by Tim Marquitz
Alshan Ra turned his gaze on Skol. “I did indeed.” He raised a finger to belay any further comments, and the master turned to Blas. “Suit up and make ready to meet Elerus,” he told the man.
The disciple raised his head and stared wide-eyed at Alshan Ra, and Skol almost laughed at his shocked expression.
“Join your brothers,” Alshan Ra told him, being clearer this time so there was no misunderstanding. “Join the war. Suit up.”
Blas staggered to his feet and visibly swallowed hard. Alshan Ra grinned at him and waved another of his acolytes over.
“Prepare him.”
The disciple nodded and practically dragged Blas away, over to where the rest of the zealots were strapping on bombs. Skol followed him until he disappeared into the swarming crowd, then he turned back to Alshan Ra.
The man stared back at him without blinking.
“I hope you don’t expect me to strap on a bomb and go gleefully into the hereafter, Master,” Skol said, letting the sliver of a smirk play across his lips.
Alshan Ra grinned at his impudence. “I’ve no such task set for you, Skol Arduin.” He shook his head. “No, no menial self-sacrifice for you,” he whispered low enough that only Skol heard him.
“Then why is it you asked to see me?”
“I brought you here to witness your failure,” Alshan Ra told him.
Skol sighed, realizing his earlier presumption was correct. Alshan Ra had brought him here to teach him the error of his ways, and Skol regretted allowing his men to remain outside.
On the other hand, he hoped Vetrus enjoyed being in charge, however long it lasted.
Alshan Ra brought up a holo on the screen mounted nearby, and Skol recognized the arena, though he had no understanding as to why the man would show him that.
“What is this?” he asked, then he spotted the dark-outfitted warriors battling the automaton and recognized them as the Furlorians from their battle with his droids. “Ah, I see.”
Skol moved closer to the screen to better see the battle play out. “May I ask how is this a failure if the fools were made to fight the automaton? Warpath surely made short work of these operatives, whether they ever truly worked for the Etheric Federation or not.”
“Continue to watch,” Alshan Ra prompted, and Skol felt a knot tighten in his stomach. While his master was fond of theatrics, especially in front of the disciples, he rarely ever displayed that side to Skol.
That told him he was about to witness something he didn’t want to.
And sure enough, a moment later, the screens brightened to the point of searing his eyes. When it normalized, Skol saw the fallout of the flare. He stared at the screen in disbelief as one of the black-clad Furlorians stood in the hand of the automaton, pistol leveled, and the giant metal beast with its face turned into a searing crater.
Skol sighed, chin dropping to his chest.
If he had nothing else, he still had his honor.
He turned away from his master and looked out at the crowd of zealots who stood stock still and stared at him.
“Have them do it then,” Skol told Alshan Ra, meeting the eyes of the disciples until they looked away.
Alshan Ra came over and stood alongside him, waving at his acolytes. “I would never let such filth dishonor your memory, Skol Arduin.” Smiling and motioning them on, he told the robed men, “Go and make Elerus proud.”
The acolytes followed his order without question and filled out of the building until there were only a handful left. Skol watched as Blas shuffled toward the door, doing his best to be last to avoid being part of what was soon to happen.
He stared at Skol, who simply smiled back and offered a farewell nod as the last of the acolytes helped usher him out and closed the door behind them.
Maybe I am more than Blas after all, Skol thought.
And that was the last thing he ever thought as Alshan Ra drove a blade through the base of his neck and up into his skull.
“May Elerus welcome you to her breast with open arms, child,” Alshan Ra said as Skol’s world sank toward eternal darkness. “Destiny awaits.”
Chapter Nineteen
After dropping Grom off in his hideout, Taj and Dent raced to meet Lina and the rest of the crew near the palatial gardens. They realized a few short minutes later just how daunting a task Taj had set for them when they caught up to them in a narrow alley off the main track.
“About time,” Torbon sniped as Taj and Dent ran up alongside the crew. A crush of people milled about cheerfully on the street just a short distance away on the other side of them.
“Where’s the courtyard?” Taj asked.
“This is it,” Lina replied. “Well, that is actually,” she clarified, pointing beyond a short wall of barriers at the end of the alley and at the backs of the thousands of people clustered together. “The stage is on the far side of all this, by the way.” Lina looped her hand around to kind of give an example of the location.
Taj swallowed hard as she stared out over the heads of the crowd, the courtyard at the slightest of declines to allow for each successive row of people to get an equally clear view. And just like Dent had said, there had to be thousands of people there, all crammed in together. It was the perfect environment for a massacre.
She watched as they waved banners and cheered, smiles apparently the outfit of the day among the serpentine crowd.
“What the gack do they have to be so happy about?” she asked.
“Not much, really.” Dent shook his head.
“Then why are they smiling like that?” She jabbed a finger at the crowd.
“This regime is quite totalitarian in its rule,” the AI explained. “It’s either join the crowd and smile and celebrate like everyone else or have the Heltrol visit you in the middle of the night. You can imagine how that might turn out.”
