by Ilil Arbel
Cimric demanded the High Command dedicate sufficient resources to destroy Conn and her followers. Instead, they sent a small battle squadron which was swiftly destroyed. The High Command sent a larger squadron centered around a trio of battle dreadnoughts.
Again, complete destruction of the attacking Fleet. Marradians didn’t lose. Throughout the C’ara Tov system, rebellions flared, growing armies waving purple banners, believing they were invincible with the energy of the Koinu – and proving it true.
Marradia was driven out of the solar system. Entire squadrons fell into Conn’s hands. As Varnishka K was evacuated, Cimric vowed to crush the insurrection.
And meet Conn. Again, let Janna Bedub explain from the First Book of Shlem:
Cimric wanted to capture Conn to learn more of her faith. A bit of his arrogance had faded. A younger Cimric would’ve wanted her head, fearful of competition for greatness. This more mature Cimric, now nearing 30, saw more.
The entire Varnishka K outpost boarded ships preparing to make the jump to Aliyana 12.
Except Second Commander Cimric. He knew there was no hope of persuading High Command to understand the enemy. They would apply the Boot, even if their legs were cut off. He didn’t have enough followers to overthrow Chancellor Drei Foos. So, as he did when he snuck onto Nibiru, Cimric pirated a ship down to the surface.
He quickly killed a Conn warrior, assuming his identity down to the purple robe and a necklace of purple hair around the neck. Blending into the millions of worshippers, Cimric made his way to the Varnishka K Assembly, a large chimian-shaped structure now serving as the rebel headquarters.
As Cimric neared the edge of the throngs, a hush fell upon the crowd. The Connites bent their backs, straining their chests to the sky to welcome – Sacha Nan Conn.
She walked upon a cloud. This is one of the great myths of Connites, but true. A cloud drifted down. Clouds are mere vapors, but this one held Sacha, gently lowering her above the ground, where she hovered. Cimric, too, bent his back in heart acceptance, but kept his eyes alert as Sacha drifted among her followers, grazing her long thin fingers by their chests.
Cimric was a would-be God, but he was a warrior, first. He waited until Sacha drifted near him, then closed his eyes to accept. He felt Sacha’s cool breath across his face, almost feral. He looked up and she smiled broadly, a flash of warmth that penetrated deep into both his hearts.
When Cimric woke, he sat in a plush chair. There were no binds on his limbs, merely a plate of Tovian vegetables and a tall purple drink. Sacha sat cross-legged, fascinated by Cimric as if he were an exhibit brought to school to amuse children.
“Welcome, Second Commander.”
Cimric grew vaguely aware of a dull ache at his temple.
“Ah, apologies. Marradian circulatory vessels are so different. We must be more careful.” Sacha wiggled her fingers and the ache faded.
“Better?”
He nodded, taking in the small room; they were alone.
“Just because you’re here to capture me, doesn’t give me the right to harm you.” Sacha laughed, the notion of Cimric seizing her extremely humorous. That hit one of his arrogant Marradian nerves, but an attempt to rush forward only caused another ache, deeper and more painful.
“I hope we’re not going to do this all day. You Marradians are quite stiff-necked. Ultimately you will come around and join us, but some of you are more stubborn.”
“This is not stubbornness.”
“Oh, what is it?” Her large grey egg-shaped eyes frosted.
“I am entitled to proper treatment as a prisoner.”
“But as I said, we have no prisoners.” Sacha frowned. She was just a child, fifteen, sixteen. “Either you bend your back and give us your heart, or we send you home. What would we do with prisoners?”
“Imprison them.” He realized how stupid and thick he sounded, her laugh finally thawing him slightly. “That is what civilized empires do.”
“But we are neither civilized nor an empire. We’re part of the Universe. The Koinu. We don’t wish anyone harm, but we do defend the laws.”
“Slaughtering innocent –“
“Innocent what, Second Commander? We only destroy armed lifeforms and only when they’ve refused to stop. Civilians are never injured.”
