Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (4 page)

Truth watched the development and
his heart skipped a beat. If he did not intervene, Smoke would be
pulled into the Earth's gravity and would burn up in the
atmosphere. 'It is forbidden to assist falling warriors. It is
forbidden to assist falling warriors,' he repeated to himself. 'I
am the commander of this ship,' he said to himself as if to be
convinced. For a few excruciating seconds, he gaped at the display
that indicated the danger in which Smoke was caught. He looked at
Smoke's activity log and identified the source of the malfunction.
'But it cannot be—the bypass system has been purposefully shut off.
He can't get out of this one. He wouldn't even realize that this is
the problem.' He repeated to himself, 'Let him fall. It is his
destiny.' His hands, though, seemed to move with a mind of their
own. They engaged the emergency system.

Smoke was baffled. Could it be that
the malfunction had just vanished? Was the ship capable of fixing
itself? But before he had a chance to finish his thought, he was
forced to quickly maneuver out of the way to avoid a direct hit
from Flash, just as another one of Smoke's pilots marked Flash's
ship, the last remaining ship of the offensive force, as
destroyed.

Truth commanded “Halt!” and the
exercise was over. Smoke's aircraft bore no signs of being hit. The
stress he experienced when dealing with the malfunction, though,
had caused his muscles to go stiff. He rubbed his arms, breathed
heavily, moistened the inside of his mouth and slowly began to
realize the gravity of his very presence. At the command of
'Return!' the pilots rejoined their spiral formation and slowly
cruised to a landing in the father ship.

Like a proper Gnostic warrior,
Smoke had performed all the technical checks himself before
embarking on the ceremonial exercise. 'It cannot be that the
malfunction appeared and subsequently disappeared with no outside
intervention,' he ruminated over the incident. And nonetheless,
something disturbed him. 'Perhaps I did not examine my aircraft
with the sufficient meticulousness, or perhaps, in my excitement, I
overlooked a small but crucial detail.' From the moment that he
examined his vessel up until he entered the cockpit for takeoff,
Smoke's aircraft had been exposed and accessible. It was possible
that someone could have sabotaged it, but who would have wanted to
do that? In the little time that remained before the ceremony, he
remained alone on the landing field and examined his aircraft. He
discovered nothing; no malfunction and no signs of tampering. 'Very
strange,' he mused.

The summer flies were at their peak
as they quenched their thirst courtesy of the sweating pilots, who
stood upright and motionless. Hundreds of junior soldiers
surrounded the parade field, shooting glances of admiration at the
chosen warriors and taking care not to look at the women behind
them. The women, like the Gnostic men, were captured at a young age
and were trained to worship the ideal of nullification in the
service of the Master of Light. They also took fertility inhibitors
as part of their morning blessing to the Master of Light. Some of
them never reached maturity due to the brutal conditions and others
were put to death if their counselors felt that they were not
sufficiently devout. They had a distinct purpose in the Gnosis: to
serve the sacred warriors. The women were responsible for the
economy of the compound and tended to all the mundane tasks as well
as the charge of raising the smaller children. They were forbidden,
however, from interfering in their education and resided in
complete seclusion from the men. Since creation was considered
impure, having children was forbidden. Kidnapping children who
easily lent themselves to reeducation was their only means of
growing their future forces.

Gnostic women encountered men only
when they were required to provide sexual services or to
participate in religious ceremonies. In honor of the appointment of
the deputy to the commander, the women were permitted to come out
of their dwellings and behold him.

“The troops will straighten for the
entrance of the ship's father. Lines straight!” ordered the
announcer.

Everyone stretched upright, their
flexible flight overalls glistening in the sunlight. The crowd
rustled.

Truth stepped slowly across the
square. He scanned the pilots, who stood erect in front of their
planes; the warriors of the badger units, standing beside their
hovercrafts; and the infantry, loaded with equipment and arms. They
were taut like a bowstring in anticipation of his piercing gaze. He
paused to question them, to test their preparedness for battle.
What are the coordinates you must recognize, how much time are you
permitted, what procedures will be performed in the event of the
myriad malfunctions you must handle, and so on.

