"Tell him you're Fusion." There was no hesitation in Copan's voice.

"Is that you or my subconscious talking, Doctor?"

"It's the voice of pragmatism, Laisen. If you tell them you're Fusion, they'll release you. They'll not want to antagonise us."

"I don't think I can do that."

"Why not? It will only be a minor setback." He shrugged. "We've aborted other missions before on lesser justification."

"But this one has a lot more at stake."

Copan looked annoyed. "Your psych profile indicated a latent capacity for martyrdom. Is that what you're manifesting now?"

She laughed. "Nothing so n.o.ble. I'm thinking of the mission."

"I told you"

"Hear me out. Please." She paused and only continued when he lapsed into a grudging silence. "If I admit to Drel that I'm Fusion, what does that mean for the future of this decime? The Fusion is banking on Menon prevailing as the first step towards the destruction of the Perlim Empire. Even the border planet of Laeyek Omni B is too tough an obstacle for us, with a military shipyard and two permanent garrisons stationed so close to it. We have every possible factor in our favour at Menon."

She ticked off each point on her hand. "The Menon have always been a thorn in the Perlim side and they're an adept fighting force. The planet's ionic storms have helped eliminate Perlim air and s.p.a.ce advantage. The lack of Perlim expertise in ground-fighting is working against them. We can't give up now."

"I admit that there are unique factors at play"

"If the Fusion admits that it's had a representative on Menon all this time," she cut in, "what are the rebels going to think? What more will they think if they find out that it was, in fact, the Fusion representative who was responsible for the slaughter of their civilians?"

Copan remained silent.

"Doctor, if I own up to being a member of the Fusion, then I will also have to own up to ma.s.sacring Menon women and children. Under such circ.u.mstances, the rebels might quite legitimately decide that they're better off with the drain-sahmpren they know."

"And sue for peace with the Perlim." He looked like he'd just swallowed something very bitter.

"Yes." She was glad he was finally beginning to see her position. "And if that happens, the Fusion may never get the opportunity to manipulate another Perlim planet. Underground news travels fast. Such a loss here could mean we forfeit our best chance of bringing down the Empire."

Her liaison shook his head after a long pause. "I'm most uncomfortable with this. My oath was to heal people, not approve rationalisations for suicide."

"It's the only strategy that makes sense," she insisted.

Copan remained unconvinced. She could see it in the droop of his shoulders and the dour expression on his face.

"Have they offered you any inducements?" he finally asked.

"Yes. They say they'll release me if I share our troop movements, inventory levels and general strategies with them." For the moment, she wanted to keep Lith out of the equation completely.

"Which you could do. In fact, wouldn't that help us by giving the rebels a wealth of information they wouldn't have normally had?"

Laisen shook her head. "I could tell them that water is for drinking and they wouldn't believe me. The only person more mistrusted than an enemy is a turncoat and Drel isn't the trusting type. Without the ability to verify everything I say, they'd end up discarding most of what I tell them. I am, after all," she said with a twisted smile, "the Butcher."

"What is the extent of your injuries?"

"I have severe bruising on my back." She flexed her back and sighed. "As well as on my face and body. A couple of broken teeth and fingers. Perhaps some cracked ribs." She smiled faintly. "I've had worse."

But he refused to be drawn by her attempt at levity.

"According to your reasoning then, if you live, you feel you can continue your mission. And if you die, everything remains as it was."

She nodded. "A fair summation. Of course, if the rebels decide to carry out a proper autopsy on my body, they might find some puzzling irregularities. But I'm not expecting them to produce any surgeons after they kill me. The medical facilities on this planet are rather basic."

"What would you say are your chances of escape?"

"At the moment? Maybe twenty percent."

"And what are you expecting to happen next?"

"I have one, perhaps two, days before Drel will be forced to kill me. That's my window of opportunity."

"I don't know why you wanted to talk to me," Copan complained. "You seem to have figured everything out already."

She grinned. "I've always valued our talks, Doctor. I just wanted to make sure, in case we don't meet again, that I told you that."

Laisen had faced death before, but not since Eys.

The rebels had thrown her into a bare room after the beating without even a thin mattress or torn blanket to cushion her fall. They hadn't risked untying her hands, which were now secured in front of her. It was as if a hungry, exhausted, suffering Cheloi Sie could still pose a threat to them. In a way, the thought was flattering.

Laisen lay on her side, skirting the edges of consciousness, the darkened surrounds flashing in and out of focus through mists of black and red. Her breaths lifted small particles of dust that tickled at her nose. She didn't care.

She thought of Eys. That she had to be almost at death's door to finally relive those moments was telling. Those memories were held in such a deep, dark part of her that she didn't think even the wetware connections of the virtual Dr. Copan could tease them out.

Not till now. Not until she faced the fact that she might not see it through to the end of this particular puzzle and had to make peace with the remembrance of a woman who had meant more to her than life. The first woman who had meant more to her than life.

Eys Ttulon.

