Northern Star

Psyence: Sorry if it wasn't clear that Culexus is not the Emperor. Praetor is an office - there are three Praetors and one Emperor. The Emperor is too important to have a name. (just kidding - the fact the Emperor doesn't seem to have an identity beyond "emperor" is supposed to be a plot point.)

Skyler: The cameo I intended was to make Dana's test subject Hana. But, I'm considering delving into her story a little more deeply, and the cameo wouldn't work if I go that route. I'll send along an email asking for permission before I do any cameo, so you'll know.

Ragdoll: I thought that might evoke chuckles. Can you tell me exactly what about the third chapter made your reading list, so I can do it more?


No voyeurism this chapter - I did UST instead. Fear not; kinkiness will ensue before long.

****************************************************************************************************************

"You two seem to be taking this well," the Emperor said.

'He's not very perceptive,' thought Ranek. His head was buzzing and he felt slightly ill. Across from him, Culexus was holding both of his daughter's shaking hands. After a few moments, he found his voice again.

"Why are you telling us all this? Why have you hidden it from the people? Why do we have to go there?" Marcus saw stars, and took a deep breath.

"Your blood sugar is low," the Emperor said, as fatherly as ever. "Now, we go to the Sanctum. They have food there, food and answers." The Emperor stood, and with him Ranek, Asenath, and the Lord of Law, and they started toward one of the internal mag-rail stations that serviced the Palace. As they walked, Ranek noticed the way people hit the floor as the Emperor passed by.

'It's good to be king,' he thought wryly.

As the party boarded a mag-rail, the Emperor said "Sanctum" seemingly to the ceiling. The machine must have heard him, because it obeyed the order immediately. The vehicle was quite spacious, seating fifty as most of them did, and Marcus felt strange having it practically to himself. He sat on a bench next to the Emperor, across from Culexus and Asenath. Asenath looked up and smiled slightly at him. He returned the smile.

"Guess I was right about you," he said quietly, trying to joke with her. "So far you've been nothing but trouble." Her smile widened, and he felt a small thrill in his chest.

"You were right about him, milord," Culexus said loudly. "Audacious at best, brazenly idiotic at worst. No wonder Asenath is so interested in him." Asenath blushed deeply and Marcus almost retorted, before remembering he was in the company of the most powerful men to ever live.

"I see you are already practicing restraint," Culexus said. How he hated having that man read his mind! "Good. The people you are about to meet are not the kind who will tolerate your attitude as your infinitely merciful Emperor has. As I resolve problems with justice and foresight, they resolve problems with violence. They will not hesitate to.... adjust your attitude, as it were."

Marcus almost jumped as a small voice invaded his mind - that of the Emperor.

'Do not be afraid, Marcus. He is testing you. The omens have proclaimed that you must face great peril soon, and he is only trying to get you ready. Also, please stop thinking about parts of his daughter that are not her face - he doesn't like that.'

Marcus felt ready to scream. Was everyone in the Sanctum going to be as unmanageable as this group? He felt like a small child being forced to attend an adult's dinner party. What if they were all psychic? Could they all see his inner soul as easily as these people seemed able to?

"Afraid, Ranek?" Culexus said scathingly. "Only my faith in the Emperor's sight allows me to believe you are destined for anything more complicated than polishing statues. Before me sits a boy - barely a man - who allows himself to be overrun by his petty fears!"

"Papa, please," Asenath started. Marcus' mind began to darken, and a curious tingling filled his head.

"When will I be allowed to go home, he wonders! What will become of my things, my friends, my family? My relationships? For how long will I be separated from Asenath?" At this, Asenath's eyes went wide, and her expression softened momentarily. "How much danger am I in? He is on the verge of faltering and he has not even left the ground yet!"

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

The car became so quiet that the whisper of the motor could be heard. For several seconds, Ranek's scream hung thick in the air, and Marcus himself tried to brace himself for what would happen. What did happen, though, was so shocking that no amount of bracing would have mattered.

Culexus smiled. It wasn't a large smile, but it was more that he had ever seen come out of the man's face.

"He did it," Culexus said. "He threw me off."

"I told you," the Emperor said. "I told you he was Northern Star material."

"And I did not doubt you, but..."

"But you had to see for yourself - the quality that makes you such a good Praetor."

Suddenly, the mag-rail's door swished open, and it took a nudge from the Emperor to get Marcus on his feet, so stunned was he from what had happened. They walked out of the vehicle into a cold, dim, gigantic hall with a huge silver symbol in the floor - one of an eagle, with its wings outstretched and flat in a stylized way, clutching a five-point star in its talons.

