StAG: Chapter 1 - The fight

 I was a priest back then, so I was pretty nervous about anyone watching me going into a brothel. Not that anyone would have stopped me of course, but they would have judged me in silence. For some reason I was even wearing a clerical shirt and collar identifying me as a priest. I just had to remind myself I was not doing anything wrong. I was serving Jesus, and I should never be ashamed of that, so I entered.

The receptionist looked at me but she didn’t say anything. I crossed the lobby and took out the piece of paper where I had written the information. They were waiting for me in room 22. I looked around, figured out how the rooms were arranged and I found the room.

I stood there, feeling my heart racing, thinking it wasn’t too late to run away, but I found some courage, I knocked on the door and it opened automatically.

There were four people spread over the room. I didn’t know their names back then, but I know them now. Sagira was short and angry, she was leaning against a corner. Oakley was laying on the bed. She was throwing a ball in the air and catching it to pass the time. Khalfan was a muscular man and the only one of us older than 30, but it was hard to tell by how much. He was standing there, half amused and half irritated, looking directly at me. Finally, in front of Khalfan, sitting on a chair pointed at the door, was Jun. He was a fit east asian man. He was looking directly at me, and in his sight I could see a threatening confidence.

I just stood there, frozen.

"Father Jacob!,” Jun said, greeting me. "It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, please come in.”

I came in and the door closed automatically.

“It’s Jacobo actually. Like ‘hobbo’ but without the 'h' and with a ‘hack' before it… ‘Jacob' will be fine.”

“Okay,” Jun replied and laughed as if my shyness had charmed him. “You’ll forgive us if we don’t introduce ourselves, it’s part of the job.”

“Of course,” I replied. “I forgive everyone, it’s part of my job.”

“By all means, take a seat,” he said pointing at an empty chair next to the door. “So?, what’s the job father?.”

”Father?,” said Sagira, visibly confused, “he’s younger than you!.”

“You are supposed to call christian priests ‘father,’" Jun explained.

"You are making that up,” Oakley claimed, finally ignoring her ball.

"It’s true,” Kahlfan explained. "But female priests are called 'sisters' not ‘mothers.'"

"You are half right…" I replied, but Khalfan interrupted me.

"We don’r care,” he said with the biggest smile I had seen on anyone’s face.

“… that’s… fine… here’s the job: I need you to find a person on Earth.”

Jun raised one eyebrow.

"That can be… quite challenging. Earth is a large lifeless place. I mean, it’s hard enough to find a person in a moon or a space station, and those are easier to survive and considerably smaller.“

"Don’t worry, I know exactly where he is, getting to him is the problem.”

"I see… and once we find this man… what should happen to him?.”

"Nothing!, you should not hurt him!, we want to rescue him from Earth, this is a very important person. His name is Carlos Sanchez Lee, but he’s better known as Linus the Second, he is a priest… more than a priest in fact, have you ever heard of the Pope?.”

"I have. He’s a sort of high ranking priest, right?, like a general in an army?.”

"Yes, kinda, he’s the MOST high ranking priest in fact. He’s the representative of God on Earth.”

Oakley laughed out loud, very amused at the idea, then Sagira spoke.

"Isn’t the Pope supposed to be like… super old?.”

"She’s right,” intervened Khalfan. ”He might not be alive anymore.”

"In that case, I will pay you anyway,” I promised.

"Now that you mention it,” Jun said. ”Our contact assured us that you could pay. But how did you come to have so much money?.”

"Well… mostly it was given to me by rich people, or even poor people, many were not even christian… I told them about my quest, why it was important and they believed in me… This man is very important, he will restore the church…" Jun raised a hand and lowered has face. He was asking me to stop.

"We don’t question our clients’ motivations, and we prefer not to know them. We will find this man for you, just tell us where to find him.”

My heart was racing once more, this was it, the moment of truth.

"There’s one more thing… this has been a deal breaker with other mercenary companies…"

"Prolapse it out,” Khalfan ordered me.

"I need to go with you.”

"Not possible,” Khalfan replied immediately. ”We can’t do business with you.”

