CHAPTER EIGHT◄CHAPTER NINE►CHAPTER TEN

Several days had passed since Elkanah and Talitha had made their escape from the property of Zeshom Noor. Though her healing was still slow, Talitha was nearing the point where she would soon be able to travel on her own two footpaws with the accelerated healing of Elkanah’s battlefield medicine and treatment. For now, however, they continued to slumber in the dawn of their fifth day in the confines of the cave.

The familiar sound of tank tracks and revving engines off in the distance suddenly awakened Elkanah as the dawn just began to peer through the cave’s small opening. The even fainter noises of shouting troops and barking orders—wearied ones, at that—were just barely audible above the mechanized tones as well. He wanted to think nothing of it, but he knew the sound of Crown Army vehicles, and the unmistakable droning of their biodiesel engines was all too recognizable to his ears.

Elkanah blinked a few times, thinking that maybe he was still dreaming or that it was little more than an auditory hallucination. But even after doing that, the sounds still lingered outside. What could the Crown Army possibly be doing out here? Surely they were not stragglers from the 100th Mechanized that had lost their way? Or was it something else?

Talitha was still sound asleep, and rightly so now that the pain in her back had dulled from the nanite bandages and she could properly slumber. Elkanah, ever the light sleeper from the habit of needing to be alert as a military man, couldn’t ignore the noises outside. He shook his head a few times to try and throw off the remnants of sleepiness that remained before reaching over to his gauss rifle that leaned up against the cave wall, intent on not peering out of their hideout unarmed, especially considering that he’d now deserted.

Crouching low, the white furred Sivathi gingerly crept forward to the opening of the cave, leaning his back against the wall of its arch and just barely peering his head around to catch a glimpse of the source of the noises from outside. Low and behold, the sight that greeted him confirmed his suspicions, and he clutched at his weapon in a defensive reflex at realizing that the faction he’d just abandoned was now in his presence once again, though not in the way he’d anticipated. What would normally have been an organized company with a dedicated makeup and equipment seemed to be little more than a mixture of a few Crown Army medium tanks, an assault gun, mounted Zuthari troopers, and scout bikes. Throughout the vast majority of that were actual foot soldiers, many of whom were nursing wounds or struggling to move, fear evident on their faces and constantly looking over their shoulders, as if they were looking for somebody who was pursuing them. The common thing about them all, though, was that they were heading northward; away from Halaj Province to their south.

The offensive that had been going so well must have failed, and it couldn’t have been the 100th Mechanized Regiment, for none of the vehicles or troops bore the insignia. It was clear that they’d been badly mauled in the failed fight and were retreating northward towards the friendly Lathga Province; though a backwater, it was still friendly to the Crown, and maybe they were hoping that they could resupply and regroup there. Elkanah couldn’t help but scoff at the notion, for his own regiment had thought the area was devoid of the Confederacy as well, and his entire unit had been in for a rude awakening when Zeshom Noor’s estate was overrun by the ones that had hidden in the caves. Maybe these very troops would be their next victims if they continued their northward direction.

A few didn’t seem to have that idea, however, taking notice of the cave in which Elkanah and Talitha were hiding. They were searching for shelter just as they had been, and a trio—a blonde furred lieutenant with two red furred enlisted men—took particular notice. Seeing the opening, but not the sliver of Elkanah’s face, they soon began to make their way in the direction of the cave, and would probably be there in no less than five minutes.

“Damn it all!” Elkanah swore as he felt his heart rate pick up immensely, frantically throwing himself back into the cave and removing himself from sight entirely. How was he going to explain himself if and when those troops of the Crown Army found their way up here and saw him with the walking contradiction that was a golden furred Sivathi slave girl? What excuse was he possibly going to be able to come up with?

“Talitha,” Elkanah whispered to her, kneeling at her side and gently grabbing her shoulder. “Talitha, wake up!”

His companion was still deep in her own sleep, and a content one at that, but she still awoke without much effort—probably owing to the fact that she had received more than a few rude awakenings from the overseers in her life. Still on her belly, she opened her eyes, turning her head to face Elkanah off to the side. “What’s going—”

“I need you to stay quiet, Talitha,” he said, putting a finger to her lips in a notion for her to remain silent. “Listen. Do you hear that?”

