The Lord Is My Shepherd (Working Title)

This is an extract from another work-in-progress, concerning space pirates, and a vampire who made an apperance as a minor character in the novel I’ve been working on. Any suggestions for another title would be gratefully accepted…

The Lord is My Shepherd

Copyright J. N. Thorpe 2009

Venn gazed out over the dark, ragged outlines of the ancient oaks that ringed the tumulus on which he stood. His eyes were drawn, as always, to the shimmering vista of myriad stars, filling the gulfs of empty night with radiance and the promise of life. In all his long years he had never tired of gazing at the stars and their silent, glittering testimony to the glory of God. From within the circle of stones crowning the tumulus, he often felt so subsumed in the wondrously intricate pattern of His Creation, that he felt himself to be as light as stardust, as bright as an angel. He felt at times that he could simply step off this hilltop, out into the night air, and float away to the stars to join them in the rapture of the Hereafter. He would not be swayed by such temptation, though – not just yet. He still had his duty to perform, and though what he wanted more than ever was to lay down and slip away from his weary dross of matter, he would not lay that duty aside. Not while there were still blasphemous horrors lurking in the darkness amongst the stars, hungry to feast upon the souls of his flock. He was a Shepherd, a sacred guardian of humanity, no matter how he was put upon by age and fatigue.

He smiled, etching the lines of his care worn face even deeper. He appeared younger than he was, with the healthy physique of a powerfully built man in his fifties. His hair and beard were greying, but still thick, and his dark, hooded eyes glittered with an intellect as bright as the stars above him. His simple, grey robes were well made, and flattered his sturdy frame, helping to hide the beginnings of a paunch that was developing over the thick slabs of his abdominal muscle. Looking down at himself now, alone in the night air, and with the ancient light of the stars bearing witness to his transient, ageing humanity, he felt so desperately old – ancient as the swathe of deep olive grassland that stretched out before him into the darkness. The Old Earth oaks that surrounded him were planted here as saplings. He had planted them himself. Now they were all at least twelve metres tall, their trunks wider than the span of his arms. The Redeemer’s habitat area appeared to wear its age better than he did, though. It was of no matter, he told himself as he looked out across the starlit night. Soon he would have the enemy in his sights.

In the meantime, he could hear Captain Leontes approaching. The pounding of the man’s footsteps resounded through the earth beneath him. Shepherd Venn turned to see

the captain, encased in his burnished, scarlet armour, emerging from the path between the trees. The suit was ornately inscribed with the captain’s regimental insignia, his sealed helmet emblazoned with a ridge of gold spikes. Venn knew that each one represented a commendation received in one of Leontes’ many campaigns. With its full complement of armaments, the suit weighed nearly half a tonne. Even with his muscles augmented by the suit’s servo boosters, Venn didn’t envy the captain having to walk the long, winding track up to the top of the hill. Watching the man stomp across the clearing, he was put in mind of some lumbering mechanoid. He wondered how anyone could possibly fight a battle so encumbered. Like the Shepherds, Captain Leontes’ order – the Knights Protectorate – was considered by most of Numanity to be little more than a myth. And people had no interest in such relics from their primitive, warlike past. The post-Ascension human race had existed peacefully and harmoniously for thousands of years. Few now even knew of the horror and chaos that the Ghûl had inflicted on their race millennia ago. Even fewer knew that the war against the Ghûl was still being fought, quietly, and in secret, by people like himself. That secret was soon to be revealed, though, and in a way that complacent Numanity would not be able to ignore.

While he waited for the captain, Venn placed his hands on the altar stone at the centre of the circle. A translucent, ovoid holo-display irised into being over the stone, casting a faint, spectral glow around the circle. In the centre of the display was a small, pulsing green dot, representing the Redeemer’s current hyperspatial grid position, relative to local space. On the far left edge was a large, pale blue circle representing the planet Nutopia, the outermost world of the Nu-Sol system. In between them, a flashing red dot tracked slowly across the display, closing inexorably on the unsuspecting world. This was the last remaining warship of the Ghûl fleet, their flagship, the Blessed Gift of Death. He waved his hand over the display, zooming in on the vessel. It had dropped out of hypersace just over half a million kilometres from Nutopia. Such was the sophistication of its cloaking technology that Nutopia’s antiquated planetary defence grid hadn’t even noticed it. By the time the planet’s authorities were aware of the attack, it would be too late. And the Ghûl warship was more than a match for whatever offensive craft the planet could muster. The Redeemer, though, was built for the specific purpose of destroying this ship.