They all stood up ready to leave; except Jun, he raised one hand, and they stopped.

"Why?" Jun asked.

"It’s hard to explain to people who are not christian but… blessings are important."

“Blessings?," asked Khalfan, smiling again.

“Yes," I explained. ”When you become a priest you receive a sacred blessing that gives you divine authority, like the authority to appoint other priests. The priest who blessed you received his blessing from another priest, and he from another… all the way back thousands of years into the past until you reach Jesus blessing the twelve apostles and ordering them to go around the world promoting the good news… So you see, it is a blessing that comes from God himself.”

“So?."

"Well… if you find Linus the Second, and he is dying, or he cannot get to space for some reason, we would need someone to be blessed with his divine authority, so that it is not lost, and the church can have a leader to rebuild it until a new College of Cardinals can be established and a new Pope can be elected.”

Sagira laughed.

"And that someone would be you?,” she said.

“Yes."

"How convenient,” she replied. Without taking his eyes off me Jun scolded her.

"We don’t question our clients’ motivations Sagira…” Then his attitude changed as he talked to me again. ”Father Jacob…"

"I know, I know 'there's not place for tourists here', don’t worry, I’ll stay out of your way.”

“No.”

The four mercenaries again stood up and walked towards the door.

"I will pay you twice you fee!,” I said, desperate.

"I would love that,” Jun admitted. “But we can’t do business.”

He was about to touch the door.

"I can be useful!.”

Jun stopped and turned back to see me.

"I don’t wish to insult you father but… what abilities could you have that would be useful in our line of work?.”

"I can fight.”

"Everyone can fight.”

"Before I was a priest… I can fight hand to hand combat… and I am really good at it.”

I felt someone looking at me. I turned to see, it was Oakley.

"Let’s see” she said.

Jun, Khalfan and Sagira moved to one corner of the room, Oakley stood on one side, and I stood on the other. Oakley pulled out a knife, first with the point up and then doing one quick single handed movement to turn the point down.

Khalfan reached for his own knife to give it to me. As annoying as he was, he believed in fair fights.

"No thanks,” I said to him. “This serves to prove my point.”

Khalfan was gladly surprised by this development. He put away his knife.

And the fight started. Oakley moved quickly towards me trying to stab me, but I easily dodged her and punched her in the mouth. She began bleeding from her lower lip. I could see the respect in her eyes.

Then she tried a bunch of different attacks in quick succession. She stabbed, slashed, switched hands… but I stopped, dodged, and countered her attacks constantly.

My mind was not on that fight. My mind was on one of those days of my childhood spent in the pit, surrounded by vague figures. Were they cheering?, screaming?, I couldn’t tell. Another kid tried to stab me in the stomach, I intercepted their hand and held it firmly…

… just as I did with Oakley when she tried the same thing. Then I tried bending her arm towards her, stab her with her own knife.

But instead she let go of the knife and grabbed it in the air with her other hand just to immediately try a slashing motion towards my neck. I used my foot to move one of her feet and make her loose balance. She fell but she succeeded in slashing my upper left leg, forcing me to move back and allowing her to get back on her feet.

Then Oakley again advanced towards me, trying a lot of quick attacks, but I blocked or dodged most of them. Although I did get a few cuts in my arms. She was doing a lot of erratic twitching motions. She hoped to make me react in one direction and attack in another, but I didn’t fall for it. She had me against the wall, I couldn't dodge or avoid her attacks any longer, she again tried stabbing me but I stopped her hand and then I stopped the other one so she couldn’t use the same trick as last time, it was matter of strength now, and it was clear to everyone I was strong.

“Enough," Jun declared but Oakley and I kept struggling, “enough!.”

“Not unless you agree I’m strong enough to go with you!,” I screamed.

“You are,” Jun agreed and finally Oakley and I let go. ”You know what you are doing Father Jacob, but is that all you can do?. Any fire arm experience?, military training?.”

"No, this is all I know,” I lied. "I learned as a child because…”

Khalfan interrupted me.

"No need. You don’t have to tell us how you know what you know.”

"Thanks, I didn’t want to.

Oakley was opening and closing her hand, I had bruised her wrist.