Talitha perked up her ears, immediately becoming alert at the sounds coming from outdoors. “Who is that? Who else is all the way out here?” she asked, keeping her voice low as to comply with Elkanah’s request to stay silent.

“It’s a Crown Army unit; I’m not sure which,” Elkanah said. “They’re all moving northward back in the direction from which we came, in a retreat. There are three of them coming toward the cave right now.”

“Wh-what?” Talitha said, her voice becoming more panicked at even hearing the mention of the Crown Army. “Elkanah, we have to do something! Don’t let them take me back into slavery, please!”

Elkanah put his finger to her lips again and grasped her a little more firmly by the shoulder, trying to emphasize the importance of her needing to keep her mouth shut. “I’m not going to let that happen, Talitha!” he said. “But don’t say anything, let me talk to them. They might be willing to believe anything if they’re in the desperate stages of a retreat.”

Putting on a casual look, he took a cross legged seat on the cave floor beside Talitha, donning the appearance that he’d been sitting there in guard over her all night long. The move perplexed the girl, only serving to raise her sense of alarm even further. “What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

“Follow my lead,” he said, trying to reassure her as he leaned back against the cave wall. “We let them come to us, and we talk our way into tagging along with them for a short while. If we can buy the time we need and gain their trust, maybe we can commandeer their means of travel and make a run southward.”

She almost burst out in another protest, but the voice of the Crown soldiers were clearly distinguishable now, and considering that, Talitha knew that there was nothing more to say. All she could do now was gently clutch on to Elkanah’s arm; placing the hope in her heart in the only person who had ever shown her it before.

“Nearly there, boys,” the voice of the officer said, panting heavily with fatigue. “Even if there’s nothing in there, at least it will beat the sweltering Zaket suns for a bit.”

“Lieutenant,” came the voice of one of the enlisted Sivathi. “Why can’t we just go back and ride in the halftrack with the others? What’s out here?”

“Do you want to be in a death trap like that after seeing what the Confederacy was capable of?” he said. “Out in the open desert, no less, with no cover for a vehicle like that? And we have our orders. The captain wants us to go through any caves nearby as we continue retreat, considering what just happened to the 100th Mechanized. The Confederates have been holing up in the underground of Lathga Province, right under our noses! I’m not about to be trapped in a halftrack when a hidden tank destroyer comes out of a cave like this to ruin our day!”

A collective sigh rang out from both of the enlisted men as they slogged alongside the lieutenant, pathetically using their weapons like crutches to support themselves. Only the lieutenant himself looked remotely aware and ready for any kind of action as he stepped into the cave proper, with his two underlings dropping their equipment and backpacks in a heap of relief at seeing that the opening wasn’t much of a cave at all, and was empty of any Confederate presence.

Elkanah and Talitha, however, were there. The troops were so weary that they almost didn’t even notice the pair at first, but the lieutenant quickly snapped his plasma rifle in the direction of the two in a reflexive action. “Blazing suns, what are you doing here?!” he shouted.

Elkanah held up a handpaw in a peaceful gesture. “Easy, Lieutenant! Is that any way to greet royalty?” he said, motioning him to lower his aim and pointing down to Talitha as he mentioned the description of nobility.

The lieutenant, though taking notice of Talitha’s golden fur, was still apprehensive. He maintained his point of aim with his weapon, not willing to take any chances with all the tricks the Confederacy Liberation had pulled. The blonde furred Sivathi took notice of the sergeant’s insignia on Elkanah’s fatigues and the light armor plating haphazardly thrown off in the corner of the cave, showing that he was within the bounds to address an enlisted soldier in the manner befitting of his own rank. “I’m going to ask you again, sergeant,” he said. “What are you doing here? And who is that you’re with?”

“Sergeant Elkanah Judara, 100th Mechanized Regiment,” he said, throwing a salute to the lieutenant but not bothering to sit up from his seated position. “And this is Princess Aliya Bethagar, daughter of the duke Lathga Province.”

Talitha widened her eyes, stupefied that Elkanah would even forth a notion as crazy as that. Apart from her golden fur, how was she ever going to pass as Princess Aliya with her lash marks, collar, and tan undercoat? This plan that her savior was concocting was suicidal! Yet she did not have the nerves about her to do anything to the contrary, and why should she? Elkanah had been the one to unshackle her from the bonds of slavery; who else was she to place her faith in as of now?

