Tiberius III stood in the small cabin that was his home on the ship and looked out of the window at the endless expanse of dark space around him. They were moving again. The planet that his team had helped to seed with poison was left far behind. Another ship will take care of that planet, using it for whatever means necessary.
He looked at the stars twinkling by, some of them dead for aeons, others barely in their infancy in this galactic drama of pain and horror. He had seen dark things in his service and his deeds were darker than any general that led men under his name, but of all the things, he could not forget the calm resolve of hatred on the face of the tribal man.
Most men would cry or beg for forgiveness or a swift death, but this one was different. It would have been another death on Raster's killcount, but something had made Tiberius give the order to stop. And then he had done something so out of character by bringing that man on the ship. He hoped that he would not regret his decision.
The stars continued to twinkle outside as thoughts wrestled for supremacy in Tiberius' head.
--
There was going to be little ceremony to the verdict. The eye witnesses were too many and the weapon of murder was found in X2's possession. His fingerprints and the other man's blood on the tool sealed his fate. He realized that he did not give a fuck anymore. He was born in space, he was going to die in space. He had made his peace with the fact. The official who came to his cell to pick him up was a guy he had often seen around the bar. The man had thick set eyes and a paunch that did not feel like it belonged to a life lived in space. The man had a kind, fatherly expression on his face. He sat down on his haunches near the bars of X2's room.
"Kid, do you pray?"
"Only to the machine gods."
"Well, I guess they heard your prayers. You lucked out."
"What do you mean? I thought you were going to space me today."
"No. Not you. We are spacing someone else."
"Who is it?
"Come with me, you might want to take a look at this."
There was a sense of uneasy relief in the middle of X2's chest. Like he had escaped an accident, but he did not know what to do next. There was nothing in his control, and he felt slightly numbed by this sudden revelation that he was not going to die. He got up from his bed and walked to the unlocked door. The fatherly policeman was already moving ahead, without waiting for X2 to follow. X2 followed. At some distance, a small crowd had gathered near a porthole. He walked up to the crowd with a growing feeling of dread in his stomach. The crowd slowly parted on seeing him. Some slapped him on the back, others squeezed his shoulder as he walked by. The crowd parted further till he was face to face with the glass of the porthole. Her face stared back at him from the other side of the glass. There was a defiant expression on her face, a burning visage of hate and anger. She puckered her lips and spat at the glass. The spit flew in an arc and splattered on the glass like a snowflake. X2 could not understand what was happening. Someone in the crowd was speaking his name. There was a note of celebration in the tone of their voice, but X2 could not make any sense of their words. Someone else took his hand and raised it up in the air above his head. He stared at everyone with a dumb expression on his face. Another big hand took hold of his palm.
A face swam in his line of sight. The heavy voice spoke with a measured tone. "You did the first one, it's only right that you do this one too."
The face took his hand in its own huge paw and slammed it on a red button that protruded from a plate on the wall.
The girl from missile control looked at X2.
And then she was gone. Vanished. Sucked away by the cruel vacuum of space.
X2 felt like his heart shattered into a million pieces in his chest. A keening sound rose in his throat and transformed into a yell of rage and horror. He was still crying when stronger arms carried him back to his cube.
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