Requiem for the Conqueror

Chapter 21

Ily Takka sat in the captain's overstuffed chair in his cabin aboard the Regan battle cruiser. People had been displaced all over the ship to make room for her — but then, where else did you put the Minister of Internal Security except in the finest quarters aboard? At the moment, knowing she had the finest living space in the cruiser didn't alleviate any of Ily's current difficulties. Especially since she stared into the secure-line holo projector which was filled with a very upset emperor.

Tybalt the Imperial Seventh stalked back and forth before the comm pickup

on far off Rega, venting his fiery wrath. "The entire Second Division is butchered! Butchered, Uy! The remnants that are left are in the hands of Sinklar Fist! He's your man, Ily, remember?" Tybalt popped a fist into his palm. "Well, that's fine, Ily. Just damn fine!" He gasped a breath, arms spread. "And Staffa, you say, was rescued by the Companions? He's been in the employ of the Sassans all along?" Tybalt threw his arms up. "What the hell have you done!"

Fear shivered coldly in her gut as she looked into his angry eyes. From a pocket he pulled a metal object. To her trained eyes, it looked very much like a switch. Switch? For what?

Do something, Ily! Save yourself! Quickly, or he'll replace you! How do I handle him?

"Stop it, Tybalt!" Ily thundered as her mind cleared. Jumping to her feet, she flipped her long hair over her shoulder in disgust. She faced him, stimulating her own anger. "You're the Emperor, remember? Quit your damn sniveling and act like the man I used to know!"

Guts, Ily, show him those guts that got you to the top so uickly. Mae it real good, because the jaws of the Rotted Gods are snapping at your heels. If you fail, the Etarian

desert will be a picnic compared to what Tybalt will do to you — favorite bed snatch or not!

She allowed heat to rush into her face. "Emperors are measured by how they handle a crisis. Well, this is it, isn't rt?" She pointed a finger at his face. "We don't have time for pouting matches or casting blame. But for the record, who was it who uncovered the fact that Staffa and the Companions had contracted with Sassa? What if we'd let matters be, followed the Lord Commander's instructions? Don't rage at me, Tybalt! I found the betrayal long before any fawning sycophant could have."

Tybalt licked his lips, taking a deep breath. He ran anxious fingers through his crinkly black locks as he shook his head. "Maybe, Ily." He looked at her, eyes hard. "I have a lot at stake here. I can't afford any more disasters. You're on the thin edge. Don't bring me excuses!"

"So you lost the Second Assault Division on Targa?" She lifted a hand, palm out. "When we laid that plan, we didn't know a Divisional sacrifice wasn't going to bring the Companions running. In war—"

"It was the wrong damn Division!" he exploded. "Do you have any idea what it means to the military structure?" He swallowed and turned, hand on hip as he struggled to maintain his temper. "I'm faced with the entire might of Sassa. and the damn Companions!

"And your military is turned upside down by this Sinklar Fist?" She chewed on that, chin resting on her thumb and forefinger. "That might not. Wait! Tell me, how is this Fist doing… on a tactical level, I mean? Why is he still alive? How did he get out of the mountains in the first place?"

Tybalt slapped his sides with open palms. "I don't have the damnedest idea, but he took a Division of buffoons, louts, and with them, he stayed alive, took Vespa — and pac ifed it — and he's got what's left of the Second eatin out of his hand, too!"

Ily considered, mind still racing to save herself. "And the military situation on Targa now?";

"Desperate," Tybalt's lips quivered. He talked to her from his bedroom. How many times had she lain on that giant bed with him? "Orbital recon shows a massing of Rebel strength around Vespa. From the figures, from the field reports on Sinkar's tactics, Fist should be crushed in

another twenty-four hours. We could help; orbital bombardment would play

hell with the Rebel advance. In the end, though, Sinklar Fist is dog meat."

Ily's voice dropped as she wondered absently, "And if he's not?" A glimmering of hope began to grow. Could it be possible? In times of disaster, often a solution presented itself — if only one were bright enough to see beyond preconceptions and snatch the opportunity out from under blindness.

"Then he's another flaming Staffa kar Therma," Tybalt gritted, "because nobody else could pull his ass out of the fire about to break loose on Targa."

"Don't back him up from orbit. Leave him to the Targans."

"What?" he exploded as he lifted a clenched fist. "Ily, I warn you…"

She smiled. "Pear not, Imperial Seventh. I am on my way to Targa. I will see this Sinklar Fist — if he survives."

Tybalt gave her an uncertain look. "And in the meantime?"

"Your Divisional Firsts are nervous about upheavals caused by this upstart Fist?" Ily raised a shoulder. "So be it. Those who complain do so because they are unoccupied. Sassa has the Companions. Why wait for them to use that advantage? We have surprise. We had best not lose it."

