Trail of the Heritor

By Paul E. Horsman

A thousand years ago, a freak mana quake paralyzed the mighty Realm of the Moi. Its raw power put all brain persons running the bases and ships into lockdown and left the people depending on them safely asleep in their stasis suits. Safe — for as long as their power crystals would hold their charge — and unable to restart the brains.

When the young engineer Kambisha, her twin brother Kyrus, and their friend Odysson stumble into a forbidden tower, way outside the Realm, an awake AI sends them into space to answer an unresolved emergency signal. After they succeed in restarting the local brain person’s life support systems, they get saddled with the job of restoring the Realm.

Now, with more and more of the Realm coming back in operation, the three are warned of another danger. Five, the powerful heritor of the Moi, is stirring in his sleep. Once a wise spiritual leader, madness had warped his mind even before the disaster struck, and his awakening spells disaster both for the Realm and for the three’s own planet of Firstworld.

The three must prepare their forces, discover the mad heritor’s plans, and undo them before he wakes up and comes to destroy them. Even for them, the children of Firstworld’s greatest heroes, the task is daunting. And what about the Gods of the Galaxy, will they remain aloof, blind to the danger that threatens even them? Their carelessness could undo anything that the three attempt.

Luckily they have Six, the untrained clone successor of the mad heritor, who they found adrift in a dead ship. He will be a great help — if he manages to unlock enough of his own powers in time to face his megalomaniacal predecessor — and if he stays loyal and not succumb to the madness that is the fate of the heritors.

“Trail of the Heritor”, Book #2 in the Broomriders in Space-series, an action-packed Space Fantasy Adventure continuing with the third generation, following after the “Wyrms of Pasandir”-series and “Return to Vanhaar”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul E. Horsman
• Release date: Aug 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9789491730450

Paul E. Horsman

Paul E. Horsman (1952) is a Dutch and International Fantasy Author. Born and bred in the Netherlands, he now lives in Roosendaal, a town on the Dutch-Belgian border.He has been a soldier, a salesman, a scoutmaster and from 1995 till his school closed in 2012 an instructor of Dutch as a Second Language and Integration to refugees from all over the globe.He is a full-time writer of fantasy adventure stories suitable for a broad age range. His books are both published in the Netherlands, and internationally.His works are characterized by their rich, diverse worlds, colorful peoples and a strong sense of equality between women and men. Many of his stories, like The Shardheld Saga trilogy and The Shadow of the Revenaunt books, have mythological or historical elements in them, while others, especially Lioness of Kell and his current Wyrms of Pasandir books, contain many steampunk elements.You can visit him at his website: www.paulhorsman-author.com.

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PAUL E. HORSMAN

TRAIL OF THE HERITOR

BOOK 2

BROOMRIDERS IN SPACE

© 2019 - Paul E. Horsman

Red Rune Books, Netherlands

All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, peoples, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, peoples, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Book cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design

For more info: paulhorsman-author.com

There is a list of names at the back of the book.

Paul E. Horsman’s books:

Zilverspoor Uitgeverij (Dutch Editions) (out of print)

Rhidauna—Schaduw van de Revenaunt #1

Zihaen—Schaduw van de Revenaunt #2

Ordelanden—Schaduw van de Revenaunt #3

Red Rune Books (Dutch Edition)

De Shardheld Sage

Red Rune Books (English Editions):

Return to Vanhaar (Prequel to Wyrms of Pasandir)

The Road to Kalbakar—Wyrms of Pasandir #1

The Pirates of Brisa—Wyrms of Pasandir #2

The Bokkaners of the North—Wyrms of Pasandir #3

Building a Trade Empire—Wyrms of Pasandir #4

High Merchant—Wyrms of Pasandir #5

Trade Magnate—Wyrms of Pasandir #6

Jinnbane —Wyrms of Pasandir #7

Firstworld—Broomriders in Space #1

Trail of the Heritor — Broomriders in Space #2

Shardfall—The Shardheld Saga #1

Runemaster—The Shardheld Saga #2

Shardheld—The Shardheld Saga #3

The Shardheld Saga, trilogy

Rhidauna—The Shadow of the Revenaunt #1

Zihaen—The Shadow of the Revenaunt #2

Ordelanden—The Shadow of the Revenaunt #3

Vavaun—The Shadows of the Revenaunt #4

Grimoires—The Shadow of the Revenaunt #5 (upcoming)

MAP OF THE REALM

Firstworld is about 1500 lightyears west of the map, in another spiral arm.