Taj groaned. She really wished then that she’d spent more time researching the mission and the people she’d be dealing with. Maybe that was part of what General Reynolds wanted out of her and the crew, for them to understand the true complexity of what it was they were asking for when they asked to join the Federation.
Taj sighed as she imagined the General thinking exactly that as he sent the crew into space on their very first mission.
If that were the case, she’d need to watch the man more carefully next time he sent them off as it was clear he was far more devious than his direct, friendly nature let on.
Taj shook those thoughts away. She needed to be focused on the here and now.
“Were you able to stop any of the zealots?” she asked.
Lina shook her head. “The crowd was here already,” she replied. “By the time we showed up, the zealots were moving into the audience. It was too late.”
Taj looked at her friend and noticed the paleness around her normally-bright eyes. She felt instantly bad for her, knowing Lina was taking all this personal. When people died out in the crowd today, Lina would be thinking it was her fault, no matter how untrue that was.
Taj realized she’d be thinking the same way soon enough.
“We need to get up to the stage where we can warn the queen,” Taj said, looking around for a way to do just that.
“Unlikely,” Dent told her. He gestured toward the barricades. “Look closer.”
She did and spotted a number of battle droids set along the edge of the throng where she hadn’t noticed them earlier.
On top of that, there were a number of Heltrol soldiers patrolling both within the crowd and around it, and the crew had to turn away a couple times to avoid being identified as they marched past.
Taj looked around more and spotted what looked like an army of Heltrol snipers on the roofs, as well.
“They’re going all out,” Taj stated, impressed by the queen’s defenses despite her security services ignoring Dent’s anonymous warnings and his inability to get in touch with Zel.
She thought for a moment that maybe the queen would be safe enough given the massive arr
ay of multi-tiered security amassed in the area.
Maybe she and the crew could step back and let the Heltrol handle it. The queen’s safety wasn’t what they were there for, after all. While Taj would no doubt regret the loss of life that happened, could she truly be blamed for it?
And while the answer was no, Taj knew there was no way she could allow anything to happen without trying her best to stop it.
That simply wasn’t who she was.
Besides, she knew the leader of the Heltrol couldn’t be trusted.
Still, she wasn’t sure what she could do.
This far away from the stage, there was simply no way to get a message to the queen without drawing undue attention to themselves. And between the zealots and the Heltrol gunning for them, she couldn’t see how any of them would manage to get close enough to make a difference.
Taj moved right up to the barricades, coughing and looking away as a Heltrol soldier slid through the crowd just a couple meters away. Once the soldier was gone, she eased onto the barricade itself, staying low enough not to draw attention to herself.
From her position, she had a clear view of the stage, though it looked as if ants crawled across it, she was so far away. She adjusted her eyepiece and zoomed in, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
There, a short distance behind the array of microphones where Taj knew Queen Rilan would be speaking to her people, stood Commander Rolkar and the thin, pale Zel.
Armed and armored as always, Rolkar stood at attention, looking the perfect little soldier in her black and red outfit. Her weapon was within easy grasp and from the looks of it, only poor old Zel was anywhere near enough to stop her should she do something horrible.
Taj cursed, and Cabe came up behind her, setting a hand on her side.
“What?”
Taj dropped down to face him and the rest of the crew that joined them.
“Commander Rolkar’s on the stage,” she stated, snarling. “There are soldiers at her back, but there’s no one but Zel between her and the queen once she’s on stage.”
Krawg glanced over at Dent. “Ship guns?”
Dent gave an apologetic shake of his head. “The automaton was made of sufficiently dense enough material that it absorbed the brunt of the Arrant’s weakest blast and there was little concern about the shot traveling through the thing.”
He motioned toward the crowd and stage.
“If I unleash that kind of firepower here, we might as well walk away and let the zealots kill who they will. It would end up being far less than we would in our attempt to save people.”
“Yeah, let’s not up the body count,” Cabe agreed. “I think there’s been more than enough already.”
“I agree,” Taj said. “Which means we’re gonna need to do something soon, even if it’s something stupid and reckless.”
“So, the same as most every other plan?” Krawg asked for confirmation.
Taj thought about it for a second and nodded. “Yeah, pretty much, it looks like.”
The crowd erupted into a frenzy, and Taj knew exactly what that meant. The queen had arrived.
Taj spun around and clambered back onto the barrier, zooming in on the stage. Sure enough, the queen was regally waltzing onto the stage, having just passed the legion of soldiers who would be guarding her back.
She stepped by Rolkar and Zel and offered both a smile on her way toward the microphones. Taj felt sick seeing the woman be so friendly to Rolkar.
Then she reached the microphone array and greeted the crowd to massive applause. The queen droned on in the background, thanking her people for their turnout, which Taj scoffed at having realized it was forced, and went on about how long it had been since she’d seen her sibling and how happy she was to have him returned to the kingdom and the planet.
Taj listened to the woman prattle on, knowing how short time was, and she wished she could scream loud enough to be heard all the way to the stage.
And then an idea hit her.
“Dent! Lina!” she called out.
The pair came closer, and Taj glanced over her shoulder at them without relinquishing her spot on the barrier.
