The Lucifer Manifesto (Chapter Three)

 

Dalagastia entered the office of Lucifer, her savior. Only a day prior she stood, ears, eyes, and mouth her only remaining senses, though without body to give them form, in the desolate though exponentially crowded middle passage. Already she had had her first bitter tastes of fruitless sensual denial. Ah, to have a body again, she thought as she entered the room with it's five chairs, four already filled. This was Lucifer's supreme council consisting of two of the ten Planetary Princes, Lucifer himself, and Calagastia, her brother.

 

She began to feel her face warm upon seeing the welcome sight of her dear brother. Calagastia stood at her entrance.

 

“Is this her? Could this be Dalagastia?”

 

“Yes, I am. Oh, Cal.”

 

The two siblings immediately locked into deep embrace. Calagastia held his sister as she sobbed onto his shoulder.

 

“I had thought I would be the one to cry, oh, Daliah, has it been so long? I had feared I would never see you again on this plane. How is it that luck would smile on me so, to have met Lucifer.” He turned and pulled out of the embrace to admire Lucifer, the beginnings of tears stinging the corners of his eyes.

 

Kalm was only partially impressed by the display. “You raised the dead. A miracle, surely, does your power have no end.” His words were droll and effortlessly mocking. But, truthfully, Dalagastia had not been pulled out of her Ascendant path purely for the delight of Calagastia. She was a sort of prototype soldier. The devolved soldier, if you considered ascension the next step in human evolution. She had the enhancements of the upper plain and the body of the lower, and nothing was lost in either.

 

“In the Ascendant process, one is stripped of body and eventually senses altogether.” Dalagastia cringed at the thought, “What you are left with is the soul, the pure spirit, the very energies that make body and mind go. Left alone with that energy and given time, you learn to harness it, control it, bend it to your will. Well, it is, in fact, your will, so why not? The benefits are obvious.”

 

With his speech over Lucifer placed a glass of water on the central table and walked to the window and turned to face the table. His aura beamed in anticipation.

 

Dalagastia, in turn walked over to the glass and placed her hand over it, closing her eyes. Her hand emanated a soft glow, not unlike Lucifer's usual aura. Before their eyes the glass of water began to boil, scalding steam bathing her hand, yet she let no pain show in her face. Calagastia rose to stop her but Lucifer bid him not to and he sat right back down. The water steamed until it was no more and the aura around Dalagastia's hand intensified.

 

First, they they heard the sound of the crystal beginning to crack and then the glass exploded, slinging glass to all corners of the room. A shard cut open Dalagastia's exposed left arm and yet another drew a faint line of blood from Kalm's cheek, yet he was too enthralled to notice. He did notice, however, that the cut on Dalagastia's arm seemed to heal of her own will, and even the blood was drawn back into the vein, leaving no sign of the wound on her arm.

 

No one in the room moved, except for Lucifer, who approached Dalagastia from behind, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Dalagastia herself was amazed by what she had just done. She had never touched the glass.

 

Kalm was the first to break the lingering silence. He spoke with the vigor of a schoolboy on the first day of break. “The military implications are obvious; she could boil a man's blood inside of his body, cook his brain inside of his skull. By the valleys of Cortinza Prime, she could probably blow him up with a mere thought.”

 

“It would be a damned unlucky surprise on a first date.” Asimov said, hoping to ease the room's mounting tension.

 

“Not her, not my sister.” Calagastia came to the defense of Dalagastia, standing and almost spitting in the face of Kalm, who was very much his superior.

 

“Calagastia, I believe you forget that you live in my house...”

 

“Our house,” Lucifer corrected, “and it was mine long before it was yours, and, need I remind you, I, being of a higher plane than Dalagastia, have power beyond even her own. And even her power could go so much farther.”

 

“How?” It was all the stunned Prince could say.

 

“Never mind heat and boiling water, that was a parlor trick compared to her potential powers. Imagine the fire such power could birth. It could compete with a medium ship's small guns and with her speed she could escape the blast radius of a cruiser's cannons. And she can fly, at least fast enough to keep up with a motorbike, I would guess. So you could imagine what she could do to a squadron of Theocrat soldiers.” With Lucifer's increasing praise Dalagastia became increasingly fearful of their implications. She didn't want to become a killing machine, even if it was for a cause she supported.

 

“But, Dalagastia, it will not come to that, for you.” It was almost as if Lucifer had answered her thoughts themselves. Kalm cried out in dismay over the wasted weapon, for to him, that was all she was.

 

“I would not use such a girl as you in such a way if you disapprove, but it would seem you are not cut out for war and as such I will not force you.” To this he added, “as others would,” and shot a hard glare at Kalm. “I would, however, ask you to be my standing representative of the spirited soldiers that are sure to come of this.”

 

“And I would gladly accept.”

 

“And now the only hope of our survival has been lost to this council.” Kalm said, clearly disappointed.

 

“But, Kalm, I could have another twenty by the Conclave, fifty by the time the first of the Theocrat's arrive, and your army of one hundred before the system gets too thick with Theocratic soldiers. Is that acceptable?”

 

Kalm nodded. It was.

 

 

 

. . . . .

 

 

 

Asimov was having intense difficulty assembling a standing army on Satania, as the area had had no war in over a century, and had no hopes of having one any time soon. Little did the people know they were on the brink of a war that would span every reach of space before it ended.

 

So, at the moment, he was a mere three weeks away from the annual Conclave and all he had for an army was a shifty police force of just over four million (though he figured he would be left with five hundred thousand spread over the five planets in his system by the time the Theocrats arrived) and four spirited soldiers on loan from Lanonandek's army.

