“You well know why, Esah-Zhurah,” he said, softer than a whisper, barely a sigh. “You are the successor to the throne… on you the Way shall someday depend.” He shuddered, suppressing the cough that would rend further his violated lungs, his damaged heart. Already it slowed, nothing more than a leaky valve as it sought in vain to pump more blood into the ruptured lungs where it rapidly pooled, and would soon drown him. “My life is nothing beside yours. I only ask that… in my memory, the Empress let live the people of this world.”
“So much do you care for them,” she said in a trembling voice as she watched her lover’s life ebb away, “that you would utter your last words on their behalf?”
Reza smiled. “Not so much as that,” he told her, his trembling fingers stroking her face. He could no longer feel anything below his waist. “My last words I save for Thee, Esah-Zhurah. While I love the Empress with all that I am, I love Thee all the more.” He labored for another breath, knowing it would be his last. His chest was warm, too warm. “I shall… take my memories of you… to the Darkness that falls upon me. Your face and love shall keep me… for Eternity.”
She watched helplessly as his eyes fluttered, closed. His hand, the hand that had held her, that had touched her as they made love, lost its strength, the fingers relaxing in her grip. His breathing stilled.
Shutting away the Universe from around her, she held him close as she had the child she had born to him, the son who had never felt his father’s Bloodsong, the son whom Reza would never know.
On the Plain of Aragon, Esah-Zhurah wept without tears.
***
“Your orders, sir?” Captain Amadi asked quietly.
Sinclaire scowled at the tactical display. Thirty Kreelan warships, none of them smaller than a heavy cruiser, had just jumped in-system. There was nothing Sinclaire’s task force could do to save the people down below. They did not have enough ships to hold them all, even if they had time to evacuate them. The first of the new Kreelan arrivals would be in orbit in less than thirty minutes. Sinclaire had recalled all the fighters, and the last of them were landing now. In one of the starboard landing bays, the last of Reza’s Marines were carrying wounded civilians from their hijacked boat. They were lucky to be alive.
“Turn the fleet around, captain,” he growled. “There’s nothing more for us to do here.”
Nodding sadly, Amadi quickly began to carry out his admiral’s orders.
***
“What’s wrong with her, doc?” Jodi had come to the sickbay the instant she had gotten free of the flight deck. She stood in the sickbay’s anteroom with the doctor, her face still sweaty and marked with the outline of where her helmet had been pressed against her skin.
“I don’t know,” the surgeon said uneasily. “She’s in deep shock, like she experienced some kind of massive physical trauma, but there’s no evidence of any injury. Not a thing.”
“Please,” Jodi said, “I need to see her.”
She was not ready for what she saw. For all she could tell, Nicole was dead, for nothing but a corpse could look so white. Her eyes were all that seemed to be alive. But they frightened Jodi: they were the eyes of the insane. She took Nicole’s hand. It was freezing. “Nicole,” she breathed, “can you hear me?”
Nicole’s eyes pivoted slightly, then again, as if the muscles were no longer capable of the rapid and fluid movements they once had been. “Jo…di.” The sound seemed alien coming from her blanched lips.
“I’m here, Nikki,” Jodi said again, holding her friend’s hand tightly, running her other hand across Nicole’s chilled brow. “It’ll be okay. Can you tell me what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Reza,” Nicole uttered, a little more clearly. “Help him.”
Jodi fought back the tears that wanted to come to her eyes. She knew that others often saw them as a sign of weakness, but it was how she coped with things that otherwise would break her heart and crush her spirit. “Honey,” she said gently, “Reza’s…” She paused. It was so hard for her to say it. “He’s gone, Nicole… dead. There’s nothing–”
“No,” Nicole said with such force that Jodi blinked. “No… help him… must not… let him die.”
“Nicole, I know this is hard for you, but he’s gone. Let him go. Besides, we’ve got to leave. There are more Kreelans coming and–”
Nicole’s grip on Jodi’s hand suddenly tightened, so hard and quick that Jodi let out a yelp of pain and surprise. “Nicole!”
