Vard Bokren sat behind a rockwood desk that his original crew had scavenged from the wreckage of a Llivori cruise liner more than fifteen years ago. His scuffed boots, darkly stained with blood spattered on them over the past eight months, rested on the battered surface of the desk. He cradled the back of his head in the blue-green fingers of his right hand. He leveled his cold stare at Yurok, second in command of the Kjernkor, who had taken the seat across from the commander in Bokren's quarters.
For the moment, Bokren chose to say nothing.
Yurok, equal to his commander in age at thirty-six, had long been at Vard Bokren's side. They had been childhood friends. Together, they had passed their Worthing tests and entered the Ledelkrig caste, treasured by noble houses that were all too glad to claim them as their own, and they had risen to the verge of greatness in service of their homeworld. Together, they had fallen from grace as well. Banished from the Ledelkrig, exiled from their houses, cast out as pariahs, they had vowed to avenge the wrongs committed against them by their kin and those who called themselves allies. Yurok had vowed to serve that cause, even unto death, and he had pledged unwavering loyalty to the only Hekayti he still considered a brother.
Unsettled by the silent stare, Bokren's subordinate prompted: "You summoned me, sir?"
The commander nodded. Still, he said nothing.
"Have I done something to offend?" Yurok asked.
Bokren tilted his head to the left, untangling his fingers so that he could steeple them before himself. His stare didn't waver. He remained silent.
The subcommander fidgeted, shifting anxiously in his chair. "If you have something to say, sir, I wish you would say it. My duties..." His voice trailed off as he watched Bokren's left eyebrow arch. "My duties can wait, sir." The eyebrow lowered. "I...well, it's unnerving, this silent treatment. I sense that you are angry, but I cannot under..." Both right and left eyebrows etched upward this time. Yurok averted his gaze, taking that moment to study one of the more prominent scars on the surface of the old desk. "Yish and Zorael." He cleared his throat. "It is about them, isn't it?" He dared to gaze Bokren's way once more. A curt nod from the commander, but still no words. Just that cold stare. Sweat droplets formed on Yurok's forehead, just below the bony horns that protruded from his skull. He clenched his jaw. "I can explain," he said. Bokren answered with a chill smile, waiting in silence, not seeming at all surprised when Yurok leveled the barrel of a plasma pistol at him from across the desk. "I didn't have any choice!"
"No?" Bokren finally spoke. He pulled his feet off the desk, letting them thump on the floor, and then shifted forward so that Yurok could get a point-blank shot at the scarred flesh of his chest. "What did my father offer? A clean slate? A return to Hekayti society? Restoration of rank in the Ledelkrig? Full salary and retroactive compensation?" Yurok nodded. "And you believed him? After everything we went through. After everything he did to us. You believed him?" Another nod. The gun wavered slightly in Yurok's grip. "You used to be smarter than this. You used to think more than moment to moment. What's your plan, Yurok? Shoot me, yes, I see that. But then what? How do you go from shooting me to claiming that reward? How do you explain to the others that you killed me? How do you convince them to take you to Hekayt so you can be hailed as a hero by those who vilify them? If those two incompetents had managed to kill me, this would be simpler. Now, it's complicated. You're lost. If you shoot me, you're as good as dead. If you don't shoot me, well, I think it is brutally clear that I can no longer trust you, so you're as good as dead the moment you lower that weapon." He lifted his left hand, the metal trident sparking. "That leaves you with a difficult choice. Do you kill me to satisfy the man who betrayed us both or do you kill yourself to demonstrate that you still possess a mote of honor within that warrior's heart of yours?"
A rivulet of sweat trickled down Yurok's cheek. The gun trembled in his hand. "I'm sorry," the subcommander said. He raised the barrel of the pistol to his own mouth, jammed it inside, and pulled the trigger. A burst of light, the sizzle of fluid, muscle, brain matter, and bone. Then came the clatter of the gun on the deck, dropped by the lifeless hand.
Bokren stared for several more moments at the corpse of his oldest friend. Hours ago, he had trusted Yurok with his darkest secrets, his greatest fears, and his very life. Now, with a single act of thoughtless selfishness, Yurok had become no better than the would-be assassins who had died trying to kill the commander. No better than Bokren's father. If he could no longer trust the likes of his old friend Yurok, then it must be true that Vard Bokren could trust none but himself.
The hatch clunked open, pushed inward by the badly scarred warrior. "Toka," Bokren addressed the guard.
Toka eyed the remains of Subcommander Yurok slumped in the chair. He noted the pistol on the floor. Then he raised his attention back to Vard Bokren. "Sir."
"Toka, I'm promoting you to Subcommander," Bokren said. "Your first job is to make sure this traitor's body is fed to Alazrya. Once that task is complete, see that we lay in a course for Kamsho."
