Cee-Ranok assured him of these things. Spent time with him following their series of meetings, going on about what an impact his presence made, how it swayed the minds of those who might otherwise have resisted such an engagement of their resources. Such quick and dramatic change. For so long had they moved at an unchanging pace, to now have such opportunity—and she insisted it was opportunity—they were just as likely to do nothing as to act. Kang understood. On his world, Anitra, even as Emperor it took great force to cut through the bureaucratic machine, to generate fast action. Here, with the help of Cee, they managed to impel the Council to gear for war on short notice. An attack fleet was being armed even then, prepared to employ the technology of the Icon—when and if its secrets were cracked.
No time would be wasted.
Kang hoped the Kel scientists would not come up empty. Prayed against it, to whatever god would listen. If they found the Icon useless for their needs … he did not yet have a plan for that eventuality. Likely as not he would simply take it back; wrest it from them if he must; use it to return to Anitra and do what he could to rule that world completely.
But how could he leave this fantastic opportunity behind? He couldn’t, in truth, and so the idea of failure to understand the Icon was impossible to dwell on.
Around and beneath him the dark metropolis spread far and wide, other towers, other buildings as high as the one in which he stood, black and slate, foreboding structures every one, blanketed in white, bordered in the distance by black-rock mountains and more snow, more ice. The sky itself was leaden with clouds that would bring a fresh round by nightfall …
This system’s impossible three suns, tiny and bright orange, hung in the sky, hazy through the upper, thin bands of atmosphere, setting in such a way that this world had both day and night, not unlike what he was used to. The Kel were not so inhuman, their world not so alien as to be difficult to bear. He quite enjoyed the gloom of the icy, perpetual winter. As part of his welcome Cee had given him his own fur wrap, the pelt of some local animal reserved for warlords and their highest commanders. He wore it now, wrapped needlessly about his shoulders. A point of pride, more than anything. Mere decoration.
He had no need of warmth.
He opened the door to the balcony and stepped outside, into the biting air. To the railing he went and stood, looking down at the city far below. Kel traffic crisscrossed at different levels in orderly rows. With his keen eyesight he saw far and wide, could make out whatever he put his gaze to. The city was alive with purpose. A perfect compliment to his own desire. News of his arrival was everywhere. News of the promise he brought …
The Kel were nearly in celebration.
He breathed in the sounds, the energy of the vast city. As he let out his breath he turned the steady exhale to a snort and a long plume of frosted air shot from his nostrils. It dissipated far out before him in a billowing cloud in the cold air.
Cee had been sure to show him everything. To make him aware of all things. In some ways he’d grown to admire the powerful queen. She held the reins of this world. She was confident, did not seem to fear him—or at least held her fear in check when in his presence—and professed great interest in what he proposed.
In addition she was beautiful.
The Kel were, in a way, a refinement of the human form. Kang was certain that, even as a human, he would’ve found Cee attractive. With her exquisitely smooth skin, sharp, angular features, captivating yellow eyes. Even her pointed ears added to her appearance rather than detracting.
As the beast he’d become, however, with the changes he’d undergone, he found himself of even stronger views. Though he could imagine his reaction to Cee as a human, in his current state he found her …
Compelling.
But this was not part of his agenda. Not yet. For now seeing to the understanding of the Icon’s secrets, followed by their application to the fleet and a summary conquest of Anitra … these were his objectives. There would be a long road beyond that. One filled with victories and, perhaps, even queens.
CHAPTER 22: NO ESCAPING THE PAST
Cee-Ranok stood a little behind and to the side, watching as the beast, in turn, looked out over the activity in the street. Kang seemed fascinated by the daily business of the Kel, the orderly procession of vehicles and bodies, the routine of their lives. Cee and a small delegation had brought him out into the public domain, giving her an opportunity to observe, to understand him better, that she might continue to sow plans for this powerful creature.
“How many are you?” he asked, holding the stylized translator wand to the side as he spoke, eyes on the traffic. Elegant, custom versions of the wands had been crafted to fit the demands of Cee’s aesthetic.
“Six-hundred million,” she said into hers. “On this world. There are other outposts in the system, but our greatest numbers are here.” Kang had become quite curious, though she found it only natural he would be building his own store of knowledge on them, even as they sought to learn how better to control him.
She feared and was yet drawn to him. Kang stimulated a certain thrill in her, one she realized had been missing. He was dangerous. Overly so, and the terror of instant death as she manipulated him to her ends was equal parts exhilarating.
She glanced around at the delegates, the cordon of guards present on any such outing of dignitaries. Armed warriors, more than usual; formidable under ordinary circumstances.
Nothing before Kang.
As he stared in the other direction she found herself studying the curve of his hideous form, such that the angry shouts and yelling in the street had reached a frenzy before she noticed. Her military escort had already reacted and was bringing order to the developing scene, positioning themselves against a small crowd that was gathering. Kang, too, seemed not to have noticed, and he and Cee turned to the chaos as one.
