“Damn.” The word was barely audible. “I… al… ways… knew…”
Drakon saw the light go from her eyes and bowed his head, remembering the young officer who had joined his staff and served him so well for so long. He wished he remembered some of the beliefs that the Syndicate had worked to stomp out, that he remembered enough to say the right words to plead for Morgan’s spirit. The reality of Malin’s death hit home at the same moment, and he sent a wordless plea to whatever might be out there to welcome them both.
What had her last words meant? If it had been the old days, Drakon had no doubt they would have ended with a contemptuous dismissal. I always knew he’d fail, or something like that.
But even in the immediate aftermath of the exchange of fire, Drakon knew that Morgan could have gotten off the first shot, could possibly have killed Togo in that instant. But she had instead chosen to avoid hitting Malin.
Had she been about to say that she had always known that Malin was her son? When faced with the ultimate choice, had she sacrificed herself for him?
He would never know.
Drakon picked up the data coin carefully and stood, looking over at Iceni. “Are you sure you’re all right, Gwen?”
“Not a scratch.” She put away her own weapon as guards and on-call medics finally stormed into the room.
One medic checked Malin and immediately confirmed Rogero’s assessment.
“He’s gone. Zero recovery chance.”
Another medic checked Togo and unsurprisingly announced that he was also beyond help.
A third reached Morgan and quickly scanned her. The medic gave Drakon an anxious look. “She has died, with multiple critical injuries, but there’s a chance we could revive her and keep her going, sir. Not high, but it’s there.”
Drakon looked down on Morgan’s still face. Was it just his imagination that saw there a serenity she had never revealed in her stormy life? “No. Don’t try a revival.”
Perhaps Morgan had not finally found her own peace. But as long as there was any chance that she had, he would not haul her back.
“Sir,” the medic said as he got up, “I should mention that she’s also got a badly healed injury to one leg that must have slowed her down, but that happened probably a few months ago. A rebuild unit could have fixed her up, but it would have required a few weeks of immobility to repair that much damage.”
“Colonel Morgan clearly didn’t think she could spare that amount of time immobilized,” Drakon said. He could easily imagine her shrugging when asked about it. “I had things I needed to do, General.”
Iceni came to stand beside him as the medics left, looking down at Morgan. “She saved your life.”
“Our lives.”
“No. Togo was trying to kill you, not me. Just as we thought. Right to the end he thought he was being loyal to me. But, from her position in this room, Morgan might have been planning to take me out. See? Look at the lines of sight. That meant she was slightly out of position to target Togo, but saving you was more important to her than killing me.”
Drakon wanted to argue the point, but knew Iceni might well be right. “Two assassins who canceled each other out, and poor Bran Malin who took the shots that would have killed me.” His gaze met Iceni’s eyes. “He would have done the same for you.”
“I know, and he did do it for me as well as for you. Malin took many risks for us. Without him as an intermediary to establish covert contact between us, we never would have worked together and would have both died at the hands of the snakes instead of successfully rebelling.” She pointed to the bloodied data coin. “What’s that?”
He looked at it. “Unless I miss my guess, this contains directions for finding my daughter and getting to her safely. Morgan… asked me to raise her.”
Iceni paused, then nodded. “I couldn’t ask you to abandon your daughter.”
Drakon shook his head in reply. “I couldn’t ask you to accept the daughter of myself and Morgan as our own.”
“Excuse me, but I couldn’t ask you first. She is your daughter, too.” Iceni tilted her head to indicate where Malin’s body lay. “And he was her son. Obviously, her blood has some good qualities.” She shifted her gaze from the body of Morgan to that of Togo, then to Malin. “What exactly were they loyal to, Artur? Their own dreams. To what they thought we were, you and I. To what, in their eyes, we could become. The past lies dead around us. You and I need to continue to create the future that we want to see.”
“We couldn’t have achieved a chance at that future without their help,” Drakon said. “They made it possible. And then it passed them by.”
Gwen Iceni reached out and took his hand. “I won’t let another innocent suffer, Artur Drakon. There’s been too much of that. Find your daughter, and we will raise her as ours. Someday, she will be the sword and the shield that protects what you and I have built.”