Fawkes awoke to darkness.
Panic overtook him as he tried to remember the cold, or the encounters that led him to this chamber. Instinctively, he beckoned for Flames to scan it, but the ship was not here. He could feel the neural network, as well as his attempts at contact, but he realized there was another signal destroying it. A separate carrier wave tuned exactly to his neural interface’s frequencies, muffling his cries for help.
His eyes began to adjust, allowing him to start making out the chamber he was in. There were bars on the doors, and the walls had the segmentation of stone. The odour itself betrayed a dankness befitting of an area underground. No matter which way we he looked at it. He had been captured.
“Not again…” he muttered.
–
–
“Good morning!” says someone. Fawkes had fallen asleep after a few hours of testing the walls, and was now stirring to sound. His Vorchan instincts yelled attack, and he obeyed, lunging for his greeter.
He caught a flash of red before he was knocked against the ground by his victim, fangs around his neck. He recognized those fangs. “I figured…” Fawkes muttered.
“Indeed. Thinking of getting a foothold in the Empire again, are we?”
“It was just an option, you know, for the hatchlings.” Fawkes said, shuffling to stand up again, only to get pressed against the wall. He had managed to parry the fangs away from his neck, and was now snout to snout with his most wonderful, and most eldest, brother, Deyloras.
“I’ve seen how quickly you can be Fercius if you desire it. I can’t have you living in the Empire.” Deyloras said.
“Oh, well, in that case. I’ll decline the contract and move on. I have no desire to be Fercius again. I did that to help my family, nothing else.”
“And our attempts meant nothing? Not once had you considered contacting your eldest clutchmate!” Deyloras snarled.
“I had it under control. Look, if your future Kingship is all you’re worried about, I’ll happily fly back to my own planet and forget this ever happened.” Fawkes suggested.
“No, even if I could believe you. The gears are already in motion!” Deyloras bellowed dramatically. “The die! Has been cast! The pawns: Ordered! And delegated! And asked to kill you.”
“Kill me?” Fawkes asked. “Surely you can’t be serious? I’m your brother!”
“I am serious.” Deyloras said with a wicked smile. “You’ve neglected your bloodline long enough, living out there with that ex-slave on your backwards planet. A mercenary. A royal mercenary! It’s disgusting. Our line will be better off without you.”
Will be better off? Fawkes was getting worried, he opened his mouth to say something, but the Prince wasn’t done, “Oh don’t worry, Fawkes. I’ll make your death a glorious one. Perhaps it was a contract? An alpha strike from a group of rebellious Descendent starships? It shouldn’t be hard to bring your father the debris. Flames has never been the brightest in the pod.”
“Don’t. Touch. Flames.” Fawkes warned, lethal conviction in his snarl.
For a second, Deyloras flinched, taking a defensive posture, but then he began to laugh. “Or what? Fawkes? I control most of the Imperial Fleet. I have your father’s ear and trust, and most importantly. I have contacts everywhere.” he started pacing around the chambers, wings shivering. “Even now I am watching your friends desperately scurrying about, asking the nearest forward base for you, wondering where you had gone to. Even now I am having people erase their queries from GalNet, ensuring your father will never know, already having my own reports implanted, ready to be revealed upon your imminent death.”
Deyloras stopped pacing, his expression changed, mirroring the lethality in Fawkes’.
“Well. I guess this is goodbye, then. No elaborate tricks, nothing. Just… this.”
Fawkes had already lunged, expecting the blades. He cried out as the ends of them sliced into him. His world a painful red blur as he shot through the reinforced door, running down this dungeon’s corridors.
He caught a surprised, “Oh.” from his brother as he disappeared around a bend. His wings were badly mangled. He wouldn’t be able to fly. The blades had sliced right through his membranes. They needed medical attention to heal properly. Fawkes could probably fix them, but first he had to escape from this dungeon of traps.
Instinct told him to run, but he stopped, and listened, trying to control his breathing. He looked up at the ventilation shafts, but dismissed that. Automated defences would kill him instantly.
“Brother! Why are you running from me? By the looks of that blood trail I wouldn’t say you have long left.”
Fawkes checked the rest of himself over, seeing the blood trickling from a myriad of other jabs. He wasn’t sure if he was dying or not. He didn’t have time to think about that or to query his neural interface. He continued down the corridor, lunging through a junction, seeing the blades fly past. These grazed his tail. He yelped in pain, running faster. He ran for what seemed like an eternity, and then came across a blood trail…
His own trail.
“There’s no way out.” said Deyloras. There was something in his talons, an open container. He was dipping his fangs in them. “Do you remember the old colonies of Vkesh?”
Fawkes shook his head, harnessing what last bit of energy he had. Preparing himself for this final encounter. His vision was starting to blur now. His neural interface was blaring warnings at him. Petty things about blood loss and imminent death.
“They were big fans of public execution. But, instead of the usual burning or beheading or impaling, they used this. A neurotoxin designed specifically to kill Vorchans.”
“And you put that… deadly neurotoxin… on your face?” Fawkes asked, barely able to stand.
Deyloras laughed, “Always worried about your brother, huh? I’ll be fine. And it’s the least I can do for you, after all you’ve been through.”
Fawkes backed away, backtracking over his own blood. He could see the splatter on the wall here. A portion of his tail-spike lay here, dismembered.
It would grow back, he thought, ears attuned to the trigger mechanism. Deyloras was still closing, slowly but surely.
“You’re trapped, Fawkes. Go any further and you’ll trigger that trap behind you. Come any closer and, well.” he smiled, fangs glinting their poison.
Fawkes looked away. This would be the last time they would see each other. He didn’t really understand why that brought tears to his eyes.
“Oh brother, don’t cry. It’ll be quick!” Deyloras said.
“You’re using your neural interface to give you the trap locations.” Fawkes muttered, looking at his paws.
Deyloras nodded, taking another step. “Act 7 of the Imperial convention states that all traps emit a chemical signature. The software uses these chemicals to give me the trap location. That way there could be no position error, even on traps that were not installed yourself. It simply makes you immune! Not to mention that they are specifically designed to only respond to your blood!”
“Your system is wrong, and our blood is very similar.” Fawkes said, kicking his dismembered tail-spike at Deyloras. The spikes were quick, and Deyloras didn’t even have time to dodge. The neural interface had homed in on the blade-tip his tail-spike had fragmented, and… after he had sent that part of his body towards Deyloras, there was enough of his blood there to garner an activation.
He had killed the Prince.