Endgame

“The fringe group that has been harassing Imperial authorities for the last turn was formally denied this morning. The Imperial governors have chosen a course that is best for La’heng, offering the most stability in the region. In other news—”

I sigh. “Well, Flavius warned me. I’d like to stick a knife in that rat bastard.”

Loras cuts the power. “Looks like things are about to get interesting.”

“What’re you talking about?” Sasha asks.

He looks between Loras and me, his face a picture of innocence. This once, I don’t glance at March for guidance. Kids deserve to have answers to their questions if they’re brave enough to ask them. I fold myself down onto the floor next to him, so we’re on the same level. Zeeka already knows the story, but he seems just as attentive.

“A long time ago, when the humans first came to La’heng, they covered the world in a chemical that changed the natives. It made it impossible for them to fight. So for their ‘protection,’ humans took over. Otherwise, the La’hengrin would have been easy prey.”

Loras takes up the narrative. “Since then, my people have been ‘protected’ by a number of species. They strip our natural resources and treat us as slaves. Jax funded research that led to a cure, permitting us to become self-sufficient again. But the current rulers don’t want us to be free.”

“That’s not right,” Sasha says indignantly.

It’s really not.

I go on, “So we’ve been trying to get legal permission to open centers where the La’hengrin can come in for treatments.”

“But they don’t want to let you,” the kid guesses. “Because once people get free, they’ll kick the helmet guys off the planet.”

Succinctly put, he encapsulates our problem. There was no way we could ever drum up enough support to deploy the cure legally. It doesn’t matter; it was worth trying. I live for the day that people surprise me by doing the right thing.

“Well said,” Loras says.

“What’s your plan?” March slides to the floor from the couch, drawing me back against him.

I contemplate prevaricating, but there’s no point. He can dig it out of me; he doesn’t have to ask. So I lay it out for him, step by step. And when I finish, he’s shaking his head.

“Guerrilla wars are seldom won, Jax.”

Loras cuts in, “That depends on how you define it. I can name several where the invaders were driven out because holding that colony became too expensive.”

I nod. We’ve looked at the historical precedents. Well, Vel and Loras did. In this one instance, I’m content to be led.

Sasha aims a chiding look at his uncle. “Don’t tell them they can’t win. When I competed for the blue ribbon, you said I just had to believe I could do it. Were you lying?”

I seam my lips together as March squirms. “Of course not. But this is—”

“The same thing,” the kid says implacably.

One of these days, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with. But then, any kid with such strong TK, raised by March, couldn’t turn out any other way. I like him more this time; he’s at the age where you can reason with him. He’s a small person instead of a bundle of agitated impulses.

“Fine,” March mutters.

I know better than to expect he’ll shut up without having his say. He just does it where Sasha can’t hear. I don’t like this, Jax. It’s dangerous. You don’t have the equipment, experience, or personnel to mount this kind of ground war.

Teach us what you can in ten days. Loras has been studying guerrilla warfare for the last turn, but you can help him figure out what strategies are practicable.

March doesn’t want me fighting a war without him, but he can’t stay; the conflict threatens to tear him in two. Under no circumstances could he choose to stay here with Sasha, under these conditions. But he wants to. And his pain is staggering.

All right.

This isn’t how I planned to spend his visit. I thought we’d roll around in bed the whole time and come up only for a few bites of food. But it’ll give the rebellion a better chance if March assesses installations, analyzes the battlefield, and tells us where we can create the most chaos. He mutters, “I’ll help while I’m here.”

“I knew you would,” Sasha says proudly. “In fact…we should stay, shouldn’t we? They need you, and I can help, too. You’re always saying I have an obligation to use my powers for good. What could be better than—”

“Enough, Sasha. I’m retired, and you have to get back to school.” Wisely, March doesn’t say it’s too risky for them to linger on La’heng. Nothing rouses a kid’s interest faster than a whiff of danger.

Even so, from Sasha’s expression, I suspect we haven’t heard the last of this.

CHAPTER 7

Later, after a long planning session and we’ve retired to my room, March pulls me into his arms.

He’s sleeping with me, of course. For the short time we’re together, I won’t have anything between us, not even a wall. After he’s gone, I’ll deal with the heartbreak, just as I did before. The separation hasn’t been easy, but I didn’t expect it to be. Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

“Do you think we have any chance of pulling this off?” I ask softly.

He thinks for a few moments. “With any other team, I’d say no. But I know what you and Vel can accomplish together. So…maybe?”

