Zazal Aazzal didn't want any part of what Vard Bokren had planned.
He sat on the edge of his bunk aboard the Kjernkor, certain of only one thing: If he helped the Medlidikke acquire the artifacts needed to make a functional psionic amplifier, Zazal would never be able to live with himself. The question he faced, really, was whether he could countenance a life spent knowing what he knew without doing anything to stop it.
He thought maybe he could.
Zazal knew he probably couldn't stop Vard Bokren, even if he tried. The only allies he might have had aboard the ship had died aboard the Darkwinder precisely because Zazal had alerted the pirate commander to their treachery.
So, if Zazal tried to stop them, they'd just kill him. A small setback for the Medlidikke, perhaps, because Vard would have to find another translator. However, it would be a massive setback for Zazal, who really just wanted to get on with his life. It would be hard to do that if he was dead.
The best alternative he could come up with as the ship wound its way through OtherSpace toward Kamsho: Escape from the Kjernkor after landing, get passage offworld to Comorro Station, and then tell someone with better resources and more experience than him about what the Medlidikke were planning. The first step of the plan would, of course, prove the most difficult. Everything depended on how much freedom Vard Bokren gave him for the sake of appearances in front of the Llivori.
The ship shuddered as it dropped out of faster-than-light. Must be close to Kamsho, Zazal thought.
Moments later, the hatch thunked as it was unlocked from the outside and pulled open. Toka, the newly promoted second in command, tugged the hatch fully open for Vard Bokren to step through. The commander held a rifle in his right hand. The metal-capped stump trident of his left hand sparked blue and white.
"Fit him with the collar," Bokren ordered.
Zazal's eyes widened. "Collar?" He shuffled back on his bunk, making himself as difficult to reach as possible. Lotorians hated all manner of bindings, which reminded them of the slavery that their ancestors had endured.
"Security measure," Bokren said. He nodded to Toka, who walked into the chamber, pulling a strand of thick cable from his waistband. The cable featured a clasp on one end.
"Please," Zazal said, raising a paw to fend off the Hekayti. "I have cooperated! Haven't I been helpful?"
"Oh, yes, quite," Vard Bokren agreed. "You are most cooperative when your life is forfeit if you refuse to do so. On the Darkwinder, you knew I would have killed you without compunction. Here, on the Kjernkor, you knew I'd have you killed for resisting. I'm not a fool, though, Zazal. The game changes the moment we set foot on Kamsho. Yes, I could threaten to kill your parents, but that seems an empty gesture, given how much they obviously care about you. So, I must rely on your sense of self-preservation to ensure your continued cooperation."
The Lotorian's mouth fell open in feigned astonishment. "I had no plans to escape!"
"Yes, well, if that's true, you won't have anything to worry about from the collar."
Toka grabbed Zazal's left arm, dragging the Lotorian off the bunk and onto the floor. Bokren held the electrified trident close to Zazal's pointed ear, making the little hairs prickle upward from the discharge. The second in command wrapped the collar around the Lotorian's neck, fastened the clasp, and then gave the cable a yank so that it began glowing green.
"Get more than one hundred feet away from me while we're planetside, Zazal, and that collar detonates," Vard said.
Panicked, Zazal clutched at the pirate commander's leg. "Is this really necessary? What if something goes wrong? What if you take the wrong lift and yours goes up while mine goes down? What if I fall down a flight of stairs when you're getting in a hovercab? What if there's a solar flare and the collar thinks I'm suddenly a thousand feet away from you?"
"You need to pull yourself together," Vard warned. He shook the Lotorian off his leg. Zazal sprawled on the floor, panting. "Toka, oversee the landing."
"Yes, Commander," Toka replied before turning to leave Zazal's quarters.
Bokren watched Toka leave, then knelt beside Zazal and said, "I don't tolerate weakness in my crew. You need to understand this if you want to survive. If others sense that you are receiving preferential treatment of any kind, they will resent it. And that will get you killed. Do you want to die, Zazal?"
"No," the Lotorian whispered. "I don't."
"Good," Vard said. "Your parents raised you soft. They raised you weak. If you live through this, though, you'll be stronger. Do you want to be stronger, Zazal?"
"Yes." The snout bobbed frantically. "I do."
"Stay close to me, then," the pirate said. "Don't wander. Do exactly as you're told, when you're told. Continue to cooperate."
"I will," Zazal vowed, despair shrouding him as he realized just how futile his situation had become. He now had only two choices: Help the Medlidikke or die. He could make a run for it, have his head blown off, probably feel no pain, and it would all be over. But when it came down to it, at the last, he realized to his great shame that he would put the extension of his own life ahead of the knowledge that he should do all he could to prevent another atrocity in the name of the Kamir.
So long as the collar remained around his neck, Zazal knew, he would do anything the Medlidikke demanded of him - everyone else be damned.
