TICEES (55 page)

Korba nodded to him. “Thank you, my good man,” he replied. “Salizar, tell me about Chelan after I left.”

Salizar glanced nervously at Toran and shifted in his seat. “After you left, my Lord, she receded into a deep depression, and she gave up her work with me. Ticees was then forced to return me to the Imperial service.”

Korba nodded. “Did she ever speak to you of Ticees or myself?”

“No, my Lord. She was a very private person. Our conversations revolved strictly around work.”

Korba sighed heavily. “And you have been away ever since?”

“Oh no, Sire,” came Salizar’s light response. “Immediately after Dar and Fremma’s departure, Ticees notified me that she once again requested my presence. I returned shortly, and she spent a great deal of time with me.”

Korba’s eyes narrowed. “How was she?” he asked in a strained whispered.

“Fine, my Lord. She was full of enthusiasm and happiness. She was counting down the days to your return. She suffered a slight setback when Ticees told her that RIBUS 7 would be delayed, but that was only momentary. She attacked her work with pride and determination. After a couple of months, I reported to Ticees that she was by far one of the best I had ever trained, and Ticees was elated.”

Korba smiled, and his eyes stung. Even now, she never ceased to amaze him, and his throat tightened. Finally, after a long pause, Korba took a deep and shaky breath. “Did you ever see her interacting with Ticees?”

“Only rarely, my Lord. After RIBUS 8 departed, I know that he arranged all his meetings and duties around her, and he often came to our area to pick her up for reconnaissance missions.”

Korba leaned forward. “Reconnaissance missions?”

“Yes, my Lord. Chelan loved the fighters, and Ticees often took her on the routine missions over the Dead Zone. She was always ecstatic.”

Korba rose suddenly, startling both men, his emotions tumultuous as he attempted to sort through the facts verses his gut feelings. “Was she ever unhappy?” he asked tonelessly.

“No, my Lord. She seemed fine right up until the day she—” His voice broke off and he looked down quickly. “Until the day she left, my Lord.”

Korba hung his head, and Toran signaled for Salizar to leave.

Toran stepped up to Korba and touched him lightly. “We will never know her true feelings toward Ticees, my friend,” consoled Toran. “He was her only companion, and maybe she had no choice but to accompany him out of loneliness.”

“I shouldn’t have left her,” whispered Korba. “She begged me to take her. And barring that she begged me to—”

Korba exhaled sharply and Toran helped him to his chair. Toran sat with him until he contained himself. “It wasn’t your fault, Korba. You did what was best for her, not knowing what Ticees would do later.” But Korba did not respond.

Toran sat with him in silence for a few moments and then rose slowly. “I shall leave you for now. If you require me, I will be available at a moment’s notice.”

Korba nodded, and Toran departed.

The great Warlord sat motionless for several hours. The evidence against Ticees was weakening minute by minute, and the guilt Korba was feeling for not taking Chelan with him was mounting.

Finally, he roused himself and looked about the Command Center. Sluggishly, he called up all the old rosters from the previous months and made a list of all the men and women who aided in the flights that Ticees had led. The list included all the wingmen and the attending security on the flight decks. And one by one, Korba ordered the people to his quarters, questioning them thoroughly. But all confirmed Salizar’s words. Chelan had indeed been happy, and she’d relished her flights out. They said that her bubbly enthusiasm consumed her each time she entered the hangar. They pointed out that on each flight, Ticees usually took the time to put the ship through some aerobatics and had once taken her to the pole region for a picnic. But never had she resisted him, nor indicated any reservations about accompanying him on the flights.

Finally Korba paged Erron, and the flight deck security officer entered Korba’s chambers. The story was the same, and then the man recounted her first trip to the hangar in more detail. “Ticees hadn’t told her where he was taking her, my Lord. He had an Imperial uniform made for her for the flights, and also so that she could go outside at her leisure. On her first flight, upon their return, she was nearly beside herself with joy and gratitude.”

Korba remained silent throughout most of Erron’s testimony and then asked about her interpersonal relations with Ticees. Erron swallowed hard and became uncomfortable. Korba straightened himself, feeling his guts turn even before Erron answered.

“Upon their return from the first trip, my Lord, the Lady Chelan expressed her gratitude somewhat forwardly.”

“What do you mean by ‘forwardly’?” he rumbled.

Sweat broke out on Erron’s brow. “She kissed the Emperor, and somewhat passionately.”

Korba remained very still, his emotions boiling within him. “You mean the Emperor took her?” he seethed through clenched teeth.

Erron squirmed. “No, my Lord. In all the flights, the Emperor never touched her except to help her with her flight gear and to get her in and out of the fighter. Chelan initiated this, and, I might add, the Emperor seemed a little taken aback by her initial advance. She also broke it off, indicating warmly that she was hungry, and he graciously escorted her out.”

Korba sat rigid, nausea beginning to overtake him. Finally, he dismissed Erron with a wave of his hand, and he was thrown into the depths of depression. Nothing was adding up correctly. If she was seeking willing refuge in Ticees’ arms and in his bed, and if she was as happy as she seemed to be, then why would she leave?

But Korba’s knew within the depths of his tattered heart that something was wrong. He knew his beautiful Chelan, and he knew that she would not lie willingly with Ticees. She had not liked the man right from the beginning, wary of him even before they met. She felt threatened and intimidated by him, and she was deeply suspicious of the timing of RIBUS 7’s mission, and for good reason. But Korba was stymied.

The whole mess would have been more understandable if she had stayed with the Emperor when she was upset, seeking Ticees’ company out of desperation or for revenge for his abandonment. But she did not. She had stayed with Fremma. And Salizar indicated that later on she was actively and anxiously awaiting his return, and that she was happy.

