Scout's Oath: A Planetary Romance (Scout's Honor Book 2) by Vogel Henry

Author:Vogel, Henry [Vogel, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Rampant Loon Press
Published: 2015-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

David

As soon as I boarded the envoy’s ship, two crewmen led me below deck and locked me into a small cabin. My cabin faced the palace, but the porthole was closed and locked. I wasn’t even allowed one last look at Callan as we flew away. This pettiness was at odds with the near–pleading tone the envoy had taken when speaking privately with the royal family. It also proved indicative of my treatment while aboard the envoy’s airship.

Crewmen intentionally dropped my food then kicked it across the deck with filthy bare feet. They’d spit into my water or drink it all while standing before me. It was the kind of casual cruelty displayed by the powerless when they are given dominion over some small aspect of another man’s life. As a refined member of a royal family, the crewmen expected to horrify me with such behavior. They expected me to choose noble privation over accepting such tainted food and drink. I ate and drank everything I was given and relished the disappointment displayed by the crewmen at each meal. Had they seen what I had eaten during academy survival training, they’d have thrown up their hands in despair—right after throwing up their last meal.

Just as the sun was setting, the envoy’s airship rejoined the vast, motley fleet from the southern city–states. The shouts between airships, the dull roar of boiler fires, and the wail of whistles blowing off steam were my first clues we were among the fleet. This cacophony served as my constant companion for three days as the fleet crossed a thousand miles of desert. The calls of the crewmen served another purpose, as well. My implant assimilated and translated the language of the city–states by the end of the first day of the trip.

The implant imprinted the language before the sun rose on our second day of travel. By the time we reached Beloren, I understood everything the crew said and could have conversed with them, had I chosen to do so. I kept that fact to myself, pretending ignorance as crewmen laced their commands with vile insults. Language fluency was one of the two advantages I had over the tunnel rats. Boost, which I hadn’t used the first time I was in Beloren, was the other.

To pass the long, hot days, I catalogued everything I knew or could guess about King Rat. The list was short, depressingly so. Based on the Envoy’s statements in his private audience with the royal family, King Rat exerted complete control over his people. There was no sympathy to be found among the tunnel rats. Even without King Rat’s iron rule, I was an outsider entering an insular and paranoid society. Once in the tunnels, I would be on my own.

To what I had been told and what I had guessed, I added what I had seen in my brief time in the tunnels. King Rat went in for over–the–top execution spectacles. No doubt, the blood and terror served multiple

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