“For many long years we have suffered and died at the hands of the alien enemy, losing our loved ones, our children to the claws of this insidious infestation that has swept across our galaxy like a plague. Campaign after campaign have we fought, not for glory or bounty, but for our very survival.” His voice deepened, his tempo slowed as he went on, “For nearly a century have we lost world after world, colony after colony invaded, burned, destroyed. Neither man, nor woman, nor child has been spared this agony, this devastation.”
He looked down at the podium, as if in communion with the now-thoughtful members of the audience, as if offering a silent prayer to those who had died in the century-long invasion. “But, my friends, the tide has turned,” he said, looking up, casting his gaze upon the crowd before him. “The aliens have lost their strength, their will to fight,” he told them. “They have run in full retreat from our worlds, fleeing to the sector of space from which they were spawned. We may never know the nature of the divine intervention that has driven them from our homelands, but know you this…” He paused, his brow wrinkling in righteous fury. “They cannot run far enough to escape our vengeance!”
The assemblage broke into a roar of cheering and whistling, voices taking up the challenge that Borge had laid before them.
Borge patiently waited for the tremendous reaction to subside, the shower of voices finally falling into silence within the great cavern of the landing bay.
“And seek vengeance we will, my friends,” he promised them. “That is why we are gathered here this day, why tens of thousands of sailors and Marines, Coastguardsmen, and so many others have gathered in these three great fleets that shall sail as one toward the enemy’s shores, the greatest armed force the galaxy has ever known.” He was interrupted by more cheers and applause.
“As many of you know,” he continued, “the Armada set out without us knowing the exact location of the Kreelan homeworld, only a comparatively vast area of space where we knew the enemy must be hiding.” There were low murmurs in the audience, particularly among the naval personnel: many of them had thought it was insane to start the operation without knowing exactly where to strike. “My friends, just before taking the podium,” he went on quietly, the thousands before him now utterly silent, “I was informed that one of our brave scoutships has pinpointed the location of the Kreelan homeworld, and has confirmed that their own battle fleet is assembling for a knockout blow against the Confederation.” His fist suddenly hammered on the podium. “But we shall strike first! We shall strike at the enemy’s heart with all our might, and for the first time in a century carry the battle into the enemy’s territory. We shall end this terrible war with a single crushing blow, and we shall lead humanity to victory!”
Despite how much he hated Borge, Braddock found himself swept up in the religious fervor that washed over the audience in the landing bay like a tidal wave, carrying away all doubt, all reservations, all fears of what the immediate future held. Borge’s words were irresistible to men and women who had fought and lost again and again in a war that had begun when their great-great-grandparents were children. Nearly everyone in the bay had lost a friend or relative, a spouse or a child, to the Kreelans. Their thirst for blood ran deep, and they were willing to sacrifice everything for a moment of that soon-to-be finest hour promised by Borge’s words.
Beside him, Enya watched with wide eyes as the normally professional and disciplined Navy and Marine people around her applauded the president’s speech with maniacal intensity.
They have no idea what might be in store, she thought suddenly, realizing that whatever intelligence information the human fleet had come up with, it could not have told them very much more than where to go looking for trouble. And they don’t care, she thought. Coming from a planet and class of people that had been ravaged by humans for far longer and with much greater thoroughness than the Kreelans in their single attack, Enya had difficulty relating to the near-riot boiling around her. Even Braddock appeared to have been seduced by the president’s passionate speech.
“Yes, my friends,” Borge went on after the crowd regained its composure, “we shall seek out the enemy, wherever he is.” The stress on the pronoun was unmistakable, and with a sudden chill, Enya realized whom he meant. “Years ago there came among us a man, who had once been a boy of human blood, but who was no longer entirely human. Raised by the alien horde, he was used and corrupted, molded into a weapon more insidious than any we have ever known. This man fought his former hosts well and with courage, earning our trust and respect, getting us to open our hearts to him, making us vulnerable.” His eyes swept across the audience. “And then he betrayed us, all of us, by murdering in cold blood the one who had led humanity for so long and so well, a man most of you knew as the commander-in-chief, the president of the Confederation: Job Nathan.” He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “He murdered the man who was my close friend for most of my adult life.
