And Doom Followed Behind Her by Russell Nohelty

Author:Russell Nohelty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Portal Worlds, portal fantasy, Space adventure, agency, gods and monsters, greek mythology novels, norse
Publisher: Russell Nohelty
Published: 2019-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

It took several hours to flush the clones out of their cryogenic tubes, reanimate them, and get them dried off. Once all that was done, Velaska used her powers to clothe and arm them.

When we finished, fifty-five Deans stood in front of us. Velaska and I divided them into teams and interspersed them among the other officers and gods. All told, there were sixty-four different two-person teams to cover over three hundred hot spots around the universe.

I sat on the floor in the back of the room as the Deans mingled, each talking about the exact same experiences; each with the same memories. None of them had the memory of Dean’s death. Only I had that. Aranya sat next to me, petting Noodle.

“Are they ready yet?”

She nodded at me. “Yes. It took a long time, but worth it in the end as it’s the best chance we have of finding the butchers who murdered my people.”

“And mine.”

“Both our people,” she said in a solemn tone. Noodle, oblivious to the tension, gnawed on Aranya’s finger.

Velaska walked over to us. “It’s time to send the troops off to battle.”

“You mean to their death. This is a suicide mission, after all.”

“That’s harsh,” Aranya said. “We might survive yet.”

“I’ve sent dozens of officers to fight the Godless, and they almost always end up dead. Now, we are sending them to locate the weapons plants themselves, where they make the weapons they use to slaughter us. It’s like sending them into a viper’s den.”

“We have always survived, Rebecca,” Velaska said.

“We always survive,” I said, rising to my feet. “Until we don’t.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Quite.”

“Why me again? Why do I have to rouse them to action?”

“You think I’m going to send them on a suicide mission? This sort of thing is too messy for me. Besides, Katrina will be there to help you. She likes this kind of thing.”

One hundred and twenty-eight men, women, angels, cherubs, and gods turned to me as I strode in front of them and cleared my throat. “I’m not going to lie to you. There aren’t enough of us to effectively scour the universe, and we don’t have time to wait. We don’t even know if there are more Godschurch out there, frankly.”

“Your earpieces serve two functions: they communicate with your partner in the field and, should the worst happen, they’ll send a beacon back to the Godschurch.” I pulled out a tiny earbud from my pocket and clicked a button on its side. “Click it like this and it will send us a homing beacon. We don’t have extraction teams, or anything like that. Velaska and a small squad of analysts will stay here to coordinate in case anything goes wrong . . . and I am quite sure everything will go wrong.”

Any joy or confidence in the room faded with my words. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s our situation. If you’re headed to a planet without a Godschurch, Velaska will send you there with her magic and pull you back.

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