Elkay fucking hated crutches, but he had used them to walk from the hospital all the way to the temporary new council building. Flanked by four young Rethan soldiers, he stormed into the main chamber, where the other members of the council weren’t doing too well.
“Thank the Light you are here, Elkay!” Rethais shouted, drawing everyone’s attention to the young general. “Queen Prime Tanra wants to gas the nest and kill all of them and we’re trying to convince her otherwise!”
Elkay rolled his eyes, hissing. Fucking Vayra are fucking retarded at times. He hobbled to the center of the room, picked up the telecommunications receiver and turned off loudspeaker. An angry, gravelly voice on the other end was screaming and shouting about how they should all die painfully.
“Queen Tanra, this is Vice General Elkay speaking. What gives you the right to try and commit genocide?”
The voice growled. “Where is the High General. This should be between him and myself.”
“He is unavailable. I am more than capable of dealing with this situation. I repeat, what gives you the right to commit genocide? Not only will you be killing a large number of Kalsa Warriors, but you’ll be killing off the normal population of the nest and you would be committing a war crime against the Retha.”
“Your Retha are assisting these traitors.”
“Maybe if you treated them as living beings, they wouldn’t want to betray you!” Elkay snarled. “But listen, you gas that nest, you will have a hundred more rebellions. And a complete trade embargo from us. If you think that your Kalsa Warriors are doubting their loyalty now, killing this nest will cause all of them to turn against you!”
Tanra didn’t respond. The line went silent. Elkay glanced back at the other generals.
“Did she put you on hold?” Somnenion asked.
“Yes. Where IS Photeianos?”
“No idea!” Veeksiar exclaimed. “Hasn’t been in all morning. Thank goodness you arrived when you did.”
Elkay smiled briefly as the line picked up again.
“Your argument is powerful, Vice General. But you offer no solution.”
“Oh, I have a very nice solution. If you are willing to listen.”
Another growl. “Fine. Spit it out, Rethan.”
Elkay sighed. Why were Vayra always so rude? “This is very simple. You have been looking for years and years for somewhere to dump your unwanted Varga. You allow the Kalsa Warrior nest to have its freedom and run itself however the Kalsa Warriors please, in exchange for them working as the first Varga Protection Area. Your rebellious Kalsa Warriors wanted to free the Varga anyway, so why not just hand your unwanted males into their willing hands? The rebellion ends peacefully, your ongoing Varga problem is sorted and the Kalsa Warriors have some form of self-government, while having enough responsibility to not want to rebel further.”
Again, there was no response. He could hear the various queens discussing this solution in the background, but it just sounded like muffled voices.
“Rethan, you have a tongue of silver and diamond…” Queen Tanra admitted. “Such simplicity in your answers, yet you convince so well. We do have a question though, what will happen to your own rebellious Ksa?”
Elkay had no answer, but he didn’t need one. “What happens to our Ksa is of our concern only. But they will be disciplined for their disobedience. Are we both in agreement, Tanra? Are you going to act out on my words?”
“Yes. Good day, Rethan.”
The line went dead.
“She agreed?” Rethais asked.
“I think so…” Elkay replied cautiously. “I do not trust them though. I am going to the Kolasia nest personally to both make sure the Vohra don’t do anything stupid and to collect our Ksa.”
“We should discipline them though!” Rysos interrupted. “How can we trust them?”
“You all broke their trust before they broke ours…” the Vice General sighed. “But it will be our courts of law that decide their punishment, not us.” Elkay spun around triumphantly. “Now, get me my legion. We are going to Kolasi!”