“What am I gaining here, ‘Emperor?’” asked Grim.
Jylik smiled a wide, friendly smile that made Grim feel immediately distrustful. “The alliance of the Astralbian Empire, of course.”
“Hmm,” answered Grim. “I’ll need something more tangible.”
“Obviously,” replied Jylik. “Salvage rights, to start. And enough platinum to noticeably weigh down your ships, I think.”
“That’s more like it,” said Grim, his deeply sunken eyes lighting up.
“We’ll discuss details when you arrive,” said Jylik.
He shut down the comm and climbed the stairs down to the command center of his mother tree to greet the arriving guests. The Ramshackle Collective would make decent allies, or at least cannon fodder, but Trilia offered up a more substantial alliance. He walked down the ramp to solid ground, arms spread in a gesture of welcome.
“Trilia, my Empress, so good to have you back,” he said. “And with company!”
Hoon-Kra, Darvik, and Cevla bowed before their emperor.
***
Raivyn and the others got back to the city in time to see the large, blocky army transport ship the Azimuth along with a sleek, black ship in the familiar shark-like shape of a small gunship, the Snare. She watched the black ship as it landed.
The ramp opened and three figures walked down it. All three wore black uniforms with matching headbands and a shoulder patch depicting a trillion-cut ruby, a stone once believed to ward off evil psychics.
The first to walk down the ramp was Yellup, a young Wabuluban male with tactical gear strapped to his mechanical legs and a rifle slung behind him. Next was Winnow, a tall, feminine robot with a retractable blade on one arm and a gun built into the other. Finally, there was a tall, broad Human male. Trebor himself. He wore a long black coat, a saber on his hip, and a pair of pistols tucked under his arms in shoulder holsters. His black hair was slicked back, and his pale face was cracked with frown lines and a wrinkled brow. His bright blue eyes were the only thing that belied the fact that the face belonged to a living, breathing person rather than a corpse. Raivyn shook her head in disgust. Witch hunters.
***
Jasken was just going to greet General Grubula when the notification came through. A new beacon, originating from inside the Cornucopia Cluster. He looked at the details, and realized it was a notification that a new population of sapients had been found. It was sparse on the details. Then, under "Reporting Nation," he saw the real surprise: the beacon had been established by the FRF.
"What are you up to, Crush?" he wondered aloud.
Dismissing the notification and making a mental note to reach out to the Robotic nation builder at a later time, he walked out to greet the newly arrived ships.
General Grubula was already making his way towards the Wingspan and the two officers met in the middle.
"Welcome to Hruduk, General," said Jasken. "Hrynkak, King of Gred, sends his regards but, as you can imagine, is quite busy at the moment.”
Grubula nodded, which for a Wabuluban meant making a gesture something like a curt bow, rocking back and forth on mechanical legs. "Glad to be heading back this way. Looking forward to kicking the Astralbians out of Gateway."
"We'll get there, General," said Jasken.
Agent Trebor walked up to join the conversation. "General, Admiral."
"Agent," said Grubula.
"Welcome to Hruduk," said Jasken with a nod.
"Jasken," said Trebor. "Specialist Raivyn is here, is she not?"
"She is, Agent," answered Jasken. "And it's Admiral Jasken." He tried to maintain a diplomatic relationship with the RTS but found them to be an entitled and disrespectful lot.
"Of course, my apologies," said Trebor with a nod. "I will need to speak with her."
"I'll consider your request," said Jasken with practiced politeness. "You are dismissed, Agent."
Trebor looked at Jasken in masked disbelief, but nodded and went back to his ship.
"Well done," laughed Grubula when the agent was out of earshot. "That upstart of a hide wart gets on my nerves."
"He's good at his job," said Jasken. "He just needs to learn to stay within its bounds."
***
Darvik roiled inside as he bowed to the Emperor of the Astralbians. He had found meaning in the Koomites, something that had eluded him his whole life. The idea that his religion was owned in some way by a person who was indifferent to it at best enraged him.
Jylik dismissed him and Cevla and they returned to the Swamp's Pride, leaving Hoon-Kra and the Empress to discuss things with the Emperor.
They walked in silence for some time.
"How do you like our new overlords?" asked Darvik, voice full of venom.
"The beasts are our overlords, not the Astralbians," replied Cevla. "The smallest of them could swallow the Emperor whole."
"Well, try telling him that," spat Darvik.
Cevla laughed joylessly. "I see your point."
"Are you… okay?" asked Darvik.
Cevla regarded him with her empty eyes for a moment. "No. Of course not. I'm drowning in the aether."
"Stop talking like that!" he snarled. "How did you go from being so boisterous I wanted to lock you in a closet to being so- so- so empty!"
