Sarcona's Awakening

By Steven R. Hirshorn

The empire of Sarcona has lasted for thousands of years. Historically, the reign of emperors and empresses has been one of cooperation and benevolence with their surrounding galactic worlds. But more recently, the empire has darkened. A new Campaign of ruthless subjugation was initiated by the recently enthroned Empress Nontass, a young girl susceptible to the influence of malicious advisors. The Campaign brutalizes Sarcona's galactic previous partners, leaving desolation and traumatized populations, all to the economic enrichment of Sarcona.

Enter Lon Tolk, the junior senator from Sarcona's Ketaden province. As a legislator, Lon has studiously supported the Campaign, subscribing to the notion that what is good for Sarcona is good for the empire's neighbors. He is brash, impatient and lavishes in the privileges he enjoys being a senator. His wife, Zeva, an administrator in the Sarconan government, is horrified at the brutality imposed by the Campaign and while she loves her husband, she cannot support this holocaust, amenting what the empire has lost.

Lon and his attache, Bessel, embark on a diplomatic mission to receive the surrender of another conquered world. En route, their transport experiences a malfunction which forces them to land on the world of Cassel, where the Campaign has only recently departed. As Bessel attempts repairs to their ship, Lon sets out to do some exploring. Over the course of two excursions he encounters native Casselians - a former soldier who has returned to his decimated farm, and a cafe owner hopefully awaiting the return of her husband. For the first time in his life, Lon comes face-to-face with the effects of the Campaign on native populations, forcing him to reconsider his loyalties.

In the midst of his now existential crisis, Lon embarks for a place of solitude to commune and think through his priorities. He choses Quoras, and ancient monetary built on a robe planet. There, he encounters the mysterious Cosma, the abbot of the monastery, who exposes Lon to ancient mysteries about the peoples of Sarcona. Lon also learns of a brewing rebellion against the empress, an effort that needs Lon in order to succeed.

Insurrection. Grand battles between massive space fleets. Populations in disarray. Sarcona appears to be coming apart at the seams. But yet hope remains in Lon, Cosma, and a small coterie of rebels, who envision a better future for their planet and their people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667883670

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Copyright © 2022

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-66788-366-3

eBook ISBN 978-1-66788-367-0

Cover design by BookBaby

This novel is dedicated to Robin, my one and only.

My best friend, constant confidante, and companion in life.

There is much of you in this story: your intellect, your persistence,

your strength, and your humor.

You have and continue to teach me about life, about love,

about friendship, and about living a life.

My love and appreciation for you is boundless.

Contents

ACT ONE: Gondanast

ACT TWO: Cassel

ACT THREE: Quoras

ACT FOUR: Vanta Bay

ACT FIVE: Gondanast

Prologue

How had it come to this?

How could things have ended up the way they did?

What had he missed?

Lon sat on the edge of the prison cell’s comfortless bed. It was little more than a cot: a rigid quadrangular bunk with a thin, inordinately firm mattress of stain-resistant fabric, no sheets, and a singular thermal blanket which had the appearance of being miserably insufficient to maintain a body’s warmth. The bed’s material was cold to the touch—not frigid, but well below what Lon would consider as comfortable or welcoming.

The air in the windowless room carried the bland scent of recirculation and heavy processing, reminding Lon of the stale atmosphere within the giant space vessels of the Sarconian fleet. He was sure this room’s air was passed through repeated filtration to eliminate the offense of body odor, but what was released back into the cell was devoid of any color or character of life outside the detention facility. It wasn’t just filtered; it was like trying to smell the vacuum of space—not just reduced of unpleasantness but lacking any smell at all.

The space inside the cell was large enough for a person to stand, sufficient for a caged animal but not much more. If Lon desired, he could pace endlessly back and forth, traveling perhaps ten steps before being forced to turn around. At the moment, he had no such desire and was content to simply sit on the pitiful bunk and ponder his surroundings. In addition to the bed, the minimal living quarters encompassed a chair and a standard government-issue desk, functional and almost ascetic in design, with a skipjack handheld computer attached to a small monitor. The computer might be useful in capturing one’s thoughts, perhaps to write a memoir, but Lon was sure it was also extremely limited in terms of access to the outside world.

