Eustus fought to suppress the trepidation he felt at what he knew must be coming. His fellow Marines, not to mention the squids, had branded him a traitor because he refused to believe the reports of Reza’s involvement with the president’s death and the other murders that had been committed in its wake. The morale on the ship had taken a nosedive after Marchand announced the news. Nathan had been a very popular president, and his death was not taken lightly. And now, Eustus knew with an instinctive certainty, he was going to be offered some way of “redeeming” himself before God, Corps, and Country. “Uh… sure, ma’am,” he said. “What can I do?”
“The plans for Millennium have been underway since shortly before President Nathan’s death,” she told him gravely. “And Reza Gard’s actions and his escape have endangered that operation. If he reaches Kreelan space to warn them, everything we have been preparing for could be lost. We have received orders to stop Reza Gard, by, as quoted in the orders, ‘any and all means necessary, without limitation or exception.’” Marchand fixed Eustus with a calculated glare. “A plan was devised at Fleet HQ for getting the information we need, gunnery sergeant, but the success of this plan depends entirely upon your loyalty and devotion to the Confederation cause, regardless of the consequences to you personally.”
Marchand’s words were more than shocking. Eustus felt violated, raped. The very foundation of his existence had been loyalty to the Confederation, to humanity, and not least of all to the Corps whose uniform he wore. They were asking – no, telling – him that to be considered worthy, risking death for all these years was not enough. His mere association with Reza and his alleged crimes were enough to strip Eustus of all dignity, reducing his past sufferings and accomplishments to nothing. Offering his life to his nation was not enough. No, he had to do something more.
Ignoring the hot sting of tears that he felt boiling in his eyes, he said through clenched teeth, “What are my orders, ma’am?”
Marchand nodded. “High Command allowed extracts of your initial report on the prisoners, specifically that the boy appears to be Reza Gard’s offspring,” Marchand’s mouth wrapped itself around the word with difficulty, as if it were an enormous, rotten apple, “to be released to the press after President Nathan’s murder. Internal Security apparently was unable to capture Gard and Commander Jodi Mackenzie, who as you know is believed to have aided him. Security believes they escaped together off-world, and the information was broadcast in hopes of luring them to a chosen location: Erlang.”
Enya, Eustus thought instantly. Lord of All, he thought helplessly, what is happening? And what do they want me to do, kill Reza and Jodi? He waited, dreading her next words.
Marchand understood what he was thinking. “You’re the only one who can get close to him, Camden, close enough to either stun him or kill him. Either result will satisfy your orders. The same applies to Commander Mackenzie.”
Eustus blinked. “But they haven’t even been tried,” he whispered hoarsely. “How can I be ordered to kill – assassinate – someone who hasn’t even had a trial to determine their guilt or innocence?”
“Their guilt or innocence is not your concern, gunnery sergeant,” Marchand warned stonily. “The president and the Council decided his fate and that of Mackenzie based on overwhelming evidence that no court could ignore. Now, I don’t particularly care for your opinion on the matter. You have received your orders. The only question is, will you carry them out?”
Eustus sat quietly for a moment. What if I’m wrong? he thought. What if Reza had killed the president? Didn’t they used to say that the best spies were the ones you never suspected?
No, he decided, at least not in this case. But even that did not matter. Reza was a Marine, trained to fight and kill his nation’s enemies. But he was not a murderer, an assassin. Reza was a brother to him, and had offered his own life to protect Eustus countless times, and Eustus had returned the honor. On top of that, Reza was his best friend. Reza had never betrayed him. And Eustus simply couldn’t accept that either he or Jodi had betrayed the Confederation.
The people around this table, he thought, throughout this ship, had belittled his sacrifices, his honor as a Marine and as a human being. Considering Marchand’s offer, it was easy to make up his mind. Reza, even more than the Corps, had taught him the meaning of honor, and of being true to one’s self regardless of the consequences. Eustus had offered his blood over the years to show his loyalty to the Confederation; he would not offer up his soul.
