What went wrong? Hess wondered. He had done his best to keep Hessian’s interests on Mars, saving thousands of jobs and keeping a shaky economy afloat. And now, even though the whole Alliance had entered a severe downturn, it was targeting the company most responsible for keeping humanity’s ‘Second Planet’ alive.
The HUVR stopped at a towering apartment spire just a few minutes south of downtown. Hess hopped out, moved briskly through the stinging cold and passed under a pair of trees that drooped over the doorway just inside the lobby. The lift doors slid open in welcome and he pressed his thumbprint against a reader.
“Colin Hess to see Elijah Perry,” he said clearly into a shiny voxcom.
There was a moment of pause before the AI responded. “Granted. One moment please.”
The lift rose through the exterior shaft overlooking the twinkling towers of Pioneer City, and an aircab zipped past the window. Hess ran a hand through his brittle hair and adjusted his glasses, watching his reflection in the window.
Jesus, I’ve gotten old.
“Elijah Perry,” the AI announced and the lift slid to a halt. Hess coughed and stepped off of the lift into a massive living room overlooking Catalan Lake, the large body of water directly south of the city’s center. During summer, Catalan was covered in boaters and her beaches were clogged. But now, in winter, chunks of ice peppered the black water’s surface, the lake looking like a murky inkblot against the lights of the surrounding affluent suburbs.
A tall, fit, dark-haired man in his early forties entered the living room and acknowledged Hess. “Colin, good to see you as always. I didn’t think you’d be dropping in so soon…”
“I don’t have a lot of time, Perry. What happened in Los Angeles yesterday?”
Perry paused. “Drink?”
“What?”
“Would you like a drink?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine.”
Perry nodded and poured himself a glass of scotch. “I’m not sure what went wrong. Maybe our friends timed the blast a few minutes too early. Or the speech wasn’t running on schedule.”
“You know we won’t get another crack at Paine now.”
“Not necessarily. We just need to bide our time.”
“We don’t have time, Perry.”
The younger of the two men shrugged. “Not really my problem, Colin. If you weren’t so rushed on production…”
“Of course I’m rushed on production. Anyone can drop in on the old factory in the Verge and see that we have a refining facility and cooling vat set up.”
“What does Schroeder say?”
“He’s behind schedule like always. I’ll handle Klaus, he’s my responsibility.”
“This is really all your responsibility if you think about it,” Perry commented with a sarcastic smile and sipped on his scotch. “I hope you realize that you came to me for help, right? This is me doing you a favor.”
“This shouldn’t be so goddamn difficult. The Raptors are the problem. I should never have listened to you.”
“Regardless of their involvement, we aren’t doing everything we can. You heard that Emperor Ruskir was assassinated during the Urkuran, no?”
Hess nodded. “Of course.”
“Exactly. You have Grakko and his contacts in the Empire pulling off a flawless operation, and we here in the Alliance can’t even pull off a gift-wrapped bombing. President Haimon was a worthless target without Paine.”
Hess sat down and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Perry, I just don’t know what we can do now…”
“We wait, and then we do what we’ve intended all along. Besides, Schroeder will probably want to move to the auxiliary site soon anyways. We have more than enough time.”
“Goddamn that Prussian bastard. And goddamn those krokator! I’ve been doing them a favor for years, selling them guns, helping pay for their cause, and now that the shit’s hit the fan they act like this mess is my fault.”
“You just leave the krokator to me, Colin, and don’t worry so much.”
“Don’t worry? This is my company, goddamnit! This is my legacy! My family!”
“True.”
Hess glanced at Perry. “True. That’s all you can say? True?”
“What else do you want me to say? I’ll need to talk to Jurkken, figure out where to go from here. We may have failed today but there are greater victories to be made. Nothing ever goes according to plan.”
The industrialist shook his head. “I don’t know, Eli. I thought we’d have more time without Paine in the picture. We’d have been able to do more damage.”
“It’s alright, Colin. All hope is not lost.” Perry poured another glass of scotch. “Relax, step back, and let me handle everything. Proceed as planned. I’m better at the dirty work than you are, Colin.”
