The anthem had been blaring for days.

Or at least, it was what that tiny part of her brain still functioning well enough to make such estimations might have guessed were days.

Mila had been engulfed in complete darkness, floating through the unfeeling abyss, unable to touch, to see, to taste, to experience any sensation whatsoever. The tank was the ultimate abrogator, the destroyer of worlds and within the infinite void now consuming her, there was a but a single object in all the universe that Mila could know was real. She clung onto it with all her life, for it was her life now, the only division between existence and nonexistence: the umbilical cord now re-attached to her devolved infantile form, always seeming to drain more away than it ever filled back up.

The Imperial Legion had never used such tanks for sensory deprivation. Legionnaires were kept deliberately asleep, their lungs breathing the liquified oxygen in deep, calm respirations while their minds somehow linked to the Haruspex that harvested their dreams and memories for data. The Party never could and never would understand the marvels behind such extractions of the mind; they were only concerned with erasing it.

Mila had very much been conscious when she was drowned into that oily, pink substance, her lungs heaving and eyes bulging as she fought and writhed against the hands pinning her down and the viscosity engulfing her. She had felt her chest compressed by an impossible weight, the mass of a neutron star, its radiant, white, piercing glow exploding against her body before she had given in and accepted the death creeping down her gasping throat and plunging into her flailing nostrils. After that, she had barely noticed the stab into her abdomen nor the tank being closed shut around her.

In fact, after so being long suspended in darkness, she could no longer trust those final few memories with anything even resembling certainty. Perhaps she had just drowned after all. Perhaps she was long, long dead and her poor, overactive brain, no longer receiving any input from her lifeless body had trapped itself in a delusion of absence, a sterile vacuum for which to spend a hellish eternity.

If it had not been for that tube at her belly, she would have believed it entirely. But even that, as time wore on, grew less and less convincing. It was impossible to bend or manoeuvre in the tank: one merely floated on their back, limbs apart and adrift. Mila would never be able to move her hands over that cord, never be able to confirm the cord's reality, to know her stomach had not been lying to her.

It was her senses now that she trusted the least. Her mind was filling the void as best it could, but it had always been awash with pain, in life as in now. First it was tiny pricks at her cheeks and digits, then slaps on her knees and blows to her chest. Finally now, she felt her fingers melt and blend together as amorphous, fleshy blobs while her feet sprouted new toes that painfully burst forth from under her skin like newborn maggots hatching from their burrowed eggs. She had to kick her legs and flex her arms just to remember where her limbs began and ended, but with each passing hour the memory grew more faint and the response of her body less familiar.

It felt as if her mind had been transplanted into the body of an alien, her consciousness borrowed into the tentacles of an octopus or the wriggling of a slug. It was mounting and unceasing terror, a paranoid, yet addictive realization that she might not have a body at all, that she might merely be a brain in a jar, researchers noting in bemused fascination her reaction to each wanton jerk of electrical stimulation.

Her life repeated before her eyes more often than she could count, but each time the events made less sense, the scenes were more chaotic and the plot lacked more coherence. There was her village on Cassia Prime, burned to the ground, but then it was a jiaren house on Cassia Quartus (no, Vitharr), the occupants pulled outside and staked on a pyre. She saw the sad, longing eyes of the brave Alfred staring down at her, a confused and restrained adoration welling within him, only for that face to laugh in the drunken, bellicose humour of her father as she asked if he might teach her to wield his sword. The laughter broke away to a fit of vociferous rage as she was caught, her hands polishing the blade. But the man's hand did not slap her; instead Song's claws merely gripped at her neck as she lay terrified and still, his pale body coated in another layer odious sweat and sticky saliva with each thrust into her.

She wanted to scream out and force him from her, but all she heard was the panic of the Great Hall, the shouts of horror and surprise as Karl stood beside her, his smoking pistol outstretched before the splattered remnants of the Gretwalder's face. The wailing echoed around her, bouncing off the warm, slippery cavern of her mother's womb until suddenly a pinpoint of light stretched open and engulfed her and her cries pushed out further and further away, her bellows growing less frantic, becoming almost a melody. She was singing, the red banner flying overhead as she marched in step with teenaged friends, her voice sailing through the air:

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Cassian Party unites the human race!

That song had been playing, for days on end, ceaselessly and unchanging, looping over and over, echoing throughout her tank, throughout her mind, until she could no longer identify if the music was emanating from some hidden source outside her claustrophobic prison or welling up from deep within her very self.

"Why did thou let me in?" Mila asked, resting her chin on her wrist as she did so, she and Karl splayed out on a fur rug, a roaring fire playing warm patterns across their ensnared bodies.

"What ever do thou mean, my darling?" the man replied, already losing form, his face falling out of focus.

"Thy prophet clearly despised me, yet thou never did. Thou listened, thou let me speak, thou even came to care for me, in thy own rebel way. I've always wanted to know, why?"

Alfred grinned, his haggard, war-weary countenance brought new youth and vigour from the memory, but he could tell the question was asked earnestly, so he responded with care. "Edward has had me deal with spies nearly my whole adult life. He always hated the finer parts of politics, so I had to take it upon myself to befriend the backstabbers, the cutthroats, the sellswords who make a revolution possible, but never in all that time, with all those characters, have I ever come across one such as thee, Mila."

"I know thou are not real, Mila. I know it all may be a performance, one way or another, that this, even this beauty before me now may be but a character, but it's a character so honest, so sincere, so deeply felt. I feel a liberty in thy subterfuge, a truth hidden in the lies, Mila. I do not know what thou do conceal, but I understand why thou conceal it. Thou believe something, Mila. Thou love something, and it is a love truer than any-."

"-cannot become a warrior like thy brothers, Lyudmila Ivanovna, my daughter, bearer of my name." Her father placed the sword back above the mantle, handling that slab of lifeless steel more delicately than he had ever felt need to touch or reassure her. "One day, thou shall meet a handsome, strong fighter like myself, who will plant his noble seed inside thee, and thou shall birth a whole host of warriors, many, many more than just thee, thyself. That is how thou will be called upon to rebuild the Cassian Order, Lyudmila, and that is what we must always think-."

"The Party above all, and before all else, the Party!" they cried in unison, as they cast stones at the thought traitor, alternating between hurling rocks and detonating invectives: "Reactionary! Profiteer! Questioner! Imperialist! Fence-sitter! Liberal! Slut! Thief! Whore! Witch!"

The music only raised in volume.

"I have erred in my execution of Party doctrine. My thoughts have been unclean, and my hands are now stained with the detritus of an unfaithful mind. Though the Party dictates all is shared, I have found my heart still covets. Though the Party teaches universal love for all, I have found my feelings distinct for one and less distinct for others. Though the Party commands absolute fealty and devotion, I have found myself laden with doubts and reconsiderations. My actions are pure, but my mind still wavers. Please cleanse me of my errors, my sisters! Please illuminate the path, that I might see-."

Each at the forge must do their duty

And we'll strike while the iron is hot!

The song repeated itself like it always did, but on this loop, something had finally changed. The lyrics, Mila noted, – or tried to note, though any thought could only form for a brief, ephemeral moment before fluttering away – had disappeared. The tune sung out silently, almost drearily, yearning for an accompaniment that never came. Had it always been like this? Had it always been just a melody, and she had filled in the words herself?

Of course, it had. She could not stand it. The song needed lyrics, the music needed rhythm, the universe demanded order. The call could not be unanswered; the equation uncompleted.

No matter. She could always sing it herself. She had to sing it herself. She stood beneath that crimson standard, bathed in the blood of the enemy. From the bottom of her heart, at the top of her lungs, she cried out:

Arise ye prisoners of want

But just as suddenly as she began, the trail was lost. "For reason in rebellion now thunders," she sang, less confidently, speeding up to recover the extra syllable she had inserted accidentally, the faces of her comrades forming into churlish sneers. "...And at last ends the age of-."

Her voice broke entirely. She could not remember what came after. The girls around her began to laugh. What rhymed with "want"? They bellowed, their hands at their stomachs, their lips guffawing to the sky. What could the next line be? They howled in ecstasy, cried in delirious joy. Why could she not remember it?

What rhymed with want?

Seriously, what was that word. It was going to irk her for all eternity now, gnawing and gnashing at her until there was nothing left.

Why could she not remember it?

How could she forgot a simple-

Simple...

Simple what?

What is simple?

What?

Sim ... ple...?

What? What? What? What?

No! I'm here. I'm thinking! I'm real! I'm real! I have to remember.

Remember.

I'm real.

Real?

Thinking...

Need words to think.

Think of words.

...

No words.

Words.

Need words!

Nee-

Ne-

N-

What?

W-?

?

...

Then the music stopped. There was nothing but silence, both inside and out: just emptiness, just weightlessness, just nothingness. It was a single moment that stretched beyond infinity yet could be shortened to nothing but a blink of the eye. There was no longer any time or space. There was no universe, no life, no presence lost or longing left.

There was only the Party.

"Rise."

Two pairs of gloved hands plunged into the shadowy depths of that tank, expunging the human dishrag from its soiled wash-basin and wringing out every drop while it coughed and heaved and wheezed, all the while trying to remember what it was to breathe, to respire, to live.

Light shone on eyes which could not see. Sound pummeled ears that could not hear. Odours assaulted nostrils that could not smell. The ghastly, moaning thing those two Party agents grasped in their hands was little more than a mass of palpitating flesh, a mound of unthinking meat with only its beating heart to separate it from the grave.

It was a lump of human clay, and Valentina was determined to mold it however she pleased.

"The world is muddled and mankind in chaos, but listen, heed all that is spoken and let Order be restored," she declared, her deep, rasping voice booming as vibrantly and menacingly as the Holy Star had rumbled those countless millennia ago, bringing the very universe itself into being.

"We are the Cassian Party. We live in perfect harmony. All things are shared among us. All achievements are held in common. All dreams are dreamt in collective consciousness." Valentina ran her rough, varicose hands over the thing's slick, shivering skin.

First, she traced the soft outlines of its jaw, "our mouths shout the Party doctrine so that it may echo for all eternity." She moved over the weakened, but still firm and bulging biceps, "our arms perform feats of Heroic Labour and battle the enemies of humanity." Finally, she placed her palm over the tight, rippling belly, her fingers teasing the little hole still dribbling brownish refuse from where the umbilical cord had been removed. "Our wombs breed the next generation of soldiers for the cause."

The thing stiffened at that, its blank, drooping face suddenly contorting in an expression it did not understand, but whose muscles were compelled to move.

"What is this?" Valentina cried, punching the woman directly into her stomach, the two agents holding her so tightly she could not even keel over in pain. "We have no hesitancy to the Party! What the Party demands, we freely give!"

The woman hacked up the last drop of liquid oxygen from her lungs and spat it back at her tormentor. "There is no 'us.'"

For a moment there was silence, just the belaboured breathing of Mila, sopping and chilled in the unforgiving darkness, as the chairwoman before paced about to mask her frustration.

