-36-
It was a strange experience, signing the peace accords. The Imperials were stiff and formal, wearing their dress whites and dress blacks—depending on what service they were from. The government officials wore stone gray. I thought that was the most honest color among them. They were grim, unsmiling people. They hated me and everything I stood for. Only the threat of death and the collapse of all their support had gotten them to come to the table at all.
Over the last several days, we’d watched the Imperial government crumble. Built on a reign of terror, they could not contain their subjects once the people knew they were powerless.
The mobs had gone wild. All over the globe, there was unrest. A dozen cities had been burned and looted. Whole regions were plagued by rioting. Countless officials and collaborators had been dragged through the streets and hung. The Imperial military dared not intervene. We’d contacted the top brass and let them know we could find them and kill them—thanks to General Kerr’s database.
I hoped that today’s formal proceedings would put a lid on the unrest, but it was faint hope. My forces were ill-equipped to police billions of enraged citizens.
The worst concern I had was embodied in the obvious question: what next? As has happened so often in history, we’d been focused entirely upon winning the battle, rather than on dealing with the aftermath.
I’d never wanted to rule Earth. But now, for however long it would be until I could give up the reins of power, I’d been placed in that position. I was it—there was no one else for the job.
By the second droning hour of conferences and speeches, I was getting bored. My fist was firmly mashed into my cheek, propping up my head. Jasmine was sitting next to me, and she constantly whispered to me, urging me to sit up and appear interested. She was like a mom at church.
I knew she was right. The whole world really was watching live on the net. So I tried, but feigning alertness for so long was more than I could manage.
Things didn’t get interesting until we were finally down to pulling out fancy pens and passing papers around. The signing itself wasn’t the interesting part. It was who showed up to do the deed that grabbed my attention.
Crow appeared. We hadn’t found him all week, despite following every lead in Kerr’s database and threatening dozens of security people. We knew he had his own private guards, and that he’d built ways to get into and out of most of the major buildings privately. I immediately suspected he’d used just such a secret entrance to crash the party today.
I sat up ramrod-straight. There he was, no more than fifty feet away. I knew I could leap over the tables that were interposed between us and this white-suited fiend. I imagined ripping off that peaked hat, encircled with golden olive leaves. The ripping off of things would not stop there.
“Kyle!” Jasmine whispered harshly.
I felt the tiny weight of her hand gripping my wrist. I glanced at her, then went back to staring at Crow. The muscles in my cheeks were clenched up painfully tight.
“Don’t do anything,” she said. “We’ve won. It’s almost over.”
I must have looked to her like some kind of guard dog about to charge and bite an intruder. She was right in her assessment, I was about to charge.
Crow had ordered a number of assassins to kill me. They’d taken down close lieutenants and even my girlfriend in their failed attempts. He was an evil man.
“He might have come here to provoke you,” she said. “He’s tricky.”
I glanced at her again but still said nothing. I was thinking about what I’d do with him after this treaty was signed. We’d promised not to execute the surrendering leaders, of course. They were to be tried and imprisoned in some cases, but not executed.
But that was only a promise. Like many people in my position before me, I was already thinking of ways to fix such mistakes—to make people I didn’t like disappear.
I shook my head, forcing myself to gaze down at the desk. The cameras were still on me, I could feel them. They were eating this up. Everyone on Earth knew how things were between Jack Crow and me. Obviously, it was personal.
Crow picked up the pen when it came to his turn to sign. Like all of them, he had a pen in one hand, a raft of papers before him, and a lot of microphones under his nose.
He stared at the pen for a moment, but didn’t sign. He looked up at me instead.
For the first time in years, we looked into one another’s eyes. He just stared at me for several seconds, expressionless.
Then, he smirked. It was a small thing, a twist of the lips with half his mouth. But it was there. A knowing, jeering smirk.
My knees tightened, causing my butt to lift about six inches off my chair. Immediately, Jasmine tightened her grip on my wrist.
It was hopeless for her to attempt to restrain me, of course. I had many times her strength. I could barely feel her touch in my current state of mind. She was saying something. A mantra of quiet, wise words that fell on me like raindrops, washing off my mind. I had no idea what she was saying, but I made an effort to calm down.
She was right, I realized. He was mocking me, trying to provoke me. Why else give me a sly smile? There was no benefit in it for him.
So, I sank back down.
Crow frowned slightly. He glanced at Jasmine, then back at me. Then he gave a small shake of the head. I took this to mean he’d decided to dismiss me from his thoughts.
He lifted the pen at again, letting it hover over the papers. He did not touch the tip to the official-looking pile of documents, however. There were countless ribbons and seals—he ignored them all.
At last, he put the pen down. A susurration went through the chamber. People murmured and stirred, talking to their neighbors. Crow leaned forward, grabbed the nearest microphone, and dragged it closer. He cleared his throat.
“I would like to say something,” he said. “I would like to speak to the people of Earth. To those who are about to make a huge mistake.”
This action was not in the script, naturally. All around us, guards gripped their weapons, officials stared coldly, and people talked to one another.
“I’m sorry,” he said loudly. “This won’t take long. Please indulge me for a brief moment.”
People settled down, but not me. I wanted to kill him more than ever. Jasmine was talking quietly into her com-link conferring with everyone involved.
“The Imperial officials are apologizing,” she whispered to me. “They say this is not their doing. He came in without guards, and our people let him in here because his name is on the signing list.”
We’d had to put his name on the list. As he was the head of state, it only made sense. He’d been in hiding for nearly a week, and I figured he’d probably stay in his rat-hole, wherever it was, until this was over. But I’d been wrong.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Let him talk.”
“This mistake I’m talking about,” Crow continued, “it’s the same mistake I made years ago. You’re considering replacing me with the rebel known as Colonel Kyle Riggs. I can understand that. He’s like a new, tougher dog that has come into the pack and frightened all the other dogs.”
“He can’t call you a dog,” Jasmine hissed. “That’s not going to play well in a lot of countries.”
“What do you suggest?” I asked her.
“You could have him arrested and dragged from the chamber.”
I looked at her. She was serious. It might cause a fresh round of riots, but things were looking less organized every moment.
“Excuse me,” Crow said loudly addressing me directly. “Do I have your attention, Colonel? Am I boring you? I’m talking about the fate of Earth, here.”
“Go ahead and talk, Jack,” I called back, unable to help myself.
There it was again. That sly, half-smile. Like he knew something I didn’t. Like I was the fool, playing into his hands. That expression sent a fresh jolt of rage through me.
Crow stood up. He lifted his hands toward the crowd and the cameras.
“I’ll sign,” he said. “It’s my death warrant, and it will lead to the end of humanity, but I’ll sign. If you all want this new dictator, this foolish tyrant who doesn’t care about your lives, who doesn’t care about his own women or his friends—who doesn’t even care enough to save his own children—”
That was it. I was up and out of my chair. I saw marines all around me come alive, following me, but I waved them back.
I launched myself over the table. I think Jasmine tried to stop me, but she didn’t have a hope in hell of even slowing me down.