Sargon began to move to Anat and the officers standing near her, including the Deck Police Senior.

  Anat watched him, and she seemed confused. “Why are you here, Chief Analyzer? I didn’t send for you. What could you possibly know that I don’t already?”

  Sargon gave her the sickly smile, slowing down, bowing his head. “I’m sorry to bother you, Ship Commander. Maybe I should leave.”

  Anat glanced at the nearest officers. One of them chuckled.

  “No, no, you came all this way,” Anat said, as if granting a favor to a fool. “What do you have to tell me? Out with it.”

  Sargon cleared his throat, shuffling even closer. He must make a pathetic sight to them. This was even more difficult than he’d imagined. With a weakening will, he kept from looking at his hands or the waistband where he’d hidden the knife.

  “The meeting yesterday,” Sargon said in a hoarse voice.

  “If you’re referring to the Elder meeting,” Anat said, “that was three days ago.”

  Sargon nodded as he stared at the deck. “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

  “You seem agitated,” Anat said.

  “I am,” Sargon said, looking up at her.

  Anat raised her eyebrows.

  “This is…this is hard for me,” he whispered.

  Anat stared at him, her eyes serpent-like, mesmerizing him.

  Sargon felt his will power draining here at the last moment. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t have any friends on the bridge. He would never see his wife and children again, as the soldiers would kill him. He should have told his wife what he planned.

  “Chief Analyzer,” Anat said, snapping her fingers at him.

  Sargon’s stomach twisted painfully as he forced himself to focus on her. It was hard to see anything else but for her face, as his vision had narrowed as if he’d become hopelessly drunk. He hadn’t counted on his fear being so complete. The others around Anat had vanished. He could no longer see them.

  “Ship Commander,” Sargon said, with a catch in his throat. He closed the distance between them.

  A soldier’s leather belt creaked.

  Sargon heard the noise, looked left and saw a big soldier staring at him. That confused Sargon, and he wondered what was wrong with him. He turned his head again and saw Anat staring down at him.

  He hadn’t even decided where to stab. He needed to make a decision. If he merely wounded her…that would strengthen her cause.

  The throat, he decided.

  “Chief Analyzer,” Anat said, “you look and act bewildered. What is wrong with you?”

  Sargon heard the mockery in her voice. She must see the fear etched in his face, but badly misinterpreted what it meant.

  He coughed, pretended to stumble, and then reached down into his sash. He cut the edge of his hand on the hidden blade but managed to grasp the handle. He pushed himself forward, hardly able to think, and yanked out the knife.

  Without a yell, he thrust the wicked blade at her throat. He expected Anat to use a combat move against him. Instead, the cold steel slid into the soft flesh of her throat. That shocked Sargon. The blade slid in, and Sargon heard his grandfather’s voice in his mind.

  You must twist the blade to make sure to kill your enemy.

  Sargon felt the slippery handle slip in his grip. It must be from the blood from his cut. He gripped with manic strength and twisted his hand.

  That made Anat twist in her chair as she gurgled. Blood spurted past the blade. Blood gushed out of her mouth. She stared at him with wide, unbelieving eyes.

  “Enter the void!” Sargon shouted. “But let the People continue to struggle for existence!”

  A terrible force crashed against him. Sargon lost hold of the knife and slammed against the bridge deck. A soldier had tackled him. The soldier might have broken some of Sargon’s ribs, as his side hurt horribly.

  The Ship Commander thrashed on her command chair. It was a horribly ugly thing to see. Then, almost bonelessly, she slid off the chair and flopped onto the deck.

  Officers and soldiers began to shout.

  A huge fist appeared before Sargon’s face. The fist smashed against his face, and he remembered no more.

  -5-

  By slow degrees, Sargon understood that he had been dreaming. The dreams involved the homeworld before the Vims destroyed it, before billions died in a holocaust of radiation, asteroid impacts, and hell-burners.

  Sargon had loved his youth. Before the Vims, life had been grand. He smiled remembering it.

  The smile hurt, though. The pain brought him to greater awareness as he groggily woke up.

