"I tell you the rumors of Nefaru's death are true. The weasel Nero-his one begotten son-cannot hold this empire together. He's too weak. Either we take the throne from him, or someone else will. I'd much rather it be us." Titus Emperius was both entitled and imperious, and his name suited him well. If he could have known how much he resembled Nero up close, he would have chosen his words more wisely, perhaps his name, too. He wasn't happy unless he was plotting and scheming, and was forever impatient with climbing to the top when the moment was right, and not a moment before.  

He had no patience for empire building, and he knew it. The limits of his own impetuosity had cost him his arm in a fight with a Numerian soldier. His eye in a charge on a Farrel freighter. His leg had been taken away from him from some creature because he'd forgotten to look where he was placing his feet in the mad charge to do in the Cronat insurgency on Vitar. Each robotic replacement of his human appendages only emboldened him further toward new heights of impetuosity. After all, wasn't he getting stronger with each new enhancement? Maybe he would finally end up with a body that could survive his foolhardiness.  

But his inability to learn from experience did not endear him to Crackus Nefarius. Like the other new-empire-ruler wannabes, he too had taken his name from a grander time and place. The Roman era was the last period mankind had seen true greatness, to his way of thinking. He felt the subsequent several thousand years of history was a bit of a dark ages for nobility. Of course, he was building a tower to his ego, not a monument to humanity. If only he could count on Titus to lend adequate support in that enterprise. But the real thorn in his side was Dargan, a real Alexander reborn, and the true heir to the throne of Lord of Empires. Crackus would yet find a way to eclipse him if it was the last thing he did.  

Dargan's lion heart gave him a brilliance on the battlefield. But that same big heartedness came with a love for humanity that would be his downfall. He would not let innocents be slaughtered en masse so he could gain a patch of ground, even if it was the strategic highpoint in the battlefield. Or the battle upon which the rest of the war turned. All Crackus had to do was make the tradeoffs painful enough, and Dargan would back down on the battlefield and cede victory to Crackus.  

Let Nero try to catch Dargan up in webs of intrigue. Crackus couldn't beat Nero at his own game. But he could play winner-take-all by availing himself of his own main strength -- sheer ruthlessness. Unlike Nero, there was no cowardice in his bloodline. Crackus was a walking calculator of strategic advantage encumbered not so much by his own limitations as by those of others. For he happily employed anyone's talents to his ends, and they were usually only too glad to leave the strategizing to him, knowing full well no one did it better. His wins were theirs. He shared his dominion over the lands with his overlords, giving each a province to play with. It was how he kept their allegiance.  

But Titus... Titus was running short on usefulness. Still, there would always be need of some fool to charge up a hill at a crucial time when no one else would, knowing it would be sheer suicide. There was always a time in any battle when success turned on the deployment of just such a fool. So Titus breathed because he had survived death more than once. That was his claim to fame, his ability to somehow survive his own foolhardiness. He may not have been much on brains, but he had a will to live second to none that kept him alive long enough for them to rebuild him time and time again. That will to life - and paradoxically his willingness to forfeit it at a moment's notice - kept him at Crackus's side.  

Though it was doubtful Titus understood this, for he could hardly disguise his disdain for him. If he hadn't tried to take Crackus's head off himself it was because, by Crackus's side, there would be no shortage of opportunities to throw himself into the fire. As to why the fool felt some compelling need to do that, Crackus just worked with the tools God gave him. He was one hell of a psychologist, and nothing less was needed of a field general who had to motivate his troops when nothing less than sublime sight into the darkest recesses of men's minds would do the trick. But that didn't mean he had all the answers. 

They reached the crest of the hill looking down into the valley. His men had the upper hand, positioned in the mountain ranges surrounding the Leelands who lived in the valley, where the ground was fertile and good for farming. The flat valley bottom also provided an excellent arena for hand-to-hand combat, at which the Leeland excelled. They didn't much concern themselves with getting into this impossible situation because, to reach the mountain-tops, flight was necessary. And on this world only the Leeland could fly.  

But Crackus had arrived on flying horses brought over from Tredwell, where they were bred for war. Generations of interbreeding had resulted in an animal that was fearless and at home in the midst of battle, and whose body was as battle-armored as any armadillo. 

"Why won't you permit us to hit them with anything lethal? The men thirst for blood." 

"The Leeland are the best in hand-to-hand combat in all of Andromeda. They will make excellent soldiers once we win them over." 

