Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 43 - On the Record
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- 7 hours ago
- 6 min read
“You made a fool out of yourself, Rige. Worse, you made the Assembly look weak.”
Rige Khuksos sat silent in her seat along the side of the conference table, taking the verbal abuse of her senior, much taller Assembly colleagues in stride. Almost everyone towered over Rige’s short, high-g figure, but these descendants of the solar sailors made her look extra small. While humanity moved on and evolved, the Assembly immortals froze in time, and so did their lanky body frames.
The oldest of them, Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa, sat at the end of the table, shaking his bald head.
“You contacted her twice. And you are going on record with all this. I taught you better.”
Hushed conversations, secret meetings, off-record deniability had been his mode of operation for hundreds of orbits.
“Why would Linuka Omga want her father declared dead?” asked Gameng Sakp.
He shared a last name with Rige’s committee co-chair Foyash, but they had neither a family relation, nor did she know much about him. He was old, not as ancient as Rrupteemaa, but his allegiances were not clear to Rige. She had heard anything raging from “hates Rrupteemaa” to “close confidant”. On the Assembly world, those two were not exclusive, but this man was an unknown in the meeting.
“She wants closure,” said Rige. “End her grief. Move on.”
“And we care? Kel Chaada was declared dead once, then returned 20 orbits later, quite alive. Then he was missing after a suicide mission, but came back 3 orbits later. Like most annoying people, he just refuses to die.”
“Amusing, Gameng, coming from an immortal,” said Foyash Le Sakp.
Rige suppressed a chuckle.
“Not so amusing if the request is designed to make us look foolish,” said Gameng.
“We would only look foolish if he managed to have escaped death a third time,” said Foyash.
“No,” said Gameng. “Even if he stayed dead, the declaration would force us to deal with his legacy. How did he die? A hero of the Inter-reality War, leaving his poor daughter behind? Or make him a rogue operator meddling in sacred timelines, smearing the image of the people’s hero in the most volatile parts of human-settled space? We lose either way.”
“We do not have his funeral here,” said Rige.
Ancient long necks turned heads with confused faces toward her.
“Where else would it be? The man was an Assembly Member after all. You want to allow this to become an uncontrollable affair elsewhere?”
“There is no body,” said Rige. “Nothing we can claim to bury him here. Besides, his daughter has requested a ceremony on Prral.”
“And we are going to agree with Linuka Omga? What happened to the plan using the funeral to lure her back here?”
Rige shook her head. “And make a move on her after she participated in her late father’s state funeral? Chaada might have been a divisive character, but there will be non-stop coverage of the event if it were to happen here. We want Linuka Omga back, yes, but we need her to return silently, so her disappearance will not be noticed.”
“You are considering Prral? In the Wel Edge?”
“Yes, a desolate, uninhabited world in the middle of nowhere. A small ceremony with a handful of close family members and friends. No coverage, maybe a footnote. The Assembly generously granted the family’s request, respecting their wish for privacy.”
“We will not even send a delegation?” asked Gameng. “This will make us look weak indeed. Like we fear the man even in death.”
Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa rose from his seat.
“You can be certain his close companions Me-Ruu and heir to the Traaz throne, Raar, will be there. Technically, the Assembly will be represented.”
“But why Prral? If it is as remote as you say, it seems an odd choice.”
“Not really,” said Foyash. “Prral is the place of Chaada’s early successes. The military campaign that put him on the political map. His discovery of Honored Ruins. Most will agree it is a fitting resting place. For a few spins. And then the galaxy will begin to forget Kel Chaada.”
Rige’s co-chair was correct, except for the last part.
“The young Linuka will not. She will use her powers to honor his legacy. I looked her straight into those bright Omga eyes when she realized her mother’s seat in the chamber is no longer vacant. She might lack Sya Omga’s foresight, but she is adaptable. After the funeral, she will want to claim her father’s seat.”
Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa nodded.
“For the young Vriishany, yes. Ironic, as we had considered a similar move. But you read her wrong, dear Assembly Member Khuksos. Her foresight is unmatched. It will get stronger even.”
Rige was almost there. She almost had him. Now she needed surprise on her face. First the eyebrows, lifted, uneven not to appear rehearsed, her skin flattened from slight tension over the forehead, then the eyes. Just enough pull on the lids that she could sense it. The mouth was last and most difficult, lips parting just enough for an inaudible inhale. Then the words.
“What do you mean by ‘stronger’?”
“The greatest mystery of multi-awareness is the requirement of a causal connection. Our own experiments stalled because unrelated events or persons can neither be accessed nor manipulated. Linuka Omga developed—or always possessed—the ability to create this connection, to anyone, anywhere, anytime.”
“She can decide what becomes reality?”
“No, she is there—before a decision is even made. She creates the reality. Not an illusion. Reality.”
“I admit,” said Rige, lowering her voice just enough to create an uneven timbre, signaling genuine surprise, “I had no idea how dangerous she was.”
“My dear,” said Lotnuuk, “you conferred with the most dangerous being in the galaxy. Twice. You were smart enough to send an avatar, but it was still risky.”
And just like that had Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa, 1st Member of the Assembly, gone on record confirming that he knew how dangerous Linuka Omga was, that he knew how her powers operated. When Rige was going to show to an astonished Assembly how he—despite all this knowledge—utterly failed to contain her and how he lost the Assembly’s most valuable assets, the last few sentences he uttered would seal the condemnation she was going to conjure up upon him. 500 orbits undone in one pass. Rige pulled her trembling hands from the table, resting them on her knees. The power of manipulation was mighty, and its manifestation made her restless in a most exciting way.
One enemy down. Now onto the next.
“You asked earlier about luring Linuka Omga here.”
“Yes. Having the funeral elsewhere does not help. It will appear to her like we are trying to keep her away.”
“And we need to do even more to appear that way,” said Rige. “Anything in her—according to our esteemed colleague Rrupteemaa—foresight should seem us warding her off the Assembly World by any means. This will be the strongest lure: adversity. She seems to be attracted to it. The more she suspects we are keeping her away, the more she will want to investigate why.”
“But you seemed to propose giving in to her demands.”
“Oh, yes, we will,” said Rige. “But we need to create every step an obstacle for her to overcome. Even the simple declaration of death for Kel Chaada could be made into a full floor vote in the chamber. Raar will lead the Traaz voting against it. With the help of our friends in the human delegation, we could make this a tight margin victory. Then we challenge her Assembly seat claim. Delay. Suppress. We want her to appear here of her own volition. Arrive to manipulate us. Wrestle that last secret away.”
She glanced at Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa.
“And then we close the trap.”
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