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Paradise: Lost Cause
Chapter 4: Vera

Chapter 4: Vera

I feel the roar of the engines and all the stabilizers activating around the ship. The power generated now increasing to compensate the new demand. Our destination is the home of this ship where the planet this ship was built on use to be. Its going to be a short journey as this home is in this solar system. The metal creaks and rattles everywhere as the grand Heavens Own ship moves forward.

With the ship now propelled I have time to figure out about who Vera is. Before my charge imperial databases were disorganized and completely out of date, population counts were off by billions per planet, I found this unacceptable and spent the formative years of my rule fixing the methods used. Now the databases are almost perfect with many people having profiles, especially a High Priestess.

To search this database I developed a spot in my room so I can directly connect my brain to the network to search the information like pathways in my consciousness. Its a chair that if anyone else used would fall into seizure. Sitting in it the blue lights flash as its rough metallic edges push on my skin. The vision in my room changes as I see the entire breadth of imperial reach in the galaxy. Finding Thebes I select it and search through the highest positions on the planet until I enter the religious category, but the head of The Holy Order is not Vera, its an extremely old man who is almost 170 years old. Checking the chain of command I do see that Vera is the next in command. Possibly due to the harshness travel has on smaller ships they decided to send the younger leader in his place. Vera Vival is her full name, she believes in a certain sect in the Aurel religion that believes me a reverent god who talks to my followers to push them to orchestrate my real will, they commonly are referred to as Reverents because of this. Reverents also believe the Empire is a captive state because of the nobility and ruling class that if I had full control I would take us to Nirvana.

Her beliefs might be an aspect of how her destruction of me will save humanity from violence and demise. She could knock down the noble classes to avoid the power grabs that would most likely emerge. Now what gives her this psychic power that I can sense? Her history provides me with nothing, she was raised by a large family of academics, at a young age she studied religious ideology and was one of the top of her class. She worked her way though the ranks until she was second in command on Thebes, a moon which she rarely left. Their is nothing in her file to hint at a path of psychic powers. My powers came from my birth when a cult created me for the purpose of being their messiah.

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Their maybe a hint in her behavior as to how she is able to project emotions. While in this machine I am able to access cameras with her near, with Thebes destroyed their is no copies of them remaining or at least not until my operators sift through the information. Due to already being on Veras' profile I can quickly access cameras that have scanned her on the ship though. One has picked her up near the inner core of the ship, this is where the billions of workers around the ship live. Due to the ship being built on a derelict planet the core operates like a society of the poorest people in the empire. As the cameras screen fades into my view I see Vera's gold robe flow down the tight streets, the sound has not connected yet but I can tell she is communicating with the many beggars, offering them something. As she finished speaking to one particular of these beggars the sound kicks in and I hear her say "In the Emperors name I leave you." as she plants a wooden ring polish and colored opulently, a cheap religious symbol of my heraldry. Passing the next beggar Vera says the part of her message I missed last. "You have lost your home like I have, you might blame the Emperor for this. I am here to tell you instead that the Emperor is not at fault. I was there and could see he did not want it so I believe he is forced to act in ways due to the restrictions of the nobility, a tear even feel from his face when the moon was being destroyed. In the Emperors name I leave you." As she passes the wooden ring.

Vera still shows me loyalty and believes me innocent of sins. Maybe she has the ability to sense of me but not enough to gather the full picture. I also now know she saw my tear. These beggars must also be the refugees from Thebes.

Next another younger bald priest slips through the streets with a shorter golden cloak trying to catch up to Vera. "Priestess!" they yell as they catch up. "Everything is in place, are you sure you still want to carry through with the plan?" "Yes I am certain, its the only way to save the Empire."

Does she have dreams of paradise like me?

"Wait until we have arrived to act on anything, I shall return to the rooms soon." Vera continued to say.

Maybe this is the plan to overthrow me and I will not be able to answer my questions. Vera continued to talk to beggars providing me with nothing new. So I leave the machine.

Feeling the ship I can sense the metal slowing. Opening the window the I check to see the perfect grey circle we call Luna with the bright purple flashes from the gravity well holding things in place until the ship returns to its position.

I suppose this is to be my death, before I can learn how humanity will be on the path to paradise. I hope everything I have committed is worth what I have done because I now leave everything in fates hand.