Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (9 page)

“A year ago, you began accompanying me on many of my mediations,” the Kudoban continued, breaking Taorr out of his reverie. “Why?”

“You’re a Kudoban. Why not just read my mind?”

All three of Zojje’s near-lipless mouths twisted into frowns. “You know Kudobans cannot scan other’s minds without consent or unless in extreme situations.”

“
Luja
, I was joking,” Taorr said contritely. “But seriously…my life had no purpose besides where the next party was, like many aristobrats my age still are. I actually thought once I would be lucky to eventually marry Uarya, daughter of Kyagon.”

Zojje’s coppery features, round and bug-eyed, barely flinched. “What changed?”

“Going abroad for university. Tolemus-Meson University on Candra, in the Vega Sector,” he replied brightly. “At first, I despised my father for sending me somewhere so…so
alien
and common. To that, he said, ‘When you take my position, you will encounter situations far more alien than a foreign university!’

“He was right. Those three years on Candra was like coming up for air when I didn’t even know I was suffocating. Changed my perspective on everything.

“When I returned to Faroor two years ago, everything I had thought held meaning didn’t. Even how fellow Ttaunz spoke sounded foreign. And for Uarya, with how she treated others and cared for nothing but herself, I have nothing but contempt. Before long, the feeling became mutual.”

Taorr shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Former comrades, particularly my younger brother, had little patience for my new outlook. Regardless, I began to truly see the corrosive discord between Ttaunz and Farooqua everywhere I went. This schism is also driving away countless settlers and merchants from trading on Faroor, which is our primary source of commerce…”

“And around this time, your father began to fall ill?” Zojje asked.

“Precisely.” Taorr gestured at the Kudoban. “As heir to the Magnal throne, my duty is to do more than express my displeasure. Not when I can change it for the better. I’ve dispatched every negotiator on this sphere versed in the Farooqua kineticabularies to assist us in the peace talks. Ttaunz Defense Force contingents patrol every major city-state on Faroor, but are stretched to the limit. The Union senators’ request for UComm PLADECO deployments to bolster our forces is still being debated in the Union Bicameral. And this doesn’t include keeping Faroor’s populace satisfied!”

Through the lunacy of his life over the past several months, Taorr remembered what had kept him going, a warm light that washed away any despair. “Nevertheless,” he managed to smile, “there are wonders on this planet that give me hope still that Ttaunz and Farooqua will one day live side by side…”

He caught himself as Zojje eyed him incisively, waiting for more.
Careful with what you share
, the Ttaunz reminded himself.

Fortunately, the Kudoban broached a new subject. “I once had your optimism. I believed with all my past experience, Faroor would be no different.”

Hearing that alarmed Taorr greatly. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Ghuj’aega.”

Once again, Taorr shuddered. That name might have well been an obscenity.

“Ghuj’aega the butcher” or “Ghuj’aega the ghost,”
or
whatever other devilish moniker the news streams called him this week, kept on disrupting any attempt at peace. Moreover, even Farooqua tribes disagreeing with Ghuj’aega’s views refused to disclose his whereabouts. Whether out of loyalty to their own or fear of retaliation, Taorr didn’t know.
And what was this “freedom fighter’s” endgame
?

“Ever since his name, his dogma, and murderous acts against the Ttaunz emerged, I have felt a…festering of entropic forces beyond my understanding.” The Kudoban diplomat rested a long and spindly finger against his temple. “You must recall how over the last two years Ghuj’aega transformed from disdainful whispers to a figure both loved and loathed among his own kind. Regardless of our efforts, the acrimony between Ttaunz and Farooqua grows unbridled.” Zojje focused the full weight of his milky-white-eyed stare on Taorr.

The young Ttaunz was unable to look away. Zojje continued, “I can no longer ignore the inevitability I felt, like the smell of moisture in the air before a rainfall… This world and its inhabitants are slipping into the mouth of chaos, and there is no way we can prevent it.” Zojje finally looked away and out the transport viewport.

Taorr sat there motionless, staring at Zojje with lips pursed in a stunned O. He had nothing helpful to add; his brain was sagging under the sudden weight of Zojje’s words.

He knew the stalled peace talks and all the deaths had worn on Zojje, but never to the point of defeat.

“You need someone who still has the fortitude to see this through. And that is no longer me,” Zojje added, his tripled voice so quiet, it almost sounded like three beings whispering. “At the end of the month, someone new from my homeworld will replace me.”