Valentina chuckled, ruffling the white streak of her hair while she thought. "I will admit, I am glad the procedure did not erase thee in thy whole, Mila. As much as thou have deceived and betrayed the Party, thou are still the greatest spy our people have yet put forth. It would be such a waste to lose thee but," Valentina's large, rubbery right hand suddenly gripped at Mila's neck, just millimetres away from crushing her larynx, "it is a waste we are willing to accept."

The woman released her, and Mila found herself coughing again, her hands still held down, unable to touch her aching throat.

Valentina shook her head, despising herself for what she was about to say. "The Party needs thee, Mila. We need thee back in the field, back with the enemy, licking at their ears and lapping up their secrets. Just say his name, and thou can return. Say his name, and thou will walk away, free of all past disciplines and regrets, a hero to the cause once more. Just. Say. His. Name!"

"Who?" Mila had only the slightest sense of her own name, much less that of anyone else.

Valentina nodded her head, serious but displaying no emotion, and though she disappeared into the shadows, her heavy, ominous footsteps clanking against the metal-lined floor were never far away. She returned, carrying a thin fibre-glass tube, perhaps a metre long, housing a spindly copper coil which broke off at two points at the top. Mila saw am electric current burst past the crude circuit just as the rod was smacked against her shin, causing her whole body to shudder from the shock.

"Say his name!"

"I do not-," Mila tried calling out, but the baton was already sparking against her ribs. She lost entirely any control left in her body, and she felt her feet kick in the air, fluttering wildly and pathetically as the two sets of gloves her upright.

Valentina crossed her arms, much in the way a mother might say she was not angry, only disappointed. "Just say his name, Mila. That is all I ask. Truly, it cannot be so difficult."

"Pleeeeeease," Mila cried, tears spilling out of her face and choking her breath.

Smack! The shock coursed through her arm. "Say his name!"

"Ple-," Mila tried to plead, but her cries were broken by a singe at her breast.

"The name!" Valentina screamed, bringing the rod to her neck. "The name!" Wham! A slash at the kidneys.

"I do not know!" Mila wailed, screeching every syllable as puss and slobber leaked down her face. "I do not know!"

Valentina gazed down at her, an almost wistful, saddened look in her eyes. Then she held the tube straight in the air, the open current zapping just inches from her face, its brilliant heat marking every harsh line and ragged scar the brutality of time had etched upon her. Her voice grew low, nearing a point of desperation. "Please, Mila. Please, my dear, my comrade. Just say his name."

Mila was hyper-ventilating, her words broken by heaves and fits as her chest expanded and contracted in random, terrified patterns. "I... ugh ... d- ... ugh ... don't ... ugh ... know."

Valentina lowered her eyes in dismay, and when she raised them again, her face had hardened and the room's darkness had nearly covered everything but her thin, cruel lips lifting to reveal sharp, barred teeth. She ran towards her victim, impaling her with the orb of sparking light right over her heart, watching as Mila thrashed and screamed, every muscle flapping uncontrollably, every hair shooting upright, every wretched, horrific sound a dying human could expound being forcibly pulled from her body.

In her torture and misery, Mila's mind raced away from the excruciating hallmarks of reality, retreating from the agonies of her body, falling from the grip of the room, escaping the clutches of the vengeful Valentina. Her world was soaked in black once more, every sound dissipated to silence, every sensation muffled to numbness, every thought squeezed down to emptiness until only one remained.

"Alfred!" she cried out, the chamber, its occupants, the rod suddenly flashing back to existence. Her heart beat rapidly even after the current was removed, and the gloves dropped her down on hands and knees, blood and bile flowing equally freely from Mila's accursed lungs.

Valentina's voice called out from the darkness. "I thought thou had it in thee. I truly did."

Mila looked up in disbelief, the terror quickly gripping at her throat.

"Perhaps, next time, thou will do better." Mila felt the hands return to her. "Perhaps."

The hands started dragging her down once more, the grisly pool clinging to her feet, clawing at her knees. "No! Please!" she screamed, her arms reaching out in front of her, only to be dragged beneath the surface.

"Please!" She cried. "Ple-."

But her screams were stifled by the abyss.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

"Surely thou must admit that an essentially tolerant ethos is still embedded deep within our civilization's character? Consider the core of our imperial curriculum: the Twelve Philosophers of whose works I have assisted in your study. Those Philosophers, even before the first Emperor was ever elected, helped bind Old Terra - those many races of people, we are told – together with their Twelve Syntheses. If it were not for the spirit of compromise and mutual understanding, the Middle Kingdom and the Ghost People would in all likelihood still be at war today, and our glorious Home would be not a mighty Empire, but a ruined planet of dust and ash."

Lady Ci tilted her head dramatically, letting the ten feet of horse's hair, sumptuously anchored into her scalp with a stunning lattice of thin, golden braids and interwoven sparkling pearls. She winked at her opponent, as if having laid the fatal rock in a game of Go. "With all that in mind, just the suggestion that barbarian toleration is anathema to imperial society seems on its face to be quite ludicrous."

Quentin refused to accept the supremacy of her tutor, however, and it was all Xiao could do but to restrain herself from smashing her pupil's wide, blathering face against the conference table. "In philosophy, I do not doubt it, your worship – it is always of benefit to loosen one's purse-strings in the marketplace of ideas – but this is where imperial curriculum, and its acute over-emphasis on unrhyming poetry, political dissertations and long since forgotten history must yield some ground to the discoveries of new, rational science."

"There is no doubt that you do accord which what is written," Quentin continued, tilting her head towards Wang who was sitting across from her on the governor's other side, attentively leaning in, "but new DNA evidence is beginning to complicate the traditional narrative. Recent examinations of mass graves from the Great Terran War, for example, seem to indicate there was almost no discernable genetic difference between the bodies of the Ghost People or those of the Middle Kingdom, at least not enough to reliably classify them as two disparate races. At most, their genes were as dissimilar as the average imperial born and raised in, say, Proxima Centauri and another in Tau Ceti, but we would not call these two people 'racially distinct' today. They're both clearly imperial! Put in this context, it seems clear the War was fought merely between two rival factions of the same race, and that Twelve Syntheses were a strictly ideological compromise. In all likelihood, that compromise may actually have been greatly assisted by the fact that the two sides already had pre-existing cultural and ethnic similarities."

"But what of the linguistic evidence?" Wang inserted, only enraging the governor further, though she kept it quite to herself. "I remember thou did mention it once before: that our language is written with characters but has many awkward sayings and grammatical structures that do not fully corroborate a strictly logographic origin. Have not some very prominent philologers theorized it pointing to an alphabetic language like the Cassians now employ having merged with our language at some point in the distant past?"

Quentin was already prepping her plentiful jowls for a "yes, but" when Xiao noticed the legionnaires march into the conference room. They always arrived late now, a childish protest against Wang having dismantled their extravagant, private monorail, but today they mercifully appeared at precisely the point when they were most needed. The governor did not even wait long enough for all the officers to take their seats. She signalled an attendant to sound the silver-plated gong behind her and called the meeting to order.

All bowed as the Lady Ci rose and a poem was handed to her by the talcum-smothered, smooth, pale hands and long, acrylic nails of her Cassian slave-boy. She unfurled the parchment, squinting at the words and speaking in her shaking, unconfident oratory voice:

"We are allied; let's not divide.

Foes be not here.

With all concerned, all must decide."

Xiao dipped a silk-strand, ivory-cored faux Phoenix feather into the carved jade inkwell before scribbling the character "choice" across the page.

"Legion Command," she began, still standing, her voice gaining in conviction and strength now that she could speak more free of convention. "We know well how the barbarian government of this planet has insulted us; and we understand without difficulty your incessant requests to find retribution for those insults. Today, we are pleased to inform you, Septimi's day of reckoning has finally reached into view." Xiao gestured over to am officer sitting nearly opposite her on the far end of the table, "Legate Carlsbad, Signals Division, please, thou have the floor."

"Thank you, your excellency." The man gave a stiff, but courteous half-bow and began. "Yesterday, we received a coded message from a highly reliable source, whose scrabbled location our computers have been able to identify as this," the wall behind him was suddenly illuminated with the topographical outline of a small, floating volcano, "island deep within the Septimi equatorial tropics. The message, when decrypted, read simply, '.'"

The salon was consumed by a gaggle of nervous cross-chatter, but all Xiao had to do was lightly slap the table to recall their attention.

The legate nodded, continuing, "although it is truly doubtful that the Cassians could have amassed such a large quantity of nuclear weapons in such a short period of time, we can reasonably assume from tracking electrical consumption, refinery activity and other heavy industry indicators that the planet's abundant uranium deposits are indeed being converted to plutonium and at least some of it, we assume, must be already loaded into planetary-scale missiles, perhaps even interplanetary. Given that only a single warhead could seriously and irrevocably harm imperial interests on this planet, even if the Vitharr state has acquired only a fraction of the reported number of weapons, it is absolutely imperative that they be disarmed as quickly as possible."

"We've monitored the island in question quite closely, and there appears to be only minimal naval patrols and a two-hundred-man garrison controlled by a local warlord allied to the central government. No heavy weaponry of any kind besides the missiles have been detected on the island, and only five enemy ships in the regions in the region have identifiable anti-aircraft capabilities, including a single small-size carrier. The region itself is sparsely populated and in the event of an accidental nuclear detonation, civilian casualties would amount to no more than twelve to fifteen thousand."

"Excellent introduction," the governor affirmed, gesturing for the man to sit. She turned her attention to the lurching figure only three chairs down from hers on her right side, the Commandant Rao. He was just barely able to pull himself upwards from the clutches of unconsciousness to meet his address: "Mister Rao; what is thy recommended course of action?"

"Actually," the man slurred just slightly, but he paused far too long in thinking of the next word, instantly uncovering his inebriation. "I ordered a Haruspex be brought along so, uh, that we might, uh, hear from its analysis ... hmmm ... directly."

"Of course," Xiao acceded, snapping her fingers to open the doors. Two blue uniformed officers wearing gold-striped sashes marched towards their seated commanders, carrying a completely smooth, unreflecting grey, nondescript cannister. The Haruspex was a hideous, unsettling device, one that almost never found itself in polite company, but Lady Ci could easily have said the same for her Commandant. Thus, in this case she was happy to facilitate the drunkard's lethargic nature and delegate all the analysis to that grisly machine.

At the prompting of the hastily shooing slave boys, the legionnaires set up the Haruspex as far away from the governor's seat as possible, unfolding a tiny keyboard which protruded from its head. A waking chime was heard as thick red lines running vertically about the cannister appeared. The intensity of the colour increased rapidly until it almost appeared that the light had melted away huge swathes of the device's shell, and from those swelling holes a slimy mass of wet and oozing tentacles probed outwards.

The tentacles slithered up the walls of the conference chamber, sleeking the room in a milky, translucent residue while a central pair of larger tendrils swept oily patterns on the ground just centimetres from the quivering feet of the attendees. The tentacles reached out from the walls, suspended in mid-air as they searched for the enlisted men seated at the table. Most of the officers were spared, but the few prefects and lone legate who had improbably risen up from the lowest ranks were recognized, and the tentacles began twirling around them like anacondas tenderizing their prey. Yet, as bewildering and uncomfortable as it was to the more refined members of the crowd, they could only watch in fascination as the eyes of those chosen officers closed in sensuous euphoria, their bodies twisting and shuddering, tiny moans escaping from their bodies as if elicited by the tender memory of a former lover.