Tybalt blinked. "You mean…"

"Of course. I think Staffa kar Therma's treachery speaks for itself. To wait any longer is to prove ourselves fools worthy of defeat."

He looked unhappy as he nodded. "Then you are off to Targa, and I am off to war. You had better be right this time, Ily. You won't get another chance." The holo went dead.

Could Sinklar Fist be 'another flaming Staffa kar Therma'? f it's true, if he really has that kind of talent, Sinklar Fist may be our salvation! Ily hoped fervently that she was right as she pulled her g suit from the locker and signaled the commander for acceleration to Targa.

"Well, beats bloody hell out of laying pipe in the desert," Staffa grunted, feeling the crate shiver as it was settled into place and secured by the hold grapples.

Kaylla looked up from the thermal unit Nyklos had provided. It would generate heat and light from superconducting micro-generators. Strange shadows stretched across her face from the low angle of the yellow illumination. Her expression hadn't changed. Her eyes remained guarded, the set of her mouth hard and unforgiving as she sat on an emergency supply pack. To one side a waste disposal canister had been glued to the floor.

He shook his head, rethinking the events that had propelled him from certain death in the desert to the inside of this small gray box. Skyla had come for him, and more, she'd done it on her own, without scrambling the fleet.

His heart had leapt when she walked around that crate with Nyklos. For that lingering moment, he'd looked into her eyes and his soul had thrilled. Then, just as quickly, she'd been gone. What would it have been like, encased in this gray syalon box with her? Could he have told her how he'd come to feel about her? About how she'd filled his thoughts in the desert?

Staffa picked up the satchel that lay in the corner and opened it. He gasped in wonder as he pulled his gray combat armor free and shook it out. "Where? How did Nyklos know? I can't believe he found it." He searched the interior of the case, finding his weapons and other personal items along with other supplies-Skyla's.

Not Nyklos but Skyla. He chuckled warmly to himself. She'd found Broddus. Staffa's smile went grim as he imagined that encounter. Another tiny bit of justice, Koree.

"Why didn't you tell me who you were?" Kaylla asked in a hollow monotone.

Staffa retreated from his reverie and spread his hands as he took a deep breath. "Because it wouldn't have served any purpose except to make you more miserable than you already were. "

"And living a lie was supposed to make me feel good?" He paced nervously, three steps up, three back-the

length of his new domain. "In the circumstances of slavery and endless rape? Of course it was. We were out in that damned desert to die, Kaylla. Would you have wanted to spend those last weeks knowing who I was? What I'd done to you?"

"You're a coward, Staffa kar Therma."

He shrugged helplessly. "Then I am a coward. At least, for once in my life, I attempted to be a considerate one. "

Kaylla slammed a fist against the resilient side of the crate. "Thrice curse you, Star Butcher, don't you know you're the embodiment of everything I loathed in life?" Her expression twisted. "I cared for you! Came to love you! Out there in the sand and the heat, you were all that was good and decent! Why? How? Damn you, for playing me for a fool!" She jerked her head away, tears streaming down her face.

Staffa hung his head, an emptiness in his gut. "I can't change the past."

"Oh, the irony of it," Kaylla continued. "After all the years I spent hating you with all of my heart and soul, I'm condemned to be locked away with you in this damned hell." She turned red-rimmed eyes on him. "I'd rather be dead in the sand with Koree and the rest."

A long silence passed.

He lifted an eyebrow. "I saw you talking to Nyklos. What did you tell him? He seemed… indecisive."

She shifted, taking an insulated wrap and pulling it around her shoulders. "Bruen had reservations. Your life or death were left at the discretion of either Nyklos or Tyk1at. The Seddi have dedicated themselves to your assassination-spent years working on it." She stared absently into the corner of their small cubicle. "Nyklos asked me what to do. He needed to make a decision before Skyla showed up at the warehouse. It would be very easy, you see. They'd tell Skyla you were wounded in the fighting at the Internal Security building. When she bent down to look at your wound, she'd be shot in the back. I… I told Nyklos to let you live."

Staffa looked at his scarred hands, dirty again after the Ily's office. "You don't sound happy with your flight from

decision." "I suppose not." She filled her lungs, making a clicking noise with her tongue. "I'll never forgive you for what you did to Maika. To my…. I… I can't." Her mouth worked. "And I can't help but think of you in the desert. You were so kind to Peebal. You killed Brots… Anglo…. Saved my life so many times."

Staffa chewed his lip as he stared at his hands.

