CHAPTER THREE◄CHAPTER FOUR►CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER ARTWORK

High King Phaziah Ishigar stared out of the UV-tinted window of his royal flagship’s conning tower, the hulking battleship named Warlord’s Ascendency, aptly titled as a representation of the strength and willpower that brought the warring Sivathi tribes and chieftains of ancient times under one planetary unification. Nearly two-dozen dynasties had come and gone since the time of the first High Kings and Queens, but now the House of Ishigar reigned supreme.

The ship and the fleet in tow was on approach to Siva after having exited hyperspace, returning from a ceremonial visit to the colonies of the Ibra system, the first such established in Sivathi history outside the boundaries of the Zaket suns. It was for the colony’s golden jubilee—fifty years since its founding—and a show of force had been necessary to guarantee the Sivathi of the Ibra system that all was well on the home front and the colonies beyond in the face of the civil war. Warlord’s Ascendancy, along with a dozen other battleships and carriers, scores of cruisers and destroyers, almost a hundred frigates, and almost a thousand fighters and bombers had been presented unscathed to the colonists in their skies. It was only right that they were shown as such, for if it could be demonstrated that the Confederacy was incapable of even scratching their enemy, what had the Sivathi loyal to Phaziah Ishigar to fear?

Gazing at the poles of Siva, where many of his enemies had concentrated, the asteroid moon of Magofa also lingered in his sight. The fiery trail of the troop transport as it was plummeting slowly back towards the planet also caught his attention; he’d already been informed of it by some of his admirals. The choice had been made to not risk men or material in trying to rescue it, and instead let the forces on the ground salvage who and what they could when it finally landed. However, the simple fact remained that the Confederacy had grown bolder in their attacks. If they had been able to penetrate into Siva proper with their cobbled together fleets, then nobody was safe.

Phaziah Ishigar smiled to himself. He was safe. Any Confederates would be suicidal to try and take on Warlord’s Ascendancy and its plethora of gauss, plasma, and kinetic artillery batteries. That was assuming they got through the other ships escorting his flagship. However, a different threat always loomed in the back of his mind that always reared its head whenever he gazed at the desolate province of Lathga from outer space.

He knew that his bastard daughter likely lurked somewhere down there in that remote region of Siva. He’d been informed of her sale to Zeshom Noor only a few weeks after Shiphra had been executed, and the businessman had grown exceedingly rich off the tax breaks granted to him for accepting the risk of hiding the sin of the High King. Phaziah Ishigar had indeed shown mercy towards the girl that had otherwise not deserved it, but what happened after that was something he had little care for. If she was still alive, then that was fine. If not, even better. At least she’d died not by his hands, unlike her mother. It was all on Zeshom Noor. He couldn’t know for certain of her fate because he didn’t care enough to look into the matter.

Even so, the raging civil war had always put the High King on edge in regards to his illegitimate child. What if the Confederates grew too strong and actually gave the Crown of Siva a run for its money in the near future? With entire colonies and both poles of the planet out of his control, it wasn’t out of the question, however unlikely. The chances that his daughter could break free in the midst of the flames of war and blaze a path of freedom in the ranks of freedom fighters always frightened him. The chances were astronomical that this was even a possibility, and he’d hoped to forget about the matter, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never fully push it out of his mind. How could he let one little slave toy with his mind like this?

Worse yet, the troop transport with nearly a whole regiment aboard and a cache of supplies, weapons, and ammunition was being projected to come down in Lathga Province. Zeshom Noor’s property was just a speck in its vastness, but it only worried him more with the prospect of it landing anywhere close to where his daughter might be. The Confederacy was sure to have forces hidden somewhere in the region, ready to strike and take the loot for themselves to bolster their cause. If that happened, what was stopping the child from joining their ranks if they should cross paths with her?

He shook his head as he turned away from the window, walking back across the walkway that ran down the center of the conning tower, where loyal officers and marines went about their business at their stations. He had to keep reminding himself of the sheer improbability of his daughter ever breaking free of the most desolate province of Siva, and the fact that he’d ordered so much of 1st Lathga Front’s regiments to be spread throughout the region to cover all the points of descent of the troop transport. Shiphra’s child had been sent there for a reason, after all.

As he walked across the conning tower, the shriek of an attack wing of heavy fighters and bombers thundered outside in the blackness of space as they went through their usual patrols, weaving in and out of the fleet as they left behind the whitish contrails of ionized propulsion in their wake. These were all symbols of the High King’s power. He clasped his handpaws behind his back, taking solace in the fact that these were the tools that he and he alone wielded to exact his will upon his subjects, and most importantly, the commoners and slaves who were uprooting the fabric of his society. If his daughter was really out there and ever posed a threat to him—even though he knew it to be next to impossible—he could have his vast armies of marines and soldiers or his fleets of starships erase her and her kind from the face of the planet. In doing so, he wouldn’t be violating the gift of life that he’d given her so long ago. It was up to her to make do with what she’d been given, and if that was to transpire in the life of slavery, then that was what she should be content with.

As should all the slaves! Phaziah Ishigar continued to mull this over as he casually waved to the saluting officers on deck as he strode by them, heading to the rear view of the conning tower to bask in the glory of his fleet behind him. The commoners, and moreover the slaves, should have been grateful for all he provided them. Without the firm and guiding hand of the nobility, how could the lowest castes of Sivathi ever be trusted to care for themselves? He’d heard all the stories about the settlements of liberated slaves that the Confederates had set up. They never lasted more than a few seasons before they fell into discontent and chaos. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact that the Crown of Siva was bearing down so hard on them, and as a consequence such settlements didn’t have the resources to flourish for long. Even with the food-producing polar regions in enemy hands, so much of its production went to supplying the Confederate armies that there was never any hope to keep the settlements up and running for long.