 

A navy of ships would be easy to assemble, however. In his father's time the naval fleet of Satania had been the rival of any fleet in Superuniverse Diiltae. These ships had been well stored and given a month could be repaired of whatever damages could've come of them in their hundred and fifty year stagnation. His only worry was the the newer ships in The Theocracy's fleet could be more then a match. Still, there was no way to move a large naval fleet through space easily so he could bank on sheer numbers until allies could be found.

 

Just then as he was lost in thought, he heard a low beep accompanied by the faint hum of his door dissipating. Into the room came Pan, the oldest of his great-great-great-grandchildren, the woman of age who would be next in line for the family throne if only the last three of his great-great-grandchildren would quit waiting for him to succumb to age and ascend out of hopelessness. He gave himself a mental smack for hoping they would ascend now that he knew what torturous existence lay beyond.

 

Pan was without her usual accompaniment of younger brothers and countless cousins who all looked to her as a mother. Pan was named after the saint who watched over children who died before they could ascend, and with her small army of children, she was the spitting image of the saint. Asimov liked her above all of his children and hoped that one day she would inherit the throne. He had even considered bucking tradition and naming her Princess of Satania and retiring on the spot. The only thing holding him back was the thought of his last remaining great-great-grandchildren ascending out of spite the next day.

 

“I am twenty-three now and of the age that I might rightly ascend, but being of royal stock I would need to have a child first to carry on the family line. So, what do you think I heard whilst I searched for a husband?” Clearly, it was a rhetorical question, which Pan was fond of, but the pause was a bit too long, like a childhood guessing game. When Pan was sure Asimov wouldn't answer, she continued. “My Darling Father (this was her nickname for Asimov, as he had raised her for most of her life) is trying to assemble a standing army. Now, why is that? Are we at war, Dad? Is the time of peace now over? Why would you start a war now father?”

 

“To ensure the throne you inherit isn't a broken one.” Asimov lit a Dormian herbal cigarette of the kind he had long used to numb his aches and pains. “Poor child, you have been raised in a time when the power of the Planetary Princes is slipping and The Theocracy is taking hold. And those b******s do this behind our backs, stealing our children from us, our future, and supplying us only with false hopes. It has taken a week to find contacts in Onia that I could speak to and what do I find out? The Paradise Sons have stepped in and replaced the Planetary Princes of the entire system with their own Theocrats. And I fear that the same has happened in the Moria system as well. The two great kingdoms of Superuniverse Aelphae have fallen. How long will it be before the same happens to us? And our lines of communication with most of Aelphae have been cut, so that we continue our lives knowing naught of the foul wind that threatens to consume us. Yes, my child, the time for action is upon us.”

 

“Is it not theirs to take? Under mandate of the Universal Father?”

 

“If there was such a thing, would they not have ascended to be at his side? No, I doubt the existence of such a figure, at least one who would talk to those toothless charlatans and not I. Is it not my right to hold land as a creation of the Universal Father? Besides, recently I've been in contact with a man who has been to the other side, what he will say will shake the foundations of all time, I can feel it. And with those words, war will rain down upon us; peace is no longer an option, I am afraid. I would love nothing more than to maintain peace, but destiny has drawn the battle lines here and who am I not to pick them up? It will be kill or be killed here soon, and my people were not born to die without a sound. The Theocracy will tremble before the might of the Satania system.”

 

“If that is how you feel, truly father, I am behind you. I know you have a record of peace that stretches to long before my time. And though you are over a hundred years my senior, there was not a war in your time either. If this is the moment you have chosen to take your stand than so be it, I will fight until my last breath by your side.”

 

 

 

. . . . .

 

 

 

 

Amassing an army on Lanonandek wasn't too hard; the Lanonandek system sat on the outer edge of the Satania system and was one of the first places anyone came to invade. On top of that there was the constant problem of the pirates. The area around the Satania system was largely unclaimed and so the were numerous factions vying for control. The combined standing army of the three planets was hardly fifty million but in the last two weeks since the arrival of Dalagastia the numbers had been increased to nearly eighty million. And there was still two weeks until the Conclave, which left only one week until Lucifer's grand speech.

 

Already the Satania system swelled with tourists from all over the Diiltae Superuniverse. Lucifer had received word that with help of great-great-great-granddaughter Pan, Prince Asimov had managed to accumulate an army of nearly twenty-five million and counting.

 

Lucifer had left the control and assembly of the army of Lanonandek to Kalm as he had other things to do and was now making constant trips to and from the Middle Passage recruiting soldiers to fight The Theocracy. Already eight spirited soldiers stood guard on Lanonandek, Dormia, and Sarune.

 

Dormia had four of the soldiers to itself as it had almost no army. Unlike Lanonandek and Sarune, Dormia had the perfect climate for growing exotic herbs and plants and most of the Satania System's finest herbal teas, medicines and cigars were imported from Dormia. It was because of this and the planets diminutive size that it had a very low population and almost no army.

 

There were an additional five spirited soldiers in the Satania Inner System, one on each of it's planets.

 

This arrangement of spirited men between the two systems led to a number of small headaches for Dalagastia, who was finding the job to be a little more than she had bargained for. Calagastia worked as her assistant whenever Lucifer was out in the Middle Passage and there was nothing for him to do.

 

Word of Lucifer's rebellion spread like wildfire throughout the Middle Passage. This made the search for recruits not only easier but more dangerous as well. The men and women of the Middle Passage seemed polarized either for or against Lucifer and in resulting skirmishes the first “blood” of the rebellion was spilled.