Epilogue

Chairman Daniel Markis sipped a nice Australian red over dinner with his wife, Elise. “It’s good to have you back,” he said.

“It’ll be even better when you move the capital to Carletonville,” she replied, lifting a bite of her rabbit fritter appetizer.

Around the couple, a small army of servants made certain to cater to their every whim; Daniel knew it would take some time for the worst of the obsequiousness to settle down to mere appropriate respect due a representative of the people.

Elise went on, “You looking forward to the wedding?”

“Not as much as Henrich and Rae are, I imagine. Remember ours?

Elise chuckled. “This one will be a far cry from a bunch of outlaws hiding in a bunker. You know,” she said, toying with her glass, “maybe we should renew our vows.”

“You just want the big ceremony you never got,” Daniel replied with a grin.

“Well, why not? You’re still the big cheese. Might as well put your staff to work on something more fun than politics and military matters. And Vincent can be your best man. We don’t see enough of him anyway.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, my love,” Daniel said, leaning in close to stage-whisper. “Weddings are only fun for the bride, and maybe her bridesmaids. For everyone else, they're a pain in the ass. The reception, now...that can be fun. Oh, and the bachelor party.”

“You do whatever you have to, Daniel John Markis.” Her stink-eye surfaced.

“Uh-oh,” Daniel said. “You used all three names. That’s the nuclear option.” He held up his hands. “Okay, you win.”

***

One week later, EarthFleet Chaplain Christine Forman married Henrich Absen and Raphaela Denham in a ceremony attended by a cast of thousands, as many friends, acquaintances and hangers-on as could get themselves onto the guest list.

Held in the Shepparton Palace’s grand salon and ballroom, the wedding was formal in the military sense, with the usual pomp and circumstance, but less so than, for example, royal weddings of the past. Those born in the twentieth and twenty-first century, who hadn’t spent their formative years under the Meme Empire or Spectre’s, often scandalized the younger generation with their lack of earnestness.

I can hardly blame them, Sergeant Major Jill Repeth thought as she sipped champagne at the edge of the reception’s enormous ballroom floor, watching friends and acquaintances dance. Many of the Yellows ruthlessly punished breaches of protocol, so these people act like sour Puritans half the time and pompous children the other half. They must think us oldsters are all libertines.

That didn’t keep her from exchanging her empty glass for a full one off one of the trays carried by a stone-faced young waiter. Those smiles she could see among the staff seemed painted on, as if the servers worked in a theme park where their jobs depended on it.

“I was thinking...” her husband Rick said as he stepped up from behind her.

“I’ve cautioned you about that,” she replied.

“Watch it, or I’ll pull your hair.”

That was a very real threat, now that she’d allowed it to grow longer, because it had taken her a half hour to pin up properly. “Never threaten a woman who can snap you in half, O husband of mine.”

“I was thinking,” Rick said heavily, “about going back to Afrana. Seeing our children, maybe.”

“They’ll be strangers, Rick. It’s been years, and they’re all grown up.”

He shrugged. “I’d still like to see them. With Mom gone, we’re the elders in our family. How are they going to know what it was like in the old days? Vids?” He snorted.

Jill kept her face turned away, wondering to herself why she felt uneasy about Rick’s idea. Maybe it was because, deep down, the mothering part of her had never really taken hold. She’d birthed her babies and she loved them, but she’d felt more relief than sadness when she saw the other parents in the communal crèches, the ones who felt motherhood and fatherhood as callings rather than duties, taking such good care of hers...relief that she would soon get back to being a Marine, with its structure, its duty and honor.

“You’re thinking, too,” Rick said. “That means you’re not so hot on the idea.”

“I’m not. But...I know you are. Do you mean we should take leave, or are you wanting to get stationed there?”

“Wanting for you to get stationed there, you mean. I think I’m done with the military.”

“What? You’re kidding.” Jill turned to Rick, genuinely shocked.

“Look, I was drafted, okay? I had a very special skill set and cutting-edge cybernetics for the time. Now...I’m just one commander among many, I have no desire to be promoted to Captain, and these new kids...they can hack with the best of them. Let’s be frank; I put up with it because I had to, and because it was the best way to stay near you. But now, with FTL travel, we don’t have to face the prospect of decades apart every time we head for a new star system.” He took her hands. “I want to have a home that’s not bounded by the decks and bulkheads of a warship. I want to have friends that aren’t colleagues. I want to play baseball and take walks in the woods with a big happy dog. I want to sit on my ass on weekends with a beer, watching old vids from back when people didn’t know the universe was out to get them.”