“I’d prefer more confidence.” I poke him. “It’s not just us, you know. Loras has quietly been building underground resistance. There are more supporters of an independent La’heng. They’re just not under this roof.”

“You need a face for your rebellion,” he says, pensive.

“We have one,” I say at once. “Loras. He was the first to receive the cure. He’s free of the shinai-bond, the first La’hengrin to have free will in so many turns. His people will think he’s a hero even before the fighting begins.”

March nods. “Perception is everything.”

“Not everything. But it matters a great deal.”

“He’ll work,” he says. “He has charisma and resolve.”

“Did I share the most interesting thing?” I project a gossipy tone, prompting a quirk of amusement from March.

“No. Do tell.”

“The former chancellor, Tarn, is on world.”

He arches a brow. “Really? Why?”

“I’ve no idea, but he’s been helping with the petitions and appeals. I was surprised as hell to see him.”

“That’s…interesting. Does he have another job here as well?”

I shake my head. “That’s why it’s so odd. But without him, we wouldn’t have gotten the motion as far as we did.”

“Only to be blocked in the High Court,” March mutters. “Imperial bastards.”

His bitterness is a tangible force between us, like a serrated blade. I remember the story he told me about losing so many men on Nicu Tertius, the pain of the endless war and betrayal. When March worked as a merc for these Imperial bastards, it meant a fat paycheck waited at the end of each contract, but at such cost. And irony is, those turns cost him his sister, who tired of waiting for him to save enough credits to buy a ship and save her, a sin for which March will spend the rest of his life trying to atone.

But I’ve got my ghosts, too. Doc haunts me still. He comes to me in the night, gone but not gone, so long as his memory lingers in the neurons and electrons that comprise my brain. You’d think the dreams would be nightmares, but he only talks to me in the way he used to—with dry humor and quiet wisdom.

Then I imagine living on Venice Minor, where he died, and I have to ask, “How do you stand living on Nicuan?”

I’d think the memories of failing Svetlana would be even stronger there, as that’s where March was when she died.

“It’s best for Sasha,” he replies simply.

That makes sense. He can expiate that grief by doing better for her son. With effort, I tamp down my emotional turmoil and go on with the conversation. “But I did think it odd that Tarn is here. I wondered if he intends to make up for the fact that Conglomerate tried to hang me out to dry.”

“I’m sure he feels a little guilty over that,” March admits. “Mary knows I do. But then I remind myself they were your choices. If you’d gone about it a different way, I could’ve shielded you.” There’s tension in his tone, even after all this time.

“Hey,” I say, sitting up. “I am never going to ask you to give an order that could result in my death. You couldn’t live with it.”

He’s been inside my head so many times that I know exactly where his stress fractures lie. And failing to protect those he loves—starting with his sister, Svetlana? That’s a wound he wouldn’t recover from. Yes, he might be strong enough to send me to die, but then, he would, too. And I’ll never let that happen.

“You know me too well,” he says softly.

“Not as well as I used to. Fatherhood has changed you.”

“For the better?”

I consider this. “You’re calmer. Less hard-edged. So, yes, I think so. When you’re inside me”—I touch the side of my skull—“I see that he’s finished the healing I started on Ithiss-Tor. Those dark, disconnected places are whole again.”

“It’s remarkable what perfect trust can do. He thinks I’ll never fail him.”

“Because you never have. And you never will.”

He exhales a soft breath. “Your faith in me is terrifying.”

“Welcome to my world.” I curl into his side, unwilling to sleep even though I’m tired, but I resent the need. Each time I close my eyes, I lose six or seven hours with him, and they are too few. The ache threatens to overwhelm me.

March wraps his arms around me and rubs his cheek against my hair, which is not silky or smooth. The curls are coarse and wild, as they ever have been, and he tangles his fingers in them possessively. I kiss the column of his throat.

“Can we really do this?” he asks, sotto voce.

“What?” It’s cowardly, but I pretend I don’t know where his mind has gone because I don’t want to talk about it.

“How many turns will we be apart, Jax? One was…endless.”

That parting came on the heels of a longer separation, where he didn’t know if I was alive or dead. I feel guilty doing this to him, but it’s not better on my end. I could lie. I could say any number of things, but that’s not my style. So I choose brutal honesty instead. If he wants to end this, I won’t try to talk him out of it, no matter how much it hurts, no matter that it’s his voice I hear in silent moments.

“It will get worse,” I reply. “Once we force the Conglomerate to limit space travel, and La’heng becomes a red port, you won’t be able to visit.”

By his flinch, he hasn’t let himself think of that. “They’ll probably lock down the comm, too.”