“But this alien prodigy was not alone in his treachery,” Borge went on, his voice tight with barely suppressed rage, a performance that would have been the envy of a Broadway star. “For he was aided and abetted by another of our own kind, a woman who betrayed her uniform and her race to help this murderer escape from justice.” He looked toward a group of Marines in dress uniforms carrying weapons that were anything but ceremonial. They were formed up next to the embarkation ramp of a newly arrived shuttle. “Bring out the prisoners,” he ordered.
The Marine officer-in-charge rendered a sharp salute before turning toward the shuttle. “Bring out the prisoners!” he repeated sharply.
The hangar deck was so quiet that Enya could hear her heart beating. Even the deep thrum from the ship’s drives seemed to have gone silent.
From the shuttle could be heard the sound of the chains that had been cuffed to the prisoners’ hands and feet. Each prisoner also wore a thin band of metal around the neck with a small electronic control box: high explosive collars.
There was a collective gasp as Jodi, Shera-Khan, and Reza appeared in the light of the bay. Tesh-Dar, too weak to walk by herself, leaned heavily upon her adopted son, all the while casting a baleful eye on the human animals all around her, trying to force their stench from her nostrils. She felt the cold metal of the human device around her son’s neck and her own, and instantly regretted consenting to having it put on; but the humans would have harmed Shera-Khan, and she knew that neither Reza nor herself could have kept the child from harm.
“There is no other way,” Reza had told her grimly as he accepted the lethal necklace himself. It had seemed to her for a moment that he was surrendering, but the flame in his eyes burned brightly still, she had seen. The Power was yet within him.
Shera-Khan also had his arm wrapped around Tesh-Dar’s waist to lend his slender body for her support. He was not afraid of the animals that peered at him with their strange pale faces, for he walked in the presence of a great warrior priest, his father, and Tesh-Dar, who was a living legend of the sword. He could not understand his father’s command that they obey the animals and submit to this spectacle, but he did not question it; Reza’s word was the word of the consort of the Empress, the only one among Her race permitted to kneel upon the pedestal of the throne. He was the most high of Her Children, the single warrior who had no peers.
Jodi, while cast in the same light as the other three, walked alone. The humiliation she felt at being paraded before these people and those who watched from all over the Confederation through the vid paled in comparison to the sadness in her heart at having had to deny Reza her help in his greatest hour of need. She had loved him dearly as a friend, and loved him still; but she could not help him. She knew that she would go to her death convicted of crimes she had never committed. But she could not betray her people.
She walked ahead of the others, her head upright, with her eyes fixed on the evil man who wore the robes of an angel. Borge.
Reza felt the crushing weight of the emotions of those around him. It was a
burden so great it threatened to smother his spirit but for the cold flames that burned for vengeance against those who had betrayed not only him, but all of humanity. Tesh-Dar was an easy and welcome weight about his shoulders. Her musky scent, pleasant from memory, was reassuring, as was that of his newfound son. He tuned out the burning hatred of the thousands of souls around him and focused on the small comforts his physical senses provided him of his Kreelan family, wishing he could sense them in his spirit, as well. But he could not, even this close to them, any more than he had been able since the day he left the Empire.
It is strange, he had thought after speaking with Tesh-Dar, that their blood is cold and silent as the Empress sleeps, but my blood still sings its mournful solo as it had since that day long ago. His powers had not waned since the tragedy of the Ascension, and he was left to wonder at whatever miracle sustained him. He remembered the dream of the First Empress, as he lay dying from Esah-Zhurah’s sword, remembered the fire in his veins as he imagined Her blood mingling with his. Others might have thought it a dream, but he knew that it was not.
