Fleet Action (wc-3) William Forstchen (fox in socks read aloud .txt) 📖

shed its exterior. The Kilrathi light picket ship turned and accelerated away towards another jump point.

"I think he is planning to assassinate me," the Emperor said

Prince Thrakhath was surprised by just how casual his grandfather was, as if discussing plans for yet another boring court ritual.

His choice of the word assassinate was interesting as well. In the language of Kilrah there was no such term, the word having filtered into the language from the Hari during the war of three eight-of-eights years past. For the Hari such disgusting practices appeared to have been their means of selecting who would rule, a chaotic and degrading system that left them ripe for conquest

"What purpose would it serve?" Thrakhath asked. "After all, I would then rise to power," and even as he spoke the words he felt foolish, realizing that if Jukaga were planning to kill his grandfather, he would be killed as well.

He fell silent for a moment, lowering his head to lap up a gulp of wine.

"We can't simply denounce him," the Emperor said. "The evidence is far too flimsy, a mere hint, an inquiry as to who would be on the security detail guarding our cruiser the night before we leave for the Pukcal, but it fits him and what he has become."

Prince Thrakhath nodded in agreement. There was no denying that Jukaga was far too right in many of his criticisms of how the war had been run. He alone, out of nearly all the Kilrathi, had taken the time and effort to truly study the humans. It was, after all, his assignment as head of spying to learn the secrets of the enemy and how they thought.

That fact in and of itself had been troubling. In the past victory had come so quickly and with such assurance that there was little or no need to study the enemy; they were merely prey to be hunted down and exterminated. The Mantu did not count; their onslaught had come suddenly and with near overwhelming power, and then they had simply disappeared back into the void, apparently threatened by another unknown race. The human war, however, had dragged on for years. The exposure to them had been constant, even to the point of having a city's worth of human slaves right here in Kilrah, some of them even laboring in the subterranean caverns below the palace. Such contact had to, in the end, bring about changes. Jukaga had embraced them in order to understand and thus defeat them. It had thus introduced to him other ways of thinking as well.

But to assassinate? The mere thought of the alien word was repulsive, it was killing without any honor, without challenge. It was done in the dark, without any hope of then picking up the fallen sword of the slain in order to take his mantle of power and honor.

"If we both were killed," Thrakhath said, "there is no direct heir. In the chaos that followed, as head of his hrai, he would be in position to take the throne himself by playing off one faction against the other, something which he is a master at."

He said the words softly. The shame of even thinking it was hard to bear. There was no denying the horrifying fact that the seed of his family was weakening. His grandfather had sired many litters, most of them born dead, with but two sons surviving. His father had actually been executed by direct order of the Emperor, his uncle killed in the first days of the war.

He was now the only heir, and not one son had been born to him, a sickly daughter his only surviving offspring from a single litter, and that from a lowly concubine of the second order. It was a humiliation almost beyond bearing. He should have sired dozens of offspring by now. He felt a deep and lasting shame. War was the only outlet left to him to vent his rage over his failure on the mating couch.

There were a number of cousins descending from his grandfather's sister, so many that the chance of blood feud and civil war was the most likely result. Is that what Jukaga wanted, a civil war? He thought of his cousins. It would be easy enough to trigger a dynastic struggle with them, and Jukaga could weave his way through the alliances, weakening the family until finally it would be his own hrai that would be the strongest and could then finish them off. It would be a civil war unlike any fought since they had first ventured off their home world over eight eight-of-eights ago.

It was a dreadful thought. He had always assumed that in the passage of years he would either sire a son to succeed him, or, when he was old, he would choose a cousin to sit upon the golden throne. His choice would then ritually kill him and thus take the sword and throne by right of blood.

"We cannot kill him," the Emperor said, "not now. There is first of all the simple fact that his plan for the war has so far indeed worked, degrading as it is. The humans have been placed off guard, our shortage of transports is being rectified, and the new fleet is moving towards completion. If we ordered his death it would upset that plan, and beyond that, appear to be an act of jealousy. The other hrai leaders forced his return and the killing of him out of hand would bring their wrath down upon us. There is no denying the fact that, like it or not, his plan pulled us out of a difficult impasse."

Thrakhath nodded in agreement.

"And the onus of such an act we can place upon his shoulders," Thrakhath replied with a smile.

"There is the other fact as well," the Emperor continued. "He heads the operation of our spies. He knows perhaps even more than I do. His operatives are everywhere. Any attempt to take him would be known long