“Good evening, Captain Leontes.”

Venn bowed formally at the huge armoured figure cresting the brow of the hill. Leontes came to a halt, then twisted his helmet anti-clockwise until with a click and a hiss of escaping air, it came away in his gauntlets. The face that appeared from inside it would have shocked Venn, had he not seen it before. The captain’s bald head and deathly pallor, combined with the scars of many conflicts, gave him the look of a corpse rather than a living being. Most of the left side of his head, his nose and mouth were encased by cybernetics, leaving only his right eye visible. The man’s expression seemed to be one of permanent sorrow.

“Evening, is it? I lose track sometimes. Good evening, then, Shepherd Venn.”

Leontes’ synthesised voice was deep and booming, and full of the animation that his features lacked. Venn might even have called the captain’s voice jovial by comparison.

“I trust that your knights are ready to engage the enemy?” he asked.

“Indeed they are – all loaded into your transports, and awaiting my orders.”

“Very good. I believe we will be in weapons range momentarily.”

As if to confirm this, the Redeemer’s avatar manifested, appearing on the hilltop beside them as a tiny sphere of scintillating, rainbow colours that a moment later had expanded into a vaguely human, androgynous shape, the surface of which shifted constantly with liquid patterns like oil on water. A subtle half-smile played upon the avatar’s lips as it inclined its head.

“Shepherd Venn, Captain Leontes. We are at full combat readiness, and will be in weapons range in eighteen seconds.” In contrast to the captain’s voice, the avatar’s was a bland, sexless monotone.

“Thank you, avatar. Please link me into the combat suite, and prepare to drop out of hyperspace on my mark. Captain, you may supervise your troop deployment from here.”

Venn touched the altar stone, and another display appeared in front of Leontes, who stepped forward, his watery grey right eye scanning across the screen intently.

“Very good,” the captain announced, “let battle commence!” There was a certain relish in his tone that Venn found a little disturbing, but he knew that the captain’s knights would do what was required of them.

The combat suite came online, a wireframe holo-display of icons representing the Redeemer’s armaments, shields and munitions, arrayed across the grass of the habitat area. The ranks of the Knights Protectorate stood in ordered units like some ghostly army. Above them, hanging beneath the habitat’s force field dome, was the glowing red icon of the Ghûl warship.

“Ready,” said Venn. “Three. Two. One. Mark!”

In an instant, the The Blessed Gift of Death had detected them, but Shepherd Venn had it targeted already, and loosed a volley of antimatter warheads. They appeared as a swarm of thin, golden arrows darting out toward the flagship, which responded with its defence lasers, searing lines of bright white across the habitat’s sky. Many of the Redeemer’s missiles were destroyed, but enough made it through. At five kilometres from their target, the missiles unleashed their payloads into the warship’s shields, which fluoresced from deep cherry to amber. Just four seconds later, the shields turned an incandescent white, and failed completely under the barrage of explosions. Venn deployed the troop transports, accompanied by squadrons of fighter drones pouring out in their thousands to engage the Ghûl warship. The Blessed Gift of Death responded by unleashing barrages of munitions and kamikaze fighters. The fighters were represented by dark red clouds tagged with threat icons that spewed out across the habitat’s space. Venn knew that each fighter was essentially a coffin with a short range plasma drive. Inside each one was a zombie slave, capable of piloting the tiny craft for the few seconds it took to reach their targets. Proximity sensors would then cause the whole thing to explode in a blast of plasma, triggering a chain reaction amongst their numbers. To the Redeemer, they were at worst an inconvenience, but Venn had never gotten used to the sight of so many thousands of slaves used as weapons. The best he could do for those poor souls was to see them quickly despatched, and deal with their enslavers in the harshest of terms – which he fully intended to do.

