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only reason he was with the traitor Kahn and the Resistance was because of Cree. At the

thought of the Prime Reaper, Tohre put out a hand and stopped Kahn. "What of Cree?"

"If they have him, he's in as much danger as the rest of us," Kahn replied.

"More so," Kullen corrected. "He is our leader."

"I believe—" Kahn started to say, but cut himself off as a small, dark-haired woman appeared at the gates of the religious center. She stood there, her hands tucked into the

voluminous sleeves of her purple robe, with her unfriendly gaze locked on Tylan Kahn.

"The Prophetess-Mother," Tohre informed Kahn needlessly.

"Stay here," Kahn said. "I'll see what she wants."

"Our hides," muttered Kullen.

Cyle Acet smiled slightly, her unfathomable attention shifting to Symthian Kullen. She

held his glare for a moment, and then looked away, dismissing him. She focused on the

Chief of Space Fleet Operations as he walked to within four feet of where she stood.

"Lady," Kahn acknowledged. "I take it we are your prisoners."

Cyle inclined her head. "Yes, Admiral, you are."

"And what do you intend to do with us?"

The Prophetess-Mother's smile was brutal. "We intend to execute you, Admiral." She

removed one hand from her robe and pointed to her left. The women gathered there

moved back, fanning out to form a gauntlet at the end of which was a platform. On the

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top of the platform, there was a scaffold.

On the scaffold, a noose wrapped around his neck, stood Kamerone Cree, his hands

tied behind his back.

"As you can see," Cyle said, "your hero has been taken."

Even from the distance at which he stood from Cree, Kahn could tell the Reaper was

barely alive. There were welts and cuts on his once-handsome face and two Amazeen

women were having to hold him erect to keep him from hanging himself.

Kahn swung his furious stare at the Prophetess-Mother. "Did you have to beat him

first?"

"This was not our doing," someone said and the women parted as Hael Sejm walked

forward. "Onar did that to him." She grinned at her son. "He allowed Konnor Rhye the pleasure. It will be our pleasure to hang him slowly as he watches his men burn to death

before him."

Once more the women parted to reveal a round wire cage, the floor of which was

covered with dried twigs and branches. A tall woman stood beside the cage's entry, a

burning torch in her hand.

Kahn's eyes flared. "NO!" he bellowed, the thought of being burned alive brought a

fear to end all fears. A red-hot fog of murderous rage closed in on Kahn and he leapt

toward his mother with every intention of strangling her.

He went down under the fists of a dozen women before he ever reached her.

Hael Sejm looked out over the heads of the crowd and watched with satisfaction as the

men were first surrounded, then beaten to the ground before being rendered unconscious.

A few women were killed, some hurt seriously, but the men had stood no chance against

the superior numbers and the savage glee with which the women had attacked them.

Before many minutes had passed, all the men, except for Kahn and Cree, were locked

into the wire cage. Kahn was dragged away by two muscled Diabolusian warrioresses

and carried to the Titaness.

"Your son will be a very angry man when he comes to, Hael," the Prophetess-Mother

predicted.

Hael nodded. "True, but he can be controlled."

"You have made a deadly enemy of him."

Hael shrugged. "It could not be helped." She looked toward the scaffold, her eyes

gleaming.

"I have not forgotten," Cyle told her.

A commotion near the back of the crowd drew the women's attention. A young man

was being pulled kicking and cursing toward them.

"We found him," the Guardess of the Gate announced.

"Good," Hael proclaimed. "Bring him here. I want him to see this." She looked around her. "Where is Kym?"

No one answered. The Chrystallusian woman had not been seen for several hours.

"It does not matter," said Hael. "I fear she has turned against us. Let her go her own way. We do not need her." She lifted her head. "Bring the bastard to me. It is time he atoned for the sin of his existence!"

ENSIGN RYLAN Wynth looked down as a request for transport came in on his

console. He flicked on the Vid-Com to find a ravaged, bloody face staring back at him.

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"Get me up there!" the man pleaded. "Hurry!"

Jittery as he already was, Wynth hit the transport button before he realized that the man

he was beaming up to the docking station had not been with the original thirty-two that

had gone down to Rysalia Prime. By the time the man materialized on the transporter

pad, it was too late. Wynth headed toward him, with every intention of killing him. He

hadn't counted on the man wanting to kill him.

A phaser aimed right at Wynth's heart, picked him up and threw him against the far

wall where the Keeper Ensign landed with a loud thud. He slid sideways, careening into a

jumble of dead bodies and lay still as his murderer ran for one of the runabouts docked at

the station. As the engine of the runabout engaged, Wynth pushed himself up from the

floor and staggered toward the Vid-Com.

After trying to raise Admiral Kahn and his men, Wynth did the only thing he could

think to do before he died.

He radioed the Vortex.

SHE GRABBED a handful of his thick hair and jerked his head back until the cords

in his neck stood out in sharp relief. The rope around his neck dragged painfully across

his windpipe and became tighter still.

"I want you to watch this, Cree," Hael Sejm snarled. "Open your eyes and watch!" She pulled brutally on his hair, forcing him to pry his eyelids open, and anchoring his head so

that he could not turn away from the sight to which she pointed him. When she was

certain the Reaper was alert enough to understand what was happening, she looked

toward the cage. "Burn them!"