"None of us wants to,” she reassured me.

"Was that enough to convince you?,” I asked Jun. ”I’ll still pay you double.”

“No."

“Triple?.”

Leaving the brothel was just as embarrassing as entering it, even if the receptionist was the only one there to see me. I tried to ignore her and I hoped she would ignore me too, but she saw my leg was bleeding and she smiled.

"Had a good time, didn’t you father?"

I stopped for a second. I opened my mouth to say something, but thought better of it and decided to just walk away.

"We hope to have you back!" she said laughing at her own dumb joke, but then she realized something important and her attitude changed. ”Hey!, for real, wait.”

I sighed.

"Yes?"

"Can I have your contact?"

"I am not interested…"

"Jesus was friends with many prostitutes,” she reminded me.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, my leg hurt, my jeans were getting soaked in blood near the wound, and she was right.

"Sure… just… please don’t… just use it seriously, okay?.”

“Sure, sure, only serious things,” she said in a mocking tone of voice.

I was sure nothing good would come out of this, but I took out my cellphone, navigated the menus, and she showed me her cellphone with the notification: “New contact received”.

I walked out of the brothel into a dark alley, but looking up I could see lights, buildings and streets high above of me… It pains me to think that most of you have never been in a space station before. They are incredible, oases of life built in the middle of the void by our fathers and mothers. I hope you can see them one day.

Most space stations are huge cylinders. This one, Astoreth Station, was around 10 kilometers long and 2.5 kilometers in diameter, spinning to simulate gravity. The city was built inside the cylinder and for that reason it loops over you, and when you look up you see buildings and streets and of course, the Spine of the station. The Spine is a long rod, extremely strong, going through the center of the cylinder and connected to it by equally strong columns people call Ribs. The spine is not only used for structural support, it is also covered in long light-producing strips; otherwise the station would be completely dark. In most stations the brightness changes in a 26 hour cycle to simulate the day-night cycle from Earth, but not in Astoreth. 

In Astoreth the light was always dim, like at dusk here on Earth. This forced people to always have the lights in their houses turned on, and that revealed just how empty the station was. The city lights formed one thin ring looping over me, only a few kilometers wide and it wasn’t even complete. I could see a section where the lights tried to touch, stretching, eroding into scattered points of light until finally giving way to emptiness. 

Beyond that ring there were only ruins now, and you would think all the survivors would have flocked to the ring with water and electricity, and yet, we knew there were still people somewhere among those ruins.

To be honest I was double guessing myself thinking of the deal I had proposed to the mercenaries. They told me they would think about it, but part of me was scared, hoping they would not accept the deal. I was so lost in my thoughts I did not see the man and the woman playing chess on the sidewalk. I was just barely aware they were using a bunch of crates and boxes as improvised tables and chairs, but they certainly noticed me. Then I saw a beaten down vending machine boasting of being able to print “50k different items”. I decided to take a look at its catalogue and it turned out to be mostly different kinds of pens, but to my surprise it listed ‘cigarettes' and it came with a lighter. I had not smoked in years, but I thought it would help me to calm down.

Only then I noticed the two people looking away form their game and paying a lot of attention to my cigarettes being printed. I didn’t think much about it and I picked up the pack when they were done. Turns out they had paper covering both ends of the cigarette, as expected from a cheap machine like this, but no problem, I just ripped the paper from both ends. At that point the people playing chess stood up. I grabbed my lighter and turned on my cigarette.

"It’s illegal to smoke here, go to your ship,” the woman told me aggressively. 

“Illegal?," I asked her, amused. "This is a pirate base, everything here is illegal.”

"You are polluting everyone’s air!,” the man screamed at me. "This is no fancy ship whose filter you can fuck up. Stop smoking."

I reluctantly turned out my cigarette without using it even once.

“Fine," I conceded.

I was very stressed. I had just had a very difficult day, and now my one relief had been denied from me. Not a good mood to make decisions in.

"You have to follow the laws of Astoreth Station while you are here,” the man said, attempting to teach me something, or perhaps to threaten me?.

