Sword of Axia (The Arcadian Jihad)

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

When you march up to attack a planet, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and allow you to land, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that planet. When Axia delivers it into your hand, put to the blaster all the men on that planet or condemn them to become slaves. As for the women, the children and everything else on the planet, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. This is how you are to treat all the planets.

Excerpt from the Scrolls of Axia – Part VII Rules for True Believers

System Standard 2728.1216 Lyra City, Axis Nova

They stopped before the vast double doors, great slabs of gleaming plastisteel edged in rhodium. Hard, invulnerable and unbreakable, they were almost a metaphor for the room they guarded. This was the second time the three men had been forced before the Supreme Court of Axis Nova in the city of Lyra. Axis Nova, the planet that ruled over the lives of every citizen in the Nine Systems. The planet itself, however, was more than just the ruling world of the known universe. Axis Nova, formerly Arcadia I, was a below system-standard gravity world where humans found the ecology, the mineral balance and living conditions almost perfect. More than almost perfect, some said the planetary ecology was much understated, it was so good that the inhabitants invariably lived lifespans that were much longer and healthier than anywhere else in the Nine Systems. With an annual cycle of three hundred and eighty five days and a mild, comfortable climate, it was the most desirable living space in the Systems. It was certainly the most expensive. People lucky or wealthy enough to live there didn’t grow old, they grew young, so envious off-worlders said. The result was that Acadia I, as it was once known, had hosted governments of the Nine Systems since its discovery at the very beginning. Why would politicians and the wealthy live anywhere less?

The planet known throughout the Universe as a paradise now contained something more than a benign environment. It was host to the central shrine to the Prophet Axia, the mystical seer who had set the universe alight. His blazing rhetoric of wealth and power for every man, no matter how humble his origins, had changed everything, even though he had died during the early years of the movement. For women there was a different role in the brave, new Axian universe. Millennia of social progress was swept aside as females were relegated to the status of second-class citizens, ordered to cover their bodies and faces in the presence of strangers and prevented from taking any active role in the new ‘utopia’. If the menfolk noticed their women being pushed back most chose not to object. After all, surely it was just temporary, women would regain their rightful place when the leaders were able consolidate their new power. In the meantime, there was a universe to conquer. The clarion call of religious fervor and fanaticism had ignited a revolt; vast legions of believers had swept through the Nine Systems, taking planet after planet, system after system until they arrived here at the ultimate goal, Arcadia I, the paradise. The Axian leadership now held sway over every corner of the Nine Systems after their bloody conquest had finally beaten down centuries of settled and peaceful rule under the democratic federation, Rescom.

 
‘What use is freedom to starve, freedom to be poor and landless?’ the Axian leaders had trumpeted. ‘We can offer you wealth for the poor, food to the starving and land to the landless, all in return for following the rule of Axia’.

The prophet and visionary Axia had been the man who uniquely communicated with the Great God Ahura; in fact, some said that Axia was a God. Instead of the Rescom Federation of Planets, headed by its controlling council Res Publica, the Systems were now held under the absolute control of the three High Prophets, direct inheritors of the mantle of Axia. They were able to communicate directly with the Great God Ahura. So they said. Others labeled the High Prophets the High Executioners, it all depended on which side of the war you’d fought.

Blas expected no more fairness, no more justice than the last time he’d been here on trial, it would all be prejudged of course. When they were here before they’d been sentenced to twenty years imprisonment on Nabucco I, the toxic mineral planet in the Antares System. For Blas and other senior officers the sentence would normally have been death. They’d met the enemy armed only with laser pistols, feeble hand weapons. Their intention was to go down fighting rather than rot in a prison cell waiting for the executioner to open the door and lead them to that final rope. In the last battle they’d fought hard, cutting a swathe through the ranks of the enemy troopers who had stormed the crippled Glorious, their Helios-Class Battlecruiser. The enemy had shouted their fanatic battle cry, Ax-ia, Ax-ia, but the fanatics had been more intent on revenge, a slow death, rather than a quick and easy end. Instead of falling to the enemy’s heavy plasma rifles the Rescom crew had been overcome by a hurricane of stun-beams and their wish for a quick and honorable death had eluded them forever. At the end of their ‘trial’ they were given a long prison sentence, not the hoped for death sentence. A long sentence on Nabucco I, the high-gravity toxic prison planet hell where captives toiled to wrench the precious plantium from the gas-saturated soil. It was a cruel combination of revenge and death, sadism would describe it better. Their death sentences were merely delayed for a few, short, pain-wracked years. To their surprise, four months into their sentence further charges had been laid against Blas and two others. None of them could fathom the reason why, hadn’t the Axians had their pound of flesh? The three men were brought back to the Supreme Court of Axis Nova for yet another ‘trial’, but perhaps this time it would be death, no other sentence was possible. Hopefully. After Nabucco I, a quick death was to be welcomed with open arms.

Blas reminded himself to keep his brain alert, he was about to face the three High Prophets, rulers of Axia, the Lords of Execution, ultimate arbiters of ‘justice’ in the known universe. The Supreme Court was where dreams were shattered for any man who dared to oppose the iron rule of Axia. Dreams of liberty, dreams of truth, dreams of fairness, none had any place here. This was their law, the only law, Axian law. The doors opened slowly, with a heavy, ponderous solemnity as if to set the tone for what was to come. They were emblazoned with the dreaded symbol of the Axian Legions.
 
