Halener passed down a long colonnade flanking dozens of rooms on both sides. Most of the rooms were empty. A few Vasyke met in the others. They spoke in hushed conversations. None of them broke off even to glance at Richmond.

  Richmond could definitely see how this place would teem with political intrigue the way Datun said it did. Which of these people was conspiring to overthrow Sevao right now? Why bother overthrowing him at all? Nothing would change on Narillia.

  The Vasyke must have other political machinations going on off-planet. Maybe Narillia was just another backwater colony on the outer rim of the Vasyke empire.

  Maybe no one cared what happened here. Maybe the Vasyke were too busy jockeying for position in the rest of the Vasyke hierarchy. Anything was possible.

  Halener finally led Richmond to a wide veranda high on the palace walls. This one opened into the atmosphere and gave a sweeping, panoramic view of Nesara laid out under the glow coming from the clouds.

  Richmond froze when he saw Zaliv Temobos standing alone on the veranda. Of course. It couldn't be anyone else.

  Temobos waved at Halener. "You can go now," he snapped. "Go downstairs where you belong. I'll send for you when the time comes to take the captain back to the Thalek."

  Halener scampered for the hills. Richmond couldn't stop staring at Temobos.

  Temobos didn't know that Richmond had discovered his secret. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Temobos didn't know that Richmond knew about the Vasyke buying innocent civilians from kidnappers as fodder for the Necrodrome machine.

  "You!" Richmond gasped. "You're Sevao?!"

  Temobos waved that away and gave his usual satisfied smirk. "Oh, I wasn't Sevao at our last meeting, Captain. I became Sevao only recently--in part thanks to you. So you have my undying gratitude."

  He made a little sweeping bow, straightened up, and went back to smirking like he'd just gotten away with something.

  "But how..." Richmond glanced toward the colonnade. Halener was gone. He didn't know about Temobos' first meeting with Richmond--and then Richmond remembered something else.

  His mind raced, putting the pieces together. Halener had been in the command center when Richmond had made his revelation about Madoc. He must have told Temobos that Richmond was the one who'd exposed Madoc.

  Temobos turned back to the view. "It's an interesting little social experiment, isn't it--this little planet of ours? Don't you think it's interesting how all the species interact with each other, pretend to help and support each other, and undercut each other at the same time?"

  "What do you want from me?" Richmond demanded, even though he already knew.

  Temobos turned around very slowly. He did everything in theatrical sweeps, like he wanted to make an impression on Richmond about how royal Temobos thought he was.

  "I brought you here to enhance the offer I made to you at our last meeting," Temobos went on. "I'll do more than remove you from all this conflict. I'm prepared to bring you into the Vasyke circle and make you co-ruler with me. We'll share power--and I'm prepared to meet the conditions you set out during our last meeting. Your men will be welcome to join you here, but only you will share power with me. They'll be given the status of honored guests."

  Richmond let the news sink into his brain for a minute. "What could possibly induce me to accept that offer when you've done nothing but betray me since the beginning? I don't need a reason not to trust you."

  "You should accept my offer because you can't succeed in this conflict, Captain," Temobos went on. "You'll lose. You'll either die or wind up back in the Necrodrome--which is the same thing in the end. You'll lead all these people to their deaths for nothing. If you accept my offer, you and your men will be able to spend the rest of your time on this planet in comfort and safety no matter what happens between the factions--and I should add that your time on this planet will be temporary. I'll contact the Chronon Vanguard, alert our diplomatic counterparts of your presence here, and the Vanguard will come to retrieve you. We'll hand you over and you can go home."

  "Me and my men," Richmond corrected.

  "Of course. It was so noble of you to stand by them the last time. Now you don't have to. They can live in luxury with you here and leave with you when the time comes."

  Richmond nodded and let his eyes swivel out to the view like he really needed to think about it. He didn't. He would never accept any deal from the Vasyke--ever.

  "So you're offering this deal to me, Hayes, and Leatherwood--that's it. You aren't offering it to the Narillians in our party."

  Temobos raised his eyebrows. "Why would I offer it to them? They're Narillian. They belong here."

  "They want to leave the planet. We formed an alliance. We made a pact. I don't leave unless they come with me. Are you willing to let them live here in comfort and safety too, until it's time to leave with me?"

  Why did Richmond even ask? He wouldn't have accepted the offer even if Temobos had agreed to it. And Temobos wouldn't agree. Richmond already knew that.

  Even one of the Vasyke's Narillian subjects was too valuable to lose. Anyone who escaped off the planet would tell the rest of the galaxy what the Vasyke were doing down here.

  Richmond barely listened when Temobos said, "I'm afraid I can't extend the same offer to any Narillians. They aren't covered under the same diplomatic laws as you and your men. I'm under no obligation to turn over Narillian citizens to a foreign power. Your loyalty to your friends is admirable, but I'm afraid it's out of the question."

  "Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline your generous offer," Richmond sneered. "You can call Halener to take me back to the Thalek now."

  "I would reconsider if I was you," Temobos countered. "I won't make this offer a second time. If you defy me and go back to the Thalek, the faction will lose. We'll have no choice but to strike hard and reduce the faction to rubble. A lot of innocent people will die, including the Narillians you're trying so hard to protect."

