In the Year of Our Lord 2202 Read online

  IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD: 2202

  Edward Lee

  Necro Publications

  2019

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  In the Year of Our Lord: 2202 © 2001, 2019 by Edward Lee

  Cover art © 2019 by David G. Barnett

  This edition 2019 © Necro Publications

  ISBN: 978-1-944703-76-9

  LCCN: 2019940622

  Book design & typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  Assistant editors:

  Amanda Baird-Schmidt

  Necro Publications

  necropublications.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, or his agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio or television.

  All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

  Ebook formatting & cover design:

  David G. Barnett

  Fat Cat Graphic Design

  fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  Necro Publications

  5139 Maxon Terrace

  Sanford, FL 32771

  necropublications.com

  — | — | —

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  — | — | —

  For Ann & Kelly Laymon

  — | — | —

  As always, my career is in debt to far too many to name here, but for this, I need to thank the late, great Richard Laymon—one, for inviting me into this project, and, two, for his innumerable gestures of friendship.

  — | — | —

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  PART FIVE

  PART SIX

  PART SEVEN

  PART EIGHT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  — | — | —

  Part One

  “I make peace and create evil:

  I the Lord God do all these things.”

  —Isaiah 45:7

  — | — | —

  (I)

  Almost off-shift. The last hour always dragged on and on.

  Sharon looked at the CF Standard Time chronometer above the cove transom. Ten minutes to go. A passive vid-port occupied the entire exterior sidewall of the cove: a giant moving mural blooming with stars and space. Every data center on board had one…to induce the crew to muse upon the immensity of God. But Sharon knew that the vision would make the last minutes of her shift seem like an hour. If Captain-Reverend Peter had been away as he usually was, the other techs would’ve left by now. But you don’t take off early when the boss is in.

  Not that Sharon would’ve left early, anyway. She owed the Christian Federate a full shift, so that’s what it would get. Unlike Susanna and Kim and Leslie. They were usually long gone on mid-shifts when Peter had business elsewhere on the ship. Sharon liked the cove better when she had it to herself. Susanna, Kim and Leslie weren’t exactly horrible; Sharon supposed they were fairly typical data integrators: capable but not very ambitious, friendly enough when not obsessing over their hair and nails. And they only attended Mass once a week, the minimum mission requisite.

  Shut away in his master cove with one of his diagnostic assistants, Captain-Reverend Peter couldn’t see that Susanna was covertly applying lavender nail polish as the final minutes of the work day ticked down. Nor that Leslie was checking her lipstick in a holomirror. Nor that Kim was speaking quietly on the comm, probably to one of her several male acquaintances.

  They’ve been at this job a lot longer than me, Sharon thought. Before you know it, maybe I’ll be growing two-inch nails and…

  No way.

  It all seemed vain to her. Most makeup had been banned years ago, when the Exploratory Corp had changed the hair regs (bald for males, one-inch cuts for females). Lipstick and nail polish were still allowed provided that the colors met code. Sharon thought it looked whorish, though. She wished they’d change the regs again and just get rid of it all. We’re Christian servants, not models from the old days.

  She looked at the clock again.

  Five minutes til 1700.

  It’s never going to end.

  Over the intercom, the familiar, sedate voice flowed: the thrice-daily off-shift blessing.

  “‘In them—in the heavens and the stars—hath He set a tabernacle for the faithful. His going forth is from the end of heaven, where there is nothing hid, and none shall travail.’”

  Psalms, Sharon guessed. With a few edits!

  “Precious servants, go in peace,” the voice bid.

  “To love and serve the Lord,” she finished, not surprised that her cove mates hadn’t joined her in the reply.

  Sharon’s comm buzzed. In the quiet of the late-shift cove, the sudden noise made her flinch. She reached across her desk and picked up the comm. “Data Regiment, Spec 4 Sharon speaking. May I help you?”

  “I’m gonna get you.”

  The voice of the man on the comm sounded malicious. Underneath Sharon’s shift utilities, goosebumps scurried up the skin of her back. Her breasts went crawly and her nipples hardened.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna get you, Sharon.”

  Sharon was irate. “This is an illegal communication! Identify yourself immediately!”

  “I’m gonna get you NOW.”

  Dead air. He was gone.

  Sharon slammed the comm down and jerked her hand away.

  Kim, her own comm still to her ear, swiveled on her grav chair and frowned at Sharon. “Got a problem?” Kim always said that—when she was annoyed, which was most of the time. She and Sharon had been dom-mates for the last four sub-light missions; Sharon knew her habits fairly well.

  “That call,” Sharon murmured.

  “I’ve got a call of my own, honey. You wanna hold it down?”

  “Sorry.”

  The cove entry swung open and a man stepped in.

  Him.

