The plot to attack the convoy had been discovered in over a week before the trip. The trip could have been postponed, but Mara didn’t believe it would change anything. Some of the agents of the rebels had been identified, but before they could be apprehended they had already been killed. It seemed the enemy had spies in her palace.

The approach to her family’s origin planet, Sampi, went through an asteroid field. There were 5 paths through it at this time of the planet’s revolution. 1 was not suitable to the size of her convoy, of the remaining four 2 had been compromised by the plot. The leaking of the plot and of the existence of spies could be incompetence on the part of the rebels, but she preferred to think of it as a challenge and a way to limit variables when she chose to walk into the trap. It seems the enemy knew her well, she was not one to deny a challenge, even if it meant risking the lives of her sons.

Mara had not made many changes to the convoy, it was still 20 ships carrying 10 quads each. The few changes were that all quad members were at stage 2, level 100 to 149, led by quad leaders at stage 3, level 150 to 199. Empress Mara, King Amer and King Nalan had been in the flagship with the maids and the babies, all three at stage 4, level 200 to 249.

The attack had been larger than anticipated - 60 ships with 60000 attackers. Most of the attackers were between stage 1 and stage 2, level 50 to 99, led by 600 fighters at stage 3. The attack overall was led by four who were at stage 4. It had not been enough. It took all the 4 leaders to tie down the 3 Royals, but they didn’t last more than 10 mins. The attackers were not well trained and the Empire troops with higher levels, better training and equipment were holding there own against attackers that outnumbered them 3 to 1. Minutes into the attack began it became clear the attackers would eventually lose. And then more of the Empire troops started pouring in from within the asteroid field. But then the attackers also had a plan B, which Anad had exploited.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Mara had many screens open in her units view, yet she was looking at none of them. Mara was lost in her thoughts on her failure. It had been two months since the maid had vanished with Shiv. Her trail had gone cold in two days and she had vanished as if she had never existed. She had missed the internal threat because she relied too much on the compulsion, and now it seems the compulsion itself was used by the traitorous bitch.

Mara had gone through the fight with the four stage 4 leaders multiple times, trying to figure out if she could have ended it faster, so she could return to the flagship earlier. All four had been covered fully in black armor, differentiated by colored rings - red, green, blue and white - on their chest plates. Nalan, Amer and she had approached them in the middle of both forces, each clad in shiny full body armor of a design of their choosing.

The other fighting teams had engaged around them leaving a large sphere for the fight between the powerhouses since at close enough distance even the aftershock of that battle would have been enough to devastate multiple warships. She had spared a glance at the battles, struck at the beauty of war in space. There were no sounds. Instead the dogfights between fighter ships, the troop carriers carting men to ships and artillery exchanges between multiple ships, left light trails, punctuated occasionally with mute explosions. It was a symphony of light conducted in silence.

She had engaged “blue” and “white”, as they were the strongest, with “white” approaching her in power. She didn’t want to waste time with the usual pattern of such fights, exchanging techniques through probing attacks, ramping up power till one triumphed over the other, so she had led with one of her most powerful attacks, surprising her two opponents. The Mini Nova Punch was a powerful attack, that complimented her fire affinity well. The only drawback was its energy requirements. She had powered up her attack as she left the ship, pouring over 67% of her power into it and launched the attack with a punch at “white” as soon as she closed in on her pair. The attack created a massive ball of convulsing energy that kept shrinking as it closed in on “white” looking like a miniature sun going nova. It also generated massive columns of fire similar to solar flares that struck both “white” and “blue”, straining their defense shields.

The mini sun reached “white” in an instant, having collapsed to just a meter across and then exploded with the force of a sun going nova. “white” had three defense shields, they all collapsed against the force of the explosion, though they reduced the impact of the explosion enough that he was only stunned, that too for a few moments. It was his downfall. Mara used that moment to pull his soul into the soulscape for a soul battle. This was a dangerous move, rarely used in battle - with their souls in soulscape their bodies would be defenseless, no one could be held in soulscape against their will unless specific conditions were met, the one taken could return and would return before the one initiating the pull, the difference was a few seconds, enough at Mara’s level to allow “white” to destroy her defenseless body. It was made more dangerous since it allowed “blue” to attack her recklessly. Nalan and Amer had pushed their opponents away and rushed to Mara to help her. But “blue” was closer, much closer and the fight hinged on seconds. They would need 3 seconds to reach her. “blue” dual wielded war axes and had already powered them up for a strike. He reached Mara half a second after her body went still and swung immediately. Mara’s automatic defenses were up but wouldn’t stand a directed attack, in another 2 seconds “white” would be back for the finishing blow, while Mara would still be out for 5. Except...

Mara twisted under and around “blue”, stabbing his spine with her short sword. In his haste to end Mara “blue” had favored powering his attack and neglected his shields, leaving him defenseless. “white” came out of soulscape to see “blue” hanging lifeless on Mara’s sword, her sword buried to its hilt in his back and jutting out of his heart. And before he could act, Nalan and Amer’s long swords sliced him into 3 pieces. Mara had not gone into soulscape herself. She had split a part of her consciousness and used it with her unit’s AI to pull “white” up, similar to what she had done to counter the Sages. It was a ruse, useless if the opponent knew about its possibility, deadly otherwise. In 2mins the odds had turned from three against four to three against two. It took another 5 mins to defeat the other two, killing one and capturing the other, before she could check the urgent updates from her battle crew and learnt of the attack on the flagship. As she raced back she saw two shuttles leave the flagship, one circling around and hurtling towards a group of Empire ships for safety. Another shot out of the asteroid field and warped away. She knew then, even without any reports who she had lost.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“Your Highness, we have reached.”

