…and now, with your fingers extended thusly, thrust like a spear toward the throat…
…and Robin’s free hand moved of its own accord and suddenly Fhermus was no longer laughing, instead his eyes were wide in astonishment as if they were going to bug out of his head, and then Robin wasn’t holding Cwan’s head anymore, she had lost track of it, she didn’t care, she had both her hands upon Fhermus, and she was screaming and right up against him, and Mueller was atop her, trying to pull her off…
…of course, if a weapon should present itself, use it…
…and there was Fhermus’s dagger, in his belt, and she was reaching for it, and time seemed to collapse completely around her, folding in and down upon itself, for everything had become flashes of images now, no longer coherent events unspooling one after the other, and she had disconnected from her own body, she was watching as if seeing everything from outside herself, and there were her hands upon Fhermus, and the dagger was in the sheath, and then out, and she no longer felt her hands or any part of her body but saw the dagger drive home into Fhermus’s chest, splitting his heart, and blood was absolutely everywhere…
Kalinda wakes up screaming.
She has fallen asleep on the floor of the cell that the Priatians have continued to keep her in all during her stay there. She has not given up hope of rescue. She has never doubted that, sooner or later, her brother will show up with the might of the New Thallonian Protectorate backing him up. She knows there is no reason to think that her fiancé, Tiraud, will not do the honors. And even Xyon, her former lover, is enough of a wild card that he might be the one who steps in to help. Still, every time she runs it through her mind, it is Si Cwan who is coming for her. It may take him time, but eventually there will be shooting outside the door, and a ruckus, and much screaming. And then the doors will slide open and Si Cwan will stride in, looking slightly put off with her in that way he has. Then he will scoop her up and carry her out, and she will sink with relief against his chest.
That knowledge has sustained her through her imprisonment.
Now it is gone, replaced with a new knowledge: Her brother is dead.
It is impossible that she could, or would, know this. Her sensitivity to the departed is usually limited to the planet upon which they perished. New Thallon is many light-years away…unless Si Cwan has actually come to Priatia, but she does not believe that has happened yet.
Besides…she senses the distance. As impossible as it seems to her, she knows that Si Cwan is gone. That he died with no loved ones on hand. It is all becoming clear to her now, and Kalinda realizes she senses it not simply because of his passing, but because loved ones have learned of it, and their agony is like a psychic reverberating howl audible to Kalinda even across all this distance. Their grief is hers, signaling to her like a light in the darkness.
She sits up violently fast, and for half a heartbeat, she sees him. She doesn’t know if he’s truly standing there, or if it’s a dreamlike impression left against the backs of her eyelids just before they snap open. Either way, he is there, and he is in pain, and he is possessed of fury beyond imagining, and then he is gone, just like that. She lunges for the space that he no longer occupies and she shrieks his name and keeps shrieking it until one of her captors, Keesala of Priatia, oozes into her prison chamber and asks in that infuriatingly mild voice of his whatever could be distressing her.
At first she doesn’t want to tell him, but then she looks up at him with cold, burning fury and says, “My brother is dead.”
“Si Cwan?” says Keesala, looking surprised. Then he considers the announcement and finally says, “You have my condolences on your loss.”
“I neither want nor need your condolences,” Kalinda says with a snarl, getting to her feet and facing her squidlike jailer. Her hands are curled into tight fists and barely contained fury contorts her face. “I want your life. And I will have it. Yours and every other damned soul’s on Priatia. You and your people, who started this all for the purpose of causing a civil war that would enable you to then sweep in and take back all the worlds in Thallonian space. You will not succeed, and I will make sure to kill you myself.”
“Then perhaps,” Keesala says mildly, “we should kill you first. Just to be safe.”
“Do it,” snaps Kalinda, advancing on him. “Do it if you’ve the nerve. Do it and be damned with you. Unless you think I’ll kill you first.”
Keesala does not attack. Instead he backs up. Without even turning around he glides away from her, his tentacle-like feet moving with their customary silence. Seconds later he is out the door. It slides shut in his wake, and Kalinda is left slamming her fists in impotent fury against it.
U.S.S. Trident
i.
No time at all seemed to have passed for Robin Lefler, and suddenly she realized that Elizabeth Shelby was looking down at her.
The screaming and shouts from the representatives all around her ceased all at once, and then she realized in a detached way that the noise had, in fact, ceased for some time. It took her a few moments to register that she was no longer in the council chamber, and almost a full minute to realize that she was no longer on the planet at all, but rather in the Trident sickbay.
“Doc!” called Shelby. “I think she’s focusing on me.”
Doc Villers, the ship’s rough-hewn CMO, stepped into view. She looked down at Robin, then extended her index finger and brought it back and forth past Robin’s eyes. Robin watched it pass by with curiosity, and then Villers nodded in her customary brusque manner. “Yeah. She’s coming out of it.” She glanced up at the diagnostic panel on the wall. “About damned time, too.”
