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The Admiral smiled. "Even under such torture, he knows where his obligations lie," he said proudly.

"You have not only disobeyed the empire, you have turned on it," Drewe challenged.

"You have gone over to the resistance."

"No!" Cree shouted. The heat of shame was so powerful it was stripping the very flesh
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from his bones. I am a reaper! I am honor-bound to do my duty as the empire has decreed

it!"

"You are nothing," Drewe laughed at him, placing the razor-sharp blade of his

ceremonial dagger to Cree's jugular. "You are filth beneath the boot heels of the empire,
traitor!"

"I am a reaper!" Cree bellowed. "I will uphold and defend the purpose of the empire. I
will protect and defend the person of the empire. I will..."

"You have betrayed your masters, Kamerone Cree!" Drewe snarled, pressing the blade
against his flesh. "You did what you did, against the wishes of the Empire."

"I will put aside all personal desires for the good of the empire."

"Not only did you disobey, you fought against the therapy that was ordered as your

punishment, didn't you, Cree?"

"I will allow any and all constraints to be placed upon me as seen fit by the Empire!"

The dagger at his throat drew blood as the lieutenant pressed down on it. "You were

afraid of what the behavioral modification might do to you, weren't you, Cree? You didn't
know if you were man enough, warrior enough, to withstand it. Isn't that true?"

"I will not allow fear of torture or death to deter my objective to promote the welfare of
the empire!"

Hael frowned as she listened to Cree's repetition of the Reaper's oath of Allegiance

pouring out of the Vid-com.

"You were trying to help the resistance, weren't you, Cree? Trying to help them win in
their evil war against your masters?"

"I will place the good of the Empire before any and all family and friends. I will

obediently follow the commands I am given at the discretion of my commanding officers."

"You were afraid," Drewe cooed to him as he dug the dagger deeper into Cree's flesh.

"You were scared shitless to come to this room, weren't you, Cree? The thought of being
tortured nearly drove you mad, didn't it?"

"I will obey the directives of the Empire without regard to my personal safety."

"You turned on us, Cree," Drewe accused. "You turned on us and joined the

Resistance. You have harmed the Empire!"

"I will destroy any and all who take arms against the Empire! It is my duty to protect
the person of the Empire!"

He was cold. So very, very cold, and yet he was being burned alive, his skin sloughing

off as it split and crackled. He was choking, his throat tightening with the rope. He was
falling, through barren space and limitless darkness, thirsty and hungry, dying of disease
and the poisons that raced through his system. He was being crushed, suffocated beneath

the onslaught of guilt electrocuting his mind with currents of accusation from the only

friend he had ever known. He was being accused by a man he had trusted, respected.

"Where are you, Bridget? Why aren't you here? Why have you fallen silent? I need

you!"

"You are guilty, Cree," Drewe declared. "You failed and Reapers do not fail, do they,
Cree?"

"No" he shouted, jerking his arms free of the ropes. He put his hand on the dagger at
his throat. "Reapers do not fail!"

"What will you do then, Cree?" Drewe asked. "What will you do to atone for your
many sins against the Empire? To assure them you are not a traitor to our cause. To

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insure them you will not fail again?"

Hael sat forward in her chair, sensing the moment of reckoning for the Admiral had

tensed, his hands on the siliplex, fingers splayed out as he watched the scene unfolding

below. "Say it, Kamerone," she heard the Admiral whisper. "Say it!"

"I am a Reaper. I can not fail!"

"Then what must you do, Cree?" Drewe demanded. "What must you be prepared to do
to show the Empire you are loyal to them?"

"Where are you, Bridget? Why won't you answer me? Beloved, please!"

"What must you do, Cree? What must you do? What must you do? What must you do?"

Cree clutched the dagger tightly and in a voice that was filled with fierce, brutal

assurance, he shouted out the last line of the reaper's oath of allegiance he had taken

many years before:

"I will give my life for the Empire!"

He dragged the knife across his own throat and blood gushed over him and his

tormentor. His life's blood pulsed out of him, spraying the rocks, geysers pumping into

the air in scarlet waves of purification.

"I am a Reaper!" He confirmed as he began to choke to death on his own blood. "I will
die a Reaper!"

Admiral Drae Cree exhaled a long sigh of relief. He let his head rest momentarily

against the glass.

"The therapy worked," Onar proclaimed.

Hael turned her attention from the man who had donated his seed to create this new

breed of warrior and stared at Bridget Dunne. The girl's face was pale. Knowing the

Terran woman had never heard the Reaper's Oath before, she couldn't help wondering

what Bridget thought of such blind obedience. From the look in the young woman's green

eyes, she did not think Bridie was as much impressed as she was revolted."Dr. Dunne?"

she questioned.

Bridget seemed to shake herself and her gaze slid slowly from the man being

unshackled on the treatment table to Dr. Sejm.

"You will accompany me to Dr. Dean's office," Hael Sejm requested and at Bridget's

silent nod, Hael bid the Justices and the Admiral a good day. Preceding Bridget from the

gallery, she did not once look back at the man upon whom they had pinned all their

hopes.

Dr. Dean was watching the monitor when Hael and Bridget entered her office. "He is

back in his cell," she announced.

"Are his vital signs stable?" Bridget asked.

"Yes," the Director confirmed. "There will be no side effects. Perhaps a sore throat and fever, but those are natural occurrences with the artificial neurotransmitters as you both

know."