As the Haruspex completed its inspection of the room, a solitary candidate was selected. The coils around the other officers loosened, being redirected to loop round and round a single prefect. The man's body was slowly elevated above his seat to hover over the entire conference, dangling him from a tower of wet, writhing tendrils, his arms and legs outstretched like a macabre human puppet. His eyes opened, radiating a sickly and unnatural yellow that shone like a salt lamp directly towards the governor.

It was ready to speak.

"The portents are good," the prefect roared, his voice amplified by a deep, resonant, mechanical tone that make it sound as if every word was being shouted some distance through a long, tin culvert. "However, to maximize all chance at success, the enemy must be overwhelmed. Employ a single cohort, and the risk of detonation is twenty-five percent. Employ a whole legion, the percentage falls to three. Engage all forces and the chance rests at zero point zero zero two. Final recommendation: deploy two legions with all available aircraft to pacify enemy forces as quickly as possible while securing appropriate colonial defences. This mitigates ninety nine point nine five percent of all known risks."

With this, the man suddenly fell with a whirlwind of retreating tentacles plopping him back on his seat. His eyes were closed in an ecstatic dreamlike sleep, but his comrades cracked open a capsule of stimulants to revive him. The prefect retched the same milky substance coating the Haruspex into a pail a footmen rushed to set beneath him, before himself and the three others who had been touched by the device were all served a highly potent dose of liquid opium. It was the only way the formerly enlisted knew how to break their dependency to the machine, but it would not matter whether they abstained entirely or wasted the rest of their days in a dream-like stupor; none of them would ever forget that lurid touch.

With its slick, slithering arms now fully contained back within its grey hide, a thin slot was opened at the top of the Haruspex where it spat out a paper copy of its report for posterity. It was then hauled away just as unceremoniously as it had arrived.

"So, we are agreed?" the governor surveyed the room. "Two legions to stay here while the other two are employed with all available aircraft to seize the arsenal?"

"I must apologize in interceding." Hui, the tall and equally opulent woman Xiao had designated as magistrate of the colony, rose to speak. "However, I have an urgent request for troops from a completely separate affair that I would like to see addressed before we make any firm commitments."

"We were not made aware of such requests," Lady Ci remonstrated, hoping her tone would convey her profound irritation at being so surprised, "but so long as thou make it brief, we shall allow thee to speak."

"Thank you most kindly, your worship," Hui bowed, letting the light shimmer from the suspiciously similar golden braids that adorned her own head. "And I do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. My diplomatic office received this request only this morning, and it required several hours to verify the message's authenticity, much less contemplate a response."

"Surprising as it may be, thou have our attention," Xiao commented, straightening her back. "Pray tell who did contact thee?"

Hui smiled, her collection of alternating jade and ivory teeth shocking the table with its bombastic splendour. "Why, none other than the self-declared Prince of Thunorr, Himself!"

This nearly sparked as much banter throughout the room as dud the revelation of Kang's missile cache. The governor broke through the chatter once more by pressing, "what business could that grandiose terrorist chieftain possibly have with us now?"

The magistrate nodded, understanding her incredulity. "This was our challenge in authenticating it, but it appears from our sources in the Vitharr state that all he wrote to us was true. The Prince (Edward, he is called) claims to have been de facto deposed by a certain rogue general, Cuthbert. Although Edward remains the titular leader of their cell and personally commands likely between a third and fifth of all VLF forces, this Cuthbert now controls all the rest and has been the true power behind the throne for quite some time. This was all well and good, supposedly, until Cuthbert began negotiations with Kang in Vitharr (something we've suspected for quite some time). Apparently, Edward is rather displeased with whatever arrangements have been reached, and so, while Cuthbert's main force is away in Vitharr for the final negotiations, he will lower his mountain fortifications, inviting our legions to intervene on his behalf."

The Signals Legate who had spoken before tilted his head in understanding. "We have noticed a great deal of troop movement between the continents in recent days," he confirmed. "I did not come prepared with a full report, but as you will recall from my last update, your excellency, there are forty or fifty regiments being mobilized. That would pair quite neatly with the number of forces this Cuobao or whatever is said to command."

The Governor wrapped her knuckles together, pondering. "And there is not any way we can wait until the completion of the first operation before endeavouring to undertake a second?"

The magistrate shrugged. "The letter emphasized repeatedly that time is of the essence, that these troops will be returning soon, and there's little reason to doubt that. I think he is in genuine fear of his position, perhaps his life. If Cuthbert and Kang reach a final accord, his very existence could suddenly prove superfluous."

"Or it could be a trap," the Commandant's Executive Officer, Haig, mused aloud.

"But why tell us about the troop movements?" the Signals Legate responded. "With all its mountains and blizzards, the Northern territories are nearly impossible for our satellites to penetrate. We never would have known he was defenceless unless he advertised it to us, and now that we're watching, the VLF won't be able to pull back those forces without us knowing. If it is a trap, it might still be worth it; we'll know exactly where they are and annihilate them all in one place."

"But we clearly cannot mobilize all our legions at once!" another legate on the opposite side of the table shouted. "We would leave the colony defenceless."

Haig suddenly stood, uninvited. "There is a way, in fact, and, actually, I have been wanting to say this for some time now." He looked down at his hands, pressing firmly against the table as he slouched just slightly, building up the confidence to speak, though conspicuously declining to request the floor.

"I think we all know that these barbarians have posed a much greater challenge to annex and subdue than we ever thought possible. That is fine; your excellency has responded to unforeseen circumstances with an abundance of caution, as well you should, but now, the situation demands action, and action, always exacts a cost. If all goes well, probably that will not be so heavy a toll to pay, but there is one thing that can with absolute certainty provide the security for which we all seek, an extra layer of protection that would allow us to move with overwhelming force, as the Haruspex suggested, in every direction, simultaneously."

He paused, his hand half outstretched, before wincing as if from pain of the suggestion itself. "We should, in the interest of extending our operational capabilities and pacifying this planet with minimal further strife, formally ask the Joint Chiefs for reinforcements."

Wang erupted from his seat. "Do not listen to a word of this false humility and disingenuous counsel, your worship. This man has been angling to have me removed from my post since the day you appointed me to it. Nay! The day before that even! Since you have rightfully denied such spurious requests, he now seeks a higher martial authority than yourself to so dismiss me."

Haig seemed to rise onto the very tips of his toes just so that his nose could stick up in mock indignation as high as possible. "After all my countless displays of humility and grace towards to thy inciteful presence, I truly did expect better, Mr. Wang. But what have I now lost after nothing but my treating thyself with the utmost dignity and respect? It appears, that most cherished possession: my honour."

Wang snorted, maliciously. "A Haig defending his honour is more laughable than a half-dead crow proud of its colour."

"How dare thee!" Haig deliberately pumped red into his face like a spigot filling up a balloon, but the governor raised her hands to squash the confrontation before it could continue any further. Both men reluctantly returned to their seats, glaring at one another from across the table.

In truth, Lady Ci would have waited until the colony was in ruins and the Party was marching up the shattered steps to her palace before even contemplating contacting the Joint Chiefs. The Central Imperial Committee was still salivating at the thought of defenestrating her for good, and any admission of failure, even one as small and insubstantial as this, would be precisely the excuse they needed. Xiao was searching her mind desperately for any possible excuse not to send the request for aid, but as she reviewed the faces around her, she could tally all too easily the piddling votes in favour and the overwhelming support against.

It was impossible; she would only look weak if she backed away now; the opportunities were too great and the desire to regain momentum too strong. Perhaps it would be survivable anyway: two great victories even before the next legion contingent arrived? Trans-stellar communication, for all the improvements it had undertaken in Xiao's lifetime alone, was still remarkably slow. There might be enough time to manage the political fallout and just enough good news to keep her head above water. It was better, anyway, than continuing to do nothing as Kang starved her planet and squandered more of its heavy metals on weapons of mass destruction.

The governor turned to Haig. "Even if we did call for reinforcements, they would not arrive before the commencement of these operations. The Thunorr legions would have no air support until the arsenal was cleared. Would that still be feasible? Should we recall the Haruspex for a second opinion?"

Haig seemed to sense his master was squirming, though he almost hid his smile well enough for her not to notice. "In my professional opinion, I do believe so. Given all we know about the VLF, it would not take more than a cohort to crush them. Two legions would easily suffice, and we can easily march in through the mountain pass if this terrorist is truthful and the way for us is cleared. The weapons cache will be cleared out so quickly, anyways, that our aircraft could easily evacuate us if anything unforeseen were to occur after the first day or two of the campaign."

"And all are in agreement?" Xiao asked the officers at large, finding herself against all odds praying to Heaven she would find a single spark of discord. They all nodded, rather sheepishly, however. They would never betray their Executive Officer, especially when their official leader was just one strong drink away from his final hangover, leaning the command solely to him.

Just as the governor was to resign herself, a tiny peep broke through the crushing silence. "If I may, your excellency," Quentin offered, her face brightening in shyness. "But I think there could be an alternative way to defend our colony and conduct these expansive operations."

"We listen attentively," the governor said, keeping her expression neutral despite wanting to beam in pure joy.

"Well, your worship, as you know, my organization has been recruiting for many months now true-blooded imperial men and women who believe it is their duty to defend our noble race from the barbarian, Hamite threat. I think that with access to the legion's armory here at the colony and some minimal training, they would prove an excellent defensive force. Our membership rolls are already up to seven thousand, (so that's nearly an entire legion and its auxiliaries right there) and we are growing ever more rapidly by the day."

"It's true," Wang jumped on, "I have been helping the good Centurion with recruiting within my workforce. Those men are strong and even tempered. Precisely the sort of stalk we would want to defend us against (an admittedly unlikely) incursion."

Haig stood up once more. "Governor Ci, your excellency, you cannot seriously conside-."

Xiao waved him down immediately. "Thou have spoken rather freely while thy better mannered and older ripened ranking officer sits silent," she pointed out, indicating the close-eyed but somehow still upright Rao. "So long as he does not have any objections, I see no reason not to fulfil this most fortuitous request."

The Commandant was likely roused by swift kick beneath the table from his subordinate, but he was hardly invested enough in the discussion to offer Haig any assistance. "Hmmm," he started, grumbling a bit to himself. "No, I consent."

"Excellent." The governor rapped the table, bringing the discussion to a close. "You have your orders: two legions each for two operations. Draw up your battle plans and depart as soon as possible. We shall await eagerly the news of your resounding success!"

Now, Xiao allowed herself to grin.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

"Well, our dear Alfred," Valentina began in Old Cassian, though her speech was not eloquent and antiquated as the Revelations from where he had first learned the language. She was nominally speaking to the haggard, half-starved, bleary-eyed ex-VLF commander, but by gesturing more openly to the stark, plain maroon party uniforms seated on clapboard ration crates around her, it became clear he was more an organ communication than its intended target. "It would appear both of our fortunes have shifted rather dramatically of late."

