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Galen grabbed the blanket and tore it away from Victor. "Look at you. You're still in your cooling vest and shorts. You've been curled up here like a child ever since we got on this ship. If Kai wasted his life, it's only because you're sitting here sulking."
"I'm mourning! I'm mourning a very close friend—my best friend." Victor's right hand caressed the jade monkey pendant at his throat. "Maybe you can't understand that."
"Victor, if you think I don't also mourn Kai and the others we lost on Alyina, then I hope your father never leaves the throne." Galen snarled, then closed his eyes and let tension bleed away. "Welcome to life, Highness. Welcome to the knowledge that war is more than toy soldiers and grand plans."
"You don't understand!" Victor smeared tears across his cheeks. "I keep remembering how Kai and I promised to meet again in twenty years. We had an agreement and I feel that somehow I failed him." Victor stabbed a thumb into his own chest. "Kai died because of me."
Galen squatted down on his haunches. "Kai died because he believed your life was more important to the Commonwealth than his. You didn't fail him. You'll only fail him if you make his sacrifice worthless. You won't be able to meet him face to face in twenty years, but if you make the best of your life, you can look in the mirror and know he'd be proud of you. He believed in you enough to die to give you that chance. You owe it to him to justify that sacrifice."
As Galen spoke, he heard the words echo through his mind in Kai's voice. So many memories of Kai, from their one-year overlap at the New Avalon Military Academy and time spent on Outreach to Christmas and that last glimpse of him going over the cliff, played through Victor's mind. His right hand closed again on the jade monkey and he recalled what Kai had said when presenting the gift to him. I got you this totem to remind you to continue to be yourself, no matter what.
Victor gritted his teeth to keep back the tears, then turned to Galen. "You're right. Kai was right." He stood up and began to unsnap his cooling vest. "I'm going to get cleaned up and changed. Meet me with some coffee in the briefing room and bring all the reports we've got. We're going to do a post mortem on this battle. We're going to learn how and why they beat us. We're going to know them better than they know themselves."
Galen stood and smiled. "Roger that, sir."
Victor looked beyond him and nodded to the phantom of Kai he saw in the porthole's view of the world they were leaving. "I'm going to do it. I'm going to be myself. I'm going to live up to my name. Next time, no matter what, I'm going to hand the Cla
46
Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
6 January 3052
The draft slipping through the open door drove a wispy dust spectre across the floor of the office as Sun-Tzu Liao entered. He carefully pressed the door shut behind him, releasing the doorknob slowly so that the latch made no sound. With his back to the doors, his slender fingers turned the deadbolt, once again sealing the chamber. With a satisfied grin, he saw from the single set of footprints in the dust that no one had been in the room since his last visit.
Of course no one else dared trespass because my mother, the omnipotent Romano Liao, Madam Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, ordered this room shut twenty years ago.He looked around at the cobweb-festooned furnishings lit by the small bit of sun that penetrated the ivy-covered french doors leading to the garden. The room had not changed since Justin Xiang Allard had betrayed Maximilian Liao and left Sian with Candace at his side.
It had taken years for Sun-Tzu's curiosity and courage to overcome his terror of angering his mother. At the same time that he learned he could control her, he'd decided she was utterly insane. To prove his independence to himself and to escape one of her rages, he had opened Justin's old office one day.
Even now I ca
Sun-Tzu shook his head and cautioned himself against speaking to ghosts. Leave it to Mother and Kali to speak to the unseen.He shuddered. "How could you do this to me, Mother?"
Assassinating Candace and Justin was sheer lunacy. Yes, he knew it settled old scores for his mother. In her eyes, it avenged the death of her father and helped to restore the Confederation's honor. Bit it did nothing to weaken the Confederation's enemies, and Sun-Tzu dreaded the form Hanse Davion's retribution might take. There was a chance that the Prince of the Federated Commonwealth would find himself too busy with the Clans to strike back immediately, but Sun-Tzu had not the slightest doubt that Hanse Davion would make Romano pay for the killings.
But Sun-Tzu was not afraid of Hanse Davion. Not even the Fox suspected the game he had played on Outreach. It was true he'd failed in his plan to humiliate Kai in the final testing on Outreach, having grossly underestimated his cousin. But in the end it would all work in Sun's own favor, for everyone would underestimate him even more.
He'd played his role to the hilt on Outreach. He knew none of his enemies would dare trust him after his strange behavior, but they would not guess his true intentions, either. They believed him to be as mad as his mother, and would never suspect him capable of the bold moves he must soon make. Yes, things are falling into place.
Sun-Tzu's one wish was that he'd had more time to study his cousin and search out his weaknesses, as he had done with his uncle Tormana. For all his bluster, Tormana was more a holovid revolutionary than anything else. By his loud posturing, Tormana managed to keep donations flowing into his coffers from paranoid Feds from the Sarna and Capellan Marches. Some of that money did go to revolutionary cells within the Combine itself, but most of it went straight to Tormana's own Brazen Heart Cavaliers Regiment.
"Tormana is easy to control because the fighting of twenty years ago took the heart out of him. He has no real desire to rule the Capellan Confederation. Yet he is shrewd enough to know he must make some display of interest to earn the respect of his peers in the Federated Commonwealth. If conquest becomes difficult, if he feels himself vulnerable, he will do nothing to jeopardize himself. Come to think of it, Candace's death will be such a constant reminder of his own danger that it may yet serve a good purpose."
Sun-Tzu turned to look at Justin's chair once more. "But Kai is another matter. As long as he is fighting the Clans, he will not come after me. I am fortunate that he believes the Clans are a greater threat than the Capellan Confederation. Kai certainly is not a coward. I know now his bloodlines serve him well. When he is finally able to turn his attention this way, things will, indeed, get interesting. I must gather as much power as I can to oppose him. With Victor and Hanse behind him, Kai may well be invincible."
Sun-Tzu mentally played through a number of options and political scenarios as he decided what he must do to ensure his survival and that of the Capellan Confederation. Suddenly, a course of action presented itself to him in clear form. With a nod, he committed himself to a plan that would take at least five years to complete. The risk was great, but all he could lose was his life, and death seemed distinctly more desirable than life as he'd known it over the past two decades.