“Help him,” Nicole said through gritted teeth. The skin of her face was stretched tight, exposing the outlines of her skull through the bleached skin. Her eyes burned with ferocious intensity, like a wolf making its final leap before the kill. Jodi felt her knuckles grating together as Nicole’s hand clamped down on them like a vice. “Save him.” It was not a request, or even an order. It was a commandment.
Suddenly, the energy that had taken her over vanished, and she faded into unconsciousness, her heart beating erratically, her breathing shallow and unsure. Her hand, limp now, fell away from Jodi’s. Her eyes rolled up to reveal the whites, then closed.
“Jesus,” Jodi muttered, looking with widened eyes at the surgeon, who only shook his head; he was as shocked as she was. “If there’s no real trauma,” she said shakily, “she can’t die, right?”
One glance at the vital signs monitors would have told her otherwise.
The surgeon shook his graying head. “I wish saying it made it so, but it doesn’t. If I can’t figure out what’s causing her to be like this, I don’t think she’ll make it another two hours. Her body is just shutting down.”
“Take care of her,” she told him decisively before turning to the door. There was a certain Marine first sergeant she needed to see.
***
Eustus stared at the landing bay portal, as big around as a football field and filled with the stars and vacuum, safely on the other side of the force field.
“Eustus,” Jodi said urgently, “it’s Reza we’re talking about.”
“It’s mutiny,” Eustus snapped back. “More than that, it’s suicide. You weren’t there when the bombardment was coming down. You didn’t see a whole planet get flattened. I did. And the fact that there’s a whole shitload of Kreelan ships coming down our throats doesn’t thrill me, either.” He turned to Jodi, mindful of the blue eyes in her ebony face blazing at him. “Look, Jodi, I loved Reza as much as anybody ever did. I fought for him. I gladly would have died for him. But it’s over. He’s gone, along with the rest of them. He told me himself that he had no intention of coming back.” He looked at Enya, who tended to some of the wounded, most of them Raniers. She was the real reason he did not want to go, he thought, ashamed in a way. Enya was worth more to him now than anything or anyone had ever been, and he was not going to just throw that future away. “I’m sorry, Jodi. But I’m not going. Maybe Hawthorne will–”
“Come on, Eustus!” Jodi nearly shouted, causing a few heads – Enya’s among them – to turn in their direction. She lowered her voice. Slightly. “Hawthorne’s no good for this and you know it. He’s too straight to pull a stunt like this, and besides, he’s too damn big. I couldn’t get both him and Reza into the rear cockpit.” She stared at him, willing him to come. “It’s you or nothing, Eustus. I can’t do it by myself.”
“Can’t do what?” Enya asked from behind them. “What are you up to, Eustus?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“Commander?” Enya asked, a look of concern on her face. “What is it?”
“I think Reza’s alive down there,” she told her quietly. “And I need help to bring him back.” She looked pointedly at Eustus.
Enya’s brow furrowed. “How could he be alive? He was going to the Plain of Aragon to fight, I know, but… How do you know this?”
“Captain Carré – she’s in sickbay right now – told me. She and Reza have some kind of special bond, they seem to know things about each other when there doesn’t seem to be any possible way.�
�� She glared again at Eustus. “Nicole’s dying, and the surgeon doesn’t know why. I think it’s because she’s linked to Reza somehow, and is reflecting whatever’s happening to him. I think he’s important in some way that we don’t understand. And if what Nicole said is true, and we don’t do anything about it, we’ll live to regret it. And Nicole will die.”
“Could you make it through all those Kreelan ships?” Enya asked quietly. Eustus opened his mouth, but was smart enough not to say anything.
“We’ll never know if we don’t try.” Jodi looked at Eustus again. “Time’s up, jarhead. What’s it going to be?”
“Eustus,” Enya said quietly, “go with her.”
“But–”
Enya raised a finger to his lips. “You must have faith, Eustus,” she told him. “Our prayers brought your captain to our aid, and my prayers brought your heart to me. We don’t know what has happened to our people. Maybe they are all dead. Maybe none of them have been harmed save those in the cities. But we do know that your Captain Gard is directly responsible for saving anyone who is still alive, and perhaps that kind of power is something worth the risk Commander Mackenzie is asking.”
