He tried to push himself back down the stairs, away from her, but it was far too late. One of the dancing bolts of lightning arced from her hands, vaporizing Riggs in the blink of an eye.
***
Feeling Shera-Khan motionless close beside her, Nicole shivered on the floor as a roaring tide of energy coursed through her body, as if she had suddenly become a human conduit for raw, pure power. And then she heard the voice that was not a voice, but was more like a blast of sound through her brain, a single thought exploding inside her skull. A curtain of fire swept through her veins, scorching her flesh. Agony. Ecstasy.
“My Children…”
***
Even from his distant vantage point, Thorella was nearly blinded and deafened by the forces that gripped the throne room. He watched as Riggs’s entire platoon was wiped out by what looked like nothing more complex, nothing less devastating, than lightning. He had no doubts that had he chosen to make the trek up those ancient stone steps, he, too, would now be dead.
But Thorella was a survivor, and always had been. “Marine One,” he called the command ship that was orbiting somewhere overhead, “we need an emergency evac down here now!”
“On our way, sir,” came the tinny reply.
“Move it,” Thorella snapped as he turned to head down the hall toward the landing bay.
But, as he did so, he saw out of the corner of his eye the ship as it passed over the dome, low, too low. Thorella was about to shout a warning when a bolt of lightning shot upward through the dome, reaching a blazing claw toward the ship. In a blinding flash the ship exploded, leaving nothing but burning fragments whirling away from an expanding cloud of gas as its remains streaked out of sight, leaving behind a trail of sooty smoke.
Then the lightning surged into the structure of the dome itself, the blinding veins of cyan working their way through the stone and crystal like water through a plant thirsting for water, leaving in their wake a shimmering fluorescence.
Thorella ran alone from the carnage behind him. He ran for the Golden Pearl.
***
Enya was deafened by the sudden silence. The thunder and lightning that had exploded all around her were gone. The gale force winds that had swept over the dais were still. The great dome was silent, as was the city beyond. The bombs had stopped falling. Her whole body was shivering with fear, her eyes tightly closed. Eustus lay unconscious in her arms. His breathing was ragged. Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes.
The Marines were gone. There was nothing left of them but a faint trace of burned plastic and the stench of scorched flesh. While the blue fire was also gone, the throne room still glowed with eerie light that highlighted the scene of devastation that was the once pristine dais.
Nearby, Braddock’s lifeless body lay entombed by the slab of crystal that had fallen from above. Next to him Nicole and Shera-Khan lay equally still. Enya was suddenly afraid, afraid that she was alone with whatever power now haunted this place.
It was then that a phantom stepped from the smoke that still clung to the dais. Enya’s skin prickled as she saw the white braids that framed the blue skin of the Kreelan woman’s face, proud and unblemished now by the black marks that she had worn for so many years. Her eyes blazed with wisdom and the power of her unfathomable spirit, just as the sleek muscles beneath the white robes belied her physical strength. Upon her head was a tiara, glittering with gemstone fire. With a liquid grace that seemed unlikely, unnatural, perhaps, as if her feet did not quite touch the floor, the woman made her way to where Nicole lay, and knelt beside her.
Enya stared as the woman delicately extended a hand to touch Nicole’s face, and saw the scar across the Kreelan woman’s palm, the blood-red talons.
She is Esah-Zhurah… The Empress, she thought silently, her eyes wide with awe.
Nicole stirred at the woman’s touch, and the Kreelan spoke, but not in any language that Enya would ever understand.
***
Nicole’s mind struggled against the rising sea of voices that threatened to drive her insane. The fire that had filled her blood had left her heart racing without cease, her body filled with adrenaline, but with no way to dissipate it. She lay helpless, her spirit dissolving in the maelstrom that roared within her.
And then she felt a touch, the sensation that someone had placed a hand on her face. But it was more than that. Amid the infinite mass of clamoring souls into which she was falling, the touch offered a rallying point, a focus. Then she heard a voice, felt a powerful mind lead her own back to order and purpose.