Straightening up in his chair, his eyes boring into Marchand’s, he said, “Commodore Marchand, I respectfully submit that I cannot obey the orders you have given me. Ma’am.”
The faces in the room turned to chilled stone.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” she said in the hush of the room.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Marchand leaned back in her chair, eyeing Eustus like some kind of offending insect. “You’ve got one chance to reconsider, Camden,” she said icily.
“Negative, commodore,” Eustus said firmly. “I cannot–” he hesitated, “– will not – help you in this. It’s illegal and it’s wrong.”
She looked down at the table in disappointment. “Very well,” she said quietly. Turning to the commander of the Marine contingent, she said, “Captain, please place Gunnery Sergeant Camden under arrest and throw him in the brig. Charges…” She paused, looking up at Eustus. “Charge him with high treason, as ordered by Confederation High Command.”
“Aye, aye, commodore,” the Marine officer said stiffly. With a signal from her console, two Marines appeared at the door to the conference room. This situation had been anticipated. “Marines,” the captain ordered, “escort Gunnery Sergeant Camden to the brig.” She glanced toward Marchand, who nodded. “Throw him in with the Kreelans.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the corporal in charge of the detail replied sharply.
Eustus stood up, saluted the commodore, and left with the guard detail.
Marchand turned her attention to the comms display facing her chair and hidden from everyone else’s view. “I don’t like this, General,” she said sternly. “Camden is a good Marine.”
“No one asked you to like it, commodore,” replied the newly frocked Brigadier General Markus Thorella, Special Assistant to the President. “Just carry out your orders and be as predictable as Camden was.” The smile disappeared behind a mask of vengeful conceit. “We have gone to great lengths to ensure that Reza Gard and his accomplice will head to Erlang and into your waiting arms, and you are to let nothing – I repeat, nothing – interfere with the execution,” he smiled at the word, “of that mission. After that, you only have to hold him until the fleet rendezvous at Erlang and then transfer him to the flagship for his execution. And Mackenzie’s.” He stared at her. “Have I made myself clear, commodore?”
“Perfectly,” she grunted, furious with this lackey’s arrogance toward someone whose date of rank and command experience vastly outweighed his own.
Thorella nodded. “You will receive further instructions as necessary,” he said tersely. “Thorella, out.”
END TRANSMISSION blazed across the screen beneath the Confederation insignia.
Infuriated, Marchand slammed her hand on the control console, shutting down her end of the link.
“Bastard,” she hissed.
* * *
Aboard the starliner Helena, Thorella leaned back in his ready room chair and smiled. Looking out the floor-to-ceiling viewport of his personal command ship, he saw over five hundred starships spread over thousands of cubic kilometers of space, all preparing for their final jump to Erlang where they would rendezvous with nearly three thousand more Confederation ships. It was the greatest armada in human history. And he was a key part of it. The thought exhilarated him and gave him a burning erection in his trousers.
But the part of the plan that he liked best was that he would finally get to see Reza Gard die. He had no doubt that Gard would try to escape; in fact
, Thorella was counting on it. He knew Gard could do it on his own, but Thorella had decided to improve the odds, putting Camden on the inside and Carré on the outside, after convincing the president to order her put back on flight status. Between those two and Mackenzie, not to mention the two Kreelans, Thorella was perfectly confident that Gard would escape. And then he would joyfully hunt them down – Gard, Mackenzie, Camden, and Carré – and see them to the gallows. At last, after all these years, he would have them. He would have them all.
As he watched the ships of the armada wheel across space, his mind seduced by power, his right hand freed his throbbing member from the confines of its fabric keep. Alone in his ready room, his heart hammering in time with his hand, Thorella saluted the fleet that he knew would someday be his.