  "I'm sure that's what you'd like me to think. You see, we just stole a lot of your fighter craft today. We might not have leveled the playing field completely, but you wouldn't make this offer at all if we didn't pose a significant threat to your reign. Besides, I know a lot of people out there who would rather die than compromise with you, including the Narillians I'm trying to protect. They believe in me. I wouldn't be doing them any favors if I sold them out."

  Temobos' eyes hardened and his smirk vanished. "You leave me no choice but to eliminate you, Captain. I can't rule the planet if I let you or anyone else defy me."

  Richmond spread his arms. "I'm standing right in front of you and I'm unarmed. If you want to eliminate me, you can do it right now. Just remember one thing. The Thalek already have evidence that you're buying kidnapped Narillian civilians off the street and throwing them into the Necrodrome without trial. You're lucky I haven't broadcast the evidence all over the planet. When I go missing from the Thalek compound, they'll track my movements and find out where Halener took me. What do you think will happen when the faction realizes the truth?"

  Temobos glared at him in outright fury. "What is it you want, Captain?"

  "Apart from going home to the Vanguard the way you should have sent me in the first place? Right now, the only thing I want is to see you rot in Hell along with this whole wretched system of yours. The good news is that I can send you there, and you can't do a thing to stop me."

  Richmond turned on his heel and walked off. He wanted to stick it in Temobos' face, but he also wanted to get as far away from the guy as possible.

  Temobos had just threatened to kill him. Richmond had challenged him, but he didn't want to wait around for Temobos to make good on his threat.

  CHAPTER 11

  Richmond made his way back to the stairs Halener had used to bring him to his meeting with Zaliv Temobos.

  He bumped into Halener on the way downstairs. Halener jumped when he found Richmond outside Temobos' presence.

  Richmond tried not to sneer at the look of shocked horror on Halener's face. "What happened?!" Halener gasped. "What are you...?"

  "We're leaving. You're taking me back to the compound."

  "But aren't you...?" Halener looked back and forth between Richmond and the stairway leading back up to what must be the Vasyke's private levels of the palace.

  "No. I'm not. Now let's go." Richmond walked away. He didn't owe this traitorous moron any explanation.

  He rode back to the compound in silence--or he would have if Halener hadn't kept interrupting his thoughts by asking questions about the meeting. Richmond deflected them all by saying he had to discuss the situation with the faction and his friends before he made any decisions--which was the truth.

  Halener reentered the same side chamber. Richmond ditched the man and went straight back to the quarters the friends had been using since they first broke the news about Madoc.

  Elvion had wanted to give Richmond Madoc's old apartment, but Richmond refused. He had no plans to replace Madoc as leader of this faction.

  All Richmond's friends were in the quarters, too. Leatherwood shot to his feet when Richmond walked in. "Where the hell have you been, sir? We were getting worried."

  "I don't want to talk about it, Sergeant." Richmond sat down on his bed. "I really just want to get some sleep, if you don't mind."

  None of the others disturbed him. OHe stretched out and shut his eyes, but he didn't go to sleep for a long time.

  He waited until the rest of their party went to sleep. Then he snuck out and went to the command center.

  He used the instruments to track the movements of Halener's hover vehicle to and from the palace. The vehicle made regular trips--and not always with a Drichi as its pilot.

  The command center's control console identified the other Vasyke plants inside the Thalek faction. Richmond didn't know them, but Halener obviously did.

  Richmond traced the man's movements. The records revealed Halener meeting with these people in secret locations all over the compound. What were they talking about?

  Halener had even met with Madoc in private, so they were all in on this together. They must have infiltrated the Thalek faction to undermine it in the Vasyke's favor. The evidence also turned up on the records of Halener and the others copying Thalek data off the command center controls and passing that to the Vasyke, too.

  Richmond was still working on the controls when Zuna entered the room. "Joel..." She studied what he was looking at. "Have you been in here all night? Didn't you sleep at all?"

  "I couldn't. I had to get this information before the rest of the faction woke up."

  "What are you doing? Why are you studying all these personnel records?"

  "The Vasyke have moles planted in the faction. We have to get rid of them."

  She frowned at him. "What is this all about?"

  "Have you heard anything from the Zoth? Have you been monitoring the faction's communications channels to see if the Zoth replied to my offer?"

  "I've been monitoring the channels, but the Zoth never reply." She frowned at him again. "Are you okay? You don't look very good."

  He looked away, but it was too late. She must have already seen. "Pass the word to Elvion and the others. We're going to start arming for our first big push into the city."

  "What do you mean by a 'push'?"

  "We're going to mount a campaign against the palace."

  "What for?"

  "To destroy it, obviously. To destroy the Vasyke, the Lilri, and the Necrodrome."

  "We can't do that!" she exclaimed. "We don't have enough fighter craft for that! The Vasyke could bring in more ships from all over the planet--and we don't have enough personnel to defeat all the Lilri!"

  "This is just another distraction. Don't you see? We're going to do it Datun's way. While the battle is going on, one of our teams will sneak in through the tunnels and mine the palace with explosives. That's the only way to really defeat the Vasyke. We wouldn't be able to do it from the outside."