Reaching the rear of the conning tower, Phaziah Ishigar gazed out at the labyrinthine expanse his flagship’s stern, teeming with artillery and antiaircraft defenses. What threat was the Confederacy of Liberation to him when he could blow their ships out of the sky at any time he chose? He wanted to assure himself of this certainty, but he knew that the day could soon come that the fledgling shipbuilding capabilities of his enemy could catch up to the Crown of Siva’s and an actual decisive battle could be waged against him. He had to put a stop to this civil war before that happened, but he couldn’t risk an orbital bombardment of the rogue colonies and the rebel strongholds on Siva proper, not without endangering the lives of innocents and those still loyal to him. He couldn’t begin to tarnish his supreme image in the eyes of his people by bringing harm upon them.

Then again, the Confederacy viewed him as a tyrant already. Was it truly any worse of an option to rain down death and destruction if they already saw him as such? What were a few more enemies to be made in the quest for maintaining the monarchy that had held Siva together for so long?

It pained him to think of resorting to such tactics, but some day, if the need grew great enough, it might be his only choice. He'd been careful to surround himself with only dukes and duchesses loyal to him on the day he'd sentenced Shiphra to die and spare the daughter. Those who had been softhearted to the plight of the slaves and commoners—the very ones who were helping instigate this rebellion—hadn't been invited to the palace that day, and had only caught news of what had happened in rumors. Alas, their confidence in him had waned, and that unfortunate event had been the straw that broke the Zuthari’s back. It hadn’t been merciful to send his daughter into slavery, claiming that he was still blessing her with the gift of life. Phaziah Ishigar, they thought, had to answer for his sin. As such, almost ten nobles were now at the helm of the insurrection, as well as a few progressively minded dukes and duchesses of the colonies.

The bulk of the dukes and duchesses were still steadfastly loyal to him, however. It was in their best interest that none of them lost their power they wielded by keeping the grandeur provided to them by the slave class and commoners. These select few rogues that were leading the Confederacy of Liberation had been poisoned in their minds by progressive drivel and nonsense, who’d maintained their power through means like business and science instead of on the backs of slaves. That being the case, their shying away from tradition was what made them weak, and it was why Phaziah Ishigar knew that he would be victorious in his endeavors, one way or another.

“Your Majesty?” came the voice of one of the High King’s admirals, beckoning his attention. “We’re ready to receive the transmission from the commanding general of 1st Lathga Front. He wished to update you on the situation about the troop transport descending to the planet?”

Phaziah Ishigar turned himself around, making eye contact with his admiral briefly before gazing down at the holo-projection in his handpaw, bearing the form of 1st Lathga Front’s general. Waving his paw to the admiral in a motion that he was dismissed, he took the device from his officer, gazing down at the hazy, electrified figure of Lieutenant General Teth Grisha.

“My Lord!” the general’s voice crackled over the speaker of the projector as he addressed the High King. “Any day where my eyes grace your form is a blessed one! Glory be to you, High King Phaziah Ishigar, and may the dual suns continue to shine—”

“You have the regiments of 1st Lathga Front spread throughout the province in order to intercept the troop transport once it crash lands?” Phaziah Ishigar cut to the chase, doing away with the formalities that the general was throwing before him.

“I relayed your orders to my regimental commanders as soon as I received them, your Highness. 100th, 103rd, 109th, and 111th Mechanized Regiments, 13th Tank Regiment, 44th Cavalry Regiment, and 303rd through 313th Infantry Regiments are all in their assigned positions conducting sweeps of Lathga Province,” Teth Grisha said, having memorized the units involved several times over by this point. He swished his tail from side to side in a display of confidence, knowing that it would please his overlord that he’d taken such intense steps to make sure that the troop transport didn’t fall to the enemy.

“And the few caves and undergrounds of Lathga Province?” the High King asked, raising one eyebrow in a questioning manner. “They make quite the cloak in hiding the Confederacy; they’ve put them to good use on the north and south poles. Or have you forgotten that very fine point from your conferences with the other generals?”

“N-no, High King!” Teth Grisha said, shaking his handpaws and head as he lied. He knew he’d given no explicit orders to make sure the select few labyrinths underground in Lathga Province weren’t teeming with Confederates. However, so sure had he been of his stranglehold on the region, he hadn’t actually bothered to send reconnaissance into the underground. It wasn’t too late to do so, but he had to continue lying just to appease Phaziah Ishigar. “Even though the region is quite safe, I’ve already ordered several scouting parties from those aforementioned regiments to reconnoiter those very areas. But my Lord, I still assure you that Lathga Province is as safe as it could ever be. Even the duke’s daughter went out to the most remote reaches this week to visit Zeshom Noor, I’m told! She plans to purchase some of his slaves for construction of her new palace.”

Phaziah Ishigar cringed a little at hearing that name, knowing that all the smoke and mirrors that had been erected to deceive his illegitimate daughter hinged upon that very Sivathi businessman. At the mention of the duke’s daughter, Princess Aliya, being in the area, it made him all the more uneasy that somebody of noble blood like herself would investigate the matter of his bastard child if she crossed paths with her. The nobles—friend and the few rebel foes alike—had sworn an oath to uphold his secret. Not even their children knew, but with the civil war intensifying, what was stopping them from uncovering the truth?

“…So don’t worry about a thing, your Excellency,” Teth Grisha assured Phaziah Ishigar again. “I personally promise you that the troop transport won’t fall into the paws of the Confederacy. On my honor as commanding officer of 1st Lathga Front, I swear it!”

“Very good, General,” Phaziah Ishigar said, shutting off the transmission after having ignored the better part of Teth Grisha’s final words. The anxiety about all the possibilities surrounding his daughter’s fate and her potentially breaking free in some surprise attack in Lathga Province had hijacked his mind from everything else. He didn’t want to listen to what the general had to say. He just wanted a crisis averted, and he couldn’t know until the troop transport had been secured.

Setting the holo-transmitter down on the windowsill, Phaziah Ishigar shut his eyes, blotting out the view of his precious planet of Siva from sight. In crushing moments of anxiety like this, it felt as if the whole world and its people were gazing back at him, judging him for having let the child of Shiphra live, and he couldn’t stand to look at his realm. Where had that tiny grain of mercy to even let her live yet kill her mother even come from? He’d only done it because he was expected to be an arbiter of justice and tradition, endowed to him by the holy Zaket suns that were represented by his crown. But he’d been the first to break the noble lineage of kings and queens by sleeping with Shiphra, perhaps out of some misplaced sense of attraction and hope for betterment of the slave class. Even then, it had carried over in his sentence of Shiphra, proclaiming her to die while the daughter lived, albeit in isolation and out of his sight forever.

