I sent Kornel Melfie’s order to the battery crews. We held our fire. I looked out the bridge window. The korveinian fleet was less than one hundred kilometers away. Their guns were silent as well.

  “Are you sure? How do we know they are being serious?” I asked, this didn’t feel quite right.

  “The admiral doesn’t want them in this system any longer than they have to be. His words. Also ‘we want to show them we are not blood thirsty, we want peace and freedom from the korveinians’.” She said with a mocking tone.

  “Ma’am, another communication from Admiral Danilov!” Tsibo reported. “I sent it to your console.”

  She took a few minutes to read the communique. “I’ve been ordered to handle the negotiations.” Melfie shook her head. “Respond and tell them they will send a dinghy to dock with one of ours 50 kilometers out. After they are searched, they will be allowed to dock with this ship for the discussions.” She sighed and sat back in her chair. “Let’s see where these negotiations go. Commander Torkozi, you will come with me as my secretary. As well as leading the security check of their dinghy.”

  “Of course, ma’am.” I said with a scowl. Great, now I would have to be in proximity to the birds. I finished posting a log on the order from the admiral then stood. “I’ll go prepare the ship for the security sweep. Tsibno, please inform one of the transport crews to meet me in unch bay two. I shall return shortly.”

  The sailors and ship were ready by the time I arrived and we unched from the Battleship Khavet. I saw the support carrier Castan Lukonia was recovering the st of their fighters, I spared a thought for Captain Gezzini. I hoped she was doing ok with the humans on Thryannia-3.

  Her face when she saw me fucking her commander was priceless! A moment I will never forget. I smiled as I remembered my drunk ass shaking it for her. What a night that had been.

  The pilot maneuvered the ship into the space between the two fleets. We waited. After about half an hour a ship from the other side sped toward us. Upon their arrival to our position, they docked with us.

  We entered their ship with a security crew to search for anything that could explode or weapons or anything. I ate a piece of pie and stared at their lead negotiator.

  “Can I have some pie?” The bird asked hopefully.

  I scoffed at him. “Surrender your entire government and I’ll give you some pie.” Her face fell. I took another bite and acted like it was the most orgasmic thing I’d ever eaten. “So good!” I smiled at her.

  One of the yeoman came to me after the sweep was complete. “It is clear, sir. We found no weapons, explosives or precursor substances to those objects.”

  I nodded. “You will proceed to external docking port three. Our security personnel will escort you from there. Do not attempt to go anywhere until security escorts you, you will be detained or executed if you do not comply. I personally want to break the rules. I want to shoot one of you out the airlock.”

  “We understand your conditions, Khaveni Commander.” She acknowledged. “You should be less violent, we are under a fg of pary.”

  “Good, we will detach and I’ll see you in the meeting soon.” I gathered my people and did a quick head count then we made our way back to the unch bay. I transported myself back to the Battleship Khavet before we nded so I could meet Kornel Melfie to get to the meeting room quickly. I entered the bridge again. “I’m back, they are clear. We found no weapons or explosives.”

  Kornel Melfie nodded. “Log it.” I nodded then did as she said. I finished quickly. “Ok, let's get to this meeting then. They’ve just docked.” She pressed a button on her communicator. “Kornel Melfie to security, escort the korveinian delegation to meeting room four.”

  “Akno, ma’am.” Was all the person said.

  We shortly entered the meeting room and sat. Kornel Melfie had ordered food and drink brought to the meeting. I slipped a hand sandwich into my mouth.

  “So, what are we trying to get out of this, Ma’am?” I asked. “Beyond getting them to leave.”

  “We want them to leave this system, that is the directive I was given.”

  “Why hasn’t the admiral come here himself to negotiate with the korveinians? This seems like something he should be doing.” I put in.

  She jerked her head quickly to look at me. “Do you think I can’t handle this, commander?”

  I raised my hands up. “I didn’t mean to imply that, ma’am. I just meant that he would have more of a view of the state of things everywhere.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “He has given me the directive for an acceptable end state.”

  The korveinian delegation entered the room followed by two security personnel. Her eyes trained on me for a long moment, like she wasn’t expecting to see me again. I smiled and waved at her.

  “I told you I’d be here. Would you like a sandwich?” I asked, sliding the tray closer to her.

  “Commander Torkozi, calm down.” Kornal Melfie said. She looked at her korveinian counterpart “So, you called for a pary. What is it that you are looking to get out of this?”

  “We are looking to recall all our forces from your dash 3 body. Then we will retreat from this system.”

  Melfie shook her head. “We keep the troops already nded as prisoners. You will order them to stand down. Afterwards you will be allowed to retreat without further harassment. These are the terms that are acceptable to us.”

  The korveinian Admiral smmed a fist on the desk. “That is outrageous! We cannot abandon our people to your custody. That is madness!”

  Melfie scoffed at her. “Well that is what I’ve been authorized to offer for terms. You lost this battle, you have to suffer those consequences.” Melfie took her gsses off and leaned in really close. With an evil smile she responded. “I repeat what your people told mine once: the winner cannot suffer the loser’s demands.”

  The bird stood quickly. I continued to write everything down, this shit was gold! “How dare you throw that quote in my face! That was hundreds of years ago.”

  “My people have long memories and I was told specifically to bring that to you should you attempt to make counter demands. You’re people wouldn’t allow us autonomy then, we will now allow you to have your people back now. You lost, we won. As the humans say, turnabout is fair py.”

  “We should have wiped out more of their pnets during their subjugation.” She sounded dejected.

