Unholy Star, Beyond Faith

Wu Zetian

The Galaxy is a big place. As a word, 'big' is enough because if you tried to find a word that genuinely reflected the extent of the Milky Way, you would likely fall short. One quarter trillion stars, the space between them, and the grey space behind them. In all of this vastness, there live around twenty million members of the Order of the Augi. They are augmented humans, each and every one of them sworn by a code that determines the extent of their physical adjustments: how they interface with machines; the freedom of information; and how that information is applied. Outside of the Order, little is known about the less-obvious aspects of their secretive system of belief and operation.

This is why, out of the millions of Augers within the Galaxy, Wu Zetian knew to watch the information stream upload by Harris, the first officer of the Ascent, the starship of the reformers, Knight Protectors formerly known as Death Squad 8. There was a small group of augers spread throughout the Galaxy that Wu monitored: the young Bastian; an old auger called Denver; the witches of Anarock; and the Ascent's Commander Harris. She had a network of other augers that would monitor key members about the regions to her to keep her hand on the pulse. But these few individual entities were the key to their plans.

Harris had been the most recent, unexpected and fortunate addition to her exclusive list. She watched his stream upload with interest as if she was the one sitting at the briefing table of surrounded by the reformers. She had to move quickly. At her next uplink with the Environment, all of this information would become available to all Augers who were watching her, and there were many. However, in her favour, the foremost solid rule for those in the Order was that they were not able to use or disclose information shared in any way that would interfere with events outside of the Environment unless such streams involved the auger personally and directly.

Wu Zetian waited for Harris' upload to complete and sent the thread request. Harris accepted, voice only. "I thought you might turn up."

"It is within my right. Your thread involved me directly." (another rule)

"I've been watching you too. The young auger, did you have a reason to contact him also?"

Wu considered her answer carefully, "If you must know, I am the boy's appointed guardian."

"Since when? That has been his brother's duty since the boy became one of us."

"So you think; the brother, Maximal supports our movement. He transferred custodianship. Easy as that."

Harris sent Wu a room request. She accepted, and they stood face-to-face in the Environment. It was a densely forested grove, similar to one in which they first met over a hundred years ago when Wu was still a druid.

Harris took a step forward, here, in the virtual world, his hair shone as if it was on fire--green fire. "Let us be clear. Do not think that I am going to act in any way that will endanger my friends."

"I'm not asking you to. Nor would I. In fact, it will be me who is in danger. I fear, based on the turn of events since the assassination, your friends don't like me very much."

"They want to kill you."

"They think they do. What do you think they want?"

Harris sat on the leaf-littered ground, picked up a stick and studied it, "I don't know. They don't even know what _they_ want themselves. This whole thing was an accident."

"For them perhaps, and I must admit that we could have never imagined in our wildest dreams how events overtook themselves after the Atripliceae Platform. We are all improvising now, but can't you see the possibilities? The opportunity this 'Reformation' presents?"

"Don't patronise them, they are so far above that. What do you want to do, Wu?"

Wu sat down, crossed legged before her old friend. "We bring them in."

Harris tossed the stick at her, it hit her on the forehead, "Good luck with that."

***

"What do you mean she wants to meet with us?"

Harris stood before Sam's desk. She had been puzzling out a sermon when he interrupted having only just unhooked from the Environment and his meeting with Wu Zetian.

"After the briefing, I asked a few questions around the Order and it turns out that Wu Zetian is just as interested in finding us as we are in locating her." He lied, talking about the power of the Environment with non-augers was forbidden (yet another rule). "But it has to be tomorrow as soon as we enter Skyean space."

Sam squinted at her first officer, "I don't get it. She must have a death wish. What's her motivation?"

"I believe she has information on the purpose of the assassination at the Atripliceae Platform."

"She is the reason for that. She must pay for the murders."

"I don't think she is the reason. But rather a player in something much bigger."

Sam stood from her seat at the table, she casually walked around to Harris then grabbed his collar, lifting him and pushing him until his back hit the bookcase, "This is not a game! People have died, hundreds of them because of her. What do you know that you're not telling us and how long have you known. Believe me, Harris when I say, I'm no fool." She dropped him.

Harris went pale and loosened his shirt collar. "I've known that something much larger than Wu Zetian or us is at play. It involves the whole Order of the Augi, but I am forbidden to talk about it.

"Believe me when I say that I had no idea that anything like any of this would happen."

"No, you believe me when I say that you will not be trusted with anything from this day forward. We will meet your puppet master, but believe me, this encounter will not come without a price. Now, go."

Harris left the room, and Sam finally released her teeth from her bottom lip lest it bleed. How could have she been so stupid to put her faith in an auger?