“By growing into the good man I always thought you were, you have already proven yourself to me,” Sabine said with a smile, and Stephan smiled in return. “There is enough in the galaxy for us to fight without us fighting each other. Our families have had a long, troubled relationship. I am glad to see that finally coming to a peaceful end.”
“Agreed,” Stephan said. “And if I may be so bold, I am glad to see that you have grown as well and truly become the Queen I knew you would one day be, and that the Protectorate deserves. There were times when I worried that you intended to rule with a blaster in one hand and the scepter in the other.”
“Thank you, your Grace,” Sabine replied with a slight blush. “You missed one of my early council meetings, though, in which my blaster came in quite handy. I hope I am as deserving of your regard when this day is done,” she added, her mood going somber.
“The weight of ruling is often hard to bear and fraught with pitfalls we never had thought to expect,” Stephan said somberly as well. “You must trust in your heart that you will steer the correct course, and once you choose, you must stand by your choice firmly and without regret. It is not the place of the people to sit in judgement of you, for I know nobody will judge you as harshly as you do yourself.”
“Still the teacher, I see,” Sabine said with a smile, remembering their many lessons together over the years.
“I live but to serve, Your Majesty,” Stephan said with a bow. “It has been my honor to guide you as you grew from an insecure young Princess to a strong, confident Queen. Now please excuse me, I shall attend the Admiral and assist the final preparations if I can.”
Sabine dismissed Stephan with a nod and pondered his words as, outside the Queen’s Honor, the stars drew long and then were replaced by the kaleidoscope rainbow of hyperspace. For good or ill, they were committed to the plan. Now all she needed was the courage to finish what she had set in motion.
~25~
Kristof lay in his cell, physically and mentally spent after another long day of facing the Imperial Tribunal and a massive crowd of Clovani troops. The guards had dressed him roughly that morning in a Clovani uniform, and then bound him into an anti-gravity rig that held him under his arms and would force him to stand for the duration of the trial. He’d then been led from his cell and into the back of another open-backed tuck to be transported to his trial. Instead of taking place in a courtroom, the Emperor had ordered the trial be held in a large arena. Kristof estimated in his feverish mind that there were close to twenty thousand troops in attendance to witness his trial.
The trial had been a sham, as Kristof had known it would be. The Grand Inquisitor had blithely chosen to overlook several important facts in the case against him, such as the fact that it had been the Clovani who had invaded Puranni space and destroyed several colony worlds and then sat threateningly along the border in Puranni space. Kristof hadn’t been dragged before the Imperial Tribunal for a fair trial, though, he was there for the Emperor to put on a show while posturing and placing the blame for thousands of Clovani deaths upon him and him alone.
The crowds had booed and hissed as each charge had been laid out in extreme detail. Kristof’s dishonorable discharge had been reworked in the military logs, he was unsurprised to learn, so that now it appeared that he had been a deserter instead. His smuggling charges had been billed as insurgent attacks against innocent Clovani forces, as well as aiding and abetting terrorists within the Empire. And then the destruction of the Clovani fleet by Kristof was described in great detail, with a complete list of all of the ships and crew compliments told for all to hear. The Inquisitor omitted any mention of supernatural powers, and instead accused Kristof of detonating a new and illegal super weapon. Kristof had openly laughed at that charge given the fact that the Clovani openly used mass launchers against their enemies, weapons that were outlawed in almost every other civilized star system. The anger that ran through the crowd was electric, bordering on becoming a riot, at seeing his laughter.
Kristof had said nothing in his own defense. There would have been no point, he knew, not in this mockery of a trial. Instead he spent his time trying to control the spasms of pain that continually racked his body from being suspended and forced to stand for so long. His arm had become badly infected, he knew from the smell, and his head was spinning from the resulting fever. He could also feel the bleeding from a couple opened wounds along his ribs that had reopened when the guards had lifted him roughly into the truck they had used to transport him to the arena in. With a moment of pure silliness, he thought to himself that he was glad the Clovani uniform they’d forced him to wear was now ruined.