The habitat’s space was ablaze with livid blooms of explosions and criss-crossed lines of laser fire, focussed around the the Blessed Gift of Death. At least five of the Redeemer’s transports had broken through, and were preparing to board the Ghûl ship. Meanwhile, their fighter escorts had broken off to disable the ship’s weapons, engines and communications. The squat, box-shaped transports latched onto the ship’s bridge section, having punched holes in the outer hull with their heavy plasma cannons. Magnetic clamps held the transports in place while the units of knights inside disembarked. Immediately they set about blasting their way into the inner hull, where they were met by the flagship’s slave crew. The zombie troops with their primitive bolt guns and assault rifles were no match for the power- armoured knights, who quickly cut them down, spreading out to annexe the bridge. At this point, the whole engagement had lasted thirty two seconds.

“Hmph. Lead units report the bridge is protected with liche dust.” Captain Leontes snarled the last two words. It was perhaps the most sinister anti-personnel weapon that the Ghûl possessed. The black dust resembled nothing more than clouds of smoke, but if exposed to it, even the knights’ armour was no protection. The un-living clouds of malevolent, twisted intelligence closed on any living creature, consuming its life force and corrupting its soul within seconds. The stricken knights immediately turned on their comrades, who would be forced to put them down. Sustained plasma fire would eventually disperse it, but that would risk destroying the bridge, and the knights were taking heavy losses to the dust.

“Remember, Captain, we must capture the fleet commander,” Venn said.

“Don’t worry, Shepherd – you’ll have your pound of flesh.” Something in the captain’s tone told Venn not to press the matter. Leontes after all, was deploying real people, not mechanoid units like Venn’s. His fighter drones were keeping the Ghûl ship’s kamikaze fighters contained, picking them off in prioritised groups. Any losses were of little consequence to Venn, and could be replaced in a matter of days. Unlike hardened combat veterans – even if they were honour bound to fight to the death for their captain. Leontes had deployed a detachment of psionics to deal with the liche dust, using their combined psychic strength to vanquish the evil spirits within it. Venn feared that it was all taking too long. He knew that the Ghûl ship’s crew were little more than fodder, slaves under the direct control of the commander, ensconced inside the bridge. To Venn’s knowledge, the commander was the only pure blood vampire still in existence. It would be taking all of the monstrous creature’s concentration to control his crew, and at the first opportunity, Venn fully expected the abomination to make an escape bid. That could not be allowed to happen.

“Captain?” Venn said, looking directly at Leontes while the Redeemer’s avatar coordinated the rest of the attack. The captain’s right eye swivelled up from the display to meet Venn’s. “Please, would you allow me access to your com-net?”

The captain frowned at him quizzically. “You wish to look your foe in the eyes, is that it? Very well.”

Leontes passed his hand over his display, and an icon appeared in Venn’s of the Knights Protectorate’s skull-and-crossbones insignia. Venn pointed to it, and the icon expanded into a view from behind the eyes of Lieutenant Pirsig, who was leading the assault on the Ghûl flagship’s bridge. The interior of the Ghûl ship, like its exterior, resembled a cathedral of Old Earth, merged into a steam engine. The corridor Pirsig’s squad thumped along was clad with riveted panels of gun metal, and ornately moulded cornicing ran along the floor and ceiling. Access to the bridge was through a wrought iron portcullis, beyond which, Venn could see rows of candles burning. Immediately two of the lieutenant’s squad stepped forward with force axes ready to cut through the metal, while the rest of the squad laid down suppressing fire. Shells ricocheted harmlessly off the knights’ armour. From the other side of the portcullis, dark silhouettes emerged, blotting out the candles momentarily. Suddenly they were at the portcullis – three demonically contorted, bone white faces, snarling and leering at the two knights cutting through the iron work. One of the knights looked up from his work, then stopped, stepping back to raise his force axe above his head. Lieutenant Pirsig stepped forward, a bolt pistol emerging from the weapons cache in his forearm. Venn barely had time to keep up as Pirsig’s targeting array immediately swung his servo-boosted arm in a short, jerking arc, firing off three rapid fire shots with surgical precision. Each vampire exploded in a blast of spectral fire.

“Corporal! Stay focussed!” Pirsig barked.

“Yes, sir!”

The corporal returned to cutting through the portcullis. A few moments later, and they were through, the loose section falling back with a resounding clang.

