No guarantees - this is about eight years old - haven't gotten around to edit it yet. Consider it mind candy, eh?
* * * ONE * * *
Sixth Order B,theel T’Kiarlok lingered over the Lacertian’s stiff body, debating in his ganglia whether he should honorably incinerate him, or let him shamelessly dissipate to his death. He studied the lizard-like body closely, searching for any sign of life, but there was none.
This planet’s reptilians turned his gullet. Not just because of their hideous scaly, green skin or their disproportionately large, triangular heads. And not just because they were vertebrate, a definitive sign of lower intelligence. What disturbed him most was that the entire race offered such a shamefully weak defense of their planet.
The least you could have done was offer some resistance, he criticized, hovering even closer to the carcass than he really cared to. The acrid, reptilian odor emanating from the creature stung as it invaded his air supply and insulted his olfactory sensors. Perhaps I just expected too much . . . too much from a vertebrate.
T’Kiarlok wanted to squirt on the lizard, but his environmental suit had no convenient vent from his ink sack. Instead, he slowly shook his cephalus in disgust and turned away from his defeated adversary, arrogantly pivoting on two of his tetratarsals. He cinched up his flight pack, then flipped on the propulsion switches, but before the engines could hum into action, his lateral line twinged.
T’Kiarlok noticed movement as he glanced over his mantle. Immediately, he spun back around and grabbed at his electro-laser. Cowardice! T’Kiarlok thought as he watched the reptilian he had taken for dead spring to his clawed feet and begin a frantic scurry away from him.
“Have you not even the decency to face death honorably?” He yelled as he targeted the scrambling lizard. Before he could ensure a kill shot, the lizard disappeared into the ground. T’Kiarlok’s four tetratarsals blurred as he scrambled to the spot where the reptilian had oddly disappeared. His survey revealed shifted sand, but nothing more. His adversary was gone.
One will not matter, T’Kiarlok rationalized as he surveyed the planet’s surface, laid to waste and scorched into oblivion. Lacertian bodies littered the hills and devastated redoubts in blood-stained mounds. Structures were pummeled into nothing but rubble wisping black smoke snakes up and into the hauntingly stark mustard sky. .
Yes, the devastation is as complete as it needs to be, T’Kiarlok justified, deactivating his electro-laser and hooking it back onto his belt. Complete enough that one escaped alien will not make any difference.
As T’Kiarlok turned away, the ground underneath his tetratarsals trembled suddenly and with such an explosive fury he thought the whole planet was starting to give way. He set his four tetratarsals out for balance, wedging his covered tips deeply into the sandy soil.
“What in T’Urilok’s name . . .” he gasped as no more than thirty fathoms in front of him, a huge mound of dry soil swelled in the ground. In a sub-cycle, the mound burst open, venting a cylindrical spew. At the top of the plume, parched earth peeled back, forming a mushroom shape as it fell back toward the planet. From the center of the debris, a pointed, silver rocket emerged, heading skyward at lumbering speed. Awed, T’Kiarlok could do nothing but watch the rocket gather speed, hurried along by an elongated tail of yellow and white lapping flames. Within micro-cycles of its eruption, the rocket curved, parallel to the horizon, leaving behind only a faint vapor trail behind its flickering orange flames.
T’Kiarlok sighed as he watched the rocket disappear, then reached down and activated his transceiver.
“T’Graupok, this is T’Kiarlok,” he announced.
“This is T’Graupok,” a familiar voice scratched through the static.
“Sector nine is secured. Returning to the staging area.”
“Sector eight is secured as well,” the return call confirmed. “I’ll meet you there.”
* * * * *
Exhausted, Corin fought against the rocket’s acceleration force, struggling to climb into the cockpit. He pulled himself into the molded chair, then released a noisy, relieved hiss through his serrated rows of pointed teeth. He composed himself, slipped his eyes open, then studied the panel, remotely activated when he punched the emergency launch key.
Engines; full throttle, life support; minimal, telemetry; recording . . . he mentally ran through his checklist.
“Twenty sub-cycles to orbit insertion,” the computer’s growling voice interrupted his sequence. Corin concentrated on the glowing telemetry screen, focusing on his rocket’s bright yellow icon as it moved away from the lime green curvature representing his abandoned planet.
“Fifteen!”
He nudged his head against the acceleration force, enough so that he could see the radar scope from the corner of his compressed eye. Through the distortion, he saw the disturbing image of a massive ship close to his projected path. He hissed defensively, but knowing he was unarmed, he realized he was nothing more than a helpless target for the approaching ship.