THE NATIONS

The Realm

Moi (the first tribe of the Nithalai), gray-skinned, small humans, identical to the Aari tribes of Firstworld. They are hunters turned farmers and fishers, and the most magical and technologically advanced of them join the Realm of the Moi.

Cra (the second tribe of the Nithalai), blue-skinned as the Saeill of Firstworld. They, too, are farmers and fishers; a very reactionary people with a distrust of space and the Realm.

Rhu (the third tribe of the Nithalai), green-skinned as the Qoori of Firstworld. A nation of nomad trading houses, traveling space along fixed routes, trading with the Lesser Worlds.

Dreghs, a race of pseudo-civilized rats. They murdered the Cuerie, the advanced people who created them, and became robbers and enemies of the Realm.

Tarrik, a Lesser World, agricultural, with low technology (muskets), furred human people

Kau’s World, a Lesser World, island waterworld, and bluish-green-skinned hunter-gatherer human people

Bharkali, pre-quake a militaristic society just outside the Realm’s borders. Its people, led by the Great Hwat, are identical to the Kell, but lack the clan spirit.

Janassith, pre-quake, a unified, powerful Queendom with barbaric tendencies. after-quake an early industrialized world with competing nations. Its people are coppery-brown like the Chorwaynies.

Cathkan, a one-continent world, with two friendly nations and the lost lands of Benedilh. Its people are as dark as the Bharkali, but curly of hair.

Firstworld

Unwaari (the first tribe of the Aari): Former theocracy; when their goddess destroyed their temple order, the survivors became as the Vanhaari.

Vanhaari (the second tribe of the Aari): The magician people of Vanhaar, warlocks and mages. They are of small stature and a slate-gray complexion.

Mathaari (the third tribe of the Aari): The people of the Pasandir Peaks, distinguishable through a faint reddish sheen to their gray complexions. Followers of Bodrus the Father of Gods.

Qoori: The people of the far northern empire of Qoor; distantly related to the three tribes, but of greenish complexions. The Sashuni are a subsidiary kingdom of some independence.

Saeill: a militant island kingdom far to the west of the other lands. They are like the Qoori and the three tribes, but of bluish complexions.

Kells: The tall, bronze-brown people of the Radhaijan Plains in Kell; famed for the fighting prowess of their warriors and the quality of their ordnance.

Chorwaynies: The coppery-brown coastal people of the Chorwaynie Archipelago. A nation of shrewd merchants and sea traders.

Hizmyrani: The olive brown people of the kingdom of Hizmyr. A rich nation to the north of Nanstalgarod.

Nanstalgarodians: The tan, bearded people of Nanstalgarod of the desert lands.

Thali: The dark-brown people of the frozen south; inventors and technicians, who develop wonders like steam engines, airships and other contraptions.

Garthans (the High Kingdom of Malgarth): A rural people of pale complexions.

Takkalans: brother people to the Garthans; former jinn slaves; now a kingdom north of Hizmyr.

INTRODUCTION

The saga starts with Return to Vanhaar, when the young Lioness Maud, Jurgis the thief of Brisa, the warlock Basil and his lover Yarwan get embroiled in a search for the spellbook of the long vanished Kelwarg the Arrangh Warlock, and end up liberating their homelands from a century-old war. (This book was earlier published as Lioness of Kell, now adapted to better fit the series.)

Twenty-five years later, in the Wyrms of Pasandir-series, the young one-handed ship’s boy Eskandar discovers his magic powers when horrendous sea monsters attack his ship. Before he knows it, he is up to his neck in a battle against pirates, a lich king and a horde of immensely powerful, man-eating jinn.

Luckily he gets help from the broomrider Kellani (daughter of Maud and Jurgis), from the mage Naudin (son of Basil and Yarwan with the witch Siolde), and from the mercantile genius of the girl Shaw, who builds him a trade empire while he fights his enemies.

In Broomriders in Space, we are another twenty-five years on, and it is the turn of the twins Kambisha and Kyrus (Eskandar and Kellani’s children) and Odysson (Shaw’s youngest son). An ancient tower high on a mountain top in the Pasandirs has a door with a magic lock not even the world’s greatest mages and scientists can open. Kambisha, newly graduated multispatial mathemagician, can’t resist the temptation to try it too.