“That’s Princess Aliya?” the lieutenant said, finally lowering his plasma rifle, if only out of being dumbfounded. “Her? We heard that none survived the crash of the troop transport, including the Princess! And if that’s really her, what business does she have with a slave’s collar around her neck?”

“You must have heard wrong, sir,” Elkanah said, doing his best to weave a web of deceit for the desperate trio of Crown soldiers. “But I wouldn’t expect you to know, since so much intelligence was destroyed. The truth of the matter is that Confederate forces had been entrenched near Zeshom Noor’s property far earlier than anybody had realized, and launched their assault against my own regiment when the Princess was visiting his estate and we were closing in on the area to secure the crash site.”

“And?” the lieutenant said, probing for further information while throwing an annoyed glance back at his two subordinates, who had lazily plopped themselves down on the floor of the cave to take massive swigs of their canteens.

“Princess Aliya was one of the few survivors inside Zeshom Noor’s estate when the troop transport came crashing down,” Elkanah continued to lie. “But the Confederates were upon the place in a heartbeat, capturing all the occupants of the troop transport that had survived and those within Zeshom Noor’s manor, while freeing the slaves inside.” He paused, looking to Talitha’s neck and the bandages on her back, preparing to justify the reason why somebody with the color of noble fur had the appearance of a slave girl. “I’m sure you’re no stranger to witnessing the barbarism of the Confederacy. When they got their paws on Princess Aliya, they forced a slave collar upon her and whipped her back to shreds, almost as a way of ‘getting back’ at the Crown of Siva, to see how one of noble birth would bear the humiliation and pain of being reduced to slavery. The poor girl could barely even stand when I came across her, and it was no small feat sneaking out into the cover of night with Confederate guards all around, let me tell you!”

The lieutenant and his underlings stood staring at Talitha as soon as Elkanah had put forth his story, as if scrutinizing every painstaking detail about the girl. The officer strode forward a few paces, intent on getting a closer look at her; he wasn’t about to trust an enlisted man at face value. He roughly grabbed her collar, brushing aside the fur and seemingly looking past the tan undertones as he was more focused on reading the text etched into the metal. “T-ZN-3033133,” he read with a sense of detachment. “I guess they took this off of one of Zeshom Noor’s lot and threw it on you, yeah?”

Talitha could only hold her breath as she was examined by the lieutenant, scared to say anything as she wanted to do her best in keeping quiet, as Elkanah had instructed her. Trying to do just that, Elkanah spoke up for her. “That’s what they did—”

“I’m asking her, not you, sergeant,” the lieutenant said, raising an eyebrow in skepticism. “How exactly did this all play out, girl?”

Caught between a rock and hard place, Talitha found herself having to speak up in her own defense. Thankfully, as she’d been witness to all of Princess Aliya’s escapades during her visit, she was armed with a little more information to back up her false identity for the moment. “Sergeant Judara speaks the truth,” she said. “I am Princess Aliya, and was taken in the attack upon Zeshom Noor’s compound when Elkanah’s unit tried to move in on the crash site. I’d been there to acquire several slaves from that old Sivathi for work on my new palace in the provincial capital, but by such horrible misfortune I became the one enslaved, if only for a short while. The Sergeant saved me and was taking me southward to link up with the main body of the retreating Crown Army, where I’d be safer. And hopefully returned home.”

The lieutenant stepped backward from Talitha, crossing his arms as he turned his gaze to Elkanah for a moment before feeling his concentration breaking at hearing the guzzling of water from the canteens of both enlisted men. “Things seem to check out,” he said, the story being more credible than a golden-furred slave due to the sheer insanity at the idea of noble and slave blood being mixed. It was impossible. How could the sergeant be lying about that? Breaking his stance and swiping backwards with his handpaw, he snatched the canteen from one of them, snarling a bit. “We’re in the presence of possible royalty, beaten and bruised, and all you can both think to do is chug your canteens while a Princess is in need of that?” he shouted, showing his contempt for both the enlisted troops of a lower caste than he. “Drink up. You must be parched after how they treated you!”