Much to no one’s surprise, Kristof had been found guilty by the Tribunal and sentenced to death, a sentence which would be carried out the following afternoon in another public spectacle. He’d been offered another opportunity to speak before the Tribunal, to beg for mercy he knew, but instead he had spat blood at the Inquisitor’s feet. His momentary rebellion had earned him a shock from an electro-staff, which had brought forth a terrible scream of pain and made him vomit blood, which gave evidence to some new internal injury. The crowds who had so soon ago been ready to riot due to his laughter had cheered then as Kristof struggled to remain conscious.
Now Kristof lay once more in his cell as his body burned and his head spun violently. The fever was worse than ever now, and the doctors no longer had to try and keep him alive. The execution would come long before the infection took him to the grave. He wasn’t sure which way would be worse, death by firing squad or by the raging fever and pain. Clovani firing squads were often ordered to inflict gruesome but not immediately fatal wounds so that the death would offer more entertainment to the crowds, and the Emperor was intent on a show. Either way, Kristof knew his time was short.
The boost of strength and spirit the Phoenix had provided him was spent and gone, and Kristof could not find any strength within himself any longer. The fever consumed his mind and thoughts like brush in a wildfire and he soon became delirious once more. The guards yelled for him to be quiet, but Kristof neither heard them nor cared. Instead the last of his rational mind, though also ablaze from the fever, retreated deep within to create a last ditch safe haven for his sanity. He clung to his sanity with every last shred of strength he had left, determined to still be himself should help actually arrive in time.
The sense of Anasha being near, and Sabine growing nearer, he passed off as just the fever, yet a tiny glimmer of hope remained. He had little reason to hope in this bleak cell in the heart of the Empire, he knew, but hope persisted if only barely. It was the thought of his son that Kristof clung to at the last as the fever consumed everything else and his thoughts blurred.
Nothing remained clear in Kristof’s mind anymore, not even his memories of his beloved wives. One seemed to blend into the other, until he could no longer even remember who was blond or who had brown eyes. Anasha had the brown eyes, he thought to himself so surely, and then immediately questioned his belief. Even those blurred memories began to fade as his consciousness grew dark.
“I love you both and our son,” Kristof whispered to his empty cell, his voice sounding like sandpaper rubbed over asphalt. “I know that much, at least.”
~26~
Midnight passed as Anasha led her team through the empty back alleys of Dresana in the general direction of the Emperor’s Palace. They had all expected Kristof to be held in the Imperial Detention Center and had planned their landing accordingly, but the sense of Kristof had led Anasha to the Palace instead. So they had changed their plans on the fly, though they’d really had no choice, and made their way as quickly as possible towards the Palace. The city was quiet as the darkness of very early morning surrounded them, allowing them to make up time they had lost by landing miles away from where they actually needed to be.
Anasha’s sense of Kristof was confused and chaotic when she reached out to him periodically, as if his thoughts were in a blender. After a quick conversa
tion with the team’s medic about what she was feeling and what they knew of his injuries, they determined that Kristof was most likely suffering from a massive infection and fever. Anasha remembered the last images she’d seen of Kristof, and how bad he had looked, and her anger flared anew. She knew the time he had left was short, maybe too short now, but she refused to give up on him. Sabine was on her way by now she knew and could feel, and the rescue team needed to be ready when she arrived.
“Tell me about the palace,” Anasha ordered quietly as the team paused to catch their breaths in a dark alley after a long, hurried march. The city remained quiet, luckily for them. If they were discovered before they reached Kristof, all hope would be lost.
Another team member brought out a data pad and brought up the schematics they had for the Emperor’s palace. The defenses were extensive, but not perfect, Anasha saw. Anasha realized that Emperor Clovan and his predecessors liked to project strength and power, but she knew that such ideals did not always translate into good defense. The Emperor’s grand palace had several glaring weak spots in its construction that Anasha hoped they could exploit, weaknesses that the Emperor had probably never even considered might one day be used against him.
