Sinclaire turned on his tactical officer. “How long before the torpedoes reach the corona?”
“Just under two minutes, sir,” he replied, noting that the torpedoes had now run out of fuel and were coasting on toward their target. “If what I’ve heard about the kryolons is right, we’ll have about fifteen minutes from initiation of the kryolon reaction – that’ll be upon detonation in the corona – to the first stellar debris reaching us here.” He looked helpless for a moment. “But that’s just a guess.”
“Better than nothing, lad,” Sinclaire said quickly. “Zhirinovski, you’ve got ten minutes to get the other ships out of here. Tell the transports to push it past the limit. If they’re not back aboard by then, they get left behind.” Five minutes was not much of a safety margin, but it was all he could give them.
“Aye, sir!”
“Captain Jorgensen,” Sinclaire spoke into the comm link to the ship’s bridge, “we’ve got a problem.”
“Sir?” the captain answered immediately, her attention riveted on the old sailor’s face in the screen.
“Have Sandhurst ready for her jump in ten minutes, captain. The Kreelan sun may be… unstable. We’re pushing up the timetable.”
“Aye, admiral,” Jorgensen answered. “We’re ready any time, sir.”
Sinclaire nodded.
“What about her?” Nicole demanded quietly, nodding toward Jodi’s image. Her eyes were closed, head down.
“She’s right, lass,” Sinclaire said as gently as he could. “You couldn’t get there in time to help her. You’d only die, too. Perhaps… keeping her company might be best. No one likes to go out of this world alone, and Lord knows she’s earned what little comfort any of us can provide.”
Nicole nodded in resignation, now welcoming Braddock’s arm around her shoulder. But she looked up suddenly at Jodi’s voice.
“Nicole,” she said in a whisper, “It’s Thorella. I think he’s coming…”
Fifty-Nine
Reza did not have to see what was taking place throughout the Empire; he could sense it. He was spiritually reconnected with Her Children, with the Bloodsong again echoing in his veins. He could again sense Her will, and knew that a great Change was about to take place, something that would alter his people forever and take them to the next step in their evolution as a species. Wherever they were, warriors and clawless ones waited for the rapture that they knew was about to come, only moments away now. Even the hapless males that had been evacuated from the nurseries knew that something was happening, for while they were witless creatures with but a single function in life, they, too, were bound to Her will. And in their own way, they felt the tremor in the life force that bound them all to one another, that was the endless thread of life that the Kreela called the Way. While they did not realize it in their blissful ignorance, they had been redeemed, and the glory and honor that had once been theirs was about to be again in the new form that was soon to come.
But Reza’s mind was yet troubled, for there remained one task for him to complete. He did not have to ask his Empress for what he desired, for in Her great wisdom, She already knew.
“I know of the one you seek,” She told him. “Do this thing and return to Me, my love. For our time here grows short; the new dawn is soon upon us.”
“I shall not be long, my Empress,” he replied, his hand fastened about the handle of the ancient sword Tesh-Dar had once given him.
“Let it be done.”
And Reza vanished.
* * *
Jodi’s plan would have worked completely had she only remembered to turn off the display monitors on the drones like the one that had brought her to engineering. She had finally cut Thorella off from accessing any of the other systems on the ship. But she had forgotten that one little thing.
Thorella was laying on his back, his head and shoulders buried in the ship’s central computer core in a vain attempt to figure out what was ailing the Pearl when one of the idiot machines came up to him, intent on dislodging this odd parasite from its electronic parent. Thorella kicked at it in fury, not understanding or caring what the machine was trying to do, and accidentally turned up the volume control on the machine’s internal voice relay.
“Thorella launched these things?” he heard someone say. “On whose authority?”
“His own, of course,” came a choked reply. “He’s never needed anyone else’s.”
Thorella did not need to hear any more.
“Mackenzie,” he hissed, withdrawing himself from the computer’s innards and pushing past the single-minded drone. His blaster in hand, he quickly made his way aft, to the one section of the ship he had not taken the time to check.