“Be not afraid,” the Empress whispered soothingly in the Old Tongue. “All shall be well, my child. All shall be well.”
“And what of my love?” Nicole heard herself ask in the same language, as the great choir burning in her veins began to subside and her mind began to reassert itself. “Death has taken all I have ever held dear. It has ruled my past, and now has it claimed my future.”
“I know of the fondness your kind has for miracles, child,” the Empress said gently. “Behold.”
***
Enya watched as the Empress rose and went to stand beside Braddock’s body. With a gesture of her hand, as if she were lifting an invisible feather, the massive block of crystal that pinned him to the dark stone began to tremble, then rose from the floor. A flick of the Empress’s hand sent it spinning away across the throne room to shatter against a distant wall.
She then cupped her hands together as if she were holding water, and Enya watched in open-mouthed wonder as the pulse of the Kreelan monarch’s life force took shape between her palms, bathing all of them in an eerie cyan glow. She opened her hands to reveal a ball of light just smaller than one of her fists that, as if it possessed a will of its own, floated down toward Braddock’s lifeless chest. It hung over his heart, growing larger, diffusing as it sent innumerable tendrils all over his body to envelop him in a shroud of blue fire that swirled and shimmered. In a moment, the glow began to fade, then disappeared.
Braddock’s chest rose. With a groan, he rolled partway over, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Tony!” Enya cried.
“Enya?” he asked, perplexed. “What the hell? Nicole? Nicole!” Nicole knelt beside him, motionless, as if in a trance. He had no time to say any more as the Empress took careful hold of his hands and gracefully pulled him to his feet.
The shock of realizing whom he was facing hit Braddock like a hammer in the face. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“You have little time,” the Empress told him in Standard. “You are now the supreme ruler of your people,” She said as if She had known him all his life, “and if you are to save the remains of your great fleet, you must withdraw them with all haste. I will also allow you to retrieve your warriors here, in this place. Your ships will not be menaced so long as they do not attack My Own. But you must hurry.”
“What about Nicole?” he blurted, his mind struggling to catch up with the whirlwind of events, many of which he suddenly realized he had missed completely. “I won’t leave her.”
“No harm to her shall come, I promise you. But I have need of her yet, and shall send her on to you when all is made right again.”
“What do you mean?” Braddock demanded, concerned now, uncertain.
“Remember my words,” the Empress said with finality, “and preserve your people.” Before Braddock had a chance to breathe another word, he was gone. Vanished.
The Empress turned to Enya, but her eyes focused on Eustus’s unconscious form. Without warning, his head still cradled against Enya’s breast, Eustus seemed warm, far too warm, as if he had instantly developed a raging fever.
He suddenly opened his eyes. “Lord of all,” he whispered, as the heat dissipated as quickly as it had come. “It’s her.”
“Are you all right?” Enya asked, relief flooding through her, overcoming the strange mixture of fear and elation at what the Empress could do, had done.
“Yeah, I think s
o,” he replied, his attention riveted upon the Empress. Enya saw that the bruises that had covered his face were gone: the Empress had healed him completely. “I feel a little shaky, but I’ll be okay.”
“Yes,” the Empress said, “indeed you shall. But your talents are required elsewhere. You must go to the place where your warriors shall gather, and help see them safely away from here upon the ships that even now are approaching. Several of your strange devices used to aid in this task are there, awaiting you.”
“Beacons?” Eustus thought aloud. “Where did you get–”
“Eustus,” Enya hushed him gently, “later.” She did not understand much about the alien woman who stood facing her, but she had seen enough to grasp the incredible power she wielded, as well as her sincerity. But one question could not be set aside. “Does the war end here? Or tomorrow will we once again be enemies?”
Emulating the human gesture she had learned from Reza in their childhood, the Empress shook her head. “Never again after this day shall our two races meet,” she replied solemnly. “The ancient prophecies this day shall be fulfilled, and so shall end the Way of the First Empire. And just as the coming dawn shall bring the first day of the Second Empire, so, too, shall the Way of your own people take a new, brighter course.”
