The old man drew them a map, and showed them where to catch a skiff going in the right direction.  The pair watched the man catch his transport, and left the small town before Kyaaron's people came looking for them.  The skiff was crowded, and stacked high with produce and caged livestock.    They were packed so tight Ivory might as well have been sitting in his lap.

"We're cutting it close, big guy."

"I know."

"By my best calculations if we can be on our way by this time tomorrow, we'll just make the rendezvous."

"I didn't realize how much I rely on my datapad."  Scott was suddenly acutely aware of how much encrypted data he kept on his handheld device.  "I hope Renegade's safeguards work or the council will have all of Eagle X at their fingertips."

Ivory nodded.

"I have a timepiece built into my arm, lot of good it's doing me right now."

"We should go back for it," he growled.

"No time.  Besides, that Tiagra seemed like she was not going to go down easy."

Scott raised an eyebrow.

"You're a tank, but I had to save your life three times today.  Let's not test your luck.  I'm not ready to find a new boyfriend."

"What?"

"What?"

Scott tried to read her face, but something on the other side of the skiff suddenly demanded her undivided attention.

"It's gonna happen, big boy," she whispered under her breath.

His ears perked up in surprise.  She chuckled to herself, but didn't turn around.

Scott contemplated her words while he watched the shifting landscape through the window.  They hovered over the grasslands until they reached a dry riverbed.  The driver stopped at a small village, and a handful of passengers disembarked.  Scott watched labor caste and warrior caste felarnians living together with no sign of the rigid class system he remembered from his youth.  He couldn't reconcile the strangeness of what he saw with the undeniable contentment on the local's faces.

After the dry river the skiff continued south, through open country.  The grass quickly faded, and the terrain grew brown and barren.   Their next stop sat between a pair of villages on the edge of a wide canyon.  Shacks and huts huddled against the dust-thick winds.  Large tarps seemed to be the only reprieve from the hot sun.  The transport emptied, the driver and passengers working in a practiced dance to unload the cargo.  Scott noticed there were no warriors among them.  Again, another strangeness.  Traditional Felarnian settlements kept the labor caste families on the interior, and put the warrior families on the outskirts to protect against outside threats.  Scott saw none of that basic organization.

"You folks riding until the last stop?"

"Hargon Oasis," Scott read from the paper in his hand.

The driver whistled.  "I hope you're armed."

Ivory stifled a chuckle.

"We'll manage.  Our passage was one way.  How do we get back."

"Believe me, friend, no one comes back from Hargon."

Scott grumbled.  The driver skimmed around the canyon, before continuing south.  The sun set as they swept through sand clouds and unsettled dry land.  Ivory fell asleep across Scott's lap.  Her weight was welcomed, being both soothing and invigorating.  Scott never acknowledged any feelings other than anger, but he was lonely.  Aside from Patricia and Liam he had no one, felarnians were never meant to sleep that way.

By the time they came to a stop, Scott was beginning to nod off himself.

"Are you folks sure?"

Scott looked around.  The stop was an old landing pad surrounded by flood lights in need of maintenance.  Darkness dominated the landscape in every direction, save for a small beacon flashing to the east.  Over the hum of the skiff's engine Scott could hear the yowling of terrestrial beasts.  Ivory sat up, wary and alert.  Scott made his way to the front of the transport, and fished out a dozen felarns.

"You don't have enough money to make me wait out here for more than five minutes," the driver said, eyeing the currency.

"It's to forget my face."

"Fifteen, and I'll forget your little cub too."

Scott handed over the agreed upon price, and climbed out of the skiff.  Ivory was right behind him.  The driver shouted a last good luck, and turned his vehicle north toward safer environs.

"Why does everyone assume I'm a cub?"

"We sometimes have small children."

"Sometimes?"

Scott chuckled.

"Give me everything, and you can keep your life," a gravelly voice hissed in modern felarnian.

Scott spun around, scanning the darkness.  A tall lanky warrior stepped into the light of the landing pad.  Across his back was a thin sword, in his hand a croabarbas assault pistol.  His fur was matted, and his clothes were weather-worn.  Hanging from his vest was the torn cowl of a forgotten clan, symbol of the outcasts.  Scott growled.

"Don't make me kill you, boy!  I want your belongings, not your blood," the mugger barked.  He eyed Ivory, but his weapon remained unerringly on Scott.

