Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (14 page)

I started laughing. It took me a few
minutes to settle down again.

"Sorry. I tend to forget that most
people don’t know the difference between Spiritual and Religious. 'Religious
Crap' is what people call spirituality when they don’t know the difference."

"It's all the same."

"No, it's not."

"Educate me."

"You really want to know?"

"I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t."

"Okay. The fundamental difference is
that all Religions are Spiritual, but being Spiritual doesn’t require any
religion."

"That's just silly."

"No it isn’t. There is a big
difference. You sure you want to hear it?"

"I do."

I wondered about that, but had to take her
at her word.

"Religion is first and foremost about
worship of a being referred to as God, or Allah, or some other name, where said
God has created man in his image. It’s a set of rules to live by, created
around a social gathering where you worship. It gives people structure,
organization, and a social group of people who all believe the same. But
worship is directed through the church, and deviation from how the church says
things should be is punished. They preach love, and practice intolerance of
everyone who does not belong to their faith, usually without being aware of it."

"So you're automatically a heretic for
saying so?"

She grinned at me, but I didn’t return it.

"I guess so. Religion is the first
stage of being spiritual. It's great for those people who need order and
structure, and a group of people to be with, with someone to lead them. The
problem tends to be with extremists who pervert the message of love, to mean
only love of those who hold their brand of faith. Not to mention the people who
hold the control, and abuse it, or refuse to let people leave it."

"That’s about how I read it. And why I
rejected religion years ago."

"As did I. I had a number of them to
choose from at home, but I took bits from each one and made my own unique
belief system."

"So you reject the structure, rules
and groups, but retain some form of faith?"

"Yes. Sort of. Being spiritual
involves two main things. Faith in something bigger than yourself, and trust
that the cosmos is unfolding as it should."

"So you don’t believe in a God? Or do
you, but just something not human like?"

"Personally, I believe in something
higher than us, which exists as energy, and embodies the entire universe.
Between us and it, there are various levels of beings, who help us to
communicate with it."

"So not God?"

"God is a badly used word. Any
sufficiently advanced being would be called a God, by those who didn’t
understand what it could do. The Egyptians had theirs, as did the Nordics,
Mayans, and just about every pre-modern civilization that pre-dated the
religions which began in the last three thousand years. When science fiction
came along, the whole God thing was taken to extremes, and eventually became
ridiculous. A God could be anything, and a lot of the time was no such thing,
just a being with a huge ego, and an army to enforce its will."

"So your energy field which binds the
universe together, what do you call it?"

"The Divine. But that’s just my name
for it. Although a lot of people use it."

"So what do you believe or do that is
not religious?"

"Being spiritual is a personal thing.
Instead of worship, we talk openly using our minds."

"You mean telepathy?"

"As good a word as any for it. When
you quieten down your mind to the point where you do not have a single thought
for at least ten minutes, you can ask a higher being a question, and hear its
answer. And you know from the different volume, timbre, tone, syntax choice,
and other differences, that this was not your own thought. It takes time to get
used to, and to correctly identify who talks to you. And you need to remove the
ones who talk to you who shouldn’t be, the ones coming from fear and hate. But
eventually you talk only to the white light beings which represent the
Divine."

"Not the Divine itself?"

"Sure you can. The Divine is very
distinctive. But direct contact isn’t needed very often, and mainly you speak
to ArcAngels or Ascended Masters. Those with an Indian history speak with the
Deities, like Kali and Ganesha, who I have a lot of contact with. Some talk to
the Nordic 'gods', knowing they are but higher level beings, the same as
Ascended Masters. Jesus is an Ascended Master. The Buddha's are on the same
level of existence."

"I still don’t see a difference."

"Being spiritual is having an
awareness of the cosmos as it truly is, and communicating with it in harmony.
It’s a respect and deep love for all beings, including those who hate you. We
strive for serenity in all things, no matter what is happening around us."

"And failing."

I laughed.

