Chapter 331
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hello all! Just a quick note on scheduling for the holidays! I plan to post again on Friday this week, then Monday and Wednesday next week. I'll be out of pocket a bit for the holidays afterward, and will be using some of that time away on edits and re-structuring some earlier parts of Book 6. I plan to pick up again on 1/2/2026.
Thank you all for reading, and for your support! Enjoy the chapter!
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The world around Kyle warped, and the first thing that he noticed was the noise. A broad smile crossed his face as he stepped off the teleportation platform, and saw the usual hustle and bustle of the Hub spread out before him. He’d been sent to one of the smaller relay teleporters, little more than a raised platform with several other sets surrounding it. He still had another teleportation ahead to get him to the Courier’s Guild headquarters, where he’d been told fresh credentials and a nav bracelet were waiting.
Even so, he breathed in the moment, looking down at the mass of people simply going about their lives. They weren’t fighting life-or-death battles, they were just living. And this is what it’s all about, Kyle thought. His own path didn’t lend itself to a quiet, peaceful existence. That didn’t stop him from wanting to create that opportunity for others. Jarberry will know how to start, he thought, stepping off the platform and walking toward the one marked for the Courier’s Guild.
As he made his way, he felt two familiar presences through Auric Perception, even as Synaptic Barbs alerted him to their movements. Still a little blurry on the left side, Kyle thought with a frown. He’d yet to fully replicate that piece of his Adaptive Anatomy with the World Tree Seed, leaving him with a bit of a blind spot on his left. He hardly noticed when walking through areas like the forest or near-empty prison, but with the press of people and movement it was far more pronounced.
The individuals were the same members of the Private Security Guild that Suierrillax hired to watch him after his return from Pokke, and he debated turning to see how they’d been. Then and again, they were clearly trying to keep a low profile. We’ll chat with them another time. There were no other notable presences, and he stepped onto the next platform to be whisked away to the Courier’s Guild headquarters.
Waiting for him when he arrived was a small skrell woman, hands on her hips. “Do you have any idea how much work you’ve made me do?” she asked, though the quip lost most of its bite as she was clearly holding back tears.
“A lot?” Kyle offered, also hit with the wave of emotion. It had been years since he’d seen Suierrillax. He could see the mix of exhaustion, excitement, and relief on her face, and felt a pang of guilt for his contribution to that, even if it hadn’t been intentional.
Her eyes searched him, lingering on his missing arm and the bit of the angry scar she could see where wood met flesh. She seemed about to say something, then just sighed and stepped in, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re back, Kyle. I missed you.”
He reached down with his right arm and pulled her in. He’s almost forgotten how nice it was to feel close to somebody. Words got caught in his throat a few times, before he finally managed to reply. “I missed you, too, Suierrillax.”
“And I missed both of you,” a familiar voice joked from above them. Kyle and Suierrillax let go, turning to look at the imp casually floating in the air. Jarberry smiled, showing his sharp teeth. “And I didn’t even get a hug. Come on, we’re going to my offices. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
Kyle and Suierrillax shared a look, then followed the already-retreating imp toward a teleporter that activated the moment Jarberry approached it. As soon as Kyle stepped on it, the world shifted, and he found himself in a spacious room with dark wooden furniture. Bookshelves lined the walls, with several small writing desks and a large central table. With a wave of his hand, chairs appeared around the larger table, as did plates of steaming food.
Wait a second, these are my plates, Kyle realized, though that didn’t stop him from biting into the delicious roast that sitting on it.
“Oh, just help yourself,” Jarberry said with a grin.
“As if you wouldn’t have,” Kyle shot back between bites, relishing the taste of the quality cooking. Suierrillax also ate without compunctions, a tacit agreement to tease the imp. Jarberry clearly didn’t mind, as it gave him a few more moments to pull out documents and fiddle with a magic circle on the far side of the table until a series of screens appeared floating above it.
Several had long lists of text he was unable to read, others had pictures of unfamiliar planets, but there were three images that stood out clearly to him: Kertan Six, the goblin scholar Finn’el, and the skrell from the Tribunal, Casiniax. The pages containing text sorted themselves into five categories, with the majority aligning behind the image of the planets. However, none of them appeared behind the image of the smiling skrell.
Seeing Kyle’s gaze, Jarberry tilted his head. “Looks like you’re familiar with the Gray Conglomerate’s newest attack dog,” he mused.
“Familiar is an overstatement,” Kyle muttered. “The bastard tried to have my citizenship revoked and paint me as some sort of interplanetary terrorist.”
“As a point of fact, he didn’t just try,” Jarberry countered. “He damn near succeeded. Which brings us to the issue of the day. We had to burn a bit of political capital to get you back, which I don’t know that we can really afford.”
Kyle frowned at that, meeting Jarberry’s eyes. “What do you mean? Do you really think that they had a case?”
Jarberry gave Kyle a blank look. “Do you really think you give off ‘interplanetary terrorist’ energy to the people you meet?”
“Of course not!” Kyle exclaimed.
“Then use your head to think for a minute,” Jarberry said. “Somebody inside the Gray Conglomerate, somewhere, decided that they want you out. And whoever it was had enough leverage to bribe, threaten, or otherwise coerce voting members from the other four member states to host a Tribunal.”
Suierrillax was the first to nod, with Kyle catching on moments before she spoke. “Somehow, our wayward Courier has the potential to get in their way. Something that’s easier to deal with if he’s either locked away or ousted from the Collective entirely.”
“Exactly,” Jarberry said. “If I wasn’t already buttering up the powers that be to set him up with quality work when he got back, we wouldn’t have caught wind of it at all. Call him anything else you’d like, but Casiniax is damn effective at getting things to move. If I hadn’t traded in some favors with the Archdrake Supremacy, that vote could have gone very differently. Our problem now is that we don’t know exactly what they’re trying to stop Kyle from doing. Or at least, why they’d want him out.”