The prisoners slowly shuffled their way toward the dais, past the rows of sailors and Marines, legislators and judges, the men and women whom they had served and had served with for years. But now the prisoners weren’t friends or comrades, only criminals who had committed the gravest crime against humanity in all of history.
“In the name of God,” Enya whispered. It sounded like a shriek in the silence of the bay, and she said nothing more. Beside her, Braddock’s only reaction was a twitching muscle in his jaw.
Finally, there were no more steps for the prisoners to take; they had reached their destination. Standing before the dais, all of them glared upward at the leader of the Confederation.
Borge wasted no time. “It would take too much time to read all the crimes with which you have been charged, so the court has waived reading all but the most vital: murder and conspiracy to commit murder.” He turned his attention toward Reza. “Captain Gard, you are charged with the murders of Job Kahane Nathan, President of the Confederation, and Dr. Deliha Rabat. How do you plead?”
Reza said nothing. He knew he could kill Borge at this instant, but his son’s life likely would be forfeit, and any chances he might have of saving the Empire – and the Confederation – would be lost forever.
Borge frowned. “Silence is entered as a plea of guilty.” He turned to Jodi. “Commander Jodi Mackenzie, you are charged with conspiring with Captain Gard to murder Doctor Rabat and President Nathan; further, you are charged with the despicable murder of Tanya Buchet. How do you plead?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she spat.
Borge snorted in disgust, then turned to the new Chief Justice, another of his latest appointees, Anton Simoniak. “Your Honor, if you please.”
Simoniak stepped up to the podium. “Due to the barbaric nature of these crimes and the subsequent bloody escape of the accused, the court was compelled to conduct their trial in absentia,” the Chief Justice stated flatly, as if bored by the supposition that they could possibly be anything but guilty. “The call for justice was unanimous.” He looked down upon the condemned. “You have both been found guilty, as charged, on all counts.” Turning to Borge, he said, “The recommended sentence is death, Mr. President, to be carried out immediately.”
Enya opened her mouth to speak, but found Braddock’s hand over her lips.
“Don’t,” he whispered urgently, “or you’ll find yourself condemned along with them.” He looked around urgently, afraid that someone might have noticed their exchange. No one was paying them any attention. Good. “There’s nothing you can do for them now.”
She angrily pulled his hand away, ashamed that he was afraid to speak out against this madness. And she was even more ashamed that she herself remained silent. Braddock was right, she thought as she watched the tragedy unfold before her. There was nothing to be done for them.
Borge nodded gravely as the justice stepped back to his position among the rest of the luminaries on the dais. “I concur with the verdict,” he said, “and with the sentence. However, with the power vested in me as president, I hereby commute the sentence until Operation Millennium has been completed and our fleets return home.” His eyes bored into Reza. “I want these traitors to witness the destruction of the evil that has washed our galaxy in human blood for the last hundred years, to see the power of God’s vengeance before they see the gates of Hell!”
Like a surging tide, the assembly roared its venomous approval.
* * *
From where she stood on a catwalk, high above the fateful ceremony, Nicole did not hear the thousands of voices shouting from below. The only sounds perceptible to her mind were the strange whisperings, the chill in her body, that had been her frequent companions since the day Reza had pressed a bloody hand against hers, showing her things that no other human – save him – had ever seen.
She had watched him from her catwalk perch like a peregrine in a cage, wanting to help, but unable. She felt his heart, his soul, and the pain and rage that spilled from him now threatened to bring tears to her eyes, harsh action from her clenched hands.
Below her, the verdict having been pronounced and the crowd’s lust for vengeance temporarily sated, Reza and the others were led off to the ship’s brig, enduring the humiliation of being spat upon and cursed like molesters of children.
Just before they passed through the blast door that led to the ship’s internal transport system, the huge female warrior looked back, and up. For just a moment, an incalculable instant, her eyes locked with Nicole’s.