"Sure. It takes a lot of work to
achieve serenity. I'm not there yet. But I'm only a few years older than you
are, and I know people who have strived their whole lives and still haven’t
managed it yet. It is something of an ideal, but one we actively work on all
the time."

I looked at her for a moment. She didn’t
say anything. I went on.

"Religions exist in a state of
stagnation, holding on to centuries and even millennia old ideals, methods and
practices, changing only slowly. Spiritual people are in a state of constant
change, as they walk their spiritual path, and often their healing path,
striving to raise their energy to oneness with the Light which is the Divine.
Religions are big on punishing those who do wrong, and some of them absolve
them of responsibility for their bad deeds, so they can do them again and
again. Spiritual is about releasing, forgiving, and accepting, so the past is
gone, and we can move into the future always improving ourselves. Those who do
spiritual counselling often help religious people move beyond the restrictions
of their religion. While confession and absolution are a good start, they are
only a fraction of what a true karmic release achieves. Those of us who are
spiritual talk out our failings with the higher beings, and seek to release
them for good, not seek absolution from a minion of a god created in man's
image, in order to just feel good about yourself and the bad you do."

"Hmmm."

"A lot of people never see the
difference, often because they simply don’t want to. Throw the baby out with
the bathwater sort of thing."

I spread my left arm out wide.

"This is where religion is on the
spiritual scale of things."

I spread my right arm out wider.

"This is where spiritual people aim to
be. There is a huge difference."

"Okay, if you say so."

"Don’t take my word for it. Read about
religion. Jane will give you some reading about being Spiritual and how to go
about it, and what we do to heal ourselves. The books I used myself when I was
a kid learning all this. There's also discussions I've had with people which
cover a lot of ground. Get Jane to play them for you. Make your own mind
up."

"I will. Thanks. But you never
answered my original question."

"Which was?"

"How could you do what you did to that
man?"

"Part of what I believe is about
Karma. His karma was majorly unbalanced, given he'd been hurting people his
whole life."

"How do you know that?"

"I get told these things, when I need
to know them."

"Who by?"

"ArcAngels mostly. I won't go into
Karma now. Jane can show you past discussions about it. The important thing is,
when souls can't collect against a person creating karma, the cosmos sends
someone to collect for them. I carried the sword, but it was Kali who wielded
it. In a sense, I was just the messenger, delivering Kali's message."

"But isn’t killing just wrong? What
happened to loving all beings?"

"Being spiritual doesn’t mean you walk
around with 'Doormat, wipe feet here' on your t-shirt. We do what we have to,
what needs doing, and what we are asked to do as far as the higher beings are
concerned. As I've found out the hard way, sometimes this involves killing. The
important part is we take responsibility for our own actions, and we do the
releases and forgiveness appropriate to the action."

"It still makes you a killer."

"I don’t view myself as a killer. I
don’t ask these people to threaten me and those I love. I don’t ask to be
attacked. But when I am, I view it as the attacker has been brought to me to
answer their own karma, and sometimes their life is forfeit to pay their debts.
Others are simply unaware they are truly suicidal. I didn’t ask to take their
lives, but it’s the role I seem to have to play, the role they chose for me by
choosing to attack me. I’d rather not kill them, but sometimes you just don’t
get a choice. It's not like I don’t have a reputation out there. My guild
records show the number of my kills, and this should put people off taking me
on. Alas, some people just don’t pay attention."

"How many kills do you have?"

"I stopped counting after I passed
seven hundred." She shuddered. "But take into account, the majority
of those were during the Midgard war. All the rest were a result of other
people, mainly pirates, assassins, and dark Mercs attacking me. And I did the
karmic release for every single person who died or was hurt. I take
responsibility for my actions, even though I’d prefer not to have to take those
actions at all."

She looked at me skeptically.