“And what of you?” Enya asked. “What of your people? And Reza, what of him?”
The Empress turned to where Shera-Khan now stood, content, his face no longer streaked with black. “We are something much more than we have ever been,” she replied gently. “And Reza… awaits me.” She bowed her head. “We shall remember you. Always.”
And in the Empress’s eyes, Enya fully understood those words. Gazing upon a face whose soul was thousands of generations old, Enya realized that “always” to these people truly meant forever.
“Farewell, and thank you…” was all Enya had time to utter before the throne room suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by a huge landing bay somewhere else in the city and an odd assemblage of human equipment, the beacons, that Eustus was feverishly working on. Moments later, as she stood watching, the first Marines arrived.
***
The Empress turned Her attention to the remaining human figure that still knelt upon the dais. “That which was shared with you, child,” She said gently in the Old Tongue, “must now be returned.”
Seemingly weightless, Nicole rose to her feet, her eyes fixed on the Empress. Her heart raced not with fear, but with joy at Her voice, Her command.
The Empress’s hand closed gently around hers, and the Kreelan monarch led her to a point on the dais where there stood a crystal spire that Nicole dimly recognized as not having been there before, and saw at its apex the crystal heart aglow with blue flame. She did not feel the claw that gently drew against the skin of her palm, did not feel the warmth of her own blood as it welled up from her flesh. She watched as the Empress’s hand placed her own against the pulsing crystal heart.
“Reza,” Nicole gasped as she touched it, as her blood melded with something that was not merely a structure of inert mineral carved by artisans whose bodies had turned to dust countless centuries before, but was alive and had a spirit, a soul. A soul she had known for most of her life. Like a river swollen by monsoon rains, Nicole felt the alien spirit that Reza had shared with her so long ago rush across the living bridge that had been made between her hand and the crystal vessel. The fire in her blood, numbed by the Empress’s empathic touch, flickered and died just as the last of the alien voices fell silent. And then all was still. All was as it should have been, as it had been before Reza had shared his blood with her. In a way that would take her many years to understand, she was terribly saddened at the silence that suddenly filled her, the same silence and isolation that Reza had faced all of his adult life.
Exhausted, drained, she staggered back from where the crystal was now rippling with blue fire, the details of the heart’s surface lost in a cyan glare. She collapsed to the floor, her eyes fixed on the blinding radiance that began to grow, expand. She knew that her eyes must be blinded by such brilliance, but she felt no pain, and dared not turn away from what was now unfolding. There was no heat, no sound. There was only the light, and the figure of the Empress standing close by, staring into the center of the tiny star that burned beside the throne. The Empress lifted her arms, hands outstretched, as if beckoning to someone.
And then Reza stepped from the light, traversing a passage that linked the here and now with some other realm that Nicole felt she had once known, but that was now a universe beyond her mortal understanding. The palms of the two lovers touched, their fingers entwined, and the Empress drew him into an embrace that left no doubt of their love for each other, the queen and her knight, man and woman, husband and wife. Behind him, the pathway closed, the light fading away until the only trace left was the afterimage that flickered in Nicole’s eyes.
The crystal heart was gone.
“Nicole,” Reza said quietly, suddenly kneeling next to her.
“Reza…” she shook her head, not knowing what to say, or how. His armor gleamed as if new, the Kreelan steel black and infinitely deep as the great rune – she tried in vain to remember what it signified – glowed at its center. His eyes were alight with a fire that she had never seen, with the power of life, of fulfillment.
“Father Hernandez once told me that he believed in divine miracles,” she said. “I was never sure I could believe in such things… until now.”
Reza smiled and took her in his arms. Holding her close to him as a brother might a beloved sister, he said, “My life, my happiness, do I owe to you. And whatever the future may bring for you and your people, Nicole, remember that I shall always love you. Always.”