“That’s quite a speech.” Jill stared at him a long moment. “So...you want to settle on Afrana?”

“Either that, or in New Carletonville. At least the mountains there look the same. Those two places are where I spent the longest, and they were both beautiful.”

“No need to choose between them. I’m sure I have enough pull to get stationed at Gliese 370 for a while. Then we can move back to Earth when you’re done with Afrana, okay?”

Rick leaned down to kiss Jill. “Okay. Thanks. And one more thing...”

“Here it comes.”

“Any chance you’d like to have more kids?”

Jill’s eyes crinkled. “Maybe the Sekoi should engineer you a womb.”

“God. They could, I bet...but no, I’m not that progressive. But...will you?”

She finished her champagne and launched her glass toward the outdoor fire pit, pleased when it broke among the coals with a tinkle. Then she unbuttoned her dress jacket and loosened her collar. “I’ll think about it. Now, let’s get drunk and dance, lover. We’re only young once.”

From across the floor, Bull ben Tauros stared at the couple. He never understood what Reaper saw in Rick, but he was too fair-minded to begrudge them their happiness.

Besides, at long last he’d run across another woman who interested him and seemed worthy. He slid across the edge of the crowd, using the perimeter of the ballroom floor rather than pressing through. The fact that he stood a head taller than most people made it easier to home in on his target, a head of white-blonde hair barely visible on its petite body.

“General! Good to see you again,” Chaplain Christine Forman said as he approached.

“Good to see you too, Chaplain. Please, call me Bull.”

“Then you must call me Christine,” she said in the Boston Brahmin accent she’d never quite given up despite the fact that there was no such city anymore. “Please, let me introduce you to some friends of mine. This is Larry and Shawna Nightingale.”

Bull shook hands with Larry, finding it interesting to meet a man even bigger than he was, though lacking his cybernetic strength. “I served with an Ellis Nightingale, the weapons engineer aboard Conquest,” he said.

“Our son,” Shawna said. “He and his friend James Ekara are over there, hitting on the bridesmaids.” She nodded toward the bar. “Thanks for bringing him home.”

Bull shrugged. “I did my part, but it’s the groom we all have to thank.”

“We’ll be sure to tell him,” Larry said, glancing from Christine to Bull and back. “Well, if you’ll excuse us, I have a buffet to investigate. Come on, dear.”

“But Christine and I were just catching up.”

Larry put his hand firmly in the small of his wife’s back and pushed. “Honey...”

“All right, Lawrence. Don’t manhandle me.”

Larry leaned over and whispered in Shawna’s ear, causing her to smile. “Ah. Yes, let’s hit the buffet.”

“They’re a couple of characters,” Bull said, watching the two go. Turning back to Christine, he found himself able to see nothing but her heart-shaped face framed by that entrancing flaxen hair, cut to her jawline in a way that made him want to run his callused hands under it and...

Face it, Bull, he said to himself, you got it bad.

“They certainly are,” Christine replied, watching them as well.

Not since before Gliese 370 had he made time for anything more than casual relationships, in either the on-again, off-again style of expeditionary personnel throughout history – a girl in every port was the stereotype – or guarded, friendly but shallow trysts with Fleet or Aerospace colleagues. He’d always kept his personal feelings out of Marine spaces, though.

“So, Bull...surely you didn’t wander over merely to give me kudos on my ability to join two people in holy matrimony,” Christine said, taking his arm and tugging him gently toward the grand terrace that lined one side of the enormous building.

“Ah, no, Christine...though you did do it well.” Despite the difference in their heights, the woman on his arm managed to make the arrangement seem natural, even graceful. He wondered how she did it. Something to do with her breeding, he supposed. That thought made him feel even more awkward.

They exited through double doors into the cool of the evening, joining a scattering of others at the long stone rail overlooking the faerie-lit gardens. Tiki torches flickered here and there, giving the entire scene an otherworldly feel.

Bull leaned on the rail, the better to lower his head to her level without seeming awkward. “I only realized this recently, but it’s hard to make friends once they pin flag rank on you. The pool of peers shrinks dramatically, and fraternization rears its ugly head.”

Christine laughed, a hearty, almost unladylike sound. “For a big, tough Marine, you’re being quite indirect.”

Bull chuckled. “I’d rather charge a nest of Scourge with nothing but a KA-BAR than...”

