#lezon

They came in just in time to hear the kits say with pride, “We checked the MediBed computer and chose one exactly the right size for you!”  K’sere reached into the serving cage and neatly caught and killed the snack, giving the still quivering creature to her birth Mother.

Smiling in delight, T’cass accepted it and bit into her lunch.  Chewing and swallowing, she said, “Thank you, children.  I love you all.  It was loving you that kept me going while I was stranded.”

Looking past the kits to the door, she said, “I see that it is time for something else.  Is everything ready?”

“It sure is!” T’cill exclaimed, practically hopping in excitement.  “We finished it just in time, too!  Can I go get it?”

“Please,” requested T’cass.  “I think that we will have a good use for the things that you made.  I also need you to stop by my cabin and get me the item from the locked cabinet as well.”

T’cill fairly flew out of the compartment.  Shortly the kit returned with a long bulky bundle and an object carefully wrapped in oiled silk.  She carefully laid everything on the MediBed beside T’cass.

T’cass looked sympathetically at Lezon and said, “Lezon Treh K’lass, within this Clan you have never been a slave, no matter what the law might have said.  I took your submission and refused the notion of surrender.  The time has come to take care of the matter of Clan law.  Please come here to my side.”

Lezon stepped up to the bedside of the only M’cratt Warrior that had ever been born of Clan parents and said, “Battle Friend, if you free me, where shall I go?  The Clans will try me for the last War.  The M’cratt have no place for me either.  The new Treaty forbids me from my home if I am ever found. There is no place for me.”

T’cass smiled and replied, “Lezon, trust me in this.  It is to discuss your place that it is necessary to free you.  Take this from my hands.  I saved it from your Talon to give it back to you some day.  This is that day.”  

She unwrapped the oiled silk and held out to Lezon a pattern welded steel knife.  The unique pattern of this knife was perhaps the most famous in either Clan or M’cratt spaces.  Against a fall of the finest maidenhair pattern, worked into the form of the Great M’cratt nebula, small star and eye shapes revealed the faces of the Triple Goddess.  It was the Warrior’s knife made by Lezon Treh K’lass.  T’cass held it out handle first, free of the plain M’cratt fast draw sheath.

T’cass intoned formally, “Lezon Treh K’lass, your service to the Clan D’ancer has been honorably acquitted.  By returning your Knife, I arm you as a free Warrior.  I hope that you will continue to fight by my side and that of my Clan. I can no longer compel you by either Clan law or M’cratt submission.  Take back your Soul Knife and free choices.”

Lezon took the big blade and carefully strapped the sheath to her leg.  Placing the knife flat on her palm she offered it to T’cass’ touch.

T’cass responded, “I cannot, in Warrior’s Honor, accept the gift of a favor yet.  There is more to do and speak of first.  The kits made these.  I hope that you find them worthy for the rest of us to bear.”  She held to Lezon the long package.

Unwrapped, it proved to be six ceremonial spears.  Their blades were of elegantly worked pattern welded steel mounted on hafts of tough composite plastic inlaid with the signs of the Triple Goddess of the M’cratt.  Lezon examined them each carefully, with the critical eye of a true expert.  The kits held their breath until Lezon smiled.

“These are as well done as any spears that I have ever handled,” she pronounced.  Knowing what was needed now, Lezon handed the first spear to T’cass, saying, “Battle Friend, accept this gift of arms and fight by my side.”

Solemnly T’cass nodded and took the weapon.  In turn, K’ress, T’cill, K’sere, and T’lass took theirs.  Lezon took the last spear and choked slightly as she stated, “As you will stand at my side, so shall I be at yours.”  She turned to T’cass and added, “So this is my place?  Here with you all?  What of the Clans?”

K’ress smiled almost wickedly as she spoke.  “They don’t need to know any more about you than they already do.  Of course, if they even think about getting uppity, there’s a few practical details that they will need to consider.  

