Requiem for the Conqueror

by W. Michael Gear

  "Holy Gods! What did I do?" Gulping air, she slapped the throttle forward.

  In the back seat Magister Bruen hummed softly to himself as he wiped the water from her thermal grenade launcher.

  Skyla Lyma stretched her long legs as she sat in Chrysla command chair and wished she could get up and pace to restore circulation, or do anything except carry on this conversation with the Sassan admiral whose image filled the main bridge monitor.

  Chrysla's spotless bridge gleamed in the overhead lighting. Polished deck plating and well maintained duty stations reflected the pride the Companions had in their flagship. And it didn't stop with hardware. First officers bent to their monitors while various techs murmured softly to the computers. Behind her the Ground Tactics Team coordinated mop-up activities on the planet below.

  Two officers manned the Traffic Contro station, ensuring that only cleared vehicles approached—and even those under Chrysla's watchful eye. Holographic monitors denoted ship's status, and repair work where Myklenian hits had been scored. Across from Skyla, the face of Imperial Admiral Iban Jakre filled the main bridge monitor.

  Pompous ass!

  "We are very pleased," Jakre's oily voice droned on. "I understand the Lord Commander's regrets at the unfortunate demise of the Praetor. The financial remuneration satisfies His Holiness completely. We do not consider it a breach of contract. In fact, we are more than pleased with the services rendered."

  And well you ought to be! Staffa sent your God-Emperor a planet's ransom for breaking contract and killing that vile invalid. She ran slim fingers lightly over the stassa cup in her right hand. Idly she wondered if anyone anywhere had ever paid so much for a man's death.

  "We're pleased with His Holiness' understanding, Admiral."

  Iban studied her with the all too familiar look she'd come to expect from men.

  The change of voice from official to intimate hardly surprised her.

  "If you could find the time Wing Commander, I would be more than honored to enjoy your presence. Perhaps you would allow me to extend His Holiness'

  hospitality for dinner aboard my flagship?" He inclined his head, eyes glittering. "We could make it a personal affair, perhaps dispense with the ritual of office for once. Relax."

  You're almost drooling, Sassan pig. She kept her face neutral. "Thank you for your kind offer Admiral. Unfortunately, I am in charge of fleet supervision while the Lord Commander is off-duty. I'm sure you understand. We have some battle damage to repair—wounded to attend to—and our schedule is tight. We have another offer of employment which the Lord Commander is presently negotiating." Just to remind you we're free mercenaries Admiral faggot! "I echo the Lord Commander's appreciation for your kind offer." As if you'd invited him!

  Iban nodded, a perfect example of a pained administrator. "I do understand. I look forward to your company, Wing Commander, when your duties are, shall we say, less demanding." He pressed palms together sensually, the fivejeweled rings sparkling on his fat fingers. His belly had

  begun to expand and sag where his tired muscles were failing to hold it in.

  "I'm sure that a woman of your skill and a man of my position must have many things in common. I'd not want the Lord Commander to misperceive my intentions, but you are a free agent, are you not Wing Commander? Perhaps Sassa could make you a very attractive offer?"

  Not for that! She smiled graciously, fingers tightening on her cup, and added,

  "Of course. Do understand, however, that my first obligation is to the Lord Commander. I doubt Sassa could afford my salary."

  Jakre giggled. "I would love the opportunity to discuss that with you."

  She forced her smile. "One of the first rules of the Companions is that we never close the door to options. For the moment, however, I must decline."

  "But if—"

  "Admiral, please forgive me, I have duties to attend to. I'll be in touch."

  He made a deprecatory gesture with his hand and ducked his head in a semblance of a bow. "I hope to hear from you soon, Wing Commander. Sassa offers many opportunities for a woman of your talent."

  "Until then Admiral." She killed the connection, casting a deadly glance at the monitor. Nerveless, pus-gutted sycophant! He and his kind were the Sassan Empire. How long could they hold it without the military might of the Lord Commander? How long would it last past the raping of the treasuries of their conquered words? They fawned over their God-Emperor—and worse, they had sold it to the people with such zeal they'd come to believe in Sassa's divinity themselves. In an Ashtan pig's eye!