“Psionics detect one presence on the bridge. Lieutenant, please apprehend it,”Captain Leontes said triumphantly.

“Sir!”

The lieutenant’s squad poured through the hole, just wide enough for them to go through single file. As Venn watched through Pirsig’s eyes, the whole unit stomped through, moving in unison like the parts of a machine. Five seconds later, the bridge was secured. It had the look of some unholy chapel, decorated with skulls and chains and the rows of candles. There were no control panels, or any kind of instrumentation – just a large, stepped dais, on which rested a black, metal coffin. Lieutenant Pirsig thumped up the steps and grabbed the coffin’s lid, using all his servo-boosted strength to wrench the inch thick lid aside. It moved with a horrendous screech that set Venn’s teeth on edge even through the com-net. Plasma pistol at the ready, Pirsig leaned over the coffin.

“It’s empty. In the name of Christ, our Lord, why is it empty!” Pirsig’s bellowing voice echoed around the bridge. No one else dared speak.

Captain Leontes’ one eye levelled on Shepherd Venn.

“Well?”

Shepherd Venn opened his mouth to speak. Before he did so, he jumped to GodSpace.

Well?

The blank, pearly grey construct that was Venn’s GodSpace nexus was occupied only by the Redeemer’s avatar.

Scanning local space… I have detected a quantum singularity, that occurred zero point four seconds ago.

Venn was incensed.

Well why didn’t you tell me?

The avatar paused before speaking, as if considering whether or not to tell the truth. Not that it could lie, but Venn suspected it was very good at economising.

I was unsure of its relevance, and, in fact, if I had informed you immediately, it would already have been too late.

An emergency transport?

That is what I suspect.

Where? Where did it emerge?

On Nutopia’s second moon, Yutani.

Oh. The Ghûl deceived us, didn’t they? The Queen’s heart was never on the flagship.

I concur.

We have to find the Queen’s heart. Alert the other Shepherds immediately.

Done.

Any activity on Yutani?

Yes.

And?

The avatar showed him. Venn dropped back into real space at the point where he’d left it, only now with something to say.

“Captain, I am afraid that you are not going to like this.”

*

“ST, come in, sonny.”

“Beep. Here, Sarge”

“Now, ST, didn’t we agree something about this mission?”

“Yes, Sarge.”

“Well?”

“Well, what, Sarge?”

“Well, what did we agree?”

“I thought you knew, Sarge.”

“Yes, yes I know what we agreed, ST, I’m just making absolutely dead certain that you know what we agreed.”

“About what, Sarge?”

“Oh, for fu – look, just tell me – did we or did we not agree that this mission was to be a Nil situation, not a Kill situation?”

“Erm, yes, Sarge.”

“Good, good. So, why is it, then, do you think, that I am currently standing in the defence platform command centre with about thirty dead clients?”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to kill them, Sarge.”

“Yes, ST, that is one thing we were definitely not meant to do. The clients stressed that beforehand, like they always do, because I make a point of asking them, in order to avoid nasty situations like this particular one, whether or not they’d like to die for their money!”

“So, why are they all dead, then, Sarge?”

“I don’t bloody know why they’re all dead! I was hoping you might have some inkling, as you were supposed to be on guard detail!”

“Ah, well, Sarge, I’d say they’re all dead because…”

“Yes?”

“Somebody killed ‘em, Sarge.”

“Mmmm. Aha, yes, well, thank you for that little gem, that little pearl of wisdom. And there I was hoping we’d already got that far. Never mind. Listen, sonny, just get your arse over here and help me tidy up this bloody mess. Sharpish, and that’s an order. No stopping for bongs along the way, right?”

“Yes, Sarge. Right, Sarge. On my way.”

“And ST?”

“Yes, Sarge?”

“Bring a bucket.”

“What for, Sarge?”

“For the bits, sonny, for the bits.”

“What bits, Sarge?”

“Of the dead clients.”

“They’re dead? Shit! Someone’s gonna get their arses kicked for that, Sarge!”

Sergeant Wilco Fatneck sighed heavily into his com-link, slapping his forehead with his dry, leathery palm. He looked around him at the heavy, steel reinforced concrete interior of the command centre, recently redecorated in a rather slapdash, if enthusiastic manner with the blood and bodily organs of all thirty of his paying customers.

