Page 5 of Guardian's Destiny

"You should probably have the body removed; it's bad for business," I said, nodding at the soldiers. This was their job now.

I handed my comm to the bartender, "Charge whatever you see as fair to make up for the interruption and give me another." I held up my glass for a third time.

Instead of filling it, the bartender handed me the bottle, and I shouldered my way through the GTU soldiers to an empty booth. I deserved a few drinks. By the stars, I might even get drunk. It had been a while.

But first, I needed to notify Moddekdum, my minder, that I had finished the mission, and he could collect the reward from King Zyranus. I felt many eyes on me and didn't project Moddekdum's form into the bar. Instead, I kept his image on the comm.

"Change of mission," he said the moment he was on the line.

"Too late, it's already done," I replied smugly. I didn't like Moddekdum or any of my previous minders. If pressed, I would have struggled to explain why I worked for the Ohrurs, other than that I enjoyed my job. A lot. Terminating the scum of the universe was in my blood. It was a calling, and the Ohrurs gave me the means of doing just that. "What's the new mission?"

"Several Space Guardians went rogue. They need to be stopped," Moddekdum filled me in.

It didn't happen very often, but his words filled my veins with ice. It was hard to believe that any Space Guardian would turn into a traitor, but what did I know about my fellow coworkers? Nothing. We worked alone, mostly. We didn't congregate and never met unless it was for a mission. Other than working for the Ohrurs and terminating criminals, we had nothing in common.

"I'll send their names to you. All missions as of right now have been put on hold until these three have been caught." True to his words, I received a file.

Raasla Garjed.

Zaarek Taloor.

Tharaax Zelker.

Three names. Three Space Guardians. Three traitors.

My eyes stayed glued to Zaarek's name. He was the only one of them I actually knew. We had worked together before. Well, not really worked together. We had been assigned a mission. For whatever reason, Zaarek thought himself better than me. He tried to command me from day one, which didn't go over very well. He might have been older, but I held the advantage when it came to the mission because I knew the Pronex prison better than him. His arrogance nearly got us killed. If I could picture anybody as a traitor, it was him.

I refilled my glass but then thought better of it. Getting drunk wasn't the best solution right now. I had a new mission, one I actually liked very much. Getting Zaarek terminated or into custody would be my greatest pleasure.

As luck would have it, fate was on my side. Not even a few hours later, I received an alarm from my comm, waking me with the news that none other than Zaarek Taloor had been spotted on the very same Space station I was still anchored to. What were the odds?

I was out and running down the corridor while yelling commands into my comm to get me the traitor's location.

SLOANE

With Zapharosfar from my mind, I spent a few weeks at Daryus's palace studying up on universal politics, getting a general feel for the job as Chief Intelligence Officer. Daryus and I hadn't talked about me taking the job in so many words; we were both still working on figuring each other out. But my predecessor's demise didn't actually entice me to take the job. That and the boring, never-ending mountain ofpaperwork—it wasn't reallypaperwork— Daryus threw at me. I realized I had a lot of studying to do, and granted, some of the information was pretty enticing. Still, I found myself more in the training room than behind my desk.

This was the reason I happily jumped at the opportunity when Daryus asked me to investigate a matter personally.

I had learned enough politics by now that I knew the GTU was, in broad terms, what the UN had been on Earth, just atadbigger. The Pandraxian Empire was one of the mightiest members, especially now that they had assimilated the Cryons. The GTU had been wary of the Empire before, but now they were even more vigilant, going as far as demanding the Pandraxian Empire become more transparent. Again, in old Earth terms, itwould have been as if the United States had merged with China or Russia. The GTU's wariness was understandable.

But when rumors of a secret, off-the-record meeting between GTU officials on a space station reached us. I understood Daryus’s desire to find out what they had to talk about. Especially when one of the said attendees was no other than Gar'Ny L'ym Tack, the GTU Overseer, the other wasjusta council member, Rhad'Dhor.

One of the Imperial Forces' ships took me to the space station ahead of the GTU members, while I planned and prepared for the mission during the journey. Spying on others was an ex-CIA agent's wet dream, more so with all the alien tech available to me now. I found myself more animated than I had been in weeks.

It didn't take that much to hack into the station's security cameras and turn them back on in the conference room where Rhad'Dhor and Gar'Ny L'ym Tack, were meeting—they had ordered them off—while sitting right next door from the room where they were holding their little tea party, listening and watching.

The moment two Moggadesh entered, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. This was a much deeper conspiracy than the Emperor had initially thought. The Moggadesh were not members of the GTU, and they were a major galactic threat to the entire universe, as well as the Pandraxians' sworn enemies.

The Pandraxians and the Moggadesh had clashed before on numerous occasions. Their most recent conflict occurred when the Hettitas, a highly intelligent yet militarily weak species, were forced to plead for Pandraxian aid after being attacked by the Moggadesh. In terms of size, the Moggadesh were on par with the Pandraxian Empire—or had been before Daryus overthrew the Cryons.

The GTU would never have approved of the Pandraxians engaging in conflict with the Cryons, not even to save Earth.Daryus also feared that such a distraction would give the Moggadesh an opportunity to strike against the Pandraxians, making him initially hesitant to intervene. To say that tensions between the Pandraxians and Moggadesh ran high was an understatement. But as far as I knew the GTU wasn't a friend of theirs either.

With disbelief, I listened to Gar'Ny L'ym Tack promise the Moggadesh that he would personally recall security teams from certain trade routes to allow the Moggadesh to intercept them. Most of the alien tech was still way over my head, but I did understand that some transporters were too big and heavy to go into hyperspeed. This was why trade routes that were supposed to be secured by the GTU had been established. Daryus would be furious when I told him about this betrayal.

I was about to pack up my things and log out of the system when the GTU members left, but then one of the Moggadesh mentioned a name that made me freeze: Zapharos.

"He will be on Rottvalen in a few weeks, where we will intercept him," the one who had spoken informed the other.

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