Page 136 of Decadence

He focused his attention on the Kordolian pilot, who sat stiffly in his seat, staring straight ahead at the array of holos.

Most of them showed critical damage.

“C-commander,” the pilot whimpered in Kordolian, dropping his head in a half-bow, half-flinch. “I was just following the orders of my House Lord. T-they sent me…”

“On a suicide mission,” Ikriss said flatly. “You fired upon my people.”

“I was just following orders.” The pilot avoided Ikriss’s gaze. His shoulders slumped in defeat. For a Kordolian, he was unusually paunchy, his belly and fleshy arms threatening to burst the seams of his armor-suit. He had sallow skin and closely shorn hair that was turning black at the temples. Ornate jeweled earrings hung from both ears, and his left ear was adorned all the way up to the tip with small glittering metal piercings.

These were the fashions of the nobility.

He was not military; of that Ikriss was certain.

Ikriss did not waste any time. He hooked his fingers beneath the neck of the pilot’s suit and dragged him out of his seat and out of the cabin, which was filling with acrid smoke. He threw him out of the hatch and onto the hard stone outside, slowly walking forward as the pilot stumbled over himself; wide-eyed, panting, frantically scrambling backward on his hands and feet.

He was terrified, because he knew.

He knew Commander Ikriss Peturic of the Second Division.

Of course he did.

Ikriss’s reputation was legend throughout the Empire, and self-serving idiots like this pilot would have once worshipped the very ground that he walked on.

Now the idiot’s eyes were full of fear—and hatred.

“Explain,” Ikriss said softly. “Everything.”

“W-what do you mean—”

Ikriss lost patience and whipped his sword from its sheath. He stalked toward the pilot and stabbed the blade into the hard pavement just a finger’s breadth from the pilot’s left eye. “How did you come to be here on Earth, and who are your masters?”

He was tired of their cowardly deceptions; of their shadowy threats and duplicitous attacks.

He wasn’t used to fighting this way.

It was utterly maddening.

Faced with the threat of imminent death, the pilot’s resolve crumpled. “M-my name is Virchal Agelus. I am the ninth-in-line to the Seat of House Agelus, and Warden on the planet called Eio. It’s in the Eighth. They sent me because I was closest. That is the only reason, I swear. I-I was promised a reward if I pulled off this mission. A seat at the rightful emperor’s new High Council. But when we realized you bastards were already here—that we had no hope of getting these females out—my orders changed. I was told to destroy them.”

Ikriss’s fingers twitched. He almost put his blade through the asshole’s eye right then and there. “Well, it looks like you won’t be getting that seat, Virchal. Who is this so-called emperor you speak of?”

“I do not know his name. We aren’t allowed to see his face. All I know is that he is the Vordokar, and his right to claim the throne is even more legitimate than the Mad Prince Xalikian’s.”

Ikriss lifted the tip of his blade and impaled it just beside Virchal’s ear, shearing one of his glittering earrings in half. “You are wrong. There is no legitimate heir, because there is no throne.”

A soft whimper escaped the pilot’s throat, but then he managed to summon some deeply buried shred of Kordolian arrogance. He bared his fangs, which were stained yellow. “Do not be so sure of yourself, traitor. My cousin Lord Sturmbruk Agelus is about to address Earth.”

Sturmbruk? Ikriss recognized the name. He vaguely remembered the High Lord of Agelus; a dour-faced, pompous asshole who had never cracked even a ghost of a smile in his miserable life. “Address Earth? Do not think you can trick the humans into believing your nonexistent empire will suddenly become their salvation.” Ikriss was so caught up in his anger that he barely noticed the quiet hum of Mhyndin’s suppressed engines behind him as the ship landed in the courtyard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the humans emerge from the glass tower, guided by Lukin and the rest of the Second. Zyara appeared to greet them, and Ikriss was grateful for her presence, for she was far less intimidating than he and his men. Quickly, gently, they guided the women into the ship.

His eyes flicked back to Virchal, whose expression wavered between pure terror and pure arrogance.

Only a Kordolian could do that.

The noble met Ikriss’s eyes and laughed weakly. “I suppose I’m a dead man.”

“No,” Ikriss snapped. “Death would be far too light a punishment for you.”

He fought to contain his anger, which was raw and wild. Virchal’s complete disregard for the lives of the human females was typically Kordolian. Did he not understand that these women were to be protected?

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