Forty-six
Little could be seen of the beams of subnuclear
energy penetrating the fields of warped space-time enveloping the Covonian
cities. The cities themselves glowed with the ferocity of small suns,
slowly absorbing the energy faster than it could be radiated back into the void. Only
moments from attacking the Alliance fleet once it focused its full
firepower on Feldon, Executor General Gorlon Hague
cried out in anguish when he saw Feldon die in a burst of radiation that
young civilizations across the galaxy would one day mistakenly identify as
a nova.
His patience would be rewarded soon enough with
victories of his own, he assured himself, although he did not believe he
could single-handedly defeat the fleet nor the reinforcements that would
be brought to bear against him. But he would humiliate the Alliance. He
would punish its arrogant commanders. He would make the oppressors bleed
and remember this event day throughout history.
The Alliance caught sight of the main body of the
attack formation as Gorlon anticipated. The attack against the eight
surviving Covonian cities ceased, but not in time to power the fields that
would have deflected the power of Myla’s modified Hive warcraft. Scores
of lighter Alliance warcraft detonated with the same glare of deadly light
as the helpless city they had destroyed. A scattering of heavy cruisers
departed the region, bright with the heat they had absorbed and could not
radiate back into space fast enough to survive intact. Out of sheer
spite, Gorlon Hague sent a handful of warcraft after each of them. More
than a few would cease to exist before escaping their tormentors.
The Alliance was more flexible than the Hive in
defending itself against Myla's mud dragon warcraft, but only marginally
more successful in surviving the attack. Only the destroyers survived by
virtue of their more powerful protective fields.
The stalemate would only last until the Alliance sent
in more firepower. Once it arrived, he and Covonia would battle to the
death. Barring unexpected developments, they would be destroyed, although
considering the course of recent history, Gorlon was not at all certain
that unexpected developments could not save the day. He had all too much
reason to expect the unexpected and doubt what seemed to be inevitable.
Even now, his position was unique in history, a human commander of Hive
forces fighting for a human rather than a Hive cause. Myla had conquered
the stars, barred her soul to machines, and then put her would-be
executioner at the helm of her army. Nothing would ever be the same.
He had given cities of Covonia a reprieve, but they
lay forever beyond his reach. His betrayal of Khalin Nome preyed upon
him. In five hundred years, Khalin’s faith in Dalikor had never wavered,
and neither had Gorlon’s groundless fear of the Dalikor technology. His
one unforgivable crime had been to act upon that fear.
Khalin would know by now of the extent of his
betrayal. Given the opportunity, Khalin would kill him. Perhaps he could
still order Boris to do so when full communication was restored with
Bolphan.
A microwave laser from Bolphan startled him an
instant before he realized the significance of its low power. Not a
weapon, rather a communications channel.
Khalin’s image took form on a screen. "I suspected
your hand in our unexpected salvation. Explain to me how it has come to
be."
"Myla spared my life," Gorlon said, more than willing
to abase himself to satisfy his former superior’s curiosity. "The Hive
has been defeated and somehow pacified. The Alliance remains our common
enemy."
"Your victory may be short-lived. The Alliance is
bringing in dreadnoughts from the core worlds. We can't stand against
those, although you may be pleased to hear that your timely intervention
has given Basil and myself the opportunity to recruit support from other
colonies of the Alliance."
Moral support would be welcomed, although the other
colonies of the Alliance were essentially unarmed. Gorlon reminded Khalin
of the fact.
"Even so, several have become openly rebellious and
are formally protesting the Alliance's writ of execution of Covonia. Even
if we die, the tide against the Alliance has turned.”
"It is my fault the Alliance exists."
"The Hive mutation was no one’s fault, although we
should have had a defense in place against the possibility. Perhaps you
are responsible for the Alliance and I will not forgive you for what you
have done in any case, but recrimination is not relevant at this hour.
For the sake of the days when we were friends and allies, join us here in
Bolphan. Take your rightful place at my side in this, our last battle."
"I cannot," Gorlon said from the depth of his
anguish. "I will fight what is left of my battle here in the void where I
belong. I only ask that you allow a channel of communication remain open
to me in what time remains to us."
"Your channel of communication with Shesel is
granted, and you will be kept informed of unfolding events as befitting
your command as Executor General. I am honored to fight again at your
side, Gorlon. This time, there will be no betrayals."
"And Myla has made a request of me that I must
discharge," Gorlon said, remembering the sedated mud dragon. "Prepare to
receive a high-speed cargo container. Shesel knows what to do."
