Alliance of Serpents (9 page)

"Most of the time," Damien said, flipping
through the pages of an old brown book. Beside him, Kitreena was
looking a book with some kind of incoherent scribbling on the
front. Some kind of foreign language, Arus assumed. "They claim to
be an intergalactic military like us, spreading peace and
protecting the innocent. Unfortunately, the truth is that they are
more like conquerors."

Kitreena snorted without looking up from her
book. "That's putting it mildly."

Damien ignored her comment and went on. "The
Armada was formed by a man from my planet named Kindel Thorus. At
first, they were nothing more than a gang of young Zo'rhan men who
called themselves the Vezulian Brotherhood. The name ‘Vezulian' is
derived from the Zo'rhan word for ‘victory' or ‘success,' roughly
translated as ‘Vezul'ahn.' The gang was formed in response to an
invasion that took place on our planet many years ago. They were
called the Ma'tuul, and they were some of the most savage creatures
I've ever had the displeasure of facing in combat. We may have been
warriors, but these beasts were fearsome, many of them nearly twice
my own height. Kindel would tell you they were four times larger
than that and that they breathed fire and whatever other
exaggerations he has to make in order to make them seem more
ruthless and deadly than they already were. That's his nature, you
see. It's his way of justifying his own bloodthirsty quest for as
much power as he can get his hands on."

"The war was very traumatic for Kindel,"
Kitreena added. "The devastation of his own people was too much for
him to handle. He's full of pride, and watching the Zo'rhan flee in
terror from
any
enemy made him furious."

"When the Ma'tuul reached our city, Kindel
urged us to make a stand there," Damien continued. "Some of us did,
but most fled into the mountains. Kindel's parents died that day,"
his voice became somber, "when two Ma'tuul broke their necks and .
. . ate them."

Arus couldn't believe his ears. "They
ate
them? That's horrible!"

Damien nodded as he slipped the book back
onto the shelf and took another, a small one with a blue leather
cover. "The incident drove Kindel over the edge. He and the others
that had stayed behind formed the Vezulian Brotherhood, and they
began gathering any other Zo'rhan together that would support them.
They stole a transport ship from an abandoned construction factory
and left the planet to rally more support from other races. In the
meantime, the Zo'rhan organized one final plan to wipe the Ma'tuul
from the face of the planet. The strategy involved countless
battles and lasted nearly seven years, but finally we had the
Ma'tuul on the brink of collapse. It was then that Kindel returned,
now commanding a small army, and began attacking the remaining
Ma'tuul to help us win the war and secure peace for our
homeworld."

Kitreena smiled wryly as she snorted. "Kindel
takes full credit for having defeated the Ma'tuul, but the truth of
it is that he wasn't involved for the majority of the effort. The
Zo'rhan were nearing victory anyway, and the number of Ma'tuul that
Kindel's Vezulian Armada eliminated equaled less than five percent
of those that had landed on the planet in the first place. The
Zo'rhan did all the rest."

"And to this day, Kindel and his thugs travel
from planet to planet claiming to be peacemakers while waging
heartless war against those he considers to be too dangerous for
the rest of the galaxy." This time it was Damien who snorted. "As
if he has
any
right to decide who should or should not be
allowed to live!"

"And now he's coming after me?" Arus nearly
groaned. "Does he think I'm some sort of threat or something?"

"On the contrary, the transmission we
intercepted seems to indicate that he wants to integrate the
implant into his army to increase his power and solidify the Armada
as the most dominant force in the universe."

Kitreena flipped the pages of her book
absent-mindedly. "For Kindel,
everything
 is about
power. The more power he can gain, no matter how small or great,
the happier he is."

Damien seemed to have found what he was
looking for; he put the blue book under his arm and led them to
another aisle a few rows away. "There's something else that has
been troubling us. Our spies indicate that Kindel has been occupied
with some sort of secret project for weeks now. It has been very
difficult for our intelligence network to gather any more
information than that, but our sources suggest it has to do with
something he found on Terranias' surface not too long ago."

