Chapter 8
The stars streaked endlessly past, hour upon hour, day upon day. She ate rations when she was hungry and slept periodically in brief intervals, never knowing or caring how long they were. In fact, Kathryn lost track of the days very quickly as she flew steadily towards Earth. She would get there eventually because it wasn't that far. She mused briefly that it was clever of the Rebels to hide so close to the center of Imperium power. The remaining Imperium loyalists would never expect it, and so they would never find it, especially with the Rebel's cloaking abilities.
Earth. Even the thought stirred mixed feelings in her. She was so close, and yet it wouldn't be the Earth she knew. She would be on a very different mission when she reached it. At this point in her thinking, her gaze inevitably strayed to the overly polished phaser rifle in its case. If the Empress was anything like Kathryn, then she would have fled to home, where she felt the safest. She would go straight to Indiana with only the people she trusted the most.
That was where Kathryn would find her, and so that was where Kathryn went.
She glided through the atmosphere under a cloak, and then she landed in an open field. She shouldered her phaser rifle and headed for the hills. Even as exhaustion began to overtake her body, she refused to stop. It was almost midnight when she saw the person she was looking for.
The Empress stood with her back towards Kathryn, her frame silhouetted against the moonlight. "So, you've arrived. The tides have certainly turned, haven't they?"
Kathryn said nothing.
Janeway huffed wryly, "I only have Annika left with me. You'd be a hero to the rest of the galaxy if you fired right now and avenged his death."
Kathryn breathed in and out deeply to steady herself.
"But there's more to this, isn't there?" Janeway considered. "In a way, this is a battle within yourself that has come to life. You want to kill the darkness in yourself. But at what cost? I'm sure the Rebels have suffered greatly, and you don't even know the casualties on my side." She paused, and then she asked, "Do you know how many Imperium officers and civilians lost their lives in Jaffen's little explosion at the palace?"
Kathryn stayed silent.
"Ninety-four," the Empress answered for her. "And the attacks on the military installations? Three thousand and twenty in all. What about your latest victory? There were two thousand eight hundred and fifty-one officers on board those ships. Over two-thirds of them are dead now from the chain reaction your antimatter explosion caused." Janeway turned slightly to look over her shoulder at Kathryn.
Kathryn regarded her warily, keeping her features carefully schooled even as her mind reeled from the information and her heart was stabbed by guilt.
"But, even so, those are nameless, faceless numbers. Those are the casualties of war. We tell them to fight, and they will. We ask them to die, and they do. We're not the ones pulling the trigger when the barrel is mere centimeters away from them," the Empress continued. She faced Kathryn completely and began walking downhill towards her. Kathryn's shoulders straightened ever so slightly, and she held her head higher out of instinct, standing her ground. Empress Janeway finally stood before her, eye to eye. "No, it has to start with just one, Kathryn. One intentional murder of the person directly in front of you, whose name you know and whose face will be forever etched in your memory. One killing enacted in a moment of cold blood and pure hatred. That is what it would take for you to become me. That is why you won't do it, and yet."
Janeway paused, searching Kathryn's steady gaze. Still, Kathryn did not speak. She did not fire, but she did not lower her phaser rifle, either.
"And yet," the Empress repeated, "you know that you want to."
Kathryn heard her own gravelly voice say, "Yes."