“Than ask a woman out?”

Bull stared out over the garden, not meeting her eyes. “I have no problem with most women, but every now and again, one comes along that’s so interesting that the prospect of blowing it scares the hell out of me.” He turned to meet her eyes. “Is that direct enough?”

“Much better. I’m far too old and crotchety to beat around the bush anymore, Bull. Don’t let this hot young Eden Plague body fool you. I was born in the twentieth century.”

That elicited a belly laugh from Bull. “You’re the most unusual chaplain I’ve ever met.”

“So I’ve been told. Most people without it consider faith in God something that confines. I found it freed me by giving me an unshakeable foundation for my life. Isn’t that how you view yours?”

Bull’s face turned contemplative. “For me, being a Jew and an Israeli and a Marine is a unified identity. I don’t separate any of that from faith. It’s simply who I am. I can’t imagine being any other way.”

“Here I stand: I can do no other, huh?”

“I think Martin Luther and I would have gotten along all right. He had guts. And after all, we Hebes invented Sola Scriptura.”

Christine snorted in amusement, shaking Bull’s huge left biceps with both of her hands. “I think that’s a topic worthy of further discussion. How about over dinner tomorrow? I know a good Australian restaurant downtown. Serves real kangaroo.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Bull disengaged gently in order to turn to Christine and bow. “Would you like to dance, milady?”

“Dance? You?”

“All Jews love to dance, don’t you know?”

Christine smiled, lighting up her heart-shaped face. “Educated and cultured as well. How could I possibly refuse?”

From thirty yards down the terrace, Melissa Scoggins and James Ford observed Bull and Christine as they flirted. “Seems like a long time since we had that much fun,” he said.

“Yeah.” Scoggins sighed. “What’s gone wrong, James?”

Ford shrugged. “I dunno, Mel. I still love you, but I’m always pissed off at you, too. Maybe we aren’t meant to be forever.”

“Maybe.”

They stood in awkward silence, watching as if looking back through the lens of a time machine at their own whirlwind courtship. Melissa wondered if somehow they had skipped too many steps, working together as mere colleagues, and then suddenly hopping into bed during the elation of victory at Gliese 370.

After that, it had seemed natural to get married and have children the way everyone else was doing – not to mention that it was her duty to populate the human colony on Afrana. The stability and the comradeship had provided an anchor for her life.

Their lives, she’d believed.

But now, she was a rear admiral with a fleet action under her belt, and James...well, he’d get a ship of some kind, but he’d likely never make flag rank...or be under her command again, for that matter. As EarthFleet shook itself out again and inevitably became more regular, rule bound and bureaucratic, fraternization regs would force them away from each other, unless one of them moved into the support services.

Maybe that was all to the good.

The sound of footsteps on flagstones caused her to turn to see a pair of female officers of commander’s rank, alike enough they could be twins. Their uniform nameplates read “Conqueror” and “Concorde.”

“Ma’am, I just wanted to say once more, it was an honor to serve under your command at Center,” Commander Conqueror said.

“Thanks, Michelle. Everyone performed exceptionally. You two are in orbit above, I presume?”

“Yes, ma’am, in the shipyards. It’s very...interesting to walk freely among organics without being able to see them from every angle, or even hold them in VR memory. I feel very small when my consciousness is funneled through this android body.”

Scoggins exchanged glances with Ford. “Listen, Michelle...I’m sorry, but can we get together some other time?”

“Of course, ma’am. Have a good evening.”

Scoggins sighed in relief as the two walked away to explore the strange places outside their own massive ships’ bodies, turning back to her husband and the matter at hand.

“O brave new world, that has such people in’t,” she quoted Shakespeare, jerking her head at the retreating pair. “Listen, James...I think we should just take a break. Not decide anything yet, though. The stress of combat, the whole career thing...we both need time to think, right?”

“Yeah. I agree. I, uh...I’m not looking at anyone else, you understand. I just need to be my own man for a while.”

Melissa bit back a cutting retort about men working for women, knowing it would be unfair. By the numbers and by temperament, statistically fewer females than males were cut out for the military. That was simple fact, written in the genetic tendencies of humans over millennia of natural selection.

But for those women who were capable, they were often standouts, and she saw herself as one of those. Sure, she’d had a bit of luck, ending up so close to Absen, but she’d earned her broad pennant through a dozen deadly campaigns.

