Sword of Axia (The Arcadian Jihad) (2 page)

“Evelyn, what are you doing here?” Gluck whispered, but his microphone was switched on and sound carried around the courtroom. “This is no place for you, my child, we are in the middle of a trial.”

His voice had a slight whining quality, as if he was uncertain and unsure of how to deal with her. Strange, Blas thought, Gluck’s public countenance was one of total and absolute mastery of everything around him, of ultimate power, as one would expect from virtually the absolute dictator of the Nine Systems. So this was part of his family, his daughter. He thought of her gliding walk, even inside the disguise of the robe that feminine grace was enough to make men catch their breath. Yet she was one of Gluck's family, upon whom he had sworn revenge. He would have to be ruthless indeed to cut down a girl such as this. Blas had heard that Gluck often referred to his daughter as the ‘Infanta’, the old name for the daughter of a King Emperor. Her head leaned towards her father and they all heard her speak, her voice soft and musical.

“You know I am studying the law, Father. You are famous for your just and wise decisions. I only wish to see how you deal with criminals in the highest court in the Nine Systems.”

Gluck smiled slightly at the flattery. “Very well, you may stay, but keep quiet and out of the way, remember you are a but a woman.”

“Of course, Father, I would never forget how Axian law requires a woman to behave.”

Evelyn Gluck stared at the prisoners through the mesh that covered her face, although she knew that they could not see where her glance fell. It was one advantage of the damnable robe that all Axian women had to wear in public, no matter what their status. It was the only advantage, she found it awkward and uncomfortable, difficult to move in, difficult to write and work in, or to study in. Perhaps that was the purpose of its designers, to hold women in subjugation. Well, they’d succeeded, she hated its constriction. But she had no choice, the alternative was to stay at home and live the live of a recluse. That was no alternative
 
so she reluctantly donned the robe to go out of her home. The man in front of her, Captain Constantine Blas, was interesting, very interesting. They had given some details about him, the rest she could deduce for herself. He was about five feet eleven inches tall, he looked quite slim but not weak, quite the reverse, he carried himself with a natural strength, an inner steel, with the authority of a man used to commanding other men. His hair was dark brown and cut fashionably long, framing his brown eyes and pale, ivory skin, common for natives of Corazon, his home planet. She could just make out a small scar over his left eye, probably the result of a space battle. She knew he’d been in the thick of the fighting between Rescom and her father’s Axian forces. It was as well that her father didn’t know that Blas was the one she’d been told to watch over.

Blas watched Merca Gluck as the Grand Pasha looked at them coldly. He clearly hadn’t noticed the irony in his daughter’s voice but Blas had. Apparently Gluck’s own family didn’t share the Grand Pasha’s extreme views. Gluck spoke again, unconsciously straightening the folds of his robe as if to give himself even more power and stature. Blas wondered how much more stature did the all-powerful spiritual, political and military leader need. Was power of life and death over every single inhabitant of the known universe not enough? He saw Evelyn’s shrouded head was turned towards her father, she was studying Gluck intently.

“The three prisoners are aware that before they were arrested they shot and killed seven officers of the Axian military. This was despite the surrender of their supreme leadership, Res Publica, the controlling council of the Rescom Federation, two hours before. Their actions therefore constituted foul and base murder. To make matters worse and insult the Great God Ahura and his Prophet Axia, the three prisoners shot and killed a newly ordained Prophet, he was one of the officers you murdered. You killed a Prophet!”

There was a collective intake of breath in the court at the enormity of their crime. So it would be the death sentence at last, no other sentence was prescribed for the murder of a Prophet. Better than a slow death on Nabucco I, Blas reflected.

Gluck continued. “The law does not allow mercy in such a case, therefore the sentence of...”

He tailed off, gasping for breath, even from the back of the courtroom they could see his face was sweating, purple and clammy, as if he was about to collapse.

“Father, what’s wrong” Evelyn said, her voice filled with fear. “Someone call a doctor, quickly.”

Panic began to sweep through the courtroom, the terror blanketed the Axians as if a thick fog had descended on them. Nothing could be worse, the Grand Pasha was their spiritual head, ruler of billions, their link between Ahura, the Great God of the Universe through Axia his Prophet. Everyone knew that Gluck interpreted Ahura’s message and passed on his wisdom and judgment to every human being, it was unthinkable that he could fall ill. Impossible! Several watchers fainted and the courtroom descended into chaos, guards and officials shouting and running to locate a doctor. Blas took the opportunity to turn around and smile at his two fellow prisoners.

