The Phoenix Darkness (2 page)

“You had sympathy for our late king, as did
we all,” said Caerwyn, delicately. “But you admit his daughter is a
usurper and a criminal. Why not disable her ship, storm it by
force, and capture her alive? That would have ended the war,
satisfied justice, and you would have no Akiran blood on your
hands. Why not do that?” Caerwyn resisted the urge to stand up out
of his chair and strike the man in the head for his stupidity. But
it had taken enough work just to get into the chair, so the last
thing Caerwyn wanted to do was find the energy to wiggle out of it
in, no doubt, an undignified manner.

“My Lords, I loved and knew her family well,”
said Tiberon. “As I said before, she is all that is left of
Hisato’s bloodline, and to capture her would still have meant a
death sentence. I still had hope, as I do now, that she will see
the wisdom of laying down her arms and submitting to you lords, and
come about it peacefully. I am no fool; I know this is a fool’s
dream and the war will likely end with her blood. But I knew then,
as I do now, that I couldn’t be the one to spill it. A man has
nothing if he hasn’t got hope. And I hope against reason, against
probability, and against logic itself, that she will give up her
cause, bow her head to you, and that you will grant her clemency.
It was that hope which forced me to stay my hand in the battle, and
that is all I ask of you now. No, I
beg
of you, my most
glorious and righteous lords. I ask for a swift death, not a
painful one, and for a promise that, should Kalila lay down her
arms, she will be granted an offer of clemency. If I could have but
those two things…”

“You’re in no position to be asking for
anything,” snapped Sergei. And, Caerwyn had to admit, Sergei had
the right of it. But Tiburon’s wishes did give Caerwyn something
useful. So long as he knew what Tiberon wanted, he could use that
to control him and perhaps make something useful of this debacle
yet.

“Gag him,” said Caerwyn. “And cover his
ears.” One of the two guards violently tied a gag around Tiberon’s
mouth, while the other placed soundproof block puffs in his ears,
then covered them with his hands as an additional measure of
security. “Also blindfold him.” The first guard complied.

“Friends, lords, ministers,” said Caerwyn,
looking at the cabinet of advisors he’d selected, mostly out of an
ability to trust and control them rather than any merit, skill, or
insights any of them had to offer, excepting perhaps Oliver, whose
treasury knowledge was not something Caerwyn believed he understood
adequately in his own right. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Abhishu, Minister
of Commerce.

“Because he might be working for the false
queen,” said Caerwyn.

“I agree with Minister Abhishu,” said Sergei.
“The man commanded the battle with skill and expertise, far more
than mere competence. If he’d wanted to sabotage our war effort, he
could have ordered the ships into bad formations, maneuvered the
support ships into positions of vulnerability, and otherwise made
tactical mistakes which would have given Kalila Akira the upper
hand, perhaps even victory outright. Yet, instead, he manages a
perfectly respectable war effort on our part, commits to tactics
with the methodical precision of a textbook, and only errs by
allowing the pretender queen to escape.”

“Which is a colossal error, let’s not
forget,” said Oliver.

“Hear, hear,” said Caerwyn.

“Yes, I admit it,” said Sergei. “And one
probably deserving of death. But it’s not a suspicious mistake. If
a commander fights valiantly in the field and makes no effort to
sabotage our battle, and then merely chooses not to pursue and
capture the enemy, that is hardly proof of collusion with that
enemy. More like it is an old-fashioned act of mercy.”

“A highly antiquated notion, and dangerous,
to carry around with you on the battlefield,” said Caerwyn.

“I also agree,” said Sergei.

“So now, the question is, what is to be done
with him?” asked Caerwyn.

“The matter seems simple enough to me,” said
Sali, Minister of Justice. “The punishment is death, the evidence
abundant. We try him and then we execute him.”

“It’s not so simple as that,” said Caerwyn,
wishing his advisors didn’t so often need the political
consequences of such decisions to be spoon-fed to them in such
small pieces. “The man is a hero of war and, by all rights, a hero
of a battle. A battle which we have made very large efforts to
spread the joyous news, far and wide, was a complete success. What
would the people think of our victory if we then go and judicially
sentence and execute the man who commanded the battle and, in the
eyes of the people, won us the victory?”

