by Tim Marquitz
While the original plan had been fairly simple—use the cover of their visit with the Orgesse as a way to go into town and seek out Grom’s last known location and see what could be found there—the circumstances had changed.
Between being locked in the palace and the whole city, possibly the whole planet, having seen their faces, which inexorably linked them to the Orgesse Clan, putting a target on their heads with regards to the other clans, their plan was shot all to gack.
“I’m thinking we wait it out and see what happens once we get an audience with the queen,” Torbon said, pausing for only a moment before returning to his meal. “Maybe things aren’t as bad as we’re making them out to be.”
“You just want to stay close to the food,” Lina told him, rolling her eyes.
“No sense letting it all go to waste,” he argued.
“We can’t wait that long,” Taj said with a growl.
She could picture Grom Hadar out there, hiding and hoping the Federation found him before something bad happened. She could picture being him, could feel his fear and uncertainty, and she hated it. There was no way she would let him down. She had to believe he was alive and in hiding. Otherwise, everything they were going through had no purpose. Unless it was a live training mission and there was no Grom Hadar. She wondered if the Federation was playing them, seeing what the Furlorians were made of.
“I have an idea,” she said.
“Is it a good one?” Torbon asked.
Taj shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Chapter Six
Skol Arduin watched the newscast as it played across the pair of view screens set in the wall across from his seat. He clenched his fists and did his best to swallow his frustration at what he saw.
He failed miserably.
His men moved quietly around the room behind him, doing their best to stay out of sight where they wouldn’t inadvertently become the target of his wrath. They knew exactly what would happen to them if they didn’t.
He admired their wisdom, even if it meant he would have to wait a little longer in order to vent the fury that churned in his belly. Skol could wait, he told himself.
He would wait.
So, rather than take his anger out on those doing their best to avoid antagonizing him, he gnawed at his lower lip and mustered all the patience he could manage, his foot tapping the floor in a rhythmic thump.
And just when he’d decided he really couldn’t wait any longer, Vetrus, his right-hand man, came over and stood alongside his chair.
“Blas has returned,” Vetrus said, the man’s voice making each word sound like he was spitting out glass.
“About damn time,” Skol barked, fighting the urge to jump up and storm off after the fool. Vetrus’s presence helped rein him in, but it did nothing to temper his rage.
A few moments later, there was a shuffle at the front of the room and a handful of his men escorted Blas into the room, making sure he had no choice but to march directly up to where Skol sat.
Skol met the man’s three good eyes, a grin peeling Skol’s lips back as he spied the trickle of sweat that ran in the groove of the man’s scar.
“You’ve made the news, Blas,” Skol told him, gesturing toward the view screens that replayed the aftermath of the battle in an endless loop. “You know what I always say about that, don’t you?”
Blas swallowed hard, offering up a plaintive nod. “Never let anyone film our failure,” he said barely above a whisper.
Skol wagged a finger at him. “No, that’s not exactly what I say, is it?”
Blas trembled but said nothing.
Skol drew in a deep breath and let it out slow, climbing to his feet. He drew forward slowly, coming to stand eye-to-eye with Blas.
“Never let anyone film your failure, is what I always say, Blas,” Skol corrected. “You remember now?”
Blas offered up a pathetic nod.
“I say that, of course, because your failure doesn’t define me,” Skol went on. “Except when it does, of course.” Skol grinned and reached out, clasping Blas’s shoulder with one of his hands, giving it a hard squeeze. “And this—” His eyes motioned to the screens. “—this is damn definitive, Blas.”
Skol released him and returned to his chair, dropping down with a grunt.
“Imagine my absolute joy when I turned on the news to see all my men dead and scattered in pieces all over the street while those I sent you to collect stare at the camera as if they’re mocking me for trusting such an incompetent shit such as yourself,” he said. “How do you think that makes me feel, Blas?”
“Not good,” Blas answered, squeezing the words out.
