by Allen Ivers
ALL FORCES ARE TO DISARM AND AWAIT ADJUDICATION
ALL CRIMINALS WHO RAISE THEIR ARMS AGAINST THE CONSUL WILL BE HELD TO HIS SWORD
IMPERIAL FORCES ARE EN ROUTE TO PACIFY RESISTANCE AND RESTORE ORDER
YOU WILL SURRENDER OR YOU WILL BURN
ZU GLORIAM
Epilogue
It was the only place in the world Aaron didn't feel insane anymore. He stood on that plateau in the mountains, where Holmst had abandoned him to die, looking out on the basin below and the sparkling jewel of Vanguard.
The smoke pillars had died down, and the mild commotion of hurried transports more resembled a mirage. The vista felt like a painting just out of reach. He stood at the lip of the cliffs and drank in that pastel morning view.
And it was quiet. No more congratulations or condolences, just the kiss of the wind on his rugged cheek. He needed a shave. Every touch of the world felt like sandpaper.
Someone must've tattled.
Talania approached him from behind, waving off her bodyguards. She wanted to talk to him alone, or at least with the appearance of it. She took to leadership like a hammer to a screw – never mind the intent of the design.
"Let me guess," Aaron grumbled, hating the sound of his own voice, "They said we could have a three-week head start, and they promise to be sportsmanlike."
Talania paused, the gravity of the situation weighing down her smirk. "In so many words."
"Well, Governor… are you going to surrender?"
She stepped up to his side, taking a sip of that humbling landscape. "I actively participated in the violent overthrow of my military. I don't think surrender is going to provide an improved result for me."
"And the people?" Aaron asked, pointed. If she was only concerned with her own hide…
She didn't answer for a long second, taking a full breath of the crisp mountain air, the altitude robbing the heat from the savannah and refreshing with the moisture of the fog. "Now I know why you come up here. Clears the head."
It didn’t need to be said. The Empire wasn’t going to selectively determine who participated and who didn’t. As far as Sol was concerned, the entire Colony was locked arm in arm, and they would drop the hammer with the certainty of it.
Now, that absolutism was going to be hard to convince any hold-out loyalists of. Some people were just so faithful, they would -- even out of fear -- lay their own necks on the block.
It turned his stomach, and he knew exactly why. Quinn, Carmona, Jensen... they laid down their lives to stand up against that system. Even Holmst had done the same in the end.
She took one last draw of that revitalizing open-air elixir, before turning back to her bodyguards and the waiting Howler. "So, we get ready?"
Aaron shrugged, "Not like they're leaving us much choice."
She nodded, her mind off imagining the horrors she had only sampled this week. That gleaming city in the distance would burn.
Talania turned and strode toward the waiting Howler, powerful clean strides. He wished he had an ounce of her conviction, even if it was all for show. She stepped up into the machine, grabbing a handlebar for support.
Only then did she look back at him, as if suddenly realizing he hadn’t followed her. She beckoned for him, but he just shook his head. One more thing left to do.
She pursed her lips and shrugged. The Howler lifted off with a huff, scattering the loose gravel at Aaron’s feet, before whispering off into the blue tableau of the sky. Aaron watched it go, feeling a tingle on the back of his neck. That particular sight had some rather foul associations to it.
"She will need you before the end, ak'thun," he heard the Queen whisper on the wind. "They all will."
Aaron eyed the Howler as it disappeared into the distance. Maybe Talania was staring at the rolling fields underneath her, scanning for the active Jergad now grazing openly in their fields again, sifting for what scant vegetation had returned. Maybe she was looking toward her city, a cracked crystal catching the mid-morning sun and scattering it into a dozen impotent shards.
Or maybe she looked back to Aaron and witnessed the smokey silhouette he knew hung behind him on that plateau. Hell — she probably couldn’t see that. It was all a projection in his head.
He turned – and indeed, there she was. The Queen's human form stood in stark contrast to the stiff double who had just departed. This illusion's posture was loose with twisted shoulders and a cocked hip, like twisted silk hanging off some invisible rod, like she didn't quite know how to naturally stand -- an observation only magnified by the billowing darkness, the veiled titan that hid itself in the vaulted shadow of the mountain.
There was a part of him that hoped he never met whatever that really was.
A curious flicker in his heart, as several Jergad staggered forward from their caves and their hidden places -- it was always unnerving how something so large could hide in plain sight. Poking his ragged head from the pack was Scar, hobbled but healing well, croaking and whining like a large mutt.
The Queen studied his eyeline to Scar and the others. They were not separate from her, after all, and his admiration for the big guy was probably akin to someone finding her hand more valuable than herself, “We will need you, as well.”