Engineering.
* * *
Jodi saw him on the monitor outside the door.
“He’s here,” she sighed, trembling inwardly. “Oh, shit.” She tried to hold the blaster she had taken from the small weapons vault near the door, but her broken fingers could not hold it right. Even with both hands.
“Jodi,” Nicole said from very, very far away, “can he get to you?”
He stood in front of the door, looking straight into the video pickup. Smiling.
“I don’t think so,” she said. But then he held up what could only be a coded magnetic key, and she watched in horror as he swiped it across the door’s access panel. She had no way of knowing, but Borge had made sure Thorella was provided with a proper commander’s key for the ship that could open any door. “Oh, shit,” she moaned. “Yes, he can get in…”
“Jodi, try to–”
The door slid open.
“Game’s over, bitch,” Thorella said quietly as he leveled his blaster at her stomach. He would make sure she died, but he did not want to hurry her along too much.
“Fuck you, you bastard son of a who–”
Something unexpected happened just as Thorella squeezed the trigger. There was a blast of frigid air, a moving shadow, a high keening sound that Jodi thought she had heard before. But only the gun that was pointed at her mattered, the gun with a bore that seemed as big around as an irrigation pipe.
In a slow motion dream she saw Reza appear out of thin air to her left, his mouth open in a snarl of rage that she could not hear, his arm held out before him as if… as if he had… thrown something? In front of her, only a few paces away, she watched Thorella’s face glow in the backlight of the blast his weapon made as it fired. But there was something odd about it, she thought, odd about his hand, the weapon. It took her an eternal moment to realize that they were no longer attached to his arm. Thorella’s hand, still clutching the gun, was falling – so slowly falling – toward the deck, the stump of his arm now shooting blood at her instead of searing energy. Curious, she followed the crimson stream, noting with some small surprise that it intersected a gaping hole where her abdomen had once been. She touched the ragged edge with a numbed hand. Warm. Wet. Oh, God.
Reza stood still a moment, stunned by the horrible misfortune of his timing. A second sooner, he raged to himself, and I could have saved her. He turned his attention to Thorella. “I should have killed you a long time ago,” Reza said softly through the smoke that rose around them from the shot that had smashed Jodi’s body.
“You have to take me back for trial,” Thorella cried as he tried to hold the stump of his arm with his good hand, Reza’s shrekka having severed it just below the elbow. He nodded toward the screen where Nicole’s horrified face still looked on. “You can’t kill me,” he gloated, “not with the whole fleet watching. It’d be murder.”
“Enough.” Reza had long debated how he would kill Thorella: slowly, the way he deserved to die for all the evil he had done, or quickly, mercifully. Reza decided on the latter, not to show Thorella mercy, but because he could simply stand this horrible pestilence no more.
But just as he was about to take Thorella’s head with his sword, he heard a voice that tore open his heart.
“Reza…”
He turned to look at J
odi’s pleading face. He hesitated, only a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Thorella to bolt through the still open door and disappear down the corridor.
“Reza,” Jodi whispered. “How…?”
“Do not speak,” he quieted her as he momentarily pushed Thorella from his mind. He cradled her gently as he fought not to look at what was left of her once beautiful body. For the first and only time in his adult life, he sincerely hoped there somewhere was a Hell like old Father Hernandez had believed existed, and that Thorella would fall there to burn forever. If nothing else, Reza would make sure that he would get to find out. “There is yet time. I can take you to the Empress. She can heal you–”
“No,” Jodi shook her head weakly. “It’s better this way, Reza. I think… my number’s come up… I ought to take it like a lady.” She looked up at him. “Tell me… Nicole will be… safe?”
He nodded. “She will. For always. The Empress will let no harm come to her. Ever.”
Jodi smiled. Nicole would be safe. That was all that mattered.
“Reza?” Nicole’s brittle voice called from the display beside him, yet from hundreds of thousands of leagues away. “You’ve got to get out of there.”