To her secret surprise, the lock is well within her very high-level specialism, and the thousand-years-old door opens. Inside, they find a teleportal to an unknown destination. By accident, Kyrus triggers the portal and the three are whisked away to an empty temple on the other side of the world. A bodiless voice sends them on an assignment, and they end up in an automated space station many lightyears away from home.

Battling enemy Dregh ratmen, they reawaken the human brain who is the station’s operator. Now they discover the Realm of the Moi, an old stellar nation, once occupied their part of the galaxy. A natural disaster struck, the Moi either died or were put asleep in their stasis suits, and all their bases, space stations and ships switched over to their emergency procedure and went asleep.

Now, a thousand years later, Kambisha, Kyrus and Odysson are tasked with the restoration of the Moi Realm.

Then they ran into Six, a clone of the vanished, powerful heritor of the Moi. Six had his own plans and sought to take over the Realm. But he discovered his predecessor, Five, wasn’t dead. The true heritor was alive, insane and asleep, but he would wake to continue his plans of domination.

Six now joined Kambisha and her friends and swore to help them defeat Five.

The story continues in Trail of the Heritor, where our heroes discover step by step what Five’s plans had been, before the quake. To weaken him, they have to undo all his actions. This proves no easy task…

Note: Firstworld, and the Realm. For some inexplicable reason both were in several ways copies of each other.

Firstworld was a planetary civilization, where space travel was a vague theory no one was interested in, while the Realm was an ever expanding reach of the galaxy.

Both worlds were home to several peoples. The Moi were identical to the Vanhaari/Unwaari, while the Cra echoed the Saeill and the Rhu looked just like the Qoori.

Culturally, they were as twins separated from birth and grown up among different peoples.

Even the gods—the Firstworld Gods and the Galactic ones were mirror images—with comparable roles.

Why? No one knew.

THERE ARE LISTS OF NAMES, BASES, SHIPS ETC AT THE END OF THE BOOK.

CHAPTER 1 – MOI MOONBASE

‘Moi Moonbase?’ Emma said. ‘That could be a difficult place to enter, ma’am.’

‘Why?’ High Admiral Kambisha narrowed her eyes at the careful warning of her flagship’s brain person. The ruler of the Realm was a seventeen-year-old girl, a small but mightily muscled mix of Kell and Vanhaari descent, with a brown complexion, aquiline features and straight hair in urgent need of a cut.

‘It is the oldest Moi spaceport and heavily defended, as it is the base of the 1st Fleet, guarding Nithalai. It is the place from where our people went out to build the Realm.’

Commander Emma’s voice came from a speaker on the pilot’s console. Kambisha had a mental image of the ship’s operator—a wiry woman in her late thirties, capable and experienced, with the gray complexion of the Moi and crewcut white hair. It was just a fantasy, of course, for Emma’s long-dead body had been replaced by the Lin-Gor battlecruiser around them, and her only still human part, her brain, was installed in its secure room amidships.

Still, the image persisted, and by now was as familiar for Kambisha as the real bodies of her flag captain and his crew.

‘You know the place?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Emma said.

Movement outside the bridge windows caught Kambisha’s eye, and she watched a crew of youngsters saunter across Realmport’s spacefield to their vessel two berths beyond her own flagship. Another corvette going to help some troubled place in the galaxy, she thought. Then she turned around, chiding herself. Pay attention, girl. ‘How close can you get us in safely?’

‘Two AU,’ Emma said decisively. ‘The base detectors are really good, ma’am.’

‘We’re not going to ride a broom over two astronomical units,’ Ram said from where he stood watching her. He was a hulking Kell, an eighteen-years-old Marine colonel and clan-lady’s heir, and Kambisha’s steady.

She grinned and blew him a not very discrete kiss. ‘I’m not that reckless, dear. We will visit in the official way, flags flying and my high admiral’s standard in the main mast. If there’s any hint of trouble, Emma will whisk you all away while I will port outside and land on my broomstick.’

‘While we,’ Ram said, glaring at her.

‘That’s what I said—while you and I will port out.’ She chuckled and turned to her flag captain sitting at his controls. ‘Let’s get cracking. You and Emma have the ball.’

Captain Unnaerd nodded. He too was a Moi, and he had never in his life even imagined a ball before he joined Kambisha’s command.

‘Yes, ma’am. Take us to Moonbase, Commander Emma.’

‘Aye aye, sir,’ Emma said crisply.