“Damn right,” Skol agreed, thumping a fist against the arm of his chair. “Not good, Blas. Not good at all.”
“They…they put up a fight,” Blas managed. “I-it wasn’t as easy as he said it would be. They—”
“It-it-it was too hard,” Skol mocked, mimicking Blas’s stutter. “H-he s-said it would be easy.”
Blas withered under Skol’s glare.
Skol growled at his subordinate’s cowardice and jumped back to his feet.
“That’s why I sent a damn army with you, Blas,” Skol shouted, stomping over to loom in front of Blas once more, his heavy-booted steps echoing through the room. “An army that is now dead and blown into gory little pieces that the news is showing over and over.” He jabbed a finger into Blas’s chest. “Now tell me, Blas, did the rich little royal kids blow my army up? Did the Heltrol bitches?”
Blas shook his head, tremors rattling through him as he did.
“No, I didn’t think so. It’s not like people run around carrying grenades with them all the time. Except you, of course,” Skol told him, letting out a weary sigh. “You blew them up trying to get away, didn’t you?”
“T-they were already dead before I threw the grenade, I swear,” Blas answered, choking out the words. “T-those cats killed them. Shot them down from behind, butchered them without mercy.”
“Did they now?” Skol asked, inching even closer. He could smell the fear wafting off Blas as he did. “Those waify-looking balls of fur killed my army?”
Blas nodded so hard he nearly stumbled, throwing himself off balance.
Skol straightened and shoved the man out of his face. He twisted his head sideways, popping the bones in his neck. Vibrations rattled down his spine. He wanted so badly to strangle someone right then.
“The cats killed my men?” he asked again, Blas falling over himself to assure Skol that they had.
Skol turned away and returned to his chair, pacing in front of it, rubbing at his stubbled chin.
“I should kill you right now, Blas,” Skol told him, turning back around and walking to stand in front of the wreck of a man that was Blas. “I should…but I won’t.”
Blas dropped to his knees and blubbered his thanks, tears and spit spattering the floor before him.
“I actually believe you,” Skol said, resting a hand on Blas’s head. “I’d been led to think the latest Orgesse visitors were nothing more than royal brats, a means to a quick ransom like all the others before them, but maybe I was wrong.”
Skol motioned for his men to lift Blas to his feet. They complied, and Blas did his best to stay there on his own, swaying side to side as though he might collapse again despite his reprieve.
“I need you to deliver a message for me, Blas. Can you do that?” Skol asked.
“Y-yes!” Blas replied, his face a river of snot and tears.
Skol sighed. “Here’s what I need you to do,” he said, filling in Blas on the details of his message. Then, before he let the man go, he took a good look at the ruin standing before him. “Clean yourself up first,” he told him, motioning to his men. “Get him out of here.”
Once Blas was escorted out, Skol turned back to Vetrus, who had stood his ground alongside Skol’s chair with a statue’s stoicism.
“I want to see him,” Skol said.
Vetrus
nodded and spun on a heel, marching off. Skol followed, his right-hand man leading him to an unassuming set of doors hidden in the shadows at the back of the room. The doors hissed open as the pair arrived, and they stepped inside. The doors closed, and the elevator sank into the floor.
A few moments later they had arrived, and the doors eased open. Skol followed Vetrus out of the elevator and down a long, dimly-lit corridor that reeked of copper and wet stone. The air grew colder as they walked, and Skol could see the barest hint of his breath billowing with every step.
They passed rows of thick, steel doors as they made their way to the end of the hall, where another heavy door loomed. Vetrus halted in front of it and set a hand upon an access plate on the wall beside it. A green light flickered, scanning the man’s palm, and then there was a loud thump as a series of bolts came undone.
Vetrus pulled the door open with a grunt, and a wave of fetid air escaped the room and washed over Skol. He grunted and turned his face from the cloying scent, making sure to breathe through his mouth to avoid the worst of it.
“He smells quite ripe,” Skol muttered, shaking his head. “Perhaps it’s time to pluck him, Vetrus. What do you say?”