  He understood then that his face and ribs hurt. Equally troubling was the sensation of something lodged in his mouth. Try as he might, he could not spit it out. At that point, he realized a tube was in his throat.

  He opened his eyes. A nurse hovered over him. Machines thrummed nearby. He noticed tubes and lines attached to him and to the machines, including the one through his mouth and throat.

  Then the awful impact of what he’d done hit home. He groaned as a feeling of revulsion struck him. He’d stabbed and twisted the blade in Ship Commander Anat’s throat. He’d heard her gurgle and watched her slide lifelessly onto the deck. She’d thrashed in such a grotesque and ugly manner.

  Sargon closed his eyes, ashamed of what he’d done. He had premeditatedly envisioned the killing and then done it. But if Anat had lived, the People would surely die. Because she was dead, perhaps the People would live

  Sargon opened his eyes.

  The nurse was gone. He was alone. The door opened. He must have heard the turning knob. Three white-robed Elders filed into his room: two onto one side of the bed and one on the other.

  Sargon recognized them. Despite the shame and drugs, he spoke around the tube. To his ears, the words sounded unintelligible.

  The Elders turned to the door. Two nurses, no, a nurse and a doctor came in.

  The doctor spoke curtly to Sargon, “This may be uncomfortable.” The doctor neared and placed his hands on Sargon’s chest, pressing down.

  The nurse began to extract the tube from his mouth and throat.

  Sargon coughed, and that hurt his ribs terribly. He groaned, and desperately tried to keep from coughing again.

  “It hurts,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes,” the doctor said, “I suppose broken ribs would hurt.” He straightened, bowed his head to the two Elders on one side of the bed, and retreated from the room, closing the door behind him.

  The nurse remained, watching the monitors hooked to Sargon. The extracted tube lay in a metal dish to the side.

  “What happened?” Sargon said. “Why am I here?”

  The lone Elder by himself, Elder Baal—he wore a lightning-shaped pin on his robe—cleared his throat.

  Sargon turned his head to him.

  “We’re here to determine that,” old, sparsely white-haired Baal said. “Were you hypnotically induced to assassinate the Ship Commander? Was it a fit of madness? Did you take drugs and go insane? Why did you go onto the bridge and murder the Ship Commander?”

  Sargon’s cough erupted violently, sending sharp pain through his ribs so beads of sweat formed on his forehead. It felt as if he sank into the bed.

  With a subtle gesture, Baal signaled the nurse to approach.

  She used a damp rag and blotted Sargon’s forehead and face. That brought some relief. “Do you need pain inhibitors, sir?” she said.

  “No,” Sargon said, as he stared at the frowning Baal, “I should feel the pain for what I did.”

  Baal held up a hand. “This is not a court to determine your guilt or innocence. We are far beyond that now, I’m afraid.”

  “I... I must confess,” Sargon forced the words out. His ribs only throbbed now, no longer the radiating, stabbing pain. “I deliberately went to kill the Ship Commander. I took my grandfather’s knife, and used it purposely to slay her. I believed that Anat convinced one of Eshmun’s wives to poison him.”

  “That is not so,” Baal said. “We had an inquisition and discovered otherwise.”

  “It was what I thought,” Sargon said. “Do you know what Anat said after all the Elders had left the Audience Chamber that day? She meant to let us die, the People, our glorious race. Anat no longer deserved to be Ship Commander. I thought if I could remove her, a different Ship Commander with a fighting spirit would arise. Maybe the Elders would realize that we the People must struggle to live. We must do everything in our power to save ourselves. Maybe survival only has a one percent chance. Maybe it’s a twenty percent chance. It doesn’t matter the amount. To do nothing is death, extinction, annihilation for our People. We do not deserve to enjoy a party lifestyle in laughter as we go to our doom. No, we need a sober-minded group of Elders and a Ship Commander who will fight.”

  “We fought the Vims,” Baal said sourly, “and they destroyed us, annihilating everything we’d ever built. We last survivors fled as the only option, and now the Vims have found us again.”