“This vessel will fight for your safety and life.  They will know that it has just destroyed a powerful M’cratt Talon Carrier single handed.  As the cream on that snack, there’s the pesky detail that we also inadvertently destroyed a triple sun system while discharging the weapon that finished the Hand of Claws.  Three stars splatted so hard that there is only one is left.  Oops!”

“What of my knife?”

T’cass nodded, acknowledging a potential difficulty, and said, “I am known to possess that war souvenir.  I have given it to you as a freely given gift after your help in saving our lives.”

Lezon accepted that and asked, “The Clans will believe that, even if no M’cratt would.  Now, what was so important that you had to free me to ask it?”

Suddenly very serious, T’cass replied, “First, know that your place with us is secure no matter what your answer to our question.  What we need to ask does go against the Warrior’s Way but you have done so already, in a way that gives us hope that you will accept our offer.”

K’ress moved over to where she could hold T’cass’s hand and each of them held out her free hand to Lezon.  “Will you marry us, Lezon?  Will you make our Clan triad whole and become a true mother to our kits?  Please?”

Lezon looked carefully about her, at all of these people that she had known and served for so long.  She could see the fear that she would reject them written plainly on the faces of the kits.  She loved them.  She already knew that.  How to show it though?  The Warrior’s Way had given her a lifetime of training in repressing such expressions.

Lezon smiled, swept her arms about the kits, gathering them together, and enclosed them in the grip that she gave to T’cass and K’ress.  Holding all of them at once, Lezon said, “I would be honored.  Knowing you has showed me that there is a truth that goes beyond the Warrior’s Way.  It has also showed me that the truth of the Clans is not complete either.  I think that we are about to create something new.”

Slightly dryly, T’cass snorted, “Life should be interesting around here from now on.  I am glad that you accepted us, Lezon.  We do love you.  All of us.  The D’ancer Clan is going to be a unique one, with two who were raised as M’cratt Warriors in it.”

“It will be strange indeed,” responded Lezon.  “After all, how many Warrior Clans are there? Just this one, I think.”

~THE END~

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T’cill raised a hand.  “I thought that Lezon lit candles to light the way of the dead to the Cave of Life,” she said earnestly.

Lezon smiled, “I tried to keep my explanation simple before.  The candle is a beacon for K’lass.  It assists her in finding the souls of the fallen.  Once she finds them, she is their guide.  Only she knows where the Cave of Life is.”

T’cass looked directly at Lezon and added, “You risked your life to give me a Warrior’s Return to Clan territory at the battle of K’stall when I ran out of firepower while we were dog-fighting.  Someone with that sort of honor could never allow the treaty to be broken in the war she planned and was carrying out . . . the war that the Clans nearly lost.

“K’sere’s question must be stated as T’lass did it.  How could the treaty be kept and still allow a war?  Now, you know.  It was our own translation error.  The Combined Clans only thought that it was a peace treaty.”

Lezon smiled and the world was full of friendly teeth.  “When I planned that war, the terms of the treaty were kept carefully.  The honor of the Empire and the Imperial Triad were at stake.  The war was only possible because it was not a peace treaty.  Neither is the current one, by the way.  The Clan translators have made the same errors all over again.

“The Treaty Commission does know the correct reading of the treaty and that is why they did not intervene.  Their job is strictly limited by their Charter.  They can not assist in the making of treaties.  They only enforce the treaties that others have made and protect habitable planets from illegal, biosphere destructive attacks.”

“T’cass, when I fought you at K’stall, I met and tested a Warrior.  The Warrior’s Way required that I give you the Return.  That placed you under an Obligation of Conflict.  You balanced the Obligation when you saved my life after M’onafar.”

All of the D’ancer’s Clan listened intently.  This was about the foundation of their family, not just history.  T’lass asked, “Can you tell us why nobody knew who you were?  I know that they searched for some proof besides your wrecked Talon that you died at M’onafar.  We’ve all read about that.”