  She turned her attention to the stat board and noted the progress made by the repair crews workig on Jinx Mistress. The vessel would be space-worthy in another day—testament to the Companions' technical abilities. She okayed the progress report, realizing that Staffa usually got to such matters before she did.

  Her attention shifted to the far monitor where Myklene turned, a lime crescent on the screen. Little patches of black—smoke from burning cities—mixed with the cloud cover. Beyond the terminator, red eyes of fire-lit smoke could be made out.

  The legacy of war.

  Damn it, Staffa, what happened in that hospital room down there? For almost half of her forty years Skyla had followed the Lord Commander, studying him like she'd studied no other human being. And in all those years, I've never seen you go berserk like that.

  Since his return to the ship, he'd locked himself away in his quarters and she'd attended to the administration of the fleet, receiving orders from him via comm—and only one at that: the order to reimburse the Sassans for the death of the Praetor.

  She tapped long callused fingers on the command console, thoughts twisting around the scene in the Myklenian hospital. At Staffa's scream they'd burst through the door, expecting to see him dying, expecting Myklenian or Sassan treachery.

  And there he'd stood like some avenging angel, literally twisting the Praetors head off his body. Staffa had shrieked ike a man being crushed alive.

  From the moment he'd returned to the ship, Staffa had disappeared into the depths of his private rooms. His comm had remained ominously silent. Skyla tilted her head, eyes narrowed. That wasn't like him. Her nerves prickled with that old familiar premonition of trouble. What had that dying old man done?

  What power had he used to goad Staffa into killing him? The Praetor? Who had he been, and more important, what had he been to Staffa?

  "It's none of your business, Skyla," she growled under her breath.

  Or was it? She reached into her equipment belt, tracing absent fingers along the tape she'd extracted from the hospital unit. She'd kept her wits and thought to check. Hospital units always had recorders built into the machines to enable physicians to review treatment, visitors, or any events which might help or harm the patient.

  Do I play it? Skyla pursed her lips and frowned at the image of Myklene where it filled the monitor. Betray Staffa's privacy? No, leave it be for now.

  She frowned up at the overhead plates and twisted the end of her long white-blonde braid where it curled over her shoulder. The murmur of voices around the bridge sounded

  normal. They'd all dropped into routine again. One eye on the Sassans and the deep-space sentry buoys—just in case— the other on the repairs.

  So, what do I do now? Wander down and make a fool out of myself trying to check on him? How in Rotted Hell do you deal with a man like the Lord Commander when you're prying into his personal life? She slipped the stolen tape from her pouch and inspected it. Nothing more than a plastic cube with bits of binary data embedded—and a potential snake's nest of trouble for her if Staffa ever found out she had it.

  Her professional self urged her to leave him alone and let him work out whatever bothered him. That didn't dim her desire to go to him, to see if she could help in any way as a ... a friend would do.

  And who would I call friend? Careful, Sy la. You have only yourself—no one else. Staffa's capable of fighting his own demons. You've come too far to compr
omise yourself for trie emotion.

  She leaned on her elbow, chewed her callused finger, and ran her thumb lightly along the rough scar tissue on her cheek. He'd saved her life that time. A shot had cracked her helmet and she'd been face-to-face with death from decompression as her nose bled and her lungs expanded fit to burst her ribs no matter how fast she exhaled. Even the eyes in her head had started from' their orbits. He'd risked himself to get her under pressure. His face had been the first thing she'd seen when she'd come to on hospital deck. She'd always wondered at the gentle worry that had softened his expression. He'd held her hand in a most paternal manner. Then, as soon as the report came that she'd live, he'd hardened, grinned at her, and left to finish smashing the Maikan defenses into charred rubble.

  How long could the fleet stand to have him locked away in his compartments?

  Already rumors were flying from ship to ship. Was the command in jeopardy of being paralyzed? And there's the answer to your professional self.