"This is the Sanctum," the Emperor said unnecessarily. "This is the home of The Order of the Northern Star, the society of warriors and mystics that enacts my will beyond our planet." A sliding door silently opened at the far end of the hall, and a moment later they crossed through the portal to find an ornate conference room, with nine people seated at an ovoidal table. At their entrance, the people all took to their feet. He counted three people wearing uniforms similar to those of the Imperial Guardsmen, the defenders of the Palace, though they were different somehow. There were four mystics that, like Asenath, wore red psychic's robes with white Primaris armbands. There were also two elderly women who were dressed in the ornate gloves, boots, robe, cape and mantle that Culexus wore. Marcus realized with a start that the two old women were the other Praetors: Praetor Parcus Dinath Asurmen and Praetor Cura Inaril Aurelius, the Lords of Economy and Administration. Within this room were the four most powerful people to ever live.

"Let us sit," the Emperor said, and they did so. "Next to me, Marcus," he said quietly, and Marcus realized with a strange feeling that he was sitting at the Emperor's right side - a traditional position of great favor. In fact, since it was the Emperor's side he was at, he was literally the most favored person in the world, if he wasn't reading too much into it.

"I hope you did not wait on us to eat," the Emperor said. With a start, Marcus noticed the plate of light tea-time food in front of him, and everyone else at the table.

"Well," came the warbling voice of Praetor Aurelius, "we did not wait on all of you. Just one of you, in fact." The Praetors and psychics shared a laugh; Marcus and the Guardsmen were silent.

"Such a stoic young man you have brought today," Praetor Asurmen said kindly, as though she was going to offer him candy. "I suppose Culexus has intimidated him beyond words?"

"Not at all," the Emperor replied, "he's already managed to push Culexus out of his mind." There was a general nodding from the Guardsmen at this.

"Already, huh?" came a rough, deep voice from the other side of the table. Marcus looked over and saw a tall, powerfully built Guardsman with dark skin and a bald head speaking. "That's good, considering how close we're cutting this one."

"You know we would do better if we could," a psychic with steel-grey hair sitting next to him said.

"I'm not blaming anyone for anything," the Guardsman said, "I'm just saying we've got a lot of work to do. I take it you were being hard on him, Culexus?"

"Absolutely, Eversor," replied the Praetor. "It took some prying, but I got him."

"Eversor, do you care to explain some more of Marcus' situation to him?" the Emperor said with half a sandwich in his hand. Eversor, the bald Guardsman, got the point and spoke.

"Marcus, as you know, a lot of terrible things would happen if it wasn't for the psychics sitting here and seeing it all coming. As you also know, the main job of the police is to run around warning people what's coming. I assume he's told you about the other planets?"

Marcus nodded, having forgotten the gigantic wad of fruit that now hung in his mouth.

"Well, every now and then, a psychic here on Gaia has a vision from one of those worlds. A war breaking out, or a dam breaking, or a catastrophic plague... it's got to be huge for our mystics to pick it up. The bigger the event, the more of our people see it. You with me here?" Marcus nodded and swallowed, and Eversor continued.

"Well, a couple weeks ago, every single psychic in the world picked something up. Every one of them. Something that wasn't going to start on our planet, but that would sure as hell end here. You want to take it from here, Bellatrix?"

The grey-haired lady wiped her mouth with a napkin and spoke. "When we get visions, Marcus, we see not the cause, but the effect. We see hospitals overflowing with the sick, or the wreckage of a mag-rail, or the rubble of a collapsed building. You see, the police are more detectives than anything else. We find out if and when, they find out why.

"Well, seventeen days ago, we all saw what can only be described as the apocalypse. Cities in ruin, billions dead. Life scoured from every rock in our system. We saw it start on one planet, and spread like wildfire to all the others, ending at ours. So far, this has been the most catastrophic and mysterious of any vision that has ever been had, since the Emperor first looked into the future. We know it is the end of all things, but we have no idea how or why."

Marcus gaped. After a moment of absorption, he turned to look at Asenath. "Is it true?" he whispered.

She nodded. "It was horrible, Marcus. Everything...everything is going to end."

"No," came Eversor's emphatic voice. "Everything is not going to end, because Northern Star is going to figure out why, and we're going to stop it, just like we always have. But time is critical. Whatever this is, it's supposed to start on Hielodar."

"Hielodar is the planet I showed you two in the video," the Emperor said quietly.

"Something is going to happen on Hielodar, and it's going to trigger all this," said Bellatrix. "All of Northern Star is headed there. Asenath and the rest of us are going to try to pin down more information, and it will help if we're closer to the planet."