  Zuna stared up at him. He couldn't read her expression to see if she really agreed that this was a good idea, or if she thought he was crazy for sure this time.

  He went back to studying the faction records. He already knew enough about the traitors. He put their personnel records away and studied the palace layout instead.

  The command center's controls read everything going on inside the palace, including the location of Lilri soldiers, the Gulepe medical staff, the Vasyke--everyone. The controls even showed Richmond which prisoners were staying in which cells. Teams of technicians and engineers wheeled away the old, damaged ships from yesterday's bout.

  Then the technicians and engineers brought in all new ships to replace the old ones. The maintenance crew worked on the ships for a long time to bring them into perfect running order--except when they didn't.

  The crews adjusted a few things here and there to make the ships run worse than they should. In some cases, the crews even removed perfectly intact hull sections and replaced them with rusted, breached, or torn sections.

  The repair crews removed functional engines, replaced them with exploded or battered engines, and left the new engines hanging by a thread so they flapped in the breeze. The sight would have been comic if the Vasyke hadn't been playing games with people's lives.

  Richmond tore his eyes away from all of that and tried to locate the tunnels. The controls couldn't detect them. For some reason, the scanners didn't penetrate the tunnels.

  Did the Lilri think of that, too? Did the Lilri slaves who built the palace do something to shield the tunnels from detection?

  The Vasyke must have the technology to scan their own palace. A smart person would have done that first when they noticed dozens of prisoners going missing from locked cells in the middle of the night.

  Richmond didn't see how the Vasyke could miss the tunnels--unless the Lilri were doing something else to conceal them.

  Wouldn't the Vasyke go into the cells in question and examine them in minute detail? Wouldn't the Vasyke notice the same pattern on a single brick in each of the cells from which a prisoner escaped?

  Then again, the Lilri were the ones who guarded the prisoners. What if the Vasyke sent the Lilri to investigate the disappearing prisoners?

  Wouldn't they send the Lilri to hunt the prisoners down? Wouldn't the Lilri follow escaped prisoners back to their families? So why hadn't they done it with Datun?

  All of that suggested that the Lilri were still in on the plot--so why didn't they help Richmond and his friends escape? Why did the Lilri try so hard to stop the allies from succeeding? It couldn't be because Richmond was so much more famous.

  Was it possible that the Lilri had been trying to overthrow the Vasyke all this time? Was it possible that the Lilri were trying to undermine the Necrodrome in their own way even now?

  So why not help Richmond? Why not at least tell him about the tunnels and the brick and the other escaped prisoners at the rock formation?

  Did the Lilri want to sacrifice Richmond--to make him a firebrand to galvanize rebellion in the rest of the Narillian population?

  Every question bred more questions--none of them with any answers. He was still dwelling on it when he called all the rebels to a different cavern for a meeting.

  CHAPTER 12

  Richmond spread the word through the Thalek faction that today's meeting would be a celebration of yesterday's victory as well as a briefing on their next campaign.

  He recorded the evidence he'd found about the traitors, and arranged to set up a large screen on one side of the cavern so he could display it all.

  He mingled with his friends while he waited for the rebels to gather. The atmosphere of jubilant excitement continued after last night. He saw a lot more people smiling, talking, and even hugging each other. How long had it been since these people had tasted any victory at all?

  Madoc must have been running rings around this faction for ages. That was all about to change.

  He waited until the whole faction showed up. The Gria stood off to one side against the wall and didn't mix with anyone else.

  Richmond climbed up onto a supply crate and addressed the crowd.

  "You all know why we're here. Yesterday was an important day for all of us. I hope it's a day that turns the corner for Narillia and starts us all on a path to a better future. Our first item of business today is to recognize a few people in this faction who have been doing exceptional work to make the Thalek what it is. We wouldn't be where we are today without these people's efforts. So our first order of business is to recognize these people and express how much their efforts and dedication mean to us."

  He raised his scanner and read out the names, including Halener's. He buried Halener's name amongst a bunch of others so it wouldn't be too obvious that Richmond was singling him out.

  Fourteen people came forward to stand at the front of the cavern. They all smiled and blushed when they faced their fellow rebels in the crowd.

  Richmond waited for everyone to settle down. Then he started playing back the footage of these people meeting in secret, recording data off the command center controls, and flying back and forth to the palace to deliver the data to the Vasyke. The compound's scanners read every detail of those meetings, including the traitors meeting with individual Vasyke on the palace's private upper tiers.

  There could be no question about what these people were doing. It was all right there in plain view.

  The footage also showed the traitors meeting with Madoc before and after visiting the Vasyke, handing off goods and information, and these people getting intimately involved in all of Madoc's underhanded dealings.

  Silence fell over the crowd as the evidence rolled out on the display screens. Then the grumbling started. At least this time the rebels waited until Richmond finished playing back all the evidence.

  Everyone stood in silence for a minute after the display shut off. The crowd stared at the traitors. Richmond saw plenty of people glaring at them. Others just blinked at their former friends in shocked disbelief.

 

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