Cree was panting for breath, trying to draw air into lungs that were badly bruised and

aching from the restriction of the air allowed into them by the tight noose. He was barely

conscious, but he heard the bellows of rage from the Reapers, the shrieks of agony from

the Shepherds, the pleas for mercy from the Keepers, and his eyes shifted wearily to the

place were the men with whom he had lived and trained and fought were being burned

alive. Just as he had been unable to help his father, he was unable to help these men,

some of them his own cousins. He watched helplessly as they scrambled over one

another, trying to escape the encroaching flames. He saw fingers curled around the wire

mesh of the cage and hands desperately pulled at the obstacle to freedom and life. He

caught the first faint smells of crisping flesh and watched as Kullen, and then Coure burst

into flames and staggered back.

"Oh, god," he whispered, slowly closing his eyes.

"You have no god, Reaper!" Hael Sejm spit. She flung his head away from her and

took great delight in the gasp of pain that came from Cree's bloody lips. She turned and

walked for the lever that would release the platform on which the Reaper stood.

The Amazeen women holding Kamerone Cree stepped back, making sure they were

not on that portion of the wooden platform that would drop.

Cree sagged when the women released their hold on him, but he managed to force his

knees to hold him erect to keep from being strangled. He staggered, felt the pull of the

noose, and had almost made up his mind to bring his knees up quickly and get it over

with. He knew this platform well for he'd been witness to many Tribunal executions. The

infernal device was made to drop slowly, the trapdoor descending inch by inch. As the

prisoner's feet slipped out from under him, the noose draped around his neck slowly

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tightening. Far more evil and brutal that the quick-release hanging platforms used on

Terra that snapped the neck when activated, this instrument of torture ensured a slow,

suffocating death that gave its victim time to know he was being executed. He didn't want

to die that way. With one last look at the men who had come to rescue him, wondering if

Kahn was one of those being fried inside the cage, he took one last, desperate breath and

started to jerk his knees up.

Hael didn't give him time. She released the lever and his feet slid from under him,

down the incline, and he lost the ability to push. He tried levering himself up the slowly

lowering platform, but could gain no purchase with his boot heels. The fear of dying in

such a gruesome way terrified him, sending a rush of adrenaline through his system. With

the adrenaline came a momentary spurt of strength and he used it to break his wrists free

of the hemp that bound them behind his back. His hands came up to his throat, clawing at

the constriction, and he hooked his fingers under the noose, trying to pull it away from

his throat.

Hael watched her enemy struggling to breathe, to live. She smiled as his weight began

to descend down the slanted platform, his body pulling on the rope, tightening the hold of

the noose.

"Die you worthless bastard," she whispered. "Die and your mother will be avenged!"

His fingers lost their grip on the rope and the noose tightened. He dug at his flesh,

rending it, dragging long bloody furrows down his throat as he sought to draw air into his

depleted lungs. He was strangling, gagging, desperately trying to save himself, but the

platform increased it's slant until he was hanging from the noose, all hope of breathing

gone.

BRIDGET TURNED as the door to Tylan Kahn's quarters opened. She blinked,

unable to credit what she was seeing. "Koni?" she questioned, her brows drawing

together.

Konnor Rhye was filthy, his uniform torn in a dozen places and one sleeve was

splattered with blood. His hair was tousled, his face streaked with dirt, and he was

trembling violently.

"What happened to you?" Bridget asked, going to him for he looked as though he

would collapse at any moment.

"You..." He stopped, seeming to catch his breath. "You have to come with me, now, Bridget."

"You're hurt," she said. There was blood dripping from the fingertips of his right hand to the pale green carpet.

"I have a ship," he said. "A runabout." He looked about him and she realized his eyes were glazed. "It can get us to Terra."

Bridget's lips parted. "Terra?" she repeated. "I don't understand. What—"

"There are hundreds of thousands dead on Rysalia Prime. Lying in the streets. Blood

everywhere," he said, shuddering. "When I got to the transport center, there were

hundreds of women waiting for Kahn and his men. They were taken into custody."

"Kahn was captured?" she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

"You have to come with me, now," he said again.

She reached out and took his arm. "Where is Kahn?" she said, shaking him. "Where is he?"

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Konnor was staring at her but she doubted very much that he was actually seeing her.

His voice was robotic, chilling in its lack of emotion. "The Reapers and their crews were herded into the square and—" He shuddered, his entire body convulsing.

"Where is Kahn?" Bridget demanded. "Did he find Cree?"

At the mention of his hated enemy's name, Rhye seemed to snap out of the daze into

which he had fallen. His vision focused and he looked around at Bridget. "They burned

them, Bridget. Those gods-be-damned bitches burned the Reapers and their crews in the

public square. They are all dead."

"Cree?" she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "What of Cree?"

"They hanged Cree. They—"

He got no further for Bridget let out an ungodly scream of grief and fainted into his

grimy arms. Konnor caught her, staggering beneath the weight of her inert body. He

grunted, lifting her higher against him then turned and started for the Admiral's private

elevator that would take them to Docking Bay 2, where the Admiral's starcruiser, The

Khamsin, was waiting.

In the elevator, he stared ahead of him, seeing the destruction, the fury of the women

on Rysalia Prime. He could still hear their cries of ecstasy as Kullen and the rest of them

were burned to death in a bonfire that could be seen for miles. He could smell the horrific

stench of the frying flesh, the hideous fumes bubbling up from the Reapers' black blood.

His ears still rang with the agonized death screams of the Keepers and the Shepherds.

And he would feel `til his dying day the hands that had grabbed him and taken him

down, pulling at his hair and clothing, scratching and pinching his flesh, tearing at his

body with nails and teeth until one woman had intervened.

"This is Rhye!"

He shuddered, thinking about how the crazed women had moved back from him, their