Requiem for the Conqueror

Chapter 27

For a split second Sinklar's resolve wavered as MacRuder and Kap walked the girl through the weathered wooden door and into the brick-lined courtyard. A sudden uncertainty possessed him as the bright Targan sunlight lit a blazing fire in Arta's hair. She did radiate a sexual magnetism— enough to make any man hesitate.

But not me. I remember Gretta. Dead with all of my dreams.

Pain and grief knotted beneath his tongue, making it impossible to swallow. A tingling throb behind his eyes shimmered tearfully, attempting to rob him of sight and control.

Arta Fera threw her head back, tossing her wealth of hair over a shoulder as she tilted her face to the delightful sunlight.

"Holy Rotted Gods," one of the men whispered at the sight of her. The man shot a quick look at Sinklar, licking his lips uncertainly.

They'd cleaned her — pointless, but perhaps it felt better to die looking your best. And she did; the men were staring, eyes wide as she walked out, tall, lithe, and athletic. Her tawny yellow eyes searched their faces. The sway of her hips hypnotized. Her firm thighs — moving under skintight gold-weave pants — enticed. Her high firm breasts pressed against the fabric at her chest, teasing, accenting her thin waist and flat stomach.

Sinklar frowned. Something about her bothered him. He'd seen her before. where? When? Why did she elicit this feeling of… of…

"So this is a Seddi assassin?" Ily Takka wondered as she stepped out from the shade of the enclosed porch behind him and paused next to Sinklar.

MacRuder placed the woman before a heavy concrete

wall, forcing himself to keep his eyes off her. Uneasily, he turned her to face Sinklar, fingers dancing lightly on her flesh — as if repulsed and attracted. Mac nodded nervously and walked away, shaken.

"Ready," Mac mumbled needlessly to Sink as he passed. He stood several paces to the side, head raised to the patch of sky visible above the foreboding brick walls of buildings, gaze focused on the distance.

Sinklar lifted his blaster from his belt, aware of indrawn breaths around him. Unaffected, the women in the detail continued to watch, hatred in their eyes as the men in the squad looked away.

Arta Fera's voice rose on the morning. "Regan pollution! I spit upon you!" Her lips tightened and she blew spittle at Sinklar. He didn't flinch as he leveled the blaster. Something about her… the odd feeling, as he partially recognized. Impossible!

"My Lord," Ily interjected calmly. "This woman is a Seddi assassin."

Sinklar stared through the blaster sights into those burning amber eyes, forcing himself to remember Gretta's rotting body. "So?"

"She killed the woman you loved. Correct?" Ily continued as if discussing a piece of meat.

"Y-yes. She. She. " His face contorted as he tried to complete the sentence.

"Death is very quick," Ily pointed out. "At times it can be terribly unproductive. How much would you make this. Seddi thing suffer?"

Heart cold, Sinklar continued to stare at her over his pistol sights.

"May I offer an alternative?" Ily's voice had dropped, soothing, almost intimate.

"What?" Sinklar asked hoarsely, casting a hard glance on the Minister, blaster unwavering.

"You wish to know the location of Makarta, correct?"

"I do. She won't tell. We even tried torture, electrical shock, pain rods. Nothing worked."

"Lord Sinklar," Ily mused. "I not only can make her talk — but tak willingly. I have heard that Arta Fera howled for hours after betraying her over and the Targan Rebel cause."

"She did."

"Then how do you think she would scream knowing she had condemned the Seddi to extinction?"

Sinklar studied Arta through slitted eyes — the unease that he knew her still prickling through the back of his mind. He remembered her animal scream when Butla Ret died— and the image of his mother's face. Is that the link in my brain? The fact that she's a Seddi assassin reminds me of my mother? He dismissed it as ludicrous.

"Place yourself in her position, Sinklar," Ily said smoothly, a dancing light in her eyes. "Imagine living out your life knowing you'd sold out your cause. She would know your grief Lord Fist. There is justice in retribution."

"You can make her talk?" Give me the key to the Seddi?

