Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

me in the new order that was coming."
    "Did you ever love me?" said Silence.
    "I was an Investigator," said Frost. "What do you think?"

    By now, Micah Barron and his father Ricard were riding horses over the shifting scarlet sands of their homeworld, Tau Ceti III. The sky was a shade of green that most outworlders described as sickly, and the ever-present drifting clouds were jet black, shot within by sudden golden lightning storms. Just another day on Tau Ceti III. Micah and Ricard were following a long-established trail, and didn't even need to guide their mounts. The horses knew the way. That gave father and son all the more time to talk together, but they were finding the going hard. Father-and-son talks have always been tricky, difficult things.
    Especially when son and father are pretty much the same age, and the father's
    been dead for years.
    "I joined the Fleet to follow you, Dad," said Micah, looking straight ahead of him. "To go where you'd gone, to see the things you'd seen. I thought it would help me feel… closer to you."
    "I know I was never home much," said Ricard, looking straight ahead of him.
    "They promised us a lot of accumulated leave when we got back from Unseeli, but…
    well. I gather a lot of us never came home from Unseeli."
    "The Ashrai are dead," said Micah fiercely. "Captain Silence made them pay for what they did to you. To all of you. He scorched the planet. Wiped them all out."
    "Is that supposed to make me feel better, son? I hated the Ashrai while I was fighting them. But time, and being dead, gives you perspective. It was their planet. Of course they fought. I would have, to defend Tau Ceti III from invaders. Tell me you didn't join up just to kill aliens, son."
    "Not really. Mostly I just wanted to get off Tau Ceti III. I mean, I know it's home, but it was… Small. Limited."
    "Boring."
    "Right! I wanted to see the Empire. Other worlds, other people. I requested transfer to Captain Silence's command, so I could follow in your footsteps.
    You'd always spoken well of him in your messages home. Turned out to be pretty easy getting a place on his ship; he's not been the most popular Captain in the Fleet for some time."
    Ricard snorted. "Trust me, Micah; he never was. Silence was good to his crew, but no good at politics. Anyone else with his abilities and record would have been an Admiral by now. But he never was any good at kissing the right asses.
    Most of us respected him for that. You always knew where you were with Silence.
    How's your mother, these days?"
    Micah shrugged uncomfortably. "All right, I suppose. I haven't heard from her in a while. Probably owe her a letter."
    "Write to your mother!" said Ricard sternly. "Better still, save up and send her a personal holo."
    "You're a fine one to talk!"
    "Learn from my mistakes, son. That's what fathers are for."
    They rode on awhile in silence, moving easily to the rhythm of the horses beneath them.
    "I never meant to die on Unseeli, you know," said Ricard quietly. "I always meant to come home to your mother, and to you. Don't think I went off and deserted you."
    "I never thought that!"
    "Really? Not ever?"
    "Maybe sometimes. When I was young, I wondered if I'd done something wrong, and that was why you never came home. But I got over it."
    "Did you? Then why are you serving in the Fleet, trying to recreate my life? I never expected you to sign up. I expected you to strike out on your own and make your own life. Not just copy me."
    "I…" Tears burned in Micah's eyes, and his voice was unsteady. "I just wanted you to be proud of me, Dad."
    "Of course I'm proud of you," said Ricard. "You're my son."
    They rode on across the shifting scarlet sands, and for a while they didn't need to say anything at all.

    Carrion stood in the middle of the metallic forest on Unseeli. Before Shub came and harvested the trees, before the Empire came and exterminated the Ashrai. The huge metal trees soared up high into the sky, branches radiating out from the smooth, featureless trunks in needle-sharp spikes dozens of feet long. Gold and silver and brass, violet and azure, standing firm and unyielding against the planet's never-ending storms. And all through the metal trees, the Ashrai; alive and glorious, filling the forest with their song. They soared in the skies like ancient dragons, vast and powerful, and down below Carrion smiled and smiled, eyes wet with unshed tears, back home and at peace again.

    Captain Silence looked around him, at the