“I cannot leave Jodi–”
“Reza,” Nicole interrupted him, “your sun is going to explode any minute now. You’ve got to get out! We did not know how to tell you, we only found out for ourselves from Jodi before… before…”
“The Empress knows of this,” he told her. “It is part of our future. We await it. But it is time for you and the others to leave here, Nicole.” Reza felt a ripple in his bones. It was about to happen. “Quickly.” He looked at her one last time. “May thy Way be long and glorious, my friend.”
“Detonation!” someone cried on Sandhurst’s bridge. On the main viewscreen, the Kreelan sun flared with crimson brilliance as its corona began to blow outward and the deeper layers of the stricken star began to expand behind it.
“Jodi…” Nicole said, but Jodi was no longer there to talk to. The image had suddenly filled with static. Both of her best friends were gone.
* * *
Aboard the Golden Pearl, Reza watched Nicole’s image fade as the dying star’s energy was released, destroying the data link to Sandhurst.
“Reza, you’ve got to leave me,” Jodi implored him quietly. “Please.”
Still holding her gently, he could feel the life running from her body like the last grains of sand from an hourglass. “Do not fear for me,” he said softly as he kissed her hair. “I promised that I would always be there for you, remember?” He closed his eyes, his heart aching for her. “I won’t leave you now,” he whispered.
“Thank you, Reza,” she sighed, cradled against his shoulder. “I… love you.”
“I love you, too, Jodi,” he told her softly, fighting back his tears as he felt her spirit slip away, leaving her body an empty shell. After kissing her tenderly on the lips, he gently laid her body down on the deck.
With a fleeting glance at the display on the engineering console that showed Thorella on the flight deck, Reza smiled grimly at his enemy’s fate, trapped alone on a ship that was doomed by his own hand.
Then he conjured in his mind a vision of his waiting Empress, his love, and vanished from the Golden Pearl to join Her.
All alone now, Markus Thorella hammered at the Pearl’s useless command console as the wall of fire from the exploding star rushed forward to claim him. He was still howling in fear and rage as the ship was torn to atoms.
* * *
“Jodi,” she heard a voice call in the darkness. It was a voice Jodi recognized, one that she had once loved.
“Tanya?” she called, not sure where she was, growing afraid.
“Yes, darling,” Tanya answered from beside her, taking Jodi’s hand. “Don’t be afraid. Everything’s all right now.” Jodi felt the warmth of Tanya’s lips on hers, and suddenly saw her face, young and beautiful as it had once been, but without the shadow over her soul. “Come on,” Tanya told her, smiling as she led Jodi by the hand toward a golden glow the color of a sunrise. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
And together they stepped into the light, leaving the darkness behind forever.
* * *
“The Golden Pearl’s gone.” On the tactical display, Nicole watched as the sphere of superheated matter blotted out the tiny icon that had once been a ship and her friends, but that also meant the end of Thorella’s reign of terror. The shock wave reached out ever further, consuming everything in its path.
“Zhirinovski, how many ships are left behind us?”
“None, sir. We’re the last.”
“Captain Jorgensen,” Sinclaire called to the ship’s captain, “are your boats all aboard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Stand by for jump.”
“Radiation is in the yellow, admiral,” the ops officer warned.
“A moment,” Sinclaire replied, his attention riveted to the chaotic scene on the tactical display. He wondered at the Kreelan fleet now clustered around the homeworld and its strange moon. There were tens of thousands of ships now, some of them unbelievably huge, and more were still jumping in. Lord of All, he thought, why don’t they jump out? The Kreelans on the planet are doomed, but at least the ships could save themselves…
“Jesus,” someone whispered as the stellar matter’s first tendrils brushed the homeworld. The main viewer and tactical display suddenly went dark.
“Overloaded,” someone said somberly.
“Captain Jorgensen,” Sinclaire ordered, his last act before he would allow exhaustion to overtake him, “take us home.”
