God's Dogs
Chapter 20

I’m against war with the United States. But I am an officer of the Imperial Navy and a subject of His Majesty the Emperor.

Isoroku Yamamoto

The emperor didn’t lose control. It would be unseemly. He and two ministers were in one of the sitting rooms of the palace. A huge Persian carpet lay over a polished hardwood floor. Sofas, overstuffed chairs, and coffee tables were arrayed before a massive fireplace. Portraits hung on the wood paneled walls, statuary and vases sat on antique tables, and a floor to ceiling window framed a stunning view of distant mountains.

A mantle, ten feet long by two feet wide, hung heavily over the inset fireplace. Cedric, in a fit of unseemly rage, cleared the mantle with two sweeping swings of his silk clad arms. Now he was kicking a statue that hadn’t shattered in the fall.

“Bastards!” he shouted. “Those bastards bombed my research stations. How did they know? And why didn’t we kill them? Damn Penglai. Damn them to hell!”

John Scanlon and Andrew Lockhart looked at each other and grimaced, embarrassed for their emperor. The war was going badly, much worse than the emperor knew. It was their sad duty to let him know how badly.

Scanlon took up the task. “Not only that, but we’ve confirmed the League has FTL communications.”

“What?” Cedric shouted as he paced before the fireplace debris for a few laps. Then he collapsed into a chair.

Scanlon went on, “We also have reports that they have new shields for their ships and for their ground troops.”

Cedric’s head slumped, chin to chest. “Is that all?”

“No,” Lockhart answered. “Our agents confirmed Penglai is recruiting from Amazonia. They hope to double the number of Coyote teams.”

Cedric shook his head and let out a long sigh. “We should have eliminated Penglai before we did anything.”

“In retrospect, I agree,” Lockhart said. “They were the only ones ready for war. The League was in a peacetime routine, and we figured a blitz should work.”

“It would have worked,” Scanlon affirmed.

Cedric sighed again. “Now what?”

“Destroying Penglai is out of the question, I’m afraid,” Lockhart gritted out. It was an admission that galled him.

Scanlon said, “Sue for peace. Raid their infrastructure. Assume a defensive posture and hope to attrit them when they counter-attack.”

“We can’t win, can we?” Cedric said in a dead voice.

“Not with the situation as it stands,” Scanlon replied. “And with the League’s resources, it gets worse the longer the war drags on.”

“Okay,” Cedric said. “Let’s do all three. Have our ambassador arrange a ceasefire to begin peace talks. Outfit some pirate squadrons to attack their infrastructure. Bring our fleets back to defend what we’ve won so far, and provide a blockade to our core worlds. We need to preserve our way of life, our autonomy. That is foremost. We can’t let the League undo the three generations of progress my family brought to the Empire.”

Cedric’s voice trailed off, and the ministers beat a hasty retreat. In the hallway, they fast-walked to the elevator.

Scanlon said in a low voice, “Do you think the League will allow the Empire government to exist?”

“Probably not. What’s more troubling is the threat of our colony worlds demanding independence.”

Scanlon grumped, “The League would support that.”

“I know,” Lockhart said. “I have to think the reason for the increase in Coyote teams is to foster that agenda.”

They entered the elevator and descended to ground level. Scanlon commented, “What does Penglai have to gain?”

“Nothing that I can determine. That’s what I don’t understand, but nothing else makes sense. They will support a colonial insurrection. I’m sure of it.”

They exited the palace and returned to their offices to arrange the details of the emperor’s plan.

Quinn spent a week in a rejuvenation tank at the medical space station circling Penglai. He suffered massive internal injuries from the debris impacts. Luckily, his suit never breached, so decompression wasn’t an issue.

The rest of the team completed the bardo ritual, filed their after action reports, and settled into monastic routine. Linda rejoined the fifth year candidates.

Raina found out her shield failed, which almost killed Quinn, and went into an emotional downward spiral. Eventually, Master Wong asked Pax’s help with her.

Pax arrived at Master Wong’s office on the R&D station before lunch. Raina was already there, and she flew into Pax’s arms in a fierce embrace when he entered the office.

