The Last Visser
The empire ship shot through the infinite depths of Z-space, past giant rifts and enormous valleys of time and space. With their waking eyes, the crewman could literally see the time-space continuum.
As Visser One stared out of the window, she saw the same continuum, and wished that she could not only see it, but also touch it. She could turn time back, and change things that should never had happened. She could have changed it so that the empire would have won the war! She could have made it so that the kadrona aboard the only escaping pool ship, the one that contained the council of thirteen, had not been destroyed. And, most of all, she could have saved Visser Three.
She was trained not to get carried away in dreams. As her training instructor has told her, "It may be wonderful to dream of a universe without those infuriating Andalites, but while you are asleep, it only makes it easier for them to decapitate you." But right now, she just didn't care. Everything she had ever lived for had been brutally taken away. She was, for the first time in her life, naked to the fury of the Andalites. Any shield she once possessed, her fleet, her armies, and even her fellow Vissers were all obliterated. Or, even worse, they were turned against her. The High Command needed to snap her fingers, and she would join the bodies strewn about the ruins of the fallen empire. Again, though, she didn't care.
Edriss felt like she was going through denial. Half of her, the female, soft half that she despised, couldn't believe that Visser Three was dead. The other half, the part that burned like fire, yet was as cold as steel, had swallowed the dreaded news, and marched on.
She was standing on the bridge of the empire ship. Pursued by both the Andalite worldship fleet and her own memories, she truly felt under siege. The titanium and ramonite bars that supported the ceiling above her felt like the bars to her prison, while the Dracon beam that always hung at her side felt like a key. How many times had she wanted to pick up that key, and unlock a door for all of her grief to pour out of?
Then, slowly, every time she collected her emotions, the representation of her soft side, and sealed it down, deep in her soul. Then she reminded herself that she was Visser One.
Of course, she couldn't really be a Visser of the Yeerk Empire, if the Yeerk Empire no longer exists, she reasoned with herself. None-the-less, the pathetic drabble of survivors of that empire had taken her for a leader. That almost made her laugh. A week ago she simply spoke several words, and star systems would fall and be overrun by the black cloud that she controlled. Now, her commands did nothing more than order her crew to exit Z-space, charge the weapons, or some other trivial task. Which reminded her …
Visser One suddenly moved. Several tacticians or technicians (no pun intended, just a coincidence) jumped; their leader hadn't shown signs of life for an eternity.
"We must exit Z-space," she ordered. Her underlings scampered to meet her request, and soon lights and alarms were flashing. Theoretically, during a Z-space jump, everyone had to be sitting, as there was a chance of disorientation. Then again, Visser One had never been one for rules. She felt the familiar nauseous feeling, until regular space materialized before her eyes, and she nearly fainted.
But not because of the horrible churning sensation of a Z-space transfer. It was because of the massive fleet arrayed in front of her.
"By the Kadrona," she whispered to herself, "How could they have known …"
Then, louder, so that everyone could hear her, she proclaimed, "Keep our course; we can't successfully reenter the Z-space tear without being annihilated by the Andalites."
Around the empire ship, blade ships organized themselves into position. She still had several precious spit seconds.
Then the fighters were on top of them. They came like a locust storm, from all conceivable directions and at unmatchable speeds. What could she do against such power?
"Launch our own fighters, we need to fight back," she ordered. A microphone picked up her voice and relayed it to the blade ship captains, who in turn sent it to the transports and fighter bays.
The fighters kept coming. Wave after wave of them penetrated the defenses, and rained fire down on the ships. If the shields weren't up, the entire fleet would already have been destroyed. Even still, she could see the pitted, twisted and smoking outer skin of those ships that weren't fast enough.
And this is just the beginning, she told herself with a feeling of dread. Then her fighters started appearing, slowly at first, but steadily, until a mass of black fighters were halting the waves of Andalite scorpion-like ships.
The only purpose of that strike was to take down her shields.
"We don't stand a chance," a tactician screamed above the din, "we must return to Z-space. We can bring back most of the fighters, and then still make it with only 43 casualty rates."
No, her mind told her, no. Death is your liberation. Take the key. They have locked you up in a prison; now take the key that they are giving you and unlock yourself.
Esplin, her subconscious mind told her. If I die now, I join Esplin. She could hear Esplin's voice in her mind.
Don't die. I died so that you could live. Live for me. Some day you will die, and then, on that day, we will be together. But in the meanwhile, live. Do it for me, Edriss. Do it for me.
But even if I live today, I will die tomorrow from the sorrow of losing you, she replied.
No Edriss. You have a life to live, and you cannot burden it with the memories of a broken past. If your life has been broken, then piece it together. Do not give up and throw it away. Never give up Edriss.
Where can I find the strength to go on, she replied, I always found the strength in you. Whenever I feel like I am going to die, I can imagine your glee in my mind, and I do anything to stop you from having the satisfaction of me dying. Whenever the Andalites tried to kill you, I told myself 'no, I will kill him.' Until finally, if fought to see you again, and to keep our rivalry alive. But today, today I bear no satisfaction from your death. Today, your death is my failure.
And your death is my failure.
No! Your death was a failure because it tore you away from me, seemingly forever. But my death will be a triumph, for I will be with you another day.
Then her internal battle was shattered.
"Visser," the tactician screamed, "Visser, do we retreat?"
Visser One looked out the window. Fighters were destroyed, blade ships stood motionless like dead fish, and shredder beams arced through the sky like javelins.
This is the end, she knew deep inside.
Esplin, I will never leave you, she told herself.
"No," she replied, "I have never lost a battle. Today will not mark a beginning."
"Visser, right now, the situation is damned or be damned. Except is we escape, we live to fight another day. Staying and fighting will not allow us to win. We will simply die."
"We will die," Visser One replied, with a small smile tugging at the edges of her face, "Death is a victory."
"Visser, I beg you to reconsider. The lives of several thousand yeerks lie in your hands."
At that moment, a shredder beam lanced through the shield, and destroyed a blade ship. The twisted hulk shuddered, and began falling slowly, towards the empire ship.
Visser One looked up at it, the small smile stretching into euphoric glee.
"Do not move," she ordered, "today will mark the day of my last victory."
Then she looked straight forward, at her death speeding towards her.
"Esplin," she began, "I swore that I would never leave you. I will keep my oath."
As the white-hot flames of the collision tore apart her body, Visser One and the other officers wept. The officers cried for the pain of losing their sweet life, and Edriss, for the joy of regaining her reason for life.