Bolphan accepted the container. A standard hour
later, a transport escaped the Alliance quarantine of the cities, shielded
by an impenetrable escort of Gorlon's Hive warcraft. Shesel landed close
to the former surface site of Bolphan, close to one specific sink hole
filled to the brim at high tide with brackish water. She left the craft
on foot with the healed and ferocious mud dragon snarling at her heels.
It paused halfway to the sink hole when the familiar environment impacted
upon its primitive senses. And then in complete silence, it raced in
quiet desperation and slipped into the water with barely a ripple.
Shesel surveyed the vast globe of Immamat spanning
the vault of the sky, then turned reluctantly back to the transport for
the return trip to a doomed city, thinking herself the last of her kind
ever to set foot upon their home world.
Aboard Bolphan, Talor Einsik paid a personal visit to
Overlord Khalin Nome. "My Lord, your crypt alarmed a few hours ago. I
have conducted a complete physical examination of your physical body.”
Khalin waited in stoic silence.
"My Lord, you are dying."
Khalin collected his wit and formulated the
appropriate response. "See to it that I die a clean and sudden death.
Hasten it should I become incoherent. Until then, speak to no one of this
matter."
Einsik gave a curt nod.
"Through you, I say my farewells to my allies and my
associates. I have been honored by each of you. Let them know."
"I know each and every one of them, my Lord. I will
do as you say with gratitude."
Einsik retreated from the chamber. Khalin Nome felt
a subtle tremble in the deck beneath his feet. A transport had docked,
Shesel's vessel. She had completed her mission to set Myla's foolish mud
dragon free in a Covonian sink hole, perhaps the last act of the child he
had known. His little flesh-and-blood Myla had learned in the
short span of her life to hold still for an occasional tearful embrace.
She did so now, and Khalin wept in her arms for a time. "You made the
wisest of all possible decisions, I am sure," he whispered in her ear. "I
do not have all the facts I need to understand why you had to leave. You
sacrificed your life thinking yourself a danger and a burden to us. If
only I could have spoken to you first."
The human child squirmed from his grasp. He let her
go. Her pretty eyes focused on him briefly, and then she turned away to
play with a child's toy, a bank of lights and musical notes triggered by
the sway of her body.
"I needed to speak with you one last time, and now we
have no time left."
Despair filled all of the doomed cities of Covonia,
including the one that had committed itself to the void and lost itself in
time and space. Tasia had emerged in an emptiness so complete that not
even a solitary photon had been detected in the space beyond the city.
They had taken their chances, they had lost, and somewhere in the depth of
the city, Laitin Doen staggered his way down a dark corridor.
Something had gone wrong with the laws of physics in
the emptiness in which Tasia had emerged. Objects had little or no
inertia, and it made it difficult to coordinate one's arms and legs.
Tasia Medical had delivered the word that they were dying, although
starvation would claim them first, those who lacked the courage to die by
their own hand. Twenty thousand had already done so. Laitin Doen was
about to join them.
Tasia had panicked. They had rioted and tried to
kill him. They had then killed one another in a standard week of
unrelenting bloodshed, and only recently had they begun to quietly take
their own lives. Laitin had taken up post in the medical center and had
watched as the population of Tasia dropped precipitously. Someone had
then stolen toxins from medical stores and had disseminated them
throughout the city. Hour by hour, fewer and fewer were left to
contemplate their death in the void and the empty promise he had made of
new worlds to reward the only city of Covonia courageous enough to take
the chance for a new beginning.
Laitin Doen still believed that the other cities had
died beneath the guns of the Alliance, but at least they had died
together. He recognized the consequence of his decision now, and he
refused to live with it a single moment longer. He had been offered the
toxin by the few that still called him friend. His pockets were stuffed
with capsules, but they would not be his chosen demise. He had witnessed
those passing away lamenting the dark, and he did not want to die in the
dark. Neither would a painless death be sufficient punishment for his
stupidity. He had something far more appropriate in store for himself.
He hurried as fast as he could, and tried to keep his
mind as empty of fear as possible. If he panicked, he would wander the
city a madman and as likely die of starvation or dehydration along with so
many others huddled in dark corners. Better to do it this way, if he had
the fortitude, if for at least once in his life he showed some genuine
courage.
He reached the dark and empty fabrication labs where
he had worked in his youth. He knew the controls to set, and he then climbed
into an insulated compartment and sighed in satisfaction when the door
sealed itself behind him. He leaned his head back, biting his lower lip
so hard that it bled. Now, he would be punished. He would die in light
and in heat. There would be no darkness.
The walls of the annealing furnace burst into
incandescence. Doen managed a single scream in reaction to a stab of pain
and his claustrophobic terror. Within an instant, he was gone.
In darkness.