“We have proof.”
“Marradia is famous for their proof.”
Cimric winced. He had falsified many such tales of civilian casualties. “And how did you know I was here to capture you?” He blurted angrily.
“Why else would you be here? You see the futility of your Empire’s strategy. You’re ambitious and want to become Chancellor. What better way than to capture the horrible Sacha Nan Conn? You would be a glorious hero.”
“Perhaps I came to join your cause.”
Sacha shook her head. “I don’t want you to join us. I want you to be my partner.”
Cimric studied her a moment, searching for the trap.
“You are like me, Cimric. A God in the making. Unfortunately, your faith is based on yourself, not others. Stay with me and learn.”
“I am not like you.”
Sacha grinned, incensing him.
“I am a Marradian officer. I am the God Cimric.”
“Then behave like one,” Eezeat’s voice echoed.
Cimric’s head swelled, swirling into what he would later describe as a black whispering cloud.
When he woke again, he was naked, lying on a cold metallic floor in a tiny cell.
The Prisoner of Conn
Sacha came every morning at sunrise to watch him. The first few days, she was there in the corner, floating, when he opened his eyes. She’d smile and engage him in small talk about his sleep, which he brusquely dismissed, growling about no blanket, no skull conductor for his head. She’d just laugh and talk what he found irritating nonsense, about the birds of Varniska K, the three legged Fet dogs, and her distaste for the local food.
“Surely a God can make herself what she wants to eat,” Cimric grumbled.
“Isn’t that a waste of time?” Sacha smiled.
“Or are you just here to stare at my pleasure bubbles?”
Sacha frowned in deep bewilderment, slowly realizing what Cimric was talking about. Her loud mocking laughter echoed about the cell as she left in silence. She didn’t return for some time.
What puzzled Cimric was the change. At first, he shivered on the cold hard floor, waking with aches, throbbing in his joints, as if he were an old man of 180. Slowly, the cold faded, along with the morning pain. It was as if he were fully clothed in resting garments upon a lush bed filled with Taradassian duck feathers.
Cursed witch, he thought, having lost track of time. Playing tricks, making him think he wasn’t feeling what he was. But if he wasn’t feeling what he was, then why would he think he was feeling it? A shift in reality steadily overcame Cimric.
Conn finally visited again, squatting in the corner, those huge eye staring back intently as he bolted awake, alert and oddly refreshed. Gone was the girlish humor, replaced by a coldness as brisk as the floor had been the first night of his imprisonment.
Ready to go back outside?
His first reaction was to suspect deception, but that instinct quickly vanished, as if belonging to someone else. Cimric nodded. A guard handed him a purple robe and Sacha took his hand, guiding him down the thick concrete steps and into the vacant courtyard.
She abruptly whirled and tossed Cimric his blade. He clutched the handle tightly, crouching, well-trained.
“Still want to cut my head off? Oh, no, I forgot, just take me prisoner.” Sacha spread her arms, the thick robe revealing a maze of careful crisscrosses, roads intersected with symbols in her native language. “Go ahead, Marradian warrior. Be a hero.”
Cimric’s mind traveled like the minute paths on Sacha’s arms. He told his right hand to thrust forward; her throat was within range of a well-cultivated jab. Injure her, steal a ship, fly back to… where? Varnishka K was abandone
d. So what? His thoughts thundered. He was Cimric, soon to be God. He would commandeer a larger vessel, find a jump to hyperspace, rejoin the Fleet, with this, this, she-witch in his hands. A glorious prize.
Sacha closed her eyes, arching her back, murmuring.
“Be still," he shouted.
Sacha’s back arched deeper, the top of her skull edging toward her heels.
“Trickery,” he growled.
Sacha was now completely bent backwards. Her heart beckoned him. Damn the prisoner. Kill her. End the rebellion now. The Chancellorship would be yours.
Cimric flung aside the knife.
“What have you done to me?” He whispered.
“I have done nothing to you, mighty warrior. What have you done to yourself?”