“Enya, it’s suicide.”
She nodded, biting her lip. This was the hardest thing she had ever done, sending the one man she had ever really loved off to die. “It well may be. But can we afford not to try?”
Eustus closed his eyes, hoping that it would all go away. Instead, he felt Enya’s warmth press against him, her lips gently kissing his. “Go quickly,” she said. “And may the Lord of All watch over you.”
***
Master Chief Petty Officer Clarence Mahan was enjoying what was, ironically, the quietest period during a war cruise. As chief of the starboard catapults, he was responsible for getting Gneisenau’s fighters and attack ships off the deck. Recovering them was someone else’s job down in Pri-Fly. Now that the fleet was hauling itself around toward its jump point, it was only recovering fighters, not launching them. The standard four-ship alert had already been spotted on the outboard cats, leaving the rest of his watch free of major problems. Or so he had hoped.
“Chief,” one of his assistants called, “we’ve got engine start on the number three alert bird.”
“What?” Mahan said. The alert pilots were not normally kept in the cockpits, but in a ready room a few paces behind the blast shields. “Denkel, if you’re pulling my leg, I’ll–”
“No, chief, I’m not shitting you. Look.” On the big board that made up the main display for the starboard catapult system, one of the alert ships was indeed powering up.
“Goddammit,” Mahan snarled, “somebody’d better have a good explanation for this.” He snapped the intercom circuit open. “This is cat control to Alert Three. Shut down immediately and get your ass out of that cockpit. Respond, over.”
“Chief, this is Commander Mackenzie. I don’t have time to explain, but I’d really appreciate a cat launch. I hate bolting down these tubes on manual.”
“I’m sorry commander, but nobody said anything to me about any launches,” Mahan said, wondering what the hell was going on. “I need to check with Pri-Fly on this one.”
“Don’t bother, chief,” Jodi said as she brought the engines up to ninety-five percent power. The blast shields behind her automatically slid into place to prevent the fighter’s engines from vaporizing the adjoining part of the hangar bay. “Pri-Fly won’t know anything, either. See you later, Mahan.”
“Commander–” He did not bother saying anything else. Her fighter was already gone: Mackenzie had guided it down the catapult tube manually. Goddamn bloody dangerous stunt, Mahan cursed silently. “Get me the bridge,” he said to his assistant. “Somebody’s going to be really pissed over this one.”
***
“Jodi, this is insane,” Eustus said. He was not qualified to fly as a back-seater on this ship, but he also was not an idiot. The holo display that was projected on the console and on the bubble canopy around him told him enough. There were Kreelan ships everywhere, although none had fired on them. Yet. “Even if we make it down there, how are we supposed to find him?”
“Do you know where this Plain of Aragon is that Enya mentioned?”
“Not exactly,” he said, calling up a map display of Erlang on the computer. “It’s supposed to border the ocean, on the far side of the coastal mountains where that glowing crater thing is. Hmmm… Due east of Mallory City – what’s left of it – looks like that might be the place to start, anyway.”
Jodi quickly evaluated the information that was echoed on her display. “Make you a deal,” she said. “If he’s not there, we’ll split back to the fleet, and I’ll think up some bullshit about bending you to my will.” She grinned to herself. “I’ll tell them I suddenly went straight and just had to have wild sex in the cockpit with you. No one else would do. What do you think?”
“No joy, commander,” Eustus said, ignoring her attempt at humor as he clumsily called up the scanner data on what he hoped was the right place. “We’ve gone past the point of no return. We either come back with Reza or we don’t come back at all.”
Jodi nodded grimly. Around them, more warships of the Kreelan fleet sped toward Erlang.
***
Reza was in the temple, kneeling before the crystal that was the spirit of his order, the host of the cleansing fire that burned away the old to reveal the new. The crystal was light and warmth, wisdom and power. All else was darkness, without order. Chaos.