“We do it here, tonight,” suggested Sergei.
“No one knows he's here, and no one will know it’s his corpse when
we send it away in very small containers to be incinerated. The man
simply disappeared. A mystery for the ages.”

“Not bad,” said Caerwyn, “but not quite the
opportunity I’m aiming for here. Think about it; we already know
the two things he most desires, a swift death and a promise of
clemency for Kalila. If we promise him those things, then we can
control him. If he is under our control we give him a script, feed
him a story, and then he will come forward, declaring himself for
the enemy, and we can execute him as a traitor; make an example out
of him. Stymie the traitorous feelings of others by showing what
happens to those who betray the Empire, and at the same time
creating a vacuum of wartime leadership heroism which can be filled
by me.”

“Forgive me, My Lord, but you, sir?” asked
Oliver. Because Oliver wasn’t quite such a dunce as the rest,
Caerwyn decided to overlook the slight and instead explain.

“I commanded our ships to be in that region.
The people need not know Tiburon had the overall command any more
than they need to know I’d sent those ships there for an offensive
mission rather than a defensive one. All they need to know is that
I sent ships to protect one of our systems, the pretender queen
attacked, and my forces defeated her, despite her best efforts,
including a high-ranking traitor she'd planted within our own
midst.”

Now the others seemed to understand. “So long
as we smear him enough that he dies a monster instead of a martyr,
then I believe this plan will work,” said Caerwyn.

“And you think we can get him to go along
with this for certain?” asked Sali.

“Nothing is for certain,” said Caerwyn, “but
remember that saying about risk and reward. In this case, if I
draft a letter of clemency and sign it, show it to the admiral
along with a promise of gentle execution, I am convinced he is very
likely to do whatever we ask him to. Then, after he’s dead, the
letter of clemency gets destroyed and never sees the light of day;
but he’ll never know.”

His advisors nodded, seeming to genuinely
support the idea. Of course, as the suitable yes-men they were,
they were likely to support any plan Caerwyn came up with, but this
one, this one was a good plan.

“Excellent. Get it done.”

***

Virgil Prime cared not one whit regarding the
manner of death; neither did he care about clemency for Kalila
Akira any more than a black hole might care about the color of an
admiral’s trousers.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from dancing
the dance and making the show, giving his captors the leverage he
knew they would need to take this next step, to hold him up as an
example to the galaxy and then spill his blood. True, such would
mean the end of his existence. Virgil Prime was not one who could
return. But what the mortals didn’t understand, what so few
creatures in the universe understood, was that it wasn’t the
existing that mattered. Life wasn’t this tedious exercise of
feeding and sleeping, just trying to survive one more day, or one
more second, to squeeze out as much existence as possible. Such a
thing was pointless and empty. No, life was about establishing
meaning. And there were none in the galaxy better positioned to
create meaning than the Primes.
For we
, Virgil Prime
thought,
are those who will usher in the last Great Darkness and
commence the Reckoning. It has already begun
…

And so he’d made up his lies about caring for
the princess, as he knew the real Virgil Tiberon likely would have
said, and he made his pretense of caring what happened to her, and
had even gone so far as to beg these pathetic mortals for mercy for
himself, a mercy he neither required nor wished for. Their mercy
meant nothing, as did the concept of mercy itself. The one true
rule of the universe was competition to survive despite the
inevitability of death. Entire species must stomp each other out of
existence out of the sheer selfish, pointless, internal craving to
survive. The One True God had made something interesting when he’d
formed the mortals. But now, as they’d gone so astray, as they’d
proven so worthless, the Master was right to strike them down. And
Virgil Prime was more than happy, honored in fact, to play the
tiniest role in breeding the chaos necessary. The chaos which would
make way for the fifth destruction. A glorious purging of fire and
blood that would bathe the galaxy in a cleansing gale. Virgil Prime
only wished he could be around to witness it when it happened. But,
no matter; all proceeds according to the edicts of the One True
God. His plan is supreme and can never be frustrated. This too,
this farce of a trial Virgil Prime chose to participate in, it too
was part of the plan, part of the chaos, part of the story of the
end…of the unraveling of the various species who had grown too
arrogant and too numerous to be spared the void.