To his right, a doorway led to a minute washroom with a brushed-metal shower and wash basin. The privacy afforded by the lavatory was the closest thing to a luxury in this place of confinement. Toward the front of the room, just a few meters from the bed, opened a break in the solid bulkhead, large enough for Lon to pass through with his arms spread wide. It was, however, robustly protected by a powerful forcefield and guarded by security personnel, firmly entombing anyone unfortunate enough to reside on the wrong side. Not even he could control the prison cell’s lighting—they were set to turn on in the morning and off in late evening, controlled by the whims of an apathetic administrator or an indifferent computer system, both free to exercise their will and mandate day or night upon their incarcerated guests.

The room made Lon shiver. It was impersonal and coldly harsh, not just in its decor but in the stark realization that anyone held within was completely cut off from society, removed from whatever constituted the normalcy of their previous life, and utterly lacking in the freedoms that people of his world often took for granted. Until those freedoms were taken away, of course.

Life in this facility was going to be devastatingly hard, a realization that chilled Lon to his core. For many years now had he known the life of a Sarconian senator—powerful, privileged, enjoying the fruits of the upper echelon of society. Senators gained their prestige and authority from their position as elected officials, and most senators parlayed those advantages into enviable places to live, an abundance of social status, and an endowment of liberties not accommodated to the general public. A senator’s place in Sarcona’s society ensured entitlement on a grand scale, almost guaranteeing prosperity, security, and abundance.

But in this place, in this prison cell, all of that was stripped away, leaving just the bare residue of what once had been. Here, there was no choice. Here, freedom was vacant. Within these walls, only emptiness, sorrow and loss awaited. Even silence was denied occupants here.

Lon considered lying down on the steely, uncompromising bed, just to try it out, but he couldn’t work up the will to do so, so he simply sat rigidly upright and stared vacantly at the opposite wall. He could barely comprehend the prospect of viewing that blank, bare surface for days, months, years . . . eternity. The thought made him feel small, insignificant, like a mote of dust blown on a current of air not of his choosing and with no control over its destination. An inconsequential blip on the palette of life that, once extinguished, would be quickly forgotten, as if he had never existed. The sadness of those thoughts was nearly overwhelming.

A year ago, he could not have imagined he would be sitting here.

A year ago, things had made sense.

Over the last year, so much had changed.

ACT ONE:

Gondanast

1

[Approximately one year ago]

Two orbital transports departed their berths on the outskirts of the capital city of Gondanast, withdrawing from the legislative district in the early morning’s twilight as the rest of the city was just awakening. They rose into the sky on cushions of dense, compressed air, lifting to a few dozen meters above the spaceport’s tarmac. Both main engines ignited and belched twin triangular plumes of sizzling cobalt plasma into their wake, like daggers of deep ocean waters that had been heated to a few thousand degrees. The ships gracefully banked to the left and then arced steeply to climb up into the atmosphere, and then above.

The amber glow of first light filled their cockpit windows, slowly giving way to a palette of diminishing hues, like passing through the layers of a cake. Yellow became gold, gold merged with orange, orange dimmed to red, before the red transitioned to purple. And then, as quickly as an eyelash blink or the snap of a finger, all went utterly black, to the cobalt depth of nothingness that constituted the emotionless vacuum of space.

But even in the empyrean void beginning above the planet Sarcona, above the stratosphere and on up to the troposphere at the highest reaches of the thermosphere where auroras and satellites existed, there was still color. The spacecrafts, now under the influence of orbital mechanics and moving by momentum, were illuminated by the irradiance of a cool red star, just breaking over the limb of the planet and drenching the vehicles in a splash of ruby.

As one transport continued along its trajectory, it moved in front of the star and momentarily blocked the solar furnace from view of the other. But just a few moments later, the star was clear again, unhidden, spewing tons of energetic particles onto whatever may be in their path. All of this played out in a choreography of technology and nature, an interwoven dance governed by laws that had remained immutable for billions of years.

Making a change to their orbit, the transports ejected another gout of blue flame from their aft engine nozzles and accelerated onto a different trajectory, the high-temperature exhaust dissipating quickly and leaving little more than a cloud of rapidly cooling, dustlike soot. At this low orbital altitude, that emission was likely to reenter the planet’s atmosphere in little more than a few days, returning the transformed chemicals to their source.