  “Wow that’s pretty dark,” I said as I pounded away at the keys. “So you are admitting the korveinians are interested in committing genocide?”

  Kornel Melfie shot me a look. I shrank down in my chair. “Moving along, do you agree to our terms?”

  She bared her teeth. “What can I do? I submit myself and the people of my command to these terms. I will order the surrender of my troops on the dash three body and my fleet will retreat.”

  Melfie narrowed her eyes. “No no, all korveinian ships will retreat from this system. Not just your fleet.”

  She shook her head, a wry smile on her beak. “As you say. All korveinian ships will retreat from this system.”

  “Good. Security, take them back to their ship and be kind while doing it.” Melfie ordered. We headed for the door.

  “My people will remember this hostility and your aggressive demands.”

  We left the meeting room and I prepared to log it.

  The korveinians were escorted back to their ship and left without incident. I finished my log around the time that Melfie called the Admiral to report on the terms of the korveinian retreat. Admiral Remagen answered, the big boss of the fleet.

  “Admiral Remagen, this is Captain Melfie of the Battleship Khavet. We have concluded negotiation operations with the korveinian pary delegation, sir.” She reported.

  “Excellent. The korveinians are taking their ships and leaving the system?” He asked.

  “Yes, sir. I also insisted that they surrender the troops they have already nded on Gandwana. We force them away and take an entire few army groups out of the equation.”

  Remagen cocked his head to the side, a concerned look pstered his face. “You made them surrender? There are at least two to three million enemy combatants still alive on Gondwana. They are not being taken out of the war, that’s fine though, we can try and trade prisoners of war but now we have to feed and water them.” He muted his audio but continued to talk, after a minute or so he said. “Well done captain. Proceed to Gondwana, we need to transport the prisoners to a safe pce and recover that pilot that crashed.”

  “I will instruct my flotil, sir.” Melfie bowed her head.

  “Out.” The screen went bnk.

  “Leutnant Tsibo, send the message out of the flotil. When you get akno from all ships we will move out to Gondwana.” She sat in her chair. In a lower and coarse voice she remarked. “Well if he doesn’t like the cease fire I negotiated, maybe he should have done it himself. He could have moved his ass over here from the fucking station. Piece of fucking shit.”

  Scrummier appeared at my side. “Hey, I’m here to take over. Anything important that I should know about, sir?”

  “Our weapons will not be important for the next little while.” I expined everything that had happened and left the bridge. I was tired, hungry, and maybe a little horny. Sleep and food could wait. I headed to the transporter to visit the S Carrier Castan Lukonia and py with my sweet boy toy Shulegesh Regev.

  I punched in his name in the directory outside the transporter room, it showed him still at the NachtHexen unch bay. I sent a message on Page that I’d be going to the mess hall and that he should meet me there when he could. I finished eating and he wasn’t there. I started to read about the great horseman conquests on earth. I had trouble pronouncing their leader’s names Genkiss, Hugu, Tamerne. Humans sure had interesting names at every time.

  Kornel Regev plopped into the seat opposite me. He sat his tray down and began eating.

  “Hey you!” I smiled wide and sat my klevesh down. “How are you doing?”

  He let out a big sigh. “Relieved we are going back to Gondwana. I didn’t realize how much I was relying on Captain Gezzini. Her ability to see those beings protected so many of my pilots. I just worried less when she was in the battles. She always prioritized safety which was annoying at times. But fucking hell, she still got shit done and kept people alive.” He sighed again and shook his head. “I’m stressed without her. How are you, Simion?” He put on his best brave smile, but it looked so hollow.

  He needs distraction, I decided. “How about you finish eating and we go see a film?” He nodded. “Oh good.” I snatched my klevesh back up and logged into the flotil media network. I gasped. “They are showing the Heinas wars on the Destroyer Kutrengt. What do you think about that one?”

  “Sounds like a good one, let's do it. I like the person Castan Lukonia, as well as her namesake ship.” He took another bite. “I noticed you didn’t tell me how you were doing by the way. I’ll ask again, how are you?”

  “I am ok. I took part in the negotiations that are seeing the korveinians retreat from this system. I’m tired and I just want to be a cuddly snuggle bug at the theater.”

  “Sir!” I looked over.

  “Leutnant Yadvega,” Regev said.

  “I have our numbers from the battle, sir.” She handed Regev a piece of paper. He inspected it for a moment and smmed it on the table.

  His face was in turn angry then sad. “Thank you Leutnant Yadvega.” He sighed. “Nothing against you, Leutnant, but I need her back, she can see danger. It's an unfair advantage against you but I would rather my squadron live.”

  Tears were streaming down her face. “I understand, sir. I can’t believe Zluo is dead. She was my best friend.” She started sobbing then broke down, falling onto the ground. I came around the table and knelt on the ground next to her.

  “Is it ok if I give you a hug?” I asked. She tched on to me instantly, we both fell fully to the floor. I pushed us both to kneeling again and embraced her.

  “I want her back.” She said through tears. “I want Zelia, Koventa, Raglesh and Captain Gezzini back. All of them! I want them all back.”

  Regev rubbed her back, he almost looked fatherly. “Captain Gezzini will be back soon. I’m sorry we have lost so many. Their loss weighs on me immensely too. I can give you some time off once Captain Gezzini returns. You should also go to the therapy section and talk to some professionals.”

  She nodded. Her tears began to abate and we both stood up. “I think that might be a good idea, sir.” Her voice was hollow. “I’m going to try to sleep now, sir.” She stood and began to walk away.

