Scott and Ivory sat in the back of a small shuttle, crammed between two members of Jagg-Ra C's planetary security force.  He tried to sit calmly and think through the situation, but he ached with the desire to break his cuffs and tear his captors apart.  He took a deep breath and the woman beside him snarled.  In the close confines of the shuttle her staff would be useless, but the taser on her hip would be sufficient to knock a lot of the fight out of him.  Scott growled back at her and focused on his brooding thoughts.

He'd made one inquiry about the planet before he gridjumped to felarnian space.  The line was encrypted, all he did was search the planetary registry for a name and send a contact ping.  Somehow the authorities were expecting him.  He wasn't an FGG fugitive or wanted by the clans of felarnia, so there was no reason for his apprehension.  Someone important wanted him yet the security force hadn't formally made an arrest, the question was why.  Scott and Liam had a number of enemies, a list which seemed to get longer with every mission, any of which could have arranged for his apprehension in orbit... but they weren't looking for Raven of Eagle X.  They were looking for Scott Felinus, the son of General Arthur Felinus.

"Scott, what the heck is going on?" Ivory whispered.

"Silence, human," snarled the guard beside her.

"I've been silent ever since one of you cowards punched me in the head."

"Cowards!"  Both guards and the driver in the front seat roared.

"You guys don't like that word.  Well I don't like being handcuffed and beaten without at least knowing why."

The guards glared at her for a long moment, and Scott contemplated whether he should step in once they pounced.  He wanted out of the cuffs and he wanted to claw some fur, but most importantly he wanted to know who set up the ambush.  He might not get that information if he lost his cool.  To his surprise no one swatted her around the ears.

"You're brave for a little thing," the larger of the two guards said.

"Thank you.  Can you let us go now?"

The guard laughed.

"The settlement council demands his presence."

"Council?  Why didn't they send a delegation, representative or something?"

"They sent us."

"Overkill, don't you think?"

"They thought he might refuse."

Ivory looked at Scott, and fought to keep a straight face.

"Fair enough."  Ivory made a show of trying to break free of her cuffs.  "Are these necessary?"

Scott knew her cybernetic arm would have little trouble getting free, but like him she seemed to be biding her time.

"We were instructed to treat him as hostile."

"Sounds like these people know you pretty well."

"They only think they do," he growled.

The guard at his side thrust her elbow into his side.

"Do not speak, wanderer," she threatened.  The last was said in old labor caste felarnian.

Scott surged to his feet, and both guards pounced.  Despite their rippling muscles, their combined strength could not reseat him.  He grabbed the guard by the throat, not bothering to remove his restraints. 

"Watch your tongue, labor caste," he spat in the old language.

"Scott!" Ivory shouted.

Her tone brought him back to his senses.  He snarled, but released his grip.

"I'm sorry," he replied, unable to resist the opportunity to spew an insult.

The guards roared, and jammed their sidearms into his gut.  Electric current rolled through him, and everything went black...

When Scott came to he was being dragged up a flight of stone steps.  Ivory dangled from the arm of a hulking security force officer.  The shuttle was on an isolated landing pad fifty feet away.  Two flags blew in the wind on tall flag posts.  One was the standard of the Felarnian Unified Planets.  The other was an unfamiliar banner.  Ivory caught his eye, and threw him a questioning nod.  He felt a bit lightheaded, but otherwise fine.  Scott nodded back.

After three dozen steps they reached a summit where Scott was dumped to the ground without ceremony.  Their escort was joined by nine more guards.  The six women had green fur and yellow spots, a combination rare enough to mark them clanmates.  Some wore faded tattoos from a clan unfamiliar to Scott.  They were tall and sleek, warrior caste.  The men were large with drab colored fur.  Despite their size, Scott could clearly see their labor caste heritage.  The equal number of men and women confused Scott.  There were always more female fighters than male in any felarnian force.

A tall open structure sat beyond the gathered security force.  From his vantage point Scott could see stone carved seats and a small Hssai Khalkk at the center.  The tree whose name meant, God's Kiss, was the symbol of any felarnian settlement's ruling body.  Scott felt a twinge of resentment.  The last time he stood before a Hssai Khalkk he stood as proxy for his dead father... a dangerous growl escaped his lips unbidden.

The male guards drew their weapons, but took cautious steps back.  The females hissed and would have charged him if not for the warding wave of an old scarred warrior.