“Ten!” the computer mechanically droned on.
Corin reached over to the thruster panel and hooked his claw over the automatic toggle. Using fuel at this point was wasteful, but if he wouldn’t survive to use it later, it was useless cargo. Short, quick breaths dried out his cracked open mouth.
“Five!” His heart hammered away deep in his chest, bleating a hopeless echo in the cavity.
“Four. . . three . . . “ He tapped at the fuel jettison button, then wormed into his seat and braced himself.
“Two . . . one . . . ” The image drew closer.
Corin yanked at the toggle, almost ripping it from the panel. A shudder ripped through the rockets’ metal plates as the released stream of hydrazine lit explosively. Straining against the sudden acceleration, Corin reached to his panel and tapped the fuel button closed.
“Warning! Fire in the first . . . separation confirmed. First stage released,” the computer droned without emotion.
Corin refocused on the radar. The image had fallen behind him and was not in pursuit.
“Escape! Success!” he hissed, relieved. He sucked in a deep breath of the now stale, rank cabin air, then explosively exhaled. Gravity relented, surrendering its grip slowly to weightlessness.
Corin cinched up his harness, then opened the pouch on his seat. Gingerly, he curled his fingers around a buried syringe and lifted it out. He stared at the viscous blue contents for a moment, watching a clear air bubble limply hang in the center of the tube, then with a quick twist, removed the protective cap. With the dripping needle set against his loin, the softest part of his skin covering, he sucked in a deep breath of the thinning cabin air, then slid his eye covers closed. He clenched his teeth, then stiffened as he pierced his skin with the needle and forcefully emptied the contents into his body.
The serum worked rapidly, even faster than the Lacertian scientists guaranteed. Corin felt his heart and breathing rate slow to a death-like pace, and realized he would need to secure himself quickly. He jerked the syringe out of his leg, slipped it back into the pouch and secured the closure. As he reached to reduce his life support to hibernation levels, a tingle started at his claws, then trickled like a climbing spider toward his core. He felt oddly content as he watched his numb limbs begin to float helplessly away from his chair. Quietly and contentedly, Corin dropped off to sleep.
* * * * *
Fifth Order Q,reah Y’Fjorrik scrambled to the tactical bottle before the static stopped scratching through her intercom. Once through the portal, she positioned herself beside her tactical officer and glared at the radar screen.
“It’s not one of our shuttles. It’s too primitive!” Third Order Y’Zilalin barked.
“Good. Then perhaps we have not been noticed,” Y’Fjorrik vented a huge sigh from her dilated ventilation tubes. She leaned over Y’Zilalin’s mantle for a closer look, securing her tether to the post. Feathering her sagittals to keep close, she queried: “Then what is it? Lacertian?”
“Has to be.”
“Armament?” Y’Fjorrik’s eyes remained fixed on the blip as it moved alarmingly closer.
After a pregnant pause, Y’Zilalin noted with a hint of viciousness in her voice: “None! A limp fish just waiting to be gaffed!”
Startled by Y’Zilalin’s tone, Y’Fjorrik glanced toward the chronometer, thinking: If we do not get back soon . . .
“Targeted! It is within range of lasers and rockets now,” Y’Zilalin announced excitedly. She slipped her sagittal over the rocket launch button and twitched the tip. “I could . . .”
“Let it go!” Y’Fjorrik blurted. “We’ve got to get back to the Physeres before our absence is noted.”
“But it’s only one shot . . . “
“I said let it go!” Y’Fjorrik demanded gruffly. She roped a tetratarsal around Y’Zilalin’s mantle, squeezed enough to embe d her suction cups into her mottled skin, then added in a more hushed, but deliberate tone: “If you are truly Neord, you WILL let it go.”
Y’Zilalin froze. The blip’s distance closed. She slipped her lower lip into her mouth and wormed it between her dulled teeth. Y’Fjorrik’s grip grew tighter with each micro-cycle. Reluctantly, she let her sagittal tip slip away from the button.
“Very good, Y’Zilalin,” Y’Fjorrik mumbled through her sigh. “I know now I can count on you for the future,” she added as a v-shaped grin blossomed on her cephalus.
* * * Two * * *
“Is this all we offer the galaxy?” Fifth Order J,kreel T’Graupok lamented as he scanned the carnage on the Lacertian planet surface. “Death, destruction, and domination? Gheng, I can’t believe this is the only thing an intelligent race like ours can provide!”