Though not as in dire of straits as she had been in the prior days, Talitha surely wasn’t going to say no, especially since the lieutenant had taken the bait. “Thank you,” she said, taking the canteen gratefully and pressing it to her lips, in spite of the full one Elkanah had already.

Elkanah knew how the bulk of the officer corps was in the Crown Army; stuck in tradition and a rigid defense of the caste system that they fought so ardently to maintain. He knew that even one in such a low rank as the lieutenant before him would be more inclined to believe his story than to ever think that somebody with a single drop of noble blood was an actual slave. That was why he had been gunning on his story succeeding. “That being the case, sir,” Elkanah addressed the lieutenant. “We’ve been holed up here waiting for the next passing contingent of Crown troops, just as the Princess described. We’re eager to get out of here.”

Talitha gave the canteen back to the lieutenant when she was finished, who subsequently returned it to the enlisted man behind him. “You’ll have to return with us to the column and get in touch with our commander,” he said. “He can make arrangements for you to have you returned to your unit—and hopefully reward for your service to the Princess—and have Aliya here returned home at once.”

“Back to the column? In the halftrack?” one of the enlisted men said. “You were saying we were getting out of there for our own safety, because it was too dangerous to be in a vehicle with what happened in the open desert, and you want them to go there?”

“Don’t question me, private! We must afford all the comfort we can for the Princess and her rescuer,” he replied. “And the major will ensure any transport she’s within won’t be the victim of some ambush, like the one that got her captured to begin with. We continue combing the caves nearby, as instructed. We’re done with this one. Let’s get these two to the major, and he can take it from there.”

He paused as Talitha handed the canteen back to the lieutenant, who then returned it to the enlisted soldier still standing behind him. “Gear up, Sergeant,” he ordered Elkanah. “I’m sure the major will put in a good word for you as far as awards go. You’re sure to be decorated if you saved Princess Aliya.”

Elkanah stifled a chuckle, knowing that a decoration would be the last thing he’d be receiving if the truth about all this really came to light. But he didn’t even want to think about that right now. All he wanted to concentrate on was getting back on the move and hopefully hitching a ride on some stolen vehicle southward and finally be in the clear. He surely wasn’t going to be doing that if he remained in the cave indefinitely, so there was little choice other than to venture out into the viper’s nest that was the Crown Army column.

“Up you go, your Majesty,” Elkanah said, delivering the false-for-the-moment title with grace and care befitting Princess Aliya herself. After having collected his gear, he helped Talitha to her footpaws as she clung on to his shoulder with an arm around him. She was certainly now in the condition to walk, but still with some degree of support needed. “Let’s get you out of this dusty old cavern.”

Talitha was finding it far more difficult to keep a straight face than Elkanah, and she did her best to hang her head low. Even in doing that, the dual Zaket suns that were now peering over the horizon in sunrise was blinding to her, and she held a forearm up in front of her eyes to shield her gaze while clinging on to Elkanah with the other arm. For him, the sight that greeted the young sergeant as he followed the lieutenant was a grim one, indeed. He had only seen so much of the cave, but now with the entire desert in sight, he could see how far the column stretched back. All the vehicles were pockmarked with shell deflections or plasma damage, and the injured troops were plentiful. A few had seemingly been so severely wounded or exhausted that they’d looked to have dropped dead in the desert sands, or were crawling on their hands and knees in a desperate last attempt to keep moving. They even made the two exhausted enlisted Sivathi behind them look like they were in good shape.

“You sure you’re in any condition to keep moving northward?” Elkanah asked the lieutenant as he followed him in the direction of what he assumed to be the major’s halftrack, which was presently stopped while the officer looked out at his charts and maps in relation to their location. “That’s where the 100th was ambushed. You’d be best to advise your commanders of the danger ahead in continuing north; or maybe find a detour.”

“That’s not up for me to decide,” the lieutenant said as he waved over to the halftrack, catching the attention of the major standing up top. “We know the dangers, and that’s why we were combing these caves in the first place, to avoid enduring what happened to your regiment outside Zeshom Noor’s estate. There are rumors that we’ll receive some kind of airborne reinforcement to help bolster our retreat and defend us better as we cut through areas with now confirmed underground Confederate strength, but it’s unconfirmed. Hmph! To think your father was sitting idle with these rebel forces under his nose all this time in his province, Princess Aliya!”