And that was when something else clicked inside him: If the collar proved to be the only method by which Vard Bokren could assure that Zazal would serve with loyalty, then the collar would never be removed. He would truly become a slave. His eyes glittered with moisture. He could not face a life of servitude, living at the whim of a Hekayti who held the controls to an explosive neck collar. So, he pulled himself to his feet and glowered up at Vard Bokren. "I will cooperate," the Lotorian said, "IF you remove the collar."
The Medlidikke grunted. "I thought I made myself clear on this matter."
"The collar isn't the answer," Zazal snapped, hissing angrily. "Have it removed at once or I will run with all haste to the farthest bulkhead from you and breach the hull."
"You wouldn't," Vard said, smiling faintly, although his eyebrows lifted. He found the sudden burst of spirit in the Lotorian somewhat amusing.
Zazal scampered past Bokren, shoving off the pirate's leg and bolting through the hatchway, tail lashing back and forth as he loped toward the longest corridor he could find. The bloody glow of the light strips glinted off his dark-patched eyes as the Lotorian scampered, huffing and puffing, toward the hatch of the Kjernkor's engineering compartment. He felt the warning buzz of the collar as it left the safe zone of Vard Bokren's proximity. The collar began to flash rhythmically, in a pattern that Zazal suspected was a run-up to detonation. He shoved himself as far back as he could against the starboard bulkhead, trying his best to make sure that he had a chance of taking the Medlidikke with him when he died. Zazal closed his eyes, clenched his paws into fists, and waited for the end.
The collar stopped buzzing.
He opened one eye and then the other. His whiskers twitched. A growl rumbled up his throat. He heard the clop of Hekayti hooves on the deckplates, approaching from the crew quarters. "Fake collar," Zazal snarled.
"You proved something to me, Zazal," Vard Bokren said as he stopped next to the Lotorian's bulkhead alcove. "Faced with the choice to serve in slavery or die, you chose death. That is the warrior's way. It is also the Medlidikke way. We are uncompromising. We do as we will. Others may govern, but none may dictate."
"A test?" The Lotorian snapped his fangs together.
Vard nodded. "At first, I thought you were broken. I thought maybe you were as weak and frail as your parents might have you believe. But then you found the steel in your bones and the fire in your spirit. You know what I am. You know what I can do. Yet you risked everything in the thinnest of hopes that you might prevail, because you would not bend to the yoke of slavery."
"I should thank you?" Zazal grunted.
The pirate shrugged. "No. A prisoner should never thank his captor. The captor should consider it thanks enough that the prisoner hasn't found his throat with his fangs yet." A grim smile. "But it would be polite to thank your employer."
Zazal peered in confusion at Bokren. "Employer?"
"You have a choice after we land," Vard Bokren said. "You'll go free or you will work as a member of the Kjernkor crew, earning a share like everyone else aboard."
The Lotorian coughed, tugging at the collar until it popped loose. "Why should I work for a pirate?"
Chuckling, the Hekayti replied: "The pay's not bad, for one."
Zazal knit his brow. "Why should I work for a pirate who's helping someone build a psi amplifier?"
Vard rolled his eyes, sighing. "Not helping anyone build anything, Zazal. We're gathering artifacts. Pieces. Some crazy old Aukami thinks they'll work some kind of magic for him. For all we know, they're lifeless junk. Impotent relics."
Zazal shook his head, waggling a finger at the pirate. "No such thing as an impotent Kamir relic. All are dangerous."
"Well, like I said, we're not building anything," Vard went on. "What he does with the artifacts once we acquire them is for him to worry about. All we do is take the money and move on to the next paying job." He canted his head to the left. "So, what's it going to be? You in or out?"
The Lotorian wasn't done with his own questions, though. "Why are you giving me the choice?"
Vard scowled. "In or out, Zazal?"
"It's a simple question."
"So, it's out, then?"
"It just seems odd," Zazal replied. He dropped the collar, its glow already fading, onto the floor.
"Fine," the pirate barked. "I am not accustomed to owing debts to anyone. Aboard the Darkwinder, you could have remained silent and allowed those traitors to kill me. They had no quarrel with you. Chances are, they would have left you alive with my corpse so that you could play galactic hero for killing the notorious Vard Bokren. Instead, you alerted me to their plan and prevented them from succeeding. That left me inexorably in your debt. Consider this choice as a settlement of that debt."
The Lotorian pondered Bokren for a moment, then bobbed his snout. "If I choose to walk away, you won't just shoot me in the back? Won't have Toka do it? No other minion? I'm free and clear?"
Vard nodded.
"I'll give you my answer once we're on the ground," Zazal said, with a feral grin that only grew broader when he detected the pained expression on the pirate's face.
"That might take longer than planned," interjected Toka. The first mate walked up beside the commander, frowning.
"What's wrong?" Vard asked.
"Llivori and Opodian hostilities flared up again," Toka said. "We've got cruisers from both sides demanding that we stop and accept boarders for inspections."
The Hekayti commander growled, "That complicates things. I hate complications."