* * *
The star that had warmed and given life to their world was dying, but even in its death it served the needs of the Empress. Having blinded the primitive electronic eyes of the humans, who were not yet prepared to understand, She made ready to take Her Children on the next part of the journey that was their eternal Way.
The vast fleet of ships was arrayed to capture the necessary energy from their exploding sun and focus it like a great lens upon the Empress moon and the Empress Herself. Reaching out with Her mind and spirit, bending the massive influx of energy to Her will, She opened a gateway in space-time that would not even be theorized by humankind for another fifty-thousand years. As one, Her people – every soul spread across the ten thousand suns of the Empire – passed through it on their first step toward the next phase of their evolution. Had humans witnessed it, they would have thought it nothing more and nothing less than magic.
Beside Her, Reza looked back through the closing portal, wondering at what had been, what could have been. He mourned Jodi’s death, and wondered about Nicole, feeling a sense of emptiness that he would never again be able to see her or speak to her.
“Fear not, my love,” his Empress told him, her voice warming his soul as She embraced him, Her green eyes glittering with love. “You will see her yet once more…”
Epilogue
Nicole rose at eight-thirty, three hours later than was her custom on a workday. But today was special, a day that had become something of a ritual over the years. Today was the tenth anniversary of the Great Expedition, ten years since the Armada had returned home from battle with the Empire. Ten years since Jodi had died. And Reza. And so many others. It was a Confederation holiday, but Nicole would not be participating in any of the official functions with her husband, the president. In other times, perhaps, it would have been expected for a spouse – especially a woman – to participate in such affairs, to look dutifully somber before the media, but Nicole had paid her dues. She was a patriot, and had the scars and dead friends and family to prove it. Hers was a time of private contemplation. Shockingly, the people of the Confederation had respected this melancholy quirk without the heartless scrutiny that was usually turned upon public figures that did not quite fit the mold, and Nicole respected her people all the more for it.
She rose and showered, welcoming
the soothing warmth of the hot water on her face, thankful for such a luxury, and content in the knowledge that the many throughout the Confederation who did not have such a simple thing as this someday would. For nearly a century, humanity had labored for simple survival. But now, with the war over, men and women were again free to look ahead, to plan and build for the future. They would not have to wonder if incoming ships bore Marines who promised salvation, or an alien horde that promised death. No longer would every resource have to be devoted to the making of war; while war and the chance of it would always be with them, for a while at least the young could grow old without the constant threat of death in combat. They could again take up art and philosophy, learn to love again, and do all the many things that made humanity something special in the Universe, something worth saving. There would always be wars, she knew, but there would also be sailors, Marines, and soldiers of the Territorial Army to protect the Confederation, for humankind had learned its lesson well. But now there was room for more, for humanity to again be human.
Sitting before a mirror now, she applied Navy regulation makeup, a process that was at once simple and difficult. Simple, because there was very little that regulations allowed; difficult, because she had become used to putting on more as the years had gone by, a token surrender, perhaps, to the inexorable advance of age. There were definite wrinkles now, but not too many, she decided. Some gray in her hair, but not too much. Natural highlighting, she thought with a smile. Time had treated her well these last years, and if anything she had become more beautiful with each birthday, at least if she was to go by Tony’s compliments. She smiled into the mirror. A much younger woman’s face smiled back.
That part of her ritual complete, she went to the bedroom that had been dubbed the house’s official “junk” room. It was where all the flotsam and jetsam of life that was too valuable to throw away, yet not immediately significant enough to display from day to day, found a permanent resting place. In the closet she found her Navy dress black uniform in its environmentally controlled bag. Carrying it back to their bedroom, she laid it out carefully on the bed, running her hands over the smooth synthetic fabric, her fingers tracing the gold braid that proclaimed her a commodore, her last promotion before retirement. The rows of medals, including the Confederation Medal of Honor that would have made an old Marine colonel she had once known very proud, indeed, were bright against the dark fabric. The genuine leather boots that Tony had given her one year for Christmas gleamed like Kreelan armor.
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