The darkness and cold of the Intermedium lasted barely an agonizing second while they jumped across the galaxy.

Nithalai was a watery planet, a blue disk with clear, white clouds, partly hidden in the darkness of its night. For now, the world itself was out of bounds for the Realm until the political situation between the Moi, the Cra and the Rhu peoples was clear. But in the meantime, the former moonbase of the Moi had to be saved.

‘There it is, ma’am,’ Emma said.

Kambisha looked up; the commander’s voice was filled with an emotion she couldn’t place.

‘Thank you.’ She turned to the viewscreen and gaped in wonder as they approached a many-domed complex spread out over half the satellite as an enormous, many-armed octopus. ‘Dear gods! We have major cities at home smaller than that base.’

‘But all of it is silent,’ Captain Unnaerd’s gray face was strained. ‘Is even Moonbase dead?’ Like all Moi he was a reawakened survivor of the mana quake disaster that had struck the galaxy a thousand years ago and he was still coming to terms with the destruction of the old Realm and all he had known.

‘Could you enlarge this image, Emma?’ Ram asked as he stood staring into a vision screen.

Warned by the tension in his voice, Kambisha joined him.

‘There’s been fighting.’ Ram tapped the screen with a finger. ‘Many dead, but they didn’t decay.’

‘They are frozen, sir.’ Emma’s voice sounded dull. ‘The domes are up, but without air inside. The dead are all frozen stiff.’

‘It’s like NavBase.’ Unnaerd glanced at his first officer’s puzzled face. ‘There, the mana quake caused a rebellion. The admiral-in-command ordered General Cruishand to open the base doors to space and then switch off all shields. Four thousand of the best died instantly.’ Unnaerd had been a midshipman there, and he had seen the massed dead.

‘Why?’ Commander Zhivas, who like his admiral hailed from Firstworld, looked sick.

‘It was the quake madness,’ Kambisha said. ‘We’ll have to see what happened. Emma, which is the building with the base brain?’

‘The one with the tower, ma’am,’ Emma said.

Kambisha caught the pain in her voice and sent her a thought. ‘You all right?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Emma said and there was a hint of desperation in her answer. ‘It’s the stupidity and the loss. So many fine people died. For what? What went wrong? This had been my base too, you see. I was stationed here before being transferred to Shan 6.’

‘Gods!’ Kambisha felt a stab of remorse. ‘I never thought to ask what your home base had been. Would you rather pull out? I can easily take one of the frigates.’

‘No, ma’am,’ Emma said. ‘I am your flagship. Besides, I must know what happened here.’

‘Then watch over my shoulder.’ Kambisha looked at Ram. ‘Call me a platoon of Marines, we’re going down.’

Ram gestured to a young lieutenant. ‘All set.’

As they switched on their forcefields and rode their broomsticks to the silent base, Kambisha saw the heaped dead everywhere, eerily bathed by the pale light from the planet overhead. Some were clad in the garish Moi uniforms, but many others wore darker suits in blue and green.

‘Those others.’ Emma’s thoughts were shocked. ‘They’re Cra!’

‘Cra against Moi?’ Kambisha said. Where the Moi had been a spacefaring tribe, the Cra’s religion forbade leaving the planet, and they wanted the Realm to fail. But would that turn to war? ‘Ram, prepare to port into the dome.’

Ram repeated the order and added a bit of his own. ‘Marines, remember there is no air inside the dome, keep your shield in place.’

Then Kambisha teleported all to the entrance of the tower.

‘The Cra were in the majority,’ Emma said.

‘Three-to-one at least,’ Kambisha said, hovering over the large building below them. ‘How would they have gotten here? Did they have their own ships?’

‘They would have ported in. The coordinates weren’t a secret, Cra officials regularly came here.’

‘This confirms the idea the Moi heritor disappeared and the Cra heritor took over. They thought to occupy Moonbase too,’ Kambisha said. ‘Then something happened.’

‘It appears so.’ Emma’s voice took a deep breath. ‘At least it wasn’t Moi against Moi.’

‘No,’ Kambisha said. ‘Though I’m not sure it wasn’t something just as terrible. It must have been a period of great madness.’

They walked slowly into the main building. ‘It looks much like our own great hall at Realmport.’

‘This is the original design,’ Emma said. ‘All later halls are based on this one, with some slight local adaptations. Efficiency over originality.’

‘Look!’ Techneer Donoan said over the comm. ‘Someone’s been inside the brain cellar!’