  “I haven’t dismissed you, Yadvega.” She stopped. “You are a strong person, you need to believe that too.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You will be ok, Yadvega, hold on to hope a little longer.” She nodded. “Dismissed.” He said softly.

  I watched as she left. My heart hurt for her. I hugged Regev from behind. He had finished eating and was sitting with his head in his hands.

  “Come on, let's take our mind off all this badness.” We walked to the transporter to get to the ship pying the movie we wanted to watch.

  The next day I found myself on the bridge of the Khavet. We had dogged the enemy fleet for nearly a month and a half. Attacking and chasing for so long and now we were once more above Gondwana after only a day. It seemed hardly real but here we were.

  Melfie pressed the all comms button. “Chalk teams to the transporters and unch bays.” She turned to me.

  I was already standing and on the way out. “I’m on the way, ma’am.”

  “Remember you are doing four trips, not three.” She called after me.

  “Understood!” I was at the transporter shortly. We walked the groups of korveinians to the brig and locked them away. They were a sorry gaunt lot. Their feathers were molting as we walked down the halls of the ship. We did as we were asked and just put them away. No hitting or abuse at all, not even verbal from my crew.

  The guards of the security division were waiting in the brig. “Look at these nasty sorry looking losers,” they jeered.

  I shot them a dirty look. “Treat them well, as if they were our own people.”

  One of them sneered. “They aren’t our own people, sir. They are the enemy.”

  “Sergeant, I don’t care if any of them personally killed someone in my family. We will show them the strength of our sisu and conviction. That is a directive from our kornal and our admiral.” I reminded them. “We of the khaveni are better than that. I expect you to show that in your manner and actions. Do I make myself clear?”

  They saluted. “Yes sir.” Their faces didn’t seem to betray contradiction to my order.

  We made the trip with the ragged figures two more times and finally we went for the final trip. Four figures appeared on the pad, three korveinians and one healthy looking khaveni woman. I stared at her for a moment, confused.

  “Hi,” I said. “Who are you?”

  She smiled brightly. “Ah! It's so nice to be back on ship! I am Captain Gezzini, I am the commander of the NachtHexen on the support carrier–”

  “Castalen Lukonia. Of course! I didn’t recognize you for a moment. Welcome back to the fleet, captain. You are free to roam as you like.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and her brow furrowed. “Hey! I remember you! You shook your dick at me! Hel creepy!” My chalk snickered. “You men are all like that.” She scowled at me. She looked at the transporter operator. “Send me to the Castan Lukonia, please.”

  The man tried to furtively gnce at me. “Alright, off the pad, you three. Get moving.” My men shuffled the korveinians a little more roughly than I would have liked, but not enough that I was going to stop them or say anything about it. I came near the exit when the operator cleared his throat. I looked back at them both, she was standing impatiently. “Free roam.” I repeated to the operator and left the room as the whirring of the transporter rose higher in pitch then discharged her to the Lukonia.

  We took the final prisoners to the brig. I dismissed the rest of the detail and made my way back to the bridge.

  “Simion, welcome back! Do we have all our guests on board?” Melfie greeted me as I entered.

  “Yes ma’am. We have one hundred on board. All have been pced in the brig.” I reported as I sat down. “I’m already making a log about it, ma’am.”

  “See? Now that’s what I like to hear!” My log obsessed commander said with glee. “Comms, what is the status of Captain Gezzini and the rest of the fleet intake of prisoners?”

  “Reports are green on the captain. She is on the Castan Lukonia.” Tsibo paused, her face was puzzled. “The dick filer ushered her? I… am not sure what that means but she wanted everyone to know about that for some reason. Ok, whatever. Moving on.” She paused to access the fleet universal chat herald system: The Fox. “I’m seeing green reports from forty of forty-five prison transport ships. Forty-two.”

  “Wait what? I have not gotten off the first thing yet. Who filed their dick at Captain Gezzini? What ship did she transport through?” Melfie asked. I sank in my seat and my face was hot. Now I regretted what I did that night, funny though it was at the time.

  Tsibo’s head shot up, a look of surprise on her face. “Us, she trans’ed through the Khavet, ma’am.”

  “Who was there at the time she came on board? Was it the transporter operator?” She swivled her chair at me. “Commander Torkozi, I want–”

  I was so surprised at hearing my name, I broke instantly under her hard gaze. “I’m the dick filer, ma’am. I was there when she came on board. It was me! I did it. I’m sorry.”

  She sat in silence. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide. “You… are the dick filer? How? Why? When??”

  “It all started when I saw Kornel Regev, ma’am. We were at the bar on board and we were really into each other. We went back to his pce and started, well you know, anyway she happened to drop by because Kornel Regev is her commanding officer. And well, I filed my dick in her direction.”

  “I suppose you were drunk at the time.” She crossed her arms and stood up

  “Yes ma’am.” I continued to shrink further. “I have nothing else to say except It was a mistake.”

  She sighed and sank back into her chair. “How is our status looking with regard to the prisoner intake?”

  “Green.” Tsibo said. “Forty-five by forty-five. Admiral Danilov says we’re good to go when you give the order, ma’am.”

  “To the prison colony then, punch the necessary numbers in and hit the go fast button when ready.” She towered over me. “We will discuss this more ter, Torkozi.”

  I had a sour taste in my mouth. I was so fucked.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled stupidly. I was here. I was finally here at Kelvux Krokhna’s tower, the legendary defensive weapon that should have guaranteed the independence of the uthradiri people for all time.