He was not alone. Sitting across from him was a warrior whose face he could not see but for her glowing silver-flecked eyes. Her hair was white as the snows of Kraken-Gol, her talons the color of his own blood.
“It is not yet your time, child,” came the voice of Keel-Tath
Reza looked at his body, his eyes widening when he saw the armor of his breastplate, untouched, gleaming as when it was first made by Pan’ne-Sharakh.
“Pierced was my heart, Empress,” he said, uncomprehending, knowing that he should be in Darkness, the place that was beyond all, where Time itself did not venture. He was dead.
“This I know, young priest,” She replied. Her hands reached out to him above the crystal, and he took them, his flesh against Hers. “I have seen The One who shall inherit my spirit, who shall be the vessel of my Resurrection, the guardian of your heart. But She-Who-Shall-Ascend is only a part of the whole of which you are the other half. If you die, so shall she, in spirit and heart, if not in body, and the Great Bloodline shall come to an end. My Children shall perish from the world.”
Reza felt his very soul chill at her words. “Can this be?” he whispered.
He saw the look of sorrow in Her eyes. “Indeed it can, My son,” She said. “The cycles are few that remain to the Empire under the curse I set upon them so long ago. Soon it will be that no longer shall they bear any male children, and those who must mate will perish of the poison in their blood, and those who are barren shall witness the destruction of their race. Only in The One is there hope for the future, for My Children.”
“What must I do?” Reza asked softly. Even in the dim light just beyond the crystal’s glow, he could see the mourning marks that flowed down her face, so much like Esah-Zhurah. Even the immortal First Empress, he saw, could know remorse and compassion.
He felt the pain of the blade across his hand, the flesh of her palm pressing against his. The crystal glowed brighter, pulsing in time with Her heart. He felt the tingling of Her blood in his, felt the warmth, the fire. He heard only Her voice in the song that took his blood, but it needed no accompaniment; it was a universe unto itself.
“You must live,” She said.
***
“I’ve got something at one o’clock,” Jodi announced as she guided the Corsair through the debris-choked clouds, trusting her sensors to keep her from smashing into the mountains she knew lurked nearby. Below lay the burning pyre that had once been Mallory City.
“Just don’t fly anywhere close to that blu
e glow, Jodi,” Eustus warned, keeping his eyes fixed on the eerie light that penetrated even the smoke of the burning city.
“Trust me,” she answered. She had no idea what it was, but nothing and no one could convince her to go closer to it than she already was.
Ahead loomed the last of the coastal mountains, and Jodi pulled the Corsair’s nose up to clear them. Beyond lay the coastal plains and the ocean.
“Oh, shit,” Jodi hissed as her ship squawked an alarm. “We’re being tracked. There’s a Kreelan ship down there, some kind of assault boat.”
“Don’t fire on it,” Eustus told her. “Are your shields up?”
“Of course they are–”
“Drop them.”
“Eustus–”
“Drop them!” he ordered. “Dammit, do as I tell you.”
Cursing under her breath she dropped her shields, leaving her ship naked to attack by anyone hefting a fair-sized rock, let alone pulse weapons.
“Look!” Eustus said. “Down there!”
Jodi looked in the direction Eustus was pointing. “Holy shit,” she whispered. On what must be the Plain of Aragon, she could see hundreds of human figures through a light mist. Most of them, she could tell, were not interested in her fighter, but in the perfect circle of Kreelan warriors, hundreds of them, who knelt on the plain itself. And in the open center of the Kreelan circle, she could see three figures.
One of them, she knew, had to be Reza.
“Why aren’t they firing on us, Eustus?” she asked as she circled over the warriors, who seemed to pay her no attention.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but we’d better hurry up and get this over with before they change their minds.”
“Roger that,” she said quietly. She started the landing cycle, lowering the Corsair’s landing gear and transitioning to hover mode. “If anybody ever told me when I was in flight school that I’d be pulling a damn fool stunt like this…”
Jodi set the fighter down smoothly just outside the circle of warriors, some of whom, she could see now, had taken a sudden interest in the new arrivals.
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