“With any luck the Grand Murderer might be leaving us sooner than expected.”

“Don’t be too hopeful,” Admiral Rusal replied with a smile. Quentin Rusal was their commanding officer and as far as anyone knew the highest-ranking survivor of the destroyed Rescom Fleet He was short in stature with green tinted skin, inherited from his home planet Arezza in the Altair System. In some men it may have been enough to bring a smile to their lips. Not so with Rusal, his piercing green eyes could change from mild amusement to a diamond-hard strength in a millisecond. He was quite bald, again, other men it may have lent them a slightly comic appearance. In Rusal there was nothing comic, absolutely nothing. To see him was to see a man with a core of hardened steel.

“His replacement could be even worse,” Rusal continued.

“That is not possible,” Smetana grimaced. “Merca Gluck is the spawn of Abban, there can’t possibly be any more like him.” Berg Smetana was the oldest of them, almost in his fiftieth year. Despite the weeks of imprisonment on Nabucco I his muscled body had not been weakened by overwork and poor diet. Unlike Rusal, he was tall and massively built, he always wore his hair in a soldier’s buzz cut and sported a well-trimmed beard. The dark skin of his face was arranged in an enigmatic, even pleasant expression. In fact he was rarely seen without a relaxed smile, as if he was slightly inebriated. But those who knew him were aware that behind the smile was a savage ruthlessness, a raw, elemental power waiting to be unleashed. Strangers took him to be soft, the mere merchant that he professed to be. He had been a merchant, that much was true. But the even the Axians hadn’t uncovered the full extent of his duties for the Rescom Federation. An experienced and clever leader of ground troops, he had another talent, well hidden. When the Axian religious fanatics sent their hired killers to murder Rescom’s leaders, Smetana had hunted them down, slaughtering them in their hundreds. He was a master assassin, it would be better for him if they never did uncover the full truth of his activities, their vengeance would be horrific and his death would be very, very lingering.

“I doubt it’ll...”

The blow threw him to the floor.

“Shut up, prisoners are not allowed to speak in the courtroom,” the guard captain snapped. “You guards, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be holding him, pick him up and if he speaks again, use your electronic whips.”

Everyone looked up as a banging came from the front of the court.

“Silence!” Kerawan had picked up Gluck’s wooden gavel and was banging it on his desk. “Silence in the Supreme Court. Guards, where is that doctor?”

Even as he spoke, the doors opened and a team rushed in, led by a tall, middle-aged, gray haired man. Four younger men followed him, all were wearing the black robes and white coifs of the Axian priest-physician order. They pushed past the prisoners and ran towards the rostrum, but Gluck seemed to be recovering, he looked up at them with an irritated expression.

“No, I do not need a doctor, it was just a passing pain, nothing to concern you with. We are in the middle of an important trial.”

“But Grand Pasha, we should just...”

“Get out, all of you. Now! Kerawan, get rid of them!”

“Yes, of course, Sire, but if you do need them they will remain nearby,” Kerawan said with an unctuous tone.

Every man in the court looked up at the honorific ‘Sire’, publicly uttered. It was the mode of address only used for a King Emperor, the position that the Axians had accused Rescom of trying to restore to the Nine Systems. One of the central tenets of their fanatical fight against the elected Rescom Federation was that Res Publica, their controlling council, was plotting to install a King Emperor and thus create a new dynasty, a dictatorship. Memories were long, before Rescom there had indeed been a succession of King Emperors and the Nine Systems had been riven for centuries by bloody fights for the succession. Yet ‘King Emperor’ was still the title that every man of ambition yearned in his innermost soul to possess. Gluck elected to ignore the honorific and continued.

“The sentence of,” he was sweating, it was curious, as if he was struggling with an inner
turmoil,with
his own demons. Finally he managed to finish, “a further ten years of imprisonment is imposed. It is the will of Axia. There is one God of the Nine Systems and he is Ahura. This court is adjourned, take the prisoners away.”