Vetrus chuckled, the sound like shards of glass grinding together, and slipped into the room. Skol went in after him and spied the wretched heap that he’d caught a whiff of before he’d even entered the room.
Curled up in the far corner of the small, sparse cell, which contained nothing but its prisoner, an emaciated man hunkered down and stared out at Skol, all four of his eyes narrow, yellow slits gleaming in the darkness.
“You’re looking good, Grom,” Skol told the prisoner, moving over to stand in the middle of the cell. “Prison suits you.”
Grom spit at Skol, but the wet missile barely escaped his lips.
Skol shrugged. “Maybe he’s not ready quite yet.”
Vetrus stepped forward in a blur of motion and backhanded Grom, slamming his head into the wall and causing the prisoner to cry out and topple over onto his hands and knees.
“Show some respect, Hadar, or I’ll carve your eyes out of your skull,” Vetrus threatened.
Blood dripped from Grom’s mouth and dotted the floor beneath him. He sat back on his haunches, one hand clutching the back of his skull.
Skol raised his arm and tapped on a device, a small screen brightening and illuminating the gloomy cell. An image of the Furlorians appeared on the screen, taken directly from the news. They stared directly at the camera, and Skol clasped Grom by the back of his scraggly hair and shoved the screen in his face.
“Who are these people?”
Grom shook his head, barely glancing at the screen.
“Are these your Federation contacts?” Skol pressed, tightening his grip and forcing Grom to look more closely at the image before him. “Are they here for you?”
Grom Hadar snarled and bared his teeth, stained red from Vetrus’s blow. “No one’s coming for me,” he spat. “No one cares.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that, Grom,” Skol told him. “We found evidence of your discussions with the Etheric Federation and its people, all behind the backs of your supposed Orgesse allies.”
Skol released him, and Grom slumped to the floor, still glaring.
“If we hadn’t, we’d have turned you over to the Heltrol for a tidy sum of credits, and you’d already be free of us,” Skol said. “Now look at you, trapped in a dirty cell and slowly starving. Is this how you want to go out, Grom? A skeletal wretch dying in anonymity in an underground prison?”
Grom straightened as best he could, biting back a grunt. “It’s better than giving in to you,” he mustered, blood-flecked spittle flying with every word.
Skol shook his head. “I don’t think even you believe that,” he replied. “We will break you eventually, and you will tell us everything you intended to tell the Federation about the Orgesse Clan soon enough.”
Skol took a step back, grinning like a feral hound.
“And if you won’t, your feline friends most certainly will.”
Grom snarled and leapt at Skol, fists raised, but Vetrus intercepted him.
A brutal punch to the prisoner’s jaw sent him sprawling. Grom crashed into the wall and groaned as he fell to the cold, stone floor. A small pool of crimson blood formed beneath his drooling mouth. He raised a trembling hand toward Skol, muttering a curse that could be determined only by the curl of his upper lip and its tone.
“You betray yourself with your actions, Grom,” Skol announced. “That you would risk injury to defend these off-worlders tells me that they might well be important to you after all. That’s good enough for me at this point to insist they be brought before me.”
He motioned with a thumb over his shoulder.
“You’ll likely have neighbors soon, so think well on what you plan to tell them as we will most assuredly let them know they are here because of you.”
Skol spun on his heel and started for the door, pausing when he reached it. He looked to Grom once more, then turned his attention on Vetrus.
“Patch him up so we don’t lose him before we acquire his accomplices,” he told his second, offering a toothy grin. “Then break him a little.”
Skol chuckled and left the room, leaving his captive in the cruel hands of Vetrus, knowing full well the joy his man felt at doing harm.
“Just a little, Vetrus,” Skol called out as he left the hall and returned to the elevator.
He drew in a deep breath of moist air, glad to be free of the stink of the cell and its hostage. Skol rode the elevator, reveling in the silence as his thoughts whirled, and he plotted how to get his hands on the Federation operatives that had come to rescue Grom Hadar.
