Eustus watched as he carefully carved it with the claws of his shaking hands, slicing the meat into finger- wide strips. Only when it was completely cut did he begin to eat, his eyes all the while fixed on Eustus.
Slowly, with his hands at his sides, Eustus backed up to the far wall and took a seat on the floor, watching as Shera-Khan inhaled his food. The boy sniffed at one of the mugs. Glancing at Eustus, he hefted it to his lips and swallowed some of the warm, bitter ale that had been Reza’s favorite drink. He made a quiet humph of evident satisfaction before drinking down the rest.
In but a few minutes, both pieces of meat were gone, consumed by the boy’s hunger and the whispered order of the warrior. That done, he turned to her with the other mug, offering her a drink. Drawn to the heady scent of the ale, the warrior tried to lever herself upright, but only managed a few centimeters before her strength gave out. Shera-Khan tried to lift her head, but she was too heavy for him to move.
“Let me help,” Eustus offered, coming slowly over to them, his arms before him, palms up.
Shera-Khan narrowed his eyes, but did not try to hinder Eustus as he knelt down beside him. With trembling hands, Eustus cradled the great warrior’s head, lifting her enough that she could swallow some of the ale the boy held to her lips.
As Eustus gently lowered her back onto the bed, the Kreelan warrior’s eyes met his. Her lips seemed to struggle, and then formed two words that Eustus would remember for the rest of his life.
“Thank… you,” she said softly. He stared blankly at her for a moment, too shocked to speak.
“You’re… you’re welcome,” he breathed finally. She motioned almost imperceptibly with her head in acknowledgment before her eyes closed again, a grimace of pain flickering over her blackened face.
“I wish I knew what was wrong with her,” Eustus muttered to himself.
“She mourns,” the boy beside him said softly.
Concealing his shock at the boy’s knowledge of Standard, Eustus asked in a carefully controlled voice, “What do you mean, ‘she mourns?’ Who is she mourning for?” An explanation for how – and why – the boy had learned humanity’s primary language would have to wait.
The boy turned his blazing green eyes to him. “She mourns for the Empress,” he said with a voice far, far older than his years, with a sadness that gripped Eustus’s heart, “who now sleeps in Darkness, Her heart and spirit broken by Her Own hand.” The boy shivered, as if sobbing. “The hour that should have been the greatest in our history, the crowning glory of our people, cast us instead into chaos and ruin. Her voice no longer sings in our blood, Her spirit is silent. Behind a barrier of fire, She lays dying of guilt and grief. And so, too, shall we die.”
“What do you mean?” Eustus asked. “Who’s going to die?”
The boy looked up at him, a stricken expression on his face. “All that has ever been, all that is, all that will ever be, shall be no more the moment Her heart ceases to beat, Her last breath taken. With the First Empress was our Way destined. With Her heart stilled shall it end, and Her Children shall perish from the world.”
Eustus glanced up just in time to see Commodore Marchand disappearing, no doubt for the comms center and a patch through to sector command. She had no more idea of what the boy was talking about than Eustus did, but the significance of those words was apparent enough. Something was seriously wrong in the Empire, and if it could be exploited to the Confederation’s advantage, they might have a hope of winning this war.
Eustus was about to ask more questions, to press the boy for what he meant, when Shera-Khan curled onto the floor, trembling. Without thinking, Eustus reached out to him, taking him into his arms as he might have any bereaved human child. And then, when what he had just done struck home, he realized that this was not an alien enemy, implacable and unstoppable, but the son of his best friend.
“Shera-Khan,” he said, “would you like to meet your father?”
The boy stiffened against him. “The priestess told me of this,” he replied hesitantly, “that you had made signs to her while on the nursery world that my father was alive. But how can it be so? The Empress’s blade cut through his heart.”
“No, no,” Eustus said, holding Shera-Khan so that their eyes met. “He didn’t die in that battle. He was terribly wounded, yes, but he survived. He’s still alive, on Earth.” He paused. “He doesn’t even know he has a son, that he has you.”
Shera-Khan did not know what to believe. He desperately wished his father to be alive, but he could not understand how it could be so. His mother would never have let the humans take him had there been a breath remaining in his body.
The great priestess suddenly spoke, her voice little more than a murmur.
“The priestess bids you to take us to him,” Shera-Khan translated for her. “To Reza. My father.”
As he looked out over the apron of the New York flight terminal, Tony Braddock silently wondered how many times he had been at places like this. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps? But he had always been the one about to step onto a waiting shuttle, impatient loadmasters herding their human cargo aboard as if they were ignorant cattle, which perhaps they sometimes were.
But today, as he had on several previous occasions, he was bidding farewell to the woman he loved. They would see one another again as the Armada sailed into enemy space, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was leaving him.
Nicole stood beside him, her mind focused on the anthill of humans and machines that had been working around the clock for the past two days. They were moving millions of tons of materiel and hundreds of thousands of people in support of the great armada that at this very moment was assembling in the skies above the Earth and a hundred other worlds that were home to Humanity. Her fighter, one of dozens that still crowded the ramps at this late hour, was fueled and ready. The crew chief, a man she had never met before, stood impatiently by.
He looked at her, and wondered if he were not a fool for not knocking her to the ground and carrying her away from this madness. She was hardly in shape for a fight, he told himself. The business with Reza – Braddock still refused to believe it – had eaten at her like a cancer since Reza’s escape several days ago. Her bond to him was yet unbroken, he was sure, but where it would lead her, God alone only knew.
And then the new president had announced the formation of the great fleet to carry out Operation Millennium. The call for “every able-bodied flight officer and rating” to serve on the horde of warships and auxiliaries that was about to sail into Kreelan space had drawn her inexorably, like a bee to an intoxicating nectar. They had argued about it, but only once: Tony had learned early on that after Nicole had decided something, there was no appeal. She was a fighter pilot, she had told him firmly, and would not be denied the chance to participate in the Confederation’s finest hour. Tony knew it was more than that: it was an opportunity, no matter how slight, of somehow finding Reza. She stood a better chance of finding him somewhere among the stars than anywhere on Earth.
Braddock, too, would be setting sail with The Armada, as it was now being called. Borge had insisted on going aboard the flagship, and had told the Council in not-so-subtle terms that anyone who did not accompany him was a coward and a traitor. The sycophants, of course, ever ready to seize any opportunity to implant themselves further in Borge’s rectum, had hailed the action as a stroke of patriotic genius. Braddock and his few remaining compatriots were compelled to join the parade, regardless of their own opinions of the foolhardiness of the expedition. While Braddock had not had a chance to speak with Zhukovski directly, he had seen the resigned look on his face when Borge announced in a joint civil-military meeting that he and his entourage were going along. L’Houillier had hung his head. There was little doubt in Braddock’s mind as to who would really be in charge of the operation. Braddock’s greatest surprise was that Borge hadn’t sacked both L’Houillier and Zhukovski, until he realized that the megalomaniac was keeping them as scapegoats in case of failure.
Like a dark cloud temporarily obscuring the sun, Tony found himself hoping the flagship would not return home.
“It is time,” Nicole said quietly, washing away the dark thoughts in Braddock’s mind. Across the apron, the crew chief was holding up his wrist and pointing.
Tony kissed her, and they held one another for a brief moment. “Take care of yourself, Nicole. Please. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
She nodded, squeezing him tighter. “I love you,” she said before letting go.
“
She smiled, then turned to go.
He watched as she climbed into her ship. The crew chief made sure she was strapped in before he climbed