"One could wave away death as an 'acute health condition', introducing euphemisms such as that," Song sneered, one of the few men and only jiaren in attendance. Though dressed impeccably as always in delicate, ostentatiously expensive silk, his vestments' steady and transparent accumulation lent some credibility to his words.

"One need not put such a fine point on it," the chairwoman admonished. "However, the situation grows dire, Alfred, and after we lost fully one third of our meagre air force snatching thee and that other unmentionable creature from the jaws of our enemies, the Party would be all too happy to accept whatever assistance thou can provide us. Thy old acquaintances in the VLF have taken our weapons, sided with the central government and turned them against us, and so we find ourselves with a pressing shortage of friends at the moment."

"And do not forget Kang has threatened to drop a hydrogen bomb straight onto our doorstep," a woman's voice, unable to seen in the densely shadowed bunker, called out from a far corner of the room.

This time a man spoke, equally invisible. "He would never have found so quickly if the imperialist had not given away our position on the airwaves."

"For the final time, I am no imperialist!" Song tried to pound the large cardboard box serving as an impromptu conference table, but the impact was absorbed in a minute, pathetic, squishing dent. "And more importantly," he continued, rubbing his fragile hand, "if I had not advertised our presence, your 'red jiaren army' would have been entirely populated by myself and the filth-ridden human detritus the terrorist has so blessed onto us. It is my followers who are peopling your army, and it's my suppliers who are feeding it, so-."

"And the Party is eternally grateful to thee for thy contributions, Mister Song," Valentina interjected, rather earnestly. "But, please, Kang's deadline for reply rapidly approaches, so we must focus on collective issues and settle personal scores later." She coughed, a deep, sickly sound, thumping her chest with a heavy palm once or twice before continuing. "Alfred, for the weeks that thou were traveling down the Hellasvarr, certain persons made frequent and emphatic attempts to sway this body to retrieve thee, regaling us with great tales of thy loyalty, thy prowess and thy abilities. If ever there were time for such qualities to be not embellished, now would be that time."

Alfred choked, the musky, unrecycled air of their underground tunnels starting to clog his lungs as it was already plaguing those around him. "As to returning the VLF to thy side, the task is far from hopeless, but I will need time and support, my ... comrades. Our movement was born in the mountains, and even now that we have occupied the cities of the north, the decentralized, cell-like structure of the organization remains. It will not happen over night, but if the main leaders (and I truly believe it is Cuthbert who is now the key figure here) can be done away it, the VLF will splinter, and the Party can align itself with some of the new factions."

"In the meantime, I do know where I will most be helpful, and where I shall be put to best use: finding and saving more jiaren for your cause. With some supplies and forces, I can link with sympathetic VLF commanders, empty their concentration camps and return more refugees here before they are all eradicated."

"Ah, excellent!" Song mocked him in a nasally, sing-song impression. "Thou have chained the ankle of a drowning man and now recommend adding further weights to help him swim?

"Mister Song!" The chief cadre rebuked as sternly as she dared. "This organ is just as disappointed as thou have every right to be, but does a single one of us pass tongues like lashes at our poor ally's back? Alfred might come short on solutions, but at least he offers something more than schoolyard insults."

Song, trying to obscure his look of childish disdain at being so scolded, dipped his chin to inspect the papery frills of his collar which he pulled taut and dusted half-heartedly. When he had composed himself, he raised his nose once more, a snide, conceited simper unnaturally clasping itself to his still visibly angered face. "Ah, but exalted Chairwoman Valentina Vladimirovna, that is where you are most incorrect. I apport to you many sterling witticisms and playful bon mots, to be sure, but something perhaps even more valuable than those as well. I come, Madame Chairwoman, bearing a plan."

"Sing the song; halt the dance!" a woman cried out from the shadows.

Song's cheeks flashed just slightly, but he bit his tongue, angling his head towards Valentina, who was listening most attentively and signalled for him to continue. "I suggest we make peace with Kang and the VLF."

Though Alfred's frail body had barely managed to keep itself upright before, a cannon shot of ire suddenly enlivened him. "How can thou not be in vain? Have thou spent too long trapped beneath these encasing tunnels that thou cannot recall the slightest detail of the world above?" The man fumed, even as he curled over and hacked out a blubbery clump of black tar straight from his overburdened lungs. To his surprise, a Party cadre beside him put her hand on his chest to steady him and slapped his back several times to help clear up his breathing.

Alfred leaned up again and continued, forced for the moment to speak softer and with long, painful wheezes between breaths. "Those two have one common cause, and one cause only: the annihilation of your race! Please, my lord, please, thou call thyself the leader of the jiaren people. Thou cannot in thy duty to protect thy flock, elect to pawn them off to a slaughterhouse."

"Here! Here!" cheered the woman sitting next to Alfred. "I have heard this Kang, though Vitharr's leader, is an imperialist just like our Song. This seems to be little more than the case of one dog sniffing the other's behind."

Song was searching his mind for more Cassian obscenities when he noticed almost all the seated cadres were sniggering along in agreement. He calmed himself, gave a performative little laugh to demonstrate as if he too, the Mighty Song Theodore Victor was man enough to accept a small slight on his person here and there, and decided to charm his way back into the Party's good graces.

"No, my good Cassians, I do not recommend surrender at all, and no, Alfred, I will not sit idly by as my people are eradicated (which will happen anyway if Kang drops his bombs on us, something we seem too eager to forget). No, what I have in mind would be far more advantageous, something, I think, that might just allow the Party to ascertain the upper hand on this planet, permanently."

"Thou clearly have our attention, Song," Valentina remarked. "But what could be our leverage in this current state?"

Song bowed his head, again, performatively, one might even say sycophantically, but there was no reason for half-measures now. "What is the greatest threat – as he perceives it to be – that the imperial governor could pose to Kang, do thou think?"

The chairwoman threw her hands in the air, guessing wildly, "our sources say she is building an orbital cannon."

Song nodded. "I can confirm for thee that is true – and I will explain how I know in a moment – but no, that is not, in fact, Kang's greatest obstacle. The cannon is a classic imperial vanity project: a glittering, conspicuous object to hold the enemy's attention and keep their workers occupied while the Emperor's true foil cleaves His enemies in two: the sword named economics."

"The governor has held this planet in complete blockade for several months now, only allowing interplanetary shipments in and out of the colony starport. I know you are all aware of this, given that I have yet to see any new ammunition, food cannisters or other supplies arrive here since I came myself, so I know the Party is having just as much difficulty smuggling onto this planet as everyone else. For Septimi (or Cassia Quartus as you seem to prefer) the problem is far worse. After being tapped into the imperial trade zone for seventy years, the entire planet, colony and Vitharr alike, has been realigned towards pure resource extraction. Almost no food is grown here anymore, and what is left are mostly cash crops along the equator: rare Septimi fruits and luxuries to appease the refined palettes of sophisticated dinner guests on the Home Worlds. Nearly everything the population used to eat, drink, clothe their bodies and decorate their homes was imported from the Empire, and that trade spigot has been shut off now, entirely."

"Of course, I cannot speculate as to how long Vitharr's food stores might last, and though Kang's campaign of ethnic cleansing has been brutal and devastating to be sure, it was no doubt also conceived in part to alleviate the overbearing demand on resources, allowing the destitute natives prey off more hardworking jiaren like myself. Still, still, one can be certain, especially if he is starting to make demands from us, that he is getting desperate. And we, you, the Party and me, working together, have precisely the thing that he so urgently needs: We can lift the embargo!"

Kang held out both his arms in an effort to quiet down the incredulous outburst before they overwhelmed him. "Now, now, I understand the suspicion one might have of feeble politicians such as myself, and such suspicions are not, in and of themselves, without some merit, but the affair is, in perfect honestly, of a much simpler character than one might expect. I am a merchant first and foremost; afford me the courtesy of some expertise in my own trade."

"The governor has no ships here on Septimi, you see (and, besides an imperial frigate is far outside her authority to command regardless), and so, in all truth, there really is no one forcing traders such as myself to land in the colony and not in Vitharr. In fact, a great many of them would prefer to do just the opposite, since imperial starports always charge such exorbitant landing fees and importation duties. No, the only reason hommes d'affaires like me would choose to trade with the colony is because this system is still rife with pirates (all despite the glory of your new Cassian Order, of course), and with a single bad word from the governor, the imperial vessels that do patrol up and down the imperial trade routes would no longer afford such dissident merchants any protection."

"Now, I do not know for any certainty whether your Party has constructed a space fleet or if it has not – that is one of the best kept secrets under Heaven it would seem," Song winked. "But if you did just so happen to possess," Song puffed his cheeks and tilted his head back and forth, "three, four, perhaps five at most midrange cruisers, that would be more enough to defend against the peskiest of the buccaneers and establish a new trade route straight through the Cassian system. And then, assuming Kang agrees to our terms and sets Vitharr as a free port of trade, all my colleagues now landing in the colony with barely no one but the snowmen as customers would start trading again with the hungry cities of this country. Kang would be eating out of our palm, and almost certainly be an ally, and the Party," this time Song's smile nearly gobbled up his entire face so that it covered him from ear to ear, "would have a permanent excuse to bring its fleet into Septimi, sparking a war with the Emperor whenever you saw it fit."

The room remained gloomy and silent, hardly the reception that had been expected. Valentina held her enormous paws clasped together, covering her mouth and keeping her reaction a total mystery. Finally, she withdrew them, and Kang slowly shrank back from the cardboard table with every word she spoke.

"Although this is intriguing, I am skeptical of the durability any such arrangement might have, especially with the existence of these nuclear weapons. There seems little incentive, in my mind at least, for Kang to ever be as cooperative as thou predict if he remains able to expunge us from the cosmos at a moment's notice. I do fail to see how calling in our fleet – if we had one to call – would assist with that."

"Do we even know Kang has these weapons he claims to have?" asked one of the two Cassian men at the table. He was the only cadre whose uniform had any form of ornamentation whatsoever, a brass medallion of a star pressed against his right breast. "Knowing the poverty of his current circumstance, I would be willing to call his bluff; force him at the very least to waste one bomb in proving he is serious."

"Sadly, the threat appears most genuine," a woman replied. She turned into the light to face the Chairwoman. "We intercepted a message yesterday sent to the colony from somewhere within Vitharr. The location of the sender was carefully scrambled, but we were able to decode the message just before the start of this meeting: nuclear arsenal is here. 2-300 warheads."

The whole company hung their heads in grave contemplation. Song was adamant, "if anything, this only augments the urgency of our position. If the governor knows where the arsenal is hidden, as the message would seem to imply, that will further increase his desperation. If we trade with him, we can survive long enough to undermine his power, chip away at his support and steal his arsenal ourselves somehow. If we choose to further antagonize him, we will all be ground to dust! Either by him or the Empire, it matters not."

Valentina nodded, her face hardened and grim. "I tend to concur, a bitter pill though it may be to swallow."

The decorated man from before spoke again. "Comrades, as the Party attaché tasked with doctrinal adherence, I must express my concerns. Opening a free port for imperialist, capitalist merchants to evade taxation and profit from the misery of starving Cassians is far too fraught with all manner of ideological incongruities and outright heretical propositions to seriously consider. Survive as we may from an accord with Kang, the Party would just as likely charge us all with treason for carrying on with the enemy in a such a blatantly politically fraught position."