"Meanwhile, you, me, and the other marines will be landing to try and get the lay of the land, see if we can't get some information for ourselves," said Eversor.

"And now, I must stop you both," said the Emperor, "for our explanation is still missing a crucial part. Marcus and Asenath must know why they are here, or at least as much as we know to that end." He paused, and pressed on.

"Marcus, tell us about what happened on the train, between you and Culexus."

Marcus felt humbled. He had wanted to put his outburst as far behind him as possible. "Well, Praetor Culexus was... I don't know. He was taunting me, I suppose. He was reading my mind, looking at things that made me uncomfortable. He was looking what made me nervous, and accusing me of cowardice. I didn't like it at all. I didn't like having someone in my head. And then... well, I lost it. I got so frustrated that I lashed out at him, but I'm still not sure how I did it. And then, I'm not sure how I could tell, but I knew he wasn't in my head anymore."

"Listen to what you are saying, Marcus," said the Emperor. "Culexus has stood before men whose secrets were locked within the darkest parts of their hearts and crushed their mental barriers with ease. Yet you, a young man with no psychic ability or training, forced him out. That is why you were chosen, Marcus. There is something most unusual about you, a trait that you share with all the Guardsmen in this room, that allows you to fight psychics on a mental level despite having no psychic power. It is not mere discipline or will - it is a power all its own, one that we have little understanding of."

"That doesn't mean I have to be here," Marcus said.

Culexus spoke. "You are missing the point. Every single person born with your power and still living is seated before you, Ranek. There is something about your power that makes you destined to participate in Northern Star. Every one hundred years, one with the power is born, and every one of them is collected by this group. They all play a part, Ranek, and so will you. They all have destinies of great consequence."

Marcus sat silently for a moment. "So, why did I get picked right now? Doesn't it seem strange that I have to get picked only a short time before this apocalypse?"

"Do you not think the same thing crossed our minds?" the Emperor said, and Marcus apologized. "Normally, the members of Northern Star are collected at their two-hundredth birthday. We allow them to live an entire life, then as their death approaches, we harvest them. But unfortunately, your name, and Asenath's, came up."

"Wait..." Marcus said, as he added two and two.

"Yep," said Eversor. "I was the first one, and I'm just past the big five." He turned to a gigantic, red-bearded Guardsman near him. "Haegr here is our newest; that is, besides you. He's two-twenty. In years, of course. I think in pounds he's more like three-fifty."

Haegr grinned widely, first at Marcus, then at Eversor. "I'll thump you for that, old man," he said.

"And Emendi was collected a hundred years after I was," said Eversor, indicating a lean, blond-haired man of medium height and a calm, collected expression.

"Before you speak, Marcus," the Emperor said, cutting Ranek off, "you understand why we cannot make everyone immortal."

"I know, lord, but..."

"It's actually a bit of a curse," Eversor said. "I never believed in Heaven, like some people do, but..." He looked down for a moment, then back at Marcus. "I'd hate to think I'm keeping Diana waiting."

There was a companionable silence for several seconds. After a moment, Marcus noticed something troubling.

"My Emperor, you said this has been going on for how long?"

"Northern Star? For three-hundred twenty years."

Marcus counted the Guardsmen; there were three.

"Aren't we missing someone?"

"Well," Eversor said, "our work isn't exactly safe."


****************************************************************************************************************

After the horrific events of the previous night, Cypress had almost forgotten such a mundane thing as work existed. Yet Dana's alarm clock was trumpeting the start of a new day just as the first green glow appeared at the horizon, visible through the drapes.

Getting out of a warm bed took force of will. Getting out of a warm bed after two hours of sleep took more force of will. But trying to get out of the softest, warmest bed he had ever slept in, held tightly by his two favorite girls, took a level of grit that Cypress simply couldn't summon. Dana rolled slightly to strike the snooze button, and rolled back in place. Now they were all awake, silently enjoying each other's company. Cypress lay on his back, with Dana's head on his left shoulder and Minerva's head resting on top of the crook of his right arm. Their arms crossed over his chest, and Cypress had never felt more comfortable and secure in his life. For five golden minutes, it was as though the previous day had never happened.

Then the alarm clock went off again. Dana mumbled sleepily and began to slide out of bed.

"Let's take the day off," Cypress said, stretching.

"Can't. It's important I become a fixture in Celia's life. I told her I would see her today; I gotta see her today. Sorry. Psychology." With that, Dana slumped to the bathroom, and Cypress heard the shower kick on. Dana's tank top and pajama bottoms came carelessly flying out of the doorway to land on the floor. Now it was just him and Minerva.

