Drelix

The probe snaps with a blue spark. The color flickers for a second in the dark eyes of the creature in front of me.

The Habosu isn't even bound, but he doesn't move, frozen in fear. I let my fangs extend farther, venom dripping from them.

"Please," he begs, his voice hoarse and rough. "I don't have anything else to tell you, and I don't know anything about the Sarkarnii."

"If you did, you'd know I'm not Sarkarnii," I growl. "I'm Haisarkarnii, and you really, really didn't want me to break my vow of silence just to appraise you of that fact, did you?"

"V-vow?" he gibbers up at me. "What vow?"

"The vow I took to keep silent until I found those who destroyed my world and my family."

A puddle appears beneath him, spreading out in a dark stain. "I didn't do it. We didn't do it." His voice hitches on every word.

The Habosu are at the heart of all which is bad in this galaxy and beyond. But they did not expect to come face to face with vengeance.

If only this particular Habosu was responsible for any of it rather than guilty by association. It would make his death mean something, rather than going into the hollow where my heart used to be.

I lean in, ignoring the stench of his waste. "The problem you have, Habosu, is I don't care."

I pull out my pulsar and put a bolt in his head.

One more dead Habosu. One more life ended in my quest for revenge. One fewer reason for me to keep going.

"What the nev?" Draxx stares at the dead Habosu from the doorway. "You were supposed to get him talking, Drelix, not kill him."

"Why did you ask the one Sarkarnii who doesn't speak to get a prisoner talking?" Drega, his brother, a riot of blue scales and a long tail, stalks past him to inspect the body.

"Drelix has his methods. I appreciate them." Draxx tips his head at me.

The great general is correct. I had my methods once. He even knew me when I did speak.

He trusted me.

He shouldn't trust me now.

"Did he have anything useful to say?" Drega stands from where he's been examining the corpse.

I give a curt nod, and both brothers pay attention.

"Another dead one?" Draco booms as he enters. "You're going to have to use Daeos for interrogation, Draxx. At least they'd still be alive to talk after half a seccari."

I move over to the blood-smeared screen on the wall to my left and dial up the co-ordinates I want, pointing to the screen with a claw.

"Something useful perhaps?" Drega inspects the screen. "This'll take us out of our way, well off the star map."

"We need the quantum booster for our weapons. The only known species to have any are the Habosu. If we can deal with them and get what we need, I will be happy," Draco says, folding his arms over his broad gold chest. "We are not a target, we are a force. With the booster, no one will challenge us."

His scales glitter with life in the dim lights of the chamber, so very different to mine, which are iridescent or even glow under certain conditions. Ones I prefer to avoid. I don't want my fellow warriors to know what I am. After all, the priest class of Haisarkarnii were never popular, even when they knew we existed. Too violent, even for ordinary Sarkarnii.

Containing our ancestors was dark work.

The less they know, the better, and it's always been that way. One of the reasons I remain silent. Draco knows what he is doing. He wanted the star map to find the remainder of the Sarkarnii scattered across the galaxy, to bring together our disparate species so we may find somewhere to colonize once again, to grow strong once more.

If he wanted revenge, he would take it. Instead it festers within me. I don't want a weapon, I don't want to find any of the other Sarkarnii, not yet. I want to follow the trail which leads all the way back to our old planet, where most of our species, including my family, perished.

The Liderc who did this to the Sarkarnii did not act alone. Intelligence tells us they are no more, destroyed by the Remek, but those who helped them are still out there.

And I will find them. And I will destroy them, slowly until they feel what my family felt. Until the lights go out in their eyes and I know they are dead and gone.

The co-ordinates the rapidly cooling Habosu at my feet gave me are yet another piece in the puzzle.

"Send Drelix while we continue. That way we'll have fewer bodies to dispose of," Drega suggests to his brother. "I'm sure he can acquit himself like the good warrior he is by obtaining the quantum booster from…Station X42?"

"X42? Are the X-stations still viable?" Draxx leans in to look at the co-ordinates, his shifted tail thrashing behind him. "They were ancient a millennia ago."

"This one looks like it's clinging to life, but I suggest we don't hang around," Drega says. "It could probably go at any time."

Draco drops a hand onto my shoulder. "Get yourself cleaned up, warrior, then take a gyik flyer and go get what we need."

I give my superior a swift bow, my eyes not leaving his, as is our custom.

"Nev it, Draco," I hear Drega exclaim as I make myself scarce. "You could have got him to clean this mess up first."

I allow myself a grin. If the brothers thought Daeos was the worst warrior to grace the Golden Orion, they have no idea what they're really dealing with.

I have my own mission, and now we're free of the prison maze, there will be no stopping me.

I will destroy all those who killed my family, or I will die trying.