Ily laughed. "The Lord Minister of Internal Security does not get her job without certain skills. Sinklar, I can make her sing — and she will know every word she utters. She'll hate herself, yet at the same time she'll be unable—"

"You can do nothing, Regan bitch!" Arta cried, taking a step forward. "I defy you like I defy this other Regan filth!" She looked with acid contempt at Sinklar. "Or have you no guts. pus-licking worm that you are?"

Curse it, seeing her in the light, he new he knew her. Where? How? And the familiarity didn't have a hostile connotation, but one of security and. love? Sinklar lowered the blaster amidst confusing emotions. "Very well Lord Minister of Internal Security, she is yours. Let's hear this bird sing."

Ily's eyes glittered with triumph. "MacRuder? If you and Mhitshul would be kind enough to take the prisoner to my LC?"

"Better stun her," Sink told them. "She's dangerous." He flinched as the rod touched Arta's flesh. She stiffened and twirled before smacking limply onto the brickwork paving. Mac and Mhitshul lifted her easily and bore her past Sinklar's narrowed gaze. Fera's eyes had glazed, unfocused, her tongue lolling half out of her mouth.

Sinklar accompanied Ily, locked in his thoughts. Why had he hesitated? He should had just shot Fera and had it over with. What was wrong with him? Had grief for Gretta affected his ability to think? How could he ever fill the hollow emptiness her murder had left within?

"You have a terrible look on your face," Ily told him in a persuasive voice. "I'm sorry about your loss. Why don't you tell me about Gretta, about the way you feel."

Sinklar glanced at her from the corner of his eye. How did she do that? Adopt that intimate tone of a confidante? Beware, Sinklar, in her own way, Ily Takka is as dangerous as Arta Fera. "Don't use that tone with me, Minister. I'm not one of your subjects."

She looked away, a wry smile curling her full lips. "I'm sorry. I suppose old habits die hard. I'd like to know more about the Seddi since it appears both Tybalt and I have underestimated them." She paused. "And I would like to know more about you, who surpassed so many incredible challenges."

Sinklar gave her a more complete study, noting the finely formed bones of her face, and how her pale skin appeared delicate in the sunlight. The rich black tones of her hair shimmered. This day she wore a close-fitting black jumpsuit. She walked with a sensual swing to her hips. In his mind he could hear Gretta's voice wryly warning: "Watch it Sink!"

"What do you know so far?" he asked neutrally.

"The Seddi assassin killed Gretta Artina — the woman you loved. You found the body and barely resisted killing Fera then and there. You continued by torturing her to obtain information on the Seddi with no results."

"Yes," he said coldly, "That's essentially the story. Let me provide a fact you don't know. Gretta went to see her, to console her about Butla Ret's death. and maybe earn her confidence in order to gain information on the location of Makarta. I watched the tape. Gretta ordered Fera brought to the interrogation room. They talked for a while. Gretta. " He clamped his jaws against the hurt. "Gretta tried to be her friend. Then the alarm went off. Rysta's Divisions were dropping all over the planet. Gretta ordered the guards to join their units. Fera waited until Gretta punched in the code for the security door — then she rushed her."

Sinklar gritted his teeth. "Gretta was a little tougher than Fera realized. She got the door closed and put up a fight."

"And you saw the end?"

"I saw the end." And something inside me died with my Gretta.

Ily snapped an order into her belt comm and the ramp to her LC dropped. Sinklar followed Mac and Ily into the craft.

Fera was dropped on an acceleration bunk in Ily's LC. Mac bound her legs and arms securely and stepped back, distrustful eyes still on Ily.

The Lord Minister removed a small kit from her locker. She placed an ampoule in an injector and smiled down into Arta Fera's violent eyes. "Now, dear woman, you will tell us what you know."

"I'll see you in Rotted Hell first, you Terguzzi—" Fera yipped as Ily fired the injector into her neck.

Ily straightened and replaced the injector in her kit. "Takes it to the brain faster that way." She pointed to Fera's slackening features. "See, it's already beginning to take effect." Ily turned to the small dispenser. "Stassa? Kaffe? Choklat? I'm afraid there's not much else to offer."

She handed out cups. "Be seated, gentlemen. The recorders are running and it might take a while to completely wring her out." Ily smiled at Sinklar and arched an eyebrow triumphantly. "And when we do, we shall know everything about the Seddi that your Arta Fera knows."