“Zojje!” Taorr finally regained his voice. He ran shaky hands through his black mane as the gravity of Zojje’s words sunk in. “We—we have to discuss this!” he insisted. “I cannot do this without you…”

“My decision is for the good of all involved in healing Faroor, youngling,” the finality in his tranquil tone silenced the young Ttaunz. “Besides, you—”

Zojje froze mid-sentence, his three mouths hanging open as he stared ahead at nothing. What started as confusion on the Kudoban’s features melted into bald-faced horror.

Taorr grasped instantly that Zojje sensed something through his innate telepathy. He also noticed the transport had stopped. Whatever was wrong could wait. “What do you sense, Zojje?” the Ttaunz asked.

Zojje’s gaze was haunted. “P-Pain…the…hollowness of death,” the Kudoban replied with strained sorrow.

“Taorr,” the voice of the transport’s AI driver cut in, “we’ve reached the N’noa settlement.”

“Thank you,” Taorr replied distractedly, focusing on Zojje.

“Before you exit, view this,” the transport AI continued. A new holoscreen popped up in between Taorr and Zojje, vividly displaying the area outside their hovercar transport.

Realizing what he was viewing, Taorr’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Zojje also zoned in on the holoscreen, as if expecting the terrible display.

“Seven TDF arrow fighters just left the area,” the AI concluded, “returning to Thasque.”

“Nonono!” Taorr shrieked. “Open the door!” The transport door next to him slid open and he raced out into the night through thick urbrui grass. Frantic calls from Zojje and his bodyguards became background noise. This part of the vale soon gave way to the dips and peaks of weather-beaten hills, making the trek harder.

“My lord, please!” sang a bodyguard able to catch up to Taorr. “Farooqua could be lying in wait!”

Taorr did not look back. He saw only pillars of black smoke spiraling up into the skies, their smoldering orange roots obscured by tall urbrui stalks. Heat buffeted the Ttaunz’s face, searing his lungs with each breath.

Didn’t matter. Taorr ran faster now, hoping what he had seen on that holoscreen was false.

Before long, the Ttaunz reached the N’noa settlement, almost tripping as he burst through the urbrui thickets. Taorr surveyed the scene, and his heart broke in half.

Ruined clay huts and sculptures littered the settlement. Gaping holes in the sides of crumbling dwellings and charred corpses told tales of TDF arrow fighters raining down fire from on high.

A week ago, Taorr had walked through this place promising the N’noa that the Ttaunz wanted peace. Countlessly beautiful and divergent symbols of N’noa culture, clay sculptures Taorr had admired days before—all shattered and charred beyond recognition as flames still licked hungrily at their fragments. Several clay and harvest basins, deep depressions peppered throughout the vast settlement, were once this community’s wells of sustenance. Now only burning embers and towering pillars of smoke rose from each basin.

What shattered Taorr utterly were the bodies. Many N’noa had fled, but numerous stayed to defend this land, their corpses scattered across blood-lathered earth. Most were males still holding spears and short swords. But the younglings, females, and elderly weren’t spared; all were lying dead near the toothed fragments of their homes.

Taorr lost the strength in his legs, and sank to his knees.

He had viewed this scene before, Farooqua settlements destroyed by the Ttaunz Defense Force, always without his approval, after another eerie skyquake had disrupted air travel or a follower of Ghuj’aega’s had blown himself up within a Ttaunz city-state. Surrounded by ruin and rubble, Taorr wept openly, not caring who saw.

Lost in his grief, Taorr almost didn’t notice the massive hands yanking him upright.

“Get OFF ME!” he roared, wrestling to free himself. At first, the bodyguards didn’t release him.

“Sir!” protested one bodyguard, a mountainous Ttaunz male, clearly not highborn. “It isn’t safe—”

“AWAY!!” Finally the twosome released Taorr, who just glowered at his protectors for several moments. Despite the fact that each bodyguard stood about a head taller than Taorr, the intensity of his odium left them stunned. Never had he, the heir to Faroor, felt more disgust for his own species than right now. Other diplomats gradually emerged from the urbrui thicket, Zojje in his sweeping robes followed by a Galdorian female, a tall human male, and an Ubruqite—its gaseous form contained within a shiny, humanoid-like containment suit. Despite their mixed origins, each diplomat reacted almost identically to the destruction.

In the dark sky, the moon Qos played silent spectator. The fiery smolder from below bathed the lunar crescent in deep, bloody crimson.