So she could understand how James must feel, to have someone he served with as a peer so long ago end up so much higher in rank and responsibility. He’d probably react no differently had they been siblings rather than a married couple. It was human nature to be envious when someone else got ahead.

Maybe things would change when James had his own shot at independent command. Perhaps the necessity of living the captain’s model would mature him in a way that staying in her shadow never could.

“I’m okay with that, James,” she finally said, fingering her wedding band. “I’m not taking this off either, and I’m not looking for anyone else...but if you find someone that suits you better than I do...”

“Thanks, Mel. But I’m really not looking for someone else. Just something else, I think. Something more than doing my job, killing our enemies.”

Leaning up, Melissa Scoggins kissed him on the cheek. “I hope you find it, then.” She stared at his troubled face for a moment more. “So long, James.”

“So long, Mel. See you around the Fleet.”

***

Trissk embraced Klis once more, rubbing his forehead to hers and mingling the scents of the glands there, an exercise in mutual marking. “Are you certain you don’t want to go back to your Human friends?” she asked.

“Never again, if I can help it. The apes are competent, and they’re certainly interesting, but the longer I am with them, the more I feel they’re not quite...”

“Ryss?”

Trissk chuckled. “They don’t smell right. I’d rather work with Sekoi.”

“Sekoi smell like prey, though. Herbivores.” Klis twitched her whiskers in what would be an eye-roll to a human.

“What do you think of Ryssa, now that you are here?” Trissk gestured out the window where they stood in the official residence he’d taken over from the most senior Blend. He’d had to accept becoming one himself, using a blank mitosis, but he’d found that to be far less a change than he’d expected.

Then again, he had a lot to learn about his new capabilities....but he’d had no choice if the liberation of Ryssa was to be peaceful, for the greater good. For better or for worse, the Blends constituted the aristocracy of Ryss society, and the old days of Chirom’s tales would never come again. The change was permanent.

As much as anything was permanent, he realized.

“Something about it feels better than Afrana, but...” she paused. “It’s not home. Not yet. But I’m sure it will be, when we have our next litter.”

“A small one this time, you know,” Trisk reminded her. “I’m continuing the policy of no more than three kits per household before the age of majority.”

“I think I can adjust.”

“What about the virus?”

Klis shrugged. “It’s catching on. The younger generations see how long the other races live, and the old taboos are dying out. As for those of our time, as soon as they feel the pangs of middle age, they will wonder why they should be snuffed out at fifty or sixty years. If they don’t want it...well, the problem will solve itself.”

“You’re far more pragmatic than I am, you know,” Trissk said.

“Males are all romantics, with their dreams of glory and honor and finding the perfect mate. Females must be practical.”

“With the apes, that’s reversed, you know. The females endlessly devour tales of pair-bonding and glorification while the males concentrate on engineering and sports.”

Klis stroked her mate’s fur. “Then be glad we are not apes. We are apex predators. All fear us. We created true artificial intelligence. The D-ships are our progeny. Once our race rids itself of the taboos against life code engineering and cybernetics, it will not be long before the Ryss will come to dominate this alliance.”

“As it should be.”

***

Spectre received the report of the test of the first FTL-equipped Monitor with satisfaction. He’d given up the pleasures of the body for now – sex and the martial arts being the two he missed the most – but achievement still fulfilled him. Now that he ruled the Meme of the Ryss home system and had the means to escape its confines, he would soon spread that dominance to the rest of the Empire.

Upon first Blending, he’d realized the Meme really were inherently superior to the other races. The ability to transfer his consciousness, to become truly immortal and not merely long-lived, was what set the Pure Race apart.

The lower species were trapped within their own forms and lived in the space between the planets only with elaborate machine support.

But Meme were not bound by planets; interplanetary – and now interstellar – space was their natural home. Any who wished to experience the lower orders could do so at any time...and now that Spectre had achieved upward blending, truly becoming a Meme – something apparently no one had ever thought to do – there were no limits.

Eventually, Spectre could see a day – in a thousand years, or ten thousand, or a million – when everyone everywhere would be Meme, and choose whatever bodies they wished from among all the templates ever encountered.

Even the Scourge would be merely a temporary obstacle, for they too would be absorbed. Spectre was already working on a plan to capture a senior Archon to Blend with as the next stage in his existence.

After all, whereas the Meme Empire currently owned a mere few thousand star systems, the Scourge probably possessed millions. It was only sensible to take another shortcut to the top.

Yes, Spectre thought. It’s good to be Meme.

––––––––

The End of Conquest and Empire.