"We have nothing for you, wanderer.  Walk away while you still can."

"No need to antagonize the guy with the gun."

"Listen to your cub."  He circled around Scott toward Ivory, just out of Scott's reach.

"I won't warn you again." Scott took a step forward, putting himself between Ivory and the barrel of the weapon.

The mugger pulled the trigger.  Scott spun aside with bionic quickness, the poisonous biological round eating through his padded combat tunic and brushing across his abdomen. Ivory jumped and kicked the pistol from the man's hands.  With a roar the would-be mugger drew his sword only to be met with the roaring end of Scott's plasmatic edge.  The outcast backpedalled and raised his sword in a defensive stance.  Ivory snatched up the pistol and fell back, searching the darkness for anymore assailants.  She knew the two warriors wouldn't want her interference.

"Your blade is old."

"It was my father's."

The outcast nodded, satisfied that the old forms were being kept.  He rushed forward, dodging around Scott's swipe rather than lose his weapon to the superheated plasma with an attempt at deflecting.  He turned hoping to strike Scotts undefended back, but Scott was too fast.  In a blur the younger warrior was beneath his guard and following through.  The outcast dropped to the ground, his gut a seared mess, his sword arm removed at the elbow.

"Finally, a warrior's death..."  He closed his eyes and lay still.

So close to the man Scott could smell the sickness in him.  The outcast had been old and ill.

"He wanted this," Scott said to the night.

"Yeah, all of you guys seem to crave death.  It's a felarnian thing as far as I can tell."  Ivory check the man's pockets, and came up with ammo and felarns.  "You want his hat?  I kinda want his hat."

Scott grunted a no.  If Tyvaila hadn't sent him away, if he didn't have Patricia to look after, if The Pale Garden hadn't altered the course of his life, he could have let despair consume him and turn him into something wretched like the man at his feet.  He too was clanless, but, though his family had been scattered, he still had bonds that held him together.

Scott deactivated his blade and put it away.

"I want to bury him."

Ivory looked up at him. "I get that.  Scott, your stomach!"

Scott looked down.  Where the croabarbas slime had touched him, his fur had blackended and his skin blistered.  He could feel the R.Nano working on his insides, but his exterior had yet to be mended.  The toadmen's weapons were banned in most civilized space, it was dangerous contraband to have.

"Be careful with that."

"You don't have to tell me twice."  She shoved the pistol in the dead man's holster currently around her waist.  "Don't suppose you have a shovel hidden somewhere.  No?  Guess we need to find some rocks to get digging.  Whatever's making that howling noise sounds less friendly than you."

They buried the outcast a dozen feet from the landing pad, and set out for the beacon.  Once out of the flood lights they found that the night sky provided enough starlight for Scott to lead the way.  Eventually they found a narrow path flanked by reflectors which amplified the visibility for anyone walking between them.  The pair caught a glimpse of one of the howling creatures, and doubled their pace.  Even at a distance it appeared larger than the skiff, with long limbs and skittering parts.  Scott had hunted scarier creatures as a child alongside his father and uncles, but he didn't dare challenge such a monster on its own turf.  Even with Ivory at his side.

The beacon was at the top of a steep incline.  On the opposite side was a small oasis surrounded by Jagg-Ra C's squat trees.  Near the water's edge sat a compound.  They descended towards the water and found the pocket of greenery surrounded by a sonic fence.  It was set too low to keep them out, but Scott could feel it's vibrations in his teeth.  They followed a second road through the brush toward the compound.  Scott brought them up short when he caught a disturbing scent.

"What is it, big guy?"

"I smell Canamarians, at least five."

"I knew you had a strong sense of smell," she raised her arm and sniffed her pits, "but this is a bit much."

"They must have passed in the last few hours."

"Did we come to the wrong place?"

"No this is the right place.  They're here for her too."

Scott took off at a brisk run, not knowing and not caring if Ivory was with him.  He'd come too far to be thwarted so close to his goal.  The canamarians hated his family, and for good reason.  He hoped he wasn't too late.  Scott moved through the night like the khalyn of old, shadows and rushes of air.  His heart pounded with excitement, and his hand itched for the comforting weight of his plasmatic edge.

A canamarian leaned against a tree feet from the walls surrounding the compound.  Scott crouched behind a bush, watching the man as he listened for signs of others.  The canamarian watched a vid on a datapad, and smoked a foul smelling cigar.  He wore a long coat, and carried a heavy rifle equipped with a search light.  The light lazily swept the ground, as the rifle swung from a shoulder strap.