"We don't seem to be winning them over, exactly."  

"That's because we've had the indecency to grab the high ground. In their minds, only cowards hide behind rocks and trees and shoot arrows from a distance where they can't be hurt. I suggest we do them the honor of descending to the valley floor." 

"Our people will be slaughtered." 

"Why? They'll know we're just playing. And they're avid sportsmen." 

"Is that why they haven't flown up after us?" 

"They haven't flown up because we haven't done anything unduly provocative just yet."  

"As you will, my lord."  

Titus raised his sword in the air and plunged into the valley with a cry meant to signal the other troops to charge headlong into certain death. It was days like today that Titus earned his keep. Anyone else couldn't convince any of those fools to descend into that valley if their lives depended on it. But Titus on the valley floor, exchanging blows with the Leelands - watching how they treated a fellow warrior of honor - that would do the trick.  

And so it went.  

The Dradorian battle horse hadn't yet fully landed and already Titus leapt from its back onto the Leeland, throwing him to the ground. The phosphorescent skin of the Leeland that could look dominated by one color one second, by another color the next, depending on how it caught the sunlight, shimmered wildly, blinding Titus. Just long enough for an elbow to the face to knock him off his opponent.  

The elbow was barbed with metallic feathers drawn to knife-like lengths. The feathers could also be extended to give the Leeland flight as desired. But in this configuration, they made the outline of his body razor edged. Titus was about to find out how much superior it was to turn your entire body into a knife than to wield some clumsy broadsword. His own vanity had precluded the selection of a smaller blade he could swing more ably. It was as if he were fighting in slow motion compared to the Leeland. That summoned only scathing laughter from the others who stood back to watch the trouncing of Titus's life.  

His loyal horse, however, had other ideas. The Dradorian battle horse breathed fire out its nostrils. A mere human would have been reduced to ash at the first blast. But the Leeland's body was comprised of super-conductive metal alloys, transferring heat better than copper wires one second, insulating them from the fires of hell the next. They might have looked humanoid, but they descended from winged insects that used silicon and carbon in a creative hybrid that made them all but impervious to heat or cold, moisture or dryness.  

If only someone could kill a Leeland, dissect it, and look inside to pass on its secrets. So far, no one had quite managed that, which was precisely why Crackus was looking to get on their good side. The bastards had a moral code that precluded a warrior's life - unless of course someone could lend such an enterprise a noble enough purpose. Crackus would be happy to do that for them, knowing that so long as the delusion held, so would their loyalty. Afterwards, they would return to being docile farmers, not much caring who ruled the world or why, just so long as they stayed to hell out of their backyard. In another life, Crackus would surely be a Leeland. Not a bad retirement if he could manage to get himself digitally scanned into one of their bodies. 

Frustrated that breathing fire on Titus's opponent was getting him nowhere, the Dradorian horse reared and came down with is forelegs square on the Leeland's chest. The shoes on its hooves could cut granite and find traction on diamond glazing. If the Leeland were made of stone, it would have been shattered. If it were made of diamond, it would have been forever marred. But its superconductive skin was enough for the horse to find its hooves skating along the Leeland's surface. Unable to find adequate traction, the horse toppled and roared.  

Back on its feet, one thing was clear: now the horse was really pissed. He swung his head like a battering ram up against the Leeland, sending him flying against several of his brethren, knocking them all over. They took it in good cheer, though, laughing even louder. The animal's refusal to back down was winning it points. Seeing how easily the fallen Leeland regained their composure, the horse took to the air. Gaining altitude. They thought it had finally given up.  

Then the horse swooped down and, gliding inches from their necklines, found one who was too busy laughing at Titus to be paying it sufficient attention, and took his head off with its dragon's teeth. The Leeland would have been fine had he not gotten so cocky, thinking he could turn his back to the animal. Its nervous system was so superconductive it could easily have turned its outer casing into an impenetrable hardness, or made his body's surface frictionless. But the Leeland survived as much on attentiveness as on physical defenses - and this one clearly did not have the same presence of mind as the others.  

The mood sobered immediately as they watched their comrade's head rolling on the ground. But as the animal landed, they petted and stroked it, showing it the reverence it had earned. The horse seemed to calm once given the respect it was due. He had actually done them a favor by culling the weakest from the herd. What a magnificent people, Crackus thought. They would celebrate their own enemies before they lost their temper. They were men of steel all right, down to the very essence of their character.  

