Cardinal's Cross Part 1

Part 1 of the first chapter of my new project.

Of Fire And Prayers

Ch.1 Cardinal’s Cross

He wiggled his toes inside the capsule, and from there proceeded to flex every muscle he could manage. Everything still seemed to be there. He knew that Matter-trans was the safest way to travel in existence; more likely to be mauled by a bear six times in the same day while being struck by lighting than for something to go wrong in a matter-trans. Despite that he never enjoyed the sickly feeling after having his atoms reassembled.

“Sir, you may step out of the station now. You have been decontaminated, and your squad is waiting for you in the other room.” The engineer gave him a thumbs up from behind the console, and looked away to continue monitoring the other capsules. He stepped out of the metal tube and into the room. Ten similar stations lined the walls around the room, and an open archway led into the non-officers matter-trans stations. He had to hold onto the railway as he bounced with every step, and despite the station’s quick rotation it still only was able to produce one tenth earth standard gravity this near the center. In the other room many soldiers were slowly buckling boots and hoisting bags onto their shoulder as they prepared for the load off. The matter-trans room was enormous, nearly a hundred stations in neat rows; it was one of the largest in all of the Intergalactic Congress space.

He reached up to his ear and pressed the small metallic pad to activate his ocular implants, and immediately starred up at the light strips along the ceiling. His display adjusted to filter out the light to the earth standard spectrum. The twinges of pain that came from prolonged exposure to nonstandard light had already started. The ocular implants highlighted the signals from his team’s dog tag chips, and he scratched absentmindedly at the scar the inserting process left on the back of your neck.

Southwest corner, damn. He thought as the he made the bounding low-grav steps. He was going to have to walk all the way to the back of the accursed room, just to have to walk all the way back to the front in this stupid half float. At the back of the room his squad were preparing, the new recruit's pale faces stared around the room nervously. One was even throwing up into a waste receptacle.

“Sir! The squad will be ready shortly,” shouted corpral Jessley as she snapped into a salute.

“Not now Jessley, you’ll scare the new recruits with that attitude,” he replied as he did a quick headcount. Thirteen men including officer and corpral, a standard scout squad, or in other words professional cannon fodder. What made it worse was that he and Jessley were the only ones with any real combat experience. The rest were fresh out of basic training; barely told how to hold a gun. Not that it mattered much. Recruits had never been a problem for the church. There was always another hundred young farm boys from around the allied worlds that wanted to fight for their God. What they really lacked was officers. Before he had only been a casual follower, and only went to church on easter. Then a representative came and offered both him and Jessley a position in the Holy Defense Force, and the pay was better than the Interstellar Navy so they both accepted immediately.

The only two that showed any real promise was the lanky one named Kishry. From what he had heard from his two weeks being their superior she had grown up on icy planet where the average temperature was below freezing in the summer. If it had done anything for her it gave her a steely resolve from the hard work it took to live on that kind of landscape.

The other was the mech engineer Big Tony, who was screwing in a loose bolts to a small scout bot he had apparently built himself out of scraps around the training facility. It was an annoying little machine. He had given it a low level AI chip, so it had about all the intelligence and free will of the average mutt. It’s eight legs clung to Big Tony’s shoulder as it surveyed the room with curious lenses. The man’s broad shoulders had been forged from long hours working in the slums around earth’s mega-city New Rincito. He had caught a break when he was taken in by a old man who ran a body shop, and after that the old guy brought him up in what he believed was the right way.

“Sir! The recruits are ready to go, and Lissle has stopped losing his lunch,” said Jessley as she saluted. She had magnetic boots with her, so she was able to walk in the station normally. It annoyed him to no end.

“Yes, the orders are for us to report to the equipment bay. We’ll get our hardware then the cardinal will give a final send off before we go surface side.” He began to crawl his way back to the front of the room. Behind him the recruits were all making their way through with varying success. Two of the smallest were making their way through like they were born for it, probably pod born those two. He never trusted the ones who grew up in space, always locked in a metal can. It wasn’t good for you, and they were always the ones to go screwy first.

They made their way through the inner habitation ring towards the ladder leading down to the outer one. As they descended the gravity became slightly higher, and by the time it reached the bottom they were standing in about half earth standard. Racks of different equipment lined the walls, and priests stood over the supply stations dousing the supplies in holy water to bless them in their up coming tours.

“Hello my son, may I bless you on your endeavors,” the priest picked up a small devise sitting among the different neural implants littering the supply station. It was in the shape of a small silvery cross, and had a miniature figurine Jesus being crucified atop it. He took the small cross and pressed it firmly onto the skin behind his ear. Each of the points drilled in to his skull painfully, and neural probes dove into his mind where they linked up with interaction hard points that every child had put in at birth.

