“Six months?” Enkay seemed pretty shocked. “We do the right thing, we don’t hurt anyone, we help the Kalsa Warriors get their freedom and we helped save a nest of innocent Vohra, and we get six months in prison?”
Everyone else though seemed quite relieved. They had all expected far worse. Ten years community service, two years in stasis, even rumours of execution. The trial was horrible, every single Ksa involved was looking at the same punishment. It wasn’t until Kayel, of the L-Class Ksa, admitted to masterminding the whole thing that everyone else was let off with less strict punishments.
Elkay had calmly explained to them why this had all happened, why they had to be put on trial, but it hadn’t really sunk in. As he began to explain again, Teekay begged him not to.
“Ser, we’ll never get it. All of this is… slightly above us.”
“I know, Teekay, but I have to explain to you!” Elkay tried to explain again. “It helps you understand why, so you don’t spent six months in solitary thinking that I somehow betrayed you.”
“Brother…”
Elkay hated it when Arkay called him brother, but he didn’t say anything. Would have been petty.
“Why do you keep on suggesting that we’d betray you when we’ve been loyal almost our whole lives?”
“Yeah!” Veekay interrupted, as he always did. “The only reason we didn’t come back to you when we were forcibly removed from that idiotic prison was because we didn’t have the means to do so!”
“And you wouldn’t have ended up injured if we had been around…” Geekay added. “Admit it, we’re better guards than anyone.”
Elkay sighed. “I know, I know. I care a lot for you all. The fact that all this… bollocks happened drives me crazy. Stinks of stupidity. And craziness. As if this genuinely was planned out or something…”
The Ksa all fell silent.
“Did Kayel really plan all this?” Nenth finally asked.
“No…” Elkay shook his head. “He is smart, but he isn’t that smart. He made the most out of his own situation, but there was no way Kayel could have guessed you would have all followed. The Rethan State had marked you as traitors while I was lying in a hospital bed, unable to stop all of this. I… I am so sorry…”
The young Threan-types all shrugged. None of them saw this as Elkay’s fault. Of course, they were all angry that they were going to be locked up for half a year, but that wasn’t Elkay’s fault either.
“You worked hard to get us shorter sentences!” Arksi exclaimed. “I think every single Ksa out there owes themselves to you, ser. We could have all been put in stasis or even executed or goodness knows what. Or we could have all been gassed to death in that damn nest!”
Elkay looked down, his expression changing from . “You’re mostly right, Arksi… Mostly…”
“What do you mean, ser?”
“I failed to help Kayel…”