“The demon!” a voice among them yelled, and the call was taken up by the rest. “The demon!” Twenty or thirty more clamored against the barrier of bodies now being created by the soldiers.
“The Prophecy!” came another cry. Louder than the others and Cee sought the face of the offender.
The Prophecy?! Her blood went to ice, then boiled. They dared utter such blasphemy?!
“The demon has come! It is the Prophecy!”
And they began a chant that nearly sent her into a fit of rage.
“Allow the Codes!” And: “Allow the Old Codes!”
How dare they?!
She found her voice. “Apostates!” she screamed. Pointed: “They have forsaken the One God!” Yelling almost on automatic, the words coming as a recital of the law, the mantra, so suddenly enraged was she. “Kill them!” she yelled to her soldiers, all she could think to do in the face of such outrage. In that instant she was blinded to all reason. “You know the penalty! Kill them!
“Kill them all!”
The guards hesitated, frozen with the unexpectedness of this turn of events, but driven by her wrath rose quickly to their duty and brought forth guns. To Cee’s horror the small crowd held firm before their fate, martyrs, and she should’ve seen that they would be, none flinching as the Kel rifles hummed and cracked, delivering electric death—convincing her this was no spontaneous gathering. Of a sudden, too late, perhaps, she realized these were zealots, bent on drawing attention with their sacrifice, and she feared the public display they’d already made, terrified at the potential fallout it would generate. She felt herself start to shake, a delayed reaction, and held her hands still. All eyes were on the carnage in the street. The developing scene was rapidly spreading.
But the zealots were dying. Background noises returned as the last crack of rifle fire echoed into the distance and the last body fell. The delegates with her stood hushed by the massacre. Spectators, too, standing silent at the outer edges of the carnage, only the more distant noises of the city impinging. Cee noticed Kang had a malign grin on his face, almost of satisfaction—approval?—but could not divine his emotion.
And she whirled and swept away, waving an arm in the direction of her driver and getting at once into her personal car. Still furious but fearful of the unrestrained, impulsive order to Kang, she thought to go back. She could not risk sounding too imperious, must phrase such things as a request—he knew nothing of this aspect of Kel history, after all—but it was too late and she decided not to try to amend it now. Only as the driver raced them away did she feel herself again start to shake.
She glanced out the rear window at the yellow-skinned monster, watching him fade with the crowd into the distance. Her senior officer on the scene was conferring with the delegates, no doubt debating how to triage the situation. Kang, in turn, stood watching her personal hover car as it sped away.
If she could not correct her error then she must own it.
She faced forward.
* *
Cee swept into her citadel, making straight for her throne. The head and shoulders of Praetor Voltan loomed on the giant screen before it, waiting. He spoke as she stormed across the empty expanse of marble floor.
“I was on my way to brief you,” he said, “when I received your summons.”
“They’ve blasphemed the One God!” Cee yelled as she stomped to her throne but did not sit. “They call for the Prophecy!”
“My queen?”
She looked up at his towering image, calm, collected, even as she herself strained with fury.
“The Prophecy!” she fairly screamed. “On the street! A group, organized against us! They knew where we would be, they were gathered there for that purpose—”
“We know of no such groups—”
“Of course we know of no such groups! They would be rooted out and destroyed! I had them killed on the spot.” She fumed. “They knew! They claimed Kang to be the demon! The very thing the Witch foretold! They knew this!”
Voltan was unsure what to say. “Information is a difficult thing to suppress. We know these legends are still whispered.”
Cee whirled in place. “We should’ve expected some fanatic would turn this into a cry for the Prophecy.”
Voltan shrugged. “History cannot be fully erased,” he said, and Cee hated that he remained so calm when it came to these matters. “We know of these things,” he said. “We must, that we might be watchful for them. But in the knowing, as carefully controlled as that knowledge is, by the mere fact of preserving it we leave it open for continuance.
“It is inevitable these legends persist.”
She bore into him. “Why did you not predict this?”
“What could I have done? What could any of us?”
Cee turned to her throne in frustration. Stared at it but did not go to it. “Now this thing will be twisted. Kang will become the beast from the Prophecy. He will become the demon.”
“That is to be expected. It is what was predicted.”
Cee cast her gaze over her shoulder, back at the screen, glaring at him. Voltan said: “Surely you had the same thought when first you saw him. We know others of our station did. Kang is the very epitome of that which the Witch described.”
“None should mention these things!” Cee turned on him; rushed the screen and stopped. “None!”
Voltan held his expression blank.
“Her infernal Codes were our downfall!” Cee fumed. “The Great Wars, all of it. Rebellion over those Codes! Have you forgotten? The Witch and her deceits. We fought to abolish the scourge of the Amkradus! Our civilization was near lost! We vowed never to allow that insurrection to rise again.
“Never!”
