Here's another massively over-revised chapter. I actually had a few very good ideas right when I was trying to finalize this. Incidentally, there's a weapon name here that I have just been wanting to use for something. The real thing is from India, and I consider it the definitive example of a weapon so impractical and useless it's kind of impressive.

The Queen slid back a section of her enlarged right shoulder pad, revealing a control panel with a large red button. "The overload sequence will initiate at my command, or if a carrier signal from a device monitoring my vital signs is interrupted," she said. "Our scientists project a chain reaction that will implode the arcscraper, and mildly irradiate an area roughly 10 kilometers in diameter. Both civilians and military personnel will have sufficient time to escape, if they move immediately. And Blackbell Industries will collect insurance, of course. They will need to look at a new location, however, as it will be 25 years before the isotopes decay or dissipate down to safe levels." She smiled.

Her face again became weary as the cameras shut down. She looked to Loid, Anya and then Handler, who held young Loidy asleep in her arms. "Go. Both of you. Take Loidy. Take Damian. Take Willow, too," she said. "Colonel, give the order for the civilians to evacuate. For yourselves, do as you choose."

Within an instant, Willow was wrapped around her. "Mommy, Mommy, I don't want to go!" she wailed. "Please, Mommy! I want to be with you, I want to be with you, I want to be with you!"

"Hush, darling, of course I will be with you," Fiona said. "Just leave with the others, and I will follow."

"You know she is lying to you," Loid said. "I was in charge of evaluating the cases of current and former agents who took their own lives after reunification. I saw how they lied to their colleagues, their families and to me. Your mother wants you to leave because she always intended to die here. She will die for nothing. She can destroy this complex, and perhaps Blackbell Industries with it. For the Blackbells' clients and competitors, it will merely be a mistake to learn from. And you will still be gone!"

"And what do you think happens if I do nothing?" Fiona said. "Think of Luwen. You can say you don't know what they were doing in that warehouse, but you knew then that it wasn't anything good, didn't you? Well, the Blackbells have this complex able to manufacture over 100 million in weapons a month in a `neutral' state unaffected by any arms treaty. When I was on stage with my man and our baby girl, they were already building it. And why? Why not? To people like them, selling to both sides of the same war is just diversifying your investments, which is their way of saying, make sure nobody comes after you. Well, I've proven there's still more to it than that, haven't I? Maybe I can't stop what's coming, any more than you could, but I can say I did something to slow it down."

"Do you know how many people swore they would give up their own lives for revenge on the Blackbells?" Loid said impatiently. "Or your husband? Or Handler? Or you? Oh, I gave Handler a whole file on the plans they had for her."

"It was flattering, really," Handler said. "I knew which one was yours, Nightfall."

"But every one of those agents is alive today," Loid concluded. "It was because they wanted what you had all along- something to fight for after our war was done. You never gave up on becoming a wife and mother, even when it seemed hopeless with me. For the right man, you fought both sides of a war and won. So tell me, no, look your daughter in the eye and tell her, what changed?"

Fiona only stared back at him. She opened her mouth to speak, twice. Finally, Anya pressed a hand to her brow. She flinched, but did not withdraw. "Nothing changed," the telepath said. "You were always going to leave, so Yuri would have a chance with someone better. You're afraid you already waited too long."

Sylvia's nails tore into an armrest. "Dammit," she said. "When you disappeared, it was going to be a solo flight. We were suspicious, until you took your family along…"

"I can't lie to him," Fiona said. "He doesn't really believe there's going to be a time when he's here and I'm not. And he thinks he played the field because he'd been with three women before me. He's so adorable, it just makes me cry, and usually we just end up in bed. And sometimes, I just get tired!" She slammed her head down on the table, silently heaving. Willow put an arm around her.

Suddenly, there was a commotion below. "Let her through, let her through!" Colonel Welrod shouted. "Your Majesty, Yor Forger has arrived! She brings your Prince!"

Fiona shot to her feet. Her daughter gave a feral screech. "The Thorn Princess comes after she insulted me!" Willow said. "Now she will face me! Mother, let me have my birthday present!"

"Yes, of course," her mother said wistfully. "Bring the Cumberjung." Welrod's subordinate hurried to bring out a case. By then, the newcomer had come into view. It was Yor, with her brother still over one shoulder. As she reached the top, she threw him down inelegantly.

"Here is the one you call the only man you ever loved," Yor said through clenched teeth. "I accepted you as a sister. You repaid me by taking my brother from me when he was already yours!"

"And you took the man I thought I loved without even knowing I intended to beat you!" Fiona snarled.

"Nightfall, stop," Loid said. "Take the man you love, or let him go. End this!"

Willow struck him across the face with a length of chain. "This is honor!" she said. She hooked the chain to a sickle with a half-meter handle and a sharply curved 30 cm bill. At the other end of was a hook with a short grip. The girl whirled the shorter blade in a blur. "You wronged me and my mother, Thorn Princess! Fight me!"

Yor looked at the girl. At first, she looked merely perplexed. Her expression quickly became sadness. "I know you," she said. "Don't you remember? We called you Sally. Anya babysat you. You loved to play with her."

Willow let the chain go slack. "I remember a woman who played with me," she said. "But mother told me what you really are. You are the Thorn Princess, the most vicious and merciless assassin in the world! Why would you refuse a fight, unless you thought I was so weak you could ignore me?"

"No," Yor said. "If that is who she told you I am, then she lied, or she was just wrong. When you are older, you will figure out that being wrong is worse."

"But you did those things, didn't you?" Willow asked, genuinely perplexed. "You killed hundreds! Thousands!"

"Yes," Yor said. "But I don't want to kill you. You're my family. You're like me."

"Why? You know I can beat you! If that isn't reason enough to fight me, then how did you do what you did?"

Yor gazed at her brother's daughter. "I could do it because I thought I was right," she said. "I wouldn't kill unless I was sure someone deserved to die. That's why I never hesitated, even when it meant going through people who didn't. Even now, I can't think of one time when I know I was wrong. And you know something? That's another thing that's actually worse. If I knew I was wrong just once, even if I knew I was wrong every time, then I could live with it, because it would mean I have learned something I didn't know then. But when I think that maybe I haven't learned anything, that hurts me. It scares me."

"But you know I am like you," Willow said. "If you do not face me now, I will grow stronger, while you get weaker."

"That's not the risk I'm taking," Yor said. "If I fight you and win, it will be the first time I will know I didn't have to kill. If I lose, then you will start worse off than I did."

"It does not matter," Willow said. She donned a samurai helmet to go with her armor. "You came to hurt Mother. I must oppose you. You must fight me."

"No, Mama," Anya said, stepping forward. "I will."