Jessica sat in what had once been Topaz's office in the room where the inner circle had once met, and waited for the muttering to cease. When it did, she stared across the table at the team of scientists she had assembled from all corners of New Alliance held territory.
They were the best, the most auspicious group of geneticists ever assembled. All these men and women had once worked for the Reliance. All of them had now defected to their side; still there was something in them that couldn't quite let go of the old trainings. There were some things you just didn't consider doing, and what she was asking them to do was one of these.
"I know what you're all thinking. It's against regulations. Well, guess what, people, we . . . none of us . . . belong to the Reliance anymore, and their regulations don't affect us."
"But," her name was Dorana, and she was by far the most uncomfortable with the proposed project, "these things you're asking us to build. We would program them for loyalty to the New Alliance, but not program their emotions. They would basically have free will."
"Within the boundaries of serving the New Alliance, yes."
"And no expiration date?" Dr. Pagel said. He was not quite as uncomfortable about the project as Dorana, but he was running a close second.
"That's right," Jessica said coolly.
"All right, I understand the importance of the cloning. I even understand the reason for having people in leadership positions that are loyal to us and who can't be killed. It would seem to insure that the New Alliance would hold for eternity, however . . . Even if we program them with loyalty to the causes and beliefs of the New Alliance, if you also give them a full range of emotions, in time they could break that training. They could, in fact, force their will on the whole of the New Alliance. You'd have for all intents and purposes a small army of GSH's running our government . . ."
Jessica interrupted him with a cough, Pagel looked at her and then turned red in the face. "I ah . . . I wasn't talking about . . ."
"I'm sure you weren't. But I'm rather the exception that proves my point. I was raised Elite, I was given no loyalty programming at all and a full range of emotions, and on the day that I realized the Reliance was evil I rose up against them. You build these things and program them with loyalty to us. We'll teach them to fight and to lead in the way we want them to lead. The rest will be up to them."
"What's our time frame?" Dorana asked, and now the emotion radiating from her was resolve. She still wasn't sure it was such a good idea, but she was going to go along because her Reliance programming was still very much in effect, and you went along with whatever the officer wanted you to do, and this GSH was already in charge.
"The necessary cells and data have been collected and a laboratory with all you will need to complete the project has been set up here on the basement level. Accommodations have also been made for you here. I would like to have the finished product ready to ship out in two years or less."
Dorana nodded; it was a tight but not unreasonable time frame.
"Are you sure you want to introduce Argy DNA?" Pagel asked. "Do we want leaders that can read people's emotions?"
Again Jessica fixed him with a stare, and again he turned red in the face. "I, ah, didn't . . ."
"It's all right. I understand your concern, but why wouldn't we want a leader who can feel his constituents' pain? It's hard to ignore people's feelings when you actually feel them. This plan will work. We will be able to take over the Reliance with a minimum of bloodshed, and then, being once more one people, we can push the Argy back into their place and work for a lasting peace between our races."
They all nodded, some of them now actually excited about the project.
She dismissed them and they filed out of the room, leaving her alone with Gerald, Mickey and Dax. It had taken them eight years to collect the necessary samples, and in that time Dax had become a man. He'd topped out at only four feet tall, but since he'd grown up in a much different world than his father had, he didn't have the insecurities about his height that his father did. For one thing, he'd always had Jessica as his protector. No one teased a child who had a huge bronze god to protect him.
Jessica realized the others were all silent. They'd been working towards this for eight years, but now that it was upon them, they still had doubts.
"What?" she asked them.
"Some of their concerns," Mickey started, "they aren't exactly things I've never thought of. That we haven't discussed."
"Maybe we should reconsider the project," Gerald added, and Jessica knew then that he and Mickey and maybe even Dax had already talked about this.
Jessica took a deep breath and let it out. "It's a little late for that. Stashes has been taken by the Argy. The Reliance, thanks mostly to our work, is collapsing in on itself. That's what we want, but if we don't move and move quickly it's going to be too late. We have to take over the Reliance before they have run out of firepower. We have to take over while there are still enough troops and viable ships to crush an Argy advance into our territory. We have to win while we can immediately make the New Alliance a force to be reckoned with. We can't do that unless we take complete control of the Reliance when it still has a fully functioning battle fleet, and since it will still have that fully functioning battle fleet the only way to successfully do this is to take over from the inside out."