Truth looked directly into the eyes
of each pilot and warrior he examined. The warriors lowered their
eyes, save for when he approached them; then his gaze penetrated
their souls. They sensed the intensity that he projected. He knew
that they would follow him to the depths of the netherworld.

Throughout the entire parade, not a
muscle flinched on the leader's face. He was famous for his courage
and bravery, a legend among the Gnostic warriors. They all knew
about what had happened in Ur.

Over a decade beforehand, the
Gnostics expanded their territory in the East. During the first
stage, they prepared to conquer all of the major cities within the
Uruk-Jerusalem-Istanbul triangle, followed by the second stage in
which they planned to continue to spread eastward toward Iran and
India and then westward to Europe. The predominant aspect of the
plan was its cruelty. Truth aroused such fear in the local
residents that many of them fled or simply surrendered without a
fight. Thus, cities such as Baghdad and Amman fell into their hands
with hardly a casualty on the Gnostic side. The battles usually
began with heavy shelling from the air. Afterwards, forces became
active on the ground, killing anyone who crossed their path and
looting any property that could contribute to the war effort.

The town of Ur had been crushed in
the repeated bombings. Most of its inhabitants were killed or had
fled. A handful of families remained in the ancient walled quarter.
Pasha Zaman, who had led many rebellions against the Gnostics in
the past, established a small but stubborn rebel militia. The
rebels captured two scouts from the badger unit and tortured the
warriors to death. Their mangled corpses were hung out for all to
see in order to proclaim the rebels' power against the Gnostics.
When Truth heard the news, he left the command center and sped
toward Ur. He took with him about twenty warriors from the unit and
attacked that very night. The badgers that were at the scene
recounted that they had never seen anything like it. Without even
firing one shot and with skill, speed and restrained fervor, Truth
and his soldiers slit the throat of every single person and animal
that crossed their path. In the span of half an hour, the entire
old city was consumed by fire. The air hung thickly with a miasma
of smoke and death.

Truth's face was perpetually
frozen, be it during a warrior's funeral or a festive ceremony such
as the appointment of his deputy. Not a single expression could be
seen across his face. Truth approached the final row of the parade.
He paused next to one of the young warriors, who were trembling in
fear. Truth laid a hand on his shoulder and waited until the young
boy stopped shaking. Only then did he continue to pass between the
rows.

When he returned and stood in his
place, the announcer proclaimed, “The father of the ship will now
speak.”

Truth began: “Gnostic pilots,
badgers, warriors, command staff and women of the management. You
are Gnostics, carrying the torch of our ancestors. We alone can
uphold the commandment of the Master of Light, who accompanied
mankind for thousands of years. Gnostic warriors are brave. The
struggle for Earth continues. Go on your path, fulfill the duties
you have been assigned and thusly we shall progress one step
further toward refining the galaxy from its impurity.

“Only through your lofty efforts
can we hasten the day in which we shall redeem the spirit from the
material, the spark from the shell. Only by the valor of your
spirit shall the entire galaxy bask in the light of our holy
Lord.

“You are all essential and without
you there is no Gnosis. We all depend on each other and yet, among
the warriors, the pilots bear the majority of the burden of
fulfilling our mission. The pilots who operate alone in the
darkness of space are required to cultivate infinite precision and
concentration, blind obedience, and boundless patience...”

Smoke was feeling the test of
patience. The rivulets of sweat that were pouring out of his skin
under the hot sun attracted swarms of flies, which annoyed him to
no end. He restrained himself and did not avert his gaze in order
to see how his colleagues were dealing with the nuisance. He
clenched his jaw and remained planted to the ground, but he could
not focus on Truth's speech. A sense of guilt unsettled him. He was
not worthy of standing next to the other warriors in the parade. He
was surprised when he heard his name.

