“Reach under my pillow. Take what is there.”

  Ningal hobbled closer and reached a shaking hand under his pillow. She felt something slender. Her old hand extracted a tablet.

  “This looks familiar,” Ningal said as she examined it.

  “It was Rim-Sin’s,” Enki said. “It has his secret formula for immortality. I think he had a breakthrough. I’ve never cracked the code, though. I’ve never asked you to try. Now I am. Listen, Ningal, Assur’s life depends on mine. You must know that.”

  “Yes,” Ningal said in lieu of anything else.

  “I’ve granted you access to the gene labs. Few use them these days. If you can give yourself immortality, do it. Then give it to me and I will reward you with whatever you desire.”

  In that moment, Ningal understood. Enki was playing a longshot as he’d said. He had failed to crack Rim-Sin’s written code. Could she do it?

  “Hide the tablet when you leave me,” Enki said. “What you hold is like a warhead ready to destroy everything aboard the Akkad. Never let anyone know about the tablet or what’s written on it. You’re my last hope, Ningal. Remember, I hold the key to Assur’s future.”

  “I’ll attempt this, Chief Marshal, but don’t hold your breath waiting.”

  Enki laughed weakly, but with some of his old fire. “I’ll fight with everything I have to keep breathing. I’m counting on you, Ningal. Don’t fail me.”

  “I am a weak old reed.”

  “Nevertheless,” Enki said. “Try.”

  Ningal nodded. “Is there anything else?”

  “No. Go now. Time is no longer on my side.”

  “Goodbye, Chief Marshal,” she said.

  “For just a little while,” he said. “I’ll see you again. I know I will.”

  Ningal nodded. Then she turned and began hobbling for the hatch.

  -29-

  For the next several weeks, Ningal lived in the gene labs where she used to work. She wrote out Rim-Sin’s many formulas, written in his code. She studied old recordings of him, and old recordings of his ideas and speculations.

  Some of what he’d written in code in the tablet began to make sense. Ningal grew excited and then worried. This wasn’t a final formula but an experimental idea, one of several. All the others had failed in the past.

  Might Enki have cracked that part, wondering if she would discover something more? The Chief Marshal had been devious his whole life. Why would that stop now at the end when he held on by his fingernails?

  After three weeks of her working solo, her son Assur arrived to help.

  “There are battles taking place all over the ship,” Assur said. “The Chief Marshal has lost hold of all areas except the bridge, the command deck and places like this.”

  “There are guards outside?” Ningal asked.

  “Yes,” Assur said. He went to her notes, paging through them. “What does this all mean, and what are you working on?”

  “It’s a secret for your father.”

  Looking up, Assur asked, “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “In time I will,” Ningal said.

  “You’re being secretive, Mother. Is this some kind of mutated bug? Are you trying to make an extermination pestilence to wipe everyone out like Rim-Sin did?”

  “What?” asked Ningal. “That’s a horrific idea. I’m sickened my own son would think I could do such a thing.”

  Assur eyed her, perhaps weighing the truth of her words.

  “You’re my flesh and blood,” Ningal said. “How can you think I’d stoop to anything like that?”

  “I’m still half Valiant. Some of the mind specialists believe you have an inborn hatred of everything Valiant.”

  “That’s not true,” Ningal said.

  “Do you hate the Chief Marshal?”

  Ningal looked up from her tablet. She’d been checking something. “Why don’t you call him ‘father’? Why is it always ‘the Chief Marshal’?”

  Assur did not reply.

  “What do the mind specialists say about that, I wonder,” Ningal said.

  Assur’s eyes narrowed.

  “You don’t care for that slap, do you?” Ningal asked.

  “I’ll be more respectful of you in the future,” Assur said.

  He left two days later.

  Ningal worked feverishly, taking stimulants so she wouldn’t have to sleep all the time, wasting precious opportunities. The stims nearly killed her, though.

  Assur returned, finding her unconscious on the floor. She was terribly low on fluids, dehydrated and sick.

