“This?”
“False leadership and betrayal.”
“We are what they made us. Zen’zat are meant to serve honorably. We are not meant to chart our own course without a mission. And it cannot be a self-determined mission.”
“You wish you could go back to the way things were before the collapse of the empire?”
“If only it were possible…”
“I think this is where we part ways, my brother. Your will is broken.”
“I think you are right. May I dispose of his body properly?”
“I have no wish to make a trophy of it. You’ve given me confirmation, and he cannot be revived with that wound. Take him and do what you wish. The rest of us will stay here and do as much damage to the planet as we can before their reinforcements arrive. I suggest you leave before the jumppoints are blockaded.”
“You intend to fight it out?”
“No. But I intend to fight on the run in a direction chosen in the moment. You will be caught and killed if you don’t come with us or leave now.”
“Then my ship will leave as soon as we have his body onboard.”
“Make it quick. The ocean will reclaim this place within two hours. Perhaps three.”
“I will be gone within one,” Vikov promised, finally standing and turning to face Rajamal, but the elder Zen’zat was already moving on ahead to catch up with the assault teams, for there were more J’gar in the lair that were not yet dead, and they might be valuable targets that Rajamal was not going to let slip through his fingers in the oversight.
Vikov called down his Ti’mat-class warship and a team of Zen’zat with anti-grav pallets came and got the Didact’s body and hauled it outside until they got in the clear and were able to use a grav lift to bring it up into the underside of the ship hovering so low it was below the original ocean level that was nearly up to half what it was before judging by the watermarks on the inside of the shield walls when the steam in the air passed by enough to see.
Everything was hot in here. Hot and burnt and wet, with splatters of rain mixed with dry air so tart it would suck the mist off your armor.
Vikov knew the Zen’zat had caused this, and the sight and feel of it only deepened the inherent betrayal…but Rajamal was right. The J’gar had forced this on them. And now they had nothing left but memories of duty.
And Vikov was going to attend to this last one before disappearing into the stars and an uncertain future.
www.aerkijyr.com