The warship’s captain’s voice broke Mara’s reverie. She turned to him, “Are the drones in place?”

“Yes, Your Highness. The three needles dispatched earlier have got them in position and ready for your arrival.”

“Ok, prepare a shuttle. I will witness this from as close as possible.”

“Your Highness, a shuttle has been kept ready in the royal hangar.”

Mara nodded and let the captain lead the way. She wondered if this might provide some solace to her. Two of the four had turned out to be part of the Shadow Crows, the topmost assassins guild in her Empire. She tolerated it and existence of the other two, till now, expecting that they knew better than to attack her family. It was obvious why the Crows had acted brazenly, no one knew where they were based and they plus the attack had been instigated by a member of her own family. She was not no one, and it was time to smoke out the rats in her home.

The Equalizer was ostensibly a siege ending device, in the sense that it completely destroyed the besieged stronghold. It was meant to end sieges of moons and space-forts, it would now be used against a hollowed out asteroid in an insignificant system that was just one warp away from the Empire’s megasystem. The Equalizer was a set of 9 force fields arranged using drones in concentric spheres around the target. The fields would collapse in rapid succession on the target, simulating a bombardment by kilometre size meteors on the targets surface, one meteor for each square meter, the size of the simulated meteors doubling with each layer. The target surface would be equalised and smoothened out by the first three layers, the last 6 would squeeze the remaining into a super dense material. It ended sieges with finality.

This was not what made the Anga planet and system a tourist spot in the Empire and indeed for the galaxy. Compressing the Crow’s stronghold from 60 km wide hollowed out asteroid into a 20 km wide dense sphere had also opened up a 200 km wide zone around it. The stronghold had been a part of the 300 km ring around the planet. Then Empress Mara had taken a huge battleaxe and split the sphere into two which flew apart and settled within the hollow circle in the ring. From the planet it seemed like a face with two bright eyes had opened up in the ring. The legend of the Crow’s Eyes that bore witness to a mother and Empress’ fury spread through the Empire and galaxy.

The legend grew with the rumors that followed in the wake of the demise of the Crows. The other two assassin’s organizations had received unmarked scrolls in their strongholds with just one word - behave. The Suryavan family had seen purges destroy whole branches - no one was spared, only grandchildren were spared, only great-grandchildren were spared. There were no official news from the Suryavan family and no one was bold enough to seek the truth.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“Are you at peace?”

Mara looked up at Amer. Amer was the light in her dark life and she knew that beneath his placid facade he suffered too. He had been proud of his son and had seen unfulfilled plans shattered. He’d held himself together for her sake, sharing just enough of his pain to not overshadow hers. But she knew him enough to know it was there.

She looked down and said softly, “No. They say time heals, I guess time well tell if it does.”

“He is alive.”

“I know. My nightmares remind me many times through the night. He could be anywhere. Headed for the slave pits of Moor, or on to become a beggar’s accessory on the streets of Viraa or to be experimented with by madmen of Black Sands...”

Amer, put a hand over her mouth and squeezed tight. “No. Where he is, he will survive and he will return. Stronger or weaker, whole or hurt, our son will return. To us, to his brothers and sisters, to his family and then we will make it all right. Use this to answer the nightmares or use the medicines provided by the Royal Shukr. Do what you must to dispel this madness.”

“You dare to behave like this with your Empress.”, her words had no force to them.

“I dare with the mother of the son we both have lost.”, and then let her cry into his shoulder till she calmed down and fell asleep.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“So dear, do you have some popcorn or snacks or drinks?”

Lord Shiva, looked up at his consort, as she beamed at him, and sighed, “No.”

“Oh, since you don’t need to watch this directly to know how it plays out, I figured you just wanted a better view of the show.”

“How many days?”

“Days? For what?”

“For tormenting me.”

“Tormenting you. Why? Because you answered her call and received the tap-shakti she accumulated praying to ME. I am not so mean as to remind you of it everyday for a couple of months.”

Lord Shiva groaned. “I have a duty...”

“To my brother-in-law?”, she batted her eyes at him.

He grimaced and looked away.

After a while, she asked in a serious tone, “You don’t know do you?”

He whipped his head to her and she met his eyes with hers coolly, he whispered, “I sensed something, and I wanted to make sure.”

“That poor girl was supposed to have perished in the attack. Her undimmed pain, her anger, her hurt, her vengeance, all unresolved. I checked the Kaal Chakra with Yama before coming here. He’s going nuts by the way. This one slipped under the radar. ”

“So...”

“sah vidhiseemit”, she replied to him in Sanskrit.

Lord Shiva, “Such a strange phrase, ‘bound by fate’ when in truth he carries his fate and of those around him in his hands, capable of growing to change everyone’s destiny”

“Not if Yama and his team can put him on a Hero’s Journey and unbind him.”

"Thanks."

He looked at her, waiting for her to finish.

"For letting her have peace, you are safe now and here's your reward. Have some. The show is starting."

Lord Shiva looked on bemused as she passed him a bowl of popcorn and could see she also had a couple of shakes on a little table she had conjured between them. He turned back to what she had distracted him from. They were sitting high up on a ledge on the slope of the volcano, far from the site of action, but for them everything might as well be happening before them.

He saw the Halahal Snake had collided with the floating cot as it tried to fly away and knocked the boy out. The boy, at close to ten months and able to walk, had been woken up rudely by the fall and stood bewildered for a few seconds. He then noticed the snake towering over the floating coat looking at him.

The boy looked at the maid’s body, which looked like she was taking a nap and then back at the snake again. No fear just determination on his little face as he positioned himself between the two and started circulating shakti in his body. Hopeless as it maybe he was not going to let the snake pass.

"Ooh. My brother-in-law is a badass."