"Here! Here!" called the woman seated besides Alfred, and another from a dark corner of the room.

Alfred was amazed. "What sort of madness is this? You know I agree with Song about as much as the time accords with a broken clock, but surely survival is worthy of at least some heterodoxy? Would you really condemn all these people we have saved to certain death for the sake of metaphysical clarity?"

Valentina shook her head, pressing tightly together her brooding lips. "General, of all people, I would have assumed thee, a commander in the ranks of the Vitharr Liberation Front, would have understood our position better than most. Surely the idea of sacrifice in the name of certain, unquestionable principles cannot be foreign to a man who dedicated his life to butchering his fellow countrymen for the single sin of profaning their temples with an image of the Emperor? Why should thy ideals, so backwards and superstitious as they truly are, be worth the spilling of one's blood and not ours? Especially when yours are shared by only some thousands, and ours are spoken on the tongues of many billions, across three worlds... and maybe soon, a fourth." She closed her eyes. "No, there is no way forward. We will meet strength with strength, bluster with bluster. Let Kang destroy us if he can; we will lash first at his throat!"

"Perhaps," Song interjected, nervous jets of sweat now pouring down his neck and visibly dampening his once impeccable dress, "there is one final element we can interject here, something perfectly, absolutely, unquestionably adherent to your Party doctrine."

He tugged at his collar. "I said before that I knew for a certainty the governor is building an orbital cannon. This is how. I am, in fact, a very close acquaintance of the man who is building it, the mixed Cassian/jiaren known as Wang Mang. We met when he was magistrate of the colony, and now he manages a four hundred thousand strong team of labourers as the governor's Chief of Defence Staff. And, and, and!" Song raised his voice over the objections that were already flooding in, "and he is organizing these jiaren into workers committees, spreading literature concerning labour rights and I think," he leaned into the cardboard table just to emphasize the point, "attempting to cement a class consciousness within them."

Song was gesturing wildly, his hands flying about in an electrifying mixture of excitement and fear. "He and I have been corresponding covertly for weeks now, and I do believe, no, I am absolutely certain that he is on the edge of a breakthrough. With just a little support, and I mean, at most a few tonnes of bread and a couple shipments of arms, you comrades could be the proud parents, no mothers, of a full-scale Party revolution. A revolution amongst the imperials! Surely the Party could never admonish you for that!"

"And, and, before you say anything, do you know what would be the absolute best, and I do mean, by far, the best assistance you could offer these fledging revolutionaries?" Song flew his arms open. "Ending the blockade! It's just simple math: fewer ships unloading in the colony, means the food supply will fall. The governor won't have any import duties flooding in, so she will not be able to afford to subsidize the market, and thus the cost of ordinary staples will dramatically rise. So long as we keep a few agents in the colony passing out foodstuffs under a red banner, we shall have a revolution started in no time."

"Chairwoman, I must object!" the ideology chief broke out. "This imperialist cannot prevent himself from referencing the Law of Supply and Demand even as he tries to save his own hide! His promises are worthless to us."

Valentina wagged a finger. "Thy concerns are noted, comrade, but there is nothing inherently inadmissible in referencing the Law of Supply and Demand, only choosing to profit from it. What Song suggests, although perhaps presented in an awkward style, is precisely the opposite of that. He is using capitalism against the capitalist, and I do believe that accords with our doctrine quite neatly."

"The objection stands," the man replied. "I move we call the matter to a question."

The Chairwoman clasped her hands once more. Her face remained stern and enigmatic, but Song could see slight droplets of sweat forming at her palms. He could only hope it was a subtle indication of a fear just as fervent as his own.

"Comrades, although this might not be within the spirit of collective leadership, I do not think it wise to record a vote on this matter. Ideologically fraught as it is, I worry it would only stain your names with ignominy should this scheme come to ruin. No, instead, I shall bear the risk myself and impose this decision secretarially."

"And thou shall take all the credit also?" a voice chided from the safety of invisible darkness.

Valentina bristled, her wide, squarish jaw churning in annoyance. "Oh, no. I promise you all this, should this strategy play to our satisfaction, there will be glory for all. I shall share my recognition, not least of all with our guests, the indomitable Mister Song and our friend, General Alfred."

"Me?" Alfred asked, perplexed.

The woman nodded. "Yes, perhaps thee most all, dear Alfred. Thou see, if these weapons are the only thing stopping us from placing Kang firmly in our grip, and the governor knows where the weapons are hidden, there can only be one course of action: we must know what the governor knows. There is only one agent on this planet with the skills and abilities necessary to compromise an imperial administrator, and no matter how hard I have tried to make her relinquish thee, it seems she is just as stubbornly loyal to thyself as always."

"Yes, Alfred, I can see thee squirming with anticipation in thy seat already, but do not take this as any sort of favour on thy part. It is just a matter of convenience, another ideological smear I will have to bear on my conscience. If this plan is to succeed, I need Lyudmila Ivanovna, and to get her, I need thee. So, Alfred, one question remains and then we can adjourn: will thou convince her to join us once again and find this arsenal we all so desperately crave?"

Alfred assented gleefully. "Of course! You have my word."

He certainly did not mean the words when he spoke them, but he would have been willing to say almost anything to see her once again.

See what was left of her, anyway.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

"We must overthrow her, Quentin."

"Hush!" the frightened woman covered her mouth to muffle what would have otherwise been cry of alarm. She frantically scanned their surroundings, looking over her shoulder at the empty airfield, just catching the last glimpse of the imperials vessels before they vanished from the sky. "One can say such things out loud; we will be heard!"

Wang pointed towards the tiny dots of metal now nearing the point of invisibility, flying away from them. "Those who must not hear us have left, my dearest friend. Any who remain are free to listen."

Quentin stood back, aghast. "How could thou be sincere? Thou deign now to plot a coup right beneath the governor's very nose? I am astonished!"

Wang grabbed Pan's arm, holding her close and speaking in a softer tone, not actually wanting to attract attention. "At what, be astonished? I have four hundred thousand workers at my side, and thou have just fielded thyself an army. The governor is defenceless without us and no re-enforcements are ever coming. If the legions try to retaliate, I control their supply routes, and we can take over the only airfields and starport outside of enemy territory. They will be forced to surrender or starve."

"And the Emperor?" Quentin asked, her raw disbelief the only thing restraining the impending wave of panic from drowning her. "Is He just to forgive the loss of one planet, and let us merry brigands live freely in our pirate kingdom?"

"No!" Wang repulsed with greater volume than anticipated, and his eyes quickly circled a panoramic view about him before he continued. "Thou misunderstand me, my lady Pan. I am not a rebel, and I encourage no revolt. In fact, I remain as a loyal a servant to our Emperor as ever. It is these people, the governor and her legions in particular, who pose the true threat to our Empire, and we shall be serving His Majesty in their removal."

The woman was still too dazed to shake her head as vigorously as she wished, but she wracked her brain for something to convey the thought. "This is beginning to become absurd. I now realize that I may have preferred thee as a miscreant. Seeing thee driven to madness by thy senility is a most harrowing alternative."

"Senile?" the elder laughed, releasing a great cascade of tension in them both. It had been the absolute last thing on his mind, but now, of course, it seemed all too obvious. "Perhaps I am becoming too aged for these political manoeuvrings, Quentin, but that is precisely why I have come to thee and not embarked on such an endeavour by my lonesome. I think that at the root of it, at the very centre of our being, we believe the same thing, thou and I. We both understand the unquestionable significance of this moment and feel our duty to rise at Heaven's muster!"

She could not help but smile just a little at that, much in the same way one would humour the ramblings of an amusing beggar or mimic the babbling of a non-verbal infant. "And just how is it, Mang, our faithful defender, that the impassable gulf between our two diametrically opposed camps would be so conveniently bridged just as thou have greatest need of me? After all our ceaseless debates, Uncle Wang, I never would have guessed thy philosopher to bend so flexibly."

The old man frowned in acceptance but pressed on regardless. "We may not have agreed in the beginning, but I know our tutelage under Lady Ci has brought us together in ways we could not have imagined before. Though neither of us were all that ignorant before her, the governor's level of access, her ability to clear through reems of censorship and open even the most obscure portals to knowledge have brought so much to light, it would be impossible for us not to question at least some of the assumptions to which we clung when we began."

"We have read the same books, studied the same history, uncovered the same secrets, and I know that ultimately, no matter how much our banter may disguise, fundamentally we realized the same truth. We each see in those poems, those treatises, those legends a reflection of Heaven: a pale, human imitation of otherworldly perfection that only the ancients possessed. And we both know that every day and every passing hour, we strive further and further from that absolute ideal."

"We both see the bastardizations, the compromises, the missed opportunities and compounded mistakes so clearly. We both yearn for purity but are inundated by corruption. Thou are preoccupied with corruption of the blood. I am concerned with the corruption of our morals. That is the only difference! Either way, we both know with perfect clarity the forms, the rituals, the proper way to nurture our society and thou know as well as I that these people cannot be trusted with it. And Quentin, I fear, I do truly, profoundly fear, that if we continue under the scholarship of Lady Ci, if we allow ourselves to call her 'master', we will become just as wayward and reprobate as they themselves."

"But we study to be literati, to be servants of the Emperor!" Quentin interposed, confused and distraught. "How could such an education ever corrupt us so?"

Wang nodded, in grave contemplation. "In perfect honesty, this question has left me twisting about in bed for many long, restless nights, but the more the governor teaches us, the more the conclusion becomes inescapable. Consider when the first Emperor, Huangdi, the Yellow Thearch was elected by the various tribes of Old Terra to unite them, forming a new people, building for us a new Home. But what did He promise? Peace for all mankind, prosperity to all the classes, harmony to all families and order for all eternity. And at some point, either before or after, the Twelve Philosophers formed the moral tenets of those ideals, the curriculum by which one would make the promise a reality. And it worked! For many millennia our people lived in peace, prosperity, harmony and order, hoorah!"

"But what changed and when? Is it not obvious? It is when our records become clear, when our histories converge and when the governor, conveniently, begins to truly tell her tale, brushing quickly past all the glory and goodness of the mythic past. No, she clearly is more interested in the reign of Qin Shi Huang, the man who restored order to the Empire once more after a thousand-year drift into chaos. This is all well and good, but what else did He do? He inserted into the Twelve Syntheses, entirely of His own invention, a thesis that the ultimate cause of all human conflict was a finite store of energy, and that if the Empire was to ever truly bring eternal peace and stability to the universe, it would have to construct the largest manmade structure the cosmos had ever known, a perfect encompassment of the Terran sun in solar panelling: the Dyson Sphere."

"It's no wonder Lady Ci picks up the story here because it was not for the incredible logistical, manpower and resource demands of that project, the Empire would never had needed bureaucrats like her. But once they were in, Quentin, they never left. Once the Empire started, it could not stop! Every thousand years or so, the literati would meet, decide the Dyson Sphere was too small, its structure too unstable, and they would destroy scrap the whole project and start a larger one from scratch. No one remembers it, and the story of the early Spheres are obscured to all but imperial students like us, but it is there, written right in all those histories we have been made to read: first the sphere was set at the Kuiper belt, then extended beyond the orbit of Jupiter, then Saturn, then Uranus. Four thousand years we convinced ourselves to extend into the Oort Cloud itself to access the abundance of free materials there, and we are not, even after all that time, even one tenth of one percent towards its final completion."