“My queen, It is not in danger of rising—”
“I will not have my people fall prey to the fantasies of self-proclaimed gods!” Cee stared at him. This was the Prophecy come to life, and it was scaring her. That a simple priestess, from so long ago, could so clearly describe a future that so closely mirrored the present was … frightening.
And that the tendrils of that same Witch’s fear-mongering could reach so far across time infuriated Cee even more. Here was Kang, here was … the demon, and Cee had chosen—I chose!—to bring him among them, to make him part of their future. To ignore the rest and focus on what they might become.
What else could I have done?!
Was she herself merely a tool in that ancient foretelling?
“This is our strongest Dynasty,” she seethed, holding to her anger that it might supplant the terror. “The Forever Dynasty. For ten generations we have rebuilt from the ashes of the Wars. The arrival of Kang could not have come at a more perfect time. With the device he brings, if it unlocks our drives … we are now poised to reclaim our dominance. Over not just a handful of worlds but dozens. Hundreds. Empire. We will find them, all of them that were lost, and we will start with his. From Kang’s world we spread to the stars. We will find the Old Worlds and reclaim them. The Kel will be great again! Under my rule, Voltan. I swear it!” She rambled, she knew, but in that moment it was all she had.
Voltan bowed his head, something he didn’t often do, and Cee got the sense he was ready to end this line of discussion. Her fury, however, had not run its course, and as she was building the elements of her next tirade, secretly fearing the Amkradus and the hypnotic control that small group of rebels had cast over Kel dominion a thousand years ago; the Amkradus Codes, themselves built upon an even more ancient discovery, pieced together by the witch Aesha and brought to the worlds of the Fetok when her people, the Kel, shunned them; a way to attain individual power, of a sort and a nature that would’ve made civilized worlds, a controlled and organized populace all but impossible …
Before she could begin Voltan, head still bowed, spoke.
“My queen,” he said firmly, “as I mentioned, I was on my way to brief you.”
This held her tongue, for an instant, and she redirected her next words. “On what?”
“The device.”
Now she nearly forgot what she was about to say. Her tirade shattered and fell away. The device? What news? Had progress been made?
With her Praetor it was impossible to tell.
“Speak, Voltan. What of the device?”
“Our scientific team has unlocked it.”
Cee blinked. This she did not expect.
Not so soon.
Voltan went on. “Graetan, our lead on the project, has come with me. Shall I bring him?”
“At once.”
She watched her Praetor walk away on the giant screen, then went to the throne and sat. First at the edge, then forced her usual, regal pose into her limbs and reclined to the side. Waiting.
Voltan stepped back before the screen a moment later and extended a hand, summoning Graetan. The scientist stepped into view and bowed.
“My queen.”
“Tell me of the device,” she pushed past his protocol. “You have unlocked its purpose?”
He straightened. “Yes. It was far less complicated than we expected. We’ve confirmed it to be technology from our own past. We were able to extract the coordinates and can match its function to our own drives. It seems our rebuilding efforts over the last generations have stemmed from a very similar base—”
“How quickly can our ships be prepared to use it?”
Graetan paused. “Our ships? It should not take long, my queen, now that we see—”
“Do it at once.” Her statement was firm, and it took a moment for the scientist to process the demand. He’d been prepared for a much longer discussion, perhaps with more scientific explanations or questions. Cee had no need of that.
Graetan bowed. “Yes, my queen.” And, with a glance to Voltan—who nodded that he should proceed—turned and left.
When he was gone Cee spoke.
“If this leads to Kang’s world, as he claims, we will go there as soon as the fleet is readied.
“See that ther
e are no delays.”
Voltan paused. Then, looking as if he wanted to argue but seeing she would not be persuaded otherwise, said: “I recommend a smaller fleet be dispatched on the first wave. In the event we are met with more resistance than Kang claims. We should approach this in the form of an expeditionary operation. One which we can turn quickly to conquest if we find his reports to be true.”
“See to it. You will go with Kang at their head.”
Voltan was clearly not expecting that twist.
Cee confirmed: “You are the best suited to manage him, next to myself.”
Hesitation, then: “Of course, my queen.”
Cee could see this did not sit well with him. She didn’t care.
“This could not be more perfect,” she worked to steady her anger, so recently boiling over, now replaced with fresh possibility. “Our people demand action,” she told him. “Now more than ever. These zealot freaks in the street, what they’ve done will no doubt inflame old desires, which in our stagnant state would do naught but fester. The attention of the people must be redirected. At such scale, with such glory as to eclipse all other distractions. With this news we will give them exactly that. Something so incredible, so monumental as to draw their minds from any such idle thoughts.”
To that Voltan did agree. “This will indeed be met with enthusiasm.”
Cee sat straighter. “We will wipe away any lingering memories of the past once and for all. I will draw any and all outcry from this event and put their minds back where they belong. On conquest and empire.”
“Yes, my queen.”
“Send Kang to conquer his world,” she said. “Without delay. That it may not only give us new purpose, but break the thrall of this subversive prophecy.”
CHAPTER 23: EARTH
Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3) Page 23