  Sharon knew it had to be him. He was bald, like all male regulars, and he wore yellow Class I utilities, a subordinate loader or r-dock worker. He must’ve made the call from the central accessmain, probably with an illegal comm unit.

  He wasn’t holding a comm unit, though.

  He was holding a high-amp milliwave pistol.

  Susanna, whose desk was nearest the manway, normally greeted visitors with, “May I help you?” Today, however, she dropped her nail polish. The bottle thunked on her desktop and rolled.

  “I’m here to see Sharon,” the man said.

  The same voice she’d heard on the comm.

  Susanna nodded, swiveled, pointed a trembling finger toward the rear of the data cove. Straight at Sharon. “Th-that’s her.”

  “Thanks,” the man said and shot Susanna in the side of the head. As the gun bucked, the noise of its half-second discharge crackled in Sharon’s ears. Meanwhile, her colleague’s head seemed to erupt from one temple, ejecting cooked brain matter and steaming blood.


  Just as the man was pressing the recharge switch, Sharon threw herself to the floor behind her desk.

  Her knees pounded the floor. Another discharge crackled through the cove. But Sharon’s reactions weren’t what she would’ve expected. She didn’t go numb with terror. She didn’t ask herself who this man might be or why he had barged into the cove to kill people. He was a fact. A horrible fact like a fifty-ton mag-lev pallet suddenly bearing down on her head-on.

  Deal with it or die.

  She flinched as another blast crackled through the office. But—

  The security signal button. I’ve got to hit the security signal.

  Then two more very quick shots.

  God on High, save me…

  Sharon popped up from behind the desk, jerked forward, and hit the glowing security tab on her holo- screen, just as—

  KRIIIIIIIIIISH

  —another milliwave discharge burned a half inch from her cheek.

  At least she’d done it, but she didn’t consider the unreality of expecting a response team to arrive before this madman killed everyone in the cove. Hunkered down in the leghole of her desk, she realized she was staring at her shift-tote. She grabbed it, pulled it closer, peered down into it: ID-fold, creditbook, file-flat, hairbrush, tampons.

  KRIIIIIIIIIISH

  Another discharge sizzled through the air. Leslie and Kim both screamed from their own work stations, but their screams were brief. Other screams rang out, more subdued: Captain-Reverend Peters and his assistant. Soon a smell like barbequed meat filled the cove.

  And Sharon quickly realized that there was nothing in her shift-tote she could use as a weapon.

  But what of the shift-tote itself?

  God, I beg of thee. Please let this work.

  Sharon knew that the feed cables on her desk-link were filled with potassium ethanolamine, a systems coolant. When exposed to air, it would freeze within several seconds—as well as freeze any material it came in contact with.

  She glanced aside, closed her eyes for a moment after glimpsing the bodies of first Kim, her roommate, and then Leslie. Both had taken full milliwave bursts to the chest, their hearts broiled mid-beat, smoke rising from opened mouths. Now footsteps could be heard coming around the other side of the cove.

  And then the man’s voice:

  “Sharon. Hiding is pointless. Come out. I’ll be merciful and quick.”

  She put her fingers on the cable’s drain plug. danger, it read, do not release without work order and hazmat authorization. Her fingers lingered on the plug.

  The man’s boot-tips could be seen coming around the work station. His voice seemed to echo: “Under heaven lay umbra…”

  Sharon grit her teeth, released the drain plug, and let the bitter-scented coolant empty into the shift-tote. Would the fluid dissolve the tote’s polysynth fabric? Would it freeze immediately?

  Was she about to die?

  Believe in Him, she thought of the scripture, and He will help thee.

  Sharon sprang up from behind the desk and flung the tote at the intruder. The milliwave gun was aimed right at her chest, but before the man had time to fire, he threw both arms up to block the tote.

  He was a second too late.

  The tote plowed into his face, prolapsing, and its blue-green contents bloomed. An agonized yell bubbled from his mouth.

  Sharon ran around the side of her desk and dashed for the cove exit. When the door rose, guns were in her face. Now Sharon herself screamed.

  “Duck.”

  Two securitechs in full emergency response gear stood like golems in the entranceway. Sharon ducked just as their stout Colt-Heckler flechette rifles fired over her head. She turned at their armored feet, saw the mile-per-second rounds dot the intruder’s chest. The impact slammed him to the wall where his face, already crystalized from the splash of coolant, shattered like glass.

  The bare skull seemed to peer at her, then he fell dead.

  The first tech helped Sharon up, inhuman-looking in his ballistic visor and body armor. “Are you all right, sister?”

  Sharon felt winded yet energized. “Yes, yes, I think so.”

  His eyes could barely be seen behind the face shield. “Praise be to God,” he said. “We sing praise and thanks to God for saving thee.”

  God. Yes! she thought. Please, God, accept my thanks!

