by C H Gideon
She nodded at the introductions.
“We appreciate the help with the Orau,” Jiya told her, realizing it was probably in their best interests to get on her good side.
Lek remained stone-faced. “That was Roe’s doing. If you thank anyone for that, it would be him.”
Jiya offered him a nod of appreciation, but Lek wasn’t quite done yet.
“Still, I have to wonder why you placed yourself in a situation that required our people to rescue you. Is it not your benefactor’s place to provide such assistance?”
“Jaer Pon is not our benefactor,” Jiya explained. “He was the person we were directed to when we first arrived, knowing nothing of your world or its people. Had we known there were divisions within the ranks of the Krokans—”
“There are no divisions, I assure you,” Lek stated.
Jiya stared at her for a moment, wondering what she meant. Lek seemed to sense her confusion and began again.
“The one you call president, Jaer Pon, is not one of us,” she said. “He is not of this world, in fact.”
“But he’s in control,” Geroux said, clearly as confused as Jiya.
“Not all usurpers are native to the planet they usurp,” Lek explained.
The look she gave them was almost pitying, as if she thought the crew stupid.
“You mean he took over? A coup?” Jiya asked, seeking clarification.
“In a manner of speaking. Yes, you could call it that,” Lek answered. “We, however, prefer to call it an invasion.”
“I’m thinking we might need to start taking notes,” Geroux whispered to Jiya.
“Further, you and your people are being used to advance Jaer Pon’s agenda and control of the rightful people of Krokus 4.”
That was something Jiya could grasp without confusion.
“It is not our wish to be pawns in such a game. Can you explain?” she asked, wanting as much information as Lek was willing to provide.
“Your raid upon the Orau on Krokus 1 is a perfect example,” she said. “Jaer Pon’s greatest political failure in the attempt to maintain control has been his inability to stop the Orau invaders. You assisted him in this matter, thus freeing his resources to deal with the next threat in line.”
“Which is you?” Jiya asked, already knowing the answer.
“Us, of course,” Lek answered, and Jiya felt her stomach twist at the admission.
“I presume you already know that we were sent here to kill you and your people?” Jiya asked, deciding to lay everything out on the table and see where things fell.
Ka’nak groaned.
“We’re not here to kill them,” Jiya told the Melowi.
“You sure?” he shot back. “I’m pretty sure that’s what President Jaer Pon is expecting in exchange for the supplies and tech we need.”
Jiya and Geroux sighed in unison, sinking into their seats.
“Because if we don’t—”
Jiya raised a hand, silencing Ka’nak with an impatient wave. “We are not here to kill anyone,” she stated, meeting Lek’s eyes. “Regardless of what Jaer Pon believes we are going to do for him, we are our own people. Our mission is to seek out Kurtherians while establishing safe havens across the galaxy, helping where and when we can, working with the leaders of each planet we visit to better their lives.
“If Jaer Pon is not the rightful ruler of this world, then our deal with him is null and void,” Jiya stated with conviction. “We are no one’s assassins.”
“That is good to hear,” Lek said, the first smile Jiya had seen spreading across her lips. “If you are here to help the people of Krokus 4 and not harm them then there is much we need to discuss, Jiya.”
“I agree,” Jiya replied, “I’m only the first officer of the Superdreadnought Reynolds. It’s not me you need to speak with, but our captain, Reynolds.”
“The android?” Lek asked.
Ka’nak chuckled.
“Well, he’s not exactly an android,” Jiya tried to explain. “He’s an artificial intelligence, an AI whose consciousness inhabits both the superdreadnought we came in and the android body that came to the planet with us.”
“Interesting,” Lek said. “And he is in charge of your mission?”
“He is.”
Jiya felt bad for a moment about pushing Reynolds in front of the hoverbus, but she knew she was a little out of her depth.
As much as she’d learned about statesmanship and politics from being around her father, this situation paled in comparison. She still hadn’t wrapped her head around all the aspects of what was going on and who was who.
