THE food aboard the Baruk vessel was barely palatable. Kale detested almost everything about their clan. If the Vorn military had been able to suppress the various uprisings, then he wouldn't be in this mess, he thought. Kale had been turned against his Barudii people, by Lucin himself, all those years ago and now he was paying for it.
He understood the desire of the Baruk to control the planet of Castai. It was rich in resources and perhaps, even more importantly; it was the perfect location for control of the Transdimensional Rift.
None of that really mattered to Kale at all. He had no allegiances to anyone. He took another bite of the carusk meat. It was bitter to his tongue. The Baruk loved this meal as a delicacy but that didn't surprise him. The bitterness of the meat seemed ironic to him as he thought about it. What had seemed right and good for him at one time so long ago had become ashes in his mouth.
He could not push out the thought of his brother running across the tarmac to try to save Orin. He realized that Tiet almost certainly didn't know who he was at the time; but did he now? And what if they had come face to face then, he wondered. Would Tiet have embraced his long lost brother, the betrayer of their people and their parents?
No, of course not. He would have gladly struck with all the fury he could muster. Suddenly Kale felt disgusted with everything; or perhaps only with himself. He spit the hunk of meat back onto his plate and pushed it away across the small table.
The Baruk could not be trusted. They were completely sold out to the wicked one, Lucin. The Vorn had very little understanding of the true nature of the Three that ruled the Baruk clan and their planet. They were merely a vehicle for the fallen one; a way for him to move among men and control their minds in his symbyte form.
It was Lucin who had promised him vengeance upon his father and Orin for the dishonor they had shown him; a prince of the Barudii. He only had to provide the weaknesses of their mountain cities and great power would be his. But it was a lie from the prince of lies. The death of his people and his family had brought him nothing but regret and sorrow. But he had bound himself to a fallen angel; how could he escape from such a power?
The Baruk certainly had no way of escape and they didn't want any as far as he could tell. The symbyte form of Lucin, inhabiting their bodies, gave them great power and the ability to drive out their enemies before them. Now they were on the move to Castai. Lucin would conquer it and move on through the rift to conquer the twin Castai. Only God could stop an angel and though he thought of dropping to his knees to pray; Kale knew that he was probably the last person God would want to hear from.
Normally, he might have suspected his food to be poisoned, but his personal scanner had detected nothing dangerous in the meal. It did little to console him about the possibility of the Baruk killing him. He looked at his blade upon the hard slab the Baruk called a bed. Picking up the blade he examined it a moment; this blade was his life. He knew he could never trust the Baruk and even if he could, he did not want to remain among them. But how could he escape? They had control of his ship. He heard heavy footsteps approaching his quarters.
The door opened up before the Baruk warrior. Housra quickly moved inside with his compression gun ready to terminate the Barudii on sight, but he wasn't there.
Kale looked down on the Baruk warrior from the ceiling of the compartment. He clung there via kinesis. The compression weapon used by their species swung from side to side as the warrior surveyed the compartment, stopping to examine the half eaten meal.
Kale dropped down, igniting his blade as he landed. Housra whirled around bringing his gun to bear upon the Barudii. The ignited blade divided the weapon before he could fire. The living exoskeleton sprang outward from the Baruk, striking Kale.
He was smashed backwards into the door of the compartment but managed to strike back furiously with his kinesis. The Baruk swung hard toward the other wall, but was stabilized quickly by the exoskeleton. It had appeared solid, but now morphed into obscene appendages to protect its host.
Kale brought his blade between himself and the Baruk. The symbiotic creature was reared up in a posture of aggression as it sought to strike.
One of the appendages lashed out and Kale struck it with his ignited blade. It recoiled. He moved in again, striking at the hovering tentacles and landing a blow to the warrior's leg. He severed it completely.
Another appendage knocked Kale down into the table as the Baruk fell from his wound. The morphing tentacle smashed the table flat as Kale rolled away. If Lucin had sent this warrior to kill him, more would quickly follow. He needed to get off of this ship as fast as possible.
He bolted out the door, leaving the maimed warrior and his symbiotic protector as far behind as he could. Now he just had to figure out how to get to his ship and off of this vessel alive.
ESTALL stared at the information coming onto the display as Ranul keyed in the various retrieval commands. Probe #2041 was transmitting its information on a coded band. He studied the incoming data carefully. Looking over Ranul's shoulder, Estall attempted to understand what the transmission contained, but Ranul was scanning the data too fast for him to put it together.
'Well?'
'Well, what?'
'Are you going to share with the rest of us?' he asked.
'Oh!' he said as though he had forgotten others were in the communications room with him. 'The probe beyond the star Casiss has picked up a group of objects. After long range scans, it has concluded that the objects are in fact very large space cruisers on a path for Castai.'
'The Baruk, I suppose.'
'Well, I don't think there's any other possibility. According to the Vorn records, it's along the flight path to their territory.'
'Well, we've been training for a fight; looks like we've got one.'
THE Council buildings were as luxurious as any Tiet had seen among the Vorn cities. This one in Baeth Periege was perhaps the most beautiful of them all. He passed through the main hall on his way to the meeting chamber. It was lined on either side by troops he had helped to train in recent months. They looked very sharp in their uniforms, he thought. It was nice to see the peace between the Castillians and the Vorn illustrated in the new standing army.
Why did Wynn insist on trying to push him onto the throne? He certainly did not see himself as a king. He was just a young man, still in training himself-not a great man like his father. Tiet wished his father were still alive to lead this great people. He would've known what to do.
Tiet wished he had been able to really know his father, but his brother-the thought cut him to the heart. If he ever saw his brother again, he would avenge his father's death and Orin's.
Too bad the coward had taken off before he realized who he was. Tiet would have killed him. That thought gave him little joy, but seemed to satisfy his anger to some degree. Two of the acting guards opened the large main doors that allowed him into the main council chamber.
The ceiling was three stories high in the main hall and he could see that it was even higher within the meeting chamber as the doors parted before him. They revealed a very large circular room with a dome at the top. The Council of Twelve, along with their various advisers, was seated along the outer portion of the room slightly above the place where Tiet was to stand in the middle of the room and be addressed by the Council.
As he made his way into the large room he could see that the session was already beginning and apparently everyone was waiting for him to arrive. As he entered, many began to cheer and clap. This was not the sort of entrance he had expected or wanted.
He didn't feel he deserved any applause. What had he done to deserve it besides being born to a certain family and people?
He could see Wynn now. He was seated near the delegate for the city of Baeth Periege and Daooth Pasad was next to him. Daooth was a good man. He could still remember his first meeting with the Vorn in Wynn's underground dwelling and almost taking his head off, supposing him to be an enemy.
That day had been a wake up call for Tiet; learning how the Vorn were a friendly people enslaved by their own military. He had hated them for so long, blaming them for the murder of his family and his people-not
