“Sure, Elyek. We wouldn’t want anyone putting their foot in it, would we?” she said, while giving me a sarcastic look.
I shrugged.
With that said, Elyek pressed a panel set into the thick gate column. A voice quickly answered from the panel's speaker, “Elisialor Yekandistripolisiumar. Could you please state your business here?”
“This was once my home. I have come with my captain and two of our most senior crew members. We would like to offer a number of our people the chance to serve on board our ship, the Uprising, as paid and respected crew.”
“You were declared as a slave. Are these your new owners?” the intercom said.
“No. They rescued me from slavery. They are the best of people and we should be honored to be part of their plans.”
“Plans to enslave us all, perhaps?”
I could see Elyek getting very frustrated, despite holding their cool very well. The back and forth continued, and after much deliberation from the intercom, along with persuasion from Elyek, the gates finally slid open. They revealed a lush, well cared for garden, with even the odd small tree here and there; although the trees had a clinging-on-for-dear-life look about them. This was the first greenery we had seen on this strange moon.
We followed Elyek up to the main building. Veiletian guards stopped us at the doors. These were the first Veiletians I had seen other than Nuwista – and Elyek of course. They were clearly of the same race, but they couldn’t have been more different; where Elyek was slim and relatively short of stature, these two guards were both stocky and around six-feet in height. The guards exuded an air of strength of menace that Elyek did not possess.
“We are here to speak to the Arus council,” Elyek firmly stated.
“They are waiting for you, Elisialor Yekandistripolisiumar. Your friends here,” he said, waving at us with disdain, “may wait in the seating area.” He indicated where we were to go.
“I was about to protest, then remembered I'd already been warned to leave this entirely up to Elyek. So I just nodded blithely.
Elyek turned to us. “Just take a seat for now. I will go and put forward our offer. Better they do not think I am being coerced by you in any way.”
“Fair enough,” I obeyed, then turned back to the guards. “You got a visitor toilet anywhere?”
They both scowled at me, then resumed their stony-faced stares straight ahead without answering.
I was about to say, ‘I'll just pee up the wall then’, when Elyek spoke again, “Shaun! You agreed you would not incite trouble.”
“He can't help himself. Don’t worry, I'll keep a better eye on him,” Ember replied.
“What?” I said, exasperated. “I only asked for the toilet.” And I was glad I hadn’t added the rest now.
“It’s the way you do it, Shaun. Let’s go and sit down. Anyway,” Ember said, “you’re a big boy, now. You can hold it in for a bit.” She smirked and took a seat, while Elyek headed off following one of the guards.
We sat there, bored, for over an hour. I chatted to Calparr, although he wasn’t a massive conversationalist, not like Calegg anyway. Ember didn’t seem particularly chatty either, for some reason. Havok only wanted to talk about killing all the Veiletians if they started any shit, and that he was sure he could still see them when they were invisible – which I could tell was total bullshit. In the end, I decided to go to my Cognition Room to tidy. I was almost there now, and a little bit of work here and there was bound to help, so Ember told me.
Finally, I was brought out of my meditative state by voices. Elyek was back, and the Council wished to meet me. ‘Oh goodie,’ I thought, then whispered to Ember, “Hope this goes better than with Calegg’s dad.” Elyek whipped their head around and gave me the stink eye.
We entered a large room, and like the outside of the building, it was quite classy. Especially when compared to the rest of the rough-ass moon. The four of us were led in front of a table holding six Veiletian elders. “So, you are the Captain of the Uprising? We hear that you set young Elyek free from captivity that you yourselves held them in.”
“Well, it's not quite like that. They were being held as a prisoner, and we…”
The elder rudely waved away my explanation. It annoyed me, but I tried to remember that this entire race had been treated terribly by the rest of the galaxy.
“And now you have one Veiletian under your control, you wish to have more to use as you see fit.”
“What? No. That’s bullshit” I cried. I received a warning glare from Elyek. Ember looked like she was doing her best to hold a retort in herself.
“Sorry for that outburst,” I said, “We need a crew. There’re a lot of arseholes out there in the galaxy, and when we meet someone as cool as Elyek who is kind, considerate and helpful, we want them on our crew. We want our new crew members to work with us, and hopefully make this shithole of a galaxy a better place.”
“We can all have grand dreams, my boy. The reality is that we will not risk our rare and precious people on a fool’s crusade.”
“Okay! Not your boy, for starters. I know your people have had a crap time of it wherever you go, but that wasn't me or any of the crew on the Uprising. You’re hiding out on a little dome on the arse-end of a shitty little moon, filled with smuggling shit-stains. I would like to change that. I want to back the Torax, and I want to help my own people, and anyone else who’s abused by powerful people, just because they’ve grabbed for power first, then used it to shit on everyone else.”
“Lofty ideals,” said a different Veiletian elder, “That does not alter the fact
