Chapter 12 - Cultist

Seeing Tom wind the sword of honour angered Kat. She didn't show it during the commissioning ceremony or afterwards during the party held at a big marquee that had been put up on the college green between the parade ground and the barrier forest. She certainly didn't share her concerns with her fellow cadets-now-officers. It made very little sense.

Kat remembered back to her initiation to the Camp Lodge.

"I Katherine Suzuki" she repeated after the hooded Ceremony Leader

"commit my sword, my mind and my soul"

"to the United Grand Lodge and all of her Sister Lodges."

"To fight for what is right, to refuse illegal orders, and to keep a watch for any form of disloyalty."

Now as one the 11 hooded lodge members and Kat looked at the large blank wall at the end of the old shelter and it was lit up by a projector. They read the words in unison:

"By the Twin Suns and Twin Moons, we shall preserve the Kingdom against all"

Kat started to realise that this was no ordinary Lodge. She had heard rumours of a secret monarchist extremist cult, and of people taking The Object's appearance to have religious significance. Here the regalia, the ornamentation worn by the lodge master, the symbols on the cloaks and hooded gowns. It was clear - this was not a simple social club with quaint faux-mediaeval traditions. They had gone to a lot of effort to link the Twin Monarchs with The Object. But to call The Object, her Dragon's Egg a twin of the moon? That made no sense at all.

Still, she thought, I am better here on the inside of this lodge system. It can only help me.

With the oath complete, the projected text and images flashed off and all that remained was candle light. The Lodge Master pulled back his hood as did the others. The Lodge Master of course was Staff Sergeant Bramo, and the Ceremony Leader was one of the Gurkhali Sergeants she recognised from the Guardhouse. The others were all cadets, a few from each platoon. She recognised Tom, Cheryl and a few of the others.

Staff Bramo smiled and the mood of conspiracy broken into a more casual tone.

"Okay ladies and gentlemen, with the official ceremonies complete, let's crack open a few bottles and celebrate Kat joining us in fellowship."

"Sure thing, Rog." Tom piped up, a little too keen, and he and another disappeared to one of the darker corners of the Lodge to get the drinks.

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"Rog?" Kat said quite startled, still unsure what to make of this whole situation.

"Yeah, well it is one of our rules, Kat." Staff Bramo said in a tone that was positively chatty "With the hoods up, we have certain titles, with the hoods down we are all brothers and sisters, and when we are outside the lodge, outside of ceremony, we do not mention this place or what we do here."

"Sounds like a lot of work." Kat said, unsure of what tone to strike with the man who had been a firm yet fair disciplinarian leader turning her from slack civvy into an efficient leader for the last 9 months.

"Work? Well yes I suppose it is. You will come to understand, Kat. We are the moral core of the Space Force. We are the ones who make sure that illegal orders are not followed, that those who are lazy or dangerous or malicious are found out and sent to postings where they can do little harm. We are kind of like an internal police. The ceremony aspect works wonders - centuries of psychology goes into it. Whether we like it or not, ceremony makes us humans feel and understand things on a deeper level. Or so they tell me, I'm just a humble Lodge Master!" He smiled at his self deprecation.

"They?"

"Oh yes. They! You'll see, this isn't just a Cadet Camp thing. You are in for life now Kat. We do advanced vetting on all our members, it is all quite official, despite the veil of conspiracy and the hoods. What's the point of a secret police that isn't secret? As for the brotherhood-sisterhood stuff - we are not here to start or stop wars, that's for the politicians and news agencies. We are here to keep an eye on the moral character of our fellow soldiers. And that means we are all equals, all children of God, all subjects of the Twins. Our ranks are not equal but our souls all weigh the same."

"You know I'm a Shinto-buddhist, right?" Kat rarely had cause to feel 'othered' by her Japaneseness, the UK Space Force HR policies made sure of that and then some. But here it seemed she had stumbled into a hughly Christian sect. Very often 'secular' Europeans didn't even realise how Christian their non-Christian organisation's philosophies were.

"Oh yes yes, as I said, we had to look into you, an advanced profiling" Roger Bramo sat on one of the chairs Tom and the others had brought and took the glass of wine that was offered from the darkness.

"There's nothing to worry about" Roger continued, "We look for good moral character. Whether you got here through Christ, Buddha, Bushido, Greek Thought or any other philosophical or religious path we don't mind. We look for those with a sense of justice, who do what it right even when it is inconvenient."

"Yes, you've stood up, been punished, and stood up again, knowing punishment was certain" added Colour Sergeant Goorang-Kalit of the 3rd Bruneian-Ghurkali Guards. "Call me, Ajit" he added with a smile.

Kat had a good evening, chatting, learning, relaxing and, as was designed by the military psychologists, feeling special and trusted. The Lodge meetings were weekly, and in that short month's period visiting members from other lodges joined every now and then. Each night was different but they always started Hooded, by candle light and with The Oath. And they always ended on first names and a few cups deep.

Kat had noticed that despite the professionals of soul-equality and symbolic use of first names, that Tom and Cheryl and a few of the other cadets definitely had more menial assignments than others. Tom Morrison worked hard and was loyal, but he was no mastermind or future Space Marshal.

Even weeks later after she commissioned, after she had her parties and started her preparation for pre-Orbital deployment training as a newly minted Lieutenant, she could never figure out why the Lodge had selected Tom for the limelight. Odd. Very odd.