Talitha didn’t say anything, still feigning fatigue as she leaned into Elkanah for support. She didn’t want to push her luck too greatly with this lie they had constructed; it could only get them so far. Seeing her resolve fading in the slightest, Elkanah gave her a little wink of his eye to try and reassure her as they slowly approached the halftrack, though even he knew that he was taking a steep gamble with their current path, but he saw no way out of it considering where they were stuck on Siva, surrounded by the Crown Army, no less.

“Lieutenant?” the major said as he set down his holomap projector, finishing having looked around the area and discussed the next movements of retreat over the communications link with other officers. “You’re back fast from that cave. No Confederates to be found there?”

“No, sir,” he answered with a salute as he greeted him. “But my men and I did stumble across a survivor of the ambush against the 100th Mechanized Regiment not far from here. He claims to have rescued Princess Aliya here from the Confederates that captured her. She was there when that troop transport came crashing down on Zeshom Noor’s estate, and—”

“I’ll ascertain that for myself,” the major said, shutting down the lieutenant’s line of dialogue and immediately drumming up the fact that he was of a superior rank to him. “Princess Aliya doesn’t have time to be recounting her story to the likes of a simple lieutenant like you. Get back to combing those caves with your men, and keep reporting back after every completed sweep!”

The lieutenant, low in the ranks of the officer corps, wanted to act above his station and show how he’d been the one to stumble across the noblewoman in the small cave, but he knew better than to pipe up against his commanding officer. With another salute—more sloppy than the last; clearly showing his disdain his involvement in the matter being tossed aside—he about faced and returned in the direction from which he had come, off to comb another nearby cave with his two underlings that were whining even more than they had before, feeling robbed of a well-deserved break for having “rescued” nobility.

Elkanah gently continued to help support Talitha as they both watched the major open the rear doors of the halftrack, the troops and technicians loaded inside scrunching up against the side seating of the vehicle to make way for their commander as he exited to meet them both outside. Elkanah gave him a salute as the lieutenant had done, to which the gesture was returned. No sooner had he caught sight of the golden furred Sivathi, he snapped his fingers to catch the attention of one of the troops inside.

“Corporal!” he hollered, at which a black furred enlisted trooper emerged from the halftrack, standing at attention immediately. “Get one of the fuel drums from the side of the vehicle for our Princess to sit on. Look at her! It’s the least we can do to accommodate royalty in our presence. She looks exhausted.”

“We both are, sir,” Elkanah said, though he immediately boasted how much more his companion’s condition was of more importance than his own. “But Princess Aliya here has seen the worst of it.”

“And how’d that thing get around your neck?” the major asked, flicking his fingers up in a motion to read the text engraved upon the collar. He stepped back a moment as the corporal came trudging by with one of the massive fuel drums, setting it down with a thump into the desert sand. Talitha plopped herself down upon it with little hesitation, but gingerly lifted up her neck to show the collar locked around it.

“The Confederate troops in the caves outside Zeshom Noor’s estate went about throwing the collars of one of his slaves upon me as an act of degradation,” she explained, doing her best to try and play into the story that Elkanah had concocted. With the major’s attention currently honed in on the steel around her neck, she caught her companion giving her a little wink of his eye, letting her know that she was playing the part well thus far. “Barbarians, the lot of them. I almost wish that I’d perished with the troop transport crashing down rather than endure the humiliation under the Confederacy. I can’t imagine returning to my father in this state, my back ruined...”

“Don’t think about that now, your Majesty,” the major said, kneeling down on the sand and clasping her handpaw in his in a chivalrous manner. “Rest assured, the Crown of Siva will avenge the wrongs against you tenfold, and find the sub-Sivathi that collar rightly belongs on and return them back to where they came from, or worse. You have my word as a humble servant of the Crown Army.”

Talitha practically had to bite her tongue to keep from bursting out hysterically; she knew that she couldn’t keep up this charade for long. She knew nothing about the intricacies of royalty, and what little she did know was from all she’d observed in Zeshom Noor’s guests from afar or the lone visit of Princess Aliya. Even so, the actions of the major towards her seemed like they weren’t misplaced, as if something inside her felt that it had been befitting of such treatment all along. Not only because of her golden fur, which was—apparently, according to Zeshom Noor—a freak accident, but because all members of the Sivathi were deserving of such respect. Nonetheless, the feeling was just as alien to her as Elkanah’s kind treatment to her had been. She looked up to her companion with a sense of anxiety strewn across her face, unsure of what to do next. Elkanah could only nod, encouraging her to continue with the theatrics as best she could.

