The Ghalian Code: Space Assassins 3 Read online

  Hozark removed his shimmer, joined by Demelza a moment later.

  “I am Hozark. This is Demelza,” the Wampeh master greeted the man. “Master Orkut requested we visit you with great haste, and we have come as quickly as we were able.”

  The man nodded, and as Hozark and Demelza walked closer, the barely hidden distress just beneath his cool façade became apparent. He was upset, and from what they could tell, just barely holding it together.

  “I am Visla Dinarius Jinnik,” he said, his puffy eyes lingering on each of them, as if assessing their worth.

  It was a name neither knew. Of course, there were hundreds of inhabited systems in the galaxy, containing thousands of worlds. It was only natural they might not have heard of him. Though with the amount of power he possessed, it was notable in its unlikeliness.

  “It appears there was quite a fight here recently,” Hozark said, his eyes casually gauging the man.

  “Yes. Quite a fight, indeed,” Visla Jinnik replied, picking up a child’s toy from his desk, staring at it with a sad look.

  A slight crackling of magic formed around his body. A static discharge of power that was seeping out of him entirely of its own accord.

  Hozark cast an imperceptible glance Demelza’s way. She’d seen it too. Now this was something new. A massively powerful magic user with a potentially catastrophic overflow problem. He dreaded the thought of what might happen when the man became truly upset and his self-control failed.

  Another thought flashed through the Wampeh’s mind. A power user with this sort of problem had likely experienced a few difficulties from it over the years. But what if there was a way to help control it? To reduce the overflow.

  Of course, Hozark also doubted the man would entertain the idea of being slightly drained by a Wampeh Ghalian from time to time in order to keep it in check, but perhaps he would. In any case, this was definitely not the time to broach the subject.

  With his power, it seemed unusual the man would have gone to such lengths to contract the Wampeh Ghalian to do his dirty work. In fact, given the barely contained anger clearly bubbling within him, Hozark thought perhaps a little bit of violent payback was precisely what this man needed.

  They had invaded and defiled his home and loved ones in a most heinous manner. Turning them to a bloody pulp would be a cathartic release.

  But his was not to question the man’s decisions, only to do as Master Orkut had asked of him. He moved closer to the visla, staring him straight in the eye with the calm confidence of his kind.

  “Master Orkut trusts you, Visla Jinnik. And we trust him,” he said. “He sent us to find you, and we have come. So, tell us. Whom do you wish eliminated?”

  Visla Jinnik pushed his seat back and straightened his back, the slouch of days of grieving forced from his body with every cracking vertebrae.

  “Eliminated? Oh, my dear Ghalian, that’s not what I’m hiring you for,” he said with an almost amused look. “Nothing so pedestrian.”

  “What is it that you require of us, then?”

  “I want you to find my son, Master Hozark. I want you to find Happizano and rescue him from the Council of Twenty.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Wampeh Ghalian did not take sides in wars, and it was beginning to feel like one was brewing. They also most certainly did not perform rescue operations for kidnapped children, but here they were, helping a powerful visla whose enemy was a common one, it seemed.

  “Most unusual,” Hozark said as he and Demelza slipped into their shimmer cloaks and made their way onto the floating garden beside Visla Jinnik’s home.

  While Jinnik had been aware of their arrival, it was still important no one else learned of it. Vital, in fact, for if the Council of Twenty was truly holding his son as he described, it was all but certain they had agents observing the visla round the clock.

  “Most unusual indeed,” Demelza agreed as they stepped out onto the fecund soil of the magically supported gardens. “If what he says is true, then it would seem the Council is going to great lengths to acquire his powers to their side.”

  “But to what end? That is a disturbing element to all of this. There is no open warfare between the Council and any others at present, yet they go to this extreme to persuade the man to bring his considerable power to their side.”

  “And from what he said, his family has always remained independent of the Council, much as Visla Balamar had been for so very long.”

  “Yes,” Hozark said. “But in this case, with a far less destructive conflict between them. Jinnik lost a tower full of men and a child. Balamar lost an entire estate, city, the lands surrounding it, and all the residents within. Jinnik should consider himself fortunate his is not a quarrel of that intensity.”

  “But he lost his only son. The lone heir to his bloodline. The boy seems to mean everything to him.”

  “Indeed. He is the only link remaining to the woman he loved, and for that, he cherishes him even more. I feel it is almost fortunate his wife passed so many years ago. I would wager the Council would have left her remains behind as an incentive otherwise. The child is the leverage they seek. And it would seem he is going to have to play their game, at least for now, while we remove their leverage from the equation.”

  “Agreed,” Demelza said as they reached their cloaked ship and stepped into its waiting safety. “So, we are on a rescue mission, it would seem. How novel.”

  “We did rescue Laskar not too long ago,” Hozark noted.

  “Yes, but that was for Uzabud. And Laskar is part of our team. But this? This is something different,” she said, shedding her shimmer cloak and taking her customary seat. “So, where do we begin, Master Hozark?”

  “Begin? Why, right here, of course.”