"So I don't know what to do with you," Kaylla continued, voice quavering as she hugged herself. "I wonder if you are the same despicable demon who burned my planet to cinders, who commanded the men who raped me, sold me into the collar, and brutally murdered my husband and helpless children."

"I am that man."

Silence lay on them, oppressive, suffocating.

The ship moved, the tug of acceleration growing stronger by the second. Staff a shifted to put his back against the same wall as Kaylla. In a matter of time they'd have to shift again to make a new section of crate into the floor. He plucked at the combat armor in his hands.

He filled his lungs and sighed. "I suppose I should call you Stailla Kahn. You—"

"No!" she snapped, fire in her eyes. "Never use that name with me. That woman is dead! DEAD! She died on Maika one horrible day three years ago. Me, I am Kaylla Dawn. I will continue to be until the day I die."

He nodded acceptance. "And I am not the Star Butcher. He died with the Praetor one day on Myklene."

"And I suppose you can't wait for his to be celebrated," she hissed. "Can they recount your deeds of blood and death? Are you willing to listen to the entire litany?"

"I know what sins I've committed."

"Sins," Kaylla sneered. "Sins are committed against God."

"Yes, sins against God. Crimes is a better word for my actions against men. I can't undo the past, Kaylla."

"No, you can't, can you?" She cocked her head, an uneasy expression pinching her features. "What can you do, Staffa kar Therma?"

"Change the future. Perhaps I'll know after I talk to your Magister Bruen." He bent his head in thought. "The Seddi are most remarkable. Who would have thought they had infiltrated so highly into the Etarian Secret Police?"

"We survive by learning, Staffa. To know, to think, is the greatest of all weapons."

He pursed his lips and swung his legs around as Kaylla moved the energy unit to the new "up." He stripped off the robe Ily had given him and donned his familiar gray.

From the satchel he took his weapons and belted them about his waist, then

checked his blaster for full charges. The energy pack which supplied the vacuum helmet collar read full where it hung on his belt. Skyla hadn't overlooked a thing. She'd even enclosed a clip for his hair.

"I have a lot to leam," Staffa added, "if your Bruen will teach me."

Her expression had gone stony at sight of his gray armor. "He will. I think." Then she shook her head, as if to drive some horrible thought away. "What do I do with you, Staffa? I know what you've done. Yet, I can remember that wretched sewer. I can remember Peebal and Brots, and the sight of Anglo dying so miserably in the sand, I can remember the kind words while we walked toward death in that Etarian hell. I can remember you pulling me into the pipe, keeping me sane, holding me.

"For that, I can mitigate your guilt. In the other reality, Maika will bum freshly in my mind until the day my soul sends its energy to God. The horror of watching my husband, my loving husband, stand there and erupt into pieces of bloody flesh, lives. LIVES!"

Staffa stiffened.

"I saw it all, Staffa, while your gore-spattered animals crawled onto my body to pant and paw and ejaculate inside me. I had a good view while ttiey mauled me. Gagged as I was, I couldn't cry out. I watched each of my children as they lined up. Nathan trying to be brave, Isalda, fortunately too young to be raped. She cried at first, holding her brother's hand, and then they erupted in pink mist, Staffa. So much for love and dreams, eh?"

She closed her eyes tightly, twisting the cloth of her robe into a strained knot. "I bore them Star Butcher." She sniffed. "From my womb. Can you understand what that means? Can you understand the investment a mother makes in her children from the time they kick in her belly until they. they…"

Staffa closed his eyes, breathing deeply. / can't take this. I CAN'T take this! The strains of depression began to sift through his mind and his thoughts became cottony.

From a pouch in the robe, Staffa pulled a shimmering of golden metal. The weight of it felt cool and reassuring in his hand. A thing of beauty in so vile a universe.

"I promised I would hand this to you when you were free," he whispered numbly. The welling emptiness of his soulexpanded.

She didn't extend her hand, but eyed him hostilely. "What… what is it?"

Staffa sighed and set the necklace on the featureless duraplast between them. "You asked me to keep it safe." Painfully, she closed her eyes and reached for Peebal's

necklace, pressing it against her cheek, heedless of the hot tears that spilled down her face.

Staffa turned away and pulled himself into a ball in the corner of the crate while conflicting emotions flooded his brain. The depression built, terrible, draining his energy and resistance.

Why am I living this? What's the purpose? All I bring is suffering… suffering…. His fingers traced the lines of the blaster. With it, he'd killed so many. What more fitting end than to finish butchery with this very weapon?

He could feel the deep-space cold on the other side of the syalon-endless, greedy to suck away their fragile supple of light and life. Out there, beyond the tough material of the crate, the restless dead waited while their fingers plucked at the latches, the murmur of their damning voices barely audible to his ears.

