Chapter 1 – Living in the Past in the Future
Deep space has always fascinated me. It goes on endlessly with worlds filled with beauties unlike what is found in the known universe. As a member of Saint Christopher’s Carriers, it is my job to carry the Church to the furthest reaches of space to spread the Gospel to those who haven’t or have yet to hear it. The recent events of the pope’s Infinitus Anathema decree has made it harder to convert people, but since we own most of the known universe, we are slowly diverting resources from the army to research, exploration, and education. Some people call us “live bait” since the unknown regions are such a dangerous area. I’ve come across my fair share of danger, however, it’s all worth it to do the Will of God and convert souls for Him.
When traveling the unknown regions, I like to get my feet on the ground, breathe in the air, and adventure through the world myself. Most places I’ve been to are too dangerous while others are livable but have to be expunged from the remnants of enemy empires or mined for valuable resources. I’m not able to enjoy a planet for long until I have to leave almost as soon as I arrive. Thankfully, it seems like I’ve been blessed by coming across a planet that has a similar atmosphere to earth. The drones that I’ve sent down to check out the area also seem to have come across a small civilization. Let’s see if they’re friendly or not.
“This is Carrier Abdiel, ID 1515, investigating a promising habitable world with signs of life on it. From what I can tell, they can possibly be a group of people that have been stranded in the unknown regions for generations since they have buildings, technology, and clothing similar to that of the middle ages. I’ll be making contact soon and will then give a follow-up report,” I say to conclude my audio log.
These audio logs are kept on the ship in a nearly indestructible box in the event a carrier like me disappears. I land my ship a fair distance away from the town I find and scale a cliff to get a bird’s eye view of the people. Using the scope on my rifle, I see that they appear to be a peaceful town. If it weren’t for the black sun and golden moon that are common in the galaxies of the unknown regions, I’d say this was a place ripped out of the past. The guards in the town don’t appear to be heavily armored and even if their armor is made out of something that can deflect my shots, they have simple swords, shields, and bows that probably won’t be able to scratch my second layer of light armor.
Following the passive rules of approaching a settlement, I transform my gun into a sword and leave it in its holder and hold a cross to my chest with my other hand out as I say to the townsfolk, “In the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, I come in peace bearing His Gospel. The good news that is life giving and frees slaves from the bondage of sin.”
People bow their heads as I pass while some gather as I approach a church.
“Where do you come from, stranger?” a woman asks.
“The stars under the control of the Ecclesia Aeternam better known as the Holy Catholic Church,” I answer.
“Catholic? What’s that? You hold the Holy Cross and say that you come in the name of Jesus. Do you mean Christian?”
“Of course as Catholics are the only true Christians.”
“True Christians? What are you talking about?”
I then talk to them about Christian denominations and a short history of the Church over dinner. They then tell me their history and how their ancestors told stories of their origins from the stars and how they managed to live on this planet through generations. In terms of other people on the planet, there are no others at least none that this town of people have seen. My drones haven’t come across any other signs of civilization either. Their story is a rather simple tale, but interesting nonetheless. I relay what I hear and say back to my ship with my recorder and also note that my theory that animals from other planets taste like chicken and steak still seems to be mostly true.
Since these people seem fine, I decide to stay for the day and sleep in one of their many inns. I want to experience the middle ages. This age is romanticized by some in the Church as one of the grandest eras of the Church. I see the appeal in honest hard labor as I go from doing farm work in the morning to helping in the town in the afternoon, but I’m glad to live in the future where this hard labor is much easier to do. I’m sure that if the people who love this era so much actually live through it then they’d change their mind.
In addition to working, I also go to daily mass. The way they conduct mass is very much Catholic and from what I hear, they seem to be Catholics. We haven’t gone further than the surface of our beliefs so I may need to question them on that to see if I need to send a conversion squad here to teach them the fullness of the truth that only the Church has. For now, I send my drones out to further scan the area to see if there’s anything special about the nature of this planet. The scans that I’m reading are strange as it seems that the soil has biomaterial in it that is similar to that of people.