  The ship entering the atmosphere was clearly visible to any who cared to observe it, just as its landing at the facility near the visla’s estate was likewise plain to see for all.

  The tall man and his womanly companion who exited seemed to be just another couple come to visit for a shopping excursion in the well-to-do city, nothing more.

  It was a disguise without a disguise. Hozark and Demelza even went so far as to not even shift their skin tones to hide their Wampeh nature. On this planet, there was a fairly large Wampeh population, and all but the most nefarious of sorts simply took them as another pair.

  Why would a normal person have reason to fear a Ghalian attack, after all? And besides, those kinds of Wampeh were incredibly rare. And if you did happen to see an actual Wampeh Ghalian, odds were, it was too late anyway.

  Hozark and Demelza had flown a fair distance away, fully cloaked and invisible, then made their arrival in full view, returning to the scene of the crime yet again, but this time visible to all.

  The ersatz couple landed and exited their ship with the seemingly oblivious wonder so many had on their first visit to the city’s shopping area. The towering estates of the wealthy were something of a novelty, as most upper class tended to possess more sprawling parcels on other worlds.

  Here, in this dense city, however, vertical was the way to go. The natural layout with nearby hills and rocky crags had formed a cradle of sorts that simply led to that type of development. The two smiled and gawked a bit, then set off into the city to see whatever sights caught their eye.

  The path the two assassins took was a carefully planned one, yet one that seemed utterly natural. Every shop, cafe, or street vendor they stopped and lingered at longer than normal also had a strategic position. One that would have allowed them to see at least some aspect of the conflict at the visla’s tower nearby.

  Talk of the city, its beautiful region, and unusual architecture inevitably led to a curious query about the tallest of the buildings in sight.

  “Oh, that would be Visla Jinnik’s,” they would be told.

  “He must be a very powerful man to possess such an estate,” was Demelza’s usual follow up. “I noticed some work being done to it when we were strolling past it earli
er. Is the family doing renovations? I bet it will be magnificent when they’re done.”

  At that prompt, most related the same story, or a variant thereof as seen from their particular vantage point. A group of unmarked ships had dropped down to the landing area right outside the building and attacked it. They must have been robbers looking to plunder the estate while the visla wasn’t home.

  “Oh? That was good luck on their part,” Hozark would interject with faux shock as he urged them to share more information.

  “It really was. If the visla had been home, there’s no telling what he might have done to them.”

  “So, he’s a violent man?”

  “Not at all. A very peaceful one, in fact. But his power can be a bit erratic. It was the same with his father. And if he gets riled up, well, sometimes accidents do happen.”

  Everyone had shared that information as well, in one way or another. The visla was, it seemed, more or less the man they’d taken him to be on their first meeting. But these people knew him, and his family, and that sort of unguarded intel was far more useful than any first impressions.

  What they also learned was that the alleged robbers had attacked the house with overwhelming speed and numbers. It was simply something the guards and staff couldn’t defend against.

  All day long the couple walked the streets, chatting amicably with locals and gaining useful intel in the process. By the time they’d had a romantic dinner at a restaurant that just happened to look directly at the visla’s tower, the picture was quite clear, and their serving staff was more than happy to fill in any gaps in the details for their good-tipping guests.

  The two went back to their ship that night, opting to sleep there rather than one of the establishments in the area. They could have, of course, but there was simply no need to draw this out any longer. They had the information they needed.

  “Someone knew he was out of the system,” Hozark said as they went over what they’d learned within the secure environs of their ship. “From what everyone said, no one would be foolish enough to have attempted this when he was home.”

  “But his staff appeared loyal. And he said his personal flight crew have been with him for many years. An inside job does not seem terribly likely in this case.”

  “I agree. It feels much more like something we ourselves experienced so recently,” Hozark mused. “When Master Prombatz was ambushed.”

  “You think the meeting that he was out of the system on was scheduled as a ruse?”

  “It is looking quite likely. He often traveled with his son, but this was a visit to a particularly rough world to meet an emmik who wished to discuss the possibility of him helping tame some unrest. It would not have been a trip on which he would have brought his son.”

  “Indeed. And the boy was home with his tutors when the attack occurred. Right around the time the meeting was taking place, conveniently,” Demelza noted. “It would seem this is a highly likely theory.”

  “Meaning we must speak to this emmik and learn exactly how this meeting came to be called, and at whose request. I fear we may find ourselves not liking the answer. This feels much like the work of Visla Rovnik,” Hozark noted.

  “Or even Maktan, though I’m sure he has a good alibi, once again.”

  “The most slippery of them always do.”

  It was an interesting conundrum. The visla had been pressured by the Council for a long time to join them. In fact, they had even courted him to even be one of the Twenty one day when a spot opened up, though that had undoubtedly angered the aspiring power users waiting in the wings with their claws sharp and knives out for their opportunity to seize that prize.

  But he had declined. So they sought to convince him to at least lend his considerable power to their causes. And, yet, he had still steered clear of their machinations. He had no issues with them, but he also had no desire to become embroiled in their affairs.