Eys was already an experienced veteran of the Fusion's covert arm when Laisen joined. She was exactly the opposite of what Laisen was expecting. Instead of a serious, cautious, introspective personality, Eys was the life of every occasion, the sparkle at the party, the laughter at the celebration. She was vibrant, with black flashing eyes, long straight dark hair and skin the colour of luscious burnt caramel.

Laisen didn't have much to do with her during her initial training but they met, by accident, after her fifteenth mission and were inseparable soon after that.

Both had known that their liaison was a bad idea. The life of a Fusion covert agent was unpredictable at best. But in the end, neither could resist the compulsion that pulled them together As she lay on the sandy floor in her subterranean cell, Laisen remembered a very different place. Different places.

The yellow sun that warmed their skin on the holiday world of Ozca Secundus III. Frolicking in the freshwater oceans by day. Travelling to a different continent as whim took them. Firing their insatiable desire for each other by night.

The gas-giant gliding they did on Ruar Six. Armoured against the crushing gravity. Their visors tuned to a different electromagnetic setting so they could see the full wonder of the multi-hued clouds through which they plunged.

They bought a place on the Floks Nine Semi-Dyson so that, as Eys had playfully teased, she could be near Laisen's parents and their wonderfully eccentric senses of humour. Eys was the flourish at the end of every mission, the festive gla.s.s that increased the joy of each success and mitigated the failures. Laisen adored her with every speck of her being.

Her parents loved Eys too. h.e.l.l, everybody loved Eys. People panted and trailed after her like puppies, hoping for a mote of attention. Men and women, it made no difference. But she was Laisen's. Only Laisen's. And the younger woman could not believe the sense of pride that filled her every time she and Eys appeared anywhere.

She called Eys her "dark star". In a moment of poetry even she couldn't believe, she told Eys she was like that exotic interstellar body, her pull inexorable even when she seemed not to be there. And it was true. Even when they were apart, as circ.u.mstances and work often dictated, Laisen thought she could feel her as an almost-tangible presence, guiding her and providing silent advice in difficult situations.

The tragedy of it was that, despite her romantic fancies, there wasn't a single trace of premonition before Eys' mission to the 2 Feldaen Cl.u.s.ter. Laisen remembered their last night together as if it were yesterday, both of them still awake as their sector dome lightened to simulate sunrise on the Floks semi-dyson.

Eys ran a finger up Laisen's naked thigh which quivered in response.

"If you keep doing that," Laisen warned, her eyes still closed, "you won't be able to make your flight."

Eys chuckled, a warm bright sound. "And wouldn't you like that?"

Laisen opened her eyes and jackknifed into a sitting position. "Actually, I would," she said suddenly.

The older woman reached up to nuzzle her ear, licking the sensitive patch of flesh just behind the jawline. "Mmmm. And what would we do with ourselves then, my darling? Join a university? Start a business? Move into politics?"

"Any or all of the above." The tickle at her ear made it difficult to concentrate. "Between us, we have enough social credits saved up to do nothing but relax for a few years." She turned and kissed Eys full on the lips. "What do you think? Let's resign. Let's sleep as much as we want to, wake up when we want to, go wherever we wish. Doesn't that sound more attractive than another mission with some opaque objective at its end?"

Eys, her dark star, forced her back on the bed. Flesh against flesh. "But wouldn't you miss the excitement?"

Laisen tried to avoid her lover's lips but failed. She kissed her quickly. "Y-es," she slowly conceded, spinning out the word. "Maybe."

"Besides, you're still fairly new. The job only gets better from here." Eys kissed each of Laisen's nipples, gentle affectionate pecks. "I have a counter-proposal if you're interested."

Laisen groaned.

"Let's give it another five years." She kissed her neck. "Save up some more." Her nose. "Enjoy ourselves." Both eyes. "Then we'll call it quits forever. Okay?"

In the sunlit chaos of their bedroom, it sounded innocuous and reasonable enough. Laisen nodded and, with the bedsheets still tangled around her naked form, watched her lover get out of bed and begin packing.

Eys left with a wave, a flying kiss and a quick grin.

There was no reason for Eys Ttulon to be anything other than supremely confident about 2 Feldaen. It was a simple s.n.a.t.c.h-and-grab task, one of the easiest cla.s.ses of mission there was. Only the Fusion hadn't bargained on a renegade Jesse mercenary team crashing in and killing every person in sight, regardless of sides. Laisen, with another three more weeks until redeployment, was still on Floks Nine when she got the news.

Devastated didn't cover how she felt. The frosted walls of the meeting room at the local Fusion administration office, the sympathetic officer, the spa.r.s.e yet stylish furniture that Laisen had been admiring only scant minutes before, all of it disappeared into a pit of blackness that yawned wide before her eyes.

Not Eys. Not dead. The woman contained enough life for several ordinary mortals. Besides, they had plans. They were going to go rock-hopping across the Olmara Belt. Take part in a scavenger hunt in that barren eerie place called The Zone. Make a long overdue trip to the emba.s.sy hub world of Anvil to visit one of Laisen's brothers.

