Kaldean Chronicles: Kaldean Sunset (Book I) Read online

  “I don't trust it. I think they're playing with us.” Rufus was speaking directly to Yuri.

  This was a good way to get Antoni killed. He was furious. He wanted to storm out and head straight back to the palace, but something told him that that wouldn't be a good idea. Instead he was being forced to sit and wait while his father delayed as long as he possibly could.

  “He's coming.”

  Rufus was on his feet. “How do I know!?”

  A guard moved behind Antoni and bent down to whisper in his ear. “A word, your highness.”

  'There's been news of my father's arrival.” Antoni left quickly to meet with his father before going back in. The guard stayed close to his side as they walked up to the front steps where he turned around and let his eyes pass over the prince.

  The gesture meant something. “What's going on? Where is he?”

  “Your father was found dead in his bed.”

  Antoni's heart stopped and everything faded. There was no dust, no wind, even the guard disappeared. His father was picking up, and he was bouncing on his knee laughing. He loved Antoni. He would've done anything. Victor looked past his son's indiscretions and saw the man underneath them.

  He sincerely believed in what he was doing, and had mastered the art of balancing all of the factors necessary to keep the peace in the Empire. Without his father, the Empire was going to fall.

  Victor had more than a century of experience before he took the throne. He had already lived, and seen the galaxy. He knew what it took to hold the Empire together because he'd been doing it for decades. By the time he ascended into power, he had already been ruling as regent for 7 years.

  Victor told Antoni every day that he believed his son was going to become a better Emperor than he was, but how could Antoni possibly accomplish that if he didn't know what he was doing? He wasn't ready.

  Antoni let his body stop, and he focused on his breath. This was real. The Empire needed a leader. He wasn't the man to do it, but there were already a thousand assaults to Kaldean sovereignty and he was the legitimate heir. Somehow, he would have to reach down deep in his gut and find a way to become an Emperor.

  Chapter 16: Insignia

  The guards left the meeting hall promptly with Magnus taking the head. He wasn't the same man he was five minutes ago. His face was no longer flushed, and his eyes seemed to have sense of purpose. For the first time in decades, he was fully present.

  As soon as Antoni needed him by his side he was there, ignoring the protests of the Vermillion who was running after them. “Please. I'm your only chance. You need to listen to me.”

  Antoni didn't care. They would let him in no matter what. They needed him, and he needed to know whether or not they had a solution to their problem, but sovereignty came first. Magnus bent down and whispered in his ear. “I'll get you to the ship if we have to blow the dome off of this place. Let's just leave.”

  Antoni waited until all the guards had congregated and looked around at them. They were simple men, brutes like Magnus mostly, but they were the first ones to witness his ascension, so they mattered. They would hold the memory close just so they could say that they saw something big. Antoni could use that.

  They fell on their knees with their hands touching their foreheads.

  “I want you to remember what you saw today. This is history.” He caught their eyes peeking up and met them. He wanted them to think that he cared, and in a way he did. He had to care about everyone or none of this mattered. “I'm not going to tell you that I will fix all of the problems in the galaxy, or that the Sisterhood will fall tomorrow. What I will tell you is that I was the one who told the Emperor what the Sisterhood was doing, and since then I have dedicated my life to fighting them. I promise, as your Emperor, I will give everything, my body, my mind—everything I have, to stopping the threat we are facing today. Then I will build a new Empire, one that listens to the problems of its people and works to solve them. I'm not going to sit in a palace and hide from the galaxy. I'm going to confront the problems facing the people and come up with real solutions to solve them.

  Right now, at this second, I am your Emperor, and my life is in danger. There are those who are working to seize power away from me. As Jihadis, you have pledged your life to your Emperor, but as men you have your own thoughts, and your own opinions about what should be done. If you have any concerns about my legitimacy, please leave now and you will not be killed, but if you are willing to give your life to me then escort me back to the palace.'

  Not one man moved, not until it was obvious that they were leaving. Magnus took his place at the back of the line and sounded out, “Salute!”

  The men rose, slamming their fists to their chest, directly over their hearts. They kept their heads bowed and flanked him in a defensive formation. Antoni turned to Magnus. “Can you get on the comm with palace guard and find out what is going on?”

  “Yes, your highness.” He pressed a tiny impression in his jaw then began moving his mouth, forming silent words as he spoke to the guard, aided by a transplant that sent the transmission to the palace. He stopped and the other guards stopped with him. “Your highness, the guard isn't answering.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There's nobody there to answer.”

  Chapter 17: The Movement

  The governors met quietly, their ships cloaked so they could enter the asteroid field and meet in private. There were millions of them, each with their own concerns about what was going on. Many of their planets had been ignored for centuries while their infrastructure crumbled and their people starved. The Emperor believe in a policy of detachment, they were told. They had to handle those problems themselves without the forces, or the industry necessary to do so.

  Artemis saved their lives. It gave them the infrastructure necessary to feed their people, and give them everything they ever wanted. There were nomads living in prefabricated homes complete with all of the latest appliances, and it didn't cost them a thing. Money was being phased out, because expansion and the hunt for resources was almost fully automated, but the Emperor was hindering progress.