“What…happened?” Robin managed to say, except her voice was little more than a croak. She frowned, confused. “How…how long was I…?”
“Eleven hours,” said Shelby.
“Are we still in orbit…around New Thallon?”
“Are you joking? The moment we had you people up here, we got the hell out of Dodge before the other ships orbiting the planet realized what had happened. Otherwise we’d have had to fight our way out, and I can’t say I would have liked the odds.”
At that moment, Kat Mueller stepped into view. “She’s coming around, I see. Good timing on my part.” She sounded even more distant and formal than usual.
“Good timing?” snorted Villers. “You’ve been down here every twenty minutes checking in.”
“Cwan…” Robin managed to say. She was astounded how numb she felt. No crying. Nothing.
Shelby looked grim. “It was him. We tested the…his remains. Arex recovered it before he had us beam the three of you out of the middle of the melee. I’m…I’m sorry…”
“Fhermus.”
The admiral paused a moment, and then said, “He’s dead.”
“Stabbed.”
“Yes.”
“Who—?”
“Robin,” Mueller spoke up, “now may not be the best time to—”
She locked eyes with Mueller and then said firmly, “No. Now is the perfect time.” She forced herself to sit up and almost pitched forward before Mueller steadied her. She looked straight into Shelby’s eyes and said, “I remember now. The shock…it took me a moment to…”
“Lieutenant Commander,” said Shelby, “the captain may be right. This isn’t…”
“I killed the bastard.”
The words hung there, and then Lefler said again, nodding in confirmation, “I killed him. I crushed his windpipe and then, just to make sure, I grabbed his dagger off his belt and I planted it in his heart. The same way his son, Tiraud, died. If he was stupid enough to carry a weapon so that it could be used against him after what happened to Tiraud, then to hell with him. In fact, to hell with him in any event.”
“Robin,” said Mueller softly, “I already told Admiral Shelby that it wasn’t you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Captain Mueller,” Shelby told her, casting a look at Mueller, “told me that a
lthough you did assault Fhermus, your attempt was unsuccessful…and that she, in a moment of rage, pulled out the dagger and killed Fhermus. I have not yet launched a full investigation into the—”
“There will be no investigation required, Admiral,” Robin told her, and there was a look of fire in her eyes. “I was there. I killed him. Captain Mueller is now clearly attempting to claim responsibility in a misguided attempt to spare me…I don’t know. Future grief. In any event, her concern is misplaced. End of story.”
Shelby laughed uneasily. “I’m…look, Robin, I wanted to delay this until later, when you’d had time to recover from…until everything was…”
“I said it’s the end of the story, Admiral, and it is.” She slid off the edge of the table, and wavered for a moment on her feet before steadying herself. “I was within my rights to do as I did.”
“Within your…” Shelby and Mueller exchanged confused glances. “Lefler,” said Shelby, “you’re still a Starfleet officer…”
“I’m a head of state and I executed a traitor.”
“What?” said Shelby, her voice rising. “What the hell are you—”
“Oh my God, she’s right,” Mueller said in sudden realization. When Shelby turned and stared at her, Mueller repeated, “I think…she’s right. I’m almost sure she…I read up on Thallonian law ages ago, when we first started the assignment in Sector 221-G. And I…I seem to remember…”
“According to law,” Robin Lefler said, “if a head of state—a lord, such as Si Cwan—dies, and there’s no blood family member eligible to assume his responsibilities, but a spouse is available, then his spouse is expected to step in and take over his position. With the…” She took a breath and let it out. “With the death of Si Cwan…I am now the ruler of New Thallon. ‘Protectorate’ or no, I still take his place as Lord of New Thallon with the right of high, middle, and low justice. I condemned Fhermus to death for his actions, and carried out the sentence.”
“But a Starfleet officer can’t simply—”
“I resign my commission, effective immediately.”
Shelby began to speak, but then didn’t. Instead she looked slightly deflated. Instinctively, Robin knew what was going through her mind, and she put a hand on Shelby’s shoulder.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking this is Soleta all over again. But it’s not. I swear to you, it’s not. You’re not responsible for this.”
“The hell I’m not.”
“Elizabeth…”
“I should have kept us on course for Priatia!” said Shelby angrily. “If I hadn’t given in…”
“We can make up for that one right now,” Lefler told her. “We head for Priatia now.” Her face tightened. “And we don’t go alone. If Fhermus thinks…if Fhermus thought,” she amended, “that he was the only one who could use the ether to get things stirred up, he’s about to find out how wrong he was.”
ii.
