a demi-god. I think it’s much more likely that Lucifer rose to a seat of power and is so good at what she does that she has attracted fanatical followers.”

Celina glanced up at me and tucked some hair behind an ear. “It seems pretty obvious to me that her followers are fanatical. Four are dead, one is in critical condition, and one is jailed. Only someone with fanatical followers would have the kind of sway to send six people out into the world to end their lives as they know it.”

I snorted, trying to ignore her blush. It was cute. “Give me a break. Every time I get out of bed I know I could get attacked and killed. But I still do it because it needs to be done. Senator Lacy needs protection. I do it without being a fanatic.”

“Bad example,” she replied. Her shirt was completely on now and her pants were close to follow. “That’s your job. You get paid to do that. These people aren’t getting paid for this.”

“What if they are?” I countered.

She stopped mid zip and looked at me. “That’s an interesting thought. Which direction are you looking at it from; that she’s paying them or that someone else hired her?”

I raised my eyebrows and considered. I also tried to keep my eyes off of her so she didn’t get more embarrassed by having on fewer clothes than me. “Either. Both bare some thought, though I wasn’t initially suggesting she was being paid. If she was hired to do this we bring the whole fanatical thing back into it at least in some small regard.”

“Unless, she’s paying them without telling them that she got the money from someone else.”

“Good point,” I conceded.

“Furthermore, if she is throwing around the kind of rhetoric that Jewel was quoting, that has to mean something beyond the words themselves.”

I looked over at her, eyebrows cocked in confusion. She was finishing the last of her suit coat buttons. “Explain.”

She exhaled slowly through her nose. “Let’s look at it line by line, and I think by the time we get to the end, you’ll start to see what I’m talking about.”

My fingers danced over the controls and a screen popped up between us with the script of her speech on it. Celina read the first line. “Lucifer, she is light-bringer, Day-Star, Daughter of Dawn.”

“That seems pretty obvious. Lucifer is in a position of power over the rest of the Pirates. She’s bringing them hope of some kind, more than likely and is probably just poetic.” I thought for a moment. “Wasn’t there another Pirate a few years back with the call sign of ‘Dawn’?” I asked.

Celina took a few taps on the controls and a picture of an older man appeared between us. His hair was completely white, but he didn’t look old enough to have gotten it from age. His eyes where the same as the other Uranians I’d seen lately: bright blue with the pink rim. The words surrounding him showed that he was indeed a pirate, had been arrested almost ten years ago and had died last year in a failed prison break. That was interesting in itself.

“Look here,” Celina said pointing. “He was visited by a woman one week before his death and listed her relationship as daughter.”

Both of us reached for the controls at the same time, retreated at the same time and reached back again at the same time. I retreated again, but Celina continued reaching in. She pulled up the picture of the visitor. It was a horribly digitized picture. You couldn’t make anything out. “Junker,” Celina commanded, “enhance the picture.” A rude noise replied and a huge “classified” stamp appeared over the picture.

We stared at each other for a long moment. We both had clearance to pull up anything we wanted in the Senatorial Protectorate files. The only thing that would trump it would be Terran law. That worried me. Why would Earth block us from accessing information about a Pirate? It didn’t make any sense.

Celina cleared her throat and pulled up the transcript again. “She has ascended to the heavens,” she read. “Again, seems pretty obvious. Either she has gained power within their society or she is a pilot of a spacecraft.”

“I concur.”

“Among the planets of God,” she continued, “she has set her throne on high.”

I shrugged. “A repeat of the previous line, maybe? She has risen to power?”

Celina considered for a moment. “Maybe. But if the line about her being the daughter of Dawn is a literal phrase, this could be too.”

“So, what?” I asked. “You think she set up an actual thrown and put it high up somewhere?”

“Maybe, but with the part about the planets of God makes it seem more likely that it is far out from the sun.”

I sat forward a little too quickly and it made her eyes snap to me reflexively. “No. In the solar system, up is always toward the sun. Down is away from the sun.”

“She has a base on Mercury,” we said in unison.

“She will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of space,” I read.

“She will take control of the Senate.”

I nodded and continued. “She has ascended above the height of the clouds. She will make herself like the Most High,” I read in quick succession. “It all makes so much sense when you give it just the least bit of thought.”

“Yeah, but this part, ‘Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, Lucifer, prowls around like a lioness, seeking someone to devour.’ when paired with this last bit, ‘Her tail will sweep down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to oblivion.’ is the part that isn’t.”

I shook my head. “Listen, there are three societies that exist in our current government: Earth, Venus, and the bases around Jupiter and Saturn. This is saying that she is going to wipe out or at least remove in some way, one of those three. If she starts a Civil War between Venus and Earth, that’s removing one of the three. I mean, as good as the Protectorate is, against the whole of the Senate, we’ll get wiped out.”

“Or,” Celina countered, “by starting that Civil War she is basically just taking out one third of the Senate. She’s made her enemy weaker. If Venus is warring with Earth, she can attack Saturn and Jupiter when they come to help.”

“And if they stay behind, she can join the attack on Earth.”

“Which is her final goal,” she finished.

I read the last bit out loud. “And Lucifer will stand before the woman about to give birth, so that when she bore her child she might devour it. How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased.”

Celina put her hand over mine and our eyes met. “Lucifer will be in position to watch the society that comes from the wreckage of the war and will have the sway to make it the way she sees fit. The oppressor, which can only be the Senate, will be gone, and with it the anger and frustration that they’ve caused for all these years.”

“Sol,” I cursed.

The car made a chiming sound to let us know we were about to arrive at our destination. Celina sighed and started rushing to put on her boots and any other last minute things. I closed the information from the holo-cam and sent my authorization in quickly to the guard post so we wouldn’t have to stop and get out at the gate.

“What do you think the Senator will think of this?” I asked.

Celina finished up and still waited to respond. I could tell she was thinking so I didn’t repeat myself. “If I had to put money on it, I’d say he’ll blow it off and tell us to keep on our toes.”

As the car slid to stop on the car park, I realized she was probably right. He’d say something about trusting my sister and me to protect him and trusting Celina to give him any important information and weed out the things he didn’t need to know.

Next Chapter: Chapter 8