He kissed her, lightly, on the lips, and she put a hand to his face, her fingers tingling at the warmth of his skin.
“Adieu, Reza,” Nicole said quietly.
“Farewell, my friend,” Reza said, and then in the Old Tongue, “and may thy Way be long and glorious.”
And suddenly, he was gone. Nicole felt a cold chill blow over her, and a mist clouded her vision for a split second, as if the world had suddenly gone out of focus and then come back. In the blink of an eye, she found herself staring at the dumbstruck bridge crew of the battlecruiser Sandhurst.
“Captain Carré!” someone exclaimed. Turning numbly toward the speaker, she saw old Admiral Sinclaire rushing toward her, his ruddy face reflecting wonder, confusion, and concern. “What in blazes…?”
But Nicole’s first thought was not about where she was or how she had gotten there. It was about someone she had left behind.
“Jodi…”
Fifty-Eight
Being rich, regardless of how it had come about, had had its advantages for Markus Thorella. Among the many other pleasures he had experienced as a young man, he had learned how to pilot a starship. He was not as competent or as experienced as the Navy crews who flew as part of their careers, but he could fly.
The flight controls of the Golden Pearl, in fact, were much the same as the yacht his father had once bought for him so many years ago. Thus, his escape from the strange disaster that had befallen Lieutenant Riggs’s platoon was all but assured, even without the ill-fated command ship to extract him. The Pearl was waiting in the landing bay, almost as if it had been meant for his use.
Unfortunately, escape was all he could manage for the moment. He could not get back into the battle yet, for he was unable to raise any of the nearby human ships on the Pearl’s data link, with the net result that he was cut off from the rest of the fleet. It seemed that he could receive information, but could not transmit anything. He had to assume that the onboard comms package was malfunctioning, and that the IFF system probably would not work. Without that, the Pearl would be singled out by any nearby human warship as an approaching enemy and blasted out of space. All he could do was curse and wonder what was wrong with the ship.
For lack of any better ideas, Thorella steered to sunward, toward the v
olume of space that was nearly empty of ships while he pondered what he should do. From what he saw on the tactical display, it did not take a tactical genius to understand that the human fleet was now being slowly reduced to a scattering of flaming hulks, cut off from escape by an incoming tide of Kreelan warships. Hundreds of human ships already had been destroyed, and many more were damaged or dying as Kreelan warships surrounded them and pounded them into plasma.
It was then that a familiar voice came over the comm link, accompanied by a determined face in the holo display.
“Ships of the Fleet,” the voice declared, “this is Councilman Braddock of the Confederation Council. As the senior surviving member of the council, and by law the president for this emergency, I hereby order all combat units to withdraw immediately, repeat, immediately. All Marine elements now on the Kreelan moon are ordered to rendezvous at your primary pickup zones. Follow the beacons that have been set up for you. You will meet no resistance, so move as quickly as possible. All troop transports are to retrieve their landing contingents from the Kreelan moon; you have been guaranteed safe passage as long as you do not fire on any Kreelan vessels. I repeat: you are safe as long as you hold your fire. Once you recover your troops, you are ordered to immediately withdraw to Confederation space at the best possible speed.” The face paused for a moment, as if listening to something off-screen. “Detailed orders are now being forwarded over the fleet command links. Follow them to the letter. Good luck and Godspeed. That is all.”
The display went blank.
Before Thorella’s widened eyes, the terrible ballet of ships underwent an immediate and profound change. Suddenly, the Kreelans were ferociously attacking some ships while blatantly ignoring others. The pattern made no sense to him until he realized that the ships that were mysteriously immune to attack were lightly armed Marine transports – empty – headed back down to the moon from which he had just escaped. Kreelan ships maintained weapons lock on the human ships, but made no move to attack. The only ships being attacked were those that continued to return fire. Soon, even they were left alone as their commanders realized that the councilman’s words were, on the surface, at least, true.
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