"And yet, simultaneously, every new conquest, every new colony, every new expansion has always been done in the name of that project. We always need more labour, more resources, more energy, and our people need more food, higher wages, better housing. It does not matter how much we grow or how much we take, there is still never enough, and we always end up needing more. Can thou not see, my friend, this is not an accident? This is the design! This is our Empire's purpose!"

Wang fumbled with a satchel at his side, eventually producing a well-worn, green, leather-bound book. "Here, look at this."

"'Introduction to the Eight-Legged Essay by Master Wu Shi, Aedile of the Forms?'" Quentin read, her expression growing only more puzzled.

"This book was published sixteen hundred years ago, but guess who currently holds the title, 'Aedile of the Forms' in the latest version of the rolls. I used the governor's access and looked it up myself. Why, it's none other than Master Wu Shi himself."

Pan rolled her eyes. "If thou wish to uncover some great conspiracy of how the literati are an ancient race of immortals leeching off human society, spare thy breath. It has already been heard on the lips of every fishmonger, cattle-herder and innkeeper from here to Gliese. Thou think thou bear distressing information, but thou merely betray the rudeness of thy origins."

"Please, Sister Quentin. Listen!" Wang was growing desperate. "Though the governor intimated to me herself that she might be much older than she appears, that is not the accusation I am making here. I do not believe that Wu is still alive; no I am convinced of much worse. When I researched the office 'Aedile of the Forms', do thou know what I found? Nothing! The office holds no responsibilities whatsoever, but somehow it claims an annual pension of three thousand five hundred taels. The man has been dead for more than a millennium, and yet, each and every year, without fail, his salary is still collected."

"So, something fell through the cracks?" the woman retorted. "What of it?"

"Perhaps, were it one incident in isolation, but this," the man twirled his index finger in the air as if he were pointing at some floating manifestation of his discovery, "this is no flaw in our system. This is our system. Once I started searching for graft in one place, I found it in all places. The rolls are rife with these positions, Quentin. There are countless titles, all across the Empire, offices with no duties, peopled with dead men whose names no one ever bothered to change, draining the treasury for who knows how long, and all that silver going who knows where. This is what we are destined to be, my colleague. This is our future. We are not being groomed to lead, thou and I. We're being trained to siphon."

"No." Quentin shook her head. She could not believe it. "Maybe what thou say about the rest of them is true, but not the Governor, not her. It just cannot be. Our master may be many things, but a grifter she is not. She hails from a merchant house, to be sure, so she was certainly superbly rich long before she entered politics, but have either of us, in all our time with her, ever since that woman finger a penny even a moment longer than she needed? No!"

She braced her temple. "No, we cannot do this. If what thou say is true, the governor is the last person we should be thinking to depose. Let us just forget this unhappy episode, continue to work diligently in her service, and then, when we have passed the examinations, we can seek out the true corruptors and bring them justice."

"Avast!" Wang shouted, exasperated. "Does thou truly believe that in all the fifty thousand years our people have ruled the cosmos, that thou and I are somehow the first to make this discovery? Of course that cannot be! Without a doubt, the Empire even now is littered with well-meaning individuals just like us with the very same goals as we do have, and perhaps, if I am most generous, I could count the governor among them. But can they ever realize their good intentions? No! That was the point of the Dyson Sphere: it ensures there will always be a crisis, always be a shortage, always be a war, a rebellion, an epidemic, a famine, always be something to demand the attention of every level-headed, good-hearted administrator in the Empire. And in the meantime, the parasites can continue suckling at the corpse. It's all a cycle, Quentin, a vicious downward tailspin: for the greater the crisis, the fewer consequences they face, so they're encouraged to steal yet more, only deepening the scale of the crisis."

"There is not anyone or anything that can fix this, my child. If we enter the hippodrome, the best we can do is compete to see who will loop around the fastest. If we want to lay a new trail, we must leave the stadium all together."

Releasing a deep, exhausted sigh, Quentin watched as her exhalation crystallized into a thick mist in the cold, colonial air around her. "I do not want to say I agree, because I absolutely do not agree, but just to satiate my curiosity, if for nothing else, what is thy plan? How could thou possibly hope to ameliorate the situation, if we genuinely are locked in this cycle as thou claim it to be?"

Wang placed a gentle, reassuring hand on her shoulders. "That is just it, Quentin. We do not have to do anything at all. It is all there already, written right into our curriculum: 'To have anything we want, we need only raise our level of consciousness to the level of consciousness where what we want exists.' This planet, Quentin, this planet, it is a gift! A gift, if only we have the eyes to see it. This whole time, our whole history, we have been dreaming too big and living too large, but now, we have a chance to start over, to rebuild and build correctly this time. Septimi has the largest uranium deposits ever discovered, and even after all the extractions and refining of seventy years, we have only managed to scratch the surface. Our colony could live off its nuclear fuel, not just for a thousand, or ten thousand, but millions of years. We have stumbled here unto a paradise, a new Heaven in the cosmos; we just need to have the courage to make it so."

Quentin removed her glasses, massaging her tiny eyes while tiny, commiserating laughs escaped her. "Thou truly do not understand, do thee?"

"Understand what? Tell me!" Wang was frantic, his grip on the woman's shoulder suddenly tightening.

Quentin tore his arm off hers. "This!" she proclaimed, gesturing to the flat, desolate snowscape about them, "this is thy paradise? Do thou truly not understand just how absurd that is?"

"Miss Pan, please. I-."

"No, no, no!" She silenced him. "Thou have spoken long enough, now I shall have a turn." Her eyes flashed, the distant premonitions of tears welling up behind them. "Do thou possess even the faintest microcosm of a notion of how it is to live in thy paradise? Do thou? No, because if thou did, if thou had even but the tiniest fraction of a sliver of an idea of how real people live on this planet, thou would sooner flay every gnarled, flapping scrap of flesh off thy body than consider labelling it a paradise."

"Do thou wish to know how I lived, back when thou were magistrate? I have related tales in the past, to be sure, but now I shall make note to not withhold a single detail. Thou have my word on that. Thou still want to know? Well, I shall tell thee anyway."

"This is how I ... lived." She began to choke, unable to prevent herself from crying, but unwilling to let the old man comfort her. "There were men who would follow me – strange men, not men I knew, not men I spoke too, not men I ever would want to ever see again – they would follow me, and they liked to debate, out loud, in public, making sure I could hear them, whether or not they should rape me or if I would be too fat to be any fun."

"There would be men who would grab me as I walked down the street, as I stood on the train, as I sat in class. They would brush their way up my skirt, put their hands on my breasts, give me smacks on my buttocks, and if I ever said anything, anything at all, they would act as if they were the offended party, screaming and cursing about how a disgusting sow of a whore like me should bear eternal gratitude for their most beneficent attention."

"Professors in university told me I would fail if did not sleep with them. The dean of my college refused my tenure until lost weight, because I was 'too ugly for his esteemed faculty'. Your own clerk called me a pig to my face. And these things, they did not happen just once or twice. No, they happened every ... single ... day of my life. Every single fucking day."

"And do not think I am unique. Please, do not think that at all; I am not unique in the slightest. This is happening to every woman thou know. Absolutely every one of them. Your wife. Your daughter. Your sister. Your aunt. Your laundry maid. It is happening to all of them, and not just what happened to me. In many ways, I am lucky. Many have it worse. I truly cannot imagine how, but with perfect certainty, I know many, many, many have experienced so much worse."

"I was treated like an overgrown, human-shaped sack of unbutchered meat my entire life, and the governor is the only one – quite literally the only person I have ever met – who truly respects me for who I am. So, please do excuse me if I am reluctant to do away with her for some supposed links to distant transgressions. I have learned from her something I have been yearning to have acknowledged my whole, miserable life: that this is not normal, that women are not meant to be treated this way, that girls born on the Home Worlds do not have endure a lifetime of suffering as I have."

"You say the governor and her kind are a corrupting influence, but under her direction, I have felt my convictions grow as firm as ever. No, this is planet is not a gift; it is not a paradise. It is a prison, and we are being slowly devoured by our cellmates. Our men, they did not just start acting like this out of nowhere, they learned this from the Cassians. The Hamites treat their women like slaves, so why shouldn't we treat ours that way? The barbarian's wife always cooks and cleans and pulls up her skirt without asking questions, so why shouldn't my wife? The Cassian's daughter knows how to bark and roll over, eating leftovers from a bowl, so why shouldn't I chain up my own daughter and call her my dog?"

"No, this place is no paradise, and so long as those Hamites exist, poisoning this world and infecting our minds, it never can be. The barbarians must be eradicated; I am as adamant on that fact as ever. Tell me how we can do that without the governor and her legions, and then we'll have our coup. Until then, I rest with her."

Quentin made a move to leave, but Wang raced after her, placing his hand once more on her shoulder. "My lady, please!" He begged. "Thy tale is tragic, and thou have all my sympathies, all my sincerest apologies, but thou cannot let the past blind thee to the future ahead. Racial toleration is the oldest and most unchanging policy of our people; the governor will never eradicate the Cassians, no matter what thy counsel be."

The woman's face dropped every ounce of fat around it and became in a single instant as frigid and brittle as a sculpture of ice. "Not if the Party starts a war."

Wang huffed. "That will not happen."

"And how can thou be sure?" Quentin glared at him, "is it because thou have been conspiring with them all along?"

The hand was suddenly withdrawn from her. "I began by saying I remain loyal to the Emperor, and I shall end by repeating it."

"And what of the worker's committees? The reading circles? The signs and placards rampant through colony?"

"What of them?" the old voice was strained from the conversation, and it began to falter. "Does the Party hold a monopoly on organizing? On reading? On posting messages and defending our people's rights?"

"No," Quentin returned, "but they might very well be offering the food your people seem to hand out to the destitute and unemployed so wantonly."

As if possessed by a dragon, the old man rushed forward, pinning his adversary against a wall with such force she was almost certain she had breathed her last. "That food comes from true-born, proud and devoted imperials, and I will not stand to hear another accusation against either their loyalty or mine. I will not stand it, thou hear! I will not stand it."

The woman nodded, a lake of fear now rising up past her neck, wanting so desperately to take her under. Wang grimaced, disgusted just as much with himself as he was with her. "Thou are so naïve, so naïve. The governor did not take thee in because thou were special. Thou said it thyself before, it was because thou had power: a crop of names just ripe for the picking. She does not teach thee because thou are a woman; she is just as happy to tutor the man I am as well. And if thou honestly think thy female fellows have it better elsewhere, just remember our curriculum. How many authors have we read? And how many women? None? One, maybe? Thou do not even know, and neither do I, for the number is so small as to be insignificant regardless."