Forty-Eight
As the Golden Pearl slid through the whirling bands of light that were the only perceptible reality of hyperspace, Jodi contemplated the future, both for herself and for the few real friends she had in the Universe. For all of them, it looked unalterably bleak. Reza an accused murderer, with Jodi named as his accomplice; Nicole’s career irreparably damaged by her association with both of them; and poor Tony, who might have someday gained enough political clout to really do the Confederation some good, politically devastated by the whole trumped-up scandal. Things are looking pretty shitty for the home team, she thought.
Checking on the Pearl’s instruments to see how long they had before dropping back into reality, Jodi wondered if coming to Erlang was such a good idea. There was nothing, really, left on Erlang except the survivors who, like so many humans on so many worlds, were trying to pull themselves up from the rubble left in the wake of war. She thought they might have some friends there, but would they welcome the two fugitives with open arms or with the muzzles of pulse guns?
But those were better odds than they might face anywhere else. The news of Nathan’s death had been broadcast on every human communication channel, and it was unlikely that, with the possible exception of the Erlangers, anyone who had been exposed to the propaganda – and that would be nearly everyone in the Confederation – would be willing to help them.
Besides, she thought, now that Reza knows that his son might be on his way to Erlang, there was no stopping him. While he spoke little, his few words conveyed to her the overpowering love he felt for his wife, and for the son he had never known. That alone, she thought, was something to really make one believe in God or the Devil, depending on how you looked at it.
What was the boy like? she wondered. She, along with the rest of humanity, had never seen anything other than an adult Kreelan female. She had heard Eustus and Enya describe the mummified remains of the adult males they had seen in the burial chamber on Erlang before the Kreelan attack there, but it was not the same. This was a living child, the blood of the man who had become a part of her life years ago, and who had shared his body and his soul with an alien, an enemy of Jodi’s people. She remembered the woman’s face, reliving her agony. From what Reza had said, it now appeared that Esah-Zhurah, too, was in mortal danger, as was her entire race. She wondered at the magnitude of an entire civilization suddenly dying out, with no survivors or descendants, and felt a sudden tremor of empathy for them.
“Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head in wonder. “What the hell am I thinking?” She glanced at one of the instruments on the copilot’s side, noticing that Reza had slipped into the chair beside her without a sound. Anyone else might have been startled or surprised; Jodi had long since become accustomed to it.
“Five minutes to normal space and Erlang,” she told him, noting that his face barely looked human, his features oddly contorted into a human mimicry of Kreelan expressions. He was reverting, she thought to herself, becoming a Kreelan again for what would probably be the last days – or hours – of his life. And of hers. “You feel okay?”
“Yes,” he answered, then was silent as he stared out the viewscreen at the glowing starfield. “Jodi,” he said after a moment, “I have decided to take a boat down to the surface, leaving you free to escape back into hyperspace. I can think of no way of getting a chance to see my son except by surrendering.” He looked at her, his alien eyes sad now. “I would spare you the fate that will surely befall me.”
“And where the hell am I supposed to go, Reza?” she asked, more hurt than angry. She needed him to need her right now. “I know Borge’s dirty little secrets, remember? I don’t think he’s going to just let me walk away once he has you. I know the Pearl’s a nice ship and all, but I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life flitting around the galaxy in her, alone.” She shook her head vigorously. “Look, brother, we’re in this together, we stay in this together. If nothing else, we can hold hands as we swing on the gallows.”
Reza nodded, knowing what she would say. He reached over and gently squeezed her hand.
The warning klaxon suddenly blared, announcing that the Pearl was about to drop back into real space. Beyond the wraparound viewport, the streaks of light suddenly quivered, then quickly began to contract and weave, soon becoming discrete points of light. Then they saw the glimmering bulk of Erlang.
But the planet’s beauty was suddenly eclipsed by a Confederation destroyer that was sailing close enough to see the seams in her armor. The sight sent a chill up Jodi’s spine. She instinctively reached for the weapons controls, but Reza stayed her hand.
“No,” he said firmly. “They have been waiting for us.”
“You knew?” she asked incredulously.