Those inside one of the transporters were oblivious to all of these events. This vehicle’s two pilots, strapped into the cockpit and surrounded by banks of brightly lit monitors and controls, had been cherry-picked from the military for this important assignment. Ferrying members of the planet’s legislature, especially one as cardinal as a senator, was a task reserved for aviators with only the most immaculate records of trial-tested experience and who demonstrated impeccable leadership. These two, members of Sarcona’s Navy, each had participated in multiple Campaigns and easily met those requirements. While a simple run from the planet’s surface to an awaiting destination in orbit was benign, even banal, in comparison to some of the Campaign objectives both had survived, they each recognized the importance of this task and the honorific bestowed in it. That charge was demonstrated by the professionalism with which they performed this simple mission, flying the transport meticulously as if a thousand lives were counting on it.

In fact, many more were counting on it.

Receiving a nod from her fellow pilot, the copilot unstrapped her harness and swung her legs out of the pilot’s well. Rising stiffly, she pulled on the material of her flight suit to stretch the wrinkled fabric back into place, and then headed aft. She tapped on the lighted pad to the left of the cockpit’s hatch, causing it to obediently slide open. A short corridor led to a utilitarian stairway which she descended to the transport’s main passenger cabin. Silently clearing another hatch, she entered the compartment and was met by the acrid bouquet of a burning panatela. She stood, her legs slightly separated, arms folded neatly behind her back, a perfect paradigm of military decorum. "We’ve attained orbit, Senator. We estimate arrival at the Vanta Bay in approximately thirty-six minutes."

The figure to which she spoke was seated in one of the transport’s deeply cushioned passenger chairs, his bulk testing the couch’s compliance. In one hand he held a skipjack, a slender portable computer, on which he was reading the terms of surrender he was about to administer. The stark glow cast by the computer painted his face with a vivid phosphorescence, accented by the radiance of Sarcona’s sun cascading through a window and illuminating his hair with an ethereal flush. In his other hand he held a lit cigar, its burning tip releasing thin tendrils of languid smoke.

The copilot remained at attention. The seated figure offered her a curt nod in acknowledgment and then dismissed her with a wave of his hand. The discourtesy of his act caused her stomach to churn. She tasted bile, and momentarily considered a diplomatic retort, but ultimately ignored the discomfort. Instead, she simply saluted, spun precisely on her heels, and retreated back through the entrance hatch, lamenting that politicians hadn’t always been so churlish.

You know, sir, you really shouldn’t be smoking in here. These spacecraft cabins are designed to eliminate fires to prevent calamities but aren’t equipped to filter out the fumes of a cigar. I’m guessing the pilots can probably smell it all the way in the cockpit.

The senator waved off his companion with indifference. You worry too much, Bessel. Consider it senatorial privilege. He fluttered the cigar at his attaché, his robed arm carving out an arc in the spacious cabin, causing a dusting of ash to sever itself from the tip of the cigar and fall like snow onto the immaculately vacuumed carpet. All, that was, except for a few particles that adhered to the cuff of his ceremonial robes. Senators were frequently required to don these bright and pompous regalia whenever they were called on to perform ambassadorial or parliamentarian duties, which wasn’t often, but enough for Lon to grow a dislike of them. They made him feel like a character out of some children’s tale—outrageously overdressed and insipidly exhibited. It made him feel exposed, although he was completely covered from his neck to his ornate, silk-covered shoes. Absently, he brushed the ash off his sleeve and onto the floor.

Bessel ignored the impropriety of Lon’s action and pointed hesitantly to the senator’s skipjack. Are you satisfied with the procedures, sir, he asked politely.

Yes, yes, they’re all in order. Standard fare for these surrender formalities. But I’ll tell you, Bessel, while I’m always happy to preside at these functions, serving the empress as I do—as we all do—I get the feeling sometimes that proceedings like these have descended into little more than burlesque.

Bessel cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head obliquely to one side. Why do you say that, Senator?

Lon waved his cigar a second time. There’s no real negotiation. I officiate, read them the terms of surrender, they cower and supplicate, agree to our demands if we just stop decimating their worlds, and it’s all over before my tea even has a chance to cool down.

Isn’t that desirable, sir?

