Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам.
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For the last year, ever since he had joined forces with Sinoval, his mind had been on strategy, long-term goals and aims, thinking years in advance. That was depressing, a constant reminder of the future, speculation about a time he might not live to see.
But tactics, that was different. Creating a battle in his mind, the positioning, the opening movements, the hidden feints. In a strange, bizarre way it was almost beautiful — a game, a creation of skill, pitting general against general, battle-master against battle-master.
Only later would the true cost become clear. Only after the battle could one look around at the bodies of the dead, the mutilations of the injured and the anguished faces of the bereaved. Marrago remembered that. He always tried to remember the true cost of battle, but try as he might, he could not banish that sense of.... joy he felt at a grand plan coming together.
And this was a challenge. His army was a mish-mash of different peoples and races and personalities who would all rather be fighting each other. The true military might of this attack was a race of whose capacities and strength he had not the slightest conception. He was attacking the homeworld of one of the most technologically advanced races in civilised space, however socially self-destructive they might be.
Besides, by the Purple Throne, it felt good to be doing something at last.
Dasouri was waiting outside his door. He nodded his head.
"Is it true, General?" he asked.
Marrago did not have to ask what he was referring to. "Yes," he replied. "We're going to war."
Dasouri nodded, no trace of surprise or joy or fear or indeed any other emotion on his perfectly equable face. "Where?"
"Centauri Prime." Marrago was pleased with himself for the entirely flat way he said those two words.
Dasouri nodded again, still showing no emotion. "I will tell the others. They will be prepared."
Marrago watched the Drazi depart, wondering, not for the first time, what brought him here. Each and every one of those who followed him — or any captain in the Brotherhood — had their story. They each had their reasons. They were the people who had slipped through the net the Alliance had cast over the galaxy. They were the people who were not seen, not noticed, not missed.
They were the people for whom there was no place in the galaxy but the one they made themselves.
Thinking darkly about that, but still bolstered by his plans and schemes, Marrago opened the door to his chambers. He nodded absently to Senna, sitting calmly on her chair, and drifted over to his books. He had been able to bring a few with him into exile, and he had obtained a few more since. One of the many advantages of having a Thrakallan crimelord indebted to him.
"How could you?" Senna whispered.
He looked up at her, and saw for the first time the expression on her face, a combination of horror and disgust.
"How could I what?"
"You swore to defend the Purple Throne. You swore to defend Centauri Prime. You swore...."
"Shut up!" he shouted, his good mood evaporating instantly. "You were listening at the door!"
"How else am I to find out what is happening? You keep me locked up in here, you never allow me to leave. I am just as much your prisoner as I was.... his! And now you are going to lead an attack on our homeworld!"
"You do not understand," he said angrily.
"No," she rasped. "I don't. Why save me, and lead those.... monsters to do to others what was done to me? Why would you attack your own people, your own Emperor?"
"My Emperor cast me out!" he cried, stepping forward. She cowered back on her chair. "I spent my entire life in service to that Throne, and where did it get me? My daughter is dead, and I am now an exile. I am a lord of the Centauri Republic and I am forced to live with bandits and brigands and peasants!
"I have no people, and I have no home and I have no Emperor!"
Shaking, she rose slowly to her feet. She stared at him, fear evident in every part of her body but her eyes. They were filled with contempt and disgust, and he saw his own self-hatred staring back at him.
When she spoke, it was slowly and deliberately, with a determination that belied her years. "You are every bit as much a monster as they are," she said calmly.
He did not know why he did what he did, only that his body acted before his mind could prevent it. He struck out with all the force he could muster, a blow honed in a youth of bar fights and an adulthood of battlefields. He struck her squarely on her chin and felt the satisfying force on his fist as she crumpled beneath him. She fell back on to the chair and it gave way, shattering under the impact. She fell to the floor and looked up at him, shaking, tears glistening in her soft eyes.
Lyndisty would have struck back at him if he had done that to her.
But he had never hit Lyndisty.
Senna looked at him, as if expecting him to do more. Her hand slid over her breast, covering her hearts as she tried to breathe. Finally, unable to look at him any longer, she pulled herself up and half-ran, half-crawled away from the room, scurrying to her private quarters, slamming the door behind her.
Marrago realised he was shaking. He was turning to the cabinet to pour himself a glass of jhala when he realised Sinoval was standing directly in front of him.
He stepped back, his hearts pounding. "Please," he said, breathing hard. "A little warning next time."
"We have no time for warnings," Sinoval replied, his eyes dark. "We have no time for waiting or planning or preparing, not any longer. I am having to activate all my players at once, and hope that one or two of them are triumphant."
Marrago stepped back again, and moved quickly to the cabinet. His hands were shaking as he poured the jhala. "Don't judge me," he said, harshly. "Don't you dare judge me."