It was true; he had defied a great law by creating a daughter of mixed slave and royal blood. And now some of his own nobles had rebelled, proclaiming that Sivathi like Shiphra and her child deserved better, like the single night of love that he’d given the slave girl that had led to his grave error. Had he been the one to start this whole conflict, with people taking to heart what he’d done all those years ago as a rallying cry for justice? Was Phaziah Ishigar just unable to see that, just as he refused to look upon Siva at this very moment?

Having squeezed his eyes tight, the High King gasped as he opened his sight again, forcing himself to look at the planet and the fiery trail of the troop transport continuing its descent. What foolishness was this that he was thinking? He was a monarch of the Ishigars! He was incapable of sin, as it was written by law. He’d done no wrong in his actions, and if those complicit in rebellion could not comprehend this, then they deserved to die just as Shiphra had done for daring to tempt his anger.

And just like Shiphra, the Confederacy would die one day. Phaziah Ishigar would make sure of it. Just as his grandfather had crushed the rogue duke who thought he could overthrow centuries of tradition, so too would the High King emerge as the victor and be worthy of the holiness of the dual suns that granted him his power. He may have made a mistake long ago, but he was determined to rectify it once and for all. Only through thwarting this rebellion would his daughter come to know her true place in the universe, and to be content with it, as all slaves and commoners should.

*

The night after the 100th Mechanized Regiment had made their way to their designated position, Elkanah lay prone upon the crest of the dune that looked down into the property of Zeshom Noor, some fifteen or so kilometers away. Gazing through his infrared binoculars, he caught a quick sight of what he thought was a heat signature coming from a cave even further off in the distance, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be empty. With the illusion disappeared, he refocused back on the mud pits and the manor of the Sivathi businessman while the other members of his fire team lay prone beside him, taking their own observations and keeping their radios on as they listened to commands from Major Emiah in his assault gun.

The whole company had positioned themselves out of sight of Zeshom Noor’s property behind the massive dune and hill, so as not to make a scene or make it seem like they were preparing to trespass on his land. Even so, they might have had to do so if the troop transport was going to come down nearby, for all the math that was being fine tuned by the 1st Lathga Front’s headquarters was suggesting that it would end up here. The heat signature of the vessel in Elkanah’s binoculars had grown just as bright as Gefo at this point, and it would only be a matter of hours before it crash landed.

As Elkanah continued looking down at the property, he took a closer look at its finer details. The mud pits that pockmarked over half of the land were vacant at the moment; the slaves that worked them had all retired for the evening to their holding pens. Very little activity was happening there, save for wild animals trudging through the place or the lonely overseer patrolling the perimeter, making sure there was no contraband hidden anywhere or issues that would come up to halt production the following day. Glancing over slightly in the viewing device, the sergeant saw his attention turned to the manor proper, where the structure was teeming with a royal entourage and guests of all kinds. That was where the real activity was taking place!

“You think any of them know that their party is about to get ruined by that troop transport landing in Zeshom Noor’s backyard?” one of Elkanah’s troops said, laughing under his breath.

Before he could even give his own answer, a far off sound of a cracking whip echoed in the night air, catching Elkanah’s attention and pulling it away from the manor and back towards the mud pits. Where had it come from when all the slaves had been put away for the night?”

“Keep it turning, bitch!” came a harsh voice that echoed over the landscape soon after the sound of the whip, just barely audible in the vastness of the wasteland. Elkanah looked around frantically for the source of the sound, but with the infrared vision of his gear, he was quickly able to spot it; he only had to steady his view to compensate for the fact that only the slightest movement of his eyesight would ruin his sight picture from gazing at something so far out.

The only heat signatures that showed up from where the sounds had emanated were from the Zuthari pen on the edge of the perimeter of the mud pits. Two smaller heat signatures also showed up at where the pens met the mud pits, where a millstone was situated. To Elkanah’s dismay that tore at his soft spot for the plight of the subjugated, he saw a poor Sivathi slave girl harnessed to it in place of the Zuthari that would have been doing the work, struggling immensely as she turned the stone that ground the grain within its base. Another Sivathi—no doubt the overseer—was walking alongside her, flicking his whip on her back every so often and treating her like a beast.

“What the hell…?” Elkanah said in a stupefied manner. He squinted his eyes to try and focus closer on the atrocity he was witnessing. The slave was trembling horribly as she strained against the yoke on her shoulders and wrists with all her might. The device had clearly been designed for such a purpose, for the larger harness at the far end of the millstone bar was designed to fit a Zuthari, but the beast was strangely absent. He’d witnessed severe forms of cruelty many times in his life upon the slave class and even some of the common folk, but he’d never seen anything this debasing to another Sivathi.

“What do you see, Sarge?” the specialist in his fire team said, pawing at the binoculars as he beckoned him to have a turn and look through.

“Barbarism,” Elkanah muttered under his breath, not wanting to observe it any further as he handed over the binoculars to his subordinate. His heart went out to the slave girl being abused at the paws of the overseer, and he dearly wished he could charge down the hill to help. Even if he could have done so without reprimand, he was too far away to do anything.

“Check it out!” the specialist said to his comrades, laughing to himself as he witnessed the slave’s plight. Though he himself was a commoner, as was the majority of the fire team, he felt a sense of power and privilege that he otherwise would never have obtained without serving in the Crown Army, and in times like this, Elkanah’s soldiers relished the spectacle.

“Wonder what she did to deserve that! Probably a reminder to the rest of the slaves down there of squashing any ideas they might have about running off to join the Confederacy,” one of the privates said, stealing a look through the binoculars as he stole them away from the specialist.

“Sergeant?” came the voice of Major Emiah through the radio set.