  “I’ll take you to the emergency room,” said Assur, after shaking her awake.

  “No,” Ningal whispered in a hoarse voice. “I need med packs. Put them on me. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough in this. I can’t stop now. I don’t dare.”

  “What are you working on? You must tell me so I can help.”

  “Does the Chief Marshal still live?” Ningal pressed.

  “You mean my father?” Assur said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Something is helping him hang on to his life,” Assur said. “He should be dead. He’s a husk of what he was. Yet, his will is unbreakable. Is this why he’s still hoping? Do you have a miracle for him?”

  “I do,” Ningal said. “I think I’ve found it.”

  “Is this your second husband’s immortality secret?” Assur asked shrewdly.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I’ll fetch the med packs and a nurse to care for you in my absence.”

  “And be your spy?” asked Ningal.

  “Don’t harm her in some secret way,” Assur said, smiling. “I plan to marry her when the battles settle down and we have a true Chief Marshal again.”

  Ningal did nothing for the next week as the med packs took effect and her body regained enough fluids and strength.

  Ningal got news from Shimi, her nurse—a buxom beauty with far too much curiosity—that the battles throughout the ship had intensified. Assur was trying to figure out who would win. Then, he would throw in with that leader and hopefully gain rank.

  “Assur has abandoned the Chief Marshal?” Ningal asked.

  “There are four Chief Marshals now,” Shimi said. “About which do you refer?”

  “The original,” Ningal said.

  Three days later, Ningal started working again on the old formula. She believed she’d broken down the main components. As Shimi helped, asking too many questions, Ningal gathered what she needed. She used ploys and blind alleys that Rim-Sin had long ago taught her. Those were to fool Shimi and any listening devices about the true mixture and formula of the immortality serum.

  Ningal realized others could torture her to reveal what she knew. How had Rim-Sin hung on all those years ago?

  Finally, the hour arrived. Shimi left to see Assur. Ningal had told her the results were three days away—she meant the day she could make the serum.

  Ningal worked far into the ship night. She hated her frail body, its horrible weaknesses. They would betray all her efforts if she wasn’t careful.

  Ningal gathered the ingredients, mixed them and injected herself.

  Afterward, she put the serum ample where no one would expect on an old crone like her. She took her cane and began a journey through the war-wracked ship. She came upon corpses and saw blood splashed upon bulkheads. That was horrible. What was happening to the Valiants? Would they fail like the old-style People had?

  Perhaps by a fortune of fate, Ningal did not stumble upon any warring parties or even lone-wolf opportunists.

  Black-uniformed VPC guards recognized her, admitting her onto the command level deck. There, Ningal shuffled and caned her way to Chief Marshal Enki’s suite. Beam-weapon armed guards searched her, finding nothing, and admitted her.

  Nurses attended the sleeping Enki.

  “He’s fast asleep,” the Chief Nurse said, an older Valiant with gray hair. “He’s been asleep for seven days.”

  “May I sit with my husband?” Ningal asked.

  “He’s not your husband anymore,” the Chief Nurse said in a hard voice.

  “I know. I want to remember those days, if you’ll permit me.”

  The nurse glared until she merely squinted. Finally, the nurse shrugged. “Fine. What harm is there in that?”

  The nurse shoved a chair near the bed. There, Ningal sat for hours, waiting for her opportunity.

  Finally, only one nurse monitored the medical machines.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” the nurse said. Ningal had drunk many cups of tea with her for just this result. “Can you watch him while I go?”

  Ningal had fallen asleep. She raised her head and asked the nurse to repeat the question.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” Ningal said.

  The nurse left.

  Then, Ningal rose, grabbed a hypogun she’d hidden under Enki’s pillow. She extracted the hidden vial and twisted it into the hypo slot so it clicked. With trembling hands, Ningal pressed the hypogun against Enki’s withered left shoulder.

  Air hissed, injecting him with the immortality serum.