  It was lost at the time of our greatest need, when the Korveinian Star Empire invaded. However, Krokhna returned and gave hints to his weapon’s location. Many had attempted to find this pce and, until now, all had failed.

  Here we stood now, in our second time of greatest need. War once more with the korveinians. Instead of the khaveni fighting against us, this time they were with us and with the addition of the humans, I was feeling optimistic. With the tower on our side, we would be unstoppable.

  All we had to do now, was bring the Tower back from wherever it had ended up.

  “Ok. let's go have a look around, but be careful.” I warned everyone. “There could be anything here. Krokhna was a bit of a dangerous thinker. He came up with this entire weapon. There could be traps anywhere.”

  “Why would he trap his own weapon?” Tevia asked.

  “He abandoned it here,” I retorted. “He would have known it was not necessarily uthradiri who would find this pce.”

  “Who's to say he would have given a shit? Maybe he just wanted the tower used and was not terribly concerned about who came upon the thing!” Alfern postuted.

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Forge ahead! Toss caution to the wind and get us all killed, please. I’m sorry for wanting to be safe about this unknown thing built by a madman genius.”

  I heard Tevia bob her head by the jingle of her earrings. “I see your point, Master. We should be cautious.”

  “Well thank you for thinking.” I sniped. That felt a little mean but she had really pissed me off with her comments on ace people so I didn’t care too much about her being hurt at the moment. Perhaps I will apologize to her ter but only if she apologizes for what she said. “You all stay here! Except for you two servants, we are going to try and find a pce to put this stuff and a pce to sleep. Come on.”

  We stepped into each room and looked around and mostly seeing nothing in each we entered the next and scanned each wall of anything before moving on. It happened like this for a couple hours. Others of our party filtered into rooms we had already cleared. We found a bedroom and plenty of storage rooms. I directed our supplies to be moved into a few of them.

  We got compcent fast. There seemed to be little to no danger anywhere in the tower.

  “Just don’t touch anything. We are being too careless.” I reminded the two as we moved into the next room.

  We fanned out. One of the servants spoke. “What is this?” I turned to see a small bubble-like thing coming out of the wall. I turned to search my part of the room again. A fsh obstructed my vision. I tried to turn back toward the others but couldn’t get my limbs to obey. My lungs burned as I tried to inhale, there was no air. My ears rang loudly, I yelled out but couldn’t hear my own voice.

  I tried to suck in more air and found purchase for my lungs. Slowly my vision began to resolve the room around me again. It was still so blurry. I saw Alfern above me after another minute or so. I didn’t know how much time had gone by. I looked where the bubble had been. A rge bst mark covered the wall. My eyes moved toward the floor, two legs were all that was left of the servant.

  Expendable though they were, now paperwork would have to be done when I returned. I hated doing paperwork that did not pertain to something that was important.

  They sat me up, the ringing in my ear was maddeningly loud. I looked down as my vision slowly returned. I was covered in blood. A mix of my own and not, most likely. The other servant was missing an arm. She had been closer than me.

  I coughed then looked at Alfern. “I told you it was dangerous.” I couldn’t hear his response. My head felt light and the world began to swim. Why was breathing so difficult? Then everything went bck.

  I woke up ter. The ringing was mostly gone. My vision seemed more or less normal again. I breathed not fresh, but fine enough air. I tried to sit up, it was painful. I pushed the bnket off of me, my midsection was bandaged. A painful spasm sent me doubled over. I breathed until it had mostly passed.

  I rexed on the bed and wiped the sweat from my brow. I peered around the bunkroom. I saw the one armed servant patched up and passed out in a bed in the corner then I noticed Tevia standing in the doorway, her arms folded. Her face was the very definition of anger.

  “What happened to being safe?” She said it so lowly, it was nearly drowned out by the ringing in my ear.

  “Go talk to the pair of legs. The servant they used to belong to blew the thing up, not me. What happened to my stomach?” I asked, pointing at the bandage.

  “One of her bones impaled you, master. We are lucky we had a medical servant here.”

  I shook my head. “I requested we have one. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wanted to err on the side of caution. Where is everyone else?” I thought for a moment about standing up but dismissed it as soon as the thought came to me.

  “Alfern is leading some of the other servants to finish exploring the rest of the tower.” She smacked the wall with her fist. “I told him he should wait until you were awake again but he insisted on it, like he always does.”

  “He was right.” I told her. “Hopefully his party will be more safe than mine was.” My breathing became a little more ragged. I shifted in my bed.

  “Do you need anything?” Tavia took a step forward. Her whole visage was one of concern.

  “Water,” I said. She began to walk away. “Wait.” She turned. “Tsuji too.” She cracked and honest to goodness smile, more bright than the neon white fluorescent lighting of this weapon of war.

  She brought both quickly. I ate and drank slowly, it took so much energy that I quickly drifted off to sleep once more when I decided to rest after eating.

  I was able to stand when I woke up again. Pain racked my entire body. I was so light headed and my breathing was very bored. I coughed which made me double over. I stood as best I could and limped my way through areas of the ship that were already deemed to be safe. A servant aided me in walking until I could walk by myself again. We went to the control room, which Alfern’s team had found while I was id up.

  I was doing better each day. When I was finally able to walk without trouble I went to the control room daily. I continued to eat my daily tsuji as I stared at the panel. There were no manuals, I didn’t press a single button or flip any switches, I was scared of another explosion. I tried to understand how this weapon worked in order to get it up and running, not trying to blow it and the entire exploration team along with me.