A quivering yowl echoed through the night, a horrible imitation of the wild beast roaming the region.  Scott shook his head at Ivory's attempt at a distraction.  He wasn't fooled, but the sentry was.  The man fumbled to pocket his datapad, and followed the road, shining his light into the night.  Scott seized the opportunity to vault the wall.  Perched upon the two foot thick battlement he was able to see four more such guards patrolling the grounds.  Scott scented the air.  Her scent was faint and his memory of it was diminished by time, but Tyvaila was near.

He dropped soundlessly into the courtyard beyond, and dashed across the fifty feet to the building on the other side.  He could hear voices within.  Peering through the window he spied a pair of canamarians rolling dice and gambling away felarns.  One had bore a shield brand on his bicep, the other wore a large shield proudly on his forehead.  Scott released a low growl as he leapt onto the roof.

Tyvaila's scent was strongest on the next building.  Scott prowled the night, senses keened for any hint of his prey.  He didn't know why the canamarians had chosen this night to come for her, but providence placed Scott there to stop them or at least make them pay dearly.  It was near the building's northern edge when he heard it, a song from his youth.  The voice had aged over the last 60 years, but he still recognized the pitch and rhythm.  Suddenly Scott was in his room recovering from the day's sparring matches with his uncles, Tyvaila bandaging his wounds while he sharpened his sword.  She'd always sing the same song, 'Hymn to Future Victory'.

Scott inched towards the edge of the roof.

"Now you finally lose your head," growled a gruff voice.

Scott didn't have time to think, his body merely reacted.  He swung down, and crashed through a window, scraping against the window pane.  An old mountain of a canamarian charged him, snatching a massive greatsword from the wall.  The roar of Scott's plasmatic edge heralded the clash of their weapons.  The six foot long white sword countered his blade, interrupting the length of the edge and dampening the plasma's heat.  Lyric Steel was the antithesis of plasmatic weapons.  Scott rolled aside as his opponent swiped at his gut.  The massive sword cleaved through the wall as if it weighed nothing.  He struck at his opponent with lightning fast attacks which were repeatedly deflected by the much wider sword.  He feinted and kicked the canamarian in the side causing the man to stagger, and receiving a deep slash across his hip in return.  A normal man would have crumbled under either blow, but both remained standing.

Scott backed further into the room, putting the open space to his back.  A growl alerted him to a second canamarian standing in the doorway.  She was vaguely familiar, but the rage pumping through Scott casted everything in muted hues.  Tyvaila stood in the opposite corner, a longsword and dagger in her hands.  She looked to be waiting for an opening.

"You've chosen the wrong night to draw your blade, boy," growled the huge canamarian.  "My patience is thin."

"I will cut you down, and any others who threaten my family," Scott replied.

He charged across the room, calling on his amplified speed to close the distance in a flash.  He ducked under the goliath's sword, but not before his sword arm was knocked wide.  He rammed his head into the man's chin, even as he was kneed in the gut.  The R.Nano allowed him to recover instantly.

"Scott? Scott!"

Tyvaila's shout caused him to hesitate, and his opponent used the opening to bring the pommel of his greatsword crashing down on Scott's head.  He staggered back to the wall, and the second canamarian grabbed him.  She went to disarm him, and he hesitated for the second time.  He realized where he recognized her face.  She was the woman from the market.  She snatched his edge, hissing as the heat singed her palm.  Tyvaila took the weapon and examined it.

Scott squatted against the wall.  He watched the room as his R.Nano handled his recovery painstakingly slow.  The huge knight limped over to Tyvaila where she showed him the markings on Scott's plasmatic edge.  The man nodded and gestured towards a tattered banner framed on the wall.  The Felinus Family standard, [ask Cyril].  The same colors were acid etched into the hilt of his father's weapon.

"What's going on here?" Scott grumbled.

"By the Hssai, you sound just like your father," Tyvaila said.  She smiled, and shook her head.

"He fights like him too, but he has your eyes."

Tyvaila chuckled and batted her eyes, drawing a grin from the mountain of a man.

"Someone answer me.  What is going on here?"

"Lord Rhykal, I recognize this man from Bahranj Market.  He wasn't alone.  There was a small female with him."

"Patricia?"  Tyvaila seemed elated.