"There is also a deeper Karmic issue.
All action or inaction incurs karma. When you have a chance to stop someone who
believes they have a right to hurt and kill people for their own amusement, the
karma is mixed. If you kill them, you incur the karmic debt for the death, but
you also gain positive karma for all future negative actions that person could
have committed, but now wont. But if you allow that person to go on as they
were, you accrue all the negative karma for each negative action they do,
because you made no attempt to stop it. Yes, I know how that sounds. There's an
example in Liao-Fan's Four Lessons where the writer talks about how being a
vigilante is illegal in the eyes of the law, but failing to act as a vigilante
in certain circumstances actually carries the higher karmic debts to
yourself."

Her eyes were glazing over.

"Anyway, when confronted with a rapist
in the act, who condemns himself with his own words, I follow the guidance I
get. In this case, he deserved death. Did the girl I rescued express any
opinion as to my actions?"

"She thought you killed him way too
quickly."

"And if you had been her? What would
you have wanted?"

"I don’t know."

She looked troubled.

"Good answer. When you know, you will
understand more about yourself. And understanding yourself is a beginning to
understanding what being spiritual means, and opening up the path for you to
walk, if you choose to."

She nodded.

Just then, Aline came in. She stopped
inside the door, and her eyes went to the bedroom door, and back to me.

Jill jumped up, taking the hint.

"Thank you," she said, sounding
genuinely thankful.

"Hug?" I asked.

"Sure," she replied.

We hugged, and she went on her way smiling.

A hug is always the best way to end a
spiritual discussion.

Aline led me into the bedroom. Which is
always a good way of starting….

At eight the next morning, Prometheus
jumped into Pestilence. She was still intact, but the tugs were failing. The
last hour or so had been more ballistic movement than thrust. The important
thing though was she remained intact. Jane sent two tugs over to bring her to a
stop gently, and salvage droids over to remove the other tugs.

We maneuvered BigMother nose to nose with
Prometheus, extended our shields to cover both ships, and Jane had repair
droids begin the task of making a solid join. Prometheus didn’t have the nose
cargo airlock which was standard these days, so Jane was improvising docking
clamps for her.

My main concern was that in extending our
shields, we didn’t expose us to Pestilence's scourge. But I needn’t have
worried. While our shields overall strength was well down, the augmented
strength of all the ships meant we remained safe.

By eleven, we were ready to move. Jane
pushed the power on slowly, sensors checking Prometheus for any problems as the
speed built. But the shields did their job, and before long we were close to
top speed.

Eight hours to the jump point to Famine.
Thirty three hours to get to the Shipyard in Treasure Chest.

Lunch was a boisterous affair, given we
were now heading in the right direction, and away from danger. And as Amanda
pointed out, nothing bad had happened, considering we'd had the nightmare
beforehand. Her comment made me feel uneasy. We were not out of the woods yet.

It was Annabelle who asked the leading
question, which came to dominate the next few days.

"Have you come up with a plan yet for
when the Darkness arrives?" she asked me.

"No. It's fairly complex, given we
need to plan two ways."

"What ways?" asked BA.

"On the one hand, we need to plan on
how to evacuate systems which haven’t made any evacuation plans. On the other
hand, we need to figure out if we even do that, or just leave them to their
fate. And on the gripping hand, we may need a battle plan to give enough time
for evacuations."

"Why are evacuations the main
focus?" asked Alison.

"We know planets and systems get wiped
clean of higher life, and all signs of humans being there. This can be some
sort of major catastrophic event. If it ripples along the arm, we can flee
before it. If it doesn’t, we're stuffed anyway, so there's no point in planning
for that. If it’s an invasion scenario of some kind, knowing most of Earth
sector is wiped clean, we can again flee from it. But fleeing an invasion
requires a plan for an orderly retreat, giving time for evacuations. Either
way, evacuating planets and moving stations are the core activity."

"You'd leave people to their fate?"
asked Carter.

"I'd prefer not to. Obviously it would
be best to try and move them, but history says every forced movement of people
has a core who refuse to go. They usually die. They do have the choice, and we
need to respect that. But all the same, I'd rather not leave anyone."

"We're going to need to leave people
at least once," said Dick solemnly.

"Why?" asked Carter.