"Dock twelve, bay six," a woman's voice called. The crate swayed and Staffa peered out through the hole he'd once cut. Now, instead of bleeding through it, he kept track of their progress through the Targan spaceport in Kaspa.

"Doesn't look like things are too out of hand," he muttered while Kaylla waited in the darkness. "The soldiers I see are few and far between. Most seem on good terms with the dockhands."

Above them the gantry whined, sending vibrations through the thick syalon crate.

"God, I'll be glad to get out of here," Kaylla whispered. The crate swayed wildly as it changed directions. Darkness closed around them. Staffa's hole faced to the rear after the last change in direction. They were lowered with

a thump. The huge gantry howled into high gear, retreating along its rails.

Silence.

Staffa pressed his eyes to the hole and watched as two big warehouse doors began moving, squeezing sunlight ever thinner until they clanged shut in darkness. Lights flashed on.

"All right, people," a man called, "let's see what we've got."

The syalon walls shivered as tools sprang the boomers that held the crate together. A crack of light grew above Staffa's head. He crouched and pulled his blaster as the wall lowered. The womb had been breached; he stood, blinking into the light.

A semicircle of grim-faced men and women watched him, weapons at the ready, clearly nervous. Young to middleaged, they wore either buff or bronze robes. Then the old man stepped forward and drew his attention.

Old? No, indeed, ancient better described his thin reedlike body, sunken within white robes. His bald head gleamed like a pale orb. lesh hung on his face and neck in wrinkled folds. Yet the eyes glittered with a vibrant strength to belie the age and worry in his features. He clasped birdlike hands before him in a stoop-shouldered unassuming pose.

The old man smied and bobbed his head before speaking in a reedy voice. "After all these years Lord Commander, welcome to Targa."

"Magister!" Kaylla cried reverently as she walked unsteadily forward to stand before the old man. Then she placed her arms around him in a gentle, loving hug.

The Magister's face lit, a gleam in his eyes, as he pulled her close, patting her back, running his fingers through her hair.

"Dearest Stailla, you have returned to us! How wonderful to see you. But wait, could it be? You've come back to finally warm my bed at night?" he cackled. "And here I'd finally given up hope that you really loved me."

She pulled back, but as she saw his dancing eyes, her man-horror melted to be replaced by an anxious laugh. She shook her head, clucking her tongue. "You never change, do you Magister Bruen? Honestly, one of these days—"

"Magister," the black-skinned man interrupted pointedly. "We must get out of here, it's no longer safe to. "

Bruen lifted a hand, sighing, and turning to Staffa. "If you would Lord Commander, we have much to discuss, and I'm afraid the building is under surveillance."

Staffa still stood in the crate, legs braced in a combat stance. His eyes darted warily to each of the guards.

"Lower your weapons, people." Bruen stepped forward, offering his hand. "Come, Lord Commander, I offer you my word that you shall not be assassinated while in my presence. Please, holster your weapon."

Staffa stared into the old man's watery eyes and nodded, reholstering the blaster. A wry smile curled around his lips. "A man in my position can't be too careful, Magister. You might say the rug has been pulled from under my feet more than once in the last couple of months."

Bruen grinned. "I have a great many questions to ask you. You, no doubt, have a great many to ask me. The Seddi have worked long and hard to bring you into our talons. Now, we find, after all these years and all our careful plots, you come not as a corpse, but perhaps as an ally?" The old man shook his head in amazement. "You've always been special, Lord Commander. Once again, you have defied prediction. It has been hinted that you became aware. If that is indeed the case, the ways of the quanta— and God — treat us all like the fools we are."

"I imagine we're fools more often than not."

"Come, follow me to the office, and we'll sit over a cup of stassa and talk." Bruen pointed out the way and Staffa wound through stacks of gray syalon crates to a small office that jutted out from one wall. The entire way, the nerves in his back prickled. How many weapons covered his every move? Did snipers lurk among the shadows overhead?

And what if they did? Death had been his companion from the moment he'd set foot on Etaria. Each moment after Broddus gassed him had been borrowed.