“No,” he said with another mournful sigh, “not the Noise Patrol’s finest hour, not by a long shot. And who’s gonna get the bollocking for this one – me, that’s who!”

He signalled for the five more of the crew in orbit aboard the Ol’ Dirty Bastard to come down in one of the shuttles. This was going to be a long and possibly very dangerous clean up operation – assuming whoever did kill the clients was still at large in the defence platform. He swept the command centre with his plasma cannon, making sure he hadn’t missed any shadows that might conceal a lurking assailant. Wilco had seen blood before, and much of it, but this was just nasty. His clients – a group of middle ranking middle managers from the Altaian system – had been quite literally, and messily (he didn’t suppose there was any other way) torn limb from limb. Whoever did this was a right bloody psycho, and Wilco was going to have his head on a spike by the end of the local day if he had to put it their himself. In fact, he was quite hoping he did have to do it himself, so that he could look into the sick, twisted bastard’s eyes before he blew his head off. As the ranking officer, authority was given to him to commit summary executions, where it was considered judicious to do so. There were strict guidelines laid down as to what circumstances were considered judicious, and Wilco had them all memorised, usually to be ignored. In fact, he had the entire Fat Cat Corporation Planetary Entertainments Division’s Contractor’s Operations Manual hard wired into his consciousness, to be ignored as he chose. In this particular instance, though, the letter of the law was entirely on his side, and he was well within his rights – obliged, even – to bring the killer to justice.

Unless, of course, this was the work of one of his crew. The thought passed through his head quickly, and he dismissed it just as quick, but it left a lingering suspicion in the back of his mind, a horrible nagging that wouldn’t go away. Surely, though, none of his crew was capable of this – except for the Beast. He checked his HUD anyway, confirming his belief that the Beast was still under sedation, her vital signs icon glowing a cool, peaceful blue on the periphery of his vision. ST, then? No, not even on one of his most crazed, destructive drug orgies had ST ever achieved anything even remotely approaching this level of carnage. Besides, the lad just wasn’t that way inclined. He checked the status of the flyers lodged in the hangar. The command centre AI reported that one flyer was missing, occupants and destination unknown. The AI itself had been severely crippled, and was running at around five percent of its full operational capacity. Enough for power systems, life support, and auxiliary functions, but most of its database had been wiped, and there was no record of who had taken the flyer, or how long ago it had been taken. He opened a channel to the Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

“Hob, come in, lad.”

“Reading you, Sarge. Everything peachy?”

“No, lad, it is most definitely not bloody peachy. Someone’s murdered all the bleeding clients. No pun intended.”

“What, Sarge?”

“Oh, sodding Christ! Look, lad, all the paying customers are, well, splattered might be the best word to use, but suffice to say they’re all stone dead.”

“Oh. Right, Sarge. Erm, what, er – what?”

“I don’t’ sodding know what happened, Hob! ST was on duty, he didn’t see nothing, though that don’t surprise me, and one of them bloody flyers is missing too!”

“Have you told the captain, Sarge?”

“No, I bloody haven’t, and don’t you go telling him, neither! I’ll pick the moment for this little bombshell, thank you very much.”

“It’s okay, Sarge, he just knows there’s a few more of the crew on their way down, he hasn’t asked why. I won’t tell him anything more than that.”

“Good lad, Hob. Anything register on the scans for that flyer?”

“One sec, Sarge…Here we go. Launched four and a half minutes ago under Mister Jergo Skinkler’s call sign, Fanny Magnet, from bay six. On a course for Fun City port. ETA sixteen minutes.”

“Well, Mr. Skinkler’s currently in no state to be piloting no flyer, and I should know ‘cos I slipped on his guts a while back. Any other registered passengers?”

“Nope, Sarge, none. Sorry.”

“Alright, lad. Well, you’d best send an urgent message to old Fingers down the port, tell him to stop that flyer.”

“Right, Sarge.”

“Good lad, Hob. Oh, and make sure there’s some biscuits left when I get back, there’s a good lad.”

“Yes, Sarge.”