The scarred warrior bowed his spiked head in acknowledgement. "As you wish, Commander." He took Yurok's corpse from the chair, heaving under the shoulders, and dragged the dead Hekayti out of the commander's quarters.
Bokren stood, walking around the desk, and shut the hatch. Blackened goo imbedded with chips of bone freckled the metal. The shadow of Yurok's departure. He could demand that one of the newcomers clean it up, but no. That wouldn't serve his purpose. Bokren decided to leave the splattered remnants of Yurok as a reminder for others who might consider betraying the commander of the Kjernkor. He bent over to retrieve the plasma pistol from the deck. As he set the weapon on the desk, he wondered how many more traitors-in-waiting might be biding their time amongst the crew. If his father could buy Yurok's allegiance, then no one lacked a price. That realization stung with a ferocity that might match the blast from the barrel of the plasma pistol that now cooled before him. His father hadn't killed him, but he had killed what little trust and faith and hope remained in Vard Bokren. That might be enough, if such an act drove the fallen Hekayti into seclusion. If Vard surrendered leadership of the Medlidikke and turned his back on the empire he had built, his father might be satisfied. But Vard refused to give the old codger such pleasure. Vard Bokren had other plans.
He felt the familiar thump and shudder of the Kjernkor as the vessel transitioned from normalspace to OtherSpace, cruising down the knife edge of space and time. He gazed out the porthole, watching the cerulean light waves dancing along the ship's hull. The intercom speaker crackled above his desk. "Commander, we are en route to Kamsho," Toka reported.
"Very well," Bokren said. He pondered in silence for a few moments, leaving the channel open. It would take at least three hours to make the journey. Might as well make the best of it, he decided. "Send the Lotorian to me."
"As you wish, Commander."
Now, Bokren switched off the channel using the pip affixed to the curve of the metal cap on his left hand. Always a careful matter, that. One slip and the fingers of his right hand might make contact with the charging element on the trident.
He swiveled his chair from the desk to face the bulkhead and waved his good hand over the sensor eye, with its fiery red telltale. The scan confirmed Vard Bokren's identity, allowing a secret panel to slide open beneath the eye. He reached into the small vault, removing a small gray sack of data crystals and a secure portable holoterm. After setting those items on his desk, he waved the vault door shut and listened with grim satisfaction as it beeped upon locking.
Moments later, the hatch opened just a little, allowing the whiskered snout of Zazal Aazzal to poke through the gap. "Commander Bokren," the Lotorian said, using the pirate's native Hekayan language.
"Enter."
Zazal pushed the hatch open further, then stepped inside the chamber. "Open? Closed?"
"Closed."
Thunk! The hatch shut once more. Zazal moved to take the chair facing Bokren until he noticed several gooey bits clinging to the cushion. His fangs bared briefly as he sniffed the sickly sweet scent of charred flesh. He'd salvaged enough derelicts with his family to know that stench all too well.
"Sit or stand," Bokren said.
"Standing suits me fine," the Lotorian replied.
"Very well. I know you speak Gankri. Do you know other languages of Kamsho?"
"I do," Zazal said.
"Opodian? Llivorese? Tupai Ophi?"
Zazal knit his brow, making a faint hrmph noise. "I can translate and speak both Opodian and Llivorese. I can translate Tupai Ophi, but speaking it is tricky. I'd need some fake wings and a sonar emitter. However, it can be done."
"How about Kamir?"
The Lotorian twitched. It shouldn't have surprised him that Bokren would ask. It only made sense, given that Kamsho was an ancient homeworld of the dreaded Kamir. But it had always been a sore point (one of many where he was concerned) for his parents that he had put so much effort into learning to read, write, and speak the language of the powerful aliens who had enslaved many of their ancestors and destroyed their own beloved homeworld of Lotor millennia ago.
"So, you do understand Kamir."
Zazal bobbed his snout.
Vard Bokren silently contemplated his new translator for a few moments before unfastening the clasps on the data crystal sack. Pouring the translucent wedges onto the desktop, he spread them apart next to the holoterm. Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, Bokren said, "Why did they leave you aboard the Darkwinder?"
Zazal frowned. He hadn't managed to think about anything but that question since he had been sequestered in the dead Gankri's quarters after arriving on the Kjernkor. He wanted to find his parents and ask, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer. However, telling Bokren might get him tossed out an airlock. Refusing to speak, or lying and getting caught, those would absolutely get him tossed out an airlock - or worse. He sighed. "Sick of my perpetual failure as a son, I think. The good ones died. I was all they had left. In the end, maybe even that was too much."