Bruen opened the door to the office. It contained four desks, computer consoles, stacks of manifest flimsies, and a stassa machine on a counter to the rear. Windows looked out into the warehouse on one side and outside on the other. Staffa stepped over to look out onto an empty street. From the angle of the sun, night would fall soon. A scarred

wooden door was the only barrier to freedom — assuming they didn't have the street covered with sharpshooters, too.

Bruen grunted as he settled into a desk chair and rubbed at his hip. "I'm not as young as I used to be."

"None of us are," Staffa said quietly.

Kaylla stepped into the room and stood uncertainly, wary glance shifting between Staffa and Bruen.

The Magister looked up, a pensive expression on his face. "Lord Commander, what happened on Myklene? You saw the Praetor — and then everything changed."

Staffa narrowed his eyes. What should he say?

"You have to start somewhere, Staffa," Kaylla reminded. "Or else all those words in the crate were meaningless."

Staffa took a deep breath. "Yes, he and I met — and I found out the extent to which he'd manipulated my life. He called me his greatest creation, a construct. It was as if. "

"A floodgate had opened in your mind," Bruen finished. "And you suddenly discovered that you didn't know who or what you were."

Staffa stepped forward, placing knuckles on the desk and staring down into Bruen's placid eyes. "You know a lot about me."

"I know a lot about the Praetor," Bruen countered, refusing to flinch under Stafs hard gaze. "I know how brilliant he was when it came to biotechnology, genetics, physiological and developmental psychology, and a host of other disciplines. About Staffa kar Therma, I know relatively littleexcept that your behavior is not the same as it was before the conquest of Myklene."

Staffa straightened and turned away, a tidal rush of emotion loose inside.

Bruen continued, "You left Itreata to find out what had gone wrong with you, didn't you? Your behavior became erratic, illogical, and unpredictable. And all the predictions went askew — everything for naught."

"For naught?" Staffa crossed his arms, leaning against one of the desks. "I don't understand."

Bruen raised his eyebrows, altering the patterns of wrinkles on his face. "For the moment that doesn't matter. It's the future we all must face now. Things have changed. I must find out how much. Who are you now Lord Com-

mander? What are your plans for the Companions, for the future? What has the Praetor done to you? Should the Seddi trust you? Or destroy you?"

"Why should I trust the Seddi?" Staffa countered. "You've been trying to assassinate me for years."

"And you have systematically worked to crush the hopes, aspirations, and dreams of billions while you ground them under your steel boot."

"Excuse me," Kaylla said, stepping forward. "I doubt either side is free of sin. Magister, you were right when you said the future is the important challenge for the moment. I think the Lord Commander understands the threat to humanity — and after the sands of Etaria and the weight of the colar, I believe he shares an empathy he never had before."

Bruen clapped his hands, looking up at Staffa. "Well said, Master Kahn." He didn't see Kaylla flinch at the words. "Very well Lord Commander. What are you here to do?"

Staffa glanced at Kaylla, a weary smile on his lips. "I'm here to find my son. The Praetor left him in your hands many years ago. When I have done that, I'm going to return to Itreata and seek to repair the damage to Free Space. My ultimate goal remains unchanged. I intend on unifying humanity and breaking the curse of the Forbidden Borders. What has changed are the mans by which I will attain that end." Staffa smiled grimly. "The conqueror is dead, Magister Bruen. Perhaps the liberator has been bom."

Bruen turned his old blue eyes on Kaylla. "Do you believe him?"

She nodded, a hard glint in her own eyes. "I do, for the most part." At Bruen's questioning look, she added, "Words are easily spoken, Magister. I've heard the Lord Commander's words. I'll wait to see his actions."

"But a decision must be made based on what he says." Bruen cocked his head. "Do we give him a chance Master Kahn?"

Staffa tensed, aware of the stinging pain that title had to cause Kaylla. He met her somber gaze, guts in a knot as he waited for her answer.

She took a deep breath. "I think we should. If we don't, everything we believe in, all of our philosophy, is nothing more than vulgar hypocrisy."

"Magister," the dark man called, as he struck his head in the door. "I can't get Hyrim. His line is cut off."

"Fist!" someone yelled in the warehouse. "He's onto us! Him and that Regan raptor!"

"Wilm? We had better be gone from here," Bruen told the black man. "Bring the car around."

Wilm disappeared, slamming the door behind him.