"I do not doubt thy tales, and I have nothing but sorrow for thee in thy heart, but the offer and the promise remain the same. We will never have a better opportunity than now. We will never have a better place than here. This place is not without its problems, but together, I have the greatest faith we can find solutions! Perhaps Septimi is no paradise after all. That does not mean we cannot make it so one day. One day. Please, Quentin. Please, my child, do consider it."

"Hmm-mmm," she assented meekly, saying anything to get him off and away from her.

"Very well." Wang backed away. "I shall give thee some time to ponder. Return to me when thou have an answer."

With this, he departed, leaving behind nothing but footprints in the snow. The woman collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily in and out, fighting back the anxiety that had almost overtaken her. Finally, after some time had passed and the cold have chilled her adrenaline-flushed skin, she could feel her lungs relax and the world return to balance.

After all that had transpired, she was just grateful to be still alive.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

Although the moist, warm tropical breeze was what first gently lulled him back up to consciousness, once MacGregor felt the sharp tug of chains locking down his arms and legs, he immediately became awake.

The Commandant tried to take some stalk of his surroundings, though his mind was still hazy and confused, and shapes swirled around his eyes with nasty spearpoints of pressure jabbing him firmly through the skull. At first, all he could gather were the colours arcing around him like he were orbiting a foreign planet at ever increasing speeds. There were wide, spinning bands of deep azure blue, oscillating blobs of pure, cotton white and rich streaks of inky black mixed intermittently with the darkest, richest shades of lively green.

He tried to breathe deep and fully, but every lungful felt just short of satisfaction and each exhalation seemed too light to the point of breathlessness: the death throes of a strangled corpse. He coughed and spat, trying anything to clear his throat, to clear his mind, but nothing seemed capable of thinning the mist or halting the spin. With some effort, MacGregor picked a single point near the centre of his field of vision, a tiny speck of black surrounded by rippling, white-crested blue, and let that become his anchor, allowing his body to freely float around it. It was just like his first space walk so many decades ago, just this time it was on land and the orbit was entirely within his nauseated mind.

While the simple effort not to vomit consumed nearly all his attention, MacGregor could now finally make some sense of the world around him. His centre was an island, a tall, unpeaked volcano spotted with tiny yellow grass-woven huts clustered about its obsidian, sandy beaches, dancing precariously close the swallowing gorge of beautiful, sky-coloured waves. Judging from how he could make out patches of clouds and fog between himself and that tiny island coupled with the thinness of the air, MacGregor realized he must be seated near the summit of a mountain that overlooked a whole archipelago, an island chain he suddenly realized he remembered quite well.

It was Viothgarr, the very same part of Septimi where he and the governor had first met the Gretwalder in all his nude glory more than half a year ago now. What possibly have necessitated his return, and why return him so restrained?

The Commandant pulled at his iron bracelets, but there was no slack to be found. Already he could feel his fingers and toes growing numb and his extremities becoming paler as little trickles of blood dripped down from his wrists and ankles. Who had done this to him? Had Kang discovered his treachery and sought to punish him through exposure: a final, depraved act of vengeance before the imperial forces ushered in his doom?

As if reading his very thoughts, MacGregor heard that twisted, shrill, despotic little voice boom inside his aching left ear.

"This is not a punishment," Kang began, his words muffled and distorted by the crackling of a radio transmission. "If nothing else, I want thee to know that. This is not some retribution for thou having betrayed me, though, of course, I could not be blamed for exacting some were it to be case."

MacGregor watched as a lonely Vidar aircraft carrier floating on the ocean below him began launching tiny planes into the sky. At this height they appeared as little more than a handful of pesky mosquitoes, though their buzzing was loud enough to reach the Commandant even over the sound of Kang's diatribe.

"No, Kanshou, when the histories of this great tumult are finally written, characters like thee will be so common as to blend into the background, hardly warranting a solitary page of explanation. For small minded, cowardly men like you, men who are offered keys to Heaven but choose instead to beg for scraps at the devil's bootheels are so rife in our society as to hardly count as disappointments. No, they are nothing but trivialities."

"But thee, Kanshou, thou in thy treachery, though thou could not have possibly known it, have transcended all those tiny, grueling worms who have been come before thee. Thou, without ever having known or even guessed at it, have played a glorious part in the commencement of a new epoch for our people and for that, though thy person may be pathetic and small, thy deeds shall be remembered for their heroic largesse and contribution to the future of humanity!"

Without a single change having ever appeared on the horizon, the fluttering mosquitoes were suddenly plucked from the sky, torpedoing straight down to the waters in a puff of oily smoke and splashing white waters.

"I always knew thou would betray me, my friend. I just did not know when and how. But once thou sent thy alert to the colony, I had everything I needed. I had your channel, your codes and the means to send whatever message I desired."

The shockwave of the first explosions reached MacGregor's quivering ears just as he realized what was happening, the impact shattering the drum of his right ear and adding a screeching, high-pitched ringing to the cackling of Kang's transmission. In the span of a single instant, the radiant mid-day light turned to bleak, cloudy evening as the shining ocean sun was blotted out by a swarm of myriad imperial ships. The deafening cloud of smoking metal and rust blanketed the entire horizon in a torrent of bombs, lasers, missiles and flashing cannon strikes, blasting and crackling through the whole archipelago a storm of Heaven's wrath, every shell but one droplet of rain and each coursing laser a bolt of lightning.

"Thou could never see me as more than a centurion, Kanshou...."

The Emperor's divine vengeance smothered every sea vessel in sight; carrier, fishing boats, yachts, cruise-liners, shipping containers and rowboats were all washed away alike like rubber ducks in the bath of a titan. The grass huts along the volcano were reduced to rubble as the mountain itself splattered into a million, foaming, spluttering, ashy pieces, erupting and pouring the whole island beneath the surface of the sea.

"But now you will all witness the God we have become."

MacGregor squirmed and writhed, fighting valiantly against his restraints, screaming with all his might as he saw four transports, enormous, bloated whales (larger, even, than the islands below them) appear in the sky. He shouted and shouted, trying to flush every last breath of air in all the universe into one final, giant "stop!", but even then it would not have been enough. The ringing ceased, and though his screaming continued, all MacGregor heard was deathly silence as he watched a lone, silver streak form along the tip of Heaven's paintbrush.

"Goodbye, old friend," Kang said, releasing the transmitter before stepping back to enjoy the show.

Kang, Edgar, Cuthbert and a host of other generals, dignitaries and Walders who been wise enough to save their hides thus far watched on in gasping wonder as the screen before them seemed to rupture and explode in an all-encompassing bubble of sublime, achromic light. Not a soul had noticed the missile launching. No at one have seen it touch the ground. The whole planet would soon know its aftermath.

Even as the blinding flash receded to an ashen grey mushroom cloud, rising up and billowing to a height of more than forty miles over the course of several awe-inspiring minutes, reaching well past the stratosphere and giving the observers only the slightest peak of the crown's true majesty and scale, the audience was too stunned even to applaud. Instead, every observer to a man found themselves compelled beyond all hope of reason or restraint to fall to their knees in amazement, worshiping the fearsome return of that omnipotent Holy Star.

Cuthbert, clad in several layers of priestly habits and glittering, ecclesiastical jewels so as to fill out his lanky, diminutive form to a more imposing stature, was the first to stand, commanding the attention of the onlookers with thunderous echoes of the Revelations accompanied by the operatic gesticulation of heavy ringed fingers and gold-laden hands. With the audience so distracted, Kang plucked his Keeper of the Scrolls and tore off to a private office within the bunker compound.

"Many congratulations, my lord!" Edgar sputtered, kowtowing as low and humbly as possible, his back audibly cracking from the effort. "With this magnificent victory, the governor's legions have melted away, and we are finally free to open our ports back up to trade and prosperity. All of Vitharr will no doubt rejoice in your unquestioned power and generosity as their stomachs are once again replenished in the same way you have filled their hearts with pride!"

Kang's perpetual smile dropped just for as a moment as he settled into his steel desk, asking, "thou have our apologies, Keeper, for we do not know of what thou speak."

Edgard dipped his head in shameful humility under the reproach but continued all the same. "I am most sorry for imposing, dear sir. I had only assumed, given our pact with Party now at hand and goods flowing to our ports, the state would be freed to divert some resources in feeding our hungry people."

The leader was stupefied, his eyes narrowing to pinpricks of dumbfounded suspicion. "Do thou truly think we lifted the embargo for something so frivolous, so inconsequential as mere bags of rice and cartons of milk?" He stretched out his arm, indicating back to the observing room. "Can thou tell me how many tons of rice we have just shoveled on our enemy? How many gallons of milk have we showered on their head?"

"No, thou cannot?" Kang barked. "Perhaps it is because our victory was not won by something as meaningless as foodstuffs?"

"But my lord!" the Keeper protested, tears on the cusp of formation at his eyes, "the war of weapons is already won. It is the battle of famine that rages on now."

"Nonsense!" The leader slammed the table, every bit as fervently as the Gretwalder before him had done. "This is but the opening salvo, the debut to a great and terrible conflict that will engulf the whole of mankind. If these people waste away to skin and bone, let them! Billions more lie fat and idle on better, fresher planets, just waiting for our conquest. And shall we take those worlds with jugs of wine and loaves of bread! No! Now we need a fleet! We need vessels from which to launch our arsenal into the maw of every legion in every corner of the unsuspecting Empire!"

Kang was standing now, shouting loud enough Edgar was certain his words were reverberating all the way up to the surface. "Thou have seen the power of one atomic missile. Now let us have a hundred thousand more! Thou have seen the might of the imperial airships. Let us build a hundred armadas each more expansive than the last! Thou have seen thy county-men worship our might as if blessed by the light of Heaven. Let us not stop until the whole of the human race trembles before our godly power!"

Suddenly the man keeled over, gasping for breath as he leaned against the desk, the energy of his outburst having cost him dearly. When he had finally regained himself, he stood tall and straight once more, his smile returned and as disenchanting as ever. "No, this is not the time to waste our spirits bickering about crumbs. When they have completed their worship, we want thee to call the generals and Cuthbert here to deliberate. The governor's forces have been condemned to the sea. Now, her colony is ours for the taking."

Edgar prostrated himself and obeyed, his tears dampening the floor beneath him as he did so.

He had no choice but to obey, and he feared that soon, neither would anyone else.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

It had only taken a few moments of freedom from the tank for Mila to long for her return.

Once the Party had come to doubt a single aspect of one's being, it doubted the whole being with equal scrutiny and passion. Mila's supposed faithlessness had now graduated her to being removed from that insipid pool a few hours at a time, long, random stretches of agonizing examinations, design to test down to the very grounds of her soul.

Right now, it was an electrically outfitted silicon mold wrapped around her hands, enveloping them like absurdly large, beige-coloured mittens, accompanied by a banded monitor that wrapped tightly around her eyes, beaming almost directly to her brain whatever images she was meant to see. Try as she might Mila could never find a pattern to the images. She learned very quickly, however, which would inspire the greatest pain.

A red-clad Party choir would invite a massaging caress. A silk suited businessman, so reminiscent of Song it could nearly be a guest appearance inspired an irritating ache. A rotting imperial corpse, the pleasant stirring returned. A rippling, erect human penis. Zap! She could feel the flesh of every finger being flayed from the bone, barbequed and scraped off the knuckle in a single foul swoop.