He didn’t know. He tried to learn, himself first, then the aura of Sacha’s beliefs, which he would soon reform with Marradian verve into his religion, as detailed in Bedub’s fascinating Book Four, The Making of a God.
Six months later, Cimric, now adorned with C’ara Tovian symbols across his back, took Sacha’s hand as her Within, a bonding of sacred trust and love.
By this time, the rebellion had spread to several star systems. Marradia had used fusion bombs on two occasions, obliterating Sacha’s armies. Despite that, Conn pressed on, Cimric by her side.
The ultimate battle took place on Spectra Fen, a heavily guarded fortress planet one jump from Marradia itself.
“They’ll want you to go into the portal,” Cimric explained to Sacha and her Batans, or generals. “All their firepower is trained on exterminating invaders at that point.”
“Is there no other way in?”
Cimric smiled thinly. Isn’t an in also an out since they are of the same?
Sacha joined him in delight at his astute handling of the Hem Lev, the arc of sameness and difference. “Tell me, my Within.”
What Cimric proposed was first luring part of the Fleet through the portal. They needed bait.
“Too risky,” Sacha firmly rejected his plan.
“We’ve risked much to get to this point.”
“What if we can’t rescue you? What if you can’t recalibrate the Marradian sensors?”
“What is what if, if not what may be, my Within,” Cimric squeezed her wrist.
Sacha left him for a while to search within for any other answers to the many questions. When she returned, she nodded agreement.
“But let me betray you.”
That set off protests from Cimric and her Batans.
“They will not be able to resist capturing me,” she grinned. “As you could not, Cimric.”
To that, he had no answer.
To ensure that they played directly into Marradian arrogance, still implacably superior over this semi-civilized rabble which had somehow managed to capture nearly their entire Empire, Sacha sent a simple message, uncoded, as if a child were at the helm of her starship.
“We have Cimric, the traitor. We will talk peace and give him to you.”
Throughout Marradia, Cimric was viewed as a treacherous three-pronged sand slime. To bring him back and find a truce with the rabble, until they were ultimately destroyed, was seductive. To also capture the rebel leader, a woman yet, well, the Imperial Chancellor leaped off his dayrab at the opportunity of forging that deal.
And if something happened to Cimric and Sacha on the way back, so much the better.
Given understandable concerns about any further damage to the increasingly depleted Imperial Fleet, the Marradians sent a squadron of medium-sized destroyers, flanked by quick AR2 cruisers, through the portal, where they linked up outside a neutralizing device encircling a small asteroid.
The Marradians were a little surprised at C’ara Tovian technology, assuming the savages had stolen it from another advanced race. Two First Commanders reconfigured onto the asteroid, where they were met by Sacha’s representatives and ushered into a simple room featuring lumpy rock furniture. The Commanders stood, sneering, as Sacha entered, Cimric in a chain around his waist.
She wasted little time.
“What do you give me for this?”
The Commanders stared disdainfully. The taller one said, “It is worthless.”
“Traitors are.”
“I thought he was more to you,” the squatter Commander sneered.
“To serve my purpose and kill Marradians.” No more.
“And have you sated your appetite?”
“We want peace. You are mighty. We cannot continue an endless struggle. Take this traitor and allow us to withdraw beyond the Domma star system.”
The Commanders exchanged nods.
“But what guarantees do we have you will hold to you promise?” The tall Marradian asked.
“What guarantees do we have that you will abide by the terms?”
The Commanders darkened and in unison said, “We are Marradians.”
“That is what we fear.”
“Good, we are to be feared. Perhaps when you join the traitor, you will learn.”
Sacha smiled so carefully her mouth made a sound. “You want me, too?”
“We have you, savage. We’ve already disarmed the neutralizer and five battle squadrons are pouring through the portal at the opposite end of the star system. They should be here shortly.”
A fine thought, but unlikely, Cimric tugged aside his chain. The portal has been blown. With your squadrons.