It was T’cass who answered.  “Nobody else knew who she was because I knew who she was.  This was before I met M’rel and you, K’ress.  I had never found anybody who understood me and was willing to accept me. I didn’t know that it was possible for anyone from the Clans to love me.

“Besides the Obligations of the Warrior’s Way, I had my own reason.  She was a Battle Friend and wounded seriously.  She needed to be shielded from her enemies.  They were not only in the Clans.  In fact, Lezon was safer with me, among the Clans, than among her own.”  

T’cass paused and clicked up a picture that was now famous.  It was Lezon’s battle damaged Talon fighter.  She rotated the image to show the damaged driver array. “What I am telling you now has been a secret kept between me and Lezon.  I shot up the drivers and the life system myself, after I took Lezon out of the wreck.”

Using a pointer, T’cass indicated a section.  “Look closely at this area,” she directed.

K’sere wrinkled her brow as she looked at the picture under high magnification.  She stated, “That looks like a M’cratt disruptor hit.”

Lezon said quietly, “It is.  My Talon was hit from behind by a low powered attack when my vector would carry me away from the M’cratt battle formation.  It destroyed the superconducting cables to my drive, wounded me slightly and caused some other damage.  Even injured and losing air, I almost got my Talon back home.

“I was only about three inches of superconducting cable short of getting power up.  I tried to bridge the gap with copper.  It almost worked.  The saturation blast from the failure of the superconducting drive circuit is what nearly killed me.”

Puzzled, T’cill, oldest of the kits, asked, “Why did they try to assassinate you?  You were winning the war for them.”

Dryly, Lezon answered, “Precisely. And the only reason that the admirals and other leaders took directions from a mere combat pilot was that the Empress Triad ordered them to.  The youngest wife of the Empress Triad, S'tand, just happened to go to K’lass’ School of All Conflict at the same time that I did.  The Imperial Triad knew that every conflict that I planned or participated in at the School of All Conflict came out the way that I wanted it to.”

T’cill’s snout wrinkled skeptically along one side.  “Why were you a fighter pilot then?  Why weren’t you one of those admirals?”

T’cass picked that one up.  “They couldn’t keep her from fighting.  It’s a guiding principle of the Warrior’s Way.  A Warrior must be allowed to fight.  Those high officers took it poorly when the Empress Triad’s chosen War Leader refused their company and the safety of their positions aboard fortress ships.  I think that they felt that it reflected on their courage.”

Lezon said dryly, “As a matter of fact, that was pointed out to them by the Empress Triad in person.  It may have had something to do with the assassination attempt.”

A gentle bonging began to sound. T’cass wrinkled her snout at her kits affectionately and said, “Now you know how the M’cratt see those issues that the Clans think of as treaty violations.  In fact, the only ones who have violated the treaties are the Clans.  They are also the ones who bungled the translations.

“Now, the MediBed is calling and I do have to go.  Be as good as you can be and still be the D’ancer’s kits.”  She reached over and ruffled juvenile manes, then raised her claws in farewell and left the room.  In moments, the bonging ceased.

Lezon turned to the kits and asked, “Does everybody understand the situation that K’sere brought up?”

They all made noises of agreement.

“Enough to take a test on the subject?” Lezon asked looking aslant at them.  The agreement was complete but nowhere near as enthusiastic.

Suddenly, Lezon’s tail twitched and her ears shot up jauntily, “Good, because we’re not going to put that test on the computer for the Educational Combine to find!  T’lass, for your suggestion, Snack Points! K’sere, for bringing up the topic, Snack Points, after all!

“Let’s go to the galley and get lunch!” Lezon said cheerfully.  “Will you kits kill T’cass’ lunch and take it to her?  The MediBed will allow her real food now but she still can’t pounce her own.”

A delighted tumble of kits charged out of the compartment.  Lezon shook her head in wonderment.  Smiling she said, “Kits!  Such simple things can make them so happy.”