The smiling faces of the Central Committee, and the pain became a distant memory. A man flogging a naked woman with a leather bullwhip. Her hands were being pierced with nails. The woman was smiling. The wounds were doused in acid. The woman was enjoying the beating, shouting "More! Please, more!" Mila screamed in anguish, her skeleton was being vacuumed from her body and roughly grated with fiery sandpaper from the inside at the same time.

The headset was removed just as the pleasant sensation in her hands had returned, but her heart was beating too fast, her muscles clenched too tightly and chest too taut in fear to respond with anything but paralyzed terror. Alfred recognized the look immediately. It must have been precisely how he had appeared to her when she had saved him at the Hellasvarr, back when he had been so close to death that not even the sight of his beloved could have moved him. He had been a marionette, a life-like puppet that could only fool for as long as it took to take its pulse.

He rushed towards her, scoping her spindly, amebic form in his arms.

"Alfred," she muttered, nuzzling herself deep between his shoulders, absorbing his bony, but warm embrace. In truth, she did not know what this man really was beyond "Alfred", but she knew the word, at least and it was more now than she knew about herself. It was like there was in him, inside that "Alfred" a secret locked away, a piece of herself that lied hidden and protected, a key to her identity the Party could not reach and erase. There was within him a part of her kept safe, and so long he remained alive, as long she kept herself close to him, to his heart beating, his chest thumping, his lungs breathing, she could build herself back up too, bit by agonizing bit. He had become the anchor, the one stable point in all the universe, and she clung onto him as desperately as she had grabbed at the umbilical cord in the vastness of the void.

She had buried herself so deeply into Alfred's body she could not hear his chastisements of the women around him, but she reared back as she heard the booming, angered reply bombard her from behind.

"Valentina." She said, lifting her chin up just as the rest of Alfred was suddenly violently pulled away from her, a pair of cadres laying hands on them both.

"What are thou doing?" Alfred asked, his voice now entirely awash in undisguised anger, but the chairwoman ignored him entirely, walking past the shadows and directly into the light where Mila could see her.

"Thou are right, little one," Valentina affirmed, smiling ghoulishly as she did so, her squarish, iron-wrought features fighting against her at every step of the way. "I have come to deliver upon my promises, comrade. Do thou remember? I said one day thou would be free, a hero and servant to the Party once more. Well, now that day is here! Thy freedom is attained!"

"I will never serve thou again, the... train-station whore thou are!" Mila cursed, trying her best to recall all the worst things men had once called her before she had been allowed to shoot them for it.

Valentina just laughed, gruffly but with the unexpected humour of the gallows. She produced the electric rod from behind her back. "In sooth, it is rather sad," she said, sparking the tube just a few times to build up a strong, crackling charge. "Of all people, there truly is no one who understands better what thy love is about to endure."

In a single thrust, her anchor to reality was cut loose, the unbreakable stone pummeled away to sand. Alfred's shouts were higher in pitch and volume than Mila could ever have imagined; he sounded like a fox trapped under a burning log, screaming with all its terrified might. She collapsed, hands at her throat, gasping as tears soaked her trembling face.

Alfred was panting during the interlude, his breaths ragged and bloody, his hacking a grotesque interruption as Valentina explained the situation.

"Kang has nuclear weapons. The governor knows where they are. Go to the colony, tell them whatever story to they need to hear, betray whomever thou must betray, bed whomever thou must bed. I do not care. Just find the weapons. Find the cache. Know what she knows and tell it to me."

"Or..." She pressed the rod into Alfred's chest once more, forming a black ring of char that smouldered and smoked, filling the dungeon with the smell of overcooked meat as he moaned and whimpered, begging for the pain to cease. "Or, I shall see to it the comrade of thy pantaloons here is subjected to pains and tortures so abominable, so heinous, so delicately placed on the knife's edge between life and death, the historians of both sides will be studying and exalting my techniques no matter who wins this war."

She held the spark up to her nose, brightening her face just enough to highlight the brutal seriousness of those vicious, unfeeling eyes.

"Run along, comrade. The colony is far away from here." She returned back to the darkness, her voice still remaining, echoing against ever corner of the dungeon around her. "Best not leave our love alone too long."

The final flash of smile, "it could prove disastrous to his health."

And then, she was gone.

≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥≤≥≥≤≤≥

Though it had taken a little more time than she had hoped, Quentin had equipped her volunteers with just enough arms and munitions that they might be halfway capable of convincing the world they were indeed, a real fighting force. The more spirited amongst them had taken to calling themselves "the Black Hundreds", and as Quentin walked past a squadron guarding the razor-wire outcroppings of the legion palace, she could appreciate how their simple attire - black peasant coats and thick balaclavas – lent itself quite nicely to such a name.

As she passed the thinly guarded walls and neared closer to the palace innards, however, Quentin became much less concerned with the little black shapes milling around and more worried about the absence of nearly everything and everyone else. The thousands of attendants, footmen, janitors, groundskeepers, cooks and servants usually employed to the grounds seemed to have almost evaporated from sight, and as sheprobed deeper towards the courtyard and the governor's operation headquarters, their absence seemed only more conspicuous.

Quentin increased her pace.

Perhaps she had waited too long to tell the governor. It certainly had been risk, but she could not have possibly predicted how Lady Ci would have reacted to the news of Wang 's treachery and his invitation to join him. She needed her supporters armed and organized before allowing the governor to know. Just a little safety measure in case anything went awry. Quentin had chained her own survival to the governor, after all; it was only natural for her to expect some reciprocity, or even to guarantee it, in this case.

Now the folly of her devices was beginning to be laid bare. Quentin tore the first set of red doors aside and was met with an endless reverberation of her own footsteps sounding off against the massive concrete shell of the palace biodome. Even the jungle with its rustling leaves, cracking branches and creeping vines was not enough to swallow the eerie silence. She began to run now; fearing it was already far too late.

Passing through the second red doors into the paper-walled inner sanctum, the courtyard seemed like the inverse of a hurricane's eye: a tempest of furious activity surrounded by settled, lifeless rings of inactivity. The cement had been silent, the marble held only echoes, but that paper was screaming. Quentin stopped in her tracks, unsure where to look.

A whirlwind of administrators, officers, clerks, radio technicians and decoders all rushed up and down the corridors, tripping over the wet river pebbles, stumbling through the grassy bamboo reeds and splashing into what had been gently trickling springs. They moved in all directions, pushed and pulled as if a thousand tiny grenades were being set off all at once and every second, the blasts scattering everyone around, all the while punctuated by enough shrieking and shouting to convince Quentin it plausibly could be a war zone after all.

Hundreds of screens set up across the courtyard shone a dazzling array of numbers, characters, schematics and other data, but one image dominated above all others, a single video playing out across nearly half the displays simultaneously: a gigantic mushroom cloud, slowly rumbling steadily upwards into space, its fiery centre glowing brighter than the orange sun kissing at its exposed upper crown.

Quentin could hardly choose but to gape as the storm unfurled around her, uniforms rubbing up against if not bumping straight into her, a thousand telephones clanging a cacophonous choir of uncoordinated chimes, great noisy bursts of radio static on every channel. No matter how often the dials were rotated, the hapless clicking of buttons, tapping of keys, pressing of receivers, crying of invectives, the hissing only grew louder.

"Thank Heaven!" She heard the governor cry, spinning round to meet her. "We had been trying to reach thee but could gain no response."

"My apologies, your excellency," Quentin bowed. "I was detained in bringing urgent news of my own."

"Whatever it is," the governor interceded, pressing her arm firmly against her pupil's shoulders, "it will have to wait. We hope thy troops are ready, Pan. It seems they might be the only army we have left."

Quentin has not even afforded a moment to be shocked, for barely after the Lady Ci spoken her last syllable, the entire palace shook and rattled with the deep, resounding roar of an earthquake. Enough people were thrown against their desks, tossed to the floor and knocked against one another that for a brief moment the clamour died away to a total appalled silence. It was just quiet enough for all to hear a sharp, barely audible crunch, like a distant hollow snap carried through heavy sheets of ice, growing louder, higher pitched and more echoing as it came nearer and split away into more and deeper cracks until eventually it reached the blue painted sky over their heads. The two women did not have time to think, they just ran.

A wave of people rushed underneath the marble pillared façade as the palace's cement shell crumbled on top of them, but those umbrella columns could only impede so much concrete deluge. The torturous cries of abandonment were overpowered, however, by the noises of the outside world now rushing into the ruined centre of the palace, bouncing off the rubble and straight towards the harrowed ears of the survivors. Gunshots and artillery shocks burst across the landscape only to be washed away by the vibrating rumble of countless stamping feet.

Quentin struggled to pull herself up from the pile of twisted concrete pinning her against the marble pillar, but the governor used her surprisingly strong arms to haul her disciple up onto the rubble. They climbed to the peak of that new cement hillock, trying to see over the impenetrable haze of unbreathable, grey dust.

Just a small sliver of the biosphere had been punctured, and as the sunlight flooded in from that single tranche, it illuminated a team of twenty earthmovers, titanic, smog-belching, grease-dripping, roaring machines rushing towards the ruins. Their exteriors were painted in crude, sloppy red characters, each shuttling a man or two strapped on top, waving absurdly small red banners and flags that could not possibly be read at such a distance. As the vehicles ploughed forward, a spate of human-shaped dots gushed out from the crack behind them, following and spreading out until they quickly engulfed the entirety of the palace grounds. Though they marched off-kilter, out of step, their boots thudded and thumped with such incredible force that several loose splinters of cement were wobbled free from the shattered shell above them, causing the crowd to break and redirect like ants avoiding the pelting of rain.

Though many of the survivors had had the good sense to run past the wreckage and leave, Lady Ci found herself bound to stay, impelled at least to see the face of her attacker. Quentin, who knew that face all too well, was too paralyzed with fear but to stay at her master's side. As she finally saw Wang , however, standing proud and tall, nearly transcendent astride his raging, mechanical steed, she felt for just a moment that perhaps she had made the wrong choice.

Though the characters were still too faint to make out, Wang 's megaphone and the echo of his chants across that human tsunami made their demands clear enough.

"Respect for all!"

"End jiaren discrimination! End oppression of workers!"

"Paradise for the common man! The People's State shall rise!"

"Join your fellow workers! Unite the human race!"

The slogans were broken momentarily by the popping of gunfire at the margins of the crowd, but the Red Jiaren Army, armed mostly with tools and placards as they might have been, had grown far too large to be intimidated. The speck of black coats who had tried to halt the enemy advance were crushed beneath the rotating tracks of the mighty earthmovers. Lady Ci sounded the retreat just as their remains were spattered up against the marble wall.

As they ran, the thunderous echoes of the revolution slowly fading away from earshot, they heard the first traces of a song they had all sworn would never touch the surface of this accursed planet. It was a song they would all come to know very well:

"Arise ye workers from your slumbers

Arise ye prisoners of want

For reason in revolt now thunders

And at last ends the age of cant.

Away with all your superstitions

Servile masses arise, arise

We'll change henceforth the old tradition

And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Red Jiaren Armyunites the human race!"