"Kindel was on Terranias?" Arus asked in
surprise. "When?"

"We haven't been able to pinpoint the date,"
Damien responded as he flipped through a wide book with colorful
pages. It looked like an atlas of some sort. "But we estimate it
was anywhere from two weeks to a month ago. What's troubling is how
secretive he's been about the project, and how much time he has
dedicated to it. Anything that important to Kindel must have the
potential to increase his power a great deal."

It was surprising enough to Arus that they
had managed to sneak spies into Kindel's army. What worried him was
that Kindel had done the same. "If you have people undercover on
Kindel's ships, who's to say he doesn't have people of his own over
here?"

Kitreena immediately shook her head, but
Damien stopped her with a wave of his hand. "He's a smart kid.
He'll figure it out," he told her. Turning his eyes to Arus, he
smiled. "You are correct, and although we take every precaution to
ensure that our recruits are honest people, it is entirely possible
that Kindel has somehow managed to sneak a few of his own people
amongst ours. I'm sure Kitreena didn't want to give you any reason
to feel unsafe, but I assure you, if any members of the Vezulian
Armada
have
indeed infiltrated the
Refuge,
it is
highly unlikely that they have gained any access to our plans, nor
have they had any opportunity to relay information to the Armada.
Kitreena, myself, and a few Commanders that we've known since
before the
Refuge
was even commissioned are the only people
who are given access to any sensitive information, and no
transmissions are allowed to be made from the ship without one of
us being present. We like to watch our backs around here."

Arus breathed a sigh of relief. "Master
Eaisan always taught me to consider any enemy I may face to be the
most cunning man that ever existed. If I come up with an idea, I
must act on the assumption that my enemy has already thought of it
and has taken that idea five steps further. Don't be quick to
abandon the idea, he said, but make sure the idea doesn't abandon
you to the enemy, so to speak."

"Sound advice," Damien nodded, sticking his
nose back into the book. "An underestimated opponent is a
victorious one, that's what my father taught me."

It was all so much to take in at once. Life
itself suddenly seemed a lot bigger to Arus. Problems like wolves
attacking Keroko and petty thieves stealing fruit from the market
were no longer important. Whether ready or not, Arus had been
thrust into the adult world, a world of sorcery and aliens and war
and bloodshed. He was no longer a child, and he could no longer
afford to behave as one. Saying goodbye to those days was going to
be difficult, but clinging to the past while being trampled by the
future would be even harder. The future was going to come to him
whether he wanted it to or not. Both his father and Master Eaisan
would expect him to be prepared. And he was not going to allow the
mistakes of days gone by to control the days ahead. There was no
denying his anger over Master Eaisan's fate, no denying the rage he
felt whenever his gaze fell upon his artificial limb. But those
same emotions had nearly gotten him killed and left him permanently
deformed. It was time to leave feelings about the past in the past.
Eaisan had once said that life was little more than a series of
paths through unfamiliar territory. And for Arus, the time had come
to begin again on a new path and put the past behind him where it
belonged. "So," he began, looking first at Kitreena and then at
Damien, "how am I going to keep Kindel and Truce from getting their
hands on me?"

Damien grinned and looked at Kitreena.
Another silent exchange took place, Arus was sure of it, though
there were no outward signs other than their seemingly excited
expressions. Finally, Damien spoke. "I don't think you need to
worry about any imminent danger. The Kyrosen still have to group up
with the Armada before they can do anything according to the
agreement set between Truce and Kindel. However, once Vultrel is
returned to the surface, the
Refuge
is scheduled to leave
the system. We'll rendezvous with a few members of the Aeden
Alliance fleet and head for more friendly territory. Kindel will
have to jump through a few hoops in order to chase us through
systems where the Vezulian Armada is not welcome, and that will buy
us more time to come up with a plan."

"Why doesn't he just attack us right
now?"

"Kindel's secret project, whatever it may be,
has kept his attention diverted," Kitreena told him. "While we have
little information about the project itself, what we do know is
that Kindel has expressed repeatedly that he has little interest in
open conflict right now. It is very possible that his deal with
Truce is all a ruse set up so that he can keep the Kyrosen under
his watchful eye—they've been sworn enemies for decades—but we have
nothing to prove that for sure."