  Images of a cool-eyed Staffa formed. She could see him, sitting in this very chair, involved in the orchestration of the thousand details that plagued a critical assault. His keen mind played the random factors like the master of tactics he was. No matter how she tried, she could never match his intuitive understanding of combat. In the midst of an assault gone wrong, Staff a always managed to detect a weakness, some tiny vulnerability in the defenses which he ould exploit.

  How many times had he snatched victory from the gaping, foul-odored jaws of defeat?

  Very well, I owe him. I respect him.

  She accessed the comm, feeling a curious hardness in her breast. One by one, she posted orders she felt necessary and authorized them under Staffa's name.

  Not a little frightened by what she'd done, she took a deep breath to still her taut nerves and swiveled the command chair. Rotted Gods, what if he cuts my throat for insubordination?

  "First Officer. The watch is yours. I'll be in the Lord Commander's quarters if you need anything." She jumped to her feet, grateful for the feeling of blood returning to her cramped legs. Adrenaline powered, she trotted to the access tube, ordered the car to deck two, and felt it accelerate. How long had it been since she'd had a good night's sleep? Weeks? Her brain felt prickly and hot inside her skull. Fatigue mixed with worry over Staffa's reaction when she told him she'd issued orders as his.

  She slowed as she approached Staffa's private rooms. Only once had she been in his sanctum sanctorum. How long ago had that been? Ten years? No, longer.

  Almost twenty now. The details formed in her quick mind.

  A man, thin and tall with white hair, had met Staffa in a planetside tavern on Ashtan and placed a sack of gold at the Lord Commander's feet. "I can't find either one, Staffa," the visitor had said. "Therefore, I return your money.

  All of it." And he'd turned and left, while a wretched hollowness had flooded the Lord Commander's grim face.

  A newly promoted officer, she'd watched him drink himself into a stupor. With the first officer's help, she had carried a vulnerable and muttering Staffa kar Therma to the shuttle and back to the ship. Never again, not once after that incident, had his iron control ever wavered.

  Standing before his hatch she steeled herself, suddenly unsure, unwilling to intrude on this new and unsettling Staffa. A quick wry smile crossed her lips; she committed herself and palmed the hatch.

  Thirty-two slowly counted seconds later the speaker asked, "Yes, Wing Commander?"

  She looked up at the security monitor, crossing her arms, face stiff. "Staffa, we've got to talk. Just you and me."

  She waited, eyes hardening as she stared at the lens.

  To her surprise, the door slid back. She hesitated for a split second, then walked boldly into the air lock. The second portal passed her into the room she'd seen before. It had changed slightly; behind gravity restraints, a new rack of weapons hung on the wall: Targan. Other trophies from various campaigns had been added to the crimsonwalled main room. The fireplace looked old, as did the red leather gold-embossed couch. The Vermilion boar's head still threatened from the wall as did the Etarian sand tiger.

  Two huge doors stood to either side of the fireplace. Ornate carvings graced their exteriors, and, she thought, both came from the high cathedral on Ashtan. The right one opened and Staffa appeared, standing there, arms crossed defensively as he studied her through red-rimmed eyes. For the first time in years stubble stood out on his cheeks. A gray robe enfolded him, a color he had affected so many years ago after—she suddenly realized—that drunk he'd had on Ashtan.

  "You look like hell," she told him, walking to the dispenser and filling two bulbs with Myklenian single-malt whiskey.

  "Thank you."

  She handed him one of the bulbs and settled herself on the corner of the big couch. Where did she start with this man—this friend and commander who had filled so many of her years with challenge and activity. What did she say now?

  Hey, Chief, why are you hurting? Want to tell me why you ripped a man' head off down there? You got a reason for driving the troops nutty worrying about you, Boss? What?

  "Staffa," she began, deciding to try a frontal assault, "I don't know what happened down there, but it's affecting—"

  "Have the Sassans been in touch about the penalty?" He sipped the whiskey, swallowed, and paced to the wall where he stared thoughtfully at the Targan weapons.

  "Just now," she told him. "Admiral Jakre was very pleased, Rot his black mind.