  One day Alfern came to me, he seemed somewhat reserved when he approached. “Master, I’m happy to see you up and about. How have you been feeling?”

  “I am feeling ok, much better than the day it happened. I am still alive.” My voice was still raspy from inhaling the particute and heat of the explosion. I coughed. “How does the search go? Have you found any more traps or dangers?Anything useful?”

  “We found a few more explosives. They are gorzriki-pentenchariki explosives. Very small amounts but very potent and deadly.” He sighed and drank from his bottle. “We didn’t lose anyone else. I was able to disable one and take it off the wall.” He pulled a bubble device out of his pocket.

  I saw it and fell to the ground immediately. I held my hands over my head and screamed. My crutch servant quickly to my side and pulled me to my feet. I pushed her away and we both fell to the floor. “Get that thing the fuck away from me.” I demanded, tears streaming down my face. Alfern quickly ran out of the room but returned shortly.

  “I am sorry, Master.” Alfern and the servant helped me up. I was shaking, my stomach churning and roiling. The contents spilled onto the ground. I fell to my knees again. I tried to breathe deeply, to calm myself. “Come on, let's get him to the bedroom.” I heard him say. My head felt light, I swayed and would have gone down again if I was not being held by the two.

  They pced me in bed, my sweat soaked through my clothes and bnket. Alfern returned to the bedroom.

  “I will get on removing all the explosives from everywhere I have found them. You won't have to worry about those soon enough, Master.”

  I ignored him and sat up. “I need to get back to the control room. We have limited supplies and need to figure this pce out as soon as possible.” I pushed past him. “I’ll leave the exploration to you.”

  “I came to talk to you about that, Master. We have finished exploring. We made a map and marked where the danger is. We are pretty set as far as that goes. ”

  “Then we need to focus on operating things in this pce.” I coughed. The thought of the explosion came to the fore again. I turned to Alfern again. “No, safety first, remove the explosive then come help me in the control room. Once you’ve finished that.”

  “Yes, Master. I’ll get on the explosives now.” He sped out of the room. I came out into the hallway, e was still standing there. “One thing I forgot to tell you, we did find something interesting,” he showed me the map again. “Here we found a unch bay and some smaller ships, I’m assuming they are fighters of some kind.”

  I walked back to the control room. The floor had been cleaned up. I sighed and looked back at the control panels attempting to decipher the buttons, switches and gauges.

  The panels were completely incomprehensible. One panel was beled Buni Wumbum and another Rushavard Kolter, they transte to slutty cheese and stabbed cake respectively in an ancient uthridiri nguage that hadn’t been spoken in a thousand years.

  Tevia and Alfern came in turn to the control room. “We have finished disabling the mines.” He offered. “Is there anything we can do here?”

  “Do either of you know about the myths of Zjankh? I’ve focused so much on more recent history, I have neglected the deep past. I remember some of the words and verb forms.”

  “I remember some things,” Tevia said. She came to the panels and rested her arms on them, nearly pressing some buttons. I slid her back.

  “I am not interested in being exploded again. Do not lean on anything, thank you.”

  “Oh right, sorry master.” She looked back down. “What the fuck?” Her head shot up, spine erect. She looked at me full in the face. “Why is the cheese slutty?”

  “I don’t know but this has to mean something, is there some story or fable or something from Zjankh?”

  “Wasn’t Krokhna from where the Zjankh were originally based?” Alfern asked. “He was born in Thornavit in Und’ria Province, right?”

  “You are right!” I excimed excitedly. This could be the break we were looking for in understanding the controls. I just needed to encourage these two to help me solve these mysteries. “How does that help us?”

  “We need an expert in Zjankh history. The little I know won’t help us here, I think.” Tevia replied. I defted.

  “We should figure out how to send someone back to radio our need for another expert. Perhaps get Toviar Zapresh out here? She has been the foremost expert on Zjankh for a while”

  I slumped down in the chair. “Toviar.” I scrunched up my face. I shook my head. I missed being around her but her appetite for sexual gratification had made me wary of her, slowly at first then all at once. After I blew up at her at the Son ga, we had parted ways, avoiding each other on campus.

  “Toviar,” Tevia spat then sneered.

  Alfern ughed uncomfortably for a moment. “What is wrong with Toviar, she was a great teacher from what I remember. Very much cared for the craft and history of the people she studied. I don’t understand this sudden hate from you two.”

  “Well looks like you are getting your side whore back.” Tevia stomp marched out of the room, Alfern watched her go then cocked his head at me.

  I rubbed my face. “Toviar and I were briefly in a retionship. Probably around the time or just before you two arrived at Tash Zjinks University of the Son. We ended it on terms of mutual understanding because I didn’t ‘didn’t give her what she was looking for in bed’.” I paraphrased. “Anyway, at some point this got to Tevia and because of her feelings for me when she was a student, she thought I should be amenable to her advances a couple weeks ago.” I shook my head. “She threw it in my face that Toviar and I were involved and she does it again here and now.” I felt like I was losing my mind a little so I started singing. “What did I do to deserve this shit? Oh fuck me my life has gone to–” I screamed instead of finishing the thought.

  Another day of staring at these panels. I heard footsteps behind me. “Your tsuji Tesh Uznik.” I grabbed the treat from the tray. She stood there looking at the panel. “Oh fun.” She smiled.

  I scoffed. “What’s so fun about this incomprehensible bullshit? What do you know about slutty cheese?”