He rose and the room erupted in further turmoil as the judges swept out. It was unprecedented. The Axians had trumpeted that if any man dared to kill or even wound one of their so-called ‘Prophets’, the name given to their High Priests, the crime would carry an automatic death sentence. It was said that Gluck himself passed that command down as the direct word of the Prophet Axia. What had changed? Blas looked back at the rostrum, only Evelyn, the mysterious, robed daughter of the Grand Pasha remained. She seemed to be staring straight at him, but perhaps she was looking at all three of the prisoners. Or perhaps he just was imagining the direction of her gaze from inside the mesh-fronted hood. It was impossible to be sure, but still, there was little doubt in his mind that she was staring right at him. Why was that? Then the guards seized his arms and dragged him roughly out of the courtroom together with Rusal and Smetana.

They were hustled along brightly lit corridors to a nearby travelpod station, the guards pushed them into a vacant car and the pod hurtled away along the system of expressways that crisscrossed the city. In less than a minute the pod stopped, the doors opened and they were bundled out onto the brightly lit field of the Lyra Intersystem Spaceport. A battered light cruiser waited on a nearby ramp, the guards pushed them towards it and up inside the ship. From the moment inside the court when Gluck had delivered the verdict neither prisoners nor guards had uttered a word, now the guards spoke to the ship’s security detail as they handed the prisoners over.

“You received the message from the office of the Supreme Court? These three Rescom scum are going back to Nabucco I for a first-class holiday.” He sneered at the three prisoners.

The security officer nodded. “We copied the message, yes, you can leave them with us. We’ll put them with the others we’re holding in the ship’s cell block, they’re all going to the same place, Nabucco I. Poor bastards, I almost feel sorry for them.” After a pause, he grinned. “Almost. Listen, we heard there was a problem with the Grand Pasha, is he ill?”

“No, it was nothing to worry about, just a minor pain. He’s fine now. Look after these treacherous filth and have a good trip.”

“As Axia wills it.”

“Yes, as Axia wills it.”

They saluted each other and the guards left.
 

The ship’s officer turned to his detail. “You can start to raise the ramp, we’ll be getting under way soon. Bring the prisoners to the bridge, the Captain want to see them. You can take off their chains, they won’t need them anymore.”

The ramp started to rise and the three prisoners blinked in surprise as the guards deactivated the locks and released their shackles. They followed the single trooper who led them through the ship’s passageways to the bridge, Blas kept looking around him, there was no guard behind them to prevent an escape. He couldn’t get off the ship, true, but he could do a lot of damage on board. He briefly thought about ducking away and hiding somewhere, he could attempt to sabotage the ship’s life-support and fighting systems. But the ship’s scanners would locate him almost immediately. With a crew of at least a hundred men, they’d have him back in the cells in no time and the punishment for him and his two fellow prisoners would be severe. Besides, there was something odd about this ship, why were they being treated so considerately? It would be better to wait and see what they were in for. When the door to the bridge opened and they walked through, the puzzle became even more incomprehensible. In front of them stood the tall, slim and commanding figure of Guide Xerxes Tell, watching them with his familiar deep, black, soulful eyes. He was wearing his familiar long, white robe, the mark of the Order of Guides.

The Guides, the legendary preacher-philosophers, were now almost extinct in the known universe. During the Third Religious Wars, the major religions of the Nine Systems had fought each other to virtual annihilation. The Guides had stepped forward, offering people guidance and help on the path to a non-religious way of living. They preached and followed the way of humanist principles, showing people how to live without killing, without the mass slaughters that had characterized the long centuries of human religious evolution. Those who answered the calling of the Guides were free to follow their own successful career, using their skills, knowledge and humanity in addition to their work, for one purpose only. That purpose was to devote every spare moment of their lives to showing others the non-religious path to enlightenment. They had flourished, were valued and respected throughout the universe - until the Prophet Axia restarted the hurricane of religious intolerance and warfare. Guides were put to death by the tens of thousands, for Axia was not a forgiving nor a tolerant prophet. Guide Tell had been able to avoid the slaughter, as President of the Rescom Federation he was too heavily guarded, at least until just before the end. When the Axian surprise attacks finally overwhelmed them and destroyed the remnants of the Rescom fleet, the whereabouts of Guide Xerxes Tell were uncertain. Tell had disappeared. It was assumed across the Nine Systems that he was probably dead, killed in one of the final battles with the Axians. Obviously that was not the case. The three men halted, frozen in surprise. Blas was the first to recover.