There was a flicker in Cevla's eyes, so brief that Darvik thought he might have imagined it.
"What happened to me will come for us all," said Cevla. "Those like you and me, anyway. And we'll come for everyone else."
***
"Did he say why?" asked Raivyn, standing opposite of the desk in Jasken's office, arms crossed.
"No," answered Jasken, leaning back in his chair. "Just that he wanted to talk to you. Believe me, I'd like to say no, but he'll just go over my head. He has a lot more leverage than he deserves with the Houses."
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"I can fend for myself," said Raivyn.
"Oh, I know you can," said Jasken, leaning in and steepling his fingers. "Remember, I asked you to behave."
"Yes, sir," she answered. "Best behavior."
He nodded.
There was a knock at the door.
"King Hrynkak wants to see you, sir," said the guard posted outside Jasken's door.
"Send him in," answered Jasken. "That'll be all, Raivyn."
She nodded respectfully, if curtly, and left, repeating the gesture as she passed Hrynkak. The King walked into the room, and Jasken stood to give him a quick bow, which he returned.
“Admiral, I have been in conference with the monarchs of the other cities,” said Hrynkak. “All of us wish to train a portion of our troops on hammer rifles and send them with you.”
“That’s appreciated, King Hrynkak,” said Jasken, his brow furrowing. “But I’m not sure we’ll have room for a sizable force. I was anticipating a fairly small detachment.”
Hrynkak pondered this silently for a moment. “Is there, perhaps, another ship that could transport us?”
It was Jasken's turn to think for a moment. "I may have a lead on that, but you'll have to give me a little time."
***
The mine had only produced three cores thus far, but the jubilation that followed each discovery was a thing to see. The core would be paraded around the mine and surrounding encampment and then marched dutifully down to the purple prairie-turned-airfield. Then it would be taken directly to the king and queen via shuttle.
King Hua and Queen Shiu, as Crush had learned to call them, were delighted by each delivery, setting the cores up on stump-like pedestals in the throne room of their massive wooden palace.
Yrinla spent more and more time with the monarchs, discussing the lost art of tree priesthood. After the tree priests had fled all those centuries ago, there were none left who knew their secrets. Though many on Cradle had psychic abilities, none had managed to unlock the secrets to shaping organic life. It seemed that a recurring madness among the psychics of Cradle, which struck with no warning and affected all psychics at once before melting away slowly, had badly hampered the study of psychic abilities.
Crush didn’t begrudge Yrinla’s time spent away from the rest of the fleet. The tree priestess had always been more an ally to than a member of the Free Revolutionary Fleet. Honestly, Crush was hopeful that Yrinla’s study of her own people would uncover more information about hers. The Coreborn had simply vanished after the tree priest’s attacks. Little was known and less was understood about the mysterious guardians of Cradle. All she had learned since her first conversation with Hua and Shiu was that it was theorized that the Coreborn somehow kept the madness at bay.
There were more immediate things to worry about, at any rate. Inspector Zomm-Dhar of the International Galactic Code had reached out, demanding more information about the local inhabitants and the FRF’s relationship with them, citing a number of articles of the Code. Unsure how the Astralbians would react to the specifics of Cradle’s native population, Crush had been cagey with Zomm-Dhar, hoping that the war that had broken out between the Astralbians and the Griffon Republic would keep him from visiting too soon, though he had promised there would be a visit at a later date.
One afternoon, as Crush was sifting through a number of documents Zomm-Dhar had sent, a call came through on her comm. Recognizing the Blue Griffon Fleet’s identifier, she picked it up immediately.
“Admiral Jasken?” she asked.
“This is him,” answered Jasken. “How goes the Revolution, Admiral Crush?”
Crush laughed lightly. “Fine, Admiral, just fine.”
“Glad to hear that,” replied Jasken. “I have a proposition for you, if you’re still in the mercenary business.”
“We are,” said Crush. “You could say we’re… expanding our horizons, but we’re still running mercenary operations. Are you looking for help in your war effort?”
“Yes,” said Jasken. “Not the Republic directly, of course, but our allies the Hrudukites.”
“Ah, the turtle people, correct?” asked Crush.
“The very same,” answered Jasken. “They’re looking for transportation so they can join our ground troops when we reach Astralbian-controlled worlds. They’re currently training on modern weapons but they don’t have any ships and, frankly, we don’t have the room to spare.
“That sounds doable,” said Crush. “Most of our ships aren’t designed with biologicals in mind but we do have an armored Krauqian transport from one of our early jobs. It should fit the Hrudukites just fine, I imagine. I’d like to talk to a representative of the Hrudukites directly to get numbers and arrange payment.”
“Of course,” said Jasken. “I’ll set something up shortly.”