“It’s simply our way, T’Gra,” T’Kiarlok offered in a soothing monotone. He placed his sagittal over his long time friend’s sloping mantle, then glanced through the inky black clouds wisping up from the devastated redoubts. “You know that as well as I do. It’s been our way for nestars, and probably will be for may more to come.”
“But does it have to be?” T’Graupok spit back, defiantly. “Does it really have to be this way?”
“What other way is there?” T’Kiarlok mumbled. “For more than one hundred nestars we’ve been a warrior race! Ever since the War of Salvation . . . ”
“But look around you, T’Kia! What glory was served here? This victory was nothing but hollow!”
“Any victory is worth the costs . . . “
“These beings were no challenge for us, T’Kia! Gheng, they hardly put up a fight!”
“If nothing else, it was a good training exercise . . .”
“Just because this has been the way we’ve always been, it does not make it inherently right!” T’Graupok protested. He turned toward the xanthic, smoke-filled sky and stared into the veiled red moon hovering over the darkening horizon. “Times change, T’Kia. Gheng, fifty nestars ago, we barely had our tetratarsals in space. Interstellar travel was nothing more than a science council dream!”
“Some even said hallucination!” T’Kiarlok chuckled.
“Now, we can head out from Egnaro as Slafacenes slips into the sky, conquer a planet outside of our own star system, and be home for a gheligane and ichthys feast by the first moon rise!”
T’Graupok sighed explosively.
“Careful old friend, you’re mixing your conscious streams,” T’Kiarlok sensed his friends exasperation. “Technology only provides us opportunities to grow. A vehicle . . .”
“Don’t you see it, T’Kia? Technology IS moving us forward! And if we don’t modify our ways, change with it, we will be the victims of another race more powerful than ours!”
“Modify our ways? What are you talking about, T’Gra?” T’Kiarlok fished, but knew precisely where T’Graupok was headed.
“We don’t have to continue destroying every civilization we experience. We could be a more peaceful . . . more intelligent race if we . . . “
“If I understand you correctly, T’Gra, what you’re implying would change the very fabric of Egnarian culture!”
“Maybe I am saying that. But look at this place. Look at these hills! The blood is so ubiquitous that everything, even that tenged day moon up there is red. And what do we have to show for it? The waste of another civilization! That’s it! Does that really make you proud to be an Egnarian?”
“We have another planet for the Egnarian Empire! Lacerta Seven is now ours to do with what we please”
“Gheng, T’Kia! Think! Use your ganglia! We have a planet, but .. . but nothing else!”
“That was our order! And as Egnarians, we are duty bound to fulfill those orders!” T’Kiarlok rebuffed stiffly, then silently thought: At least that is what I am supposed to believe.
“We destroyed the collective knowledge of an entire species! We have no idea what we could have learned from them. Take a look around you . . . we haven’t captured a single piece of anything this culture had to offer!” T’Graupok continued his emphatic protest.
“I think you’re missing a vital prerequisite here!” T’Kiarlok’s voice grew condescending. “After all, you do have to admit these Lacerta were not much more intelligent than our own swamp turtles!”
“Intelligence?” T’Graupok exploded. He pointed to the heinous victory pillage being waged by the invasion force. “Look at that cacophony down there! That’s barbarism, not intelligence!”
“And your suggestion?”
“Maybe, in some way, we could have developed a partnership? Perhaps share our technologies, and save the diversity of both of our cultures?”
T’Kiarlok contemplated as he silently surveyed the corpses of the reptilian bipeds littered about the hills like strewn, useless trash. He felt T’Graupok’s protests elicit a twinge of responsibility for what he now viewed as nothing more than senseless carnage. The scene of Egnarians dancing through snaking, inky smoke did nothing to mollify that either.
A cold shudder suddenly danced through his lateral line sensor as his eyes bulged inside his cephalic restraint.
“You’re not a Neord, are you?” he asked icily.
T’Graupok quickly nodded his helmet, signaling no.
“That’s a relief!” T’Kiarlok phewed, then continued with a more relaxed tone. “I’m sorry that I had to ask, but after all, you do have to admit . . . you are sounding a bit like those bleeding heart Neords back home.”
T’Kiarlok glanced at his old friend - a friend for so long that he knew him better than his own brother. Through his visor he saw the twisted expression etched on his cephalus which he learned was concern, although it did look more like he was about to explode into laughter.
“You know, T’Gra. I have to admit . . . Sometimes you actually frighten me a bit with radical talk like that . . .”