  “Yes, yes, I do not deny that,” Sargon said, “but they haven’t destroyed the ship yet. Who knows what will happen? Perhaps the missiles will malfunction.”

  “Have Vim missiles ever malfunctioned before?”

  “I can’t remember,” Sargon said. “I’m so tired, so weary and debilitated. But even if it means my end, I will try to save our People. If that meant killing the one who was standing in the People’s way, yes, I did it. I would do it again. It was distasteful, repugnant and awful. I hated it. But I did it, and I did it for the chance that my children might survive with their children and their children beyond them. Are we going to watch our People go down into oblivion without doing everything we can to save them? I say no, and I acted upon that, and that is all I have to say.”

  Baal studied him and finally nodded gravely and looked at the other two.

  Sargon turned his head. The other two stared at him, but not with revulsion or rage. They stared as ones enlightened with wide staring eyes. Yet, how could that be? He was not an eloquent speaker. Sargon knew that, but maybe his heart was eloquent. Maybe his actions—he loved his People.

  “We must deliberate,” Baal said.

  “For what I did, I deserve death,” Sargon said.

  The Elders did not respond to that, but filed out. The last one turned and looked at him with astonishment. Then he went out and closed door behind him.

  The nurse looked at Sargon but said nothing.

  Bewildered and confused, Sargon soon succumbed to a drugged sleep.

  -6-

  When Sargon awoke, he was in a different chamber. It was cold in here and his ribs hurt. He was upright, strapped to an apparatus.

  Old Baal stepped up to him. “You have been recovering, sleeping most of the time. Now we are rendering a verdict.”

  “Are the Elders responsible for this verdict?” Sargon asked.

  “Yes,” Baal said.

  “Before you do that, can you tell me, will we fight to survive?”

  Baal stared at him. “The Elders have not yet decided who will be Chief Elder. One has risen to take Eshmun’s place, however. We will debate the issue, and we will choose another Ship Commander. Until then, the former high officers are presently in charge of ship operations.”

  “Before you kill me,” Sargon said, “will you tell me if you mean to fight or not?”

  “No.” Baal’s voice was firm. “We will not tell you because we haven’t made our decision yet. How many times must I say that?”

  Sargon stared at him.

  “You are, however, mistaken,” Baal said.

  “I don’t understand,” Sargon said.

  “You are not about to die,” Baal said. “Instead, you will enter an experimental cryogenic unit. There you will sleep, perhaps ten years, perhaps fifty years. Perhaps you will never awaken as the missiles reach the Akkad. Or perhaps when we are gone, others will awaken you from cryogenic stasis. They might have a reason to do so. I have no idea.”

  “What?” Sargon said.

  Baal raised a hand. “The six of us voted, as the seventh was not present and therefore did not vote. We all agreed. What you did—” Baal cleared his throat. “You sought to save the People, but you murdered a Ship Commander. You are dangerous, Chief Analyzer, very dangerous. You believe that you know better than your Elders as what to do. That is not how our race has survived throughout the centuries. Therefore, you are being consigned to the uncertainty of cryogenic oblivion. Will you dream? We do not know. I will never see you again, as far as I can tell. I thus bid you goodbye, Chief Analyzer Sargon. I do not know if you did the right thing or not. Perhaps others, wiser than us, will revive you. Perhaps they will read your history and find you too repulsive and reprehensible to bring you back to the land of the living. You will not see your children before you go. You will not see your wife. You slew our Ship Commander. You did it deliberately and with brutal efficiency. How you developed the skills to become such an assassin—” Baal shook his head. “I do not know how. At this point, I do not care. You are going under, Chief Analyzer Sargon. Goodbye.”

  One by one, each Elder stepped before him, their faces a mosaic of emotions—some with pity, others with stern resolve. The last gathered saliva in his mouth and seemed as if he would spit into Sargon’s face. That Elder happened to look at the others. Did they look at him with disapproval? He did not spit but stepped aside and they all filed out.

  Soon thereafter, masked technicians unstrapped Sargon from the apparatus and placed him in a cryogenic unit. He was hardly aware now and faintly realized they had given him injections.