I suppose, Lon responded, tapping his finger on the middle of the cigar. It’s just that none of this challenges me. It’s all procedural, like a choreographed ballet where the principal dancer repeats her memorized dance, leaves the stage, and then has to suffer through endless accolades about how brilliant her performance was. It’s all routine, each and every time. Lon’s face contorted sourly, like he had just bit into some astringent fruit.

Bessel grinned, amused at Lon’s honesty, but also lamenting the wicked truth of these surrender ceremonies—the helpless capitulation of overwhelmed worlds begging for a sliver of mercy but rarely receiving any. Procedural ballet is better than an armed response, sir. He canted his head in the opposite direction, as if one ear had been satiated and the other now ready to receive.

Lon pointed the smoldering cigar at Bessel as if it were an extension of his own finger. "Don’t get snide with me. I bring you along on these things because you’re my attaché and you can, occasionally, be somewhat helpful. What I don’t need from you are critiques of my responsibilities. And another thing, don’t do that thing you do with your head, craning it one way and then the other. You look like those pet zoratain’s when you do that."

Bessel relented. As you wish, Senator.

A call came over the transport’s internal comm system, echoing with the pilot’s deep, resonant voice. "Senator, we’ve contacted the Vanta Bay and have been granted authorization to approach. We should be safely in its docking bay in less than ten minutes. Captain Deste will be there to meet you."

Lon looked up toward the speaker mounted into the cabin’s ceiling and shouted. I understand, Lieutenant. You may proceed. He then snuffed out the remnants of the cigar into the chair’s upholstered arm, leaving a rift of melted fabric in the material, and cast a sidelong glance to his attaché. Mark my words, Bessel, this one will be no different.

* * * * * * * *

The two transports glided side by side noiselessly into the Vanta Bay’s cavernous hanger deck, drifting past the starkly illuminated sides of the entrance portal that, as if by magic, separated a warm, livable, breathable atmosphere from the veritable vacuum death of space outside. The small civilian ships hovered momentarily into position, one followed by the other, and set down in a communal pair beside a far less aesthetically accoutered vessel clearly intended for military purposes. Escaping gases accompanied both ships’ weight, again burdening stout landing legs which recessed noticeably, absorbing the tons of mass under the force of gravity once again.

When the gasses cleared and it was safe to approach, a lone figure walked along the mesh-covered gantry extending to the transports. She stopped with the precision of a gladiator, standing with practiced rigidity, just as a long ramp extended from the belly of the first ship and deposited Lon and his attaché onto the flat, slightly sticky surface of the hanger deck.

"Senator Tolk, welcome aboard the Vanta Bay. I take it your transit from the surface was uneventful?"

Still retaining some of his irritation at Bessel’s admonishment of his smoking, Lon accepted the greeting brusquely, Yes, except for the unwelcome advice of a mollycoddling subordinate. It occurred cursorily to Lon that, perhaps, he wasn’t retaining the irritation but hoarding it instead, reveling in the authority he had over his assistant. The thought registered for a fleeting moment and then was gone, replaced by a recognition that the moment was a time for decorum. I apologize, Captain, he started again. He gave the figure a penitent salute, fist held to chest. Permission to come aboard?

Permission granted, Senator. Captain Vessa Deste stood trim and fit, her naval uniform of red stripe on blue obediently planed and crease-free in symbiosis with her normally controlled and disciplined behavior. She attempted a stiff salute of her own, but it was just slightly imprecise, drawing a microscopic grimace. I still haven’t gotten used to these new hails, Senator.

Lon nodded, understanding the officer’s predicament, but orders were orders. Mandate of the empress, Captain.

Vessa acknowledged the comment with a stunted bob of her head, then shifted politely to her right. Welcome aboard to you, too, Mr. Bessel. It’s been some time since our last encounter.

Bessel simply angled his nose an inch lower but said nothing.

The small gathering was met by the arrival of three other individuals, all dressed in one-piece jumpsuits, stained, and ruffled—lacking the sculpted formality of the captain’s uniform. The three, shorter and stouter than the lithe Deste, carried gearboxes in each hand and lumbered mechanically up the ramp into Lon’s transport with the gait of robots. Vessa lifted her uniformed arm and gestured to a corridor to her right. The conference room is this way. If you will follow me. The decor has been established as per your instructions and your guests are waiting. Our cyborg crew will see to your craft until you are ready to depart.