“Fine.”
“Now, I need to handle said dirty work, and I have a shuttle back to Terra in two hours. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Very well. I’ll be in touch.”
“I know you will, Colin. Goodbye.”
Chapter Nine: Ankina
Planet Rukkur, Kroka System
Zurra stared out of the civilian shuttle’s window, thinking about the past few hours. He had been woken up in a hospital bed by Admiral Tarkas, who had told him that his injuries were minimal and that he had been cleared for combat.
“You were knocked out,” Tarkas explained as Zurra got out of bed. “The doctors say you are fine and just recommended you stretch before doing anything strenuous.”
“Understood,” Zurra grunted, his head still spinning. The next fifteen minutes were a bit of a blur but he remembered the important parts.
“The Emperor is dead,” Tarkas had continued as they made their way to the shuttle from the makeshift hospital in the heart of the Krokandir. “He was murdered by the Hudda Kugrall in cold blood, and now we retaliate. You know your mission and it is time to fulfill it.”
Zurra leaned back in the seat of the shuttle. His back was still smarting with pain from the blow he had received – was it from a stungun? The weapon was rare in the Empire due to the prevalence of the Obedience Stick, but ranged stunning weapons were not unheard of. And who had shot him? He had faint memories of some silhouette towering over the Emperor, but he was unsure if he could identify the assassin if necessary.
No matter, he thought. I can manage just fine in Ankina even if I am a little sore. The Emperor must be avenged.
Assassinated Emperors were no new phenomenon in the Empire’s long, bloody history. Every new dynasty rose largely by the wanton slaughter of a power-hungry cousin’s incumbent relatives. The great Admiral Oranokk had become Emperor in a military coup. Some suspected that Tolakko’s Progressive Movement would eventually topple the Urkus dynasty, and once that occurred, Tolakko’s speeches about moderate reforms would evaporate as he consolidated his power through violent purges. If that were the case, an officer as close to the leadership as Zurra was sure to be targeted. The Empire was a dangerous place to make important friends. Had he really made those friends, though, or had they sought him out on his father’s reputation?
His memory wandered back to the day of his graduation from the Imperial Academy, when his father had approached him on the commencement field and given him his grandfather’s ceremonial armlet.
“Akgu Murskk wore this armlet, which he earned in service to the Empire,” his father had said proudly as he slid the armlet onto his son’s arm. “He was a hero of the Fifth Human-Krokator War, and I recall him returning from campaigns when I was a krokling. Your grandfather was killed in battle like a true warrior and hero of the Empire. Now you can be a hero of the Empire, and wear this in his honor.”
Zurra knew why he had received the armlet, which he wore religiously, only removing it to wash his arm. His elder brother, Turka, had died before he was able to finish his own training at the Academy, and the armlet was as much for him as for Zurra.
It was no secret in his household as a
child that Turka was the favorite of the two sons. He was the eldest, and Zurra was three human years his junior.
“I do not prefer either of you,” Juska would lie over dinner meals. “You are both my sons, and you will both be fine krokator one day, and serve the Emperor nobly.”
The Emperor had been an almost deific figure in the Akgu household on Kenka, a small farming world just outside of the Inner Ring. Zurra had been taught by his father to memorize the Oath of Obedience before most other kroklings knew their daily prayers. He had been taught that the Emperor was never wrong, and that superiors were always to be obeyed diligently. There was absolutely no question about where the loyalty of an Akgu lay – loyalty to the Empire came before loyalty to one’s family.
At no other time was this exercised more vividly than Juska’s betrayal of his uncle, the Elder Turka, to the sukuda. Zurra had only been eight at the time, and had been walking back from primary along the dirt road that ran from the isolated school to their home on the edge of the nearest town, Fal Kurkken, when he saw his grand-uncle taken away.
A likala had been parked in front of Elder Turka’s home, which was just a mile down the road from Zurra’s. He stopped to say hello to his uncle, but as he approached the home, two large krokator emerged and regarded Zurra. “You, child, what are you doing here?”