“Can either of you take control of the PA system?”
Lina’s eyes brightened. “Oh Rowl, that is genius.”
“Hmmm,” Dent muttered. “I wonder why I didn’t think of that.”
Taj tapped the side of her head. “Logic?”
“You’re getting there.” Dent nodded before turning to face Lina, the pair hunkering down over the screens on their arms. “Let’s see if we can isolate the frequency.”
“It’ll be tough since I can’t imagine this is the first time someone’s tried it on them before.”
“No doubt, but no one on this planet has our acumen, do they?”
“Gacking straight they don’t,” Lina shouted, her fingers flying over her keypad.
Taj took a deep breath and looked away from the confusing mess of numbers and symbols the two were working on, looking back to the stage. Another roar went up as she did.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw who had joined the queen on stage.
The man strode up to the microphones to a roaring celebration that rivaled anything Taj had heard in the arena. Yet Taj couldn’t make a sound. Her throat seized and threatened to close on her, choking her breath away.
It wasn’t until Queen Rolkar kissed the man on the cheek and turned to the crowd, announcing him, that Taj broke free of the spell she’d fallen under.
“May I introduce, once again, my dearest brother, Alshan Ra, Prince Regent of Zoranthan,” she said. “Welcome him home.”
The crowd erupted, and Taj slipped from her perch.
“Oh…gack,” she managed to spit out.
The crew, clearly seeing her reaction, moved into position to get a better look, and they all froze, staring wide-eyed at the stage where the leader of the zealots stood hand-in-hand with the queen.
Brother, Taj thought, the word springing to mind as she gawked at the stage. And then it all made sense.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she cried out, realization striking hard. “Dent! Grom didn’t mean his brother, he meant the queen’s! He was warning us!”
Those words barely out of her mouth when a dozen explosions erupted in the crowd, filling the air with screams of terror and cruel black smoke.
Chapter Twenty
Explosion after explosion rang out, and Taj’s heart ached with every one of them.
The zealots had begun their work, and innocents were paying the price for it.
The crowd, dying in fiery agony, surged and pushed outward, desperately trying to flee the carnage.
Without reason to hold back any longer, Taj leapt over the barriers and into the crowd, pushing hard toward the stage with everything she had. She knew without looking back that the crew was doing the same.
“Clear the crowd,” she screamed over the comm and pushed on. “Save as many as you can!”
Another explosion erupted nearby, and Taj felt nameless debris patter off her armor. She did her best not to imagine it for what it truly was.
Instead, she pressed harder, shoving people out of her way and leaping over their heads to clear as much distance as possible with every spurt of motion.
She noticed the crowd had peeled away from the stage, fleeing and scattering in every direction to get away, but the Heltrol held their ground, pushing them back into the conflagration.
Taj realized then that the zealots had known that would happen, had been counting on it. Bile rose in the back of her throat, but Taj denied it, swallowing it back. She would not let these murderers, these butchers, win.
She leapt over the crowd again, aiming her sights on the stage while she had a few seconds of unobstructed view.
Queen Rilan stood at the microphones, staring out at the crowd with wide, wet eyes. Taj could see fear in her rigid posture, in the stiffness of her jaw, her mouth cracked open in disbelief.
The zealot leader had eased back,
leaving his sister to her astonishment. There was no hint of concern or caring in his expression. He looked only as if he wanted to retreat from the chaos and slip away.
Taj landed and leapt again, apologizing in her mind to the people she bowled over as she loped through the throng, trying to reach the queen.
While she was in the air again, she caught sight of Commander Rolkar. The woman had her pistol out and was racing forward, straight toward Queen Rilan, who still stood there frozen in shock.
Zel, to Taj’s amazement, had launched himself at the queen even quicker than Rolkar had. He streaked across the stage, his robes fluttering behind him as though he was flying.
Taj was impressed by his tenacity as he raced to protect his queen despite being an old, infirm man with a questionable sense of reality.
Taj pictured his confusion in the vehicle after they’d been ambushed. He’d been terrified, and Rolkar had to comfort him to keep him calm.
Fury warmed Taj’s cheeks as she pictured Rolkar sitting so close, plotting, planning, waiting for this moment. And here it was, and the only person who could stop the queen from dying was pathetic old Zel.
Commander Rolkar raised her pistol and took aim, and Taj shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Zealots reached the last line of the Heltrol and detonated their bombs, blowing away the last defense between the queen and the zealots in the crowd. But Taj knew she had a greater worry right then: the assassin at her back.
Taj hit the ground once more and threw everything into the last leap she knew she’d get before all hope was lost.
She soared above what remained of the crowd, charred bodies and billows of smoke, but Taj refused to look down, to acknowledge what was there. She’d have to face it soon enough, but not now.
No, now she needed to save the queen.
Taj willed her weapon to her hand and raised it in front of her, struggling to target Rolkar as she flew through the air like an errant missile.
Her eyepiece zoned in, and Taj could see the desperation and the sheer determination on Commander Rolkar’s face as she lowered her weapon and made ready to fire while the scene around the queen turned into a blur.