The Scarlet Empress (36 page)

“She! It’s a she!” Bree fought her way through the militiamen to the roof stairs, ignoring even Ty who had to run to keep up with her. “It’s Cam,” she shouted to him breathlessly, taking the stairs two at a time, all while the
thought ran through her mind: How the hell had Cam gotten an F-16 to fight with and she hadn’t?

Cam plummeted to earth. The force of the ejection had knocked her out, but she’d woken in time to find the ground rushing up. Now she had more important things to worry about than her headache.

Gripping her parachute’s risers, she tried to steer away from the buildings. So many had been torn down in this eerie, marshy ghost town of Washington, DC, that it wasn’t difficult to maneuver for a clear spot.
Thank the Lord.

Below her swinging feet, people were running to keep up with her. The good guys this time, she thought, panting to keep the pain from taking her awareness before she landed.

“Kyber,” she whispered, though he could no longer hear her. “I made it. I lived through it.” He’d be fearing for her safety now, knowing she’d ejected. From halfway around the world she could feel his pain.

Cam hit the ground in a perfect PLF landing. Standing, she unclipped her chute.
Never underestimate Cam Tucker,
she thought, took a couple of steps, then collapsed.

Bree ran to the fallen pilot. “Cam! Cam!”

Her friend lay on her back in the middle of the road in front of the Capitol. Bree’s heart stopped.
Is she dead
?

But no. Just as Bree reached her, Cam rose up on her elbows—only to be practically knocked flat as Bree slammed into her, arms open wide.

I found her,
Bree thought. She’d found her wingman. At last.

The reunion was a fervent reunion of tears, whispers, and laughter.

And then everyone else caught up. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Bree said, seeing Cam’s pain-stricken face.

“It’s a prox-beacon,” Cam explained, clearly hurting. “As soon as it’s disabled, I’ll be fine.”

They loaded her into a nearby truck and set off for the hospital. Ty radioed with the news that Armstrong’s armies were driving Beauchamp’s forces back. Cam’s air show had motivated the entire country. Not much was left of the UCE Guard after massive defections. The same was happening in every city across Central.

“He’s going to help,” Cam told Bree, half-delirious with pain. “Prince Kyber.”

“You convinced him to help us?”

Cam simply smiled. “And more. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to get married.”

In the back of the ambulance, Bree sagged against the gurney. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning. . . .”

Cam’s mouth curved. “Yeah. You, too . . .”

The war was shorter than anyone imagined it would be, lasting weeks, not months or years. It came to an abrupt and inglorious end when Julius Beauchamp fired a bullet into his mouth. UCE army loyalists surrendered to United States forces without further incident.

After a triumphant journey from his Montana ranch, General Armstrong arrived at the White House—the original White House. Or, rather, a convincing replica built in record time over the old and crumbled foundation.

On December 23rd, 2176, Bree stood behind a podium in front of a cheering crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the man behind the Shadow Voice.” She raised her voice above the thunderous applause. “The Voice of Freedom! Aaron Armstrong—our
freely elected
president!”

Choked up, she stepped aside as the tall, lean man took his rightful place in front of those who had put him in
office through the first true elections in the United States in more than a century. It was no accident, she thought, that on this very same date, minus approximately fourhundred years, George Washington, victorious commander-in-chief of the American Revolutionary army, appeared before Congress and voluntarily resigned his commission. General Washington not only stunned the world with an action unprecedented in history, but set the standard of military submission to a civilian government that had ended up lasting even after the United States’ ill-fated consolidation into the meganation called the UCE. Four centuries later, Aaron Armstrong himself made history by repeating it.

It was a day Bree knew she’d never forget, a day that saw much weeping and laughter, apprehension and hope. It was the day that the old United States, in all its idealistic intent, was reborn.

“ ‘Having now finished the work assigned to me,’ ” the newly civilian president Armstrong declared, paying homage to General Washington’s famous speech, “ ‘I retire from the great theater of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life.’ ”

The public loved it—and they loved Armstrong. And so began the new age for which they’d all fought.

To the delight of a weary world, Prince Kyber of the Han Empire asked Cameron Tucker to be his wife.

