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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3619350" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 481: Eleven Years LateMarix sat in the small quarters aboard the Jendari ship, bent over, head in her hands. Her eyes were closed, but she could hear, and feel through the Force, the twins playing and laughing with some very interesting Jendari-crafted toys on the floor in front of her. They were happy...alive...safe...but...But she was furious. Had Jyren been there, he could have probably talked her down and calmed her, but he wasn’t, and Navik was no good at it. Jyren could have stopped her from ordering the Jendari to wipe that Mrrakesh world clean. Odd, though, as she wasn’t actually sure she wanted him to be there to stop her from that or not. Either way, it was too late. They were in orbit over Alraxia now, the first time since the Darkwing Wars that a Jendari ship orbited the hidden planet, and the message had been sent. There wasn’t stopping it now.    Marix made a note to call all of the Knights together as soon as she could and have the former Tam’Day’U train the others. The Mrrakesh wouldn’t stand around after one of their worlds was attacked, even if it was retaliation. Most of the Knights were good fighters, but not good enough. A Tam’Day’U was at least a match for a Mrrakesh, and it was less natural ability and more training. Marix had a feeling the significance of silver eyes may very well have been an indicator of an Alraxian that was unusually strong in the Force. But Tam’Day’U had been trained in combat abilities and to use the Force to augment them. The combat training could easily be used without the Force, as with the extensive amount of morph training that made Tam’Day’U truly unique amongst the Alraxians of the Empire. It was a long time coming, but the rest of the Knights needed it now.    It was going to be the first war between the Mrrakesh and the Alraxians that didn’t involve the Sith or Darkwings. And the Alraxians were ill-equipped, undertrained, and had the problem of a tiny group of Knights compared to the entire population of the Empire. Some of the other species would likely step up to fight, like the Jendari, but it wouldn’t be like the Mrrakesh.    They had armies. Sure, there were so many factions loyal to so many different Mrrakesh, but that would change. The Mrrakesh might vie for power with one another, but they would unite in a second against the Alraxians. Especially with the Vong pushing their other borders. Especially with their growing population and need for planets. Especially when the Alraxian Empress ordered an attack on one of their populated worlds.    Their fleets would be opposed by the Jendari and, to Marix’s annoyance, the human’s. She hated that thought, but they would all have to be together in the fight. The small group of humans knew how to operate their ships, even if they were decades old. It would be necessary. And they would fight just as hard as she would, because they were closest to the border and would be among the first worlds attacked. In space, even with unarmed Kanyaks, the Alraxians might actually win.    It was the ground war that concerned her. None of the species under the Empire had an army. None of them had local garrisons. None of them had anything at all. The only thing in the entire Alraxian Empire that came anywhere close to that were the Knights, and they numbered barely four hundred.  And amongst the Knights, there there no more than fifty former Tam’Day’U. That wasn’t even enough to defend a single planet, let alone an entire Empire. The Knights were a peacekeeping force that settled small disputes and dealt with the rare pirates, they didn’t fight wars.    But they were going to.    There wasn’t going to be any choice soon.    Marix opened her eyes and lifted her head to look through annoying clumps of black hair to her two children.  It was like nothing was wrong. Saaran laughing and pouncing over Andrea to grab a toy she was trying to keep away from him. Andrea crying only for a short second before wrenching the little...animal...thing...back into her own grip, giggling, then scampering across the room.    How could anyone try to take the lives of two little children? They were so...so...there wasn’t even a word for it. But Marix did know that anyone who would try to kill children like Andrea and Saaran, no matter who their parents were or what they would be when they grew up, didn’t deserve to live. And so she didn’t care about the numbers. No one threatened children with assassin, especially not her children.     No one.    “Marix...” she hadn’t even heard the door open, and that bothered her. But Marix sat up to see Navik standing in the door with a serious look on his face, “Faban Sunrunner has been brought aboard.”At that, Marix quickly got to her feet and brushed the hair out of her face. In that one movement, she went from exhausted and the nearest she’d ever been to depressed to strong, angry, and the Empress she was supposed to be.    “I’ll keep an eye on the little ones,” Navik said as she went past. If she thanked him, he didn’t hear it.    Marix was soon following a trio of Jendari who were dressed in their usual uniforms. They attempted small talk, but Marix didn’t respond. She was focused. Her mind set on the task ahead of her. Distraction now meant a mistake with Faban, and he would take advantage of that in a second.    He was currently kept in a small room with no features at all and nothing inside but himself and a single, rounded chair. There would be a small hole near the ceiling that contained a surveillance device, and the Jendari would be watching. Not that it mattered to Marix.    When she entered the small room, she was not surprise to see Faban standing behind the chair, arms crossed across his chest, and simply watching the door. He stood just a bit taller than she did, but he was still shorter than Jyren. He wore dignified looking clothes and had a disapproving look on his angular, aged features.    “My lady,” he bowed his head and spoke calmly when she entered.    Marix kept her hands behind her and narrowed her eyes as she met his gaze, “Do not patronize me, Faban.”    The old Alraxian laughed shortly to himself and tilted his head to the side, “Not even a hello, I see. It seems I taught you too well.”    She ignored that easily enough, “What did you expect to gain?”    “And straight to the point, too,” he shook his head and shifted his weight slightly to one side, “But your instincts are still terrible. Have I ever served anyone but my own people?”    “Yes,” Marix said with a step forward, her eyes narrowing, “You wanted Kato on the throne again. Obviously you think you have something to gain here. What is it?”    “I want Kato on the throne because she should be there, Commander,” he spoke her old rank with a great deal of venom. That made Marix feel better, as it was more what she was expecting from him and meant he hadn’t changed at all.    Marix kept her calm, glad that he was already losing his, “Kato’s place is where she is now: in the Palace, staying out of the way and living quietly. She is intelligent enough to understand this and has actually learned from her mistake.”    “Cursed Ones do not belong on the throne!” Faban snapped quickly, pointing an accusing finger at her.    Snatching his hand out of the air, Marix began to very slowly put more and more pressure, crushing his hand at an agonizingly slow pace, “My eyes are a different colour than yours, Faban. That doesn’t mean I’m cursed. I think you’re just bitter that you don’t have any power anymore. But what I want to know right now,” at this point, Faban was trying to wrench his hand free and clenching his teeth to not make any noise, “...is what you expected to gain from trying to murder my children.”    She twisted his wrist sharply, getting a good snap from the bone, and then released his hand. Faban finally yelped in pain at his broken wrist, stumbling back into the wall the second he was free of her grip. He clutched his hand close to his chest and glaring back at her. He was not an expert at morphing like the Tam’Day’U he used to teach, and so it took an agonizing few moments to heal the wound. He was slower than Jyren had been when Marix had first taught him.    His hand healed, Faban managed to stand up straight again. When he spoke again, his voice was back to the calm, venomous control that it had been before, “Those children are an abomination!”    “And so you sell our people to the Mrrakesh?!” Marix finally lost her cool, screaming at him angrily.    There was a rage in her voice that caused him to hesitate. This was a man whose daughter had been a Tam’Day’U. He had trained her and sent her to die like all the others. While he never would admit it, Marix knew that haunted him. Now that she, too, had children, she knew what it was like...how important they were. While he may have actually still believed that two Tam’Day’U mating resulted in an abomination child, it was more likely that he was furious that she was allowed to have children and live a full life, herself, where his daughter wasn’t.    “I did not sell my people!” Faban growled, “You and your kind are not my people! You are no better than the Mrrakesh! At least Kato is a real Alraxian even if she is a whining little child!”    And that was it. Why he’d done it all.    He still hated Marix and the Tam’Day’U. Still clung to ancient prejudice that didn’t make any sense. He wanted her dead because she was supposed to have died long ago like a good Tam’Day’U. Killing her children was an extension of that. And the Mrrakesh...they were probably the only allies in that he could find. Kato would have been Empress if Marix was dead, and so that was why he was trying to put her on the throne. It had worked years before because Kato was ambitious and had a great deal of hatred for her cousin. But failure had softened Kato’s resolve, as had the outright rejection by Jyren. She wouldn’t help Faban anymore.    But there was one more important thing.    “How did you contact them, Faban?” Marix’s voice was suddenly calm again. While her mind was putting the pieces together, her rage was set aside. It would not help her. She had to have control here. Full control. Rage would take over and she would have none, so she pushed it away withe techniques that Faban, himself, had taught her.    Faban shook his head and actually looked insulted, “You think locking me away with guards all around can stop me from doing what needs to be done?”    “How did you contact them?”    “Why should I tell you that?” he finally took a step towards her instead of leaning against the wall for support, “You are still the creature I created, and I know what you’re going to do. No matter what I say here, I will not leave this room alive.”    Marix also took a step forward, putting her within arms reach of him again, “You should also know that there are many ways for you to die. And you have already shown me that you may have been a good teacher, but you are not a good student, even for yourself. You felt every bone in your hand snap before your wrist went. You couldn’t ignore it. You couldn’t focus on anything else but the pain. The exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do. And there are many more sensitive places on you to break. So tell me, Faban, how did you contact the Mrrakesh?”    He was still clutching the previously-injured hand. When he glanced down at it, Marix knew he was going to tell her. When he looked back up to meet her gaze, his face still had the same anger and disgust as before, but there was a sense of failure that she could see in his eyes. Quietly, he finally said, “There is a communications beacon in the northern mountains that relays the information to a Mrrakesh listening post on the border.”    Faban closed his eyes a moment before standing up straight and opening them again, “If you hadn’t ever come back, we would have been fine. None of this would have had to have happened. I was prepared to protect our people from the Mrrakesh. They would have never come back. But now you’ll fight them forever. And eventually they’ll win. They’ll win and this will all have been for nothing.”    The only reason Marix let him finish was because of that small part of her that had once been the link with Jyren...and was now the closest thing she had to him left. A small voice in her head that she knew wasn’t his, but sounded like it. No matter how terrible Faban was, Marix wasn’t as bad as he was. Where Faban would have cut her down and made her suffer, she would give him something he didn’t deserve...because she was a better person than he was.    His death was quick and painless. Faban did not fight back. He stood like a man that actually had honour. He barely even made a noise when she snapped his neck. Marix let his body simply drop to the ground. For an Alraxian, the only real instant death was separating the head from the rest of the body. While what she had done was close to that, he would have lived for a very few seconds and his natural instincts would have attempted to remorph the injury. But either he resisted this, or he simply wasn’t well trained enough to react quickly.    Either way, it didn’t matter.    Eleven years too late, Faban Sunrunner was finally dead.</blockquote>

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