“We need to be closer before we decide which entry point to try. I can’t tell where Kristof is in that mess quite yet. Let’s move, we don’t have a lot of time left,” Anasha ordered and the team was quickly on the move again.
Just a little over three hours remained before the fleet would appear in orbit, Anasha knew. She planned to be on a ship making for orbit with her husband when that happened. She worried that even if she managed to get Kristof out of this mess, however, that his injuries and complications would be too great now to save him even after all they’d gone through to get to him. The infection, in particular, had her very concerned. Their medics only carried a small supply of antibiotics with them, since treating infections in the field was not very common.
The trip went quickly, since the Palace was luckily not too far from the military district that was the home of the detention center, and Anasha passed the occasional body left behind that her scouts had silenced. The Emperor’s sprawling edifice stood up starkly against the night sky. She paused to get a sense of Kristof’s position inside, and felt that he was underground and to the rear of the mammoth complex. Bringing up the palace schematics that they had, she looked at the area she sensed Kristof in and motioned for the team to gather around.
Silent hand signals were all they used now, since they’d gone to radio silence long before they approached the palace per her orders. Each team member nodded their ascent to the plan, and each started moving out. Kristof’s explosives officer began placing remote controlled explosives as they went that would serve as distractions once their presence was known. It was hoped that the explosions would draw a great many troops in this direction, which was opposite the one they would take to rendezvous with Team 2.
Anasha watched Max closely as they moved through the city, knowing the android saw and heard everything ten times better at least than the rest of them, even with the Su’Tani’s enhanced senses. She had considered putting Max on point, but he would have refused she knew. The android had committed himself to protecting her, and had barely moved more than ten feet from her once they had made their landing in the city. She was also afraid of giving the android too much discretion in his actions, knowing how angry he was. The fact the Max was feeling anger at all was disquieting enough.
They passed more dead troops that had been moved into the shadows as they went, quiet evidence of her team’s brutal efficiency. Finally, they were in position across from a section of the palace where the angles of the outer wall had created a glaring gap in the coverage of the search lights that swept the perimeter of the compound. They did a quick scan to detect any hidden sensors in that gap in the coverage before they moved further.
Satisfied that there were no hidden surprises, Anasha signaled her team to proceed. One by one her team crossed quickly to take up position along the wall, except for a small group that would remain behind to cover their exit and report any suspicious troop movements. Anasha went last once she was sure her team had crossed unseen. Her adrenaline, which had already been high since jumping from the stealth shuttle in orbit, now began to spike as they finally neared their goal at last.
Anasha could feel Kristof very near now, and he was beyond delirious now, she could tell, and had retreated deep within his own mind. She pushed thoughts of him away for the moment, not wanting her rush to get to him to tip off the enemy by being sloppy. Members of her team were already using special ‘black laser’ cutters to breach the wall. Once the lasers had cut through, Max stepped forward and lifted the core of the hole with frightening easy and pulled it from the hole to set it aside. Anasha gave him an impressed look, to which Max smiled in return. His smile was a welcome sight amid the tension of the mission.
Now they were truly on their own, Anasha knew, as they quickly darted into a nearby door after passing through the wall. They had no floor plan for the palace, only a general direction provided by Anasha’s senses. She took the lead now along with Max and her best scout, and called turns and descended stairs seemingly at random, trusting her senses to lead the way. They had a few encounters as they went with Palace staff, but Max and the scout were able to silently dispatch each guard or officer they came upon. Her team then hid the bodies the best they could to delay discovery.
They were several levels deep into the palace when they found the cell block at last. The guards came alive at the sight of them, but Anasha’s team had prepared for this moment as well, and the guards were taken down before the alarm could be sounded. Max had produced a number of throwing knives from his pack, which he used with deadly precision and speed. Anasha breathed a sigh of relief that their presence was still undiscovered.