It was clear to everyone that Kyber was smitten with the beautiful, brave, shoot-from-the-hip commoner. The union was so obviously a love match that it smoothed over many a prickly diplomatic problem once thought hopeless, doing more for world stability in one year than all the treaties of the previous two hundred.

At the royal engagement party in the gorgeous grounds of the Han summer palace, Bree decided she’d come full circle by returning to the Asian kingdom. Almost two years had passed since she’d first opened her eyes to this frightening, confusing future world, and yet it seemed millennia ago. She’d changed; the world even more so. And in her opinion, there was no better excuse to party. Once a fighter pilot, always a fighter pilot.

Bree’s hand found her husband’s, callused not from fighting wars but from building a deck on the grounds of
his father’s ranch in Montana, where the two of them now lived. As Bree had retreated from the public eye, Cam had launched herself into it. Bree couldn’t be prouder.

Dignitaries mingled all around her, but that wasn’t what made this party such an incredible event. After so many years separated from the rest of the world, Asia was taking its first cautious steps toward dropping its isolationist veil.

Bree watched Cam make the rounds on the arm of her fiancé, and she had a feeling her friend would be no mere pretty wife of a king. Already a force for change inside Asia’s once-impenetrable borders, Cam, it was clear, in no way intended to relinquish individual power. Bree’s wingmate was only now coming into her own, and with her fight for clone rights, advocacy for the reopening of all borders and trade, and her lobbying to liberalize the more archaic practices of her new homeland, Cam’s impact on the world would no doubt be huge in the years to come.

She walked toward Bree and Ty with a young woman in tow. “I have someone for y’all to meet,” she said.

The stranger thrust out her hand. “Jenny Red.”

“Ah, Jenny. My pleasure.” From what Cam had told her, this was the fiancée of Kyber’s estranged half brother, D’ekkar.

Ty shook Jenny’s hand, then murmured in Bree’s ear, “I’ll get us a drink.” He obviously didn’t want to intrude.

As he walked off, Cam moved closer to Bree, equal parts joy, hope, and surprise lighting her face. “I didn’t know if they’d come,” she said, smiling warmly at Jenny. “But you did.”

Bree hesitated. “Is . . . ?”

“Yes, Deck’s here.”

Bree followed the other two women to the edge of the dining terrace. In the fountain gardens below, two men of similar build and stance stood facing each other in the shadows.

The women gathered at the railing. Cam seemed a bit nervous. “He’s not armed, right?”

“No, but I am.” Jenny pulled up a sleeve. A long, thin blade glittered on the inside of her forearm. She moved aside her skirt to give Cam a peek at a second knife.

Cam revealed the tiny pistol she kept hidden in her bodice. “Me, too.”

“So I guess we’re okay.”

“They’ll have to behave this time.”

The women grinned at each other before turning their attention back to the men. Jenny grew more serious as she watched. Love for Deck was achingly apparent on her face. “He needs this.”

“So does Kyber,” Cam murmured. “They’re family.”

“Sometimes you don’t really know how much they mean to you until they’re no longer around. . . .”

Cam pressed her lips together and nodded. Then, after a moment or two, she said, “Kyber didn’t know about it, Jenny. Deck’s mistreatment in the dungeon . . . he wasn’t told. He regrets it terribly.”

“I think Deck knows. Look.”

The two men came together in an embrace, awkward at first, then with the intensity of true brothers.

“Mercy.” Cam brought her clasped hands to her chin at the same time Jenny smiled, her eyes moist. Jenny squeezed Cam’s arm. “We did it, future sister-in-law.”

Cam pulled the woman into a hug. “I hope this means y’all will come here more often.”

“I never thought I’d say I hope that, too, but I do. I want Deck to be happy. He won’t admit it, but he needs to be part of this.” Jenny turned back to Bree and smiled, almost sheepishly, as if she were a little embarrassed by all the emotion.

Don’t be,
Bree yearned to say. “Happily-ever-afters don’t come easily, but when you’ve got one within your reach, grab it and don’t let it go.”

Roses in red, white, and blue pelted a sleek black sedan making halting progress through the streets of the rebuilt Washington, DC. Barriers of applauding police kept the cheering crowd more or less off the road, allowing the car to proceed. It was a fitting end to the first president’s last day in office.