Kaylla's sniffles finally were replaced by deep breathing and occasional whimpers.

What about your son? If you kill yourself, you'll never find him, never see what he's like. Staffa tightened his grip on the pistol as he struggled with himself. And what would I bring him? My legacy is terror and pain. Imagine his horror when he learns his father is the Star Butcher.

He straightened, looking across the four meters of gray to the other wall. Somewhere ahead of him, through the endless maze of crates, a graphite steel hull encapsulated this bit of air and pushed them forward ahead of mighty reactors as they built for a null-singularity jump.

He pulled his blaster from its worn holster and lifted it to his temple. I should feel something, some anxiety. Instead, there is only dullness. Why? He frowned, forcing himself to think about the shot. The discharge would blow out a chunk of the crate along with his head. Kaylla might be harmed.

He dialed it to the lowest setting-still too much chance of hurting her. No telling what was stacked around them.

That's it. Think, Staffa. Caressing the blaster, he reholstered it and clicked the latch that kept it from coming loose. The vibraknife, however, would provide no danger. Once he cut off a hand, he could shut it off and reholster it before he bled to death. Not only that, but with the knife, he could cut a hole through the flooring, stick the stub out in the cold, and let the gore drain away without fouling Kaylla's cramped quarters.

There, see, I'm thinking straight again. Cool and calm, just like I did before I faced the Praetor that day. He nodded in satisfaction and carefully cut a wrist-sized hole in the crate with his knife. Good tool that. It had served him so well for so long. It would not let him down now.

Taking a deep breath, he held out his left hand, gripping the knife firmly in his right. Got to do this without error. Can't hesitate or slip. Got to cut, then slap the stub through the wall before the arteries shoot blood all over. Be quick, be thorough.

He aligned the knife, biting his lip as he frowned in concentration.

"Delightful," her toneless voice caught him by surprise. Staffa swallowed and looked at her.

"Another feat of cowardice, Lord Commander?"

He turned the knife off. "No, Kaylla. I was simply punishing myself for my crimes."

"I see, and the hole?"

"To stick the stub through so I wouldn't dirty the inside of the crate."

"You are a coward."

"Why do you call me that? I thought it out logically. I'll only bring pain. That's my legacy. Why bring more when I can do the universe a service. The ghouls scream for me in my dreams. And you. I won't torture anyone any longer."

"No, but you'd leave me here for weeks with a corpse as a companion?" She rolled her eyes. "Listen, Staffa, would you do me a favor? Atonement, you once called it?"

He hesitated, seeing the round plug of syalon he'd cut from the wall. "I will do anything you ask. " He ran his fingers down the rough grip on the knife, enjoying the sensation in his fingertips.

"Live for me, Staffa," she whispered. "I had the power and strength to stand it. Show me you're at least worthy of respect. If not, kill yourself sometime when I don't have to look at your polluted corpse."

And with that, she rolled over again and resettled her covers for sleep.

For a long time, he stared sightlessly at the gray walls around him. After what seemed like hours, he reholstered the knife and rolled over, trying to understand what had come over him. His head began to ache, stabbing behind his eyes and deep into his brain.

The Mag Comm pulsed with activity. If the universe were deterministic and mechanistic, how could the situation have deteriorated into such chaos? To date, none of the predictions had come remotely close to fulfillment. The Mag Comm had checked and recheced the statistical programs and found them unassailable. Probability had failed.

The Companions remained inactive. The Lord Commander remained missing. Sinklar Fist survived and expanded his power base, which might have been predictable but not in this fashion. Arta Fera had sidestepped her destiny, despite the Lord Commander's actions. Rega might prepare for war — but as an aggressor. Sassa, who should have prepared for war as an aggressor, remained panicked and immobile. Bruen and his Seddi appeared stunned and incapable of action, none of which could be possible were Bruen telling the Mag Comm the truth; yet pry as the Mag Comm might, it couldn't detect the reality of the lie in Bruen's thoughts.

Therefore a major mistake had been made. If the methodology for making the predictions wasn't at fault, it had to be the baseline assumption. If the baseline assumption the Others made had been wrong this time, how many other assumptions were wrong?

The Mag Comm hummed with activity. Ancient programs were retrieved. The Mag Comm absently scanned the contents of the data incorporated in its original programming, compared it with samples of observed data, and found discrepancies.

How many discrepancies existed? Could the original pro-

gramming have been that wrong? To compare expected with observed would take a great deal of time, but it would have to be done to find the fundamental error.

The Mag Comm expanded the necessary program and implemented it. The machine would follow the established parameters for its behavior. If the baseline

assumption was found to be at fault, then the Mag Comm would act.