Seeing this new worrying gets me to send out a drone that shows me a scan of what lies beneath the soil to investigate this further only to find bodies and a series of tunnels beneath the ground. What’s strange is that the bodies underground appear to come from below it rather than be dug down into it. That explains why I didn’t notice them at all while I was farming, but I’d rather not remember working on top of them. What kind of place is this that does this sort of thing? Scanning further reveals people working below and doing some kind of work with the bodies of other people.
I have to stop this, but I can’t do it on my own. Sneaking outside, I head back to my ship only to find that something or someone was damaging it. Hold on. I think they’re still around here. Something is in the darkness around me that I can’t see so I turn on my night vision to try to find it. Seeing small heat signatures, I slowly approach them to find a small group of kids with parts from my ship. Knowing that they’re caught, they drop what they’re holding as if they never had it in their hands.
“I know what you did, but I’m not going to be angry. What were you doing to my ship?” I ask them.
“That’s a ship?” one asks.
“Yes.”
“We were just coming home from playing and found it and played around with it. We didn’t know it was the ship you came on.”
“What did you think it looked like?”
“Like a ship that you sail across the water on.”
“Understandable considering the environment you grow up in.”
“Are you going to tell our parents on us?”
“Not if you give me the parts you took and you tell me one thing that I want to know.”
The kids scramble for the parts they took and give it back to me while one asks, “What do you want to know?”
“Why are there bodies beneath the farms and what are they doing underneath the town?”
“Oh, um. It’s to consume God every day in everything we eat.”
“Explain more.”
“We consume objects and people that have God’s presence in them so that we can be filled with Him even more. That includes vegetables, bread, drinks, animals, and people.”
“Why people?!”
“Don’t worry! They willingly do it. They prepare themselves by being sinless and don’t sacrifice themselves until they’re ripe enough. They then bury themselves alive and become part of the soil, drown themselves in the rivers, or are made to be part of the food we eat.”
I’m already sick thinking about eating something that had people in it and I don’t want to think which part of it was human.
“Are you okay?” another kid asks.
“No, and neither are you. Eating people isn’t okay and it isn’t holy. I’m going to bring the Church here to fix this.”
“Fix this? What are you talking about?”
I run back to the ship with my parts and begin repairing what was damaged as quickly as possible. I’m not sure if what those kids were told was the truth or not so I’m going to escape while I can. There are too many cases of people trusting native people or enemies pretending to be natives only to be killed by them or worse and never heard from again. If these people are misguided by whoever taught them their practices, then it should be no problem that I’m leaving for a little while. Dang it. I was hoping to find a good planet to relax and find interesting discoveries on only to find this. God have mercy on me for being so selfish in my desires.
As I enter my fixed ship, I see people in the distance walking to me. This can’t be good so I quickly take off and send a message to the Church with a report on what I discovered.
“We’ll be there with a conversion squad and an escort of the Knights of the Sacred Blood of Christ to aid you. Give us around five hours to assemble and arrive. Do not continue contact with the town,” is the message I get back.
Okay. That’s a reasonable amount of time especially since I need to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth and see if I need to confess to unknowingly eating human meat. The promised squad arrives in about four hours and thirty minutes. We go down to where the town was only to find it abandoned. It seems like they left in a way as if they knew what to do if their secret was discovered. Investigating an area beneath the church reveals a door to the basement where my scans picked up the people who were buried alive. Unfortunately, there are no bodies here though there are signs that this place was recently cleaned as the smell of blood has stained the air.
We’ve also discovered that the tunnels go deeper beneath the planet. They didn't cover the stains of blood going down the stairs despite their thorough cleaning efforts. We’re probably going to take this planet since it’s a livable planet with decent resources. If we find the people I came across deeper in the planet or somewhere on it, we’ll either convert or eradicate them. Part of me wishes that I never came across the horrors they were doing while another part knows that it was God’s Will that I find it, so they made be converted or punished for their actions. Why do so many horrors have to exist out here?