  Their loyalty was wavering, and many systems were already talking about open revolt. They believed that the Emperor had left them to fend for themselves, and they wanted a government that aided the people. Others were loyal. Many of the prosperous systems were glad to have sovereignty over their planets, and didn't want to face Imperial interference. When they heard that the Emperor was dead, they accepted the young prince as their ruler. The rest wanted him gone. They would've stormed the palace if they had its coordinates. They wanted change, and they were going to have it.

  Nobody knew the consensus. It might be that the revolutionaries had enough force to take control, or it could be that the loyalists outnumbered them. This was not something that people spoke about openly, not for fear of persecution, but because they didn't have an alternative to the Emperor's rule. There were systems that had been proposed, but they were fantasies formed in the drug addled minds of overgrown adolescents. Nobody knew what to do, or what would happen if the Kaldeans fell.

  The governors had always been to scared to chance a revolution. The Emperor’s army was a formidable force, one that could easily match those of their guards. Some of the loyalists were able to build up troops, but they weren’t willing to lend a hand to the smaller systems. The ruling consensus among them was that those systems were being neglected by their governors, but the reality was that they didn’t have the resources to sustain themselves.

  Now that the Emperor was dead, they were left with a momentary vacuum, and a short window of time with which it could be filled. The prince was undoubtedly on his way to the coronation at the time of their meeting, but something was rolling past, an unexpected wave that might be able to offer them hope.

  Illya appeared to them like an apparition in digital space. She took over their consoles, their comm systems and their tablets. Her face appeared on every screen in their systems
like a beacon of hope. They all knew why she was there, even before she spoke.

  She told them that the Lorian Sisterhood was aware of their grievances. She named each and every one by name--the hunger and poverty, the people who died in the remote reaches of the galaxy because they couldn’t get the things that they needed to live. She wanted them to know that things could change. There was a new order rising from the ashes of the old Lorian state, and that they could become the rulers of a new republic.

  So they gathered from all over the universe, every one of them to witness the historic event. She was coming soon. The governors shifted anxiously, paced around their ships. Many of them wondered whether or not this was the right thing to do, and some were openly hostile, but they weren’t about to miss it.

  With nothing but the piles of frozen rock to keep them company, the men became restless. One ship, from the Alterus system decided to leave. It fired up its space folding engine, the pilot activated it, and it exploded, sending the entrails of its inhabitants flying into space.

  Something was happening. The rocks stopped floating and started moving in slowly, surrounding the gathering in a circular formation, then they flew in like bullets racing towards their targets, sensing somehow where the ships were located, as if they had been programmed to do so. Fire turned to ice, and metal flew on all sides as the men watched the ships get torn to pieces, waiting for an asteroid to send them careening into space.

  It was a secret meeting, so their deaths were not reported by anyone. The public never found out what happened to them. Their families never got an answer. They just left their homes unexpectedly and never came back, leaving their families to fend for themselves.

  Illya watched all of this from a tiny screen in her sanctuary, holding her infant child while singing to it softly. “Look,” she whispered, pointing towards the screen.

  The baby sat up to watch. “I did that.”

  “Yes, you did. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “I wanna do more.”

  “You will do more.”

  Chapter 18: Tantra

  Nothing happened at first. The escorts stopped and stared at Antoni, while he stood silently, wondering what to do. The Jihadis would keep constant communication with their Imperial guard, and ensure that it was never interrupted. His safety and that of his father’s would’ve been their highest priority, which meant that something terrible had happened in the palace.

  “The Lorian Sisterhood is staging a coup.” He turned and stared at the men, “My father was murdered, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Magnus turned to Antoni. “We need to send men to the palace.”

  “We can’t ensure their safety.”

  “I’ll go.” The man who informed Antoni of his father’s death stepped forward.

  “You’ll die for certain.” Antoni had to make sure he knew that. he wasn’t going to send a man on a suicide mission with no knowledge of what was going to happen.

  “I don’t care. Just give me a ship.”

  “Are there any other Jihadis station in the system?” he asked the man.

  Another man stepped forward, wearing a silver cloak over his black outfit. He must’ve been a member of the Jihadi Space Fleet, an admiral for certain. he had a golden star on his breast. “There are six ships in orbit.”

  “Check to see if they respond on the comm.”

  The admiral began communicating with the system. He took longer than Magnus did, which was a good sign. When he was done, he had a grave look on his face. “There’s something here. They’re afraid.”

  “What is it?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “We’re leaving. get them into the dome right away,” Magnus took control. “Blast through it if you need to.”

  “No.” Antoni thought of the boy standing on the steps. He wasn’t wearing a face mask, and something told Antoni that he didn’t even own one. Once the dome was breached, the toxic atmosphere would flood into the city and kill everyone. Anotni wasn’t going to let that happen. “We’ll go talk with Rufus, tell him what’s going on. we’ll get an escort out of the city.”