  Sargon was going down into oblivion with a small chance of surviving. In his numbed state, Sargon tried to analyze what that meant. Before he could grasp the enormity of his fate, the cold embrace of cryogenic sleep claimed him, silencing his thoughts.

  -7-

  EARTH

  247 YEARS AGO

  Sergeant John Steele stumbled through the snow together with five other soldiers from Napoleon’s dying Grande Armee. The Emperor had left Moscow several months ago on October 19. Soon thereafter, the army had struggled across a vast plain in the middle of nowhere, trying to escape from Russia.

  The Emperor had left the main army, heading back to Paris. Marshal Ney of the rearguard—the bravest of the brave—had also left them behind. These five had once been part of five hundred soldiers at the campaign’s start and they had fought, marched, and scurried through the wreckage of a fleeing army. Broken wagons, cast off loot, clothes, books and far too many frozen humans and horses had littered their path for forever it now seemed.

  It had been so different in the beginning. In the Year of Our Lord 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte and the greatest army the world had yet seen had marched into Russia to conquer it. That had been a lifetime ago. It was now January of 1813 and these five were some of the last bitter remnants of the former grand host.

  John Steele was perhaps the bitterest of them all. He was tall and lanky with dour features. He wore a greatcoat or a pelisse. He’d looted it from a dead Hussar, a light cavalryman that had fallen after Moscow. It was an ornate, rich, fur-lined coat, made of wool and possessing elaborate although now worn braiding. Steele also wore fur-lined boots and gloves, and a woolen hat, with dirty, flea-bitten scarves wrapped around his head. He carried on his shoulder a Charleville Model 1777 musket with bayonet, a standard issue weapon weighing a solid ten pounds. A saber clanked at his side. He’d looted it months ago from a dying Russian officer. Deep in his greatcoat so they kept warm, he kept several loaded AN IX flintlock pistols, the barrels eight inches long, all of walnut wood and with brass fittings. The pistols were also standard issue, for French cavalryman. Steele had looted his from corpses at Borodino.

  Surprisingly, twenty-five-year-old John Steele wasn’t French, Swiss or even German or Polish. He was Scottish, a Highlander, a once starving lad that had joined the English Army so he could fill his shriveled belly. He had gone by ship to Portugal and served under the great General John Moore. That had been his first retreat, back in 1808 as Napoleon chased Moore and his small army through Portugal. In the end, the Emperor left the pursuit to Marshal Soult so he could concentrate on the Austrians. Discipline had broken down in most of Moore’s army as they fled toward Corunna so they could take ship and leave the country.

  Steele had fought in a savage rearguard action, taking a bullet to the head, which had knocked him unconscious instead of killing him. He still had a dent in his forehead from that, and wore his hair long in front to hide the dent. The next he’d known was lying in a stretcher, fellow captives carrying him into French captivity.

  In that day and age, the French offered the captives a choice, as Napoleon had a raving hunger for soldiers, no matter the source. A French captain had made the offer. They could remain in the appalling prisoner of war camp or join the French Army to fight elsewhere than against the British.

  John Steele had no great love for Englishmen, and he had these blinding headaches thanks to the bullet that had dented his forehead. He’d originally joined the British army so he could eat, not out of any great patriotism to the English crown. He hadn’t wanted to wither away in the prisoner of war camp for who knew how long. He had to get out or the headaches would drive him mad. He thus took the offer. Soon enough, he’d fought against the Austrians and then the Russians.

  He’d been at Wagram in 1809 and won distinction at horrid Borodino in 1812, one of the bloodiest battles in the Napoleonic Age, when the Russian Army had turned at bay before the gates of Moscow. Afterward, John Steele marched singing into Moscow and watched it burn several days later. Despite everything that had happened in the grim campaign, Steele and his companions had never believed it could turn into a route like this. The great Napoleon led them. The miracle worker would turn things around, only he hadn’t.

  Now, the pitiful remnants of the once mighty French and Allied army that had proudly marched into Russia melted away in the final phase of the terrible and bitter winter retreat.