  The other securitech prodded the dead assailant with his rifle muzzle. He raised his visor, looked back at Sharon and his colleague, and grinned. “This crazy fucker is fuckin’ fucked. Think we fucked his fuckin’ day up enough?” He winked at Sharon. “Yeah, he’s one dead motherfucker, the chump fuck.”

  (II)

  The C.F.S. Edessa was the latest in the Christian Federate’s fleet of long-range Exodus-Class exploratory platforms. Named for the raped St. Mary, of Ephraem’s parable, the ship fully utilized the newest innovations of elemental hybridization and NHC (non-heat-conducting) materials. A thousand feet long and but seventy wide, the vessel could sustain the lives of its 150-man-and-woman crew for a decade if necessary and could propel itself at slightly less than one-half the speed of light for, theoretically, an indefinite time span. Cold fusion breeder reactors provided equally indefinite power for all of the vessel’s systems; fuel cells and nitrogen-recharge inductors provided all water and air.

  The spirit of God provided just about everything else.

  The time: 1800 hrs. The date: 2202. The mission: routine resupply of free-drift Utility Station Solon, located approximately forty billion miles beyond Pluto’s farthest ecliptic orbit.

  JESUS IS WATCHING YOU

  Sharon peered at the familiar sign behind Major-Rector Matthew’s desk. The signs and posters were everywhere, with other signs like it, all care of the Morale Department—she’d seen them a million times. But why should the message and her Savior’s graceful face so immediately catch her eye now? Christ’s gaze, though benevolent, revealed no answer.

  “Ah, Specialist Grade-4 Sharon Beatrice Lydwine,” spoke the Major, entering the front cove from one of the security station’s anterooms. Descendent surnames were only used for admin purposes.

  Sharon began to rise to the position of attention.

  “No need, no need,” Matthew caught her. “Here in my station, we can dispense with the formalities. Sharon…a pretty name. Is it after the rose?”

  “No, sir. The plain. The open tract between ancient Jaffa and Caesarea.”

  “A holy place, yes—” Suddenly, though, his comm buzzed. “Excuse me a moment…”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As the officer quietly conversed with a tech somewhere else in the Edessa, Sharon caught herself looking at the sign again.

  JESUS IS WATCHING YOU

  Often, at odd moments such as this, she wondered if it were true, if God really could be everywhere at once, omnipotent, all-powerful. Jesus is watching me, she thought. I hope so.

  “He is, isn’t He?” Major-Rector Matthew said, having finished his communication.

  “Pardon me, sir?”

  “Jesus is watching you.” The gaunt man smiled selflessly as Christ Himself. “And I’d say He was watching you very precisely earlier in the data regiment. He was watching your back.”

  “Thanks be to God,” Sharon said, her hands clasped in her lap. Jesus saved my life today. It took a while for the reality to set in.

  Matthew adjusted the height of his grav chair. The lumeplates overhead, plus the light from his intranet screen, made the sixty-year-old security chief appear a hundred, bald head glowing dully. “Yes, thanks be to God. But the Edessa and its entire crew owe you some thanks too.”

  “I don’t understand.” She didn’t, and now she felt a subtle discomfiture. During her attack, she’d felt cool and objective, not afraid. Now, though, some psychological backlash was gripping her. Nervous. Jittery. A profuse perspiration suddenly slicked her underarms and between her breasts.

  What was he saying? The crew owes me thanks? For what?

 
; “We’ve seen the digichip recordings, Sharon. You behaved quite bravely. You fearlessly exposed yourself to milliwave fire in order to engage the security signal. Under a clear threat of death, you summoned some very impressive initiative and creativity. You fought back, defeated your foe. Even if my securitechs had been late, the attacker would’ve died from the wound you inflicted. Loose on the ship, God only knows how many more he would’ve killed. You saved lives today, Sharon.”

  That idea hadn’t occurred to her. All she could think of just now were the bodies she’d seen.

  “Therefore,” the Major-Rector continued, “I’m promoting you to Specialist Grade E-5, effective at once.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied, not really hearing his words.

  “And once we return to the moon, I’m putting in orders to New Vatican, for a Distinguished Service Crucifix.”

  Now she heard the words and objected. “Please don’t, sir. I’m unworthy. I was just doing my job, for the mission, for God.”

  Matthew sat upright, dismayed. “But…it’s one of the highest valor medals a woman can be awarded. It’s made of genuine gold.”

  “Then I’ll melt it down and give it to the poor,” Sharon insisted. “I don’t want medals, sir. I’d feel…uncomfortable.”

  Matthew nodded. “Ah, I see. You’re distressed by what you were forced to witness today. Five fine servants of God brutally murdered.” He crossed himself. “I’ve known Captain-Reverend Peter for years; we served together in the Indochine Airlift in ’189, and twice in Yemen before the 60th Amendment.” His aged eyes scanned an open file on his holoscreen. “Oh, and I see here that one of the victims was your dom-mate…”