  “They might not cooperate in time.” The admiral was worried. He did seem to have a good head, so Antoni decided to keep him close. He was trying to help.

  “We’ll do what we have to do, but if we can avoid a disaster it’s best.”

  Antoni wasn’t sure whether or not he was ready to be doing this job, but as the facts began to lay themselves out before him, and he was gaining confidence. He could sift out the men that could be trusted and the men that would betray him. he’d move quickly and do what was needed to be done. he wasn’t ready, but he might be able to function under different circumstances.

  He’d heard things about the sisters, and wasn’t sure what to believe. Some of the people said they had powers. They claimed that the women could move things with their minds, and control the minds of others. It doubtful that they possessed metaphysical abilities, and none of them displayed telekinesis, but these rumors took on a power of their own. People revered the Sisterhood. They believed that the women were special in some way, and the things that people said inspired fear.

  Antoni was afraid. His life was over. His home had probably been destroyed. He was the last in a dynasty that had reigned for thousands of years, and when something like that crumbles to the ground it doesn’t fall easy. It takes down everything around it. The people would face bloodshed, probably war, and many of them wouldn’t survive.

  There’s no such thing as the peaceful transfer of power. Governments evoke as much passion as religion. Both are seen as the stewards of the people. They look to them when times are hard, and they beg for answers. If they don’t get them, they become resentful. They take up arms. People take sides. they kill for the things that they believe in. The loyalists would be fighting as well.

  The sisterhood didn’t seem to have the power to build an army, and so far as Antoni knew, they didn’t have the weapons necessary to destroy the Jihadis, but they would be able to get the people to turn against the government. Their homilies demonized the Kaldeans. They blamed the government for hindering progress and ignoring its people. It wouldn’t be hard to spark a revolution, and any planet that rebelled against them could easily be destroyed by the Artemis system.

  The guards moved swiftly, surrounding Antoni as he walked up the steps of the civic building and into the audience hall where Rufus was having a heated conversation with the Larvos.

  “Is he here?” the man asked.

  “I’ve just been informed of my father’s assassination. I am now the Emperor.”

  The man laughed. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  “There’s a weapon traveling to your planet. Do you have orbital patrols? We think it might be a supernova bomb.”

  The hair on the Larvos’ bodies started swaying up and down, clearly a sing of fear. “He’s telling the truth,” Yuri backed into the wall and hunched over.

  “You didn’t tell us you could read minds, sentient,” Magnus stepped up with his weapon in hand, but Antoni held him back.

  Antoni looked to Rufus who had gone pale. “I don’t trust our ships. The Lorian Sisterhood is responsible for the attack. They designed our ships computers.”

  “That’s why we don’t fucking use them,” the man scoffed. “It’s your own fault. You trusted them and now look at what’s happening.”

  “Please,” Antoni didn’t want to ask this man for a single thing. He was shrewd and opinionated, but he had what they needed - a safe ship.

  “You want a ship.”

  “And I want you to evacuate.” Antoni turned to the Fleet Admiral, “How much time to do we have?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  “I can’t evacuate in that much time.’

  “You have to,” Yuri was transmitting a sense of urgency that rolled through the room. It was starting make Antoni’s skin crawl.

  “Stop it,” he turned to the c
reature. “If you can control that, do so. We need calm.”

  It subsided a little, but not enough to dispel the mood. Rufus was staring down at the table, clearly distraught. “There are things here that can’t be destroyed.”

  “Your people matter more.”

  Rufus refused to move for what seemed like eternity, then he whispered. “Follow me.” He turned around and began running his fingers slowly along the back wall. Once he found what he was looking for, it began to recede into the floor. The men followed Rufus through a series of red dust corridors, twisting and turning as the floor led them underground, and into the chamber where their ships were held.

  Antoni marled at a row of carbon containers lining the walls. Each one held a human brain in preserving fluid. “What are those, Rufus?”

  “We don’t use artificial brains.”He was lifting one up and placing it inside the ship.

  “But the system has to be smarter than a human brain.”

  “No, it just has to be smarter than the normal human.” He turned back to Antoni once he had placed the canister in the back of one of the ships. “Our men spend their entire lives learning and developing their innate abilities, until they are capable of processing the calculations necessary to pilot a space folding ship.”

  “That’s amazing. Are they alive?”

  “Yes. They can’t talk or move, but in the final stages of their training they prefer silent contemplation without interruptions. In this state, they can live like that for as long as they want, and the fluid keeps them alive indefinitely. This is the way they want to live.” He laughed. “We don’t need to build anything artificial in our society. We do everything organically. We produce our electricity organically. We build organic weapons, organic vehicles. That’s the right way to do things.”

  Antoni nodded his head. their technology was impressive, but they didn’t have the right reasons for using it. It made sense that they didn’t understand the Artemis system. They were the decedents of the Crusaders, and though their society had changed drastically, they weren’t going to forget what happened when the Lorian Sisterhood replaced them. Their leaders were killed. Loyalists were rounded up and slaughtered like cattle. They even setup screens so the public could see it happen.