  Ningal was shaking, breathing hard. She shuffled away, swore under her breath, returned and shoved the hypogun back under the pillow. Then, she shuffled past the chair and toward the hatch.

  It opened and three huge Valiants in brown uniforms stormed within. Each carried a shredder. They aimed them at Enki lying in his bed. They fired, destroying the blanket and riddling his body with flechettes.

  Ningal staggered back against a wall.

  The three saw her.

  “Kill her,” said one.

  “She’s Old Mother,” said another. “Leave her.”

  “She can finger us later,” said the first

  “Her?” the last one said. “I doubt she even knows what’s going on. Look at her shake.”

  The three might have conferred longer. Beams struck them through the open hatch, killing them, and black-clad VPC personnel rushed into the room. Behind them was Assur with a hand-held beamer.

  “The Chief Marshal is dead,” one of the VPCs said. “What do we do now?”

  Instead of answering, Assur beamed each of the police officials from behind. Each thudded dead onto the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Ningal whispered in terror.

  “Buying us life,” Assur said. “Come. I’m taking you to safety. Once the new Chief Marshal knows that Enki is dead, he’s going to issue an edict. We need to be in position by then.”

  “Is all this your doing?” Ningal asked. “I mean the double assassination?”

  “You taught me to use my mind,” Assur said. “That’s what I’m doing. Now, come on. We don’t have much time.”

  -30-

  The internecine war aboard the Akkad lasted far longer than anyone imagined it could. The fighting destroyed too many important ship systems as well. It also caused the slaughter of almost the entire bridge crew and their replacements.

  This all took place over the course of three bloody and horrific years. Torture and mayhem grew as one atrocity led to the next and built into the third, and so on.

  Assur and Ningal stayed alive. In the beginning that had everything to do with Assur’s unusual cunning. He thought four and five moves ahead, where most others thought two and three moves.

  After the first year, Ningal’s physical change began to play on the survivors’ superstitions. Those—the superstitions—grew as logical thought and the scientific method lost currency. Brute force, courage and winning counted for far more.

  The second year, it was unmistakable. Ningal had regressed physically. Or said more simply, she looked much younger than her actual age. The immortality serum had worked, and her cells began to repair as they used to. Instead of hobbling with a cane as a hideous old crone, her wrinkles smoothed out and then disappeared. It was uncanny. Her mental functions also improved.

  The serum worked, although only her son Assur knew about it.

  “Old Mother, am I,” Ningal liked to say.

  Everyone knew she was the oldest living person aboard ship by a considerable amount. Whispers began that maybe something supernatural was at play.

  Assur had spies and infiltrators, although he’d pledged loyalty to Chief Marshal Ursus. Assur’s people helped spread rumors. The most daring was that the gods of the old star system had spoken to Ningal one night in her dreams. They had seen the terrible plight of the Akkad, and asked what favor they could grant her.

  “I want to see the ship arrive in a new star system, successfully beginning anew so the People thrive,” Ningal said in her dream.

  The old gods said that was acceptable. They granted her renewed youth, and pledged that if she lived, she would lead the People to victory.

  Ningal cornered Assur one day in a ship lounge. Black-uniformed VPC personnel guarded the exits. Otherwise, it was just the two of them.

  “Did you concoct this nonsense?” Ningal demanded.

  “What are you talking about?” Assur asked.

  She told him the story about the dream and the old gods.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, sipping his drink as he studied reports.

  “No,” Ningal said. “It’s absurd and ridiculous. How can anyone believe it? You’re endangering me. I have no desire to lead the Akkad.”

  “I know,” Assur said.

  “Oh. You’re going to run the ship through me?”

  “Not yet,” Assur said.

  “Do you really think to aim that high? You’re not like Enki. He was a brute and could kill anyone who defied him with his bare hands.”

  Assur nodded. “In the beginning that was true. But it hadn’t been true for over twenty years. He used others just like I’ll do—I already am working through others.”

  “You’re serious about this,” Ningal said in wonder.

  “Deadly serious,” Assur said. “Now quit pestering me. I have to figure this out.”