“Laws?," I questioned him. “Everyone here is a pirate or a mercenary. We are all criminals, we all break the law.”

“You don’t understand anything,” the woman accused me.

"Fuck you,” I said to her face.

The woman tried to hit me in the crotch, but I moved back to avoid her knee and instead punched her in the face so fast she had no time to react before she fell on top of her chessboard. The man drew his arm back for one strong punch, probably hoping to knock me out, but it was so slow I was already punching his jaw from bellow, sending his teeth crashing into each other.

The woman grabbed the chessboard and she wanted to use it as a weapon against me, leaving her torso wide open…

"Hit him!,” Khalfan cheered with that huge smile on his face.

"Do not hit him,” Oakley replied, not amused by Khalfan’s joke.

"He was smoking!,” the woman complained.

"He’s an idiot,” Khalfan assured them.

"Leave him with us,” Oakley asked diplomatically, and they seemed to agree.

The man started picking up their pieces of their game, but the woman turned to me one last time.

"May you learn the importance of the law.”

Looking back, that was my first blessing during this quest.

The pirates sat back to start a new game, and we three walked away.

"I thought your religion was all about letting other people hurt you or something like that" Khalfan commented.

"It’s all about love…" I explained, and thought to myself: 'What could people like you understand about love anyway?'. Then I continued to explain, "but I am a flawed human and I lost my temper… so it’s a good thing it’s all about forgiveness too.”

"The station laws are not about forgiveness though,” Oakley warned me. "So better not break them maybe?"

"What’s all this about laws?,” I was exasperated. "This is a pirate base, right?. We are all breaking the law simply by being here."

"According to some laws that are imposed on people, sure,” Khalfan agreed. "But not according to our laws, the ones we all agreed to.”

I was very confused, and Oakley must have noticed it, so she explained.

“Astoreth got all fucked up during the Silence. There was no electricity, no running water, no way to escape. You know how it goes, people start fighting each other, they divide into factions, food runs out, they eat each other…”

“Oh, so like, Ragana or Morana?,” I asked.

“Oh, yes, so you do know how it goes. The difference is that here Lord Bidiga hacked the life support systems and turned the lights back on. But that wasn’t enough, people here needed water, food and raw materials, so they offered pirates a place to dock, make repairs and sell their merchandise in exchange for those things.”

“So what?, why can’t I smoke if I want to?.”

“I was getting there. When you invite pirates, mercenaries, and other 'violent people' things can get… volatile. The only way to keep this arrangement is if we all agree to follow certain rules, certain laws. Sure, these are not the laws of Mars, the orbital cities nor the merchant corporations, but they are the laws we agreed to. This place actually has a constitution, you know?.”

"Really?, what does it say?.”

"I just read it once, but the usual. Do not kill anyone in the station, do not damage the station, do not fuck anyone for free, don’t smoke in public air… common decency.”

"Who enforces those rules?”

“Well, you just saw,” Oakley pointed out. “And when they couldn’t stop you they would report you to Lord Bidiga.”

“But don’t just believe us,” Khalfan advised me, “break a couple of laws and see what happens for yourself.”

“It's just… In my experience with 'violent people' there was always someone who made all the rules gave all the orders and people obeyed them, no matter what.”

Khalfan let out a booming laughter.

“Haha, yeah, it happens sometimes.”

Then we stopped in front of a restaurant.

“Finally," Khalfan exclaimed

"Well, thanks for helping me, my hotel is farther down that way.”

Oakley grabbed my wrist, in a friendly manner this time.

"Yeah but we thought we’d invite you to eat something. It got kinda intense with the knife back there… but it was purely professional. I want you to feel welcomed with us.”

She wanted me to feel welcome?, these people who had been clearly following me since I left our meeting?, these people who would kill or save anyone for the right amount of money?… but, rejecting someone’s good will felt unchristian somehow, and I had been unchristian enough for one day.

"Ummmm, yeah, sure, thank you both.”

"I don’t care how you feel,” Khalfan clarified, at least he was honest. "I’m just here because I’m the medic of the team and I have to take a look at that leg. That’s the law in our team.”

"Thanks anyway.”