Elkanah put a finger to the intercom on his helmet, looking down into the sand before him as he tried to blot out the horrid picture he’d just witnessed. “Go ahead, Major,” he said, awaiting his officer’s command.

“We’ve received some additional information from regimental command,” the Major’s voice crackled over the radio. “That cave several kilometers past Zeshom Noor’s property is going to be blocked off by some medium armor of the 13th. We’d take care of it, but we don’t have time to investigate it fully and search for an underground Confederate hideout. The troop ship is estimated to crash land in about an hour or two, just before or at sunrise, so they’re going to seal it off and form a defensive perimeter around its entrance to keep anybody inside—if there’s anybody there at all—from coming out to try and get their paws on the wreckage and survivors. You didn’t see anything at its entrance during your observation, did you?”

“No, Sir,” Elkanah lied, knowing that he had seen the faintest traces of heat coming from the cave. He quickly deflected the question, asking something of his own to the Major. “They’re going to have armor there in time? You just said it’s coming down within the hour or two, Sir.”

“They got the order well in advance, Sergeant,” Major Emiah replied. About a hundred meters behind Elkanah’s position, he could hear the biodiesel engine of the assault gun his commanding officer was in come to life as it prepared to move out. “They’re only about fifteen minutes over the hill where the cave is. Several companies from the 13th Tank Regiment and 44th Cavalry have been doing the same thing all over the province. None of them have time to thoroughly search them, but now that it’s estimated that the ship is coming down at this location, they’ll soon be rerouting them to support us. That being the case, I advise you and your fire team get aboard your designated APC and prepare to go downhill into the sand plain. Our company moves out in half an hour to be ready to reach the crash site. Old Zeshom Noor is in for quite the surprise when he sees the troop transport crashed on his property.”

“Understood, Major,” Elkanah said, finally looking up again and taking back his set of binoculars, shoving them back into his pack. He stood up, motioning for his troops to gather their equipment and weapons and prepare to file into the APC. “Does he know?”

“That’s not for me to discern,” the Major said. “It’s a slim chance that it actually hits his estate—I’m sure it’ll land somewhere in the plain around the mud pits or his manor house. If he did know, I’m sure he would have evacuated by now, for his own safety and for that of Princess Aliya. She’s staying there at the moment, I heard. She’s rumored to have a thing for theatrics and entertainment, so if there is to be a skirmish with hidden rebels, she’ll be in for a treat.”

Elkanah shook his head. Were the nobles really treating this whole conflict of death and destruction as little more than fun and games? Something else beyond the detached attitude of his superior gnawed at his mind, however. With the orders of the armored regiment companies to block off the caves in Lathga Province—the nearest one being no exception—made it seem that there could be a credible threat within. He knew he’d seen the slightest bit of a heat signature coming from the opening of the cave mouth, but had thought little of it. Putting two and two together, had he really seen evidence of a Confederate hideaway that his superiors suspected? As a soldier of the Crown Army, he knew it was his duty to make mention of such things. But he thought back to his desire to be free of this oppressive regime, and the drastic measures it would take to get him out. Nothing short of a full-blown battle or ambush would be necessary to break him out of the confines of service, where he could flee in the chaos or be considered missing in action. If told Major Emiah what he’d really seen and it turned out that there was a rebel contingent in the caves, there might be little chance of a successful attack on his unit taking place, for they’d press the matter further and have the armored company personally go in to investigate rather than just loiter outside to act as a blockage and deterrent from any rebels sallying forth.

Even if he said something at all, the crews of the Crown Army tank regiments were known for their inexperience in fighting outside their vehicles, and were probably not very keen on venturing into the caves on foot to investigate. There was simply no more time to bring up infantry to comb the underground quickly enough, but they couldn’t just leave it entirely open, either. The best they could hope for was to send a scout team from the 100th into the cave to check things out, but by that time the troop transport would have already hit the planet.

Even so, sending a scout team would be enough to break the stealth of any rebels that may have happened to be in the underground. Knowing that, Elkanah kept his mouth shut, acting ignorant on the possibility that the Confederates could have even established themselves in Lathga Province’s underground. If they were truly there, they’d done so spectacularly and without the Crown Army knowing, operating right under their very noses. As Elkanah boarded the APC, he could only hope that the suicidal wish to be caught in the crossfire of some epic clash would actually come to fruition in the fires of the troop transport that was rapidly approaching. His silence on what he may have seen would be his ticket out of the ranks of the oppressors he couldn’t stand to serve any longer.

*

“Isn’t this exciting?” Princess Aliya said as she stood upon the balcony of Zeshom Noor’s estate. From afar, she watched Talitha mindlessly trudging in circles on the millstone while Kabir periodically whipped her. Up in the sky above, the shining form of the troop transport was growing ever brighter, and there could be little doubt that it would be landing very soon. “And look there, Zeshom Noor! It looks like you have some visitors coming down the slope of the dune.”

The marble furred Sivathi put his holo-pad down, listed with the names of dozens that he’d lost to the purchase of Princess Aliya. He was depressed enough about losing some of his best, and was trying to cheer himself up with the fact that he’d scored a good amount of social status points in the transaction with the duke of Lathga Province and his daughter. Now, however, he’d have something to be truly depressed about. He looked up to the slope where Princess Aliya was pointing, and to his dismay, a whole company of armored personnel carriers, assault guns, and infantry were descending down and towards the sand plain. On the opposite side of his view, medium tanks were coming down from the opposite slope and making their way towards the entrance of a long forgotten cave at the edge of his property.

“What in the world?” Zeshom Noor said loudly, banging his fist upon the rail of the balcony. “That’s trespassing! Who do these people think they are?”

“Some sort of covert operation in regards to the troop transport about to make come down, it would seem?” Aliya said, stepping away from the balcony and coming up to Zeshom Noor, slapping her handpaws down on the balcony rail “We should go see! It’s one thing that I get bored talking about military matters, but seeing them for myself is sure to be a treat!”