Korba knew Chelan’s loyalty, and he knew that she would not have stayed with Ticees then. Her kiss with Ticees was exactly that, an expression of her gratitude during a time of extreme exhilaration. Was it passionate? Undoubtedly. Chelan was a passionate woman. But was it born out of passion for the man? Absolutely not. It would have been a spontaneous act possibly spawned by a momentary lapse in her defenses. But it was no more, and Korba hung his head, emotional exhaustion once again consuming him. Nothing was making sense, absolutely nothing. He slumped in his chair and closed his eyes, finally allowing a healing sleep to overtake him.

*****

Morning came, and Korba roused himself, his body weak from lack of food and from mental strain. He sat up straight and stretched his protesting muscles, ignoring his physical pain as his right hand hung limply at his side. Korba took a deep breath and made the final, gut-wrenching decision. His fingers methodically tapped out the message, and RIBUS 8 was informed of Chelan’s death.

*****

The next few days were dismally slow as Korba sat most of the time, unmoving in his chair. He continued to sort through the mountains of information, struggling constantly with all the perplexing questions, but no answers were forthcoming. He knew deep down that all the answers lay with Ticees, but he was still too uncontrolled to confront the Emperor without maiming him.

Finally, the time had come, and the doors to his chambers opened slowly. Korba looked up through dim eyes at the two shrouded figures that entered, but he could not rise to meet them.

The men removed their hoods and their flight helmets, and Korba looked into the equally grieved expressions of Dar and Fremma.

No one moved for a long time, and finally Fremma dared to utter the first sounds. “Is it true?” he stammered. “Is she gone?”

Korba remained mute as he looked helplessly at the young warrior, and finally he simply nodded.

Dar remained still and unspeaking, his features unreadable, his eyes vacant.

“How long ago?” asked Fremma as he sank into a chair.

Korba took a long deep breath. “Seventeen days ago,” came his soft reply. “Seventeen long Iceanean days ago.”

Dar had moved to the far side of the room, his back to them.

Fremma looked over at Dar and nodded in his direction. Then he looked at Korba. “He is not doing at all well, my Lord,” he signed to Korba.

Korba looked at Dar’s back for a long time before returning his gaze to Fremma. “None of us are,” he signed in return.

The three men spent the next three days and nights together as they sorted through data, through memories, and through questions that would never be answered. Dar was uncharacteristically distant and silent, stubbornly refusing to bend to his emotions. And after it appeared that all had been said and done, Dar walked over to them and sank into a chair. For the first time, Korba and Fremma noticed his grim features beginning to break. Dar leaned forward, hung his head, and rubbed his brow. Korba and Fremma held their breath as he finally began to speak.

“On the last night before we left,” he began, “she finally asked me to stay with her.”

Fremma and Korba were silent as they watched the blonde Warlord’s stony façade begin to crumble.

“For me, it was a dream come true,” he whispered, and he buried his face in his hands momentarily while he collected himself. He looked up. “She told me that she had lost Korba in the throes of anger and rage, and that she didn’t want to lose me in the same manner.”

Dar sat back and ran his hands through his long hair as his eyes scanned the ceiling aimlessly. “She said that Ticees had now won, for he had stripped her of all whom she loved, but that she was happy and grateful that she had finally come to be able to love me in the same way that she had loved the both of you, with the additional bond of physical love—” Dar stopped, unable to continue.

Fremma reached over and placed his hand on Dar’s thigh in an attempt to console the grieving man. But Korba could only look on helplessly. He watched the rigidity with which Dar held himself, and Korba knew exactly what was going through the Warlord’s mind. All the same thoughts and feelings were still relentlessly accosting his own mind with no reprieve in sight, and nothing could be done. Outside of the mercy of death, nothing would quell the empty ache that was squeezing the life from their hearts.

Korba straightened and rubbed his weary brow. As his final act, he would go out into the Dead Zone and pay tribute to his fallen lady, and then he would return to RIBUS 7 and to active duty. He had promised himself that if he ever lost her, he would live out the remainder of his life on the battlefield, and that was precisely what he intended to do.

He knew somewhere deep down that Ticees was responsible for her death, but he also knew that the Emperor was brilliant and his men were loyal. He would leave no clues by which to hang himself, and Korba had to exist with that.

But fundamentally, Ticees was not the point. Korba had ignored Chelan’s warnings and her pleas for the second time, and his folly had ultimately led to her death, and now his own neglect would contribute to his lifelong torment and anguish. Ticees may have been the weapon, but it was Korba himself who had struck the fatal blow, and now he would have to endure the scars of that legacy for the rest of his life. Sabina had died for him. But his Chelan had died because of him, and now he, too, perished from within.

Korba looked down at his hand. He would go to Stose and have it mended, if indeed it could be after all this time. Then he would meet with Ticees in person one last time. His request would be endless missions, for he had no desire to return to Iceanea. If at all possible, he would fight until he dropped, and only then would he be truly at peace.

He looked over to Dar and Fremma and took a deep breath as he watched them struggling with their own bereavement. Each of them would find his own way of coping over time, and with that time would come some degree of healing.

Korba rose. His final task in his chambers was to walk over to his bed and collect the last remnants of Chelan’s being. He picked up her pink gown and folded it neatly, tucking it carefully and tenderly into his shroud. It was the last link to her that he had, and it was a link that would always be by his heart, a link that could never be taken from him.

Korba turned around and took one last look at the backs of his two friends. They would recover, he was sure of that, and with that thought, he turned and left them alone as he began his own personal journey into hell.

Chelan opened her eyes to the dim light and remained very still. She couldn’t feel anything, and she took in a tentative breath to see if she was still alive. Her gaze slowly traversed the ceiling above her, but it was unfamiliar. She could remember the storm and the first winds that buffeted her, but she could remember nothing else.