The last thing she wanted to do was commit them to the wrong side of the war they’d inadvertently jumped into.
But Reynolds had been right. The Orau were scum and deserved what they’d gotten on Krokus 1. And if Jaer Pon was as bad as they were, then he deserved a swift kick in the ass too.
“Yeah, Reynolds is the person you need to speak to,” Jiya reiterated. “I’ll put you in touch.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maddox stood over the captive, who’d only just begun to wake up when Reynolds arrived.
He stared up at the pair, blurry-eyed and not quite coherent. Reynolds grinned at the bound male, reveling in the moment. He hadn’t been able to capture one of the Loranian crew alive to find out what he wanted to know, but after what Maddox told him he’d overheard, this captive was connected to the same group.
That meant the poor bastard was in for a long, long night.
Before he’d fully come to, Reynolds squatted by his face and insisted on asking, “Who are you working for?”
The captive grunted, starting to wave Reynolds away only to realize that his hands were tied. His eyes narrowed, cognizance seeping into his mind as the awareness of his current situation became clear.
“You dare?” he spat back, snarling.
“Oh, I dare,” Reynolds answered.
“And then some,” Maddox added.
Reynolds glanced over his shoulder the general. Maddox shrugged.
“Just trying to help,” the general said.
“Well…don’t,” Reynolds told him, turning back to the captive.
“I am a servant of the god Phraim-’Eh!” he shouted. “I will not be intimidated by a heathen such as you.”
“Well, I guess that’s that then,” Reynolds agreed, jumping to his feet.
“That’s it?” Maddox asked, staring at Reynolds.
“He clearly isn’t going to talk, so why waste our time? He’s a servant of Phraim-’Eh. Would you talk if you were?”
Maddox stared as if he were unsure if Reynolds was asking him a trick question. He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“We’re done here,” Reynolds stated, turning away.
“Seriously?” Maddox and the captive asked at the same time.
Reynolds spun about, slamming the back of his hand into the captive’s face.
The blow reverberated through the room and the Krokan rolled back, slamming into the wall. His cheek was bright red, the eye above it already swelling.
“Fuck, no, we’re not done, asshole!” Reynolds shouted, coming over and getting in the captive’s face again. “Now, unless you want me to violate more than your personal space, I suggest you tell me what the hell I want to know.”
Stunned by the blow, the captive’s eyes swam in his head.
“How about we start with your name, Mister Servant of Phraim-’Eh. What’s your name?”
“Ter Vil,” he muttered, a tiny rivulet of blood running from his mouth and down his chin.
“See, that wasn’t too bad, was it, Ter?” Reynolds asked, straightening and moving back a step.
Ter groaned and used the wall at his back to sit upright. As his wits returned, his confused stare turned into a glare.
“He’s giving you dagger-eyes,” Maddox warned, waggling a finger at Ter. “Bad boy.”
“He hasn’t realized that his boss, Phraim-’Eh, isn’t quite the
shield against discomfort he originally believed.”
“Phraim-’Eh is a god!” Ter shrieked. “He will tear you limb from limb and devour your soul!”
Reynolds grinned inside.
Fucking idiot cultists.
Finding out that Phraim-’Eh was a god wasn’t the best of news, but Reynolds knew hyperbole when he heard it.
Their god was a Kurtherian, who thought of themselves as gods but usually weren’t so blatant about creating a cult of followers.
“Have you ever heard your god’s voice, or does he use a spokesman?” Reynolds asked.
The look on his face gave them their answer.
Reynolds knew the spokesman wasn’t a god, only a power-mad piece of shit looking for a legacy to cling to by coming after him or the Federation.
Maybe he was after Bethany Anne or Michael?
Either way, the Kurtherian clan’s self-professed pope was biting off more than he could chew.