Master Wong spoke from behind his desk, “We have an audio feed for Grace to be part of the conversation. It was she, I might add, that requested you.”

Pax’s eyebrows rose. “So Grace, what do you have in mind?”

Her voice was a crisp alto without much inflection. “It’s good to speak to you again. You treated me well in our first encounter. I realized later your acceptance of me gave me permission to accept myself.”

Pax took that in and replied, “I’m glad that was the case. You must know by now that most of us on Penglai would accept you.”

“I do, but you were the first and accepted me at a critical stage in my development. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Grace. What do you think I can help with now?”

Raina pushed back from the hug and answered, “She’s worried about me.”

“In what way?”

“I can’t get past the horror of ‘what if?’ What if Quinn died?”

Grace added, “No logic works to dispel it. I don’t know what to do.”

Master Wong put in, “It’s a block I can’t replace any leverage on either.”

Pax smiled and directed Raina to a chair. He sat facing her. Wong came around the desk to sit in a chair as well.

Pax held her hands, which were trembling. After a long moment, he told her, “The warrior’s path I am on is not for everybody. That you know. Penglai made sure there was a place for those of us bound for the warrior path, even though there are few of us.”

“They call you the ‘twenty percent,’” Raina said.

“And only a fraction of that number will become Coyotes. The rest serve on ships, or in the militia, or on assignment to the League. We all hope to complete the warrior’s spiritual journey.”

“Yes. That was in my studies. I can intellectually understand you are genetically wired as protectors. I can’t imagine what that life would be like.”

Pax continued, “In theory, it’s a simple path. We vow to do the right thing each and every moment of our lives.”

Raina’s face wrinkled with confusion. “But how do you know what is the right thing to do?”

“Exactly,” Pax smiled. “The map is definitely not the territory. So first, we must develop the wisdom to know what the right thing is. Next, we must develop the courage and means to actually do it. Finally, we must develop the faith to let go of any attachment to the outcome.”

Raina considered that three-part process before commenting, “So many variables. How do you manage?”

“The secret is in the final challenge – turning over outcomes. As your faith grows, you begin to suspect that there’s no way a pure intent can go wrong. It may not look that way immediately, but in the long run, it always works out.”

Raina struggled with the implications of Pax’s statement but concluded, “I don’t have faith.”

Pax smiled. “It is the hardest one.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Quinn could have died.”

“I thought that was going to happen when he charged off to assault an enemy command center all by himself.”

“He did?”

Pax nodded, still smiling faintly. “In that moment, it was the right thing for him to do.”

Grace broke in, “He knew the shield was a prototype. It hadn’t been combat tested.”

“True,” Pax said. “He also trusted the shield would hold up long enough to complete his mission. His survival after that didn’t matter.”

“How can you know that?”

“It’s how we all think,” Pax answered. “We are here to complete one task of many tasks that takes us to final Enlightenment. This is one life of many lives. We live it to our best. When we complete this lifetime’s goal, we move onto the next lifetime. Faith in that progression is what gives us our strength.”

Raina slumped in the chair. “I have no faith.”

Pax grinned again. “It’s the hardest discipline there is: letting go.”

“You would grieve his loss, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. Grief is one process for letting go. I also rejoice he’s still alive.”

Wong spoke up, “You’re a tulku in training. You will feel these lessons more exquisitely than others. It is said the bodhisattvas cry themselves to sleep each night because of the suffering of the souls in hell.”

“Great,” Raina muttered in sarcasm. Then she began chuckling.

Pax and Wong joined in.

Grace asked, “Why are you laughing?”

When Quinn was decanted from the tank, Raina was there with Quinn’s team. The nurses helped him onto a hospital bed and rolled him to a private room.

Quinn was eventually able to focus on those in his recovery room. He croaked, “I take it I’m still alive.”

“With ten minutes to spare,” Moss quipped.

“The mission?”

River said, “We got a lot of classified data from the second operating system. League intel is still working through it. They send their thanks.”

“Yeah,” Moss cut in. “They want to give us medals.”