“What’s covert about rumbling armor and marching infantry on my land?” Zeshom Noor said, chucking the holo-pad down in frustration to the table behind him. “I’m inclined to go out there with you, but not to watch! I’m getting them off my property! I don’t want them here, even if the troop transport is supposed to come down near these parts!”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Princess Aliya said, clapping her handpaws together to gather her idling attendants and slaves, making sure they were ready to escort her back out towards the edge of the mud pits where it met the desert. She wanted a front row seat to what was transpiring, blissfully unaware of the danger she was putting herself in. If she hadn’t shut herself away in luxurious palaces and pampered activities all her life, she might have known better. Zeshom Noor would have stopped her, but the mere sight of the trespassing Crown Army had blurred his judgment, and he was angrily leading the way down the stairs to the ground floor of his manor, intent on heading out as Princess Aliya and her entourage followed behind.

The whole manor, which had more or less already settled down for the night, was now bustling with activity as multitudes of its residents were up and about, trying to get outside and figure what was going on. Zeshom Noor pushed and shoved aside both slave and free alike as he tried to get through, further angered by the fact that he was having difficulties even getting through his own house. “Move, you lot!” he screamed, waving his arms up and raising his voice ever higher. “Get out of the way! Are you intent on delaying the Princess?”

Using that excuse, the traffic cleared up slightly, for nobody in his manor wanted to impede the Princess in her wishes after hearing what she’d done to Jophia and Talitha. With a way finally clear, Zeshom Noor stormed through the halls of his manor and into the courtyard, trekking across it while the Princess and her entourage followed behind, her attendants struggling to keep pace with her with their fans in paw. Some of them had just been awakened themselves, and were stumbling after her and fearing her retribution, but she was simply too enamored with the spectacle that was about to play out. Reaching the gate that stood at the end of the courtyard, the Sivathi businessman flung open the doors, leading out to the pathway that snaked along the dirt and sand and into the mud pits. That very gate served as a passage between luxury and misery, and was more symbolic than he was willing to admit, but it mattered little now. He had to get out there and get the army off his land!

Back out at the far edge of the mud pits, Kabir had slowed somewhat in his whipping of Talitha, as he himself now had his attention devoted to the incoming mechanized force. Without the motivation of a sting upon her back, Talitha had also slowed herself, her body utterly exhausted from the punishment that had been inflicted on her over the past day and night. Her wrists and neck felt chafed against the yoke and harness pressing hard against her fur, and blood had been splattered all across her back from having been whipped more than she’d ever been in her entire life. The girl was so weary that she barely had the energy to lift her head and neck up as much as the yoke would permit to try and get a view of what was transpiring.

Through blurred vision in the night from her lack of food and water, Talitha was barely able to make out the lumbering shapes of armored vehicles coming down the dune, spooking the Zuthari in their pen and forcing them to scurry off to the far end of their enclosure in fright. The end to which they had run was quite close to Talitha’s own position, and the massive beasts began pressing against the fence that separated themselves from the grindstone. She felt her heart rate pick up in fear at the realization that she had nowhere to go if the enclosure suddenly gave way and a full stampede emerged. By the same token, however, she didn’t know how much longer she could survive in this miserable state, and being trampled to death in a Zuthari stampede almost seemed to be the way to go out. Zeshom Noor himself said that she needed to be kept alive, but if she could find another way...

Getting lost in thoughts of death’s sweet release, Talitha felt herself squint as she turned her head again towards the cave at the opposite end of the dune, where two medium tanks had positioned themselves in a blocking fashion at the entrance to the underground. The xenon searchlight of one of the vehicles was barreling down in the direction of the millstone, and even if she shut her eyes, the blinding radiance was enough to still cause her great pain. She couldn’t even shield her sight with her handpaws being lashed to the yoke. Soon enough, however, the light was toggled off to its infrared mode, becoming invisible to her naked eye, providing her with some sense of relief, but feeling stunned.

Kabir had also been caught in the light and been temporarily blinded, and wasn’t able to see Zeshom Noor approaching from behind. The Sivathi businessman felt practically offended that he hadn’t greeted him, adding to his already outraged state. “What in the High King’s name is the meaning of this, Kabir?” Zeshom Noor demanded to know, placing his fists upon his hips impatiently as he demanded a response from his overseer.

“I-I don’t know, Sir!” Kabir said stupidly, blindly feeling around in the night before running into the fence separating the millstone’s enclosure from the mud pits, dropping his whip in the process.

Princess Aliya was quick to pick it up in her handpaw, flexing it this way and that a few times before flicking it back out in Talitha’s direction in order to get her moving once again. “Who said you could rest, slave?” she said cruelly, perking her ears in delight as she heard Talitha yelp out painfully, her weakened body straining to tug against the yoke as she pulled forward, still blinded by the xenon searchlight’s effects. It wasn’t like she needed her sight at the moment, anyway, for the millstone would only let her go one direction. “If I’m going to bring myself out here for a spectacle, I expect the sideshow—you—to carry on!”

“There won’t be any spectacle, Princess!” Zeshom Noor said madly, snatching the whip away from the Princess and losing all sense of composure.

“How dare you, Zeshom Noor!” Princess Aliya said loudly, stomping her footpaws in a sign that she was about to unleash one of her terrible tantrums for being denied what she wanted. Before she could even hope to do so, however, she finally took notice of the sky above. The troop transport was now beginning to grow in proportions at an exponential rate as it made its way closer and closer to the planet; its path looking more and more like a collision course with the manor house itself.

Zeshom Noor was so furious, however, that he ignored both the ominous sign in the air and the pouting of Princess Aliya. He stormed forward to where the desert’s edge met the mud pits, waving his handpaw in the air to try and flag down the command vehicle of the mechanized advance. “Stop!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, picking up a rock from the ground and throwing it in the direction of the assault gun and the formation of APCs behind it.

The little stone bounced off the hull of Major Emiah’s assault gun, clanking against the metal harmlessly but catching the attention of its commander. “Get back inside, fool!” he shouted to Zeshom Noor, trying to wave him off with his handpaw. “Do you want to get run over?”

“What’s the meaning of this?” the Sivathi businessman shouted out, placing himself defiantly in the path of the assault gun that would easily run him over if it didn’t stop. “I’m Zeshom Noor, and this is my property! You have no right being here!”