Dead.

Laisen remembered whispering the word in that terrible and cheerful room. And what came after made it seem so much worse. Eys' testament. Who would have thought that such a vibrant woman would have given death a single thought, much less think to keep her wishes updated? Everything went to Laisen-her credits, her half-share of their Floks habitat, even a small beat-up scout ship that she had laughingly bought on a whim and planned to renovate.

Laisen didn't want to keep anything, even though it made her one of the most a.s.set-rich individuals she knew. It all felt tainted and corrupt, as if she had swapped her lover's life for a pile of material possessions, a kind of infernal pay-off. But as the objects were now her only link with Eys, she also couldn't bear to give any of it away.

In the end, she locked everything up, left a rough inventory with her parents, and ran as far away from the semi-dyson as fast as she could. She had never gone back.

Now, a decade later, here she was, dying for the Fusion. Her only crumb of comfort was that Eys' death must have been relatively quick. Mercenaries were usually on a clock.

She shifted on the cold floor. Mercenaries were the opposite of ideologues. Rebels like Drel, unless under direct attack, liked to spin out the moment. They liked messy, prolonged deaths that suited their sense of justice.

With a sigh, Cheloi dropped her head, trying to relax the pain-induced tension in her body. Was there anything different she'd do in her life, knowing she would finally reach this moment in time? No, not really.

Lith. Where was she? Was she being tortured as well? It angered Laisen that she could do nothing, broken and bleeding as she was. Now in the present, she had so much more to regret than what lay in the past.

Her head was pounding like a terraformer's tecton-sledge. Just six months ago, she would have died happy. Or at least more content in the knowledge that she had achieved everything she wanted to in life. But now, that satisfaction was ripped from her grasp.

Even with her eyes closed she could see Lith's face, those soft lips and aristocratic cheekbones. She remembered that lithe body grasping and trembling beneath her, her warm eyes wide and unseeing as she was locked in the throes of a climax. Then it segued to a slimmer face, to darker eyes, glowing dark skin and an infectious laugh.

She never even got the chance to say good-bye.

"Oh, Eys," she whispered into the dark and tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

Chapter Twelve.

Lith had fantasies of remaining strong and resolute against the rebels, especially considering whose uniform she was wearing. When she woke, alone and in the dark in the tiny suffocating storage room, she entertained images of standing tall and demanding her rights as a prisoner. Chief among those demands would be some pain relief, she thought, as she rubbed at the source of a painful throbbing on the side of her head.

Her fantasies sustained her until two guards entered her cell, bringing their own starkly illuminating lamp. They shut the door firmly behind them. That was a hint that something unpleasant was about to happen and Lith tried to suppress a shiver. Her visitors were large grim-faced men and she hurriedly got to her feet, holding her position even though her first instinct was to run.

But where to?

The expressions on their faces were menacing although she knew she shouldn't have expected any less.

Lith thought she knew about war. Part of her duties was to tour the territory's medical facilities and the looks of pain on the faces of the injured, the sutures caked with blood, the missing limbs and mutilated faces clearly showed her the personal toll of combat. Even though she was moved to sympathy, a kernel within her remained aloof and coldly satisfied. n.o.body had asked the Perlim to invade Menon IV. It was an act of aggression, pure and simple. And although she sometimes winced sympathetically, she thought that all these people would have been better off if they hadn't volunteered for such service in the first place.

In comparison, she viewed the rebels with more empathy. If Laeyek Omni B had such fighters, maybe her homeworld could have torn itself free of the Empire sometime in the past and formally pet.i.tioned the Fusion for admittance.

The Menon rebels were a metaphor of her own state of mind. They were doing something distasteful, fighting and killing other beings, in order to achieve the higher goal of freedom. Despite the ambush on their skimmer, and the ache in her head from the blow that knocked her out cold, that opinion remained strong in her mind.

Until the first backhand caught her across the face.

Stars exploded in front of Lith's eyes as she fell backwards against a wall, her shoes skidding along the dry earth.

What was happening, she thought in shock. Didn't they realise she was a woman? And she was on their side!

Lith opened her mouth to say something and a short punch caught her in the midsection, dropping her to the ground.

They hadn't even asked any questions, she thought in terror, clutching at her stomach as she moaned. Her body curled itself into a foetal position. All the two men seemed to be interested in was a sense of satisfaction from beating the breath from her body. She wheezed in painful gasps of air. Would they even let her live when they were done?

"What are we supposed to do with her?" one of her attackers asked the other, as if reading her mind.

"Doesn't matter. Both of them are supposed to be killed."

Killed!

But Grakal-Ski said-!

Lith's mind flashed back to the look on the sub-Colonel's face when he invaded her quarters. He told her she would be safe and Lith had believed him. But that was a.s.suming that the rebels would ask the relevant question in the first place. Too late, she reinterpreted the look on his face from concentration to smug satisfaction.