"How long do you think it will be before he'll send for her?" Hael asked.

"There's no way of telling," the Director replied, drawing Bridget's worried look to her.

"Kamerone's conditioning will reassert itself now and he will go back to being the way he was before the treatment. Perhaps with even more commitment."

"But if the sublims took..."

"They took," Dr. Dean stressed. "He will not be able to get Bridget out of his mind. He will eventually send for her. He won't be able to stop himself. The obsession will build

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until he will have to do something about it."

"God help me," Bridget whispered. She leaned forward and buried her face in her

hands.

Hael and Beryla exchanged a look. Their hopes, and the hopes of the Resistance, were

not only resting on Kamerone Cree's wide shoulders, they were resting on the fragile—

and unpredictable—shoulders of a young Terran woman.

SYMPATHY, Hael Sejm thought as she walked down the corridor between the

medical and science wings of FSK-14, was the most effective means by which an

individual untouched by the psychological restraints of behavioral control could be

reinforced. Conversely, a reassuring smile, a kind word, a gentle touch, could be

devastating to the psyche of a man who had never been allowed to experience visual,

verbal, or physical support during times of hardship. Such stimulus was capable of

instigating a chain reaction within that deprived man's soul that would create a burning

need to re-experience, to recreate the sensation the smile, the kind word, the touch could

bring to a mind tumbling with turmoil. If sympathy were given at the precise moment an

individual's resistance was at its lowest ebb, the reinforcement would be assimilated,

embedded, remembered. And like any addiction—either physical or psychological—the

need to experience that smile, that kind word, and that touch would remain. That, Hael

knew, was human nature and all the external and internal catalysts ever applied would not

be able to dislodge the need from the subconscious. It was there to stay.

Turning down the long corridor marked Defense Unit, she called to mind the face of

the woman she and Beryla had chosen to be their catalyst in the plan to bring Kamerone

Cree to the Resistance. Neither of them doubted Bridget Dunne would succeed at the task

that had been given her. The young doctor had all the qualities needed and a few that

were absolutely vital. Compassion was just such a quality and Hael had seen it in

abundance in the young woman's face when Cree had been reciting the Reaper's Oath.

"You have to understand, Bridget," Beryla had explained many months before all this began, "this warrior is quite different from any of the young men with whom you have

had contact since being brought to FSK-14. This man has been conditioned since he was

a toddler. From the moment he was born, he spent the next seven years of his life in a

nursery operated by cybots. His mother never held him, never nursed him, or sang

lullabies to him. His first encounter with humans was on the day he was brought to the

Ministry of Indoctrination and began his training as an Elite. You cannot begin to

understand the harsh conditions under which he was instructed. Severe mental and

physical abuse are mandatory in order to make the warrior strong, invincible,

emotionless."

"But he was just a child!" Bridget had protested, her eyes filling with tears.

"You must remember," Heal had injected, "he wasn't a human child."

Bridget had rounded on the Director. "What difference does that make? He was a child

and no child should be treated like that!"

Yes, Hael thought as she went into her office: Sympathy had to be the most important

part in the seduction of Kamerone Cree. And the most powerful form of sympathy, the

most empathetic form, had to be love.

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"Not that Drae's son is capable of either conceiving or giving love," Hael scoffed as she opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle of Chalean brandy. Pouring herself a glass

of the fiery brew, she settled back in her chair, put her feet up, and sipped the potent

liquor. It burned a calming pathway down her throat and spread like gentle wildfire in her

belly.

Love, she knew, reinforced the ego and its pleasures. The emotional manifestation, of

course, was happiness, peace, a sense of belonging. The physical manifestation was sex.

Sex—was an instant gratification of the body—had been used for eons as a source of

control; as a potent reward for a job well done; as a means of getting what one might not

have gotten otherwise. It was power and pleasure combined.

But it could also be punishment.

Hael frowned and took a long swallow of the fiery brandy. She knew all too well the

punishing aspect of sex. Had she not been taken by a raiding party of Rysalian warriors

and brought to this godsforsaken hunk of metal orbiting Rysalia Prime? Had she not been

raped, impregnated by an Elite then abandoned to her fate? Was not the child taken from

her at the moment of its birth, never to be held or nursed or have lullabies sung to him to

calm his fears?

Hael Sejm had been born in the Chalean Highlands. She had dreamed of becoming a

scientist; of marrying her childhood sweetheart, Sean Ruhl; of bearing many healthy sons

and lovely daughters to fill their home with laughter and joy; of growing old with Sean.

The abduction had destroyed her dreams and made Hael Sejm a bitter, vengeful woman:

A woman obsessed with destroying the Rysalian Empire and the men who had brutalized

her and all the other helpless women imprisoned by the Rysalians.

"You are our only hope, Bridget," she said. "He has fallen into the trap, now we must close it around him so he cannot escape."

Hael tossed back the remainder of her brandy and poured another glass. Brooding, she

laid her head along her chair and stared at the ceiling.

"Sex,"
Admiral Drae Cree often quoted from one of his Academy classes,
"empowers
the male and reinforces his belief in his manhood. Sex enslaves a woman and reinforces

her identity as a female."

"Crap," Hael snorted.

One of the most effective ways the Empire had of controlling its warriors was through

the use of sex. The Ministries made it readily available to their male population. Sex was

a reward for a job well done. Sex was a stress reliever after a long mission. Sex was