Page 127 of Decadence

Rio was a jungle metropolis, ringed by verdant undulating hills that occasionally gave way to stark flashes of hard, precipitous rock. He saw tall buildings crowding along a curved sandy beach, as if they were all jostling to be closest to the sea. But land was only finite, and the mass of human-built structures eventually spilled through an opening in the steep hill ranges, stretching inland.

That was where they were going.

Inland.

To a place nestled against the hills, where the so-called Syndicate had a large facility; a tower with an adjoining flight platform that was just wide enough to accept the most basic kind of spacecraft—including human transports and long-range Ephrenian smuggler craft.

Apparently, the Federation’s flight surveillance systems sometimes ‘accidentally’ missed flights entering and exiting from this particular location.

That wouldn’t be happening anymore.

Not under his watch.

His comm activated. “It is infernally hot in this place. Why can’t humans choose to carry out their illicit activities in one of their ice-environments for once?” Kail grumbled, sounding like his usual cheerful self. “I have scaled the outer walls twice and found three different access points we can use. The data has been sent to the sylth for viewing. This will not be a difficult infiltration. They think they are warriors, but their defenses are flimsy. Tch. If that is all the support the Krael can summon from afar, then they will lose.”

Ikriss had to concede that to one such as Kail, practically anything would look flimsy. “I will divide the squad. We will take the first two access points. You take the third.”

“Naturally,” Kail drawled, a hint of relish in his voice.

Everyone knew that Kail did not work well with others. In situations like this, it was better to give him a wide berth.

“We’ll leave the ships hovering above the building, in case a rapid extraction is needed. As a precaution, Zyara is on the Mhyndin. We do not know what condition the females will be in.”

“No,” Kail said ominously. “And if they have harmed or killed any innocents, they will die.” His voice grew deep and resonant, sending a strange tingle down the back of Ikriss’s spine. For he knew that Kail was a temanjin; a hunter who had the uncanny ability to tell the truth each and every time, even when it had not yet come to pass.

Someone was going to die; he felt it in his bones.

Why were hands and his cursed horn-buds tingling all of a sudden? He’d shaved his horns again before he’d left Silence. He’d applied an extra layer of the skin patch gel, which contained a powerful growth suppressant.

But his horn-buds were breaking through again, and they were exquisitely painful to the touch.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. At least his helm still fit, although it wouldn’t be long before his horns grew so much that it would become excruciating to wear.

No matter; he would worry about that later. Right now, he had a mission to execute.

It wasn’t even a particularly difficult mission. In the old Imperial times, stealing a group of alien slaves from their captors would have been fairly routine, only they would have sent the slaves to Kythia, where they would be divided up and given to the Noble Houses.

But for Ikriss, this mission had become incredibly important. These were Sienna’s people.

One of them was her friend.

And this was his chance to prove himself to her; to prove to her that he was no longer a creature of the Old Empire.

He opened comms with the Mhyndin. “Makhel, follow my descent and remain stationary above the extraction point. No cover fire unless I give the all-clear. This is going to be a delicate retrieval.”

“Human females and all that,” the pilot grunted. “I got the idea. Don’t worry, boss. Believe it or not, I know how to be cautious.”

Ikriss snorted. “No plasma strafing unless I give you the all-clear.”

“Disappointing, but I’ll play.”

“Cool your trigger finger, Mak,” Ikriss warned as the Crurix’s holo showed him an image of their target destination. “If we have to take them down, it will be by blade and sniper-grade precision. Not a single captive is to be harmed.”

“Understood,” Makhel snapped, accepting Ikriss’s order without question.

Ikriss grunted in approval and concentrated on his landing destination.

There it was; a walled compound set against a backdrop of thick jungle and rocky peaks. Half of the compound jutted out into a densely populated area of small ramshackle structures. Most of them appeared to be poorly constructed, with narrow footways and streets winding between a hotchpotch of asymmetrical roofs.

---