Hob shrugged his narrow shoulders and flicked off the com-link. The Captain stood behind him, leaning nonchalantly against one of the flight computer’s databanks, his disarming smile posed so as to be not in the least bit threatening.

“So, Hob,” he said in a voice as smooth as treacle, “what is it you’re not meant to tell me?” The smile broadened.

Hob gulped.

*

Nutopia was a cold, dead planet that had been colonised barely fifty years ago, but was already a rising star in the galactic holiday firmament. The first engineers and mining crews had set about excavating an area of cave networks near the planet’s southern polar region. Since then, additional tunnels and caves had been mined almost ceaselessly. Nutopia was now home to nearly twenty million people, in a colony network that stretched across thousands of square kilometres, and was still increasing.

People came to Nutopia for fun, and Fun City was the place for that. It was the loudest, wildest and sleaziest city in the galaxy. Nothing was forbidden here, and holiday makers could relax and indulge their weirdest fantasies without fear of embarrassment or possible summary execution. Fat Cat Corporation Planetary Entertainments Division’s huge wealth and power allowed it certain concessions as far as law enforcement went. All of its assets were policed by their own armies of mechanoids. Subsequently, for all intents and purposes, the tourists to Nutopia could, in many cases, if it was licensed and approved, get away with murder. The latest craze was Interplanetary Assault, now a recognised sport with its own league and strict rules. Before participating, all combatants were obliged to complete and sign a form specifying whether or not they were happy to be killed during the match. This form usually consisted of the question, “Do you want to die yet?” There were even combatants who played to get killed as often as possible. A sub-league was developing for those dedicated few, with some having amassed Self-kills into three figures.

The Ol’ Dirty Bastard was part of what amounted to the PED’s merchant navy, or its closest equivalent, whose role it was to provide the mayhem. The usual scenario for a mission was that the clients were dropped on a nearby moon or planetoid, had to take command of a defence platform or similar structure. Then they had to fight their way through local space back to their base. It was the kind of mission that the Noise Patrol had cut its teeth on, and they were old hands at it now. In fact, their standing in the Nutopian Interplanetary Assault League was consistently respectable. As an assault team, they were amassing a small fortune between them. All this being so, Captain Elvis Beefheart wondered, why, then, on this particular mission, had they fucked up so spectacularly?

“So they’re all dead?” he asked his red-faced, sullen looking sergeant.

“I’m afraid so, Captain Beefheart, Sir.” Sergeant Wilco shook his head ruefully. “I got all their ID’s logged and accounted for, Sir. Well, that is, except for Mister Skinkler’s, Sir.”

The captain pondered this for a moment while he smoked a large, fat spliff. He blew out a perfect smoke ring into the air of general tension pervading the bridge of the Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

“Shit,” he said through a thick layer of smoke.

“Indeed, Sir.” Wilco nodded, his hands clasped behind his back, shuffling from one foot to the other.

“And we have no idea who killed them and made off with the Fanny Magnet?”

“No, Sir, though my best guess is that it’s a rival team, Sir.”

“Well, I can’t think of anyone who’d try something like that just to knock us off our spot. Not very cool, is it?”

“No, Sir, not really, Sir.”

The captain appeared to drift off for a minute into his own reverie, meditating upon their predicament. Sergeant Wilco raised a bushy eyebrow to glance at the captain’s youthful, handsome face and his deeply stoned eyes, hoping for some kind of pronouncement.

“Right,” Elvis announced eventually, his face suddenly so animated that Wilco jumped back a step. “Have you told Fingers?”

Wilco nodded again, then looked at his battered, blood stained boots.

“Good, then tell the away teams to get back up here, pronto. We’re off after that flyer!”

“Righto, Sir. Bloody good thing, too, Sir.”

Wilco decided that it was probably best not to tell the captain that he’d already carried out his orders, and that Hob was at this very moment laying in a course for Fun City. Instead, he gave a hurried salute, then shuffled his bulky frame out of the bridge as fast as he could.

Captain Beefheart shrugged, then took another drag on his spliff. He couldn’t blame Wilco for not wanting to tell him about all this. It was almost unthinkable that someone would stoop to such tactics just to boost their standing in the league. For one thing they’d be disqualified as soon as word got out. Definitely not cool.

END OF EXTRACT