Remembrances Denied

"Are you ready?" Again, the even, sterile, female-voiced queried him.

He was so tired. It didn't make any sense. Hirako lived a life of leisure interrupted by the occasional bacchanalia. There was no physical reason for exhaustion. Having thrived on challenges, his mind now sat fallow. If he was honest with himself, his heart mirrored his mind. He had no one to share his time with, no one to push him and no one to challenge him.

Everything needed to change.

"Yes."

"Have you set any Reminders?"

"Yes."

"We will proceed."

"... and I say to you today that because of your actions, there will be a tomorrow for billions who risked annihilation! Your courage has ensured their survival and the survival of their planets. Their children will be friends with your children. They will grow and prosper with our science and technology and we will have allies for generations to come. Your foresight has led to a golden future of peace and prosperity. Today is a day for celebration and I salute you!"

He waived his hand over the controller and stepped off the podium.

"Laying it on a bit thick there Architect, don't you think?"

"It's what they needed to hear. It'll serve its purpose."

He waived to the assembled crowd before moving backstage. The holo was viewed live by almost all the citizens of this new empire and more than three billion of it's most important non-citizens. Everyone else will be allowed to view it in seventy-two hours.

"Commander Leighton's ceremony starts in two hours. Shall we head over?"

Before he could reply another voice interrupted.

"A moment of your time, Architect? We'd like to speak with you briefly if we may."

"Senator Mayon. And Gelfor and Baldin. Of course." Hirako inclined his head to each. He looked around. "Is there a room available?"

Escorted to a waiting room, they sat at a table that was generously appointed with rare delicacies and fine wine.

"Wonderful speech, Hirako. Stirring, as always. I know that you have pressing business elsewhere, so I'll get right to the point. You've won. You were wildly successful. With very little support from us, you have planned out the building of an empire to the most exacting degree. You've connected people and made alliances that we couldn't understand until your plans came to fruition. And they all have. We're in a new age, Architect, and we owe it to you. It's time you were rewarded for your efforts."

Senator Mayon leaned over to grab some Tarac air grapes, popped a few in her mouth and continued.

"You'll be receiving citizenship on Earth and will be the wealthiest man in the empire. Funds are being transferred now. You'll also be named Architect Emeritus, a title you'll hold until your death."

"I'm... I'm being retired?" He knew that this might be coming but it was still somewhat surprising to hear the words.

She laughed.

"Retired? No, Hirako. You're our greatest resource. You're being rewarded. We will have a team assembled that will do the most basic day to day thinking that you do now and we will still call upon you for all the big picture items. In your downtime, you will have every luxury appointed to you. There will be nothing beyond your grasp."

He knew that he was a victim of his own success. They were right. All the hard work was done, so he could be put out to pasture. It was gratifying to know, however, that it was the most decadent, opulent and pleasurable pasture imaginable. They wrapped up their meeting and he made his way to the military ceremony. Regardless of his successes, he had never been sure if Citizenship on Earth was an achievable goal. They picked the right lure to pull him in.

Captain Leighton was being promoted to Admiral. She was the most brilliant strategist in generations, but she cared little for politics or those that practiced the art of being liked. Her career suffered for it. She rightfully should have been an admiral years ago. She didn't mind. The men and women that served under her loved her for her lack of pretense. They would follow her into the mouth of hell if need be.

General Boshin would be present at the ceremony. He was the hero of the empire, the one that state-sanctioned stories were created about. He was talented but he had used her abilities to further his own career. Hirako recognized the general's jealousy but admired how he kept it contained and directed towards his own goals.

Leighton planned on immediately using what clout she had available to be put on the fringe of the Empire and Hirako would be joining her. Convinced that he would see new possibilities from the edge of civilization, she looked forward to the opportunity for them to be together for an extended period of time. The last piece of his puzzle had been put in place today. Now she had the opportunity to go where she would and he had the freedom to join her.

If this were all for him, he would have been bored out of his mind with the ceremony. Because it was for her, every flourish, every detail, every homage to tradition had special meaning. He had spent the trip here vacillating between joining her as they had planned or staying on earth as he knew the new rulers wanted. That's what they were. He had ensured a decentralization of power and more voices at the top, but they were still rulers.