Major Emiah kicked the shoulder of the assault gun’s driver roughly from his perched position in the commander’s hatch, ordering him to stop. He knew all about Zeshom Noor after having read the intelligence reports, and he wasn’t about to create some scandal by flattening him under the tracks of his vehicle. “This doesn’t concern you, Zeshom Noor!” Major Emiah shouted, turning his head around as he watched the APCs behind him begin to sally forth in spite of his stoppage, embarrassed that he was being overtaken by his lesser soldiers. “Or haven’t you noticed that there’s a troop transport about to come crashing down on your property?”

“Oh, is it now? I think that makes it all the more my concern!” Zeshom Noor fired back, stepping closer to the assault gun and banging his fist against the hull angrily. “Get off my land! My security detail can handle things if it comes crashing down here!”

“As if!” Major Emiah laughed aloud, giving his driver another nudge with his shoulder and ordering him to turn to avoid Zeshom Noor as it started its movement again. “I’d like to see them try! Do you think that for even one second your little security guards could handle a crash site, let alone the rumored Confederate forces in the caves near here?”

“No such Confederates exist here in Lathga Province!” Zeshom Noor said, running alongside the assault gun as it changed course to catch up with the rest of its column. “I thought you’d know that as a military man, and I know my own land! They don’t exist here, not now, not ever!”

Major Emiah pointed to the sky with a finger, practically smirking in his expression. “Don’t you think you have a bigger problem to worry about right now?” he said in a smug manner before disappearing down the hatch of the assault gun, sealing himself inside for protection.

“Get back out here, don’t you hide from me!” Zeshom Noor screamed, demanding that the officer show himself. Before he could even follow up on that, he finally took notice of what he’d seemingly been ignoring all this time, blinded by his sheer rage. Looking up to where Major Emiah had pointed, he stopped in his tracks as the assault gun turned towards his manor and the mud pits, with the APCs following soon after in their change of direction.

The troop transport was hurtling on a course straight for Zeshom Noor’s house, with fiery wreck trailing smoke and flames behind it as it began to arc downward, only mere seconds away from making impact. His emotions of outrage immediately transformed into ones of utter terror and dread at realizing that in a matter of moments, everything that he’d ever worked for would be lost in a smoldering crater of wreckage. Of all the places in Lathga Province, it just had to be crashing down here!

Though the roar of the descending troop transport deafened Zeshom Noor’s scream, Princess Aliya’s tone registered differently as she squealed, shoving her personal slaves out of the way as she went barreling towards the manor house as fast as her footpaws would carry her. “My things! My precious luggage and dresses! They’ll all be ruined if somebody doesn’t get them out of there!”

In a state of total ignorance to the danger of doing so, the spoiled brat that was the duke’s daughter actually thought she’d have time to go in and save her luxury goods that she’d brought along for her trip before the troop transport crashed into the manor house. Zeshom Noor was just about to take off after her, but her entourage beat him to it, and they desperately tried to go off in pursuit of the naïve Princess Aliya. They were stupefied that she would endanger herself in this way, more so than going out to watch a supposed battle, but it just went to show how entitled she actually was if she thought she actually had a chance to survive the troop transport crashing into the structure, for she’d either be just outside of it or inside when it impacted.

Just as the Princess swung open the gate back into the courtyard, running inside and flailing her arms in a frenzy, another ear shattering noise emerged in the continually rising chaos. A bright flash erupted from the mouth of the cave entrance that was accompanied by the recognizable sound of kinetic antitank fire. The medium tanks that were just starting to secure the entrance had their sides turned to the cave entrance, and where its armor was weakest was where the antitank rounds of the Confederates hit them. The two vehicles suddenly exploded, jets of flame shooting up from the open hole where the turrets had once been. Just as loud as the roar of kinetic fire, a commanding voice shouting “Attack! Don’t let them reach the crash site!” emanated from deep within the cave and out into the sand plain. The rear of practically every vehicle was now facing the cave as they’d turned to approach the manor house, while droves of Confederate squadrons that had been holed up for months in secrecy began to pour forth from the cave entrance, plasma, gauss, and kinetic weapons blazing.

Talitha felt the vibration of the explosions make the yoke around her body shudder in vibration. The claustrophobia that had already set in the moment she’d been strapped to the device was amplified tenfold out of fear of what was going to happen next. She was stuck in the middle of an escalating battle, and there was nowhere she could go. The Zuthari bulls in the pen next to her began stampeding round and round as they ran in circles inside the fence, making the sand beneath her footpaws rumble terrifyingly.

Elkanah too heard the explosions from his position inside the APC. On top of that, he heard the shrieking of the tank crews over his radio as they were burned alive in the conflagration that had engulfed their vehicles. From inside the confined spaces of his transport, he didn’t know what had occurred, but he knew that he had to find out. Seizing the initiative, he clambered up from his seat and stood up tall, looking through the periscope and turning its automated sight in the direction where the noise had come from.

It seemed that the young sergeant had gotten his wish. An all out Confederate surprise attack was ensuing, as infantry and tank destroyers, hidden right beneath Zeshom Noor’s nose for all this time, began pouring forth like a broken dam. His attention didn’t stay glued to that spot for long, for an even more enormous explosion lit up the infrared sight of the periscope, blinding him momentarily as the impact of the troop transport on Zeshom Noor’s house finally occurred.

“My house!” Zeshom Noor screamed aloud, falling to his knees as he watched his entire enterprise go up in a tremendous fireball. Though the troops and cargo inside were likely injured and damaged only to a minor extent, since the troop transport was well protected inside, his manor house couldn’t say the same. Worse yet, with Princess Aliya still inside, there was absolutely no way she—or anybody else for that matter—had survived the impact. Indeed, fate seemed to be punishing both her and Zeshom Noor for their horrifying crimes against the slaves over these last few days as Princess Aliya’s body lay completely squashed beneath a fiery piece of debris.