She led them through the hanger deck’s double sliding doors and out into the utilitarian passageway. The lighting was low, subtle, reflecting almost an ethereal richness from the grayish purple bulkheads that lined the walls. Their footsteps echoed on the viscous deck plating like rubber being detached from a ball on a humid day.

As Lon proceeded down the walkway, the small group entered a vestibule which emptied into an elevator that took them upward ten decks to the level of the conference room. He was simultaneously pensive and conflicted. On the one hand, Lon relished opportunities such as these: to accept the surrender of an entire sovereign world—a culture and peoples counting in the millions or billions—to the overwhelming, conquering might of his own beloved Sarcona. Senatorial duties frequently ran the gamut from the mundane to the outright boring, testing his patience and stamina. But occasionally, a task would come along that thrusted Lon into the spotlight. There he could brandish the full weight of his authority as one of the planet’s senior elected officials, and of these occasions, few were as satisfying or validating as the variety of diplomatic ceremonies on which he was about to embark. These duties, more than most others, could inflate his sense of importance and boost his ego, not to mention swell his reputation as a senator. They made Lon feel important and gave him purpose.

On the other hand, there was a small part of Lon, one which he normally obscured with visions of duty and jingoistic patriotism, that harbored just the minutest bit of sympathy for these conquered worlds. Many were unable to fend off the overwhelming military superiority of Sarcona and had little choice but to surrender themselves as the newly vanquished. But while this realization was acknowledged by one side of Lon’s mind, it swam obliquely within his psyche, hidden behind the more conscious and perceived thoughts that Sarcona’s actions were entirely justified. Even he was loath to acknowledge these hidden considerations, sheltered like caged animals in a part of his subconscious that rarely would he allow to be tapped. As he had before, he sealed the thought away.

The portal to the elevator opened onto Deck Four. Vessa spilled out into the adjoining corridor, along with Lon and his staff. She walked briskly, her posture stiff and hardened through training, up a rise of three elongated steps brightly illuminated from above, and then through a pair of wide, swinging doors that led to the ship’s conference room.

Once inside, Lon looked around to gather his bearings. To his right rose a dais constructed a meter above the floor of the room. On it was positioned an elaborate wooden desk, lacquered, and polished until the burl was as reflective as a mirror. It was trimmed with gold striping along its outer edge and draped with the yellow banners of the Vanta Bay, the flagship of the Sarcona fleet. Three upholstered armchairs were positioned strategically behind the desk, each emblazoned with the insignia of the ship on their upper backrest. On top of the desk, arranged in two semi-circles between each of the three chairs, sat an assortment of cold and warm libations decanted into crystal goblets, along with decorations of petite hors d’oeuvres, still warm. The lighting in the room was subtle, dimly yellow illumination mixed with pleasing reds and blues to create an ambiance of indulgence. And, unmistakably, of power.

The view to Lon’s left told a much different story. A simple, low table with short legs sat opposed to the grand dais’s resplendent wooden desk. It was positioned directly onto the floor so that its height remained lower. The lighting was harsh and obtrusive; an almost binding glare beamed from hot white lamps levered to the ceiling and focused intensely on the table. There was no food to satiate an appetite, nor liquid to quench a thirst, not even a simple flagon of water. The two ‘guests’ sat obtrusively behind the table. Both were tall and lithe, with graceful athletic frames and dressed in suits of mauve and beige material with flashings of brocade sewn along the shoulders. Around their heads they wore woven silks, ceremonially wrapped and tied below the neck, obscuring their hair, but revealing their faces. The two, a woman and a man, awaited in pensive silence.

Standard surrender-room decor, Lon thought to himself. He was certain that Captain Deste’s crew fashioned the cabin following usual military protocol, likely out of some doctrinaire policy that dictated such things. Leave it to the military to homogenize a proceeding like this one, he mused. Still, Lon approved of the arrangements, and felt they would suit the circumstance adequately.

He stepped to the desk and sat himself in the center chair. Captain Deste took the one to his left, while Bessel preferred to remain standing, placing his back against the far wall such that he remained in shadow. Lon poured himself a fruit juice, a red one that gleamed like starlight, and fingered one of the small canapés, but wasn’t hungry at the moment. He raised his head and peered down on the attendant pair seated at the table below him. Imperially, he announced, "My name is Senator Lon Tolk, representing the Sarconian Empire. Beside me is Captain Vessa Deste in command of the starship Vanta Bay, flagship of the mighty Sarconian fleet. He paused momentarily to indicate Vessa with his hand, and then continued. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" The question was rhetorical: Bessel’s preparatory briefing was quite explicit that the two invited supplicants were Sequa Memsee and Demi-Sequa Ikaterua, heads of state of the conquered world of Trenagren. However, protocol was protocol and Lon resigned himself to ensuing procedure.