"Answer me now!" Scott roared.

Tyvaila returned his roar with vigor, and he recoiled suddenly a child again being rebuked by the matirach of his family.  Many a warrior had quailed in the face of her fury.  Many who would challenge his father for the position of Rex had fallen to her blade, proving themselves unworthy.  Even in her twilight she was the undisputed Reina of the Faylorn clan.

"Khema, alert the others before someone gets hurt.  You," she snarled pointing at Scott, "get off the floor and sit over here.  Now!"  The last was shouted in old felarnian.

Khema hurried to comply.  Scott jumped to his feet, but stood defiantly. 

"Come sit in the light so I can get a better look at you, and answer your questions.  It's been more than 60 years."

"62 years and three months, standard time," he corrected.

He walked over to the indicated seat, a cushion under a wall lamp, and lowered himself to his knees.  Tyvaila moved over to him in two smooth strides and knelt beside him.  Looking into her eyes he saw glimpses of Patricia, her nose, her ginger colored fur.  Her wrinkles and fading color were new, but it was the same face he'd imagined for decades.  She reached for his face, and he pulled away.  He saw a look of pain dance across her face, and revelled in it.  She brushed her hand across the fur of his arm, and stood.  She had never been one to let her emotions get the best of her.  Scott had gotten that from his father.

"You're still angry about me sending you away after all these years."  She made it a declaration.  "It was a dangerous time to be a Felinus in felarnian space.  The Council of Felarnia was under pressure from the Federation of Galactic Governed over the genocide of the Canamarian people.  Billions were dead, more were dying every day.  If the Rexes didn't come for us, the knights hunting you and your sister would have.  You two were all we had left of your father.  I will not be ashamed of sending you to human space."

She took a deep breath and sat down beside the massive canamarian.  He rubbed her shoulders supportively, and whispered something into his ear.

"Clearly you have other things to be ashamed of," Scott growled.

"After 60 years are you still just a silly boy fueled by anger?"

Scott remained silent, exercising great restraint to keep from speaking his mind.

"The clan spared my life so the Council of Felarnia could force me to stand proxy before the FGG, just as you stood proxy for your father before the Rexes."

Scott thought of the Hssai Khalkk, and standing tall and defiant as his father's war crimes were listed.

"In your father's place I was found guilty for the massacre on Canamar, despite evidence suggesting the chemical attack was the action of someone else."

A thrill ran through Scott, and it wasn't until that moment that he realized he was never fully convinced of his father's innocence.

"The galactic laws of proxy protected me from execution, but I'd become a pariah in Arthur's stead.  At the hearing twenty-four of the twenty-five knightly orders of Canamar vowed to have my head.  All but the Order of Guthshan Mu, followers of the Hssai of Truth.  They've vowed to protect me until the truth of that day can be brought to light."  She laced her fingers with those of the man beside her.  "Lion Rhykhal and his knights have been by my side since the trial."

Scott rose to his feet.

"You're with this man?"

"No.  Your father is the last man I will ever mate.  Lion is a dear friend who has saved my life countless times."

Scott glared at the formidable warrior.

"I have spilled much blood for your family."

Scott looked away.  The man had moved to defend Tyvaila without hesitation.  If nothing else he deserved Scott's respect. 

"Why did you never come for us?"  After so long there were questions which needed answering.  "Once the danger of a clan breaker had passed, why did you never bring us home?"

Tyvaila looked down at the plasmatic edge in her hand.

"I reached out to your uncle, and immediately regretted it when the attempt was made on your lives.  I stayed away to protect you."

"...to protect us.  We were safest by your side."

"You weren't.  I haven't been waiting here on this backwater rock for old age to sap my strength.  The Knights of Guthshan Mu and I have been searching for evidence to clear your father's name.  You would have been in danger every day of your life."

Scott laughed harsh and cold.

"You chose to be a hero over being a mother."

"I owed it to you and Patricia to keep you safe, and I owed it to Arthur to see glory returned to his name."

Khema and the sentry from outside backed into the room with their hands in the air.  Low growls escaped their mouths.  Ivory came in behind them, the croabarbas pistol trained on the man's chest.  She'd lost her makeshift robe, and her nose was bleeding.

"Big guy, sable-face here says I don't need this.  What do you say?"

"Who is this human?  Where is your sister?"

"That's Ivory, my friend, and we're here to save Pepper."