"We targeted their pod after it launched," the Hekayti said. Zazal's stomach plunged toward his knees. Even though he believed that his parents deserved to die for abandoning him, it filled him with tremendous shame. He shouldn't be relishing the irony that they had died fleeing to escape his incompetence, while he had become translator to the pirate king. "We did not destroy their pod," Bokren added. "Does this please you? Or is it disappointing?"
The Lotorian shook his head. "More accurate to say: Confusing. You destroyed the B'hiri ship. Why would you spare my parents?"
Vard Bokren chuckled. "In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have. The truth, however, is that we were not at the Strand to destroy that B'hiri ship. It was a complication in our mission objectives. I don't like complications. So, we simplified matters by eliminating the B'hiri." He plucked one of the data crystals off the table and inserted it into a receptacle on the holoterm. "Blowing up that pod with your parents in it might have created a complication, so we let it go for the time being." The index finger of his right hand tapped a button on the holoterm, activating the program in the data crystal. Bokren and Zazal watched as the three-dimensional image resolved into the form of a foot-long cylinder that had been engraved with glowing runes.
"Your objective?" Zazal asked.
The Hekayti nodded. "If we blew up the pod, we risked destroying this artifact. But we detected the device aboard the Darkwinder before that little mess with the Lyiri and Gankri. By then, that pod was well into the debris field of the Strand. They weren't worth the effort. Plus, your ship was about to explode. We didn't have time to waste. Once you came aboard the Kjernkor with the artifact, our mission was accomplished."
Zazal scratched the side of his snout, still looking puzzled. "It seems odd to me, the idea of bloodthirsty pirates with missions."
"Wasn't always a pirate," Bokren answered.
"No," Zazal agreed. "Wasn't always a translator for a pirate. Life's path takes unexpected twists and turns."
The Hekayti pirate inclined his bony skull toward the holographic image of the cylinder. "What does it say?"
Zazal's whiskers flexed up and out, fanning the air on either side of his snout as he leaned closer to study the image. He watched the cylinder rotate clockwise. Through the ghostly blue vid, he peered at Bokren. "You don't know?"
Bokren shrugged, but said nothing.
A test, then, Zazal concluded. His brow furrowed as he rubbed at the side of his snout with a slender, claw-tipped finger. His tail lashed back and forth nervously. He ventured a quiz of his own. "How much information have you acquired about the Kamir rune language?"
The pirate just gave a taut smile, waiting.
"I see," the Lotorian replied. "All right. First, the image needs to spin counterclockwise. Ten rotations per second so that I can make accurate readings of the glyphs."
Bokren chuckled. "Good." He made an adjustment on the holoterm control pad. The image switched rotation and increased speed.
Zazal watched as the runes began to shift, blend, and blur into one another in a dance of light and language. They pulled apart, reformed, drifted askew, and reassembled in a new alignment. He frowned as the translation took shape. The process repeated for nearly a minute before the symbols began again from the first step. Zazal raised a fleshy palm to signal Bokren that he could stop the image. "That's a control cylinder," he said. "The central mechanism of an ancient Kamir device. Psionic amplifier. Three other cylinders are required for the device to function." His frown deepened. "You don't want this device to function, do you?"
Another shrug from the pirate. "Not up to me. " He tapped his fingers on the surface of his desk. "That piece you brought aboard. It's not the control cylinder, I take it?"
Zazal shook his head. He considered lying. He thought about fabricating an elaborate ruse to try and throw Bokren off the scent, to dissuade him from pursuing further collection of cylinders for use in the amplifier. However, the Lotorian understood the way things worked aboard the Kjernkor, even with his limited experience. Someone had died in this room before he arrived because they had betrayed the commander's trust - and they had been a Hekayti, as close to kin as a pirate like Bokren probably had. That wasn't a luxury Zazal enjoyed. He hated the thought of someone building a psionic amplifier, but his aversion to death outweighed his guilty conscience. "It is one of the four, though," he said. "They labeled it as a signal focus cylinder." Zazal lifted his snout, fangs clicking together. "You don't have the control cylinder yet."
Bokren smirked. "Your cylinder is the first. We're still tracking down the other three. That's why we're going to Kamsho." The pirate took the data crystal from the holoterm, causing the image of the cylinder to fade. He picked up the rest of the crystals, poured them into the small sack, and then turned off the holoterm. "Go. Brush up on your Llivorese." The Lotorian bobbed his snout, then opened the hatch and stepped through. He closed the door behind himself, leaving Bokren alone with his thoughts.
The pirate waved his good hand over the sensor eye again. Once the vault door slid open, he used that hand to return the holoterm and the data crystal sack. Another wave, the door closed. The Gankri hadn't known Kamir. A faint smile crept across Bokren's face as he savored the victory. "An upgrade," he mused, swiveling his chair to stare out once more at the swirling lights of OtherSpace. "Many thanks, Father."