  Invited me to a private dinner and seduction."

  He stared absently at the fireplace. "Going to take him up on it?"

  "That Terguzzi sump scum?"

  "He's an admiral."

  "He's a fat maggot. Besides, I command more actual power than he and his Holy God-Emperor put together." She watched him curiously. "They're doomed without us, Staffa. You know that. You've seen them. Their empire was built upon our power. They'll hold that empire so long as they can afford to outbid their enemies for our blasters, ships, and troops. Only the manufacturing wealth of Sassa and the loot of conquered worlds has allowed them to meet our price—just as the Regans have done."

  She paused for a moment, then added: "Staffa, we've destroyed the only other pretender to power. Myklene is gone. Now it's Rega or Sassa. Who will it be?"

  He turned the drinking bulb in his hand. "I don't know."

  Tension wound through her chest. A dull ache formed at the base of her brain.

  Skyla mentally berated herself as a fool even as she prickled with curiosity.

  She cocked her head as she studied him. Memories like gossamer strands filtered through her mind: his gray glinting eyes on hers; the shared intimacy and tension of command; the moments of desperation, and then triumph when impossible odds fell before them. She lowered her gaze, oddly sobered by what she'd shared with Staffa. Twenty years in the pressure cooker of command couldn' just be shed like worn-out battle armor. The implications left her off balance.

  "What's wrong, Staffa? What happened in that room?" she blurted.

  His mouth went tight as he met her challenging stare. She could see his throat work. "The Praetor was my. ... He was the man who. . . ." He shrugged and tonelessly added, "It was a long time ago. He took me in as an orphan and taught me to be what I am today."

  The tension in her chest tightened into a knot around her heart. "Rotted Gods.

  You mean he was your. . . ."

  "Father? No. Call him my ... my mentor. A more suitable word, perhaps."

  "Pustulant Gods!" Is that what this is all about? "Why did you take the contract?"

  He clasped his hands behind his back and paced carefully across the floor.

  "They threw me out. Years ago. You knew I was Myklenian. I—I took the contract to repay them. And him." He exhaled and shook his head. "I didn't . . . didn't know I'd have to face him. Tried to kill him in the fighting." His face paled and he closed his eyes. "But instead I killed . . . killed. ..."

  He shivered violently
and Skyla stiffened. After a long silence she said,

  "There's more, isnt there?" All these years, and I scarcely know you.

  He started to say something and bit the words off. "Do you want to tell me about it?" "You know, Skyla, I'd allow no one else to come in here and question me like you're doing."

  "Staffa, you and I, we've. ..." Her face rushed hot, embarrassing her, stirring anger. "A lot of blood's behind us. A lot of hard times. That's why I. ... There's the fleet, too. It's. ..." She stopped her tongue-tied stammering. "Damn it! I've had to issue orders in your name!"

  His laugh gentled, warmer this time, and she looked up to see the old amusement in his eyes, displacing—if only for a moment—the dullness.

  "It's Rotted well not funny. Snap out of it, Staffa!" "Snap out of it? What have we do"ne to ourselves, Skyla?" he asked, taking a gulp of the whiskey and pacing like a caged hunting cat. She could see the thick muscles bunching and swelling under his robe, as if powered by the trouble that possessed him. "Are we really so inhuman? The Praetor asked me if I had a conscience. Since then I've wondered."

  "Our business doesn't call for conscience—only success. Even the Sassans didn't believe you could crack Myklene. Myself, I've tried to anticipate your tactics—and would have led us to disaster had I been the one to initiate the attack. You've always been the best, Staffa. Isn't that enough?"

  "Perhaps. He gave me everything—and he took it all away. No matter who fired the shot that killed. . . ." He shook himself like a wet dog, shaking off the thought. Then he tossed off the whiskey and flipped the bulb into the fireplace. "Called me his 'greatest' creation. That's why he cared. I was no more than the pinnacle of his success. A construct." He stared into the distance in his mind before adding, "I killed. . . ."

  She watched his color drain, a ghastly expression molding his pale features.