“…And Smoke surpassed them all. He
displays great resourcefulness; the manner in which he distributed
his forces and drew out the enemy was genius; and especially his
virtuoso evasion skills, with which we are all familiar, prove time
and time again what we have known all along: Smoke is the most
revered leader among his warriors, the most devoted to our cause.
Thus, he deserves to bear the title of 'deputy'.”

Smoke was embarrassed. He did not
envision that he was going to be chosen for the position of deputy.
Before the exercise, his chances were indeed higher than the
others, but then the malfunction happened. 'It cannot be that Truth
did not notice the malfunction on his display,' he contemplated.
'And even if he hadn't, it's impossible that he did not later
identify the problem in the computerized investigations following
the exercise.'

Truth stood opposite him, as if
oblivious to the cloud of flies surrounding him. The crowd cheered
when Truth affixed the yellow lapel on to the front of Smoke's
shiny overalls and stuck it on with a pat. He placed both his hands
on Smoke's head and announced loudly, “In the darkness of the
material we shall know the light!”

The audience repeated the battle
cry unanimously. “In the darkness of the material we shall know the
light!”

Following the end of the ceremony,
Smoke distanced himself from the well-wishers who sought him out.
He was ashamed of himself. He knew that he was not worthy to lead
after failing to be sufficiently thorough in his technical
inspection before the flight. To make matters worse, he did not
stand up like a true Gnostic ought to do and refuse to accept the
title of deputy. He continued to march toward the outlying
peripheries of the compound until he unintentionally found himself
in the ship's parking lot.

He searched for a long time in the
bowels of his ship until he found what he was looking for. It was a
button from a pilot's uniform. His conclusion was clear: 'Someone
was here.' Despite the searing pain he felt about the way in which
someone tried to betray him, he felt a sense of relief: at least he
had not won the coveted title illegally.

Upon his return to his quarters in
the father ship, he was stopped by Shadow, who smiled and patted
his new leadership lapel on his chest. Despite his gloom, Smoke
tried to smile and held his hand out to shake that of his friend,
when he noticed a thin metal pin fastening the straps of the
overalls where a button had popped off under the pressure of
Shadow's belly. At that moment, Smoke vented all of the tension
from the flight along with the fury of his shame, planting a
well-aimed blow on Shadow's chin. The startled Shadow fell to the
ground. The giant tried to get up but Smoke's rage had seemingly
increased his size and he kicked him in the chest, slamming him
onto the ground once more.

“Smoke!” screamed the startled
Shadow when he managed to catch his breath.

“Silence, traitor!” Smoke cut him
off.

“What did you call me?” Shadow's
eyes widened in bewilderment.

“If it were up to you, I wouldn't
be here.”

“What are you talking about?”

Smoke removed the button from his
pocket. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Smoke instinctively looked down at
the missing button on his flight overalls and then back at
Smoke.

“I don't know what you were trying
to do, but it didn't work.” Smoke put the button in his pocket,
turned on his heel and left Shadow splayed on the floor.

In a small warehouse for spare
parts, in a remote corner of the compound free of cameras or
microphones, Flash waited anxiously. Abyss and Spark, two senior
commanders, had already arrived at the meeting, each one
separately. They waited in silence for a long while until five
additional commanders crept inside one by one after having secretly
slipped away from their positions. The air in the warehouse was
dense and warm. They ignored their unavoidable sweat. They felt
nothing but sacred awe at the occasion. Each one of them secretly
believed that he was the most prominent liege of the Master of
Light. Each one of them prided himself in belonging to the secret
order: after all, they were the chosen ones who swore to preserve
the purity of the Gnosis. Some of the men sat on supply crates,
some sat on the floor while others stood on their feet.

They were joined by Thunder,
entering at a brisk pace. Chief of the father ship's operational
headquarters, Thunder was a lean man of high stature with severe
facial features and eyes that continuously scanned his surroundings
like cameras. They were surprised at his presence, since they knew
that Thunder was Truth's confidant. Thunder worked side by side
with Truth for years. He was meticulous, inflexible, strict about
anything discipline-related and always enforced the rules; his
subordinates feared him. No one wanted to cross paths with the
draconian senior officer.