Gyrod stood tall, looking at the horizon of the savanna-like terrain as his officer approached him.

"Gyrod" the officer said. "Our patrols are about to wrap up. There are only a small number of human stragglers here. All of the camps and villages we found were abandoned."

"Good" Gyrod said. "Let's pack it up and get out of here-" and no sooner had he said that then the air was filled with a cacophonous hissing sound and the immediate area was completely engulfed by a thick, white, freezing-cold mist, reducing the visibility for just a few feet in a large area. Somewhere around the cloud was a rumbling sound, and out from the large cloud emerged a gray with a bionic arm flying on a rocket pack. Attached to the gray's rocket pack was a metal cable from which emerged Azari Yuler strapped on the other side, the limp body of Gyrod on a harness. He flew for several minutes and must have traveled at least a dozen miles before Baycorf gently set the two of them on the ground and then landed next to the Swordfish. Gyrod still wasn't moving when Yuler detached himself from the cord.

"Go ahead and warm him up" Baycorf said removing himself from the rocket suit. Yuler took a canister from his hip and sprayed the lizard's midseason with the warm air from the can. At first he didn't move other than very slight slow breathing, but he eventually came to and noticed who was standing over him.

"Sorry to interrupt whatever bullying you've got going on here" Baycorf said. "But we've got something rather important we need to discuss with you." Gyrod just made a scowl and didn't say anything, breathing heavily, as if in pain.

"Who rebuilt Zardin after the Human-Elf war?" Baycorf said. The lizard let off a couple of coughs and didn't respond.

"Answer!" Azari barked.

"You think I'm going to tell the two of you anything?" the lizard said letting a cough out. "Especially you, elf" Gyrod said giving Yuler a nasty look.

" I know the Night Lizard Clan has information about the intellichines" Baycorf said. "Tell me what you know about Zardin."

"I'm not going to tell you anything, gray. You don't have any leverage over me. We have reclaimed the crescent. We do not need to cooperate with you."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Really?" Yuler sassed at the lizard. "Your fleet is reeling as the armada nears full strength while Avistra has tamed outworld, has the loyalty of the intellichines, and on top of that has opened the conduit to Gaia." Gyrod looked at Yuler, then turned to look at Baycorf.

"I think you have a strong suspicion about who did it, but you just don't want to believe it's true" Gyrod remarked.

"Who exactly do we suspect?" Yuler asked him.

"That gray that works with the Network….Yanakris" Gyrod said in a deep, soft voice. "We gave him the remains of Zardin and in return he calculated the SPG routes to bring the Fire Flower and the rest of the minor Nal'Larak clans back from exile. I'm really surprised that you haven't figured that out."

"You're lying to me" Baycorf said.

"What? You don't think Yanakris would do that? He and Dalton Dover have but one obsession – to overthrow the royal family and more specifically open the secrets Royal Ministry of Science. Do you still really believe that when your precious metaphysicsts abandoned those that had trusted them during the darkest days of the war is going to come and save you from Avistra or Gaia?"

"They're coming!" Baycorf barked before Gyrod had a chance to speak. "I can feel their vibrations." Both he and Yuler quickly got into the Swordfish and they sped away well before the hoplites arrived to rescue their abducted chief.

"You know something about Dover and Yanakris that I don't?" Yuler asked sounding sort of angry as they sat in the cockpit and were leaving the atmosphere.

"I know what you're thinking" Baycorf said. "And I'd advise you to not think it."

"I'm going to make sure Zorthia and Gall know about this" Yuler said with a mad look still on his face.

"Go right ahead and do that. I won't stop you. But don't think that I never had any suspicion of the Network."

"And do you still have that suspicion?" Yuler asked not feeling placated.

"No. Even Nateedra's map doesn't have SPG routes into adjacent quadrants of the galaxy, and I've heard Dover complain about that. Someone did give them the routes – which they'd definitely need to safely take big ships they brought from the other side of the galaxy – and I doubt it was the Network."

" But who else could it have been? I hate to say it" Yuler remarked, "but I think Gyrod might have a point about the metaphysicists. If they are so munificent, why have they disappeared?"

"Perhaps they didn't want to end up being imprisoned or frozen by Queen Tarissa."

"She died years ago and has been out of power for almost two hominid generations now" Yuler said.

"Right" Baycorf said, that's why Zorthia had the power to unfreeze me and never did until Roggle needed my help human hunting."

"Well, if you and your kind weren't so unpredictable, maybe you wouldn't have been frozen."

"Unpredictable" Baycorf echoed pulling the levers and pushing buttons on the SPG navigation console. "That's just a hominid word for something hominids are either unable or unwilling to understand." They both began their journey back to the Network HQ and Yuler said nothing more.