Help him, Nicole read in the woman’s eyes as plainly as if she had spoken the words aloud. Help my son.
And then she was gone.
Clutching the railing so hard that her knuckles were bled white, Nicole waited for the trembling to stop before she made her way unsteadily back to her cabin. She knew what must be done, almost as if by instinct. Guided by powers that she did not understand, she began her preparations as soon as her cabin door closed behind her.
The fact that what she was about to do would be considered high treason never even occurred to her.
Fifty
As she stood at the podium of the conference room, Admiral Laskowski took smug satisfaction in the looks of grim submission on the faces of L’Houillier and Zhukovski. There was no longer any question of who was really in charge now. The man who sat at the head of the conference table had decided that issue when he had personally approved of Laskowski’s plan, and reinforced it with the fourth star he had given her, promoting her on the spot to full admiral for her role in discovering the Kreelan homeworld. Technically she was still junior to L’Houillier, but that was a mere technicality. He and Zhukovski had only pushed forward their retirement dates by arguing against her strategy. And now, here they were, mere spectators to the operation that she had devised, that she was now in charge of in all but name, reviewing it for her president’s pleasure.
It was all her dreams come true.
“Mr. President,” she began, “the attack plan is fairly simple, necessarily so because of the huge number of vessels involved.”
This brought a barely audible grunt from L’Houillier. They had lost another ten ships to collision at the last navigation checkpoint. Zhukovski’s great eyebrows knotted as a frown chiseled itself from his glowering face.
Laskowski cast L’Houillier a disparaging look, but said nothing. You are finished, old man, she told herself. “As I was about to say, sir, the three battle groups – Lysander, Ulysses, and Heraklion – will jump into the system simultaneously from three different vectors.
“Lysander, the main battle group of which Warspite is the flagship, will engage the Kreelan main body that now orbits the homeworld. Our job will be to pin down the Kreelan fleet, and if possible destroy it en masse. Once that has been accomplished, we will proceed to neutralize the homeworld itself through orbital bombardment and, if and when appropriate, Marine landings.”
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Borge nodded magnanimously. His ignorance of military strategy and tactics allowed him to be properly impressed.
“Ulysses,” she went on, “smaller than Lysander, will execute a similar operation against the moon that has been identified in orbit around the primary target.
“We don’t have detailed information on the defenses for either target, but we don’t believe at this time that planetary defense will be a major factor in the engagement: our primary threat is the enemy fleet.”
This brought a raised eyebrow from Zhukovski to L’Houillier. The latter only shook his head in tiny, hopefully unnoticed movements. Merde, Zhukovski could imagine him saying. To himself, he thought: We know nothing of this system other than the fact of its existence and that many Kreelan warships are already there. And already we have made potentially fatal assumptions about it.
“The third group, Heraklion,” Laskowski continued, her voice slowing as she sought to impress the president with the third group’s real significance, “is the smallest of the three, but carries the greatest destructive power of all our forces. Should it be necessary and you authorize it, Mr. President, this group will employ thermium weapons against the planets in the system, and the kryolon devices we have brought along can help ensure… a final solution to the Kreelan problem.”
“I’ve heard of the thermium devices,” Borge said, intrigued, “but not of the kryolons. What are those?” He had not been briefed on the full array of military hardware prior to the fleet’s sailing, but such details he found utterly fascinating.
“Kryolon bombs are proverbial ‘ultimate weapon,’ Gospodin Prezident,” Zhukovski rumbled, interrupting Laskowski’s monopoly on the man’s attention. “They were designed many years ago, to destroy star of enemy system, and thus planets in orbit. They have been in carefully guarded storage for these years, until very recently.” He paused. “None ever has been used, even operationally tested, and so true power of weapon is not known.” He did not add that he thought with all his heart and soul that those weapons should have been destroyed long ago, rather than fall into the hands of a madman like Borge.
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