“Well, will you?” General Carnac asked, the wind gusting and dead leaves tumbling and rasping around us. The wolf’s topaz eyes bored into mine, daylight making them glint with an inner glow. Over his shoulder I could see the armored column of my army moving through the valley below, the tanks and self-propelled SAMs surreal against the backdrop of a peaceful, flower filled meadow.
My mouth was dry and the chill that cut through my fur made me want to shiver. I didn’t know how to answer, how to say what my soul would have screamed at him, even though we must have had this conversation a thousand times. I turned my eyes towards the sky and the racing clouds, where all was bright sunshine and a blue so brilliant it was almost blinding.
“The weapon,” I began, “shouldn’t exist. Shara was condemned to execution by the Feline Council for even conceiving of it. What makes you think I would actually use it? It’s unjustifiable, and-”
His snarl cut me off, despite my station he had forgotten his. Most wolves assume a dominant posture when in the company of foxes such as myself, even though our two races had reconciled long ago and by law were determined equals. 
“Unjustifiable?” he spat, “The Feline Council sanctioned the mass murders that started the war! Their troops have razed cities, butchered women and children! How can you stay your hand when the hope of our nation rests on you? How?!”
I was silent for a moment, as angry as I was at him I considered his argument for the hundredth time anyway and rejected it yet again. 
Even though I am lauded as a great ruler by most, dedicated to the betterment and supremacy of the Canine Empire, I refuse to be blinded by the ancient instincts of racial warfare. Instincts which, I am sad to say, are gaining prominence and prevalence within the high command that serves under me in these dark days. In recent times the concept has strengthened into a riptide which threatens to tear away the very idea of empathy for all things feline and drown it in blood. 
As for the weapon, it was of course too powerful and terrible to be accessible to those who would misuse it, so I had made sure its control could not be wrested away from me. I alone, as emperor, hold the only key to that dread battle station. My living left eye is embedded with the microscopic code which activates it. If I am killed that sequence will disintegrate and the weapon, without the required monthly input of the code, would self-destruct. 
Had I not taken such a precaution I and millions of others would already be dead. Most likely at the hands of Carnac and his supporters.
If I took the actions my top general suggested it would lead to genocide. I felt an urge to bare my teeth as the image of a Feline city engulfed in plasma fire flashed into my imagination, did nothing to suppress it. “I can’t annihilate a continent, I won’t! They have innocents too, like the women and children you preach about so passionately. You have no right to lecture me on the use of the satellite, General. I’ve made terrible decisions, decisions you can’t imagine. The fate of the world could be determined by this one. I will decide what to do with Shara’s Star, no one else.”
The right side of his face twitched as he struggled to hide his hatred and rage. In that moment I felt as if I could read his thoughts. Had there had been a way to use Shara’s Star without my consent he would have drawn his gun with the speed of a viper and put a blast between my eyes. My guards would have been too slow to stop him, and undoubtedly some of them had secretly given him their allegiance long ago. His chances of survival after the assassination would be quite good.
I turned my back on him and walked towards the shuttle in the clearing before I could surrender to the impulse of murdering him in the same way I suspected he had planned for me. My guards fell in behind me, rifles at the ready, scanning the ranks of swaying aspens and the myriad shrubs and shadows.
I knew it was almost time to replace Carnac, maybe even execute him, yet the coming offensive was critical and his tactics were flawless. The Feline troops were ferocious and well led, had established a firm foothold in Cania. In their royal court, I was informed, the nobles laughed behind their hands at my indecisiveness and reluctance, called me the ‘Stone Emperor’ to imply that I was nothing but a figurehead. Had their side wielded Shara’s Star my empire would have been reduced to a smoldering cinder long ago and any survivors mercilessly enslaved.
They wouldn’t be laughing had I been more ruthless…