Elder Turka poked his head out the door and saw Zurra standing there. “Zurra! Zurra my boy, come here.”
One of the two strangers made a move but the other one stopped him. “He knows the child. Wait.”
Elder Turka knelt in his doorway and took Zurra in his arms. “Here, my boy, give me a hug. You have a good day in school?”
“Is this your son?” the sympathetic stranger asked.
“No, my nephew’s,” Elder Turka replied. The old krokator’s white, patchy tokkom was disheveled. “Zurra, now, you listen to me. You go to school and you learn, alright? You understand me?”
“Akgu Turka, we must leave,” the strangers said in unison. One of them reached into the likala and Zurra saw his hand wrap around the handle of an Obedience Stick lying on the seat.
“I have dignity,” Elder Turka said, looking at the two strangers with a hard glare. “Please, my nephew’s son is here. I already told you I would come quietly.”
He turned back to Zurra. “Look, Zurra, I need to go now. Go to school and learn, you hear? Grow up and take the pogo by the tusks. Goodbye, my boy.”
He kissed the krokling tenderly on the head and climbed into the likala. The strangers jumped in and it rumbled away down the road. Zurra could see Elder Turka lean out of the window once to watch him as they drove away.
Zurra had never understood what happened that day. His father, upon hearing the confused krokling’s retelling of the story, skillfully managed to avoid the question. Turka and Zurra would team up against their father at times to get the truth out of him, especially Turka, who had loved his doting old namesake. Their father’s stubborn and stern reply was always the same:
“Akgu Turka the Elder had his time.”
“Father, Elder Turka never hurt anyone, where did he go? Why did those krokator take him?”
“Son, it was his time.”
“What did he do?”
“He had his time.”
One night, just after Turka had graduated from secondary and was spending his last few months at home before leaving for the Academy, Zurra’s elder brother woke him from his sleep and sat down on his bed.
Turka had always been taller and thinner than his younger brother, but other than that they were both spitting images of their father; they shared his hard gaze, his military jaw, and his proud posture. Zurra watched his brother’s dark face in the light of Kenka’s twin moons that night.
“Remember what you told me about Elder Turka getting taken away all those years ago, when we were kroklings?”
“Vividly.”
“Those men were sukuda – the Empire’s spies. They took away Elder Turka for being a heretic. He had given money to some men in Fal Kurkken who were going to blow up a military ship.”
“Akgu Turka the Elder was not a heretic,” Zurra stammered, in disbelief.
“Father told me he used to talk about how Emperor Dennokk was a disaster for the Empire by shambling away our galactic standing to satisfy his thirst for conquest.”
“No, this is not true.”
Turka smiled cruelly. “You know what, brother? I think father turned him in.”
“What? Why would he?”
“He swore to defend the Empire against all enemies, even domestic.”
“His own uncle?”
Turka nodded. “Yes, even his uncle. That is our father, Zurra. He would probably do the same to us if we were heretics.”
Zurra had never forgotten that exchange with Turka. It was one of the last intimate conversations he ever had with his brother. Turka went off to the Academy just over a month later, and right before the end of his first year he was killed in a heretic raid against the Academy itself.
“We are now on our final approach to Ankina,” the transport pilot announced over the intercom. “Please reattach your safety webs, as there are high winds and chance of a bumpy landing.”
The transport was a glorified cattlecar. Passengers sat stacked so tight they had to squeeze their legs together in a room that reeked of the worst of the krokator species. Zurra maneuvered his hand under a fat krokator matron to claw after his safety web. She shot him a dark look and turned away with a huff as he bashfully pulled the web diagonally across his torso.
Zurra peered out of the nearest window and saw cloud-topped mountains rising as the transport dropped altitude. Ankina was located in the heart of Rukkur’s Third Continent, astride a river that ran all the way to the larger ports on the continent’s southwestern coast.
“And if you look out to the right, you can see Mount Ank, the highest point on the continent and the fifth-tallest mountain on Rukkur,” the pilot said cheerfully as the transport circled. Zurra saw only the dark, shadowy base of the massive peak and saw traces of urban sprawl on its lowermost slopes.