In spite of a nagging sense of deja vu, he pushed away any doubts about how this wasn't right somehow and looked forward to seeing her.

Her uniform crumpled on the floor next to the bed, Leighton had her knees in the air and her legs spread. She watched the top of his head as his tongue lapped at her delicate folds. "Slowly, Hirako. We now have all the time we need, my love."

He kissed her nether lips and slipped his tongue around her labia. The aroma of her accumulating nectar invaded his senses and threatened to reawaken his quiescent cock. He tasted remnants of his spent seed as it mingled with her juices. He opened his mouth to accommodate most of her cunt and tried to fuck her with his tongue.

Narrowing his target, he ran the tip of his tongue to her clit and flicked gently at her pearl. She started to moan as her breathing became more rapid. He reached a finger into her, as his mouth tried to stimulate all eight thousand nerve endings in her engorged clit.

"Uhhhhrrr... yes, Hirako." She held the back of his head to her and inadvertently squeezed her thighs around him.

He increased the speed of his finger's sawing in and out of her hot cunt as she drew near her climax. She shuddered and let out a loud moan and collapsed onto the bed. He waited a few minutes before getting up to get some water.

As he returned to the room, a nightmare stepped from the shadows and faced him.

"Again, no Hirako. How many times must I say no?"

The monster pulled his head towards her and slipped her tongue into his mouth. He stood there frozen, only his eyes moving. They slid down to look at the corpse of the woman, with the knife hilt under the jaw and the long blade reaching through the mouth, up behind the nasal cavity and into the brain. All of her strength, both body, and spirit, drained away as her slowly spreading blood soaked the bed.

The creature spoke. "This never happened. Your day has been a lie. You didn't choose me over Earth. You didn't choose the future we could have built together and I didn't stop to listen to you, to reason with you. I didn't come back to you to try again. We failed each other."

It followed his eyes and looked down with a sneer at it's perfect, younger face. "Is that how you remember me, Hirako? Was I so beautiful then?" it mused silently.

She spoke quietly, slowly and with determination. "I will not be recast in the story of my own life. You don't get to absolve yourself by recreating history. You will live with your regrets and I will live with mine. We made our decisions. We will pay our penances."

"She's a rabid dog, an animal. She's a monster that we put in a cage and we only open the gate when it's pointing towards our enemies. If we need to, we put her down."

The door slid open and an adjunct walked in and pressed his thumb to General Boshin's screen. The general looked down at the screen and grunted.

"Well, it looks like we may have to. It's definitely Admiral Leighton."

"Sir, no chance it was a BioMac or even a clone?"

"None."

"Then who the hell is leading the Third Fleet?" The general looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Sir. Sorry. Who is leading the Third Fleet, Sir?"

"That is an excellent question. Here's another. How did she slip into the middle of the Empire and right onto Earth without being detected? Start heading In-System and don't stop until we orbit Earth."

"Sir, we can't bring a warship to Earth. The treaties clearly state..."

Boshin signaled to two men standing next to the door.

"Take the former Colonel to the brig. Keep her there until you hear from me. Does anyone else want to tell me what we can and can not do?"

The security detail grabbed the officer that had voiced her concerns and pulled her towards the door.

He had his best technicians pulling information from Doctor Umberto's systems. He would know what was going on by the time they reached Earth and he would take whatever action was necessary.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes." There was a part of him that was lying this time. He didn't know what was causing it but he had a deep sense of dread as if something horrible was waiting for him in the Memory Walk. He pushed down his fears and moved on.

"Have you set any Reminders?"

"Yes."

"We will proceed."

One of the few holidays to survive the centuries, Valentine's Day was celebrated on almost every populated planet. It was a time for burgeoning passion and a reaffirmation of enduring love. Either of them would have received the best service in the most exclusive of restaurants but together they were treated like royalty.

Sharing a traditional meal of Old Earth delicacies, surrounded by almost extinct flowers, they indulged themselves in time not spent analyzing emerging patterns or dealing with military contingencies. Holding hands like the young lovers that they hadn't been in ages, they made their way to his apartment.