"Because until we can show the arm
what actually is occurring," I said, "no-one is really going to take
us seriously. Until we leave some people behind, and can show everyone else how
they died, no-one is going to just up and leave. It's why we need to have a
plan in place. Because very few will have."

"It's going to be worse than
that," said Dick, now looking sickly.

"How so?"

"We can assume events will overtake us
too fast at the first choke point on the spine. If we have to pull back before
the systems feeding into it are cleared, anyone left behind is likely to die. For
example down here, the African systems have a second escape point. But the
Latin systems don't. When we lose Brazil, it's over for the whole Latin sector.
Even if Brazil is held, once we lose Morocco and Libya, anyone on the other
side is toast. And once Egypt is lost, the African sector is lost."

"That’s a very bleak picture,"
said Abigail.

"What's our role going to be?"
asked Jack.

"First, we need to be there, wherever
it first happens. We need to record it, and survive it. And make sure it gets
broadcast everywhere. Second, we probably have to be a sort of Paul Revere,
making sure people get the time to evacuate. Third, we may have to help people
evacuate, especially early on. Fourth, if it's an invasion, we'll be fighting a
rearguard action in the direction people are fleeing in."

"That’s potentially in two directions,"
said Sam. "If the Darkness hits the middle of the arm first."

"True. So we need to plan for it.
Maybe it requires we have two command structures, so once we get cut off, we
can lead the retreat both ways. It means twice the resources as well."

"Are you going to claim these sectors
for the Duchy?" asked Amy.

"I was thinking of doing so, yes. It's
a one in six chance the Darkness comes this way. If so, owning this chunk of
the spine will allow us to station a good force down here. We could build a
custom station in Famine as a base."

"Why custom?" asked Grace.

I smiled at her.

"Remember that big rock in War by the
jump point? I’d hate to jump a station in through there. Which is another
point. If we need to retreat this way, War will need to be cleaned a bit to
ensure whatever we jump in avoids hitting a big rock." I looked at Jane.
"Maybe we need to plan that anyway. Just in case. Mine everything we can
for the Treasure Chest Shipyard, and move anything close to the jump points
which can't be mined."

"Confirmed."

I pondered for a moment.

"Can we use the roid field as a
defense?"

"How?" asked Jack.

"I'm not sure. For the sake of
argument, assume thousands of ships are pouring into War from Famine. What can
we do to use the system itself as a defense?"

"Oh momma!" said Alana, with a
shark like expression on her face.

There was a general chuckle, considering
her main thought lines revolved around blowing things up.

"We need some discussion groups,"
said Annabelle.

"Go for it," I said.

Lunch broke up, with most of them heading
for the conference rooms.

I stopped off to pat Angel, before going
back to the Bridge. Jane waited for me to pull out my pad, before interrupting
me.

"You've not been paying attention to
the close sector maps have you."

It wasn’t a question.

"Should I have?"

"Actually, yes."

"What's happening?"

"A fair bit. Not long after you
announced you were claiming the Treasure Chest system, both the Latin and
African sectors sent us details of sector force dispositions. While they don’t
have big fleets, they decided to get them together and scour their space for
the last of the pirates. I sent them a list of the ones we had Intel on to
think might be pirates, but hadn't been able to get close enough to find out
for sure. There's been some fighting already, starting on the outer edges of
both sectors."

"Why there?"

"I suspect they are going to drive any
remaining pirates towards us, and have us be the anvil to their hammer."

"Oh. I wish you'd pointed that out
earlier. Combat is the one thing we don’t need at the moment."

"You were somewhat pre-occupied."

"True. Are you tracking specific
ships?"

"Yes."

The local sector nav maps popped up. There
were several clusters of green dots, indicating sector forces, and a scattering
of red dots.

"Any idea where the pirates will
go?"

"The closest red dot looks like its
heading for Last Hope. It will get there before we do. It's too early to tell
with most of the rest. For now it looks like they're fleeing towards the spine,
but which way they go after is anyone's guess."

"What's coming towards us?"

"Battleship."

"I didn’t know they had any
left."

"Apparently they do."

"Why would it be heading to Last Hope
and not Treasure Chest?"