T’Graupok sighed loudly. “Sometimes I wonder a bit myself. Each time I see another Egnarian die for the questionable privilege of scoffing up another orbiting rock for the empire, my penchant for blood wanes.” Weakly, he scuffed his tetratarsals and kicked up an amber cloud from the blood splotched dust.
T’Kiarlok glanced back silently to the pitiful massacre before him.
“What have we really won here, T’Kia?” T’Graupok complained, turning back. He waved his two vestigial limbs in a circle around him. “Look around you. Look closely at our spoils, if that’s what they can be called. A dusty hunk of terran rock . . . air so dry we can’t enjoy without these bulky environmental aids . . . water so tainted it stings when it touches our skin!”
T’Graupok fell silent while he drank in the scenes around him. When he turned back to T’Kiarlok, his eyes had grown wide and sentimental.
“We’ve been warrior bound since the academy, T’Kia!” he started again. “We’ve fought so many valiant battles for Egnaro, that I’ve lost count. You must know it’s not that I’m afraid of dying for Egnaro . . . it’s just that all of this simply doesn’t seem really right anymore!”
T’Kiarlok glared through his friend’s visor and saw that his cephalus had blushed pale blue. Combined with the garbled, disjointed words, he suddenly realized his T’Graupok was suffering ammonia hypoxia. Even he felt his equilibrium crippled a bit with the condition’s nauseating dizziness.
“It’s been a long campaign, T’Gra. Let’s get out of here and head back to the ship.”
“We need to set up the provisional government, yet. That is part of our responsibility for this tenged demolition we caused, isn’t it?” T’Graupok cynically volleyed.
“We can let the Colonization Service pick up the pieces. I’m sure you’ll be able to think much more clearly once you get a little more natural ammonia into your ganglia.”
I AM thinking clearly, T’Graupok internalized, recoiling. Shocked by T’Kiarlok’s implication, he glared back icily and thought: This isn’t battle fatigue! This is reality! Can’t you see that?
But instead of continuing the debate he sensed growing futile, T’Graupok quietly admitted: “Perhaps you’re right. Even this tenged vertebral implant has grown irritating without the benefit of battle to keep my mind off of it.”
“Why don’t you head back to the shuttles, T’Gra. I’ll herd up the troops,” T’Kiarlok offered, then wryly added: “I’m sure a victory feast of ichthys and gheligane will help all of us think a little more clearly!”
T’Graupok snarled his lip, but nodded anyway. T’Kiarlok grinned then fired off his jet pack and floated toward the pandemonium still flourishing at the crumbled Lacertian command center.
“First X’Singlok, then you. How can both of my closest friends be that far removed from reality,” T’Kiarlok mumbled as he approached the devastated command center. The motionless, dismembered bodies soaking in pools of blood turned his gullet, but he simply looked away, thinking: Regardless of what I or they think is right, this is my duty. And if my duty is to fight in the name of Egnaro, I will do so . . . to the best of my ability!
* * * * * *
T’Kiarlok assumed his post as the massive Physeres rocketed out from the planet’s orbit and headed home. Meticulously, he began his assignment to review each of the readouts for temperature and humidity, ensuring optimum conditions for the gheligane supply on the vegetative decks of the battleship. After logging his review, he placed the magnetic computer chart on the panel, then unbuckled his restraint.
Tethered to his post, T’Kiarlok calmly floated, feeling tension stream out of his body as it decompressed and expanded to a more natural state. Although his vertebral implant was still inserted, weightlessness made it more tolerable. Free of environmental aids and other encumbrances, he almost felt like he was home, back in the Great Sea on Egnaro.
Absently, he started the Heyya mediations he had learned from the recluse colony of mantas, designed to therapeutically soothe somatic and mental battle fatigue. With the exception of battle, he enjoyed this part of the mission the most.
Suddenly, though, his lateral line tingled to life. He twisted fluidly and faced the portal.
“If I remember correctly, I was assigned to this shift,” he blurted, startled by the lingering young female. Her cephalus was unfamiliar, but the five chevrons on her moisture barrier were obvious - Fifth Order.
“Has there been a change to my orders?” T’Kiarlok probed.
“Oh, no, B,theel. This is still your assignment,” she confirmed, drifting closer.
Given name? That’s brash! T’Kiarlok thought, skeptically studying his visitor. His lateral line fired like it had just been scraped by stinging black coral.
“I simply wanted to talk with you a while . . . alone,” she offered nonchalantly, winking one of her translucent eye covers over her deeply set brown eyes. “I have found lately that this is the only time any of us can get a chance to talk!”