We entered the restaurant. It was late so it was more of a pub at that hour, populated by lone criminals drinking alone, and they seemed annoyed by our intrusion.

We sat at a table and it lit up with the menu, but I had to clean the table of scraps and dust to be able to read it. Khalfan selected something almost without looking, like he knew the menu by heart, while Oakley read everything carefully and with anticipation. I read a little and found something that caught my eye.

"What’s a… hui-huit-la..?"

"Huitlacoche?, a kind of mushroom,” Oakley explained. "It is DELICIOUS.”

"Okay… I’ll have that.”

“Leg," Khalfan ordered.

I extended my leg so that Khalfan could check it. He took a pair of scissors from somewhere in his clothes and used them to make the cut in my clothes a little longer so he could see the wound better and start cleaning it.

"So…" Oakley said. "You mentioned the money was granted to you by wealthy donors… how did that happen?, did they contact you?.”

"Well… it’s a long story.”

Khalfan put aside his scissors and pulled a bottle of disinfectant from a pocket in his jacket.

"We are just trying to find out if you are someone else’s middleman.”

"Come on man!,” Oakley complained. "I was getting there, if you don’t like how I do things do it yourself.”

Khalfan smiled.

"I just did,” he sprayed disinfectant on my wound. "So… who’s your boss?, we may still do the job, we are just curious.”

"Oh, Jun is considering it?, great… No one’s my boss. The money was just a donation. Believe it or not there are still many catholics around the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and some of them are rich. Some of the people who gave me the money aren’t even christians. They just wanted to help a good cause… a few people over at Jabru were actually buddhists or shintoists but they just… respected my quest, you know?. I just told them what I wanted to do and why it was important and they trusted me.”

"Religion is a good a business" Khalfan said and began stitching my leg.

I sighed.

"Some use it that way, not gonna lie… mutherfucker!”

My leg hurt 10 times more for just an instant.

"Hit a nerve, sorry,” Khalfan pleaded with a half hidden smile. It was obvious he did it on purpose.

"…but I am honest. I won’t keep a single cent of the money. I’ll spend it all trying to restore the church, and if I have money remaining afterwards, I’ll donate it to charities.”

"Hmmm…" Oakley pondered, looking deeply into me. “What do you say Khalfan?, can we believe him?"

"If nothing else, he seems honest.”

I thought to myself: 'At least they appreciate honesty.’

“I could have answered that back in the brothel, you know?.”

“After you left we talked about it and Jun changed his mind,” Oakley told me, "but we did have this one question in mind."

She was lying about something, it was obvious, but the lie was well mixed around her words, so I couldn’t tell what part of it was false.

“Does that mean you guys will take the contract?.”

“Almost certainly,” Oakley replied. She was telling the truth again.

“However,” Khalfan pointed out, “since you want to come along, you put us in an unusual position. That means we will have to make special arrangements. Give us one day to sort it out.”

Then Oakley touched one of my arms to get my attention.

"If you are gonna be part of the team, you need to know our names… or the names we use anyway. My name is Oakley. As you have seen, I am the close combat specialist. This grumpy old man over here goes by Khalfan.”

"That’s not my real name.”

"He’s the medic, but he's also got a lot of experience fighting in a certain revolution…”

“Oakley!," he screamed, for once not smiling. “We don’t say how we know what we know!.”

"There have been a bunch of revolutions all over the moons, it doesn’t narrow it down.”

"Still, don’t say more about me.”

"I won’t, because now I have to talk about our leader, Jun. He does all the bossing around but also he’s an excellent sniper, of people and ships. He can take down a two person shuttle from orbit with a single shot. And finally Sagira is our ship captain and mechanic. She makes sure to protect us from the vacuum outside."

"And now me,” I announced. "I am good at not loosing a fight."

"Kinda…" Oakley replied.

Finally our food arrived. It didn’t look that good, but when I tasted it I immediately remembered to give thanks to God because it was the best food I had had in months. Khalfan got his to take away because the whole time he kept working on my leg and the other cuts I had in my arms. He was clearly a very good doctor, it was a waste he didn’t work at a hospital