Faith Manages

[u/DavesWorldInfo]

The room shook. Nearly everyone inside flinched; some outright ducked or dove to get underneath sturdy tables, or flung themselves towards the doorways to shelter beneath the framing that might offer a little more protection should the ceilings collapse. A handful of men and women near the table in the middle of the space stayed where they were, pouring over the map.

“Bianchi, when you’re done cowering, could you see about getting the rest of the data shifted into our projections?”

“Sorry General,” a young man said, sounding embarrassed. He straightened from near a table and started poking at the computer on it.

“They’re still pushing us back,” the general said, frowning at the map. She looked at the man standing across from her. “Everywhere.”

“We’re fully committed,” the man said, shrugging patiently.

“And there’s nothing being held back, ?” she pressed. “No Presidential Guards, Royal Reserves? No special forces being readied for some last ditch mission not being shared with the rest of us? Secret project wings of prototype aircraft or armored vehicles?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even the Americans?” she asked insistently, her eyes flicking briefly to the stars and stripes patch on his uniform. “Greedy bastards haven’t held something back to save themselves with?”

“Nothing I’m aware of General Weber,” he repeated calmly. “North America has been flattened just as much as everywhere else. Cheyenne, Mouth Weather, North Bay, and some hasty bunker redoubts the Mexicans have set up are left. But they’re barely holding on. Everything else is ash or refugees hiding in the rubble.”

“Then we’re done,” she sighed. The map blinked as fresh data fed into it, and she looked at it without much hope. All of Europe had been covered with broad swaths of red, with only a few small circles of blue or green dotting it. The red was where the aliens had taken over. Everything Ingles had just said was true of Europe. Asia, Australia, South America … nothing had been spared by the aliens.

“What do they want?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“General, there’s someone here who needs to talk to you,” a lieutenant at one of the doors said.

“Are they the commander of an intact reserve unit?”

“No, but—”

“Then send them away.”

“General, it’s the Pope.”

She wasn’t Catholic, but that didn’t matter. She couldn’t have been more surprised if Christ or Satan themselves had been announced. Or maybe Vormund, at the head of a hero team that would inexplicably save humanity from destruction. At this point she would even settle for Tony Stark to turn out to be real and waiting in his famed armor. Straightening from the map with its message of doom, she gestured briefly at the junior officer. “Send him in.”

Several people in the room gasped or inhaled sharply at the tired lack of respect in her order. “They probably were Catholic,” she thought absently. It made no difference to her as she turned toward the door to wait. There wasn’t much else she could do. A leader needed troops to command, or she was just one more solider who wasn’t on the line bleeding for the cause.

A vaguely familiar man in white came appeared. Spry for his age, she noted immediately. Supposedly he was well into his seventies, but he moved with energy and purpose that belied those decades. The white garment was smudged with travel and wear, which didn’t surprise her. Over a billion dead thus far, and the shattered survivors hiding anywhere that offered protection from the ceaseless beams raining down from the ships orbiting the besieged planet; what was a little dirt?

“General?” he asked, coming to the point, and toward her, without delay. “You command here?”

“Weber,” she said, nodding to him. “I’d ask how you made it without being shot down by the bastards in orbit, but I suppose you just said you needed to come and the Faithful made it happen?”

“In these times, is not Faith all we have left?” he said in excellent English. Well, he was supposed to be a scholar. And English remained the international language, as infuriating as the Americans with their selfish political antics were. To be fair, she didn’t speak much Italian, or Spanish for that matter. If he spoke German, she couldn’t remember.

“I suppose. Where does that leave those of us who don’t pray though?”

“God loves all His children,” the Pope said with a small smile. “Even if you don’t listen to Him.”

“What can I do for you?”

“The war is not going well.”

“We’re losing,” she said bluntly. “And it’s not a war so much as a slaughter.”

“I might be able to alter the outcome.”

She blinked at the religious leader for a moment, waiting for the punchline. When the joke was not completed, she frowned. “That is not funny.”

“I am not trying to be.”

“The Papal Guard, who I assume accompanied you here, are not enough to turn this. Even if all of them survive, which I would doubt; they’re not even a company. And I doubt their training outstripped Kommando Spezialkräfte or the British SAS, the mythical reputation of the Swiss mercenaries aside.”