“That’s impossible –“
Sacha flicked a finger and a monitor materialized, showing vast swarms of debris drifting through space.
“False images,” the squat Commander said with fading courage. “We would not be so stupid.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
The Commanders reached for their concealed weapons, but Cimric easily knocked the men aside.
“There will be no mercy for you.”
“We don’t want mercy,” Cimric said softly. “We want peace. Now have your men reconfigure down onto these coordinates.”
The Commanders refused to even look at the numbers pulsing in Cimric’s palm.
“We want no more bloodshed.”
“There is always blood.”
“Not anymore. A Marradian officer always puts the lives of his men above all else.”
“What do you know of the vows of an officer, traitor?”
“More than I thought. Order them down. Or they will go into the portal.”
Nearly 10,000 Marradian sailors reconfigured onto a large moon. Sacha’s engineers turned over the helm of the destroyers to the computers. Cimric alone knew how to set the countdown codes.
Conn knelt beside him as he instructed the individual ship’s computers.
“How are you with this?”
“Needs to be done,” he muttered. “I’ve taken lives before.”
“Not Marradians."
Throughout their assaults, Cimric had never personally raised a weapon. He had insisted that any insights into Marradian weaknesses only come through their shared Bent Backs, the insights ultimately flowing into Sacha.
Now he hunched over a Triggian coder, which would destroy potentially thousands of fellow sailors. He, Cimric. Perhaps that did make him a traitor.
“If you show me –“Sacha tried.
“I must finish. I can only hope they show some sense and avoid horrors.”
“If the Marradians believed in that, we wouldn’t be here.”
Cimric and Sacha watched the squadrons steadily pull away toward the portal. Shortly, they disappeared.
Let’s turn this over to Bedub for his chronicles in the Fourth Book:
The countdown codes to self-destruct were set on all 17 destroyers for two minutes after entering the Marradian star system. Knowing the frequencies of the Fleet, Cimric had ensured that the sound of the countdown would override all communications transmissions. Once the Marradians realized that the Fleet destroyers weren’t responding to hailing and that those were indeed, countdown codes, they would still have time to
flee from the vast explosions self-destructing destroyers would inflict.
Vice Admiral Tasha Va swiftly assessed the information amid the growing panic in the Fleet.
Options? Va questioned his senior staff.
The radius of the debris would fall just outside Spectra Fen, minimizing civilian casualties.
Va’s eyes narrowed. Why would the vermin not delay the self-destruct and incinerate the planet?
They are C’ara Tovians, lord, and do not have the ability to accurately, began a Commander.
This is not the work of that Farsakkian she-witch, Va snarled. This is the traitor Cimric’s doing. A Marradian mind.
Four minutes to self-destruct, the A1 informed the group, causing uneasiness.
Effect of direct attack on the destroyers.
A second power result, Lord, explained the Primary Engineer. A chain reaction –
I know what that is, Engineer.
We could reposition the Fleet, said a Second Commander.
Shock sucked the sound from the room.
Withdraw? Va asked softly.
To move out of the, the – apologies for my cowardice.
Va made a note to have the officer removed. Other options?
The First Commander cleared his throat. We can go past them.
Everyone turned. Va brisklynodded for the First Commander to explain.
According to projections –
Three minutes to self-destruct.
We could get through the portal and surprise the traitor. They wouldn’t expect that.
Va smiled. No, they wouldn’t.
The First Commander read off a screen on his palm. Calculations are loss of 28 percent of the Fleet.
Excellent odds. Implement the order.
One hundred and fifteen ships of the Imperial Fleet hurried around and through the destroyers and into the portal.
Cimric and Sacha were astonished when the signal arrived.
They can’t be that stupid, Sacha said, genuinely astonished.
Fools. Damn damn stupid fools, was all Cimric could manage.
Even on the sheltered moon, the explosion could be felt. The Fleet hadn’t escaped the concussive shocks of the self-destructing destroyers. Once the first Fleet ships exploded, that set off another massive power surge, obliterating the portal.