She had to work to keep him in view; he moved through the shadows around the edge of the light with the ease of a man dancing, and it was disorienting trying to track a voice that kept relocating.
"Is that why my execution was delayed. You need something only I can give you, so you had me unshackled to make me comfortable."
"Is it working?"
He crossed the distance between them faster than her eye could follow and had her by the throat, off the ground, before she'd finished the sentence. She managed one short, strangled gasp.
"Why should I tell you anything?" he said. "I'm already scheduled to die, likely by the same people who want this buried. I could end you here as my last act on this side of the ledger, before your guards could ever reach the door, unless, of course, you already told them not to." His eyes flicked, briefly, to the heavy doors. "You would only have done that if you had something to offer me. Something valuable enough that killing you would be a poor trade."
He dropped her. She hit the ground hard and coughed, dragging air back into lungs that had briefly forgotten how, while he took an idle stroll around the room as if nothing had happened.
"I've looked into you," she managed, once her voice would hold.
"And what did you find?"
"That you are exactly the monster everyone says you are. And that you're the monster we needed. No other general could have ended a hundred years of war with the Akkadians single-handed. None of them had the stomach to do what needed doing. You put the fear of the Union into them. They shook every time your name came up. Boettia proved that."
His pacing stopped. He stepped into the light to look down at her properly.
"None of this is news to me. Tell me something I don't already know."
"I know why you're the way you are. Most of the generals in this army come from good families who read about battles like Triskelion in a textbook. You grew up inside one."
At the name Triskelion, something in his gaze sharpened, curiosity sliding into suspicion.
"How does a science officer know where I'm from? Military intelligence doesn't have that."
"I'm good at my job." She coughed again. "I know something else about you, too."
"And what's that?"
"You're a pacifist."
"I'm a soldier."
"It doesn't have to be one or the other. You're Akkadian by blood, and you sided with humanity anyway, because you believed humans were capable of more compassion than your own people ever showed you."
"How do you know this. No record of my private beliefs exists anywhere in this galaxy."
"I found your friend. Link. I earned his trust. I brought him with me: he's a civilian cybernetic pilot for the Union now, if you'd like him brought in."
Something in Wrath's posture gave, just slightly. His shoulders came down from around his ears. He crossed his arms over his chest, not defensively this time, but the way a man does when he's letting himself feel something he's decided not to show on his face.
"What do you expect to gain from this," he asked. "What could you possibly offer in trade for what I know?"
"Tell me what you found on the Omen, and I will do everything in my power to see you remembered as a hero of the United Nations of Earth. Not a traitor. Not the Butcher of Boettia."
"Sorry about your neck. But you've misjudged me." He said it flatly, without cruelty. "I don't care what they call me after I'm dead. I'm a soldier of the Union. I did my job."
"Your selflessness is admirable, but."
The metal doors slammed open. Lieutenant Masako stepped through them, and behind him Wrath clocked the guards lying dead or unconscious on the stone, a fact Lyn, mid-turn, mid-sentence, hadn't registered yet.
"Lieutenant, stand down," she said, already walking toward him, oblivious. "I'm in the mid."
Masako buried a vibroblade in her gut before she finished the word.
Wrath came out of the shadows to catch the assassin off guard, but Masako was faster than he looked and drew a shallow line of blood along Wrath's forearm before he could close the distance. Wrath felt the burn spread from the cut almost instantly, the unmistakable creeping cold of basilisk venom, and reached inward, past muscle and reflex, for the low, steady current that lived somewhere under his sternum, and used it to slow the poison's crawl through his blood before it could reach his heart.
They traded blows again, faster this time. Wrath barely dodged two clinical strikes and caught a third on his bare forearm before landing a kick that sent Masako skidding away across the stone.
"Impressive," Wrath said, breathing harder than he wanted to admit. "That's the shadow-blade style of the Umbaran killers. Akkadian intelligence trained you well."
Masako said nothing at all.
The venom found its opening. Wrath felt his legs slow first, then his hands, and went down onto his knees, and then onto the stone, in a room that had already stopped being his to control.
#*** The following contains copyrighted material from "A memoir of my travels throughout the galaxy," written by Lord Wayne and published by the Emure Publishing Company of London ***#
"The creatures of Szczcn are a thoroughly unimpressive lot, not worthy of a lengthy entry in this esteemed document, so I will keep this section brief.
Quite simply, the Szczcn are unintelligent reptiles who take pleasure in mortal combat with blunt instruments. Hailing from the rocky world of Zrn, these walking alligators were nothing more than cave-dwelling brutes until they were subdued by the mediocre cunning of the Krell Syndicate. By all accounts, the conquest was child's play. The Krell viceroy who first landed there simply offered one of them a steel club, and the rest clamoured to serve for the promise of one of their own.