Bruen sighed and stood up, wincing at the pain in his hip. "It appears Lord Commander, that we must get you safely to Makarta. From there, we will see to firming up our relations, contacting your Wing Commander, and finding the records about your son."

"I'd rather work on my own."

"I understand that Lord Commander, but Ily Takka is on Targa, and I fear she's breached our security. Would you rather trust me for the moment, or her?"

Wilm stopped a groundcar before the door and Bruen stepped out into the slanting sunlight. Staffa followed Kaylla as she climbed in and settled on the cushions. Two of the guards lifted Bruen into the seat with reverent hands.

"Go!" Wilm called. "I have a report. There are troops closing!" He turned, motioning. "The rest of you, scatter! Cover us if you can!"

Wilm leapt aboard after plucking up a shoulder blaster. Staffa's head jerked back as the car accelerated and the fans blew gravel and dust out behind them.

"I'm sorry," Bruen began apologetically. "We had no idea you would be walking into a hornet's nest. You see, Sinklar Fist has taken the planet — a feat beyond any of our expectations. Further, he has one of our assassins in custody who. Well, she was supposed to kill you Lord Commander."

Staffa tore his squinted gaze from the brick-lined street they accelerated down to stare at the old man.

"Left!" the driver, a blonde woman, shouted as she sloughed the craft to the right at the first intersection.

Wilm leveled his blaster, the weapon ripping a long charge into a formation of combat armored men and women who spilled out of an adjoining street.

Reflexes triggered, Staffa climbed high in the seat and braced himself, his own blaster flashing controlled shots into the scrambling troops.

The car swerved, blaster bolts tearing jaggedly through the air around them. Staffa fought for balance and barely caught himself as they slid around the curve and scattered yet another detachment of troops trotting toward them. Flattening himself over the rear of the vehicle, Staffa laced fire to cover their retreat. His shots hit home with that phenomenal accuracy which had always been his.

A pulse of air patted his back and tickled his spine with the familiar sensation of a thermal grenade launcher discharging its payload of death. A split second later, the end of the street expoded in fragments of brick, boiling dust, and flying glass.

"Not so bad for an old fart!" Bruen cackled gleefully, as he struggled to pull his grenade launcher up off the seat where he'd braced it.

"How did they know that was our warehouse?" Wilm wondered.

Tne car pitched sideways as the woman expertly guided it around yet another corner. Staffa caught a quick glimpse of worry in Kaylla's eyes as they careened past a delivery vehicle and dived into a lighted and tiled tunnel.

Bruen pointed and said, "There, I think." The woman shot the car through the light traffic to slow next to a service hatch.

"Quickly!' Wilm called, aad jacked the hatch open.

Staffa bodily picked Kaylla up and tossed her into the blackness before turning to help the old man.

"You, Star Butcher." Wilm pointed a hard finger. "You don't touch a hair on that man's head! You hear?"

"Hair?" Bruen wondered from where he had propped himself in the hatch. "On my head? Begone, Wilm!"

Before Staffa could open his mouth, the car flashed down the tunnel.

"Please," Bruen called, seeing the stiffness in Staffa's face. "Close the door. Master Wim is nervous given the current Regan harassment. Do forgive him. Enemies do not become allies overnight without a few problems; and we do have a long way to go yet today."

Staffa looked at the old man, struggling to balance his violent emotions, and ducked gracefully through the crawl space before sealing the hatch. The place smelled musty with the odor of damp rock. The air carried a chill. In the

darkness, he could hear Bruen shuffling. Lights flickered to life in the ceiling.

"Now, let's see," Bruen mused as he tottered down the cement-lined tunnel, ducking under thick bundles of cable and conduit. "Oh my, it's been so long." His voice carried a note of confusion. "Who would have thought. "

Staffa had to crouch in the narrow space. He looked nervously behind him at the closed hatch. Kaylla moved in Bruen's wake, bent low to keep her head out of the thick nest of wiring.

"Allies?" Staffa asked uncertainly.

"But, of course," Bruen added amiably. "It appears that one of our people, u, you'd know him as Nyklos, had the misfortune to follow your Skyla Lyma into an alley in Etams. Alas, he should know that any man who follows a beautiful woman into a dark alley is in trouble beyond his means. To our chagrin, she managed to slip a little Mytol past Nyklos' resisting lips — and, of course, you know the inevitable result of that! Worse, his self-destruct didn't work. He babbled like a baby."