“I’ve seen enough,” the Galdorian croaked. Her eyestalks shrank back into her skull, indicating nausea.

“I agree.” Zojje put a long-fingered hand on Taorr’s shoulder. “We should leave this necropolis.”

“Not yet.” Taorr shook his head with alarming calm. The young Ttaunz rose to his feet, finding new strength from the horror and fear around him. “I want to see the whole settlement.”

“Not wise, Taorr.” Kerr Nadal, the lanky human diplomat from Cor Leonis, approached. “What if the N’noa return—or worse, Ghuj’aega? We should return to Thasque—”

“These N’noa,” Taorr pointed at the gruesome sights before them, “were not associated with Ghuj’aega’s terrorism, yet my government still slaughtered them. Someone has to bear witness to their murders.” Taorr whirled and marched into the smoldering settlement. His two mountain-sized bodyguards trailed him slowly, as their duties entailed. “Stay in the transports if you like. Either way, I’m going.”

“Very well.” Zojje nodded, almost proudly, and followed the Ttaunz heir. No one else did. As Zojje caught up with Taorr, they strode slowly through a strip of crumbling homes still aflame. The intensity from the heat rolled off the fiery backdrop, dulled only by the night’s frigid air. Taorr took all this in, barely holding back tears. His despair soon twisted into poisonous rage as a N’noa child, at most six cycles old, crawled out of a blackened dwelling. The youngling clearly lay at death’s door; the remnants of his skin were charred and boiling. But he crawled still for safety, his brain clinging to a survival instinct.

Zojje rushed to the child’s side, cradling his little body in long, spindly arms. The burnt little N’noa began convulsing in Zojje’s embrace, his wide, desiccated eyes staring at nothing. Zojje’s childlike face was a mask of serenity when he placed a hand over the boy’s head.

The Farooqua’s convulsions slowed and his little body stilled.

“He was all but gone already,” Zojje commented as he let the boy go and stood upright. Taorr heard a saddened catch in the Kudoban’s tripled voice. “I made his passage from this life painless.”

Haemekk and Gaorr were sending a message, not just to Ghuj’aega and the Ghebrekh, but to Taorr on who really controlled Faroor. He closed his eyes, clenching his fists in an attempt to diffuse his hatred. “Haemekk and my brother will pay for this
butchery
,” Taorr promised in a growl. “This I swear.”

One of Taorr’s enormous bodyguards glimpsed something in alarm and yelled, “Farooqua!” The word echoed into the night. Taorr jerked up in alarm as both bodyguards whipped out heavy pulse pistols at something behind him. The Ttaunz turned, and gaped.

Some distance away, one Farooqua stood unmoving amidst two huts’ smoldering remains. This Farooqua, on the cusp of adulthood, appeared untouched by the settlement’s tragedy. Her gingery body fur was darker at night, as was the green mohawk flowing down past her waist.

Her gender was clear by the slim curves of her hips and how her small breasts, demurely wrapped up in black cloth, rested one on top of the other, unlike most humanoids. Aside from the cloth straps covering her gamey build, she carried only a spear. Dying flames flickered wildly in her wide, opal-like eyes focused on Taorr alone.

He knew this Farooqua well.
Mhir’ujiid
.

Taorr stepped forward tentatively. In a heartbeat, both bodyguards formed a wall in front of him. “Behind us, your grace,” barked the smaller bodyguard, his eyes and gun trained on the Farooqua. He tersely muttered into his wrist comband, calling for the other bodyguards back at their transports.

“Yaeson…” Zojje gently addressed the bodyguard who spoke. “I sense this one is no threat to us.”

The larger bodyguard snorted, adjusting the grip on his pulse pistol. “That is not for you to judge, Zojje. This N’noa Farooqua could be bait for an ambush.”

“She’s alone, Oanor.” Taorr stepped around his bodyguards and motioned for them to stay back. “And she’s Quud, not N’noa. Can’t you tell the difference?”

Oanor and Yaeson obeyed and moved behind Taorr, guns still raised. “They all look the same to me,” Yaeson grumbled.

Taorr ignored them and focused on Mhir’ujiid, who hadn’t moved during this whole exchange. The flickering flames nearby made the Farooqua’s eyes shimmer like jewels. Taking a few steps closer, Taorr saw her tears, sending a pang of sadness through him. Taorr opened his mouth to address her, and words failed him again. But the young Ttaunz, trained to lead since birth, willed through his misery and found his voice.