Mickey nodded. "All right, I understand all that. But RJ . . . you're talking about making GSH's and then putting them into positions of power."
She gave him the same look she had given Dr. Pagel when he'd said the same thing.
"You can intimidate them, RJ, but not me. You know damn good and well what I'm talking about. You are basically reproducing yourself, and while I love you with all my heart and soul, you, my friend, often don't act in the best interest of yourself, much less the New Alliance."
"True, but to be a good leader a person must experience both success and failure. You have to occasionally lose in order to win. I didn't say this GSH government would be perfect. I just said it's the best we can do to make sure that the New Alliance can survive past your lifetimes. Give the people an eternal government, set up the way we want it, and what could possibly go wrong?"
Gerald covered his ears with his hands and screamed out, "You have cursed us all!"
They all laughed.
"Seriously," Jessica started, "these GSH's will look like the ambassadors, senators, governors and other high government officials they will replace. The assassinations will take place quietly; the genetically superior clones will be set into place. They will immediately start making policy that favors the New Alliance until the Reliance is no more. By the time anyone realizes what we've done—if they ever do—it will be way too late to stop us. If you have a better plan to take over the Reliance, ensure the future of the New Alliance, and crush the Argys before they can start gobbling up Reliance space, let's hear it."
They didn't of course.
Mickey started to lever himself out of his chair with an effort, and Dax went to help him. Mickey was now sixty, and physical injuries experienced in battle, emotional trauma and stress made him feel even older most days. It was raining outside, and that seemed to affect his arthritis. He needed a knee replacement, but he kept putting it off. The way he was moving, it didn't look like he was going to be able to put it off much longer. He laughed at himself. "You might ought to have them make a replacement for me while you're at it, RJ."
"There will be no way to replace you, my friend," Jessica said sadly. It was hard to watch her loved ones age. The fact that Dax was a grown man now ate on her soul, not because he wasn't her baby anymore, although she admitted she missed the days when he would crawl up in her lap and talk to her. His age tormented her because having now reached full maturity he was starting to die, and though most days she tried not to think about losing any of them, least of all Dax, it was hard to put it out of her mind completely.
"Don't get maudlin, RJ, I'm not dead yet. However, I could use some help, Gerald?" Gerald got up and helped Mickey walk from the room and back to his own office.
Dax just hung out; he wanted to say something, but he was afraid to. She could feel it when he started babbling. "My dad said sometime when you go into space, I can go with you. He said he always wanted to go, but he couldn't because of all his responsibilities here. When do you think you'll go again? Is the transmat scary? I hear it's scary. Can you really see the whole planet from the moon, and . . ."
Jessica walked over laughing and hugged him. "What's bothering you?"
"Am I that obvious?" he said with a sigh, resting his head against her stomach.
"Yes, at least to me. In fact, I think even if I wasn't half Argy I'd know when there was something bothering you. So what is it?"
He pushed gently away from her and went to sit in a chair. She sat down, too, because she could tell that he was very serious and upset. He seemed to be mulling it over and then just spit it out, "Gerald is sick."
"What?" Jessica asked in shock.
"He doesn't want you to know. I'm not supposed to know, but I overheard him and Dad talking."
"You were eavesdropping again," Jessica said in a scolding tone. Where his father had used his size to pick pockets, Dax used his to spy on people. He wasn't any sort of pervert, he was mostly just nosey. Most probably he hadn't outgrown his childhood desire to be some sort of undercover detective. "What's he got, the flu?"
"No, maybe I shouldn't tell, but I don't see how I can not tell you. I feel like I'm lying to my mother." Dax had a tear in his eye, but he didn't cry.
Jessica suddenly realized that they weren't talking about any simple virus. "What's wrong with him, Dax. Can it be fixed?"
"It's some disease the Fourers get," Dax explained. "It can't be cured. They were calling it Le Mort de Corps."
Jessica took in a deep breath and it came out in a sob. "Las Tarak." Her breath almost left her on the words.
"What?" Dax asked in a quiet voice.
"That's the problem with hybrids," Jessica explained. "You can get all the good traits of both races, but you can also get all the bad traits. Mort de Corps is Las Tarak. It's an Argy disease that attacks the central nervous system. It starts slowly, loss of feeling in the extremities that comes and goes, then temporary loss of the use of an arm or a leg, till the body doesn't work at all. Eventually they even lose the ability to speak, only the brain is still alive. They can live like that for years."
