She was about to say something when her eyes caught sight of the dark metal shape in Thorella’s hand.
“Sorry, counselor,” he said. His voice did not sound particularly apologetic.
Thorella’s predatory smile was the last thing she saw before the blast from his pistol vaporized her skull.
“Sir!” shouted the comms technician from her console. “We’ve got trouble!”
“What now?” Washington Hawthorne growled, covering the distance to the lance corporal’s position in three great strides.
“Sergeant Bayern radioed ‘Black Watch,’ then she went off the air,” the comms tech said as her fingers flew over the console’s controls. “I haven’t been able to raise her again. No contact with PFC Morita, either.”
Hawthorne’s face grew tight, his fists clenching tight. “She didn’t get out what it was?”
“No sir,” the comms tech told him. “But I heard what sounded like firing, pulse guns.” She paused. “Two shots. I think Bayern was already hit when she called in.”
Hawthorne’s blood ran cold with anger. “Goddamn,” he hissed.
“What happened?” Enya asked quietly, afraid of what she might hear. “What is ‘Black Watch?’”
Hawthorne turned to her, his eyes angry white orbs in his black face. “That’s a shorthand code for what we call a losing proposition, when Death has you by the collar and you’ve only got time to get out a word or two. Two Marines, and probably Counselor Savitch, are gone. Dead.”
“My Lord,” Enya whispered, getting unsteadily to her feet. “Why? What could have happened?”
Hawthorne turned on her, his voice savage not because he wanted it to be, but because he needed the truth, and fast. “Were any of the Mallorys planning anything against Belisle or Savitch? Anything?”
Enya shook her head, shocked that he would even consider such a thing. “Of course not,” she said angrily, her own fears boiling up inside. “We had everything to gain from the Counselor’s intervention, and literally nothing to lose. None of the Mallorys, even the farthest fringes, planned anything but cooperation with her. We did not trust Belisle – as I see now was wise – but we were not planning anything against him. We have suffered too much and waited too long for what the counselor promised to deliver. Only now it looks as though it was all in vain.”
Hawthorne nodded, relieved. “I’m sorry Enya, but I had to know.”
She nodded that she understood. “What will you do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said, uncomfortable with the situation. His choices were extremely limited. It had been bad enough sitting a few kilometers from some kind of Kreelan-induced cataclysm, the full effects of which they could not even guess at. Now he had to deal with what appeared to be treachery and murder on the part of fellow humans. “It looks like we’ll have to send a recon patrol in to find Savitch, but–”
“Reza!” Enya suddenly exclaimed as she saw the Marine captain emerge from behind the curtain that separated his sick-bed from the ops center. His face was extraordinarily pale, even in this dim light. She ran over to help him as he began to slump against the wall. Hawthorne was close behind. “You should be in bed!” Enya told him as she helped him up. “You look terrible.”
He shook his head, a look of impatience on his face.
“Captain,” Hawthorne said as he took over from Enya in helping Reza, wrapping one tree-trunk of an arm around his commander’s waist.
“Washington,” he rasped as his exec settled him onto one of the metal chairs clustered around the tactical display, “we are in grave, grave danger.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Hawthorne handed Reza a canteen, from which Reza drank greedily. He was soaked with sweat, dehydrated.
“First, tell me exactly what happened when I passed out.”
Hawthorne turned to Enya, who guiltily explained everything that had happened in the mountain and since then. Reza listened in silence, his eyes focused on the wall, on something only he could see.
“What does it mean?” she asked when she was through. “What will happen to us? To Erlang?”
“Very likely,” Reza said, “this world will be destroyed.” They sat in stunned silence as he went on. “You have stumbled upon something that has been lost to the Empire for over one hundred thousand years, something that they value over all else in the Universe: the tomb of the First Empress. She was the most powerful of their kind who has ever lived.” He paused for a moment, taking another drink. “I have no doubt that every available Kreelan warship within hundreds of parsecs is heading here at this very moment.”
“Can we capture or destroy it?” Washington asked, groping for some kind of leverage, something he could fight the enemy with when they came. “Maybe even take it hostage?”
Reza shook his head. “You cannot take a spirit hostage, nor can it be captured or destroyed.” He nodded toward the wall display that showed a panorama of the outside and the glowing bowl that once had been a mountain, and was now only a reflector of the crystal heart’s mysterious aura. “Anyone or anything who is not of the Blood and ventures into that light will perish as surely as if they had set foot upon the face of a star.”
“And if you think that’s good news,” Hawthorne said grimly, “you’re going to love this…” He told Reza about what had happened to Bayern and Morita, and his suspicions that Savitch was dead.
Eustus suddenly appeared through the tunnel entrance to the bunker, his back soaked with sweat: the air conditioner in his skimmer was not working.
“Reza!” he blurted. His eyes were wide with relief that his friend and commanding officer was alive. But his enthusiasm dimmed when he saw the look on everyone’s face. It was the expression of the Damned. “What’s wrong? What the hell is going on?”
“Eustus,” Enya said, coming to embrace him openly in front of his fellow Marines, something she had promised him she would never do, “I fear I have killed us all.”
“What–” He never got a chance to finish.
“Captain,” the corporal at the comms console interrupted, her face ashen, but for a different reason, “Sir, I think you’d better come over here.”
Reza did as she asked, walking unsteadily the two meters to her position. “Yes, corporal?”
“It’s a call for you, sir,” she said, stepping away from the terminal.
And there on the visual display was the grinning face of Colonel Markus Thorella.
“Well, well, well,” he said, “if it isn’t my favorite captain.” The smile grew wider, more menacing. “It’s been a long time, Gard.”
Reza’s blood trilled with fury at the man’s face, Belisle just visible behind him: the mysterious deaths of his two Marines had just been explained.
The two men glared at one another for a long time, Reza struggling to restrain the fire in his blood, Thorella smiling with unconcealed smugness.
“What did you do to my Marines?” Reza asked in a voice as cold and empty as the depths of space.
“I was just going to ask you about that, captain,” Colonel Thorella said conversationally. “It would appear that the civil authority here,” he nodded to Belisle, “seems to think they got a little out of hand. What was it you said, Mr. President?” he asked rhetorically. “Ah, yes. Murdering Counselor Savitch. I’m afraid my troops and I weren’t quite fast enough to keep
“And what of the Mallorys in the Parliament Building?” Enya blurted out from behind Reza.
“Ah,” Thorella said brightly. “You must be the young and witty Enya Terragion. I’m terribly sorry, my dear, but your friends have been arrested as accomplices to murder. Even as we speak, the rest of your illegal council is being arrested. But don’t worry. We’ll be by soon enough to take care of you, too.” He turned his attention back to Reza, who stood shivering with rage. “And you, captain, should not have been so stupid as to try and be the great righter of perceived wrongs,” he said as if he were speaking to a child who had done something wrong, but who should have known better. “You were foolish to the last, and now you’re going to pay the price. Hawthorne!”
“Sir,” the big man said, reluctantly moving toward the screen. He knew what was coming.
“So nice to see you again, Hawthorne. It’s too bad you didn’t choose another regiment, though. You might have one day made a good regimental commander. As it is, you’ll go no higher than your friend.” To whom he turned his attention once again. “Captain Gard, as senior Marine officer on Erlang, I hereby relieve you of your