Anasha then rushed to a cell door even before the last guard had hit the floor and unbolted it in a rush. Inside, Kristof lay unconscious, sweat pouring from his body as Anasha was assaulted by the smell of blood and puss. A small cry of distress escape her throat as she took in his condition while she rushed to his side. He made no move to indicate that he was aware of her, and she said a silent prayer to the Gods that they were not too late.
The medic pushed past her quickly, as Anasha gagged uncontrollably for a moment from the smell, and opened his bag as he went. Within seconds he’s injected Kristof with a massive dose of antibiotics, everything that he had with him, as well as meds to get the raging fever under control. If they couldn’t stabilize Kristof quickly, they’d risk killing him by moving him in his present condition, the medic told her after scanning Kristof’s vital signs. The scans had shown evidence of at least one heart attack in the recent past, he told the team, and combined with the infection Kristof was in even worse shape than they had feared.
Anasha knelt by Kristof head and whispered his name over and over while she waited for the meds to take hold. Max stood close by, his expression a mixture of worry and rage. Surely the android’s sensors had given him a clearer picture of Kristof’s condition than the medic had relayed to them. Anasha had never seen rage on an android’s face before, and she was suddenly afraid for the Clovani and feared the android would tear through the palace in a bloody massacre.
“Anasha...” came a weak whisper, and Anasha turned back to Kristof and kissed his sweat soaked forehead as his eyes struggled open. “Am I dreaming still?” he asked a little stronger as his eyes focused.
“No, my love,” Anasha said as tears sprang from her eyes. “I’m here, love, I’m here.”
“He’s stable for the moment,” the medic told her quickly as he stowed his gear. “He’ll need another dose of antibiotics soon before the infection gets any worse, but we should be able to move him safely for now.” The medic attached a small monitoring bracelet to Kristof’s wrist so he could keep track of his patient’s vitals through his helmet’s optical display.
Anasha made a few
quick gestures and Kristof’s men came forward and broke out a field stretcher which they quickly moved and secured Kristof to. The medic gave Kristof a sedative so that he wouldn’t cry out in pain at the wrong moment as they made their way out of the palace. The trip out was much slower going with the stretcher, but Anasha was more resolved than ever to succeed now. Max encountered a group of guards as they went and snapped their necks with rapid, brutal efficiency, startling Anasha with his ferocity.
They reached the wall after a while to find a few more dead guards, courtesy of their rearguard. Kristof was passed through the wall slowly and then they were off to their extraction point. They pushed themselves hard, since the breakout would be discovered at any time now. It was a small miracle they had gotten so far undetected as it was. They’d made it a half mile from the palace when the first alarms began to sound.
“And now we run,” Anasha announced.
~Interlude 3~
Max had imagined feeling relief, or at least what he expected relief to feel like, when they found Kristof. What he had felt instead, as his sensors registered Kristof’s highly elevated body temperature, erratic heartbeat, and the olfactory indications of an infection run rampant, the expected relief had not come. What came to Max was a cold, dark emotion he could not readily identify, though most emotions were still new to him.
Rage, he finally identified it as with those processors that hadn’t succumbed to the new dark, dangerous emotion. He had watched Anasha’s face fill with concern as she saw the rage in his face. His calculating, logical mind had reasserted itself then, not trusting the rage that was prompting him to find Clovani soldiers and do some very nasty things to them. The brief fight with the guards on the way out of the Palace had been satisfying, though.
Now, as they ran from the Palace, however, he was able to give vent to some of that rage as he gunned down Clovani soldiers that gave chase. A few he even had the satisfaction of dispatching by hand again. An armored vehicle that had moved to cut off their route through an alley way also fell victim to his unleashed fury as he tore through vehicle and troops alike with equal violence. The rage had surprisingly added to his combat efficiency, according to his internal monitoring systems, and Max capitalized on that added boost to his operations.
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