  The fighting continued, turning even more brutal. The ship was small in terms of living space. It was hard to hide anywhere for long. The victors had learned a hard lesson. Kill your enemy or he will regroup and kill you later in vengeance.

  Gradually, two Chief Marshals gained territory, with one controlling a third of the ship and Ursus the remaining two-thirds. The other two contenders were reduced to mere resources, processed into grist for the ship’s needs. Nothing was wasted aboard the Akkad. At the very least, the corpses were repurposed as fertilizer for the food tanks.

  Assur had a plan, one he shared with Chief Marshal Ursus. It would entail a little risk, but it would pull the last Chief Marshal from his fortress in the engines room so they could kill him.

  In the grand scheme of events, the exactness of the ploy didn’t matter as much as its execution and success, which occurred.

  Unfortunately, for Ursus, he was the real target. In taking the risk, Assur exposed Ursus. The son of Enki and Old Mother, beloved by the old gods of the legendary homeworld, led the elite strike team of the weaker Chief Marshal hiding in the engine rooms. The elite team fell upon risk-taking and exposed Ursus and his guards.

  It was a bloodbath, maybe the worst of the Years of Chaos aboard the Akkad. Thousands of soldiers died, some of the best fighters aboard ship.

  At the end, Ursus tried to curse Assur, but died gurgling on his own blood and therefore failed to speak the words.

  In triumph, the last Chief Marshal left his fortress in the engine section of the ship. He marched with his soldiers and allowed Assur to present him with Ursus’ medals and ceremonial dagger.

  In the largest hall of the Akkad, with it packed to the bulkheads with spectators, Assur approached in a slow step. Ningal marched behind him in a robe of state. After three years since taking the immortality drug, Ningal looked as she once had in her thirties. Valiants marveled at her sleek and slender beauty. She was much smaller than a Valiant female. Many of the soldiers found that intoxicating.

  Assur carried the medals and ceremonial dagger on a scarlet pillow.

  The last Chief Marshal was a huge brute of a Valiant. He had a bald dome and craggy features, and was overloaded with muscles like some ancient god of war. He ruled with an iron fist. At times, he knocked down those who displeased him. Then, he would either kick the person to death with steel-toed boots or batter him with his massive fists. Soldiers and women alike feared him and his savage moods.

  The brute of a Chief Marshal raised his huge hands into the air. The hall erupted with cheers and shouts of joy. It seemed as if the terrible Years of Chaos were finally ending.

  “Approach me, Assur, son of Enki,” the Chief Marshal said.

  With his head bowed, Assur slow-stepped through the crowd of soldiers.

  As per her instructions, Ningal followed close on his heels.

  “Ah,” the Chief Marshal said, looking at the pillow of items and then at the crowd around him.

  Assur set down the pillow, snatched up the ceremonial dagger and thrust at the huge Chief Marshal. He did so carefully, making sure the horrible contact poison Ningal had manufactured in the gene labs didn’t touch his skin. It was the most potent poison any of the People had ever made, and it was smeared on the blade.

  Assur lunged and thrust the knife into the Chief Marshal’s gut.

  The huge brute shivered and then straightened to his full height. His eyes widened in shock and understanding. He tried to form words. The brutal effect of the deadly poison had already paralyzed him. He couldn’t blink. He couldn’t point an accusing finger at Assur. Slowly, he toppled to the side, as good as dead.

  It would actually take the brutish Chief Marshal several minutes before his lungs locked up. But since he couldn’t move, it didn’t really matter.

  Assur spun around and threw himself before his mother, covering his head as if in terror. He cried out even as soldiers of the dying Chief Marshal drew weapons to kill him.

  “Hold,” Ningal said in as loud a voice as she could.

  A towering group leader shouted, “What’s happening?”

  “The gods of homeworld,” Ningal cried. “They possessed my son and now have left him. Stand up like a soldier, Assur. Tell us why the gods of homeworld made you do this horrible deed.”