The transport whined and started to lower down to a spaceport built into the side of a mountain overlooking the city. It jolted to a stop and Zurra lurched forward awkwardly from the force of the landing.
“Thank you for travelling with us and enjoy your stay in Ankina! Frusrand guide your path!”
Zurra disembarked through the rear of the transport along with a herd of equally uncomfortable civilians, finally stopping to take in the view from the spaceport’s landing pad. The spaceport was at an elevation a thousand feet above Ankina itself, and even so the sight of the dark Mount Ank was intimidating as it towered high above all surrounding peaks.
And now to find Dakkal, he thought grimly as he headed for the nearest skyrail down to the city.
#
Krokandir, Planet Rukkur, Kroka System
There was an eerie silence over the city uncharacteristic of the day after Urkuran Eve. Armed patrols had scourged the streets in every district, soldiers hunched inside slow-moving armored likala with their okka rifles clutched tightly to their bodies. A priest stirred in an abandoned street, staring out of his home and adjusting his mask and shrouds. Two civilians darted through an empty market as quickly as possible, fearing that heretics were around the corner waiting to gun them down.
Nikkwill watched all these scenes on a massive wallscreen in his private lounge, sighing and turning his attention back to a pile of reports and missives. He haphazardly signed two orders and handed them to a gora standing at attention.
“Here, take these and distribute them. Make sure enough copies are made for every garrison commander in the 5th, 8th and 21st Districts to receive.”
“Yes, High Prod Nikkwill.”
He approached his window, staring out over Empire Plaza, which still hadn’t been cleaned up from the mess made the night before. The sun was slowly setting and the northern mountains cast a long shadow over
the city.
“Tarkas, do you think Hudda Kugrall has contacts outside the Empire who are helping them subvert us?” he asked his confidant, sitting only a few feet away on a simple stool.
“The evidence would suggest it. The fatal wounds to the Emperor and his personal guards were from weapons foreign to me. I am sure that the same can be said for Hudda Kugrall. The Forbidden Army is a large and detestable enemy, but they alone cannot topple the Empire.”
“But with assistance, they have killed the Emperor. Urkus Ruskir lies dead because we – no, I – failed to protect him.”
“We all failed.”
Nikkwill sighed and bowed his head. “Tarkas, you are my closest friend and one of my most capable officers. You understand that I cannot accept the death of the Emperor I promised the gods to protect by any means necessary.”
“We could never have predicted this. I executed our riot control plan exactly as we had discussed. Sharm Zurra secured a path for the Emperor we all believed was safe.”
“Zurra – where is he now?”
“The transport landed in Ankina a half hour ago. He told me an informant in the Progressive Movement gave him a lead that he is following up on. The sukuda liaison in Ankina is meeting with Zurra to make arrangements as they move forward.”
Nikkwill paused. “Zurra was the last soldier to see the Emperor alive. We have sponsored his rise in favor for years, but now I am plagued with doubts and concerns. How can we know that he is not working alongside Hudda Kugrall? Could he have turned, and we have been too blind to see it?”
“Sir, I respectfully request permission to criticize you.”
Officers were forbidden to question the opinions of their superiors without granted permission. Nikkwill, however, welcomed his confidant’s input.
“You always have it, Tarkas.”
“Sharm Akgu Zurra is one of the most loyal soldiers in the Imperial military and his record speaks for itself. He has bled and drawn blood on several occasions for this Empire. He has been assigned to regular infantry units and elite aruntuk squads and been the most exemplary warrior on every mission.” Tarkas caught his breath, noticing that he sounded frustrated. “A disloyal soldier or heretic would not have followed Oraank down into that crater on Piskka. Last night, he ordered a Death Bird strike that he believed would help quell the riot. Right now, he’s in Ankina trying to find enemies of the state. His lineage is important to consider as well. Akgu Juska was on track to be High Prod and he helped shape my career as an officer when he was my instructor at the Academy. I can only imagine how he shaped sons who grew up in his home.”