“And so you do not deny it?” the voice
boomed. Lights shone in his eyes, half-blinding him. He squinted
from his stance upon the dais, where he stood shackled before the
Assembly and, thanks to technology, all of the Empire. Many
millions of eyes watched him, perhaps billions.

“I deny nothing,” he said boldly, recalling
the line from the script they’d given him and made him memorize.
The result was, as expected, sounds of shock and derision
throughout the chamber. The various Assembly members fell into line
exactly as Caerwyn Martel had predicted, allowing themselves to be
swallowed up by this show trial, this play, and not give much
consideration to the actual execution of justice or investigation.
Which was all the better for Virgil Prime; he needed the Empire to
believe him a guilty traitor, that the human queen had colluded
with him. It would undermine her, just as Virgil Prime’s decision
to spare the queen had undermined Caerwyn Martel.

Let the humans dig their own graves. It
will make the Reckoning all the easier
, the thought formed
inside Virgil Prime’s mind. He believed them to be a manifestation
of the words of the One True God himself. Who, despite defying
understanding, was as true and obvious as the rising sun, and yet
the mortals did not see Him. Not that it would have spared them if
they had…

“Tell us, and the world, Fleet Admiral
Tiberon,” the voice continued questioning him over the loudspeaker.
“Why did you allow the traitor, the pretender queen, Kalila Akira,
to escape when you could have easily captured her and brought an
end to this war?”

It was the penultimate question in this
farce. Which meant soon it would be over. “I spared her because she
asked me to,” said Virgil Prime, repeating the words they’d given
him. “I joined the war at the last minute, as I said, as an agent
for the queen. She asked me to infiltrate the Assembly’s navy and
destroy it, to slaughter as many of its soldiers as possible. I did
all I could to comply with her wishes. Please,” he knelt then, just
as the script had told him to. “Please, I beg of you, have mercy on
me. Be gentle with my soul.”

“Will you then, now, before these witnesses
and all of the Empire, recant and repent of your evil and
treacherous choices?”

“Yes, My Lords and Ladies, and dear people of
the Empire. I hereby renounce my allegiance with Kalila Akira. I
condemn her as a criminal, a usurper, and ask any with courage to
recognize the great leadership of Caerwyn Martel, our wise Steward,
whose foresight got our fleets into position fast enough to thwart
the queen’s attack. Whose leadership prevented even me, in my lofty
position, from sabotaging the just war effort against the pretender
queen. He thwarted my treachery, won the battle, and now I can see
clearly he is the sword and shield of the Empire, not Kalila.
Kalila is a dangerous criminal who must be stopped at all costs.
And for this confession, which I give freely of my own heart and
mind, knowing it cannot spare me from the execution I so justly
deserve, I plead with my brothers and sisters of the Empire to
rally to Caerwyn Martel’s banner and find peace. And I ask, for
myself, only that I may have the blessing of a swift and merciful
execution.”

“Stand.” The command boomed through the
Assembly Hall. Virgil Prime stood, squinting against the bright
lights raining down upon him. Just beyond them he could see
glimpses of faces, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all
mesmerized by this show trial. If any had their doubts or concerns,
they wisely kept them close to their chests.

So many, many faces
, thought Virgil
Prime. And each and every one, in due course very shortly, shall be
given to the void. Great is the One True God.

“By vote of this tribunal, your petition for
a clean and gentle execution is granted. May you find peace in the
great beyond that you never found here. Guards, take the prisoner
away.”

***

The platforms of Eurosis were log jammed with
queues of starships awaiting their turn to dock and resupply and
repair. Kalila’s ISS
Black Swan
had taken first priority,
along with the most critical starships. Efforts to return the
Black Swan
to fighting condition were ongoing, and utilizing
one of the many platforms just unto itself. As for the others,
those ships that’d accompanied her, they concentrated foremost on
the starships in greatest need, and the less beaten warships would
have to wait in a queue for any resupply or repair. Relieving
injured officers and finding replacements for any who could not
return, and for those they’d lost, was also of paramount
importance.