“What would a god want with little ol’ you?” Maddox asked, pulling a chair over and plopping down in it so he could watch the proceedings.
Reynolds appreciated the general’s efforts at disarming the captive.
They worked well as a team, though Reynolds didn’t like to think that they were in the process of interrogating a prisoner. Torture was out, but they’d do everything up to that to get answers.
“Well, I am pretty charming,” Reynolds replied. “I can see how almost any god would want to hang around me. It would up his deity-credit among the other gods, no doubt.”
“He will make you pay!” Ter promised, spittle flying as he screamed, “Phraim-’Eh will tear down your Federation and decorate the stars with your ashes.”
“Poetic,” Maddox noted, nodding. “I’m guessing Phraim-’Eh has a history with your people, Reynolds.”
Hearing Ter mention the Kurtherian clan triggered a silent fury in Reynolds. He’d been right.
The Kurtherians had traveled through these worlds, making his mission a valid one. He wasn’t chasing ghosts anymore or the distant memories of his old enemy. No, they were still lurking, desperately working against Reynolds and the Federation, hoping to bring it down the same as they’d always done.
They can try, but they’ve never met anyone like me before.
“It’s a shame this Phraim-’Eh fellow, a male I’m presuming, because a female would obviously have been way better at taking you out, feels he needs to hide behind these Loranian twits he keeps sending after you,” Maddox pushed.
“Our master is a god!” Ter shouted again. “He needs no minions to tear your empire down, but he has gathered like-minded souls from all over the universe, the line of his disciples leading all the way back to the start of your existence.”
Maddox raised an eyebrow and looked at Reynolds, clearly surprised at how easily the cultist was kept talking.
Reynolds had a momentary concern that Ter was feeding him what Reynolds wanted to hear, but the froth that coated his lips and the signs of legitimate rage permeated the captive’s face and posture.
If he thought he had a chance to kill Reynolds and Maddox, he’d do it without hesitation.
Only his bonds were preventing him from trying.
He was a true zealot.
“It’s a shame those idiots on that Loranian ship got their asses kicked so easily,” Maddox went on. “I’d kind of like to see you take on a god, Reynolds. Maybe we can get old Ter here to give them a call and tell them to come on down for a rematch. Maybe they’ll actually put up a fight this time.”
“Jora’nal is a messenger of Phraim-’Eh. There is no way you could defeat him,” Ter growled. “The Pillar stalks you, and you will feel the chill of its presence upon your cowardly spine soon.”
Reynolds wanted to laugh but held it in so as not to clue Ter into his stream of transgressions. “Don’t make us beat the information out of you!” Reynolds feinted.
“You will get nothing from me!” the captive declared.
Besides, given all the damage his android body had taken, he was afraid he’d blow a gasket if he laughed as hard as he wanted to.
He needed Takal to build him a new body very soon.
That would be the priority once he got back on the superdreadnought, but right now he was getting way too much information from this servant of Phraim-’Eh.
“So, is that a no on the rematch?” Reynolds asked.
Before Ter could respond static crackled through the comm, then Jiya’s voice echoed in his head.
“Got someone you really need to meet,” she told him.
“Right in the middle of something,” he told her, stepping away from the captive so he could talk without being overheard.
“That Jiya?” Maddox asked, coming over to try to listen in.
Reynolds nodded.
“You’re going to want to make time, boss,” she pressed. “Learned some interesting things about our host President Jaer Pon and what’s going on around this place. It’s eye-opening shit.”
“We have a bit of that going on here, too,” Reynolds replied, glancing at their captive.
Ter jumped to his feet and shrieked, the sound like a banshee caught in a thresher.
Maddox raced toward him, but Ter charged at the wall and drove the top of his head into the unforgiving stone.
There was a loud crack, and Ter Vil slumped to the ground, the top of his shattered head gushing blood and gore.
Maddox dropped to his knees beside the fallen cultist and pressed his hands to the male’s neck. After a moment, he shook his head.