The woman spoke first. Her voice was resolute but fatigued, as if she hadn’t slept for days. I am Sequa Hels Memsee, and to my right is Demi-Sequa Blous Ikaterua. We are Sequa and Demi-Sequa of our world, Trenagren. We have been appointed by our presidium to negotiate terms.

Lon raised his glass, taking a slow, measured sip of the fruit juice, then held the cup aloft and swirled the crimson fluid within it. He had given this speech before. There is no negotiation. You are to unconditionally surrender your planet and its resources to the Sarconian Empire under threat of annihilation. Your world will be embraced into our benevolent empire as a contributing vassal, with requisite benefits and, if deemed appropriate by the empress herself, rights of self-administration. Those and other details are outlined in the terms of surrender, which we all will bear witness to and sign. Lon signaled for Bessel, still standing against the far wall, to produce a set of skipjacks. The attaché came forward and set one down on both Lon’s desk and the Sequa’s table, then withdrew again to the shadows.

The man, Demi-Sequa Ikaterua, stood as if thrown into the air. I beseech you. My world is suffering. Our people have been murdered, our cities pillaged and in flames. He appeared to yearn to take a step forward, but then felt better of it. We are a peaceful planet. We have no enemies. We aim to live in harmony with others, only to build our society for the betterment of Trenagren. We have done you no wrong and do not deserve to be annihilated. He returned to his seat and crossed his arms defiantly.

Lon was unmoved. Of course. Sarcona is a peaceful planet as well, and only wishes to live in harmony with those in our collective. But we need resources, and those who contribute to the empire are well rewarded with the safety and security of our laws and armed forces, and of the benevolence of our kindly empress. We seek to coexist, in harmony, for mutual benefit. He sipped the remainder of the juice and set the empty crystal back down on the stately desk. His task was to process this surrender and then he could return to Gondanast, the capital city, and maybe still yet enjoy some lunch.

Sequa Memsee placed a consoling hand on her counterpart’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze in support. Then she turned to look up again at Lon. Senator, we obviously are in no position to make demands. Our armies, what few of them we had when this started, are defeated. Your forces are in control of our world. All we are asking at the moment is for food to feed our people, and power to warm their homes. Our trade commissioners can ascertain what resources it is that Sarcona desires, and negotiate arrangements for their delivery. We do not seek more war and are ready to discuss terms.

Lon shifted in his chair and glanced to Captain Deste, but she just sat stiffly and stared rigidly ahead at the two Trenagrens. Lunch was slipping away and he need to get this moving. Sequa Memsee, I appreciate your request. It does Sarcona no benefit to have its partners cold or hungry. We will see to it, for the sake of the empire. But first, we need your acquiescence to the terms of surrender. It is a formality, I concede, but a necessary one. Here, let me begin. He drew forward the computer pad, tapped it with his finger, and adjusted the light on the screen an increment brighter. He motioned to Bessel behind him, who drew forward and produced a coded magnetic pen. Lon accepted it, bit one end as if it were a stick of bread, then withdrew it from his mouth and pressed its opposite end to the pad. With it, he produced his signature: a swirl of calligraphy with sweepingly broad strokes and loftty accentuation. Then he set the pen back down on the desk, sat back into the cushioned chair, and waited patiently for reciprocation.

Demi-Sequa Ikaterua was apoplectic at what he considered to be Lon’s coarse display of hostility. But what of the hundreds who are now dead after their invasion? What of the parents who have lost children, or worse, the children who have lost their parents? What of their loss, Hels? Who is going to stand up for them? He pounded the table with a clenched fist, lines of agitation borne of tragic circumstances inscribed on his face. And what of our infrastructure? Our factories, our power plants? It’s all been destroyed. Who is going to rebuild that?

Sequa Memsee nodded to her companion, a quiet bob of the head that acknowledged the legitimacy of his questions. In almost a whisper, haunted by the wails and laments of millions of her world’s populations, almost apologetically, she directed the questions to Lon. Senator?

