One last author's note, this is the second to last chapter, and the start of some ideas that turned another fic "The High Road And The Low", which I just posted here. All in all, this is probably been the most personal fic I've done for this fandom. Thanks to anyone sho's stayed with me this far.
A month later, Fiona was in Westalis, in the city of Goessen, now the capital of the Hero State. She wandered through streets and parks studded with memorials and monuments to the fallen, until she reached a park in front of a museum where two tanks faced each other. Without the weekend tourist traffic, only the local children were to be seen. She took particular note of their play. The younger ones ran about and climbed on the tanks. The older ones played martial games, sometimes reenacting the victories of Westalis, but as often as not playing out the adventures of Bondman or Spaceman Steele. She was watching a boy who had managed to climb into the cupola of the tank when another woman came up beside her. "Good day, or good afternoon," Handler said. "For this, let's find somewhere more private."
They made their way to the courtyard of the museum, where a fountain generated a steady background noise without breaking a sense of seclusion. Handler spoke first. "I owe you an apology, Nightfall," she said. Nightfall stared straight ahead. "We never should have put you anywhere near honeytrap duty. Twilight told us the same thing at the start of your training. He was ready to plead with command to have you exempted. I had to stop him. All they would have heard then was that you couldn't do the one thing a man couldn't do better. What old command really thought was that one woman was as good as another as long as the man liked what he saw. For men no different from themselves, they could have been right." She gave an exhalation that could have been a laugh or a snort of anger.
"I will marry Steven," Nightfall said. "I love him. He loves me. The trouble was… something else."
"That right there is your problem," Handler said. "You put anyone who's better for you than Twilight on an even higher pedestal, and then you don't see what you're really doing wrong. We have charts for the ways this ends. You don't talk to him. Or he finds out what you're really like when you do talk. Or he gets bored with you. Or, if everything else is going well, you say you've finally learned to love after whatever K-rap lost-love sob story you fed him, and he just gets mad. Yes, we've heard that one before. We've been through all of this before. The worst part is, with Steven, you could finally get what our real psychologists say you want. You will have your one great, tragic love, and you won't even have to die for him."
Nightfall's lip quivered. "But I don't want that," she said. "Not anymore. I want to be with him. I want to have his children. I want them to know him."
"I can understand," Handler said. "I had family, before."
"But what I want with Steven isn't what I came for," Nightfall said. "I came here because I finally know what Strix is for. Donovan Desmond isn't planning a war, he's preparing a unification plan. It's Ostania's own allies' who are trying to start a new war so it doesn't go forward, which is why the SSS won't cut them off. The only real point of Strix is to decide if we help him, or stop him ourselves."
"Not bad," Handler said. "You know how this works. If you can figure enough out, you've earned a few cards on the table to stay ahead, or in your case, keep you from making a fool of yourself. The fact is, we don't need to help Donovan Desmond or stop him, because we aren't considering any unification proposal. Without real concessions, that's free sausage. The military and civilian leadership of the Western Federation have agreed, there can be no discussion of unification until and unless our former territory of West Kielberg is returned."
"That's insane," Nightfall said. "Apart from anything else, we never had' Kielberg. It was a demilitarized territory Ostania split with us to keep Nortica happy. Back when Nortica actually liked us. You might as well say we're going back for Shellbury." She paused. "God. That is insane."
"That's melodrama," Handler said. "You of all people should appreciate it. In any event, Nortica shouldn't be a problem much longer. A new border dispute before the next election will help, but it won't be essential. Old-fashioned blackmail is still good for something. That's why the people trying to start a war prematurely are doing it in the south. They want to draw our first strike away from the north where the real issues will be decided. That was the mistake Ostania made last time."
"So they really didn't have anything to do with Luwen," Nightfall said.
"Grow up, Nightfall," Handler said. "Everyone who mattered knew what happened in Luwen that day. That's what you get when people just scraw around and wait for a war to happen. It cost Ostania a war they should have won. It made our victory more costly than a defeat. This time, they both have me as their teacher. They are going to learn what happens when a war goes according to plan. Before the end, I will teach them what it is to fight a war they don't want. And we will win, in my timeframe. It may take another war, but not two."
"This is just cartoon villainy, Sylvia," Nightfall said.
"And I'm good at it, aren't I?" Handler said with a smile. "But Strix is what matters. Children are the future. Donovan Desmond's children in particular will certainly be important. Demetrius should be in office by time unification is really on the table. We project that Damian has even more potential. There's no such thing as starting too early. That used to be something only the SSS would think of."
"This isn't what command wants," Nightfall said. "It's what you are telling them."
"I had a family," Handler said.
"So that gives you the right to decide?" Nightfall said. "Only you never really talk about them, do you? So what were they like? What really happened to them? Did they even really die? Do you even know? All you really care about is having enough dirt that the next regime doesn't throw you out."
"I have the right because I am the one who will do what needs to be done," Handler said. "And will you listen to one more thing, Nightfall? Remember Broclaw? Do you know what he was supposed to do to you?"
"Yes," Nightfall said. "I told him he could do it. All we had to do was make it look like I didn't like it."
"No, Nightfall," Handler said. "You wouldn't have liked it. Not even you, you degenerate masochist. His instructions were to do everything that freak did to the woman who went in your place. If he had, he would not be able to look at you now, and you would never have enjoyed making love with a man again. And do you know what happened when he wouldn't do it? I had to do it all to him. It's just one reason why I don't worry about what happens when this is over. Whoever comes for me, the only thing they will have to do with me is carry me out."
Handler rose to her feet. "Good-bye, Nightfall," she said. She walked away without looking back.