“I do not believe we know each other well enough for given names, even if we are close enough in rank,” T’Kiarlok noted rigidly, hovering next to his post. “And you will need to excuse me, but I do not know who . . . “
“Y’Fjorrik. Fifth Order Q,reah Y’Fjorrik, but I prefer Q,reah,” her short, stubby eye stalks twitched as she smirked and feigned a bow. “And no, you probably don’t know me . . . other that just another one of the soldiers in the service. But I don’t believe that should preclude us from being a bit more . . . shall we say, congenial?”
A Fifth Order and I don’t remember seeing her before? T’Kiarlok smiled artificially, trying to hide his suspiciousness.
“I brought some gheligane. Perhaps we could share it and talk?” Y’Fjorrik offered her moisture tight blue satchel.
T’Kiarlok studied Y’Fjorrik’s wry grin with guarded vigilance, especially since his lateral line continued firing with an irritating insistence. Exhaustion, though, coaxed surrender.
“Let me draw some water tubes and we can discuss whatever it is that is on your ganglia,” T’Kiarlok offered warily, then motioned for Y’Fjorrik to take the seat next to him. He untethered, flicked his tetratarsals and coasted across the bottle. He collected two aqua colored tubes and quickly returned.
Y’Fjorrik took one of the pliable tubes and nodded a gracious thank you. She wrapped her sagittals onto her chair’s handles, then maneuvered into it and securely snapped her restraint.
“Now, Y’Fjorrik . . . “
“Q’reah,” Y’Fjorrik insisted. An impish, v-shaped grin poked through her blue cephalic restraint. T’Kiarlok watched her eyes dance coyly as they inspected him.
“Q’reah,” T’Kiarlok stiffly repeated, nodding as he tethered himself back to his post. “What is it that you would like to discuss?”
“Well,” she started, pressing her sagittals together at their tips. “I heard that you were talking about the senselessness of the battle on Lacerta Sev . . .”
“How?” T’Kiarlok defensively interrupted. Y’Fjorrik’s grin pasted on her cephalus unnerved T’Kiarlok.
Manta’sheel! T’Kiarlok gasped. He scanned her tunic for concealed listening devices. That would answer why I haven’t seen her before. She was never part of the real military.
“Oh, I’m not Manta’sheel, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Y’Fjorrik mumbled with an air of confidence. “In fact, quite the opposite is true !’
“Neord?” T’Kiarlok uttered with a hushed inquisitiveness.
“I prefer to see myself as . . . a progressive, I guess is the right word. A concerned member of a futurist movement, actually. You must admit, B,theel, that Neord label has quite a harsh connotation.
But true , T’Kiarlok mulled.
“Now where were we . . . you were lamenting about how we brutally eliminated an entire race out of existence?”
“That’s not quite true ! It wasn’t . . .” T’Kiarlok rebuffed, then caught himself.
I can’t expose T’Graupok. They’ll have his chevrons!
“I’m not really sure what I was talking about on Lacerta,” T’Kiarlok bluffed cautiously. “Whatever I said, it probably was due to ammonia hypoxia.”
“Come now, B,theel. Even a non-mantiera knows that hypoxia does not conjure thoughts, it only releases suppressed ones!”
“Your point then?” T’Kiarlok bluntly urged, uncomfortable. His ventral flap felt as nervously tight as if he were engaged in a post-battle inquisition.
“I understand how you feel, B,theel. After all, the Council and especially the Manta-sheel would have you demoted and expelled for that. But, since I am neither, I really don’t see why you should be defensive about it to me,” Y’Fjorrik quietly commented. She suckled her water tube, swallowed hard, then leaned closer to T’Kiarlok. “As a matter of fact, there are many of us who believe the same way you do.”
“In the military?” T’Kiarlok watched her deftly fold a gheligane leaf with her sagittals. As he heard the leaf veins snap open,a familiar, tingling peppery aroma immediately itched T’Kiarlok’s olfactory ganglia.
“Some are,” Y’Fjorrik murmured her response. T’Kiarlok watched the clear fluid ooze over the green leaf and gleam refracted rainbow hues in the bottle’s dim light.
“So then the rumor of a strategically coordinated movement is more than just that?”
Y’Fjorrik’s eyes drifted upward while she folded her sagittals in a relaxed posture. She nodded her cephalus enough for him to notice. T’Kiarlok felt his heart grope up into his esophagus.
