Perry Rhodan NEO: Volume 18 [Complete] by Christian Humberg Frank Borsch

Author:Christian Humberg, Frank Borsch
Language: eng
Format: epub

3.

Sayoaard

Veast’ark

It won’t end well. You know that.

Stiqs Bahroff steers the mobile med unit you are bound to through the Veast’ark’s corridors. He stays four steps behind Sergh da Tefforn, his master. Always four steps. Always at the service of the Arkonide known as the hand of the regent, feared everywhere in the Imperium. The man to whom you owe your life, but to whom you have nothing to be grateful for.

Sergh da Teffron is a small man, too short for a true Arkonide. Sometimes, when Bahroff plays with your med unit’s settings—which the half-breed can’t help doing—he sets you upright. Then you stand there, vertical, held up by invisible fetter fields. One might almost think you weren’t a cripple.

But the thought lasts only a moment, a flash in the night like all thoughts. You were born a Naat. Naats are giants. Strong. Proud. But you are a dwarf, so weak that you can’t even sit upright without the med unit’s support, and “pride” is one of those concepts you’ve never understood and never will.

In those moments, you, the cripple, loom over the proud da Teffron. “Enough with your games!” the hand of the regent then demands of his aide, and Bahroff salutes and switches off the fetter fields. Robbed of support, you slump down. Bahroff thinks that hurts you. You groan, allowing him to believe that, just as you allow him to believe that you’re a cripple.

But now, Stiqs Bahroff leaves you in peace. He knows when it’s better not to draw his master’s attention. The hand of the regent is angry.

Sergh da Teffron comes to a stop. A hatch slides open. Slowly. It’s thick and heavy. Made of the steel that Arkonides hide behind. Beyond the steel is the ship’s bridge. A large, round room with a high ceiling that can never be seen through the dozens of holos giving information about the ship’s status and its immediate surroundings. The Veast’ark is controlled from here. The ship is strong, the new pride of Sergh da Teffron, and the pride of the Imperium. It can destroy entire worlds, even better than its predecessors. The small man thinks that makes him big.

Sergh da Teffron enters the bridge. Three dozen Arkonides try to hide behind their consoles, to act as though they’re engrossed in their work and aren’t afraid of the hand’s rage. They don’t succeed; their nervous gestures betray them. But they’re lucky. Da Teffron’s rage isn’t directed at them.

“Why are we wasting our time here?”

His loud, acrid voice almost makes one forget that da Tefforn was once relegated to being governor of Naat. A post so stigmatized that no Arkonide with the slightest spark of what they called “self-respect” had wanted it. Then the regent had come and appointed da Tefforn as his hand. The regent prefers men and women of his ilk. They have only the power that the regent cares to grant them. If the regent takes it back, their plummet is endless.

“The inspection of the structural field converter isn’t finished yet,” replies Arlena da Ortoba.

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