  She smiled brightly. “Nothing. But this is written in street speak from my home.”

  My head swivelled at her. “Expin what you mean, servant. I demand it now!”

  She jumped back, trying to hide behind her tray. “It was just something we would do on the streets as a kid. I can read most of those buttons.”

  I snatched the tray from her and tossed it at the wall. “If you are lying I will have you thrown out of the airlock. Decipher slutty cheese!”

  I gnced at the panel then down at the ground. “It says either crab’s clot or time drive.” Her voice was shaky. I narrowed my eyes at her. “I promise. There are no other possible transpositions.”

  “Transpositions, what are those?” I demanded.

  “It’s something we just do, something we have done since forever in Zagdu. It lets us…” She faltered and cmmed up, her whole body was shaking.

  “Servant, I have been given temporary ownership of you. I am ordering you to tell me, now!”

  She shifted her stance, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s so we can speak freely without your people understanding. It’s a cipher after a fashion. We change one letter for another in a word pair. The poor of Und’ria Province know we are quite likely to be stolen and ensved by the tyrant of our world.”

  I nded a blow on her. “Do not disrespect our illustrious king. You, a mere servant, wish to challenge his majesty’s authority?”

  “Of course not Tesh Uznik. I forgot myself for a moment. I humbly serve my king and people.” She sounded hollow. I pointed at Rushavard Kolter, she nodded. “Main control, seems most likely.” She rubbed where I had hit her.

  “Most likely? What are the other possible transtions you can think of?”

  “Box dragon and market moon.” There was an edge to her voice. Tevia had that same edge when I refused to have sex with her. This servant was angry. I would need to keep an eye on her, she could be dangerous. She was definitely useful though. I stopped, how could I trust her and what she was saying?

  “Well done, servant. Thank you very much for your help. What is your number? In case I need you again.”

  She stared into my eyes. “546-654-6654-32” She responded.

  “Ok, I am going to call you six thirtytwo. You may go now, don’t do anything dangerous. If anyone tells you to do anything, send them to me. I am mandated by w to strike you if talk like that. Its not something I wanted to do, you understand.” I lied to try and keep her on side.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She didn’t seem to believe me but didn’t contradict me so as not to receive another blow.

  That would have to be good enough for now, I thought. “You may go now.”

  I watched her stalk away, rubbing her face where I had hit her. When she had disappeared beyond the door I went back to looking at the panel. Time drive. Main control. Definitely the breakthrough I was looking for. Now that I knew what I was looking for I could crack this riddle myself.

  Spped fish becomes consol power. I pressed the switch and ducked onto the ground, hoping that soup hole was a load of nonsense. I waited for several long moments. Nothing happened. I stood and observed the gauges that had sprung to life. I poked the gauge that said power supply. It fell far short of the one that said power usage.

  “He wasn’t kidding, this thing’s power supply is bone dry.” I said to myself, remembering the hologram from the cave.

  “You got the panel working then?” I turned quickly to see Alfern hovering around the doorway. He stepped back, “Sorry, Master, I thought you heard me coming in.”

  My heart raced, but I controlled my breathing. “Yes. I was able to turn the power on. Do you have that map you made still? I want to find the main electric power distribution room or power generation room. In one of those rooms there will be a port for us to plug in the generator we brought with us. The tower is an absolute power guzzler though, if this gauge is to be believed, so we may need a rger generator or to get the tower’s own power generation capabilities back up and working.”

  “Of course, master.”

  He stood, not moving to do as I had said. “Is there something else?” I felt annoyed.

  “Master, you are not looking so good. Have you considered taking a rest?”

  I recoiled. “What do you mean? I just woke up and started working an hour ago.”

  His face was the definition of disbelief. “Master, you have been standing at that panel for the st thirty hours. Tevia and I have been checking on you every few hours since you woke up yesterday.”

  “That isn’t possible, it's been,” I looked at my watch. My mouth dropped open. “How have thirty hours passed since I slept? I don’t even feel tired.” I backed away from the panel and filed wildly.

  “I understand that you might be feeling disoriented, Master. Please, please try and stay calm. Come with me and have yourself a nap. I will get the power things taken care of. Leave it with me.” He soothed.

  “Yes, yes. I will go to bed.” My eyes shot toward him immediately. “Keep 6 32 safe as well. She is and could still be valuable. She knows the transtions and can read the panels.”

  “That is one of the servants?” He asked. “I’ll see to it, just come with me to the bunkroom.” We left the control room together and went to the room of beds and sleepy time activies.

  I slept for a day. When I woke I found some servants still dragging the generator to the power distribution room. The power generation room had proved fruitless for our effort. The transfer cable didn’t fit in any of the ports, Tevia had expined, even with each adapter attached to the nipple. She and Alfern had decided the input must be in the distribution room. I agreed.

  “Did you try to plug the transfer cable anywhere in that room?” They had been silent at my question. I rolled my eyes. “I need you to be more thorough, please. I cannot do all of this by myself. Please! I’m begging you, use your fucking brain. I know both of you are smart, I’ve known you for years and taught you for a rge part of that time. Just think a couple steps ahead. Please. You can do it, I know you can.”

  We left the generator in the hall and took the cable to the room. The nude nipple did not fit in any of the receptacles. The zuzlia adapter, however, slotted right into a one beled external input after it was decoded.

  “See, Master? Everything is working out. No need to be so uptight about things,” Tevia smirked. I wanted to sp that self satisfied smirk off her face.