Lon hated going here. It wasn’t that he was unsympathetic to the plight of these conquered and battered worlds, but Sarcona had its needs and there was simply no question in his mind that those came first. Always. Still, these surrender formalities were not times to gloat or luxuriate in Sarcona’s supremacy. He needed to meet these Trenagrens halfway, or at least try to. We mourn your losses, as we do our own, Sequa. And all of your needs, Demi-Sequa, as with ours, will be met with cooperation and partnership. Lon’s face, illuminated in blue and shadowed in red like a decorative centerpiece at one of the palace’s formal banquets, was relaxed and accommodating, reflecting an almost fatherly mien.

Sequa Memsee slumped resignedly into her seat. There was no argument here to win, no negotiation to barter for advantage. Trenagren was, very simply, overcome and desperately in need of assistance. Helping her people was her first—and at the moment her only—priority, even if that help came from the very hands of those who initiated the destruction. Unhurriedly, as if time itself had become immaterial, she reached up, unwrapped her head scarf, and placed it with reverence to the side of the table. Bessel, sensing her pending action, slid back into view, delivering the magnetic pen to the Trenagren leader. Then, with great effort, as if the pen weighed as much as an entire starship, Sequa Memsee lifted the implement and pressed it to the skipjack. Its tip wavered and swung from side to side, casting a long, thin shadow in the glaring, unfiltered light. When she was done, she lithely set the pen down on the table where it remained for many hours, long after the ceremony was over and the participants had departed, the room vacated and empty until the cleaning crew came to disassemble the facade that was Trenagren’s surrender.

2

Rumatell’s restaurant was not the sort of place you’d bring your children. Or your spouse, for that matter. Its clientele had long been reserved for the highest and most favored elite of Sarcona’s political society: legislators, judges, regional governors, military commanders, and those that occupied the inner sanctum of the Thesis Palace who catered directly to the needs of the empress. Here at Rumatell’s, officials could relax, converse, socialize, negotiate if need be, and to do it all sustained by the finest cooking across the breadth of Gondanast, which hosted many of the empire’s most esteemed houses of cuisine. The trattoria had been established adjacent to the Guild of Governance—the colossal kilometer-high marble, granite, and metal structure that housed Sarcona’s legislature and its associated administrative and executive functions for the last thousand years—and had distinguished itself as the preeminent venue for celebrated food and secure conversations.

The entrance to Rumatell’s was intentionally nondescript: just a smoked-glass sliding partition flanked by twin shoulder-tall plants in beige ceramic pots, off the fifth-level of the Avenue of Ministries. But the unobtrusive nature of its access belied the near impossibility of gaining admission without the proper credentials. A general patron entering off the street could not simply amble into the bistro and have any expectation of getting past the exterior doorway. Genetic sensors were programmed to allow admittance only to those whose profile matched the system’s insulated and protected records. And even if a prospective infiltrator had somehow been able to bypass or trick the genetic sensors, further barriers awaited in the form of specially trained security guards, highly encrypted password keypads, retinal scans, and more genetic sensors using a different set of algorithms. Rumatell’s succeeded on its reputation for impregnability as much as that of its immaculate tastes.

It was, most decidedly, Lon’s kind of place. Not only was it one of the only locations in Gondanast that got the flavors right of his beloved Zamash, a seafood bouillabaisse from his native province on Sarcona, but its exclusiveness satisfied Lon’s sense of the unique prerogative afforded to the empire’s senators. Lon reveled in the special treatment, the elitism that it offered, separated from the majority of society by power, authority, and privilege. It wasn’t the ability to command or dictate to others that felt special to him, although that had its uses from time to time, but more that it validated his place in the world and his role in life. The very notion of being a senator gave Lon a sense of identity, an identity to which he held on to strongly.

As Lon approached the doorway to Rumatell’s, a cold wind rustled his ossified woolen cloak. It was approaching the early stages of winter in Gondanast, and the sultry and humid conditions that predominated in the summer months had given way to the onset of chill. He wrapped the frock—yellow and beige, the colors of the empire—tightly about his chest and entered the restaurant. Once through the vestibule and past the multiplicity of security apparatus, two golden doors parted noiselessly and Lon proceeded inside. Immediately