"Do the Argy have a cure?" Dax asked hopefully.
Jessica shook her head no, her voice had left her.
"He didn't want you to know because he didn't want you to treat him differently, but I thought maybe you should know because then you could treat him differently. If I'd known my mother was going to die when she did, I would have made sure I told her that I loved her, I would have treated her nicer and minded the first time I was told to do things."
Jessica sucked her tears down inside herself. "Do you know how advanced the disease is?"
"It's just beginning. He told Dad he had about three years before he'd lose the use of his arms and legs," Dax said.
"Then we'll make the next three years count," Jessica said nodding. A tear escaped the eye that wasn't hers, and it reminded her of all the things she'd done to get here to this moment. "I'll pretend that I don't know, and hope that he doesn't change his mind about telling me."
"Are you mad I told you?" Dax asked. "Was it the wrong thing to do?" He was young, still trying to decide what was right and what was wrong.
"No, I'm not mad at you. I'm so glad you told me. I just don't want Gerald to know that I know, because it isn't what he wants," Jessica said.
Dax nodded. He still had something on his mind, but she could tell he wasn't going to give it up, and if it was more bad news she didn't want to hear it.
"Do what?" David asked the insane image on the screen before him.
"Launch an assault against Trinidad," Jessica ordered again.
"What on earth for?" Taleed demanded. "If we do that, they're sure to retaliate."
"And while they're busy fighting you in space and attacking your planet we can put our people into position and no one will even notice. The leaders will be called together to challenge this new threat. The battle will last five days total and do very little damage, if any. Me and my people will be docking at the space station in two days time and shuttling to the surface to prepare our troops there and take up strategic positions across the surface of the planet."
"The war orphans," David said almost under his breath. This was what she had sent them here for. To fight an assault on Beta 4 itself.
"Any casualties here are unacceptable!" Stratton exclaimed. "There is no need to put this planet or these people at risk."
"After all that the New Alliance has done for Beta 4, I think it's time for you people to either put up or shut up." No one had to ask what she meant by that. She smiled as if to cushion her words and continued in a calmer tone. "On a planet of warriors I think if you put it to a vote you'll find the majority of them would be more than happy to stomp a little Reliance ass. We have given you the ships to carry out the assault. We have armed your planet and protected it all these long years. While you have experienced peace and prosperity, we have fought battle after battle that served us all. It's payback time, don't you think?"
"She's right," Taleed said. "Order the assault on Trinidad. RJ will be here to defend us long before our fleet reaches Trinidad, and it will take them days after that to retaliate here."
"Our people were born and trained as warriors from our birth," Janad explained to Stratton. "We don't fear death, we long for a good fight. We have known this day would come, and now . . . RJ is right, if given a vote on this matter our people would fight for the right to die for the cause."
Coming from the fifty-year-old mother of his two grown children, it temporarily brought a smile to David's face. However he only half heard what was being said around him as he stared at the vision of RJ on the screen.
"We will send the fleet out at once," Taleed said, "and we happily await your return to our world."
RJ nodded. "As I look forward to my return. I'd say I wish it were under happier circumstances, but these are the happiest of circumstances. When this battle ends, so does the Reliance's reign of terror. A new age shall be born and rise from its ashes." She closed the transmission.
"David?" Janad asked of the expression on his face, his silence.
"She's coming," he said, "here."
Jessica turned away from the screen, and she smiled at Dax, who hadn't stopped babbling since they had left Earth. Things she took completely for granted thrilled him, and it was fun to view the experience through his eyes.
Gerald looked up at her and smiled. She pretended not to have seen him fall into the chair when one of his legs locked up. It wouldn't be long now till he was completely immobilized. She tried to live in the moment and not think about it, or what life was going to be like without him. She had to think about the battle at hand, and how she was going to handle David Grant, who thought he knew her intimately and who she had only ever talked to over the viewscreen. He would no doubt expect . . . What, exactly? RJ had left him there, why? Jessica didn't really know. She didn't know how they had parted, what was said, or what wasn't. She'd have to be very careful, or he'd figure her out. She'd avoid contact with him altogether, but that wasn't really an option since he worked with the king and the council on Beta 4. Besides, avoiding him would be the most suspicious thing she could do.