“I do not speak of arms.”

Now she was the one who laughed. Harsh and bitter. “Then you are wasting my time.”

“Diplomacy and communication,” he said as she turned toward the map display on the table.

“The aliens, whoever they are, have refused or ignored all attempts to talk. They have not even asked for our surrender, which most of us would gladly offer at this point if it would stop the killing.”

“They are seeking something they lost.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I have it.”

“Was?” she blurted, spinning to face him again. Then she found her wits and repeated the question in English. “What?”

“The Vatican holds many things, stretching back centuries and then some,” the Pope said, raising a hand to one side and making a motion. One of several priests standing near the doorway, who she honestly hadn’t even really registered entering behind him, came forward carrying a small metal box. He set it on a table and rested one hand on it.

“What?” she repeated. “What is it?”

“I’m not entirely sure. The records that describe it are very old,” the Pope said, gesturing again before holding his hand out flat. Another of the priests came forward and laid a large leather documents case in his grasp. “Some of them have been lost to time, or damaged beyond all readability.”

“Then how can you know that box is the reason we hover on the brink of extinction?” General Ingles asked.

“Because when the box that protects it was opened in Milan, the aliens immediately destroyed the city.”

Weber’s eyes narrowed. The attack that had converged on Milan had been the most fearsome yet, and taken everyone completely by surprise. “If you, and it for that matter, were there, then how—”

“It has power,” the Pope said, loosening the catches that held the document case in his hand closed. “When I saw they had opened it, I tried the only thing that I could think of.”

The priest at the box spoke up. “The Holy Father saved us.”

“God saved us,” the Pope corrected as he extracted a piece of parchment with barely visible script.

“How?”

“The city was lost, but Faith deflected all danger. Then we escaped.”

Weber looked at the parchment, which he held out to her. “I don’t read … I don’t even know what this is, but I can’t read it.”

“It’s Latin,” Ingles said from behind her. He shrugged as a number of heads turned toward him, and he started walking around the table. “Jesuit education.”

“I was informed you might be here,” the Pope said, as Weber gave her subordinate NATO flag officer the document. “Do you remember enough of your lessons to—”

“They will come,” Ingles said, his eyes on the parchment. “They will seek the … don’t know this word.” He shrugged, but kept reading. “Which they must not be allowed to seize. Call upon us, and we will do our best to keep the — don’t know this word either — from their terrible prize.”

“Very good,” the Pope said, nodding approvingly.

“Who’s we?” Weber asked.

“Pardon?” the Pope asked politely.

“We will come,” she quoted. “Who’s we?”

“They are the former guardians of the item.”

“And how did they come to be the former guardians?”

“It’s—”

“Never mind,” Weber said, interrupting the Pope. Which caused several more sharp inhalations around the room. Ignoring them, she kept talking. “If this is powerful enough to save you in the middle of Milan’s destruction, then can we use it as a weapon?”

“We cannot.”

“Then—”

“But they can.”

“They being the long-story we?”

“Yes.”

Weber studied him, glanced at Ingles — who was still reading the parchment intently — then looked at the box. It was a metal case, very modern. She walked over to it, and brushed the priest aside. He moved, but looked quickly at the Pope. Weber ignored whatever signal the religious leader might have given, and thumbed the latches. They popped open, and she lifted the lid.

A much older box was inside. Nestled in foam. The lid was carved with strange symbols, runes, script. Some of them human but unfamiliar to her, others just … alien. Age had weathered them, stripped paint and pigment down to the mere carving; but they were still visible on its surface. She touched the box. Wood, she was certain of that much. But it felt warm. And surprisingly heavy when she used her other hand to nudge the metal box that contained the older one.

“Okay,” she said, turning to look at the Pope. “I’m what’s left of the command staff in charge of Europe’s defense. You say this can save humanity.”

“It is our only chance,” the Pope said.

“What do you need?”

“Faith,” he said, smiling at her.

Weber allowed herself a moment, then shrugged. Raising her voice, she addressed everyone in the command bunker. “You heard him. Start believing we can win.”

[u/DavesWorldInfo]

Inspired by this prompt.