Mission details and current planet specs superimposed themselves over his vision. It was the one thing he hated about being an officer. Better accommodations, better pay, but the implants always contained at least ten times the information. Filters began to pop up and sift out everything but the vital stats, and he was already halfway across the room by the time they finished.

“Looks like you got the nice one,” teased Jessley through the internal intercom system. The sounds were made through a synthesized speech pattern that was linked up to the inner ear, so private direct conversations could be held between soldiers.

“Stop it, this isn’t the time,” he whispered while having a com link open to Jessley. He looked back to see her give a mocking thumbs up, and behind her the rest of the squad was fixing the neurals in. Vitals from each of the recruits tech feeds popped in as they implants linked up with their internal monitoring system. Their hearts were racing, but that was normal with recruits about to see action. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small squashed pack of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting it slowly. How disappointed they're going to be.

Author's Note

there ya go, part two should be out tommorrow, and for all those who are wondering about Two Halves. I am planning on finishing it, eventually. I know exactly what is going to happened, and beleive me. The plot twists contained within the final battle are going to make your head spin.

Reviews

[Larry Dyson]

really great plot and characters... I need to read all your stuff....

[Ice QueenJen]

this was a good beginning to a space story, and can't wait to read the other chapters you have written.

[Aggie Skeleton]

I fail at Sci-Fi, and you don't. Enough said.

[Ian Faraway]

Scott Kelly, haha, Enders Game.... I agree it had that feel but it feels more like that Star Trek movie, the recent one... sort of. I actually attempted a space like story a few years back and....FAILED. But I like the detail and the characters seem interesting so far. Sorry got all your read requests but only got around to it now. Anyway, I'll read the others.

[Scott Kelly]

I read this in reverse, having read the second chapter first. Now that I've come back, I do have a higher opinion of this, but I'm still a bit worried about your characters. I realize that this is science fiction, and so the universe you create is really your most important character - but why can't both sets of characters be interesting? I like the Church colonization, though I have to wonder how a real Christian religion would react to finding intelligent life on other planets. Wouldn't that, in its own way, destroy what we see as the Church? I mean, the entire basis of Christian theology is that we're the only intelligent life in the universe. One would expect that in a world of science we'd have something more like what Arthur C. Clarke described, where Christianity is a dying cause because the more we search the universe, the more we find remnants of past civilizations and proof that the Bible and the core tenets therein must be wrong.

That said, back to your characters. I'm worried that they're just too... out of a science fiction movie. Big gear-head guy who is an engineer? Check. Assertive female who is also the second-best fighter/military thinker? Check. I sense a preacher-type who still kicks a*s in the future, maybe some sort of provocative female politician who has power, but not in the a*s-kicking sense, being a love interest for our hero. In short, I'm describing the cast from Firefly. Why not mix it up? Give your heroes some interesting faults, make them afraid, make them human.

When Neal Stephenson wrote his pseudo sci-fi masterpiece the Baroque cycle, one of the first things you learn about the a*s-kicking rogue vagabond who serves as the stories protagonist is that he lost half of his penis to syphilis. That's the sort of interesting detail and twist on character development that I love - real, human, sometimes imperfect things.

Now, I'm not saying all your characters are going to be cliches. I haven't read enough to determine that. I'm just saying that, having read two chapters, my gut feeling is that it'll be the case. If I was a picky reader I might put it down by now.

Now, onto your world - very cool. I love insect life sci-fi, very Ender's Game.

[Nova]

Wow, this was soooo interesting. I don't think I've read anything like it. You have an amazing imagination. I'm so jealous. Very unique. I can't wait for the rest :]

[Senseless whatever]

Good start. Way to introduce your characters, being active. Good job.

[RDOriginal]

This is a good introduction to a science fiction book. There's plenty of technical references and we can see the promise of the 'hero' character emerging. The religious element is an interesting twist which keeps it fresh.

Overall I'd say it's well written and only in need of a final proof read and polish.

[Huggy Bear]

Great beginning to the book:)

[James Watts]

It took me a second for to set in, but I got it. Your style reminds me of this writer I have been reading. His name escapes me at the moment, but email me later and I will have it. Or you could just google Hal Spacejock. I downloaded his first book for free and it is a nice, funny sci-fi read.
I saw a few typos but nothing major and this one seems more organized and more developed over Two-Halves. Both are good, don't get me wrong, this one just seems like it has a little extra.