"It's been pretty widely broadcast
that we took Treasure Chest from them, and we took the ships guarding it.
They'll know that one on one, they can't hope to survive against that
force."

"So why aren’t they trying to just
vanish?"

"Maybe they were trying. They might
have succeeded as well, if we hadn't told the sector forces about them."

"We?"

"Well I did."

"We need to have a discussion sometime
about your independence sub-routines."

"What about them?"

"They're getting too
independent."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Confirmed."

"I'm not saying you were wrong. Just
that I should have been in the loop first."

"You were pre-occupied at the
time."

"We've done that."

Jane sighed.

I goggled at her, not ever having seen her
sigh before.

"Keep me in the loop. Make sure I'm on
the Bridge for any jump where there is any sign of hostiles on either side of
the point."

"Closest is that Battleship. There is
a slight probability it is actually coming to take us on, in which case, we'll
see it around the time we approach the Last Hope jump point in War, sometime
around five tomorrow morning. I'll let you know something more definite before
you go to bed tonight. Otherwise, if they are after the planet, we'll get there
around eight."

"Better send a warning to Last Hope,
just in case."

"Confirmed."

"You know, you don’t have to say
that."

"I know. It feels right though."

"As long as you're happy."

She batted her eyelids at me.

During the afternoon, I spent time with
each of the focus groups. I didn't add anything to their discussions, but
silently encouraged them. I had my own ideas, and was interested in hearing
theirs, not having them adapt to mine.

Some of the ideas were just plain way out,
some were adaptable, and a few were pure gems.

BA's group, predictably, concentrated on
ground holding actions, while people boarded ships to flee.

Sam's group also concentrated on the ground
side, but were more interested in what sort of ships we needed to evacuate huge
numbers of people effectively. I listened to some of the comments, and realized
the average freighter which could land on a planet was not going to move enough
people, even if they were packed in like the proverbial sardines.

The feasibility of Cruiser sized Dropships
was discussed. I already had the idea for marine landings, given Midgard had
actually landed their Cruisers safely, but dedicated people collectors was a
good idea. However I doubted even Cruiser size would do the job, unless we had
sufficient time to build a lot of them. Using combat ships wouldn’t work.
They'd need to be designed from the ground up to carry huge numbers of people,
with the bathroom and food facilities necessary for however long it took to
offload them somewhere else. In the end, they might even become permanent
homes, so would also need enough sleeping facilities.

It was coming home to me slowly, exactly
how big the problem of saving humanity might be. I’d watched all the
entertainment of the last six hundred years, which portrayed humanity fleeing
for its survival, but none of them had ever dealt with the kinds of numbers of
people we potentially could be. We weren't talking about survivors who were off
planet at the time it was nuked. We were talking about having advanced warning
enough to move entire populations of millions, or even hundreds of millions of
people.

I looked up the current estimate of the
population of the entire arm. Even if we saved hundreds of millions, billions
were going to die.

The sheer scale of it all was mind
boggling.

And at this point in time, I couldn’t see
how we could save more than a small fraction of them. Not because we didn’t
want to, but because we had no means of transporting that many people, or
feeding them into the longer term. All the freighters currently in service,
wouldn’t carry more than the population of say the Australian sector.

The shorter the time we were given to
prepare, the fewer people would survive. This was becoming clearer to me all
the time. It clarified for me the need to convince as many governments and
military leaders as possible of the threat, and the need to begin to prepare
now.

Annabelle's group included most of the
senior officers. They were discussing what they needed for ground operations,
based on the recent actions. Predictably, hardware was a major factor being
discussed, as well as how to use it against different types of threats. Jane
told me they'd started with the Fortress idea, and moved from there. They
wanted a heavier weapon than the Meson, with the capability to rapid pulse,
normal pulse, and stream; depending on the threat. But they wanted it for
normal suit use, meaning it needed to draw as little power as possible, and be
small enough to carry easily. And I thought we'd exhausted this line of
approach with the modifications to the suits to carry the Mesons.