Free Samael's Fire by L. K. Rigel Page A

disturbing tattoo.
    “Maybe it was a mistake to keep the com turned off.” Once again, Jake switched to manual pilot and took the   Junque   out of the programmed flight path. He sent the data link request manually, with the sinking awareness that no answer would be forthcoming.
    In that moment, Jake understood what Rani had not yet grasped. The Imperial station was gone.

Marked
     
    In a corridor that looked like every other corridor, Char heard a Ppod door slide shut behind her. She didn’t know how she got there or even where “there” was. She pulled out the compad stuffed in her flight pants and keyed in   com center.   A lovely green light blinked on the wall twenty feet away.
    Images clung to her like a dream she couldn’t shake. Jake. The woman with blood-red hair and fairies on her shoulders. Worse than removing a holofilm headset. After a holo, reality snapped back pretty much instantly. This was no dream, no holofilm. Reality wasn’t waiting conveniently outside her head.
    She had spoken with god.
    A god. Goddess. She couldn’t prove it, but she believed it. That’s why it was called a delusion.
    Shouldn’t she feel better? Comforted or some kind of crap like that? Asherah had given no comfort. The “revelation” was terrifying.
    The end was shibbing nigh.
    Soon you will meet your sister.
    Sky was definitely dead then, and Char was about to be. Maybe she should be comforted knowing that the afterlife indeed existed.   Heaven or hell, here I come.
    A few more turns and she didn’t need the lights to find her way to the deserted com center. Mike had left a note: No luck. Gone to use secure com in orbit runner. Back soon.
    How normal. A search for an emperor lost in a space battle. Nothing like what Char had to share.   The gods are real, and one of them spoke to me.
    No. No. No. This had to be some kind of narcosis. She ran a cross-annex systems check, but it confirmed low ammonia and acetone levels. The oxygen mix throughout was optimal. Nothing to cause psychosis.
    A piece of debris hit the ceiling and bounced off like a bird flying into a window. She remembered something the goddess had said. Commanded, to be more precise.   Open your eyes to the world below.
    The annex was dayside over North America, past the Sierras and close to the Mountain Zone. Not yet over the Garrick Sea. A few light clouds and a lot of smoke. Every urban center she could make out was burning.
    Smoke.   Asherah had whined about the tragic lack of holy fire in the material world.
    Char searched the monitor table and desk drawers for candles, then the supply cabinet in the corner. No luck. She welled up with tears. The goddess would be so disappointed.
    Cripes, what was happening to her? She was a scientist. She wasn’t going to start   worshipping gods,   cripes’ sake.
    In the search for candles, she spotted the agronomist’s shades behind his entertainment screen. The sleek design was solid in her hand, slightly heavier than she was used to. ISS issue, of course, a phoenix logo engraved on the sides.
    The shades molded automatically to fit. Colored lights sparkled in the air, and the word c-a-l-i-b-r-a-t-e-d flashed in front of her then disappeared. She had a clear line of sight, but when she moved the slider she lost her balance and fell against the table.
    She readjusted the magnification level and lay down on her back on the floor to solve the balance problem. Much better. Looking up at the ceiling was starting to hurt her neck.
    The shades’ auto-acquire feature grabbed onto a partial sunflower logo on a drifting piece of hull. Ack. Char moved her head to break the grab and tried again.   Come on, come on. Find the Space Junque.
    What   was   that Jake thing in the strawberries? Asherah had called it an Empani,   one of Samael’s glories . Char figured that Samael was another god, but what did it mean? That thing had looked and felt exactly like Jake. In its arms she’d felt loved, cherished, but it was