Major Emiah had his eyes focused on the impact site and had barely begun to notice the incoming attack in the rear of his company. He frantically looked through the rear window of the vision hatch of the assault gun, his gaze making out the charging forms of Confederate infantry and a duo of tank destroyers pushing aside the smoking wrecks of the tanks that had been guarding the cave entrance. All the APCs—and his own fighting vehicle—were going to be easy prey for the ambushing enemy if they didn’t hold off their advance on the crash site to deal with the sudden attack.

“All vehicles!” Major Emiah shouted over the intercom system of his assault gun, giving the order to his driver to begin turning the assault gun back in the direction of the cave, where its frontal armor would be more effective in deflecting incoming fire. “Form up facing that cave and dismount your infantry! We’re under attack! We won’t be securing that crash site at all if we don’t take care of these Confederate bastards! Set up your fire teams behind the APCs for cov—”

A crackle of static mixed with an explosion shattered the airwaves of each radio set in the company as Major Emiah’s assault gun, caught mid-turn in its about face maneuver, took a kinetic armor piercing round from the tank destroyer barreling down the slope of the dune. Fiery plumes exploded from within and raised their flaming tendrils into the air as the hatches of the assault gun were thrown hundreds of feet into the sky from the explosive force, with shrapnel and debris thrown all over the place. The now destroyed vehicle was only a good twenty or so yards away from Talitha, and it was a miracle that she wasn’t hit with any incoming shards of metal or debris.

Elkanah’s own APC had already completed the maneuver to turn all the way around, as had many other of the troop carriers, where their frontal armor could deflect the small arms fire of the Confederates. Against the tank destroyers, however, their armor plating paled in comparison to the larger tanks and assault guns, and would still prove no match against the roaring kinetic guns. Elkanah’s vehicle just so happened to be the next unfortunate target of the Confederate aim. Just as he was preparing to open the rear hatch of the APC, he felt himself thrown hard against it as the overpressure of the explosion that tore through the carrier. Intending to have been the first out—leading the way for his men behind him—the remainder of his fire team and the crew of the APC had taken the brunt of the damage, being turned to little more than a bloody mess and absorbing the impact Elkanah felt as he hit the door square on his shoulder, bruising it badly before being thrown to the sand, a mere few yards away from Talitha and Zeshom Noor.

As the members of Princess Aliya’s entourage and the servants of his household ran to and fro in a panic, Zeshom Noor vindictively turned around, glaring at Talitha with a sense of crazed hatred that had seldom been seen in his eyes before. All his fineries and all that he’d built had been wiped out in the blink of an eye. The only things that remained were his slaves, in relative safety in their holding pens, and his wealth off in some bank account elsewhere. But most of what he physically had was now gone in the flaming wreck. Worse yet, Princess Aliya was surely dead, and it had happened on his property and under his care. There was no way that if he survived the battle that he would get off the hook without any blame.

Naturally, there was no possible way any of the events that were transpiring could have been Talitha’s fault, but it had seemed that his miserable stroke of luck had begun with her rebellious attitude, along with Jophia’s embarrassing debacle before the Princess. In his blind outrage, he needed somebody to lash out at, and if he was going to be cut down in the fires of battle—as it surely seemed—then Talitha was coming with him to the grave. He at least owed it to Phaziah Ishigar, so that he could ultimately hide the mistake the monarch had made and salvage the reputation of the royal house. The High King had done his part by showing her mercy, and Zeshom Noor had done all he could to at least let her live. Now, in the blink of an eye, things were different. He couldn’t risk her breaking free and finding out the truth about her true father and mother.

A submachine gun—the sidearm of one of the vehicle’s crewmen—had been haphazardly thrown from the wreckage of Elkanah’s APC and into the dirt near the millstone. Dragging himself through the dirt as the fire of both the Crown Army and the Confederates began to escalate all around them, Zeshom Noor reached out for the weapon, his eyes leering at Talitha. “What more have I to live for if my entire enterprise has gone up in flames?” he said, trudging over to the slave girl still strapped to the yoke and pushing the barrel of the gun up under her chin. “If the Confederates are to free all my slaves in the wake of this battle, then you cannot be spared. But I should thank you, Talitha, for affording me all the privileges and wealth in my life. If I’d never taken in the bastard daughter of the High King, then I never would have lived in the splendor of the most noble houses; not here in wretched Lathga Province! So I thank you—Princess—for your secret status and all the benefits given to me by the High King for keeping you under my ownership. I’ll see you in hell, girl!”

Talitha was so exhausted from the punishment she’d been through over the last few days that she couldn’t even bring herself to scream. Instead, she just looked up at her master sadly with widened eyes, shocked at what he was saying. She couldn’t even begin to make sense of it all. What was he going on about? What did she have to do with High King Phaziah Ishigar? She knew the story that had been pounded into her head since birth. Her signs of nobility were nothing more than a freak accident of nature, and not of noble blood.

Or could what seemed impossible actually be the truth? Was there something valid about Zeshom Noor’s words? Were they reality, and not just the mad ramblings of a man at the end of his rope?

Elkanah felt stunned from the whole ordeal that had transpired in just a matter of seconds. The heat of the burning APC behind him felt warm against his armored body, and the flashes of kinetic tracer rounds, mixed with the electric blue arcs of gauss fire and the greens of plasma blasts, painted the night sky above him in a rainbow of hues. The beauty of the war raging around him was nearly a distraction, if only for a moment, before he realized what had actually happened. Everybody in his fire team had been slain by the accurate shot of the tank destroyer. Over the crackling flames, the shouts of soldiers, and the bangs of gunfire, a nearby voice, vengeful in its tone, was close enough to be heard.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the effects of being stunned so suddenly, Elkanah turned his head in the direction of the two Sivathi nearest. He didn’t recognize the first, but the second he instantly remembered as having seen her through the infrared binoculars when he’d made his observations. It was the slave girl he had witnessed from his position on the dune, still lashed to the yoke that bound her and cringing into herself as much as her bindings would permit as she felt the barrel of the gun pressed against her. The sheer sight of it struck a chord deep inside Elkanah’s heart. Memories of all the agony he’d witnessed up to now played out in his mind, where he’d wished he’d acted differently in his youth in tormenting the slaves that had labored on the grand projects of his family. It was for these Sivathi that the Confederacy had laid their ambush. They were doing everything that he’d wished he’d done, and more. His chance had finally come to cast aside his hated role in the Crown Army and fight for what was right.