[COULD IT BE RELATED TO THE WORLD TREE SEED?] C.H.A.D.D. asked, as Kyle felt an undertone of concern through Pack Leader’s Instinct.
“Possibly,” Jarberry said, flying up to examine the wooden lump grafted into Kyle’s skin. “Still, not sure what they’d actually do with it in that state. It doesn’t look particularly useable.”
“I don’t think it’s about the seed, at least not directly,” Suierrillax said, looking thoughtfully at one of the reports under the image of Finn’el. “This guy has been studying them for a long time, and if what Jarberry told me is correct, he sent a note to the organization Ger’Sinh was a part of, who in turn had him sent to try and take you out. If they didn’t care about your member status of the Collective there, I don’t think they would care about it now.”
She stopped for a moment, tilting her head. “Which brings up an important point. Your secret is going to start spreading like wildfire soon. You’re going to have a tough time when assassins and other kidnappers start showing up to take you.”
Kyle snorted. “Good luck to them. I’m not fighting B Grades anytime soon, but I’m a lot harder to take down than people give me credit for.”
“I’m not joking, Kyle,” Suierrillax said with granite in her voice. “I’m not watching you die again. I think it makes sense to have a security team around.”
“Absolutely not,” Kyle and Jarberry replied in unison.
They shared a look, and at a gesture from Jarberry, Kyle went first. “Any security you hire to protect me has to be stronger than I am. D Grades aren’t an issue for me anymore, and I’m confident in handling most early tier C Grades at this point as well. It’s not worth the cost.”
Jarberry nodded along, continuing after Kyle finished. “Besides, lack of information is our enemy right now. We hire the wrong person, and we risk feeding more of it to our enemies. Better to keep things small.”
[THERE ARE A FEW OTHER REASONS THAT DR. MAYHEW MAY HAVE BEEN TARGETED,] C.H.A.D.D. offered, providing a welcome change to the subject.
[IF WE ASSUME THAT NOBODY KNEW OF DR. MAYHEW’S SURVIVAL, THERE ARE ONLY A FEW PIECES OF INFORMATION THAT THEY COULD BE ACTING ON. WE ALREADY DISCUSSED THE WORLD TREE SEED; THE OTHER ITEMS DISCUSSED INCLUDED THE AUCTION OF KERTAN SIX AND THE FACT THAT THE CAIN FAMILY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN THE SPACE TO BEGIN WITH, AS IT WAS RESTRICTED. OF COURSE, THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION OF MS. TILLIENNE, THOUGH I DOUBT THAT WAS OF PARTICULAR RELEVANCE.]
Jarberry stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I think you might be on to something, C.H.A.D.D. There’s no way that Kyle has the credits, but they could be trying to limit his influence in the auction…”
“There is another possibility,” Kyle said, feeling a phantom ache in his stomach. He’d kept the details secret from Suierrillax before, but decided to put all his cards on the table. “The protection of the Collective is one of the few things keeping me safe from some dangerous forces. If they could get me removed, they’d have a much easier time getting to me.”
“That’s a possibility, too,” Jarberry acknowledged. “I’ll keep working my contacts in the Gray Conglomerate. Unfortunately, I expect I’ll need some time, and some B Grade assistance to get any real answers on my side. The good news is that what you need to do doesn’t really change.”
Jarberry leaned forward in the air, meeting Kyle’s eyes. “You need to start accruing favors, and expanding your influence. The more you’re able to accomplish, the better.”
“Couldn’t that backfire? Spectacularly?” Kyle asked with a raised eyebrow.
“It could,” Jarberry said. “But it also puts you in a strong position to be successful in C Grade, which is pretty damn important.”
“I think I know where we can start,” Suierrillax said, gesturing to one of the planet images, which Kyle only now recognized was Er’Mithren. “While the Verdant Republic has cleared you of any wrongdoing, a mutual friend and I have been working on a project that will be much easier with you here. Do you remember Pall’Eth?”
The look in Suierrillax’s eyes held expectation in them, and Kyle nodded. “Yeah, I remember him. Unfortunately, so did Casiniax. He brought up Pall’Eth in his speech about me in front of the Tribunal.”
“Well, he’s been a pain for the Verdant Republic to deal with. D’Oillelat has been laying the groundwork to take the capital back and end the civil war, but the damn goblin has been feeding the C Grade plant monster around the capital, making actually taking the city extremely difficult, unless she wants to have heavy casualties. We can’t get the Mercenary’s Guild involved, because technically this planet isn’t a part of Collective Space yet, and the Verdant Republic doesn’t want to set a negative precedent.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, that means I’m not exactly allowed to do much either,” Kyle said, though he was starting to understand where things were going.
She gave him a wicked grin. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. Her Majesty, D’Oillelat, would like you to make a series of two deliveries. The first is to deliver a piece of the Scourge’s heartroot to her, and the second is to deliver a personal letter to Pall’Eth, informing him that he’s been replaced.”
Suierrillax looked up, stroking her chin for a moment. “And besides, technically, you’re homeless right now. Until we get that mess sorted out, you might as well be camping somewhere you can get some good work done.”
Jarberry nodded enthusiastically. “They’re still watching the planet like hawks. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have an A Grade clan elder meditating in the system nearby just in case something threatens the planet again. You couldn’t ask for a better first assignment.”
Kyle felt Phaegos tremble with excitement inside his core. With a smile, he looked to Suierrillax, then Jarberry. “Then it sounds like I have a job to do.”
Internally, he felt Phaegos whisper. And I have a snack to eat.