“I’ll be waiting,” replied Crush. “Oh, and Jasken?”
“Yes, Admiral?” asked Jasken.
“Good to hear from you.”
Jasken smiled. “You too.”
***
“I hear you wanted to talk to me,” said Raivyn. Her arms were crossed, and her chin was jutting out towards Trebor and his two agents, who she had snuck up behind as they walked through the streets of Gred.
Trebor turned to face her, exuding a practiced countenance of being less than impressed. “Specialist Raivyn, psy-code 4329-075. Yes, I did.”
Raivyn shrugged. “I’m here now. Talk.”
“Still bitter we didn’t take you on, are you?” huffed Trebor.
“Hardly,” scoffed Raivyn. “But I doubt that’s what you wanted to talk about.”
“We heard you saw Cevla,” said Trebor.
“I believe so, on this very world,” said Raivyn. “It’s all in the incident report, which I’m sure you read.”
“Indeed I have,” replied Trebor. “But I hoped you could fill in some blanks for me.”
Raivyn stared into the agent’s bright blue eyes, anger blooming. “As I said: it’s all in the report.”
“How exactly did Cevla slip away?” asked Trebor.
“It’s in the report,” said Raivyn.
“Despite the fact that she was extremely drained from maintaining a perception bubble?”
“It’s. In. The. Report,” said Raivyn, biting off each word.
Trebor threw up his hands. “Please cooperate, 4329-075.”
Even Yellup, one of Trebor’s own, winced at that. Calling a psychic by their psy-code was unprofessional at best. Raivyn stepped forward, hands clenched.
“Are you trying to imply something about Cevla’s escape, Trebor?” asked a voice from above.
Everyone looked up to see Vanbrook sitting in the window of one of the burnt-out buildings, all but destroyed when the Astralbians attacked. He had a blue, plum-like fruit in his hand, which he threw into his mouth. He spent a moment savoring the fruit before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leaping down a good ten feet and landing between both parties. Despite the distance, he landed with a cat-like grace, standing face-to-face with Trebor.
“That’s Agent Trebor,” he snarled. “And you are Specialist Vanbrook, I presume.”
“Yup,” said Vanbrook. “And I asked you a question. Are you trying to imply something about Cevla’s escape?”
Trebor opened his mouth to speak but Vanbrook cut him off.
“Because I was there,” he said. “Cevla, along with the Koomite Darvik and an unknown Talpidarian male escaped, largely due to the fact that the aforementioned Talpidarian was a skilled driver with a faster mode of transport than we had access to at the moment.”
“So I read,” said Trebor, eyes dark with anger.
“Then you read the report,” said Vanbrook. “So, again: are you trying to imply something?”
“Do not interfere with RTS business, Specialist Vanbrook,” said Trebor.
“Do not interfere with Talon Squad business, ‘Agent’ Trebor,” replied Vanbrook. “We are a cohesive unit, not just a master and his pets,” he glanced briefly at the agents accompanying Trebor. “So if you are going to go out of your way to harass one of us, you can expect the others to be there, as well.”
“Have it your way, Vanbrook,” said Trebor, waving his hand dismissively as he turned to leave.
“It’s ‘Specialist’ Vanbrook,” said Vanbrook, his tone flat but his face a mask of mockery.
Trebor shot him a withering glare over his shoulder. When the agents were gone, he turned to Raivyn, a stern look on his face. “Rai, you can’t let Trebor get to you.”
Raivyn huffed. “I was handling myself just fine.”
“You were about to clean his clock and you know it,” said Vanbrook, shaking his head. “No one gets under your skin that easily,” he shrugged, thinking for a moment. “Except maybe me.”
“Ugh, he’s just a creep, okay?” said Raivyn. “He provokes psychics like me and then puts them on T-neutralizing pharmaceuticals or locks them up.”
“So you were going to give him exactly what he wanted?” asked Vanbrook.
“Punching isn’t against the psychic code of ethics,” muttered Raivyn.
“Did he say you used to work with them?” asked Vanbrook.
“No,” said Raivyn. “I wanted to help put away bad psychics, seeing how I know the dangers. But I saw Trebor in action and I didn’t want any parts of it. That was a long time ago. I ended up with Jasken instead, and you know the rest. Trebor’s had a chip on his shoulder ever since. Every time our paths cross he pokes and prods, hoping he can catch me off guard.” She shook her head. “The Republic is welcoming to psychics in a way the Aeratan’s aren’t, and the RTS is a necessity. People like Trebor just take advantage of it.”
“There are jerks everywhere, huh?” said Vanbrook.
“Not right here,” said Raivyn, looking up at Vanbrook.
He smiled, turned and walked away.