"You can either walk before the council or be carried," she said.  Her words were calm, but the timbre behind them gave Scott pause.

"What is this about?" He demanded.  He was trying hard to keep his composure, but humiliation weakened his resolve.

"Walk, or be carried."

He was surrounded by enemies.  There was no doubt that he could overpower them all, but they'd demonstrated on the shuttle that their tasers packed quite a punch.  The amount of power it took to drop him would have been enough to kill a human.  He glanced at Ivory, just outside the circle of guards.  He had one ally, and, though she could hold her own, he wasn't ready to put her life on the line.  Besides, he still needed to find out who wanted to speak to him so badly.

Scott stood, glaring into the eyes of the veteran warrior.  After a long uncomfortable pause she leaned forward and took in his scent.  She growled, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved him towards the structure.  The guards parted and he walked with steady purpose.  He held his head high, exuding pride and confidence.  These people knew who he was.  He would wear his family name with honor.

Scott entered the structure and the smell of the Hssai Khalkk filled his nostrils.  The sacred odor was a humbling one filled with memories of a youth spent beside a clan Rex.  Seated upon the stone chairs sat twelve men and women dressed in the ceremonial robes of a felarnian clan council, but each was conspicuously missing clan markings or signs of status.  Scott furrowed his brow.  His memories of the council meetings of felarnia were vivid.  He remembered the spectators, the bright colored banners, the fierce faces of the councilmen and women.  None of that was present.  The venerable faces that looked at him were kindly plain faces.  None of it made sense.

Scott stalked over to the Hssai Khalkk.

"There's no need to touch the tree, Mr. Felinus," a voice declared.  It was a voice used to giving commands, but it lacked the strength of a true leader, it wasn't a warrior's voice.

"Do you shirk all of our traditions?" Scott asked as he rubbed his hands along the tree's massive white leaves.  The very touch of its fine hairs conferred a sense of reverence.

"Some traditions have outlived their usefulness."

Scott scanned the ancient faces until he found the speaker.  He was surprised to discover the young man couldn't have been more than a few years older than himself. His eyes were green within a darker green, the sign of a genetic disorder among the people of Felarnia's southern continent.  At his age, one or more of the man's limbs would have shriveled down to nothing.  A man like that would never be chosen to sit on a council.

"What is this place?  There are no clan standards, no witnesses to the proceedings," Scott growled.

"We bow our heads to no Rex and no clan.  On Jagg-Ra C we are the authority," said a woman with tawny fur fading to white.

"Without clans who gives you that authority?  Surely your Hssai demands a semblance of the old ways."  Scott moved away from the Khalkk, getting a feel of the room as he read the faces looking down on him.

"This planet has no Hssai, and has no clans.  We rule by the democratic will of the people."

"The democr- what?  Where are your leaders?  Isn't there at least one warrior among you, someone who can make sense of this dribble?"

"We have one among us who was born warrior," the young council member said.  He gestured across the room to a woman whose fur and spots matched those of the female guards surrounding the building.  "Like the rest of us, Councilor Tiagra has forsaken the oppression of the old caste system."

Scott laughed, loud and hardy, shoving all of his disdain into the sound.

"Do you think I'm a fool."

"We'll let your foolhardy reputation speak for itself."

Scott growled.  He was already fed up with this false council.

"With no clan your council has no soul, with no Rex your council has no strength.  Whose edge settles disputes?"

"We settle disputes with words, you young fool."

"You wouldn't da-"

"Challenge you?  Is that what you were going to say?  There are no challenges within these judicial walls." The young councilman gestured with his right hand.  "This is not some arena where barbaric brutes kill each other over matters of pride.  That isn't the new world we're building here."

Scott held his tongue.  His was a tribal people guided by tradition, but it wasn't unheard of for colonies to branch off and try something new.  The Hssai kept those colonies on the path of the Fei-Khalyn.  These people had not lost sight of the path, they openly forsook it.

"You people are insane."

"Are we?"

Scott moved to the base of the high stone where the young councilor sat.  The young man looked down on him, smugness written on his face.

"Were the Shadow Blades insane when they turned against the Shkshk Hssai, and murdered them in their dens?  No.  They rebelled against tyrannical rule."

"No, they rebelled against monsters bent on genocide."

"That's what the rexes preach to justify an old war, and keep the clans unified.  The truth is The Shadow Blades deposed rulers who displeased them, and elevated ones who could be manipulated."