  And his son had just turned eleven. Just about the age his powers should be starting to truly manifest. This was an important time for the father and son to bond and spend time with one another

  Yes, there were tutors, but they could only do so much. The rest, the elder Jinnik would teach his boy. How to best manage his budding power, as well as the finer points of spellcasting, just as his father had done for him.

  And now the Council had taken the boy. Taken him and left a note in his place. The visla would be called upon from time to time to do a service for the Council. To lend his power to their causes. And in exchange, the boy would remain unharmed. But the question remained. Was this the Council as a whole, or was it Rovnik or Maktan manipulating from behind the scenes?

  It didn’t matter to the boy’s father. Surely a demand would arrive at some point, and he would do what his son’s kidnappers wished, for now, anything to keep the boy alive. But as he did, his Wampeh agents would be hard at work, finding his son and rescuing him.

  And when he was free and safely back at his father’s side where he belonged, Ravik, the Council, or whoever was ultimately responsible, would be made to regret what they had done.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Groll. It was a shitty name for a shitty planet, and it suited the place perfectly. Hozark and Demelza had barely taken a step off their ship before realizing precisely why Visla Jinnik had been lured to this particular place.

  It was distracting.

  It was filthy.

  It was dangerous.

  But looking around at the bustling crowds and active landing areas, something else was also clear. This place had potential. Not as a lovely place to live or vacation. Not by a long shot. But a commerce hub? Oh yes, it could serve that purpose admirably. Because Groll, shitty as it was, happened to be ideally situated between an unusually large number of commerce worlds and fabrication moons.

  For one such as Jinnik, it would have been a tempting project, and one that would not only allow him to flex his magical muscle a bit, but also significantly expand his family’s wealth and holdings in the process.

  In fact, the more they looked around the capital city, the more Hozark was of the opinion that the meeting could even have been legit.

  But one thing caught his attention. Namely, that despite his initial impressions, and the somewhat filthy degree of apparent disarray surrounding them, Groll actually seemed to be working well in precisely that commercial and industrial capacity.

  Judging by the manner and number of craft coming and going with regularity, and the bustling commerce of the open markets, the place really didn’t need the attentions of a visla, let alone one of Jinnik’s power.

  “A diversion,” Hozark said, confirming their initial thoughts.

  Demelza nodded. “I would tend to agree. This place is a bit of a dump, no doubt, but a dump that appears to be functioning quite well as a commerce hub, albeit one that is admittedly also something of a mess.”

  “So, Jinnik was definitely lured here to leave his estate unguarded,” Hozark said. “Most interesting. Let us go and visit Emmik Ozman and see what she has to tell us of their meeting. And more importantly, who it was that coerced her to offer up a portion of her thriving, and undoubtedly lucrative, business to Visla Jinnik.”

  Emmik Ozman was a stout, gray-skinned woman with a particularly strong set of flexible appendages upon which she ambulated, and an equally robust but longer group of them on her tubular upper body. Not tentacles, though. More like the multi-jointed structure of a tail, only prehensile, capable of carrying her about in a rippling wave, as well as manipulating items around her.

  The two assassins found her holding court within a squat but rather ornate building. A government office of some sort, it appeared. They quietly entered and asked for Emmik Ozman’s whereabouts. Everyone knew her in this place, so locating her was quite easy and directions were forthcoming.

  They made their way to the main chambers, where she was presiding over a small group of traders. By the sound of it, they were having a minor squabble regarding the overla
pping territories in which they were vending their wares. It was a heated discussion, no doubt, but all deferred to the emmik’s authority. Likely a good thing, judging by the magic they felt wafting off of her.

  She might have only been an emmik, but she was a strong one. And those individuals quarreling were non-powered to a one, each relying on a konus for their minor casting abilities. Had she so desired, she could have likely struck down the lot of them with just a few well-placed spells.

  But she was diplomatic in her role as overseer of this place, and that meant not smiting anyone who rubbed you the wrong way. Things tended to go poorly when that was one’s policy.

  The confab was not a terribly lengthy one, but it did drag on a bit longer than either of the Wampeh would have liked. But there was little they could do to speed things along, and this was definitely a time for casual subtlety rather than brash motivation.

  At long last the group had come to an understanding of a sort and disbanded, each feeling equally screwed by the deal. A sign of everyone being treated the same, in Ozman’s book. That was the nature of compromise. You’re all screwed a bit. Deal with it and carry on.

  “Who the hell are you two?” she asked, walking over to the two who had been quietly observing the proceedings for so long. “I’ve never seen you around here.”

  “Ah, yes. We are associates of Visla Jinnik,” Hozark replied. “He asked us to do a little followup with you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Jinnik, you say?” she asked, an eyebrow askew. “Pull the other one––I know there’s no way you’re with that one.”

  This was a bit surprising. They’d expected at least a modicum of cooperation from the woman, but all they were getting was irritated pushback.

  “Why would you say that?” Demelza asked sweetly.

  “Oh, you can stop with the bullshit niceties, sweetheart. That crap won’t work on me. And besides, I already told that shit clown to take his greedy plan and shove it.”