Chapter 20: Ties That Loosen, Tighten, and Bind. Flight.

Planet: Kethrin

They wanted to know how Raphael had known the attack was coming.

Eventually, that answer would become part of the heroic story. For now, people wanted to understand how the most awful event in Kethrin’s history had avoided becoming infinitely worse.

For those caught in the blast surrounding the kinetic strike, the fact that Capital Spaceport had been empty offered little comfort when they counted the dead and wounded who had been just outside it.

Raphael was caught between a nova and the stellar void.

“My friend, the starship captain who recently threatened a lawyer, told me the spaceport was about to be blown up, so I decided to move the ship that was under legal lockdown and evacuate everyone.”

It had the ring of truth.

It was also simultaneously the most damning thing he could say about his role, my role, and, hell, Mary’s role in the whole affair.

It was true. We were innocent. We would look hellaciously guilty.

Those facts were not mutually exclusive.

He did not have time to invent a brilliant lie everyone would believe. He only needed to buy time.

Time would not necessarily save us, but it was the only thing available.

So, in the end, he settled on a mixture of ninety percent truth and ten percent exaggeration.

“I did a lot of crazy things before the Capital Spaceport Corporation convinced me to become an upstanding member of society. An old colleague of mine, who had fallen in with some very bad company, learned that something was heading my way.

“I’m just glad I trusted him.

“I don’t know whether he will ever see this interview, but if he does, thank you.

“And get out of there before anyone else gets hurt.”

We were still trying to determine our next step when someone decided to examine Raph’s comm history.

Whether that examination was legal or merely performed, as the press liked to phrase it, “in the interests of the people,” remained unclear.

We had bought time.

All that gave us was more time to wonder when the lie would rebound upon us.

Suddenly, every newscast, radio station, holovid channel, and probably every telegram booth, assuming the planet still possessed that ancient technology, had another story to tear into.

Someone had proudly claimed responsibility for killing or wounding thousands of people.

That was probably the sanest thing in the document.

Apparently, the Kethrin Denomination for the Augmentation of the Rebuilding of Faith and Realignment of God’s Grace had claimed explicit responsibility for the attack.

They might have been dismissed as just another crackpot religious group, except that they promised “three more miniature statements of God’s Wrath” exactly one hour after releasing the document.

The demonstrations would take no further lives, they claimed, but would reveal their true power.

Exactly one hour later, three isolated towers exploded simultaneously. The surrounding cameras showed no sign of who or what had destroyed them.

In the eyes of the public, that was enough to make the claim of responsibility credible.

The document explained that Kethrin had been targeted because, while the loss of life was regrettable, it had been necessary to show the entire Federation the path toward rebuilding its faith and returning to God’s grace.

By that, they meant following the work of a, for lack of a better term, prophet from the late Imperial period named Olver Thunderbolt.

Among Olver’s religious demands for returning the dying Empire to divine favor were:

“All education, whether primary, secondary, or expert, must take place outdoors and unclothed. Only when we are truly open to the Universe’s mysteries are we prepared to accept wisdom.”

Prayer followed a similarly unique timetable.

Every Tuesday at 03:45 Galactic Standard Time, Olver’s followers were expected to stop whatever they were doing and spend exactly fifty-three seconds concentrating upon his writings while opening themselves to receive messages from God.

Olver also taught that the right hand carried humanity’s natural desire for peace. If the right hand touched a weapon, that desire might pass into the left hand and cause the weapon to turn against its owner.

Therefore, all weapons had to be handled with the left hand.

“When one is forced to draw a blade, one must always draw blood before returning it to its sheath. Otherwise, the frustrated weapon may force its owner into increasingly warlike actions to satisfy its thirst.”

The cult had one thing in its favor.

Its members were commanded to love and cherish one another and never use their authority to abuse anyone.

“As God has commanded me not to abuse others, I pass this charge on to you.”

Olver’s doomsday cult had appeared briefly during the dying years of the Empire before fading into obscurity. Few people remembered it until someone apparently revived the Prophet’s teachings and used them to justify murder on a massive scale.

They had preserved every absurd ritual and betrayed the one worthwhile principle beneath them.

It made no sense, which to many people meant it made perfect sense.

And somehow, that was almost not the strangest thing to happen to us during the five minutes it took to read the document.

Someone had left a message on Raph’s comm that did not appear in his comm logs.

Raphael picked up his comm and began searching through it.