But why was her fur the shade of nobility? Zeshom Noor was the only one who knew the truth, but he’d now revealed everything to Talitha in the expectation that they were all going to die. For the moment, she took it as nothing more than the ravings of a madman, but there would be a time to reflect on the immensity of what he’d actually said. Elkanah himself had heard it too, but knew little of what he was referring to. Regardless of who she really was, she was still a slave, nonetheless, and the opportunity for his first act of valor had now reared its head. He felt compelled to rush to her aid, as he’d wanted to atop the dunes from afar, in the hope that he could make right all the wrongs he’d witnessed more privileged Sivathi make against commoners and slaves. The bloody lashes across her back glistened against the flashes of light of the battlefield around them, practically crying out her story to Elkanah and begging him to do something when she had no voice to fend for herself.

Elkanah knew that he didn’t have much time to act. Though his body was still stinging with pain from the impact against the APC door and being thrown to the ground hard, he curled his fingers around the grip of his gauss rifle before planting his knee underneath him, pushing himself up to a kneeling position as he brought the sights of the weapon upon Zeshom Noor. “Back off!” he said forcefully.

In the midst of scrambling troops and resounding gunfire, Zeshom Noor had brushed off Elkanah as just a casualty of the battle and had thought little of him at first sight. Now, he caught him pulling himself to his footpaws out of the corner of his eye, his gauss rifle pointed right at his body. He was dumbfounded to see a uniformed member of the Crown Army objecting to him in the defense of a mere slave! Who was he to speak to him in such a way?

“No, you back off, boy!” Zeshom Noor sneered wickedly, pressing the barrel of the submachine gun against Talitha harder. “Who do you think you are to interfere with my property? This girl’s very being belongs to me, and I have the right to snuff her out in an instant I so wish! If you don’t want to join us in death, then I advise that you fall back in line!”

Elkanah’s gaze strayed from the sight picture of his weapon for a moment as he saw Talitha’s pleading expression meet his. She was practically begging for him to step in and do something, because she had no more fight left to give. She had nobody else to turn to. Whether he was questioning his duty to keep the hierarchies in place that the Crown of Siva fought for, or whether he was truly committed to their cuase, she couldn’t tell. But she had to look to him. To the impression of the sergeant, she’d been put here in the yoke for a defiant attitude, no doubt, and had gone out of her way to take action against perceived injustice. That, or Zeshom Noor was just that cruel of a master.

That very gaze—a cry for help that she couldn’t vocalize in her petrified state of fear—made something inside Elkanah snap. He lunged forward at Zeshom Noor with the barrel of his weapon pointing straight at his skull as he pulled the trigger. The high and mighty Sivathi businessman had neither the reflexes nor the speed to react in time, and even if he had, the hypersonic speed of a gauss rifle’s projectile was impossible to avoid. He had been about to pull the trigger of the submachine gun himself and take Talitha’s life, but his cranium exploded in a cloud of red mist and skull fragments as the bullets from Elkanah’s weapon tore through his head, killing him in a gory mess as his body fell to the ground.

Talitha recoiled at the gauss blast, the yoke and millstone trembling as she shuddered and from the constant barrage of explosions nearby. She’d thought that the sudden bang of gunfire was Zeshom Noor pulling the trigger, but alas, she was still alive. The firearm that had been pressed against her chin fell harmlessly to the ground beside her now deceased master’s body. In that moment, she felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders as the image of her owner, now dead at her footpaws, seemed to represent a departure of one of the many oppressions that had marred her miserable existence thus far. One of many, to be sure, but certainly the most prevalent.

A sense of freedom she’d never tasted felt as if it were washing over her in spite of her bindings. Her eyes darted to the young Sivathi soldier, his white fur a calming appearance in the heat of war, like a fresh snowfall atop the highest peaks of Siva’s poles. He seemed so gentle for a soldier in his appearance; one that didn’t coincide with the killing he’d just undertaken. Such a thing was surely easy to do for a loyal soldier of the Crown Army—but Elkanah wasn’t loyal. He knew that much about himself, but Talitha couldn’t have known a thing. After growing up all her life in the Crown of Siva’s domination, no amount of tender appearances of the soldier could keep her from shrinking into herself as Elkanah reached out with his handpaw, trying to calm her nerves. Even after what he’d just done making it clear where his allegiance was, it was only instinctive for a slave to recoil fearfully from a Sivathi of the military. It clashed with the sensation of liberation she was now feeling; perhaps seeing her master dead now was just a drop in the bucket in the whole slew of injustices against her, and it couldn’t be helped that she felt this way.

Elkanah’s ears perked up as he heard a small whimper escape the slave girl’s lips, her body tensing up like a frightened animal as he reached out to try and soothe her and release her from the yoke. His heart broke for her, having witnessed the atrocity against her up on the dune through his binoculars, and now up close and personal. If only he’d known the real extent of everything else that had happened to her, he’d be even more stricken with grief. Though still questioning her golden fur, her safety trumped all of his other concerns at the present moment. There was no way she would survive the battle if she was left vulnerable in the middle of the firefight. Moreover, it was clear that she needed some sort of medical treatment. Talitha had lost a good amount of blood from the whippings and was suffering from hunger and dehydration on top of that.

Elkanah couldn’t leave her. After having just done the unthinkable by lashing out against the very thing he was supposed to be enforcing, he knew that the die had been cast. When others found out what had happened—and it was a certainty that they would—he’d be branded as a traitor and likely jailed or put to death. He had no choice but to go forward with his plan, now that the battle he’d wanted had finally come. But he had to survive it, along with this girl, if he was to see it through at all. He knew the risk he was taking, but little could he know how immense of a risk it actually was in freeing this particular slave—a lost princess and child born of the most forbidden circumstance!