  I gave her the most neutral look I could. I cocked my head. “That is not the point. That is not the goddamn fucking point.” I took a big breath to steady myself. I ughed maniacally. “Ok, ok, ok, ok. I was blown up because that servant didn’t think ahead before she touched something she shouldn’t have. We need to get this thing going and we need to get it to Uthradan as soon as possible. That is what we are doing here, Tevia. Do you understand that?”

  She scoffed and crossed her arms. “Don’t speak to me as a child, at least I fuck. You are a sexless loser, Master,” she spat, her tone filled with derision and spite. “I know what we are doing here, pressed as I am in service to this cruel state. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You know? You know what you are doing? Ok so you are purposefully being an incompetent asshole then?” I shoved her. “You are a korveinian colborator? Is that what you are telling me, Tevia? Get the fuck out of my way, you fucking cunt! Alfern is the only one helping me here. All you others are just getting in the goddamn way.”

  “Asshole.” She stormed out of the room.

  The servants brought the generator fully into the room. We hooked it into the power distribution system and I headed toward the control room to check on the bance of power in and out.

  It wasn’t even close. We were down so much power, about a third of the power needed. I rubbed my face in frustration.

  “What did you say to Tevia?” Alfern asked as he entered the control room.

  “Never mind that colborationist bitch.” I dismissed him. “We have a bigger problem. Our generator isn’t powerful enough to power this pce.”

  “I see that, Master. We need to talk about Tevia though, she said–”

  I rounded on him. “Do you understand what we are doing here, Alfern?”

  “Of course, we need to get the tower back to the homend so we can defend ourselves from the korveinians.” He responded.

  I nodded at him. “Good, let's get that done then. How do we proceed? Obviously we need a bigger generator. So how do we get back to the cave? We need to stop the bleeding of power and find the correct system that will transport us.” I turned to Alfern, he was shaking his head.

  “Master, we need to talk. We have a problem.” I waved him off. “Tevia is threatening to take one of the ships from the unch bay.”

  I side eyed him then looked at him full on. “What? Ships? Launch bay? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  He shook his head violently. “Master, you have been too focused on this control room and the power center. I showed you the map. I showed you the important things, one of them was the unch bay of ships. I told you about it!”

  “What is she expecting to do with that though?”

  He spread his hand wide. “I don’t know. I don’t know but I can’t imagine it is anything good.”

  I turned and looked at the power gauges again for a long time. I covered my face with my hands then looked back at him after a moment. “I failed to think again.” I said hollowly. “Let’s go get her.” I sighed and we left for the unch bay. “Can she even fly one of those ships?” I enquired.

  He shrugged. “I have no clue if the ships are still space worthy, they have been here for over a hundred years. As for her pilot skills I don’t know. If you will remember, until like a month ago we had not talked for years. As well, our retionship has been very strained since being forced together on this project.”

  We entered the unch bay. I quickly scanned the bay, it was a mass of catwalks with low waist high rails. There were several of these ships berthed, one in each spot. I looked below the catwalk, nothing but open space below and a view of a pnet I did not know the name of. I could see the atmos shield below buzzing. I saw the power drain and made a note of it in my mind to check that when I returned to the control room.

  I saw Tevia in one of the machines, her chaperone standing near likely fretting over her. I rushed up to where she stood and grabbed the servant by the arm.

  “Servant, you will pull her out of that spacecraft at this moment.” I dragged her closer then pushed her forward when we were next to the cockpit. “Do it now.” I ordered. I gnced at the cockpit, Tevia was holding two fingers up at me. I scowled at her disrespect.

  “Master, I can force open the cockpit from here.” Alfern called out, he was standing at a control panel. “I just need to know what berth it's in.”

  “Seven.” I called back to him. The canopy fpped open.

  She banged on a button a few times. “Fuck you, Alfern! Give me control back, asshole.”

  “Get her out now!” I ordered the chaperone again.

  “I’ve been able to disable all controls for that berth. You are totally fine to get her.”

  The chaperone went in, trying to unlock her seat belt. Tevia fought back. They tussled for a moment then the chaperone let out a blood curdling scream. She crumpled and fell off the catwalk onto the ship. She slipped off and through the atmos force shield. Her body floated listlessly away in the vacuum outside the tower.

  I stood, absolutely shocked. “Tevia, you just slew a servant. She fell through the shield into space, she is dead! You killed her. You’ve committed a crime against the crown of Uthridan. Get your ass out of that cockpit now!”

  She unlocked herself. Tears streamed down her face. “I stabbed her a little. I didn’t mean for her to die. Master, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted her to get away from me. Please! Master!” She started to climb out of the thing. I put my hand out to help her. She tried to slip out onto the nose and fall into the void of space. I grabbed at her and put all my weight into falling back. She came too and nded on top of me.

  “Alfern, come get her! Quick! Now.” He came over quickly and held her while I stood up. I grabbed her other arm and we dragged her back into the tower proper.

  I banged on the raptious machine again. It drained the generator faster than it could supply power still. I continued to try and cut off unnecessary systems slowly. I tried to carefully transte the jumbled words, but I was not an engineer. I couldn’t get us back until I got enough power to the transportation device. I looked at the panel again and shook my head, the buni wumbum drive. Crity would have been better for me now.

  We had too many new problems. I dug into one of my now very limited tsuji. I sighed, just another problem. We had food only for a few more days and no control over the tower.

  One of the servants came up to me. I ignored her and continued to struggle with the controls. She cleared her throat, I shot her the nastiest look I could muster. She balked and took a step back but waited expectantly. I ignored her for a few more minutes before I was too annoyed.