“I’m afraid we don’t have the tools available right now to get that thing off of your neck safely, Princess Aliya, and for that you have my deepest apologies,” he said, standing back up. “The very thought of a noblewomen being forced to endure such shame rocks my soul to the very core. But we value your safety above all other things, and it would be madness to try and cut that thing loose with something as crude as the tools we have. Once we regroup and get you home safely, we’ll make sure that you’re sent to the slaver guild of the provincial capital. They’re experts in applying and removing those. But they’ll find who it belongs to and get them back into servitude, as I said before.”

“Thank you,” Talitha said with a bow of her head, knowing the sheer suicide of being sent there and the guilds discovering that it was actually her that the collar belonged to. Elkanah needed to find a way to get this business of having her act as an imposter wrapped up, and fast. Even so, she was astounded how easily these higher ranking types were taking the bait on her false identity. The lieutenant had shown some skepticism at first, but now the major wasn’t asking too many questions at all. He was so ingrained with the traditions and sheer impossibility of a slave even possessing noble blood in their veins that the story she presented made more sense at face value.

“And you, Sergeant!” the major said, extending his handpaw and shaking Elkanah’s firmly. “Quite the hero to go in and rescue the Princess when the odds were stacked against you. You must tell me more!”

At least he didn’t have to fully lie about the bulk of his unit being destroyed. “My portion of the regiment was closing in on the crash site on Zeshom Noor’s manor to secure survivors and supplies,” he started to explain. “And then the Confederates ambushed us out of nowhere, holed up in the underground. I don’t think a single vehicle made it out unscathed, nor did most of my comrades. I saw some others survive for a time being before being slaughtered in the Confederate advance towards the crash site or running off up the dunes and away from the fighting.”

“And how did you manage to live, Sergeant Judara?” the major asked, a bit more inquisitive in his tone than he’d been with the Princess, and knowing that he had every right to take on such a tone of voice since he was questioning and enlisted man.

“Feigning death in my APC,” Elkanah answered coolly. “I saw them taking Princess Aliya back to the underground out of the corner of my eye while I pretended to be lifeless inside. And in seeing that, the fire within my heart raged. To see the nobility of our race defiled in such a way is to defile the High King himself, and I would not stand for it. I swore to myself that I’d do everything in my power to get her out of their clutches. So I gathered all my gear and crept out under the cover of darkness the following night to find her.”

“And then?” the major continued to ask, though clearly thrilled by the heroic antics he was being told.

“They hadn’t gone out of their way to secure the Princess all that well,” he said. “As I think they were more concerned with ferrying supplies and captured personnel from the crash site into their underground lair. They’d simply chained her under light guard outside the entrance to the cave outside of Zeshom Noor’s property. Only three brutish Sivathi watching her; all brawn, no brains. The good fortunes of the dual suns must have blessed me that night, for I doubt I could have so easily escaped with her had they nested her deeper within the cave and under heavier guard.”

The major frowned a bit, having half expected Elkanah to continue the heroism that he’d sensed was building, only to have it all for naught by having rescued Princess Aliya in a stealthy manner. “That’s… disappointing that you went the way of sneakiness,” he said. “You should have at least taken some of the Confederate mongrels out if you had the chance. But I suppose…”

He paused, looking at Talitha again and smiling, taking solace in the fact that a noblewoman was alive for Elkanah’s actions. He continued soon after. “…I suppose the simple fact remains that you rescued her from such a ghastly fate before it got any worse. That is the most important thing. While it may not get you style points in your citation, I’m sure the Princess here will still vouch for your heroism, and I’m certain she’s most grateful to you for getting her out of there.”

Talitha looked up at Elkanah behind the golden bangs of her hair that fell before her eyes. A soft smile broke out upon her lips as she did so, knowing that in this statement, the major was speaking the truth. She was eternally grateful to him from delivering her from bondage, and no amount of testimony to his heroic deed could ever repay him. What could she even do, anyway? Her, a runaway slave? What could she possibly offer to give back to him the freedom that he’d given her?