Kambisha turned to the central column that housed the Base Admiral’s nerve system. At the foot, the hatch to the underground room gaped open.

Emma made a small sound. That cellar was a brain person’s weak spot, and many of them were sensitive about its security.

‘Colonel Ram, stay here with your men,’ Kambisha said. ‘Tech Donoan and Medic Thon, come with me.’

Kambisha called up a light, and they hurried down the stairs into the cellar.

Once below, Donoan cursed. ‘For-bliddy-get it! The brain is asleep and its life support seems all right, but something blew its connection to the rest of the base. He is totally cut off, if we were to wake him, sensory deprivation might well destroy him.’

‘Can you repair the connection?’ Kambisha said. She was a tech herself, but a drive engineer, not specialized in brain technology.

‘Me? No,’ Donoan said. ‘I’m a simple ship’s tech, not a neuromagelogist. This is a job for BrainLabs, ma’am.’

‘Darn!’ Kambisha said, studying the brain in its slowly moving fluid. ‘Now what?’

‘You must go to the exec, the secondary command brain,’ Emma said. ‘He’s the one who runs Moonbase, while the Admiral is responsible for Homefleet and planetary defense.’

‘Homefleet? Is that different from our Realmfleet?’ Kambisha said.

‘Homefleet only defends Nithalai, while NavBase was Moi’s Realmfleet Command, regulating everything else. All your present forces fell under NavBase direction. The 1st Fleet however is part of Homefleet.’

‘You mean they are separate services?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Pre-quake, our NavBase got their orders from the department of the Realm, while Homefleet fell under the department of National Defense. You cannot take over Moonbase with your codes.’

‘Then how?’

‘I... don’t know; this is out of my experience.’

Kambisha grunted. ‘Cursed bureaucrats! We’ll handle that when we’re there. Where do we find this exec?’

‘On the other side of the base, in an underground complex. I can guide you as you go, ma’am.’

They went outside, and when they were all broomed up, Kambisha ported them out of the dome.

They sped across the huge base, dark and silent below them, until at last Emma directed them down to a low, pillared building with its own dome and several gun turrets surrounding it.

‘That’s Wamuush House, the Exec’s headquarters,’ Emma said. ‘I’ve never been in there, so I can’t tell you where to go.’

‘We’ll find out.’ Kambisha nodded to Ram and entered the dome, with the Marines spreading out behind her.

‘My dials read green,’ Tech Donoan said. ‘Air, heat, gravity are at human norm.’

Kambisha switched off her shield. ‘All is as it should be. You guys keep your shields up, in case we meet anything hostile.’

‘And you?’ Emma said.

‘I need my senses,’ Kambisha said.

Emma sniffed. ‘You’re not invulnerable, ma’am.’

‘I know.’ Kambisha was all too aware of her weakness as she walked to the building. There were three doors, spaced about thirty feet apart. She tried the handle of the middle one and it opened soundlessly.

She passed through a small hallway into what looked like a reception room, with some chairs, a wooden desk with a viewscreen, and a many-colored Moi flag behind it.

A soft bell chimed.

‘Identify yourself,’ a crisp voice said.

‘High Admiral Kambisha of Kalbakar, Realmfleet,’ she said, looking around to identify the speaker.

Behind the desk a viewscreen came alive, and a man’s handsome Moi face inspected her. ‘Your name and rank are not in my files.’

‘Did you compare the date of your files with the present?’ Kambisha said.

The AI’s face showed surprise. ‘My files are out of date. Highly irregular. I cannot reach my commanders, either. This is most disturbing.’

‘You had better contact NavBase.’

‘They are outside my line of command, but I can try. A moment, ma’am.’

Kambisha looked round the hall, so clean and well ordered. It could have been anywhere, with its subtle colors and functional benches. A servor ran past, buzzing importantly, and disappeared behind a door. All was silent again.

‘Thank you for waiting,’ the AI said. ‘NavBase confirmed your appointment, High Admiral. The General advised me as to the changed situation, which explains much. I... Am I the only one awake here, ma’am?’

‘I have seen only a small part of Moonbase, so I cannot answer that question,’ Kambisha said. ‘But I came to recommission as many brains as I can. Now, who are you?’

‘FleetSec 7, ma’am, senior lieutenant class Admin AI.’

‘Well met, Lieutenant. Where can I find the exec?’