  I raised my voice to her, “what the fuck do you want?”

  “I um,” 6 32 stammered.

  “Well go on, spit it out already. Do you naturally have that stutter? T-t-t-t-today, bitch!”

  She reacted as if I had punched her in the stomach.

  The only elder servant left walked up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I apologize, Tesh Uznik. We will leave you to your work.” She dragged the younger woman away. They sat off to the side, the younger began crying.

  “Out!” I shouted at her. “I’m too busy to listen to your bellyaching. Get her the fuck out of here. Now! I threw one of my heavier tools at her.”

  “Master, is it–”

  I poked Alfern with my other tool. “Not a fucking word from you,” I jabbed it toward Tevia as well. “You keep your fucking mouth shut too, criminal.” I smmed the tool on the console and spooned the st bits of tsuji into my mouth.

  “Get 6 32 back in here, now.” She was shuffled back into the room. I didn’t look at her. “What do you want?”

  “I had just noticed you turned off some safety protocols, I thought it might be a good idea to warn you.” Her voice trailed off.

  “The force shield for the atmosphere in the unch bay?” I questioned. She bobbed her head in agreement. “I meant to turn that off. We don’t need that but we do need to conserve power to get back home. Can I get back to my work now, please?” I felt so exasperated. She said nothing, just walked out of the room again. I returned to my work.

  I managed to bance the power after some time. I brought Tevia and one of the servants with me. Alfern and the rest would be left to watch over the tower until our return. 6 32 had identified the system in the room we had transported into that would allow us to go back. We stood in the transportation zone, Alfern at the controls.

  An instant after the button was pressed we were surrounded once more by the cool cave. Nothing had changed in the pce since we left.

  We made our way back to the ship. We locked Tevia away and I went to the communications room. I ordered a rger generator and fuel rods for the on board generator system.

  I went to my room for a change of clothes. There was shit everywhere. Scratch marks covered every surface. I saw her ying on the ground, colpsed. Not breathing. I quickly ran to her and lightly touched her. She didn’t move.

  “Witi.” I said tentatively. “Witi?” Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t breathe. I began hyperventiting, but nothing felt right. The entire world seemed to shift in some way but I couldn’t tell how. I dry heaved. When I was finished and nothing came out, I gathered the body of my poor sweet girl and cradled her lifeless body.

  I screamed. A servant rounded the corner at some point. She led me to the dining room and disappeared for a long while.

  She returned. “I cleaned your room, Tesh Uznik.”

  I felt drunk. The world didn’t feel real. I mumbled at her. “Who cares, Witi is gone. There is nothing in this universe that can fix this great tragedy.”

  “Should I ask them to send another turpin along with everything else?” I stood and punched her right in the face. She held her hand to the suddenly created red spot. I dropped the body of my friend and punched until there was nothing left in me but numbness, all rage was quenched.

  I fell to the ground and cuddled her as the servant gurgled her final breaths a meter away.

  I bmed both deaths on Tevia. When they delivered the new supplies to us, she was taken away and would soon be executed. Who would believe her? I’m the golden child. I have all the favor with the government. She was a mere assistant and a bitch to me. She was already condemned too, what was one more death on her record?

  The new servants aided me in moving the supplies to the cave and we blinked back to the tower.

  I had them take the generator to the power distribution room and the food and water to the supply closet.

  Alfern was staring at me. His face was filled with concern. He walked to me and smiled at me in a fatherly way. “Master, are you ok? You are looking… grim.”

  I ratcheted my head toward me. “My precious little Witi is dead.” The tears, unbidden, flowed from my eyes as if they were the tributaries to the great Mevud River.

  Alfern sat me up. When had I even fallen to the ground? He held me close. My sobbing went on for what seemed like hours. I felt like my life was falling apart. My friends, my pet, all were abandoning me.

  Looked suspiciously at Alfern. How long until he betrays and abandons me too? I pushed him away.

  “Hey, hey.” He stood. “Master, things seem very dark at the moment. I understand that. Your precious little girl is gone and things have been, to say the least, very hectic tely. Tevia has gone off the deep end and things have not necessarily gone our way, as you know, with the whole explosion incident.Let look at the positive things though.” I scoffed, what positive was there beside a couple million dead korveinians in the future? “We are still alive though. We are getting to our goal though we are scraping our way through this maze of pain, we are going to get there, Master. We just need to hang on a little longer. If anyone can do that, it is you. ”

  “You say that now.” I countered.

  “I’ll be with you every step of the way, Master. Until it is done. I promise.” He rubbed my back.

  I scowled at him. “How long though?” He looked confused. “How long until you betray me like Tevia did?” I slumped again. “My little Witi.”

  “Master–”

  “I’m going to keep my eye on you. I’m going to save my heart next time. I will avenge my sweet Witi.”

  “Right, right, what? Who are you going to avenge for Witi’s sake?”

  The people who forced me on this quest. I thought. I am going to kill the king. His shitty quest has destroyed my life. The korveinians, if not for their war I wouldn’t be here. I pushed myself to stand up, pure spite animating my body once again. Anger and spite were my fuel now.

  “Korveinians.” Kept my other target hidden for now. “Without the korveinian’s war my life would be as it was. Witi was a casualty of war and for her I will have my revenge against those feathered shit heads. Are you with me, Alfern?”

  He smiled happily. “That’s the spirit, Master.” He said, his face a mix of emotions. “Let’s get this damn tower going and take out those birds! For Witi.”