“Well, whenever you’re feeling ready, your Majesty, we can make room in the halftrack for you and the sergeant before we get back on the move,” he said, stepping back to open the rear door of the vehicle and beckoning the occupants to clear out and make accommodations for his two new guests. Holding out his handpaw for Talitha, the major helped her step into the vehicle as Elkanah followed close behind. “Don’t you worry about a thing, your Majesty. The halftrack is in little danger from any Confederate attacks now that we’re scouring every cave. They won’t be laying a finger on it, and I simply refuse to let you suffer out in the desert on footpaw.”

“You’re most generous, major,” Talitha said, feeling her collar catch on the metal of the vehicle as she lay her head against the wall in weariness. She winced a little bit, the sensation feeling like Zeshom Noor trying to tug at the thing again.

“Major?” Elkanah asked before the officer had dismissed himself back to the front cab of the halftrack to continue directing troop movements and observations. “We’re not going back in the direction of Zeshom Noor’s estate, are we? I know it’s the most straightforward way back towards Crown controlled territory, but…”

“That wasn’t the plan, Sergeant Judara,” he said. “Not after hearing how the 100th was badly mauled. Higher command is planning some detours for all units progressing northward to avoid any further entanglements with the enemy, and regroup in the provincial capital of Lathga Province. About another week of travel by ground, I’m afraid, but we’re taking no chances with direct routes.”

Elkanah simply nodded with a salute as he joined Talitha in the seat beside her on the halftrack, now made conveniently empty for just the two of them. At least the major clearing out the vehicle so that Talitah wouldn’t be in the presence of enlisted grunts—excluding her savior—would give them some much needed privacy away from any suspicious eyes. The lie they were treading on was unsustainable. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to assist in the retreat towards the provincial capital, major,” he said. “I’m eager to get back and return to my unit as soon as possible. Or what’s left of it, anyway.”

“Take it easy, young sergeant,” he said before closing the rear hatch of the halftrack. “You’ve got decorations in your future before any of that!”

As the major headed back to the front cab and left Talitha and Elkanah alone for the time being, the golden furred Sivathi let out a massive exhale of breath and panted hard, as if having pent up a ridiculous amount of anxiety all this time. “Elkanah, this is crazy,” she said, her handpaws grasping at her hair as if in a maddened state. “We’re headed to the provincial capital! There’s no way I’ll pass for Princess Aliya once we’re in her home territory!”

“We’re ditching this halftrack the moment some kind of faster transport with the range to get us to Halaj Province appears,” he said, looking at the vision ports of the side of the vehicle at the passing troops and wounded. All he saw for the moment were mounted Zuthari troopers and a few scout bikes that were racing by as a vanguard force to probe ahead in reconnaissance. “If I know these officer types, especially majors or higher, they like to hunker down from time to time instead of marching all day and night. He’ll be bringing this portion of the retreat to a stop sooner or later to rest, and when he does, we’ll make our escape out of here.”

Talitha wanted to take solace in his words, but she could only do so with some degree of apprehensiveness after all the hardships in her life had brought her crashing back down to the miserable reality of her existence. Yet, the past few days had been a sudden change of fortunes and a sweet taste of the life of a free Sivathi. That was something she could pin her hopes to, and something that would fuel her ambition to keep pressing on, even in as grim of circumstances and risks as these. Moreover, the truth she so desperately wanted to seek about her own being constantly nipped at the back of her mind, for the last words of Zeshom Noor’s threats to her hadn’t truly left. If her whole life had been a lie, then she’d been robbed of something truly great, and she sought to have it returned to her.

But one man had set out to stop that from happening, unbeknownst to her. But Elkanah knew the danger—and who such danger belonged to—as he looked upward through the open top of the halftrack. The roar of repulsor-turbofan engines screeched overhead as a gunship, its hull painted in the bright yellow of the High King’s lifeguard regiment, suddenly appeared, catching the eyes of even the major up in the front cab. As it slowly lowered its speed to come in for a vertical soft landing on the desert sands, none of them could even begin to comprehend what business Phaziah Ishigar’s own personal troops could have in the wasteland of Lathga Province.

But if what Zeshom Noor had said was true, then perhaps Elkanah knew all too well the danger facing them and why they were now here!