"Why?" Aaron said, eying the twisting black more than her human counterpart. He chewed on the implication like it was shoe leather, some indigestible concept that revolted every part of him. "Everyone I know seems to think I'm some kind of hero. Like they just can't go on unless I'm leading the charge. I didn’t overthrow Riley yesterday, or end a war. It was a big… community effort, but somehow everyone keeps thinking I’m the light at the end of the tunnel!"
The Queen smiled softly and leaned forward, like she might try to nuzzle his cheek from twenty feet away, "You are more than one of the crowd. You led them from bondage. You led them through bloodshed. You led them--"
He couldn't listen to this anymore. "I led my best friend to his death! I led them—were you asleep for the last seventy-two hours?! I turned them on their own people! I have personally killed more than my share. And for what? A good six months of freedom? What was it all for?!”
The Queen’s stare held no judgement. He wished it had. He had killed. He had killed by choice. He had decided to kill Riley. He had wanted to. He wasn’t even sure if that was wrong. He needed someone to judge him, punish him.
He had gotten used to the cage, after all.
Aaron pointed at the city below, “There are loyalists down there in that city that would like me drawn & quartered; there’s a couple hundred Army Regulars who are somewhere between blood-thirsty and scared gutless; and by the way, some of us Capitals ain't the nicest people either.
Yeah, sure, the next few days are goin' to be a party. But none of it is going to matter terribly much when a megaton of kickass shows up to wipe this planet back to the Stone Age -- for the second time! We have fifty-two thousand civilians down there. God knows how many you have."
Aaron rolled his head back, staring up at the sky above that hid distant danger. "And now they have an axe to grind. They're not coming back as colonists, Your Highness. They're coming back ready for a war. And we're not even in the neighborhood of something we could call ‘ready’."
The Queen welcomed his rage, absorbed it, and then: “What would you need?"
Aaron huffed, like he was being asked to run another mile after having just declared himself spent, "I'm no general. I wouldn't know where to start."
"Then think in the simplest of terms. What would you need?"
More time. Professional training. And more than anything, a real army.
And even with those things granted, the Imperial Army had just gotten through quashing a rebellion a hundred times this size. This would be a speed bump, a police action, peace delivered through fire – and the blaze that rendered Vanguard to ash wouldn't even register as bright as the candlelight at Jensen's vigil. Their end was all but absolute.
What he needed was impossible.<
br />
"Where would I find any of it?" Aaron blurted, incredulous. "Nobody's going to come protect a small mining colony. Or a group of convicts like us." He pointed down at the city, his voice cracking and his throat squeezed shut. "Those people… they believe I'm going to save them. And I-- I can't tell them how. I can't tell them that their friends and family fought against a psychopath and died -- for nothing! I’m their ‘Hero’ and I-- I’ve got nothin'!"
Scar led a chorus of quiet murmurs, somewhere between purrs and crackling. They wanted to soothe his discomfort but made a noise that seemed to materialize his pressure into the real world.
The Queen inched over to him, and he could feel a warmth wrap him like a wool blanket against the cold mountain wind.
"You are not a hero, ak'thun," she said to him. "Heroes are stories told to the people to enshrine honorable qualities. Heroes can never measure up to the stories told about them. They were just people. But you… you have a privilege and a responsibility. You will get to tell your story yourself. The only one who will define your worth… is you."
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the air, feeling the crisp, dry refreshment fill him to the brim until he was sure it would spill over into tears. He was back in that jail cell, consigned to labor out endless debts, not of his choosing. He could wait for the end, drink up his freedom until a boot fell onto his neck. It was inevitable.
Aaron didn’t start this. Neither had Talania, no. Guilt was a paralytic that would cause one to bow their head unto the block. Aaron had done everything asked of him and more. He had risen to every challenge.
No more. He was done following.
“Your Highness,” Aaron said, his voice still shaking, “We have a lot of work to do.”
She smiled, “Well, then… we’d best get started, shouldn’t we?”
About the Author
Allen Ivers started writing original stories at the ripe age of eleven, largely trying to figure out why the Disney villains on the television box were the way they were. Villains, monsters, and politicians have always fascinated him with their behavior. Twenty years later, he’s still fascinated by bad people and the bad things they do.
Allen first wrote this book when he was but a wee lad in sun-crazed San Diego. After spending ten years as a screenwriter and as a creative consultant, he decided to revisit the tales he wrote as a boy.
He now lives in beautiful Juneau, AK somewhere in that fluffy snow drift. You can find his thoughts about writing, politics, and the odd cute cat on his Twitter.
Also by Allen A Ivers
Sci-Fi Thriller
Manifest Destiny
Another Capital Adventure
The Gold Service
Coming Summer 2020