Staffa grinned maliciously to himself, imagining the scene, as Skyla took matters into her own hands. Odd, Nyklos had appeared to be in one piece when Staffa saw him on Etarus. Perhaps Skyla was slipping in his absence?

Bruen continued chattering, "Lyma considered the fact that we, too, were seeking you, as was Minister Ily Takka. At that juncture, Lyma, through her control of Nyklos, placed herself in contact with me. It seems she had a favorable opinion of the Seddi for some reason and wanted to open a dialogue to determine our mutual interest."

Staffa cocked an eyebrow. "So you told her you were trying to assassinate me?"

Bruen scowled at him. "That would hardly have been appropriate. She informed us that you were bound for Targa to find your son. We informed her that, for the moment, we would consider ourselves allied with the Companions to get you here. I considered it worth the risk. If nothing else, I wanted to find out why you suddenly went off on a tangent. At best, you'd be safely in our control. With Skyla's help we got you free of Ily, and Stailla, here, told us—"

"Magister," Kaylla's voice came low and firm. "You will

no longer call me that. I am now Kaylla Dawn. That other woman died on Maika."

Bruen's bald head gleamed in the glare of the overhead bulbs. "Of course. Yes… I suppose she did. Very well, getting on with my story. Kaylla, here, vouched for you." He shook his head. "I must say, that set us back some. Nevertheless, since we had been trying to get at you for years—"

"Trying to get at me?" Staffa asked. "That's something of an understatement for assassination, isn't it?"

Bruen ignored the comment as he brushed dust and grime from a brick. He chortled as he fingered the corners and the piece slid back into the wall. More Stygian darkness lay beyond the tiny square. Without hesitation or attention to white robes, he dropped to all fours in a cracking of ancient joints and crawled painfully into the darkness, mumbling under his breath.

Kaylla gave Staffa a measuring look and scurried through after Bruen. Staffa shook his head with resignation as he, too, ducked into the hole. He had to hunch his broad shoulders through the limited space. Once passed, the square of stone moved easily back into place.

"Drat!" Bruen's rasping voice grunted. "Light's dead. Hum. Seems we've forgotten so many of our practices over the years. Safety is a curse that way. It lulls, causes a person to forget the old precautions."

Kaylla's voice came from the darkness, "Do you have some sort of vehicle in here?"

"That's right."

Staffa started to stand up, cracking his head on low-hanging rock. He felt around, grumbling under his breath, "Should have had Skyla meet us with the fleet! Could have gone anywhere we wanted that way!"

"And started a war," Bruen informed absently from the darkness.

"A war? Who would dare fire on a Companion ship in Regan space?"

"Any other Regan ship," Bruen muttered. "Oh! Yes, you've been out of contact. Indeed, you have a lot of catching up to do."

"I don't understand. You mean—"

"Ah-ha! Here it is!" Bruen cried from farther away.

Staffa, one hand warily placed over his head to trace the rough cold stone, the other feeling through the darkness, moved toward the sound. Smooth plasteel met his groping fingers. Another groundcar? Here, in this impossible darkness?

Something thumped and the vehicle trembled under his fingers before humming to life. The headlamps dazzled in the darkness, as they pointed into a black forever. To either side, irregular rounded rock confined them.

"Targa," Bruen informed as he climbed into the driver's seat, "was once a highly volcanic planet. Several millennia ago, humans first located the system and noticed the extremely high carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Vulcanism does that, you know. Frees C02 from the rock. Their predictive models indicated that with the introduction of certain terrestrial species, they could reduce the greenhouse effect and make Targa habitable. They began by seeding the atmosphere with algae. No one expected such quick success. This world became the first human foothold in the area we now call Free Space. Of them all, Targa is the oldest human planet. All the plant and animal species here come from Earth."

"I thought Earth was a myth." Staffa climbed into the cramped vehicle to sit next to Kaylla.