“He’s gone.”
Reynolds nodded. He could have told the general that without touching the body.
He’d heard Ter’s heart give way at the same time his skull did.
He sighed and turned his attention back to the comm.
“Well, it appears my schedule just cleared. Where do you want to meet?”
Reynolds met Jiya and the others at an abandoned house on the opposite side of town from where President Jaer Pon had sent the crew to find the Knights of Orau.
“So there aren’t really any Knights, huh?” he asked after the crew and Lek and her people had brought him up to speed.
“No, there are not,” Lek confirmed. “That was simply a story he told you to align our people with those sickening Orau to gain your sympathy and turn you against us.” She sneered. “However, there are certainly many Orau here on this planet.”
“Wait, there are?” Jiya asked, bolting upright on the battered couch she’d sat on.
“Indeed,” Lek replied. “Jaer Pon himself is one, as are the majority of his council, his followers, his guards, and all those who traveled with him when he first arrived on Krokus 4.”
“This gets more and more confusing,” Geroux stated.
“You didn’t tell me that earlier,” Jiya complained.
Lek shrugged. “I felt it best to save such revelations until we were gathered together, so there would be no need to repeat such an important piece of information.”
“You mean we helped an Orau defeat Orau?” Reynolds asked.
“That was exactly what happened,” Lek told him, Roe nodding behind her.
“Now I’m confused,” Reynolds admitted. “You’re going to need to explain this to me.”
“We—my people and I—are the original Krokans,” Lek started. “Jaer Pon and the others crashed upon our planet, and we fished them from the waters. A long lost tribe of ours has returned home, with a vengeance. Having no knowledge of what they’d become as the Orau, we welcomed them into our homes and lives, believing we were doing what was right and good.”
“I still believe that,” Roe stated.
Lek nodded. “As do I, but we misjudged Jaer Pon and his ambitions.”
Ka’nak glanced at Jiya, expecting the same “I told you so” from Jiya that Reynolds did.
The first officer, however, simply shook her head and continued to listen intently.
Reynolds, proud of her growth, looke
d back at Lek so she could continue her story.
“It didn’t take long before he began to campaign for power,” Lek went on. “He whispered honey-scented words into the ears of any who would listen, promising wealth and prosperity our simple people had never before experienced.
“He showed them the tricks of his people’s technology. The shield that surrounds this city was his finest moment and the thing that turned our people into believers.”
Lek chewed her lower lip as she paused, moved by the memories of what had happened.
“I was young then,” she continued. “Well, younger,” she clarified with a soft laugh. “But there was much about his offers and his words that didn’t ring true to me. So, when Jaer Pon built this city and surrounded it with his dome, we remained in our true home, the place Roe and the others brought your crew to meet me.”
“I’d love to see it,” Reynolds told her.
From what Jiya and the crew had told him of it, the place was a miracle of architecture that he wanted to see to appreciate.
“And you will, Reynolds, fear not, but first we must undo what you have inadvertently wrought by taking out Jaer Pon’s only true enemy: his own people.”
“I don’t understand what happened between them,” Geroux said.
“It’s a simple matter of self-importance, I’m afraid,” Lek answered. “Jaer Pon believed himself more important than everyone else upon his world, and when the resources of his homeworld had been exhausted and the Orau made to expand to the next, Jaer Pon stole a craft and peopled it with his followers so that he could find a world of his own.
“He fled the Orau, turning his back on his people in hopes of creating his own dynasty, but the past has a way of catching up to those who try to flee it.”
Geroux’s eyes widened when she realized where Lek was headed.
“Jaer Pon’s people followed him here and began their ritual of raiding the system,” Reynolds stated, having already arrived at the logical conclusion.
“Precisely that,” Lek confirmed. “Knowledgeable of his people’s ways and capabilities, Jaer Pon was able to defend against their advances and keep them from invading the planet wholesale.”