Titus chose the quiet moment when their guard down to cut one of them in half with his broadsword. That gesture wasn't received quite so warmly, for he'd broken the rules. The game was in recess, and this marked him a cheat. The favor was returned in kind with the severing of Titus's head.  

Crackus sighed. Luckily, he had scanned Titus's brain long ago for just this contingency. Now Titus would have a robotic head to complement the rest of his increasingly cybernetic body. No doubt the digital analogue of his brain would be every bit as incorrigible as the original.  

The Leeland looked upward to see Crakas's troops descending en masse to play. Their spirits were buoyed, quickly forgetting the sleight delivered by Titus. It was time to teach their newfound friends a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat. The Dradorians relaxed some now that they understood what it meant to survive "sport" with the Leeland - play fairly and boldly. Leave the cowardice behind on the mountain-top.  

Crackus smiled. This was going better than expected. These allies had been made in a day instead of a month - the time he had allotted for winning them over - before blowing the planet to smithereens less they be recruited by any rival factions only too happy to lay claim to Nefaru's throne.  

* * * 

Crackus's army was doing better at the hand-to-hand combat than expected. But then they had little choice. Made of ice, they shattered on contact with the kind of force the Leeland could deliver. Of course, they could endlessly remake themselves by coming in contact with water. Their own limbs, once broken off, melted instantly so as to facilitate the annealing process with the rest of the body.  

But they only had so much time to remake themselves in the heat of battle, before the enemy got frustrated and thought of something else. Like boxing the different parts so they couldn't come together again. Or injecting some serum into the blood stream that prevented the annealing process, leaving his soldiers like so many puddles of rainwater. Not that there was much likelihood the Leeland would think of these things on the fly. No, his fighters were all but impervious in their own way. But each of these genetic hybrids had their weaknesses.  

Nefaru had seen to that when he approved their designs, his way of maintaining a balance in nature and keeping any one people from getting too cocky and thinking they could rule over the other clans. There was only real strength in swearing allegiance to one another and banding together like brothers so they could play off one another's strengths and weaknesses. Alas, with Nefaru gone, another kind of nature was likely to assert itself - human nature - as alive in these derivatives as in the originals.  

If Crackus could help them find enough common ground with one another again, he might be able to unite enough clans to come up against Nero. Nero's own soldiers were entirely cybernetic organisms, adapted to fighting in deep space where Nero would ensure the battle remained. These genetic hybrids were at an advantage in their home worlds, but at a distinct disadvantage in space where the absence of oxygen and atmosphere of any kind would definitely put a cramp in their fighting style.  

Ensuring his subjects played nicely with one another had allowed Nefaru to reign supreme throughout the heavens. His hybrids, with no space fleet of their own, were by design forever at his mercy.  

So the limited resources of each world became a bargaining chip for Nefaru. And all was well in the universe, with his fleet of war ships doubling as trading vessels. If any of the feisty natives came aboard, they could be fended off. It was a brilliant scheme, and well suited to stabilizing the empire.  

But nothing lasted forever. His people eventually outgrew the molds with which he had created them. They evolved despite themselves into things that disrupted the order of things. No living thing likes being caged, and the most beautiful of worlds - if there was nothing beyond - was a cage in the end.  

All life seemed at its very core to need to spread throughout the heavens, and they were being blocked by the Agave-Nero's cybernetic troops-from doing so. That put them on everyone's most-hated list. And now that Nefaru was gone, any thoughts holding them in check were fading along with him.  

Crackus heard the Singularity phone on his belt acting up, vibrating as if it were initiating a planet wide earthquake from its own epicenter. It might have been annoying, but it had the distinct advantage of cutting through time and space separating these worlds, some many galaxies apart. He picked up the phone and pressed down on the receiver. Even over the crackling and faded connection he could feel the fear oozing out the speaker's pores at the other end, rising like mist across the vast distances of space, passing through the mike on his handset like poison gas. "We must abort! We must abort!" 

"Calm yourself, Minitou. Just the facts." 

"Nero just blew up Tromidor! The entire planet has been wiped off the star maps. All because he got wind of the insurrection. He has spies everywhere, I tell you. He will not hesitate to do the same to any world that rises up against him. We must abort!" 

"Nonsense. This is just the bargaining chip I was hoping for." Crackus killed the connection before he killed the coward at the other end, who was spoiling a perfect afternoon of war games. He took his horse into the valley, descending like Zeus from Mt. Olympus.