‘I will summon a guide to take you to Captain Ravour’s brain room, ma’am.’

Another servor appeared, butting against Kambisha’s leg.

‘We will see to the exec, thank you, Lieutenant.’

‘At your service, ma’am High Admiral.’

The servor rolled across the hall to a second door, and down a long corridor. Near the end was another door, with a narrow staircase leading down. On the threshold, the little machine stopped and bleeped.

‘Thank you,’ Kambisha said, and she just stopped herself from petting the servor like a dog.

‘It’s all familiar,’ Ram said.

‘Yes, it could have been one of Grandpa Jurgis’ broomrider establishments back home,’ Kambisha said.

At the bottom of the stairs was another corridor, ending at a large room. Desks and chairs, file cabinets, viewscreens, a Moi flag, all the elements of a busy service office, now deserted.

Like many brain persons the exec had survived the quake and the intermediate thousand years by shutting down all but his life support system.

Tech Donoan nodded at the machinery. ‘This looks in a better state.’ He went carefully through the procedure—checked the power, reactivated the main fluid pump, restored the link with the switchboard that connected the brain to its substations, and a lot more that was incomprehensible to an outsider. Finally it was done, and he stepped back.

‘Go ahead, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Kiss him awake.’

She grinned. Donoan was one of the first Firstworlders to join their forces, and she was glad for his easy familiarity amid the often formal Moi.

She took a deep breath. ‘Captain Ravour?’

Every time anew this was the big moment: would the brain awaken fit for duty, or was there any damage?

A hoarse cry coming from the brain’s speakers made her heart skip a beat. There was an echo of madness in it that didn’t bode well.

‘Stop the attack! Darned how you do it, stop the attack! The base must not fall into Cra hands! I... oh gods, what are we to do?’ The last was a cry of despair.

Kambisha looked at Donoan and Medic Thon, who pursed his lips critically.

‘This is High Admiral Kambisha of Realmfleet,’ she said calmly. ‘Please report, Captain Ravour.’

‘I’m not Realmfleet,’ the exec snapped. ‘I do not report to you.’

‘The situation has changed, Captain,’ Kambisha said. ‘Check your memory, check the dates.’

‘I am no...’ He fell silent for a moment.

‘Not looking good,’ Thon whispered.

‘Moigar...’ Ravour sounded strangled. ‘The department... Nobody answers. My base is...’

‘A charnel house,’ Kambisha said. ‘My flagship was based here once, she is extremely upset, Captain.’

‘Upset? I am furious!’ Emma said with a rare quiver in her voice. ‘Who ordered this slaughter, Captain?’

‘I did,’ Ravour said wildly. ‘I had to! My admiral suffered a breakdown in that awful mana quake, so I was in command when out of the blue the Cra attacked. The base was full of people, refugees answering the recall, and we were trying to ferry them all down to Moigar, when those blue villains ported in, guns blazing. We fought back, but our men were still suffering from mana shock, while theirs were fresh. We were on the verge of losing the fight and the base. Then I did the last thing left to me.’

Kambish’s hands nearly crushed her belt as she fought down a wave of blind rage. ‘You switched off the base domes. Every screen but your own.’

‘Yes. What...’

‘And they all died, Cra and Moi.’

‘Yes. I...’

A Marine came running, and she waited for his message.

‘Colonel Ram, sir, the lieutenant sent me. We found two persons in a cell, in stasis, sir.’

Kambisha opened her mouth, but closed it again. She wasn’t the Marine commander.

‘Ask the Admin AI lieutenant upstairs to release them,’ Ram said. ‘Then bring them here.’

‘Hostages!’ the exec shrieked. ‘They’re that filthy Cra liquidator’s brats.’

‘What Cra liquidator?’ Kambisha said sharply.

‘The one who came to wind down the base. He ordered us out; he was going to deport us out of our own base! I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t! Where would I go? I am the base. By law brains are not allowed on Moigar, so they would have killed me! I had to protect myself, the base. I told that guard major to shoot, that the order came from the Fleet Admiral to resist. So he obeyed! His men attacked the Cra! Ho, the surprise on those blue bastards’ faces! They fought back, and... When I thought all lost, I activated my programmed destruction sequence. That got them! They died, the blue thieves!’

‘So it was you who attacked first?’ Kambisha said, managing to appear calm. ‘Not the Cra?’

‘I had to,’ Ravour said in a high voice. ‘It was them or me.