K’ress smiled fondly after her Clan’s progeny and agreed, “I wish that life was that simple for us.”

Suddenly serious, she said, “I fear that it may get complicated for us all over again, Lezon.  I tried to discuss this matter once before.  We . . . were interrupted.  It is about manumission.  T’cass and I both want to free you.  The kits do too.  In fact, what we need to ask was first proposed by them.

“Our problem is simply this.  We want to ask something of you and by Clan law, the question can only be asked of a free person.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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M’ase opened the comm channel and saw Lezon surrounded by the kits of the Clan D’ancer.  “M’ase, I feared that you might still be in command,” said Lezon without preamble.  “I called to say farewell.  You are too committed to your course to escape.  You have just less than one hour to prepare for the Cave of Life.  I am sorry that the weapon that I am using will not allow your survival.  I will light a candle for you all.” The screen went dark.

Treh put the detection screen information onto the main screen where all could see how they had been trapped.  

“Relativity Frames of Reference Theory,” said M’ase softly.  “We are so used to working around it with the Restriction field, that we tend to forget that it still applies.”

“Their restriction field collapsed while they were doing .8 C. The energy transfer has boosted them to just over .97 C,” said Treh.  Rhetorically she added, “So this is what it is like to fight a legend.  Who but Lezon would use the Law of the Universe itself as a weapon?”

//////////////////////////

K’ress and the kits were watching the screens as the Restriction field was collapsed.  The universe changed.  The stars of the system vanished. Though they were braking, there were stars visible only in a wide belt around the D’ancer.  Toward the bow they faded away into the infrared.  Toward the stern they became visible from the ultraviolet. Only around the waist of the ship did the colors of the stars seem normal but even there, they appeared to be squashed by relativity.

Aboard the ship, they replayed the camera’s pictures and watched the destruction that Lezon had wrought with the little ship that they had always thought of as home and safety.

They saw the pursuing Hand of Claws seized by the gravity wave that propagated from their little ship as the collapsing Restriction field boosted its speed to over .97 C forcing their mass to increase to nearly the total of all of the rest of the system combined.  Their speed had also forced time to slow down for them, causing the system that they were in to seem to disappear.  Their gravity wave, traveling at the speed of light, reached the stars in a little less than a half of an hour, causing them to flare and be drawn in toward the little ship.  Its enormous speed and the inertia of the in-falling matter kept the dying stars from catching it.  

The Hand of Claws was not so lucky.  Trying frantically to accelerate out of the trap, her shields were overloaded by the intersecting wave fronts of three stars flaring into novas at once.  An expanding puff of vapor was all that was left by the time that the in-falling matter of the triple suns got there.  The collapse of the stars continued until there was only one left, now struggling to find stability as a supergiant.

In the rest of the universe, nearly six months passed before the D’ancer was able to brake sufficiently to be able to restart her Restriction field.

//////////////////////////

Staring at the sky from the shade of the shelter that she had improvised from the wreckage of her blasted ship, T’cass heard the sonic boom of the D’ancer before she saw the ship itself.  The craft swung about in a graceful arc and settled into a textbook perfect landing. Heaving herself erect in the 1.85 g pull of the large planet, she began to walk toward the airlock of the ship that she had long known as home, scarcely daring to believe that she was saved at last.  She had been marooned for the last eight months, at first hoping for rescue then giving up and just surviving, sure that her Clan was gone.  Lezon came out and met her.

“To quote somebody from years ago, ‘I thought that you were too tough to die.’  I’m glad to see you, T’cass.”

“I’m relieved that you came back for me.  What took so long?”

“I’ll let T’cill, K’sere, and T’lass tell you the whole story.  You didn’t leave me at M’onafar and I couldn’t leave you here.  It looked like there was a good chance that you’d survived the attack, so we came back to see.  I did come back as quick as I could.  We had a few problems along the way.”

—THE END—

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