Six years, thought Aaron Armstrong. The term had seemed much shorter than that. “Life is fleeting,” the saying went, but he still had to ask the question. Where had the time gone?

A small boy crawled into his lap. “Grandpa,” the youngster murmured. Sticking a thumb into his mouth, he lay his head on Armstrong’s chest.

The former president rubbed the boy’s small but sturdy back. Quietly and together, as if of the same mold, they watched the cheering faces speed by. Beyond the road rose the spire of the Washington Monument, standing
proud on land reclaimed from the sea. “Patrick Henry Armstrong, someday all this will be yours.”

The boy snuggled closer. He’d always liked the rumble of his grandfather’s voice.

“But you’ll have to earn it,” Armstrong explained. “You’ll have to win a free election, and be the choice of the people. But you’ll do it. I know you will.” He gently chucked the child on the chin. “You’ve got my organizational skills and your grandmother’s compassion. And, thanks to your father, you’ve inherited an Armstrong stubborn streak a mile wide. Your mother’s no slouch, either. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t be riding in this car and witnessing this . . . this miracle.”

Armstrong felt the swell of emotion. His grandson’s little hand patted him on the chest, as if saying,
Don’t worry, Grandpa; my future election campaign will go just fine without your interference.

Armstrong chuckled. How he loved this boy! How he loved all of them. He couldn’t arrive home fast enough, where the rest of the family awaited—Maggie, Ty and Bree, and Patrick’s brand-new baby sister—busy preparing for a private celebration in his honor. They were who deserved all the accolades, not him, and he planned to spend his retirement years doing just that: making sure they knew they were the reason he took the steps he had, risking all for freedom and liberty, and changing the course of the world in the process. He’d achieved much in his life; he knew that—more than most men could have realized given ten lifetimes. Yet in the end, it was his family that was the most deeply satisfying accomplishment of all. They were the future.

Former UCE Supreme Commander Aaron Armstrong
settled back against the soft leather cushion of his seat and indulged in a well-deserved smile. When all was said and done, he had to admit that the future was looking pretty damn good, indeed.

At the height of summer, nights in Paekdusan were short. Even in the hour after midnight, the sky was more indigo than black. It was in that deep, midsummer twilight that the emperor of Asia and his wife sneaked their horses out of the royal stables to lead them through soft, dew-covered grasses.

“Everyone wants to know when we’re going to have a child,” Cam said, squeezing Kyber’s hand. They walked along under the stars.

“Making heirs is a Han preoccupation,” he admitted.

She shot him a private smile. “I noticed.”

He slid an arm around her waist, drawing her close. Ah, he loved this woman. How he loved waking with her, living with her, and most of all, ruling with her. “That, my love, is called practice. What I meant is the actual production of heirs. But there’s still time for that.”

“We’ve made the kingdom wait long enough, don’t you think? It may be time we got started more seriously on the issue of producing little princes and princesses.”

Joyfully, he swept his wife into his arms. Their body armor clinked lightly, their wedding bands glinting in the starlight.

“First, one last ride,” she murmured, touching a fingertip to his lips. “Then we’ll return to do our duty for the empire.”

“I cannot fathom any other duty as sweet.”

“Me, either.”

A breeze off the mountains rustled the canopy of leaves above, and they shared a kiss—long, lush, and heartfelt.

“Don’t ever tell Nikolai,” Kyber said against her parted lips, “but I’d say that riding the Rim with you is far more fun than with him.”

She laughed in that unabashed, musical way he never tired of hearing. And so he drew her into his arms once more for the kind of kiss he knew he’d never tire of stealing.

He drew back after a bit to hold her face in his hands. Gazing down at his wife, he felt his breath catch. Cam literally glowed. Blond hair framed her upturned face in airy wisps, making her look almost angelic. He could feel her joy, her love, as it flowed from her unchecked. It was exactly as she’d appeared in the photo from Mongolia that Nikolai had shown him all those years ago. Though he hadn’t realized it then, that was the moment he’d fallen in love with a fighter pilot named Cameron Adele Tucker. Her unwavering loyalty and astonishing courage had touched his heart then as she touched it now.