"Oh, no myth," Bruen waved a hand, the movement eerie in the instrument glow of the control panel. They started moving forward in the damp darkness. "We don't know exactly what happened; the records were severely censured, but Earth lies out there, somewhere beyond the Forbidden Borders. "

"So whoever controls Earth controls the Forbidden Borders?"

"No. They came later." Bruen told him. "At least we think they did. We don't know why or bow or when. Something cut us off, purposely-but I miss my point.

"What I was saying is that the planet was volcanic, Tunnels like these used to be vents where hot gases rushed to the surface, bearing, among other things, the carbon dioxide so necessary for life. The first Seddi priests made good use of them not only to locate minerals for mining, but also for transportation corridors since the upper atmosphere was unpredictable at best in the early years."

"So you can go where you will without anyone in orbit knowing," Staffa mused, remembering how no Seddi had been found when he'd razed the planet almost twenty years ago.

"You begin to see the advantages," Bruen agreed, sending them down a narrow

side tunnel. "From here we coordinated the entire Targan revolt-even to the point of moving troops in enclosed personnel carriers so they couldn't divulge our secret."

"And yet you say this Fist person has defeated you?" Bruen's head bowed slightly, as if lost in thought. Lumpy knobs of rock flashed by, polished from thousands of years of gases. They cast irregular jumpy outlines in the headlamps of the car. The air whistled past cool and damp, a bracing sensation against Staffa's skin. Kaylla had pulled her arms tight about her to keep warm.

Bruen's voice came uncertainly, as if the subject made him nervous. "His name is Sinklar Fist. He rose through the ranks from total obscurity. What matters is that he has single-handedly destroyed not only the Targan resistance, but he also decimated and devastated five veteran Regan Assault Divisions. "

"Five Divisions?" Staffa wondered. "And Fist's strength?"

"For all practical purposes, he was outnumbered five to one. He has thrown away their assault manual and instituted the most innovative strategies to keep himself alive. Needless to say, he's most definitely a military genius. From the beginning, he has constantly been outnumbered, in a strategic nightmare, and in control of green troops. With veterans, there's no telling what he could do."

:'Then I take it Rega didn't drop their best on him?" 'Quite the contrary," Bruen grumbled. "Tybalt sent Commander Rysta Braktov's group of veteran-"

"Fist defeated Henck and Valvet and Singtow and Weebouw?" Staffa demanded, coming bolt upright. "Rysta wouldn't go anywhere without them in her command."

"You would know better than I." Bruen lifted a bony shoulder. "The fact remains, Weebouw and Beemhan are dead along with their commands. Henck, Valvet, and Singtow are currently in Fist's prison and he's negotiating with

Ily Takka-yes, the very same. She arrived almost a week ago and watched the battle."

"Then she knows I'm here," Staffa whispered to himself, leaning back in the seat.

"Oh, I doubt it." Bruen shivered and reached under the seat to flip a pile of insulation blankets out, passing them to the rear after he'd wrapped one around himself. Kaylla took hers thankfully although the cool air soothed Staffa. "She thinks you're safely back in the Itreatic Asteroids with Skyla Lyma. The last place she would expect you would be is here. "

"She should be worried about me being loose. She knows that one word to Tybalt and she's dead. "

"I started to tell you." Bruen smacked his lips distastefully. "Ily has convinced Tybalt that the Companions are under contract to Sassa, that you lied when you said you wouldn't dicker. Your presence on Etaria is considered proof since you didn't enter under your own name but veiled your identity when you arrived. Any Regan ship will no doubt fire on a Companion vessel."

Staffa ground his teeth. "That's insane! Rega can't stand against the Companions. No one can!"

Bruen slowed the car, the round vault of his head silhouetted in the darkness as he turned to look back at Staffa. "11y doesn't think so. She thinks she's found her answer."

"I'll never deal with Tybalt as long as she's in power. What she did to Kaylla and me on Etaria-"

"Has nothing to do with it," Bruen interrupted. "She's no longer concerned with you, Staffa kar Therma. At least not in regard to Rega's expansion into Sassan territory. She'll worry about you all right, but when she's in position to strike you a crippling blow. Indeed, she's found someone whom she thinks can destroy Sassa… and you.

"That's a bold assumption."

"Sinklar Fist is a bold man," Bruen replied, accelerating into the darkness again.