“I’ve heard rumors of Neords in the military . . .” T’Kiarlok muttered, then thought to himself: But I’ve never been so brashly approached!
“We were hoping that someone in the military of your stature would finally see the logic in a New Order . . . and if I’m not mistaken, from what you’ve said on the planet, it looks like you have.”
“That conclusion is premature,” T’Kiarlok protested, although weakly.
“You know, we would be extremely pleased to have you join us?”
T’Kiarlok guffawed. “Join? Me? Join the Neords? Warrior born, bred, and trained?”
“Warrior notwithstanding, you are very well respected on Egnaro, T’Kiarlok, regardless of who I talk to.” Y’Fjorrik teasingly nibbled at her gheligane leaf as her sagittals grew animated. “Oh, you must try this gheligane . . . from deck four I believe. It is definitely the most potent leaf I’ve ever had in space!”
“I ate before I took my post,” T’Kiarlok declined, coldly.
“As I was saying, that respect you have gained has not been because of your military prowess. It’s your leadership and character. Are you aware that some Egnarians have even compared you to the great T’Urilok?”
T’Urilok, T’Kiarlok mused, flattered with the comparison. “I do appreciate the reference, but if I remember correctly, T’Urilok even retained his warrior rank when he sat on the Council!”
“We all know the warrior side of T’Urilok, that is elementary level learning. But he was respected because he was a great leader. A visionary, actually.” Y’Fjorrik quickly gulped from her water tube.
“That is undeniable.”
“Were you aware that some friends of mine have obtained battle transcripts written later in his life . . . after he felt the necessity of war was over?”
“War is our way! It’s our law!” T’Kiarlok insisted.
“And if you read them,” Y’Fjorrik continued, undaunted. “You would also conclude that if he were on Egnaro today, he would be leading the futurist movement, not opposing it like the Eighth Council would want everyone to believe!”
“Gheng! That is fantasy! T’Urilok was dedicated to the Egnarian way! His teachings were military and of the art of battle! All of our laws ...”
“When it was necessary! Even T’Urilok sensed that fighting was only a temporary measure . . . a means to reach an end. Not an end in and of itself! That is where the laws are flawed!”
“So you do admit that war is necessary?” T’Kiarlok sparred, trying to logically pin Y’Fjorrik.
“WAS! The operative word is was, B,theel. But in our present world, it is not!” Y’Fjorrik waved her sagittals even more. “Listen to what I am saying, T’Kiarlok. War is seen as a necessity now solely because presently accepted interpretations SAY it is, not because it really is. It’s the way we’ve always done things and quite narrow mindedly if you ask me. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Peace is the way of the future, B,theel! Isn’t that what you said on Lacerta?”
“No! That is not what I said and I do not appreciate anyone twisting my words . . . especially when it is used as evidence of my alleged support of the cowardly Neord . . .”
“Cowardly?” Y’Fjorrik spat venomously. Her eyes bulged from her stiffened eye stalks protruding from her blue cephalus. “Cowardly is blindly following a designated, myopic ideal instead of following your conviction! Even if that conviction IS against state policy!”
“I beg to differ, Y’Fjorrik,” T’Kiarlok bantered confidently. “Cowardice is running from battle because you are afraid of fighting in the name of the state . . . and that is precisely what you Neords are proposing!”
“Are you accusing me of being afraid?” Y’Fjorrik’s sagittals waved accusingly at T’Kiarlok.
“That’s for you to decide, Y’Fjorrik.” T’Kiarlok smugly retorted.
“Fear is not one of my traits, T’Kiarlok. I am willing to face the council with my beliefs! THAT is what courage is about! Standing beside your beliefs in public even when it opposes prevailing official policy!”
“Perhaps,” T’Kiarlok mumbled, then let the pregnant pause fester. “But some circles also consider that a foolish pursuit.”
“I warn you, T’Kiarlok,” Y’Fjorrik finally exploded with full rage. “When the New Order becomes the Egnarian way, and I assure you it will, you and any other turtle ganglia too foolish to understand the need for change, or too stubborn to consider it, will become as vestigial as our T’Huusand gland!”
“If that time comes . . .”
“WHEN the time comes!” Y’Fjorrik angrily spit back. “Mark my words, T’Kiarlok. I will succeed . . . and your choice is to be with me, or be eliminated!”
Y’Fjorrik emphatically unlatched her belt and snapped out of the room. T’Kiarlok gulped a lung full of ammoniated air and chewed on Y’Fjorrik’s words for a moment. But only a moment. He knew he was right. Or at least thought he was.
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