Reza nodded. “We have been led here,” he said as he turned his attention to the destroyer.
There was nothing to do but go forward. With a deft movement of her fingers across the console, Jodi brought the Pearl away from her near-collision course with the warship. On the scanner, she noticed that there were three more Confederation ships, a cruiser and two destroyers, orbiting the planet.
“Well,” Jodi muttered as an indicator winked in the display, “it looks like you’re right about them expecting us.” She opened a channel.
“Inbound vessel,” a voice announced from an unfamiliar face that immediately appeared on the console, “identify yourself immediately!”
Jodi felt another tingle as she saw the lock-on indicators on the Pearl’s defense display. The destroyer was tracking them with its main guns, at point blank range.
“This is Commander Jodi Mackenzie, piloting the Golden Pearl,” she replied coolly, “serial B78-4C97101K, bound for Erlang.”
The officer on the destroyer answered immediately. “Commander, you are hereby ordered to rendezvous with the cruiser Furious, where you and Captain Gard will be placed under arrest.” He paused. “Any attempt to escape or reach the planet’s surface will be met with the instant destruction of you and your vessel. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Jodi replied coolly. “We understand and will comply.”
Beside her, Reza’s green eyes were fixed on the gray-hulled cruiser that was even now drawing toward them. The ship that held his son.
* * *
Their reception aboard the Furious was little short of openly hostile. Fitted in the airlock with wrist and ankle binders that would explode if tampered with or opened without the proper electronic key, Jodi and Reza were marched separately, each inside a box of Marines armed with stunners, to the brig. Aside from the rhythmic stomping of their footsteps, the corridors were devoid of activity, the crew having been evacuated from the corridors the escort would use to get the prisoners to their destination.
A sense of uneasy anticipation had taken hold of Reza, not out of concern for his own welfare, but for his son, if he truly existed. For all the years Reza had been in the Empire and all the years since, he had never dreamed that such an honor – a child – could ever be his. But the Change that he and Esah-Zhurah had undergone those long years ago must have made it possible. And it was the fate of that legacy that most concerned him now, even more than his bur
ning fear of what had befallen Esah-Zhurah, for he knew in his heart that in his son lay the key to the survival of both civilizations.
His only hope now was that the humans – he thought of himself as Kreelan again – would allow him at least to see the boy, if not speak to him. His hands clenched with nervous tension as they approached the slate gray armored doors to the brig.
The shielded doors opened as they approached, sliding back into the walls like the shifting jaws of a snake. Reza was led first through the security baffles and into the inner chamber. Along the rear wall were three cells, one of which was occupied.
“Reza!” Eustus called through the force field barrier.
But Reza did not hear him. His eyes and his mind were fixed on the Kreelan child who stood at Eustus’s side, staring with equal fascination at Reza, his father. As if he were adrift in a river, Reza sensed himself being pushed and prodded into the cell. Standing within arm’s reach of one another, father and son looked into each other’s eyes, gauging their similarities, their differences, the miracle of their own unique existence.
Behind them, Jodi pulled Eustus to the side. Their time to speak would come, but not just now.
Slowly, Shera-Khan knelt before his father. Bowing his head, he saluted Reza. “Greetings, priest of the Desh-Ka,” he said in the New Tongue, “my father.”
“Greetings, my son,” Reza choked, tears streaming down his cheeks. “What is thy name?”
“Shera-Khan, my father,” the boy replied solemnly.
“Rise, Shera-Khan, my son,” Reza said. “Let me look upon you.” The boy stood and looked up at Reza, who offered his arms in the traditional greeting of warriors. Shera-Khan accepted, and the two touched one another for the first time, both afraid that the other was an illusion, a cruel hoax played by Fate. But the blood that trickled from the tiny punctures made by Shera-Khan’s claws and the strength of Reza’s grip on his son’s arms convinced them both that each was very real. “Blessed be Her name,” Reza whispered. “How much of thy mother do I see in thy face.”
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