He felt strangely fluttery, in a way he hadn't in a long time. In his stupor, he tried to get comfortable, but managed to make himself even more fluttery by rolling over in Minerva's direction. He smiled slightly, at once much more comfortable. Then, he became very, very awake when he realized something - he was now holding Minerva securely in both arms, with their faces inches from each other.

Cypress felt a slight numbness in his legs, followed by the euphoric sensation of his mind awash with adrenaline. He stared into her wide open eyes. Few times in his life had the inability to catch his breath felt so good.

Their noses were almost touching. Her lips were slightly parted - she was out of breath too. Her eyes were soft as air, and her head was slightly tilted back. Some part of Cypress' mind noted that for her to expose her delicate white neck indicated absolute trust - and submission.

He felt a funny tingling in his chest, one unrelated to the excitement of the moment. Or was it?

"What the hell are we doing?" he thought.

"I don't know," she responded, and at that moment their minds connected.

It was a powerful feeling, almost as if they were two bodies sharing the same mind. Or perhaps two minds sharing the same brain. Two souls, connected in a most fantastic way. Cypress wondered what it meant.

"This... we shouldn't," thought Minerva. "This is dangerous. We'll cause ourselves all kinds of problems..."

"This is looked upon as unnatural," thought Cypress, "and it would break Dana's heart."

"We have to cut this off," thought Minerva.

But at that moment, the first ray of sunlight broke through a distant cloud bank and came through a gap in the curtain, giving Minerva a shining, golden halo. It was time. They both felt it. No more words.

They were kissing each other and it was like nothing either had ever felt. They sought out each other's mouths like the drowning claw for air, like nothing else mattered but acquiring the other's lips. They became tightly entangled, his arms grasping her, her leg wrapped around him, his hand grasping her hair, her hand clutching his face. Unsatisfied with this level of connection, they let their tongues explore each other's mouths, eliciting soft moans from both of them. Without full awareness of his actions, Cypress rolled on top of her, and her legs parted to wrap around his waist. She rolled her head back and gasped slightly, and Cypress kissed her throat, lightly at first but with increasing vigor until he was sucking and biting her, bringing forth more gasps of pleasure. Her skin was warm and smooth, and carried the barest hint of a curious, almost minty flavor. He could feel with his lips the blood rushing through the arteries just beneath her skin.

With one hand behind her head, he let his other drop to her waist, clutching and enjoying the suppleness of the flesh. He slid his hand still further down to grab her ass and finally her leg, enjoying the small moans he induced. Then, suddenly, they parted.

Her legs stayed tightly wrapped around him, and her hands were abover her head, with Cypress' hands clamped down on her wrists. The dark, animal part of his mind was screaming at him, screaming at him to finish it, to take the next logical step. Through their mental connection, Cypress was surprised to find that he could feel the same voice coming from Minerva's mind, screaming at him to do it, to hold her down and make her his. They locked eyes, and Cypress noticed that never since his first time had such tension been so delectable.

He felt an electric shock jump up his spine. For whatever reason, all boxer shorts in the world seemed to have a slit in the front that allowed the genitals to slip out. He had not noticed that his erect tackle had made it out of his shorts. Minerva had, and she was gyrating her hips to run her lower lips along the base of his shaft. A dribble of precome edged its way out of him, and he knew what had to happen next. He lined his member up with her opening, and Minerva's breath sharply increased.

The shower stopped.

Without having to think about it, they rolled over and threw the quilt back over their bodies just as a toweled Dana emerged from the bathroom.

"Lazy pricks," she said, smiling. "Minerva, get your ass up. Dom, I guess if you want to, you can stay here today."

"Nah," he said, trying not to give away his residual nervousness, "the only thing I've got going today is the Winogradsky columns of the Muk cultures. I'll call and have someone else check on them, then I'll go with you two to work."

"What's with the knight-in-shining-armor routine, huh?" Dana said snarkily. Then her expression softened. "Thanks, Dom."

"Don't thank me, or I might have to stop being nice. I've got a bad reputation to maintain." Dana smiled again, and walked to the dresser, letting the towel fall off her body. As she turned her back on the two, Cypress got to his feet to have his turn at the shower. As he got to the doorway, he turned around and smiled at Dana.

"I'm yours," he said.

"I know," she replied haughtily, then winked at him.

He then turned to Minerva, sitting upright in the bed, bearing such an aggressive look that it frightened him.

"No, Dominic," came her mental voice, fiercer than he had ever heard it. "You are mine."


****************************************************************************************************************