Time together was a precious commodity to them. They spent every minute as wisely as possible. This was a day for deep, slow love-making, not their usual enthusiastic fucking. When they finished, she got up to use the facilities. He watched her rounded and firm ass as she walked away. Hirako waited five minutes for her to return and then ten more. He walked out of the bedroom and towards the bathroom when he felt a foreign presence.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Hirako." The voice whispered to him from behind, almost caressing his ear with it's low, earthy tone.

"It really is Valentine's, but all of this?" An arm appeared in his peripheral vision as she gave an encompassing wave. "It happened two-hundred and thirty-seven years ago. And now they are going out of order in your memories. This is before either of us were who we became after your speech."

He started to panic as he looked out of the nearby balcony at the revelers celebrating in the night. Afraid to turn around, he was frozen in place. The music, the bright colors, the floating neon billboards all paled next to the unnamed horror behind him. Hirako had no name for the terror or the person that embodied it. He didn't know why he was filled with such dread, but his buried memories consumed him as he struggled to take one step forward. If he could do that, he could manage two and then three.

She must have sensed his attempt as he felt a hand reach through his arm and around his chest in a profane mockery of a lovers embrace.

"You're not going anywhere, Hirako. Not without me. We're ending this tonight and we'll spend the real Valentine's Day together."

He felt a sharp piercing as the drugs flowed into his body. His last thought before his mindless sleep was of how primitive a weapon it was that laid him low.

He awoke, tied to a chair. There was no transition period. No grogginess. He was asleep and then wide awake.

"Welcome to the present."

He started to reply when the rush of memories surfaced and threatened to drown him. He didn't know how long he struggled to remain sane, but he eventually bobbed to the top of the sea that was his mind.

"Have you lost your mind, Leighton?" He looked up, glaring at her.

"No, I've kept mine and everything it holds. How about you? Try to remove or change anything recently?"

"They'll find you, you know. It's impossible to hide."

Still sorting his memories into categories of what was and what wasn't, he shook his head and immediately regretted it. A pounding headache was his reward. A headache in this society was one of the few novelties he didn't enjoy.

"When have you ever been the tactician? We're fine. I have access to the best technology the Empire has to offer and some that it doesn't."

She ran her finger down his jaw.

"Do you remember what you were doing yet? You were recreating all the most important moments of our lives. Worse, you were changing them. They were dreams that you thought would redeem you. Dreams are ephemeral, Architect. They don't redeem anything. Action does. Stepping forward and taking real action. That's how you make amends."

"Why are you doing this?"

"This Empire is a corpse and you live in its maggot infested heart. It's our fault, Hirako. If I had stayed behind and led from Earth or if you had joined me on the fringes, always seeing three moves ahead, we could have avoided all of this. When we were together nothing could stop us. We need to set things right. It's all going to come crumbling down. It needs to be saved from itself before it implodes."

"We have at least another five-hundred years left."

"How much of that under a military dictatorship? How many will die as the Senate tries to retain power? But who else would know that but you? I saw signs and you already have time frames. Come with me, Hirako."

"They'll take everything."

"No. They'll take your wealth. They'll take your power. Maybe your reputation. But they won't take your legacy. They won't take your future. They won't take our love and they can't take what you are."

She held his face gently between her hands as she stared into his eyes.

"Do you want to feel again, Hirako? Do you want to mean something again? Come with me. Join me, on this Valentine's Day. Together we will love, we will destroy and we will create.

She leaned forward, her hands on his knees and whispered in his ear.

"We will be together and you will be what you were. You will be a leader, a statesman. You will build. You will create an empire that will last a thousand millennia and I will be by your side. Protecting you. Protecting your dreams."

They stood shoulder to shoulder on her ship as they watched Earth recede into the distance.

"Happy Valentine's Day, my love."

She put her arm around his waist as they both silently started planning for the war to come.

Thank you for reading and Happy Valentine's Day!

If you wouldn't mind taking the time to vote and comment, I would appreciate your feedback.

Although this is an entry in Literotica's Valentine's Day contest, I believe that there is enough meat on the bones for expansion.

Looking for something else to read? I enjoyed My Fall and Rise by MelissaBaby. It was a well written and compelling story that had both pathos and joy.

https://www.literotica.com/s/my-fall-and-rise-ch-01

I'd also like to take a moment to thank Darkniciad for his feedback and excellent suggestions.