The Sword of Axia, loved and welcomed by some, feared and loathed by others. The guards pushed Blas forward, he heard the clink of chains as Rusal and Smetana were dragged along behind him. He almost fell but managed to regain his balance as they began the slow walk towards their destiny. His Rescom uniform was ragged and dirty after months of imprisonment, his arms and legs held by steel shackles, but he resolved to keep his head high. He’d been defeated, it was true, but by soldiers, warriors who had massively outnumbered his beleaguered force, not bureaucrats like the men who sat on the high dais at the far end of the chamber. He knew the man in the center, recognized his face from the newscasts, as did every citizen of the Nine Systems. Grand Pasha Merca Gluck, the paunchy High Prophet of Axia, his cold, fleshy face set in his customary haughty expression.

There was something unsettling about Gluck, his white corpse-like skin and hooked nose prominent on his face. But it was his black, staring eyes that best caught the attention of those who stood before him. They were the eyes of a fanatic. His hair was hidden underneath a turban, on his chin he displayed a small, pointy beard. When he gesticulated with his hands Blas noted they were small and feminine. He recalled the fateful day on the surface of his home planet of Corazon when Gluck’s legions had bombarded the city where his parents lived. He’d been away, fighting on the bridge of a Rescom cruiser. His parents weren’t so lucky, their home had taken a direct hit, destroyed by a salvo from a long-range plasma cannon. When he returned home, there was nothing left, nothing recognizable. Only a pile of fused and melted rubble that was the tomb of his family. During the long months of captivity, his hopeless dream of wreaking revenge on this brutal dictator had burned inside him like a furnace. He looked again at Gluck. One day, he promised himself for the thousandth time, one day, give me the slightest chance and I’ll kill you and your entire family around you. Dying would be a price worth paying to settle that particular score.

Next to Gluck were his deputies, Pasha Erich Bern and Pasha Alban Bartok. All three were wearing their formal religious robes, the pure silk, yellow candoras of the Axian Supreme Leadership with the black jeweled turban that denoted the highest rank. Each Prophet also wore the solid gold chain of office bearing
 
the miniature Sword of Axia. Since they had seized power the Axians had enacted so-called ‘sumptuary’ laws. Dating back to some long forgotten age, it meant that the finest, most expensive silks, specially dyed yellow and bejeweled, were reserved for the sole use of the High Prophets. Lesser mortals had to be content with fabrics that are were commonplace. After all, Metalorg, the mass-produced synthetically spun fabric was good enough for ordinary people, wasn’t it, cheap to produce in large quantities? Why should the general population wish for more? Sitting at a table separate from the judges sat Secretary Shemal Kerawan, his lean, swarthy face set in a perpetual frown. He was very tall, dominating the court with his height, although his body was excessively thin and slightly stooped, making him resemble a preying insect. Yet his physique still looked wiry, as if he possessed hidden strengths. Kerawan was known in the Axian hierarchy as a man to treat with extreme care. As a man to fear. He was the power behind the throne, the ‘Eminence Gris’, some said that not a single decision was made in the Axian Empire without his blessing. As clerk to this session of the Supreme Court he rose to speak but at a sign from Gluck sat down quickly.

“Quentin Rusal, Admiral of the so-called Rescom Second Fleet, Constantine Blas, Captain in that same fleet and Berg Smetana, trader and supplier of munitions to the illegal regime, you are here to answer the charge of murder of an Axian Prophet.” Gluck sat back with smug satisfaction, watching for their reaction. Blas had idly been examining his surroundings, a habit that soldiers acquire, always on guard against sudden attacks from unexpected quarters, always looking for opportunities. He and the other two men looked up at Gluck in surprise at the unexpected charge. None of them said a thing, they’d agreed not to dignify this mockery with the benefit of any wasted words in their defense. Gluck went on.

“Before we pass sentence is there anything you wish to say to the court?”

Blas smiled faintly, the new Axian regime seemed to have more than its share of sick psychopaths. The most successful and brutal of them had come together on Axis Nova, here in the Supreme Court.

“I said did you wish to address the court?” Gluck repeated.

Kerawan looked even more irritated. “The Grand Pasha invited the prisoners to speak.”

“Leave them, Kerawan.” Gluck waved him back and was about to go on, but he looked up in surprise as the plastisteel doors opened again. Blas looked around and before the guards slammed his head back he saw a woman entering the courtroom. Like all women on Axis Nova she was covered from head to foot in the dark blue robe, as Axian law dictated for women who went outside their homes. Her face was hidden behind the mesh screen that covered the front of her head and the only way Blas could even guess at what kind of woman was inside the robe was to watch her walk. She came past him and he squinted sideways. From the sway of her body, her posture, the way she carried herself, he estimated she was perhaps twenty years old, slim, lithe and athletic, but of course she could have been older or even younger. Then he shivered, it was as if she carried with her some kind of an invisible aura, he noticed the way officials and soldiers shrank back too as she went past them. The young woman had to be of high rank, no ordinary female would have dared to interrupt this court. She walked slowly forward to the judge’s rostrum, almost seeming to glide. Ignoring the prisoners, the soldiers and court officials, she walked past Kerawan and up the three steps to stand behind the Grand Pasha.