They would soon need rescuing themselves, he thought.
His master would be pleased.
Chapter Seven
“You sure about this?” Cabe asked, cringing when he realized what he’d done.
Taj stiffened and snarled at him. “You know I hate that question.”
“It makes it no less valid, though,” Lina commented. “You’re taking an awful chance doing this.”
“Which is why I’m doing it, no one else,” she answered.
“That still doesn’t answer my question,” Cabe told her.
She turned and pecked him on the lips.
“And kissing up on me isn’t gonna distract me either,” he said.
Torbon raised his hand. “It would me,” he called out. “I’m next.”
Lina elbowed him in the ribs, doubling him over with a, “Whoof!”
“No one is next,” the engineer declared, “especially not you.”
Krawg brushed the fur out of his face and puckered up. “You sure? I could be convinced to keep these ruffians in line for a kiss.”
Taj rolled her eyes. “Yes, gack it, I’m sure,” she answered, jabbing a finger Krawg’s direction to make sure he knew she was talking to him. “I’m not kissing anyone else, and I’m going. It’s decided.”
“But we don’t know when Commander Rolkar or whoever will come back to collect us,” Cabe argued. “It could be any minute now.”
“Then I’m wasting time sitting here arguing with you,” she replied.
Her clothes wavered and shifted from the fancy royal garb she’d been wearing into a tight black suit that emphasized her lean build. The material shimmered as it absorbed the light in the room.
“I still don’t think you should do it,” Cabe argued, “but I definitely don’t think you should do it alone. Let me come with you.”
“We should all go,” Torbon said.
“Then what happens when no one is here to meet with the queen?” Lina asked. “You think they’re gonna just let that go without looking into it?” She sighed, shaking her head. “We came here with a cover, and we need to maintain it.” Lina pointed at Taj. “I don’t necessarily agree with her idea, but with us being locked down in the palace thanks to that clustergack that happened on our way here, I’m not thinki
ng we have much of a choice.”
“While I also agree it’s not the wisest course of action given that we have no definitive time frame for our meeting with Queen Rilan,” Dent told the crew, “I’m also seeing little option here if we are to find Grom Hadar in a timely manner. Someone must go out and search for him.”
“Why can’t that someone be you?” Cabe asked Dent, clearly frustrated by his inability to convince Taj not to run off and do something stupid.
“Because he’s our representative,” Taj explained. “He’ll be the one speaking for us, he’s the one who has all the answers, and he’s the one who can convince the queen that we might actually have something they want from us.”
“And you think they won’t notice you missing?” Cabe went on, unwilling to let it go.
“I’m sick,” Taj replied with a cough, holding her stomach. “The journey and the stress of the attack made me ill,” she explained with a sly grin. “We’re supposed to be these pampered little royals, so they’ll believe that, but not if all of us are gone and there’s only Dent and Krawg here.”
“If all of you are going, then so am I,” Krawg complained. He glanced at the serving carts, which he and Torbon had visited many times since they’d been brought in. “Besides, you need someone to carry the food.”
“I like the way you think, Krawg,” Torbon told the Ursite, wandering over to the carts again and grabbing a meat wrap for himself and one for Krawg, tossing it to the Ursite. Krawg grunted and stuffed the wrap in his mouth.
“No one else is going!” Taj nearly shouted, raising her hands in frustration when she realized how loud she’d gotten. “Just me, and I’m going now,” she said, backing away from the group and marching toward the rear bedroom where they’d located a window that led out of the palace and toward the town. She paused at the door and glanced over her shoulder at the crew. “Cover for me when they come to collect us. I won’t be gone long.”
“We’ll stay in touch on the comm,” Dent told her, “but be cautious out there. If we are to remain in the role of a royal Furlorian attaché, then you might well and truly be on your own once you leave the palace. It’s likely we won’t be able to rush off and come after you should something occur.”