"You speak blasphemy," Scott grumbled.  He'd heard a similar rant from his uncle Simon, the black sheep of the family before his father's disgrace.

"What was that, Mr. Felinus?"

"I said you're a heretic! Does this upstart cripple speak for you people?"  Scott scanned the gathered faces.  Most wouldn't meet his eyes, but there were those among them who clearly supported his views.

Scott growled deep in his chest.  On any other felarnian world he could draw his edge and remove the cancer from the ruling body before it consumed them.  He might even be lorded as a hero.  Many clans had started from such acts... but Jagg-Ra C was not like other worlds.  That was clear from the perversion before him.  He wanted off the twisted planet as quickly as possible, but he had a mission to do.

He noticed the guards had come inside the structure, keeping a respectful distance.

"Why am I here?" Scott snarled.

"Tell him, Kyaaron," instructed Tiagra.

The other councilors nodded in agreement.

"You're here because of the one tradition we felarnians can't seem to be rid of, rebellion." Councilor Kyaaron started as he leaned back. "Don't look so surprised.  We monitor all communications to and from Jagg-Ra C, especially encrypted ones."

"I don't understand."

"I don't doubt that."  Kyaaron scoffed at Scott's growls.  "There are those that find our new way of governance... distasteful.  None speak louder or with more influence than Tyvaila Felinus.  You can imagine our concern when we discovered that her long exiled son was on his way to Jagg-Ra C a day after she received a secured ping that our crackers are still struggling to decipher?"

"My visit has nothing to do with this sham government.  I need to see my mother."  Scott's voice was calm, quiet, the opposite of how he was feeling.  His hand ached for his plasmatic edge, but it had been confiscated with his bag.

"Why would we believe you? Your the son of the greatest oathbreaker in our people's history."

Scott cleared the twenty foot gap between them in an instant.  He couldn't hear the cries of alarm from the elderly council members or the roars of challenge from the security force.  All he could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears, all he could taste was his hate.  All he could see was Kyaaron's smug face.

He grabbed the councilman by the throat and hoisted him into the air.  His robes billowed around him as if his body barely filled them.  His shriveled arm and legs dangled limp, his right hand clawed at Scott's arm.  Scott tightened his grip, and Kyaaron's eyes bulged with surprise.

"Do you see what it means to challenge a Khalyn?" Scott snarled.  "Do yo- Arhhggg!"

Scott's words were cut off abruptly as thousands of volts surged through his body.  He fell from the high stone perch, hitting the ground hard.  The pain which lanced through his shoulder merely added fuel to his rage.

He jumped to his feet as an eight foot tall ball of muscle and fur pounced.  Scott spun aside and struck the man at the base of the skull.  The guard dropped like a stone.  Scott roared as a blow landed across his back.  He turned to face a pair of female guards armed with staves.  The first advanced with a swing, he caught the weapon, and wrenched it from her hands.  Armed he charged through her companion and into the oncoming guards.  Scott had no thoughts of retreat, no thoughts of surrender, he thought only of the next opponent, then the next, and the next.

He was finally met with a roar louder than his own.  He turned, chest heaving, twirling the staff into a more comfortable grip.  The captain of the guard stood beside the Hssai Khalkk.  She snarled and drew an ancient hilt from her belt.  She ignited the plasmatic edge, and the blade roared to life with a dark blue light.

"I guard these hallowed halls.  My blade is justice."

Scott's heart fluttered with excitement.  This was how order was kept within a true council hall.  His case would be won or lost by the skill of his hands, and the edge of justice's blade.  Might made right, and a warrior lived by his prowess.  The Hssai demanded it.

"I accept your justice!" he replied, readying his weapon.

"No!" shouted Councilman Kyaaron.  He rested in his seat supported by two of his unnamed peers.  "This is exactly what Tyvaila wanted when she sent this barbarian into our midst.  We've evolved beyond our bloody past, where the labor caste begged at the feet of the warrior.  The only justice here is that of the people!"

The guard captain deactivated her blade and bowed respectfully towards the councilman.  Scott couldn't believe what he was seeing.  A labor caste whelp spit upon millennia of tradition, and those claiming to represent the people were doing nothing to stop him.  Scott turned his attention to the crippled man once more.

"Tradition can only die at the blade's edge," Scott said, quoting the revered Shadow Blades maxim.  "You can't even hold a sword, you-"

Scott had a moment to register the smell of burnt fur, and the abrupt halting of his heartbeat as he collapsed.