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It has been three weeks since the killings and I have spent almost every hour of every day planning revenge. Rath is a royal guard. That means he is most likely guarding the king.
Scum don’t have easy access to the royal house, for obvious reasons, but the king does make tours through the elite regions of Megaris from time to time. If his guard is with him, then his guard will die.
Ordinarily, having made an attack on a dangerous group, the king would be cautious. I doubt the slaughter of our family even registered on their radar as an event, let alone something to be careful around.
“I’ve got the routes of all the last royal tours. They vary, but they always travel through this intersection, right at the verge of the Gettem and Holdem territories.” I tap the rough map we’ve scrawled into the top of a table. “It’s an underdeveloped and under patrolled area because it’s not actually in either of their territories. There are some older buildings I think we can access on either side of the intersection. Sustained crossfire will ensure we have the best chance of hitting our target.”
“I don’t know about sustained,” Frenchie interrupts. “We’ll have enough artillery for a twenty, maybe thirty second burst. We will need good aim, and better luck.”
“Sounds good,” Jax nods. “I’m working on a little tool that creates a disconnect in the drones. It’s basically a scattering of material which interrupts their feeds. It should help us disguise the attack position until it is too late for them to do anything about it.”
“Excellent work, Jax. What about you, Henry? What do you think?”
Henry is bolting a few pieces of armaments together. We cluster together when we work. We cluster together when we eat. We have become a super tight little organism dedicated to one goal. Killing Rath K’zar.
“I think you need to sleep, Lyric.” Henry has been up just as long as I have. Longer. And he’s stopped for fewer food breaks.
“I’ll sleep when that creature is dead,” I growl, wiping sweat from my brow. It is hot down here. Wiping my eyes is about the only break I’m taking, and I’m only taking it because when sweat gets into my eyes I can’t see for the stinging.
* * *
The day arrives…
I am going to kill my lover.
He is the first korabi I ever met and didn’t hate. Now I’m going to kill him. If I feel any softness toward him from our romantic entanglement, I push that shit down hard. He betrayed me and he is the sole cause of the greatest tragedy our family has ever seen.
I am alone at my strike point. The rest of the others are positioned around the intersection, each of them at their own vantage point.
“King’s tour has been sighted. Should be in view in less than ten seconds.”
Jax is on lookout, monitoring the entire situation from a safe distance. She knows to the second what is taking place around the corners where we don’t have the benefit of sight lines.
The king’s touring vehicle is small and nimble. He’s not moving quickly. He is dawdling along, enjoying being generally royal amid the decay of the human quarter of the city. Poverty always fascinates the rich and powerful. The king enjoys taking little breaks here, imagining himself to be facing danger. Today he actually is.
I can see his escorts. My heart skips a beat and then sinks.
“Confirmed visual,” I murmur.
I would recognize Rath anywhere, even at a distance. That dark mane of his and his big shoulders are striking even in the royal uniform.
“Fire.”
It’s a small word which leads to a big action. I squeeze the trigger of my weapon in concert with every other armed member of my family.
BOOM! There is a flash of light and a huge force pushing me backward. I scramble forward, hoping that the kickback didn't make me miss.
It didn’t.
Six rockets have been fired, all massed around a point in the middle of the royal cluster. When the smoke clears, the royal vehicles have all sustained direct hits. What were impressive craft are now crumpled, steaming masses on the ground.
We’ve not only killed Rath. We’ve killed the fuzkin' king.
“That’s for the babies never to be born. That’s for Wuld, and Alicia…”
“Fortis, and Derrick,” Henry intones through our comms.
One after the other, we murmur all the names of the fallen, their spirits now able to rest with vengeance done.
I thought we’d feel some triumph, but I don’t. The emptiness is still there. The loss has not retreated. If anything, it is worse. We know that all hell will now be unleashed on the scum in Megaris. There’s not much time to evade punishment.
“Let’s go…”
We rush into the little tunnels and spaces which make up our respective retreat routes. Our safe house will not stay safe for long, we know that. All that happens next must happen swiftly and without remorse.
