Free Dadr'Ba by Tetsu'Go'Ru Tsu'Te Page B

person, an adult and a full member of the crew.
    As she was coming to the realization that the soldiers are programmed to “escort” them, she heard the Church Elder that had greeted them at the front of the group confirm her deduction. “The soldiers are here to provide us a safe escort to the Church and into the Ceremony Chamber, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” The initiates formed up two abreast and led by the elder along the path to the Church, the soldiers forming a perimeter around them.
    The initiates made their way the short distance to the Church following the Church Elder who walked with a limp. There they meet up with several Church Ushers that accompanied them inside. All the Church officials, were easily identifiable by their long white robes and inky black tunic’s with a small, single four pointed star and halo on the left breast and a much larger one centered on the back. Su’Zi, last, pauses a moment and looks back, which elicits a red warning glow from the crown of the soldier following up the rear. She turns and hurries to catch up with the rest.
    They enter into the Church without the soldiers and file along the side wall to the back, then through a doorway, then halfway down a hallway through another door to a set of stairs. Down three flights and through a door and a corridor that seemed to cut back under the central part of the Church above, all this under the escort of the ushers.
    They finally enter a large room nearly as large as the main chamber of the Church they first came into. This one they entered through the back and onto its raised dais. Facing across from them stood a large arched doorway with double doors.
    Su’Zi could see that the door in front of them looked as though it had been closed and hastily barricaded. The barricade looked a jumbled mess, haphazardly constructed, using materials from inside the Church, mostly piled and broken pews.
    This barricade was old, the surface sealants and plastics of the barricade were decaying, peeling and cracking, all appearances indicating that it hasn’t been touched in many years. Su’Zi began to think that this place must be a remnant of the Touch of God Event eight hundred years ago, a Holy Place.
    It had been a long day, and the initiates had been told not to eat or drink anything after breakfast, it was now late evening, and Su’Zi was tired, hungry and thirsty. She hoped that after all the accolades from the graduation at the stadium that some dinner or feast was in order, but there was no sign of food and the ushers were nowhere in sight.
    The Church Elder, a kind looking U’Te limped to the center of the stage. She introduced herself as Ra’Chl [40] and asked the initiates to be seated in the chairs on the right-hand side of the dais, old metal chairs bolted to the floor, reinforcing Su’Zi’s impression that this is a ceremonial place. Every effort made to keep the chamber the same for hundreds of years, preserving the look, feel, and orientation of the site for the ceremony that is to come. The initiates seated themselves and Ra’Chl congratulated them on their achievement and said that the ceremony was about to begin and soon after they would be able to eat and drink.
    Ra’Chl continued, explaining that they were now in an ancient section of Dadr’Ba one of the few places where survivors gathered after the Touch of God. Ninety percent of all life on Dadr’Ba perished instantly on that day, and the rest were sick or injured to the point that many of them died of their injuries. But some survived, and we are the descendants of those survivors.
    That day changed Dadr’Ba forever; no-one escaped the Touch of God, and the Touch of God raised the consciousness of all, and bound the survivors together with a shared purpose, through shared struggle and pain. Together they helped each other recover from their wounds and restarted the main engine that executed a fail-safe shutdown, having left the ship running on emergency