Raina had moved next to the bed and took Quinn’s hand. She told him, “Sorry the damn suit failed.”

Quinn replied, “It worked fine.”

“I’ve got an upgrade for you. It wasn’t fine. We almost lost you.”

“What’s to lose? I’ll probably come back as your daughter or something.”

“Oh, goddess,” Linda moaned. “Quinn as a girl. How will I get that thought out of my head?”

“Welcome home, Quinn,” Pax said.

They hung out with Quinn until the nurses chased them out. Moss, Pax, and Linda headed back to the monastery. River and Raina headed down to the city of Arresti where the Penglai council was in session.

The council wanted to meet Raina, and the timing worked for her. She suspended her projects until she could talk to Quinn. River went along as a bodyguard.

Penglai was organized in two distinct ways: the monastery system that oversaw primary and secondary education, vocational education, and the military; the civilian system, which was responsible for higher education, administration, economics, commerce, diplomacy, and so on.

Arresti was a quaint town of a few thousand permanent residents. In the local summer, this coastal town’s population tripled its size. The beach resorts opened, and it seemed that everyone ran a bed-and-breakfast in the town. This day, it was a beach town in winter. Most of the one and two story businesses were closed, except around the central part of town where government offices were still operating and the locals withdrew to their winter housing.

River found the meeting hall and escorted Raina into the wood-framed building. River wore light armor for this assignment but carried only a handgun in a drop-down holster on her right leg. Her helmet was retracted as well so she could chat with Raina.

Up a stone staircase to double doors, past two uniformed guards, down a short hall, they entered a cozy auditorium filled with people that looked like they lived full time in a beach town — shorts paired with parkas, long hair draped over turtle neck sweaters, sweeping full length dresses of flamboyant colors. The council members were seated on a central stage, and they were dressed down as well. The lights were up so that River could easily check out everybody, which she did with a broad smile before walking down one of the aisles to the stage.

A tall, black man with tight gray curly hair stood to greet them.

“Ah,” Jason Obumway, head of the council, exclaimed with pleasure. “Coyote River, welcome. And Tulku Raina, welcome indeed to the Penglai committee’s annual meeting at Arresti.”

River stopped at the foot of the low stage and saluted. Then she guided Raina up the three steps to join the council on stage. Once Raina was situated, River turned back to Obumway.

“Councilor,” River said, dipped her head in a bow, and retreated.

He returned the bow and said to Raina, “I would like to introduce you to the rest of the council and to Penglai as well. This meeting is being broadcast worldwide. All of us want to acknowledge the contribution you’ve made in our struggles with the Empire.”

The awards ceremony lasted ten minutes. Then Raina descended the steps, and River led her out of the room. To Raina’s discomfort, she exited to a standing ovation and people offering her drinks from various bottles on the way out.

Once outside, Raina observed, “I think I was the only white person in the room.”

“You probably were,” River concurred. “Penglai was settled predominantly by people of color.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“How long have you been living here?” River smiled at her.

Raina chuckled. “I guess I never noticed it before.”

River slowed her pace and took in the bleak landscape of a beach town in winter. The sky was a steel gray, and a cool wind gusted up from the beach.

Eventually, she said, “Did you learn about the four roads Native Americans identified? The red road, the black road, the yellow and white roads?”

“No.”

“Well, the Native Americans believe the Creator gave gifts to each race, but each race had to walk a road that would bring each into harmony with the other races and their gifts. When all races learned to work together, all the gifts could work together as well.”

“Forming a kind of synergistic system,” Raina concluded. “What was the white race’s gift?”

“Technology, manufacture, basically the gift of manipulating the elements of the physical world.”

“We’ve had our share of learning to use technology in a way that doesn’t destroy a world’s ecosystems.”

“True, but you also have Grace as a product of technology.”

Raina smiled. “And with Grace, I became a tulku.”

“A symbol of the yellow race,” River said. “Their gift is introspection – the need to seek the Divine within.”

“I am that synergy,” Raina said in wonder.

“One part of it, yes.”

Raina chuckled, “We live in interesting times.”

River frowned. “Wasn’t that a Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times.”