Gerald was trying to stand and couldn't do it. She purposely didn't look, but Dax was staring, near tears, and obviously wanting to go and help his "uncle." Jessica grabbed the boy's arm. "Come on, I'll show you the weapons bay." She pulled him quickly away from the commander's office and in the direction of the armory. "Dax . . ."
"I know, I'm sorry," he said. "It's just so hard."
Jessica nodded. "It's hard for me, too, but he can't know I know, not now."
"Can I ask you something?"
"I know what you're going to ask, and no, you can't ask."
Jessica marched into Taleed's throne room as if she owned the place, dressed much to David's amusement in traditional Fourer garb—a leather loincloth and vest. Well, it was almost traditional garb; she was still wearing those damned Elite boots, and her chain was wrapped over her right shoulder and around her waist, her blaster hanging in the coiled strands of chain.
She hadn't changed a bit, not one tiny bit. David imagined what his own lined face framed in gray hair must look like to her. On her right hand a big bald Fourer strode in with the confidence of a warrior, and on her left was a young man of such short stature that David knew he had to be Mickey's son. David ran to her, embraced her, and she hugged him back. Janad and Taleed both took turns hugging the returning champion as David's children and the young prince stood in the background, obviously in awe of the white-haired beauty who was the hero of every story their parents had ever told them.
The fact that she was every bit as charismatic as she had ever been must have made them feel as if they were in the presence of a god.
David hugged her again. "RJ, I can't tell you how good it is to see you."
"And you." Though her hug and her tone of voice felt less than enthusiastic.
"Baldor, Sandra come here," David said excitedly. The children appeared, almost hiding behind his back. "RJ, these are my children."
"Pleasure to meet you. David, this is my mate, Gerald, and I'm sure you've guessed that this is Diana and Mickey's son, Dax."
"My son, Taheed the second," Taleed introduced his fifteen year old son, who seemed more than happy to keep Sandra between himself and RJ.
"I'd love to visit, but we'll have time for that later. Chairs?"
David was a little taken aback. RJ could stand for hours without even getting tired. Still, when the chairs arrived she was the first to sit down, so maybe even though she didn't look it she was feeling her age. When Gerald sat down beside her she took his hand and looked at him, and even David could see that she loved him. It was obvious from the way he looked at her that he loved her, too. Some of the guilt David still had concerning Whitey was washed away when he saw this. She had found someone else.
Dax first sat down next to RJ, and then as the boring adult meeting rambled on, he had drifted off with the other young people to sneak into the palace gardens. RJ had glanced up as he left, making sure exactly where he was going and what he was doing, and David realized with no small amount of surprise that she considered him to be her child. She was mothering him.
Which became even more obvious when she insisted that Taleed, his family and retinue spend the entirety of the battle in Sûreté Station, which was what they had named the bunker they had made from the old Argy ship—and that Dax was to go with them. When the meeting was over they moved to the banquet hall, also known as the old ship's mess hall, and sat down to the feast Taleed had ordered prepared in their honor.
David had sat beside RJ at the table and started rattling, telling her all about his life on Beta 4, his kids and Janad. RJ had in turn told him about how Mickey was doing and all about Dax, and her mate, Gerald, but about herself she said very little.
When she finished eating she said she was tired, and after telling Dax to go directly to his quarters when he had finished dinner, she excused herself and she and Gerald left the dining hall and followed one of the palace servants to their assigned room.
David was curious and more than a little disappointed.
"What?" Janad asked at his shoulder.
"RJ . . . She doesn't get tired."
"Her man has Le Mort de Corps," Janad said. "I saw it earlier, when we got ready to go to dinner, his legs wouldn't work so that he could stand. That's why RJ started talking again, to wait till his legs would work again."
David well knew the effects of the disease. "He's dying, then."
"Yes, and very close to losing the use of his legs at the very least," Janad said sadly.
David ran his hands down his face. "She can't catch a break, first Whitey, then Levits, and now this guy. She's not aging, and neither is anyone she touches, because anyone who touches her dies."
"Maybe that's better," Janad said.
"What!" David exclaimed.
"What must it be like to sit and watch someone you love shrivel and die of old age, while you're still," she shrugged, "feeling and looking like you're twenty-five?"