Damien closed the atlas and slid it under his
arm beside the blue book. "Regardless of his reasons, Kindel
doesn't seem interested in a fight at the moment, and we're not
going to stick around until he changes his mind."

"Where will we go?"

"We're not sure yet," Kitreena said, looking
at Damien. "There are a lot of planets that need some form of help
right now, but we don't want to bring the Armada down on them
simply by being there when Thorus comes after us. We've got to plan
something to catch him off-guard, and to that end, we have a few
ideas."

"For now, you're free to move about deck
twenty-three freely," Damien said as he led them out of the aisle
and back toward the door. The elderly man named Devlin was eying
them closely, Arus noticed. "That's the recreation deck. You can
use the gym whenever you'd like, and you have the cafeteria, the
swimming lounge, and the flight simulator at your disposal.
Kitreena and I frequent the level—our personal rooms are located on
that deck as well—so we'll be around should you need anything. You
also have the communicator we gave you, right? You can use that in
case of some sort of emergency."

Arus nodded in acknowledgment, and his gaze
wandered back to Kitreena. He didn't have to speak the words for
her to hear his gratitude.
Thank you.

She smiled at him with a slight nod.
Don't
worry. I won't let anything happen to you.

*******

The giant box-like transport ship was
surrounded by soldiers in brown jumpsuits, most carrying clipboards
and checking off notes as they inspected the craft. A group of men
dragged a long yellow hose across the floor and twisted it into a
round opening near the rear of the ship before signaling to another
pair of crewmen on the far side of the room. The transport was
nearly as big as a house, long enough to fit at least thirty men
and as tall as it was wide. Polished circular windows lined the
rear half, revealing dozens of rows of blue-cushioned chairs
illuminated by more of those glowing glass tubes that Damien had
said were simply called "lights." The front of the ship was rounded
off, lined with three wide panels of glass to allow the
operators—Damien called them "pilots"—to see where they were going.
A long, relatively flat fixture ran along the base of the ship's
rear, filled with a line of steel cylinders that supposedly used a
mixture of various chemicals to produce a fire so forceful that it
propelled the craft along. A few weeks ago, such a concept would've
been unfathomable. A few weeks ago, merely theorizing over such
ideas would've sent any man to prison for violation of humanity's
anti-machine stance.

A few weeks ago, Vultrel's life had been
simple. Easy. Perfect.

The hangar bay was lined with an assortment
of starships, thick and thin, large and small. Some seemed heavily
armed, though Vultrel hadn't learned to identify
every
weapon by sight, he could see multiple turrets that shot something
called "lasers" and larger, rounded objects called "missiles." Some
ships were being serviced by robotic iron arms that hung from the
ceiling and performed maintenance according to a pre-set schedule
of commands. Metal clashed with metal as the arms worked, grinding
and polishing damaged ships and removing old parts in favor of new
ones. Men's voices echoed over the commotion as orders were shouted
and acknowledged. What Vultrel found to be most confusing, however,
was the floor. Splits in the steel ran through the floor and around
the perimeter of every craft. It was as though someone had cut
square-shaped holes under the ships, yet the floor never gave way.
An odd thing, that.

He shook his head and dismissed it from his
mind. None of it was important, now. He was going home, and that
was that. All of it would soon be left behind, and he planned to do
his best to forget everything that had happened as though it were
nothing more than a bad dream. His father had died honorably in
combat; he could accept that. And the end result of that battle had
seen Lord Sarathon remain safely on the throne. But the rest of it,
including Arus' submission to Truce's implant and the carnage he
caused thereafter, would all be reduced to nothing more than a
fairy tale in his own mind. He'd recall only what was necessary
about his father's death to explain to his mother, and come up with
some sort of reasoning as to why he'd been gone so long since.
Lying was not something he did proudly, but when the truth was more
dangerous than anything else, few options remained.