Robin received a steady stream of visitors to her quarters over the next several hours, each of them extending their condolences. The one who seemed the most upset was the Caitian, M’Ress, which made Robin wonder in the back of her mind whether something hadn’t gone on with them at some point in the past. She hadn’t the faintest idea when that might have been. Then again, her husband…her late husband…was nothing if not resourceful. She did not, however, have the nerve to ask M’Ress if her suspicions were correct. Instead she simply nodded and accepted her condolences, as she did with the other crewmen who came by.
She did not spend a good deal of time talking to any of them, though. She explained over and over, maintaining her politeness, that she was busy writing something regarding Si Cwan’s death and it was of the utmost importance. Everyone nodded in understanding, even though none of them truly understood.
All the time that she was working, and all the time that people came up to her, she kept waiting for the grief to kick in. And still nothing happened. There was no welling up of tears, no moistening of her eyes, no dramatic collapse. The fact that there was nothing began to bother her. She knew it was customary to be in shock over something like this, but she didn’t feel as if she was in shock. Her mind was clear, her priorities were focused. What the hell was going on?
She wondered if Si Cwan’s exiling her had somehow, in some small way, killed her love for him. But no: she was positive that wasn’t it. She couldn’t possibly have gone over the deep end as she had, tried to kill Fhermus, if she hadn’t still loved him with all her…
That was when she stopped working on her speech and came to a full realization. It stunned her for long seconds, and then she tapped her combadge and said, “Lefler to Captain Mueller.”
“Mueller here.”
“Captain…would it be too much trouble to ask you to come down to my quarters for a moment? I…wanted to run a draft of the speech by you.”
“On my way.”
She remained in her seat, unmoving, until Mueller arrived. Then she stood when the captain entered, as protocol suggested. They both sat and Mueller said quietly, “I was wondering when you would want to chat, the two of us.”
“This isn’t about what I’m writing.”
“I know.”
“You killed Fhermus.”
“I know.”
Her ready admission stilled Lefler for a moment. In the ensuing silence, Mueller nodded slightly and said, “Ever since you came to, you’ve been far more forceful and commanding than I remember. It looks good on you.”
“You killed Fhermus.”
“Yes, we’ve been over that. And I admitted to it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” asked Mueller. “Why did I kill him, or why did I admit to it?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“I killed him because Si Cwan deserved better. He deserved a majestic death, a death for the ages. A death battling a hundred attackers at once, and he would die with his teeth buried in the throat of his killer. I killed him because it offended my sense of what is right and just and the sort of death a true warrior is entitled to. I killed him because his knife was there in front of me, as was his chest, and if anyone is going to be wielding a blade, it should be the woman with the Heidelberg fencing scar. Besides, no offense, but you weren’t getting the job done. That choke hold they teach us in the Academy is all well and good, but doesn’t work worth a damn on Nelkarites. I killed him, and given a dozen times to make the choice, I’d make the same one again. And I confessed to it because a Starfleet officer doesn’t hide from the consequences of her actions.”
“Yet Shelby thought that you were confessing in order to cover for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mueller shrugged. “Comfort level, I suppose. Admiral Shelby felt more comfortable in a universe where a Starfleet captain nobly takes the blame for a crime she didn’t commit in order to cover for the actions of a distraught wife. A far superior construct to a universe where a captain of the line mercilessly kills a man because he executed a former lover…”
Lefler smiled mirthlessly. “Funny. You didn’t mention that as being one of the reasons. You just spouted lots of high-flown rhetoric as to how Si Cwan deserved better. You acted like it was a matter of balancing cosmic scales.”
“It was.”
“And the fact that you and Si Cwan were lovers at one point?”
The high cheeks of Mueller’s face flushed ever-so-slightly red. “All the reasons that I cited were why Fhermus deserved to die. That last one…is the reason why I decided to be the one to do it.”
“Instead of his wife.”
“You get to kill the next one. I promise.”
The comment was supposed to sound humorous, Robin supposed, but instead it was simply cold and bitter. The fact was that, as appalling as the concept was to her, Robin had to admit that she was relieved Mueller had been the one who had actually done the deed.
“Are you going to tell Admiral Shelby?” asked Mueller with a cock
ed eyebrow.
Lefler shrugged. “Not exactly sure I see the point. As you said, the admiral has her view of the universe. She has her report to make to Starfleet…presuming, of course, that anyone in Starfleet is still talking to us after this insanity is over.”
“Ah yes,” sighed Mueller. “I almost forgot I conspired in the hijacking of my own ship. A ship, I should think, I’d be well advised to get back to running for as long as I’m still in command of her.”
She rose from her seat and as she headed for the door, Robin said, “Kat.” Mueller turned and looked back at her. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t disappoint me,” replied Mueller. “And more importantly…don’t disappoint him.” And she turned and headed out of the room.
iii.
The broadcast went over the subether in the exact same way that Fhermus’s had. Citizens, space vessels, worlds throughout Sector 221-G, aka Thallonian space, all of them saw the same thing. The impact it had was as varied as the races that witnessed it.