Wadaw left the Officer’s Club with Lorias and Srell following close behind him. He cited the need to prepare himself and his entourage for the peace summit, but he didn’t go into much detail. As an officer of the Queen’s international Royalist forces, He didn’t owe any of the Sguvan military officers an explanation at all.

  When the three men entered the large suite, they saw Mela and Leanna laying on two of the room's large couches in front of large screen that sat on a wall perpendicular to the panoramic windows that wrapped around a section of the penthouse. Mela had assured the others hours earlier that the windows only worked one-way, which Prism had verified by extending his sight to the exterior of the hotel. The windows were completely reflective when one was looking up at them from outside, but Prism had used spell circles to fortify the room against attack and spying nevertheless.

  "You made it out of the wolves' den." Mela said to the trio when Lorias closed the door behind them.

  "They acted more like sheep than wolves." Srell shook his head and scoffed. "We're the only Wolves here," he added with a raised chin before he walked over to an especially large cushioned chair and fell backwards into it with a loud sigh of relief.

  "We could have devoured them but our resident Royalist saw an opportunity to lecture them instead," Lorias said with a slow glance at Wadaw while walking past him to take a seat beside Srell.

  "When they find out that the man they just listened to with deference and reverence is actually a "filthy heretic", their faith in Gusa and his "God-Queen" will be shaken forever," Wadaw said. His voice sounded cartoonishly villainous.

  "You are a silly little man, aren't you?" Mela laughed. "How many Royalists are even under the command of this fake identity that you've cultivated?"

  "Not many, not many at all," said Wadaw as he slowly walked over to the center of the room where the others were gathered. "It wouldn't have worked if I had too much power over their organization. These Royalist fools are usually connected via their golden brands. My excuse for not having their radio implant buzzing in my head all the time is that I'm working deep undercover."

  "I was curious about that," Leanna said as she laid on her belly on the comfortable couch. She traced patterns on the plush carpet as she hung her lazily hung her arm down. "Do your nanites somehow enable you to access the Royalist radio network without being detected by the Constables?"

  Wadaw smirked at her and waited a moment to respond, building up the suspense between them before she was ready to roll her eyes at him. "Yes, yes I am. You see, there are different layers of their communication network. I just make sure that I stay on the lowest level possible, even when I'm sending messages to my Marshal. The intereference within the jungle is also a good excuse."

  "Your Marshal is somehow oblivious to your fake identity? That must have taken some serious work." Srell said with a youthful awe.

  "Let's just say that there are even Marshals who aren't entirely loyal to the Queen." Wadaw said in a hushed tone that made a few of them raise their eyebrows.

  "How would that even be possible?" Leanna asked after she suddenly propped herself up on her elbows and narrowed her eyes at Wadaw. "Marshals are the second-highest ranking Royalist officers just below the Constables that deal directly with the Queen. Their loyalty is regularly tested on the neurological level using the cybernetic implants that they have installed in their brains. They can be killed by the Constables or the Queen herself instantly using those same implants if there is any doubt about their allegiances."

  Bighead had taught the Red Wolves about the structure of the Royalists years ago, sparing little detail about the ways that the Queen kept her foreign legion in line. Leanna had taken an especially keen interest in the machinations of the group while she was merely an analyst. There were few in the Red Wolves that knew as much about the Royalists as she did; there were even fewer outside of the Red Wolves.

  "I'm not the only person who's been given smart little nanites by my good friend. You'd be amazed by how effective they are at co-opting Kingdom-tech," said Wadaw. He frowned unexpectedly after speaking, paused for a moment, then said, "It's as if she, the Queen I mean, isn't really paying us much mind at all."

  "We're probably like insects to her." Lorias shrugged.

  "That's how she keeps us!" Srell shouted. Leanna flinched from the sudden outburst.

  "Be quiet; Ursun and Prism are asleep in the next room. Has your feeble little brain forgotten already?" Leanna spoke with a hushed harshness that made Srell cross his arms and frown at her.

  “The big guy and the formerly little guy are getting some rest, are they?” Wadaw turned towards one of the four bedrooms behind his seat. "They'll need it for what's in store for them tomorrow."

  Mela tilted her head and gave her old friend a wry smirk. "You sneaky old spy, you. What do you know that we don't?"

  "Our little talk about Royalist neural implants reminded me to check in on mine. Turns out that the "most faithful" already know who's arriving in Zazi tomorrow afternoon for the peace summit." Wadaw gave a sly wink at Mela. She sat up in her seat and leaned forward excitedly. Leanna and Srell swiveled their heads towards Wadaw and listened intently.

  "Don't keep us waiting! Who's coming!?" Mela asked. She knocked her little fists atop her wide thighs like an impetuous child.

  "The Peacekeeper, for one." Wadaw said. He observed the sudden sour looks on the faces of the mercenaries within the room. “She’s being joined by one of Vadam’s governing Generals, but these low-level Royalists aren’t privy to exactly who,” he added with more seriousness than he’d been speaking with before.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “I’ll bet it’s General Aguv. He’s the one that Theda worked most closely with about five years ago when she stopped what would have been yet another Battle of Proulkat Plain. That’s how she got the name “Peacekeeper,” I believe.” Leanna remarked as she turned on her back and looked up at the painted mural of an artistic map of the Vines on the ceiling. The river system twisted through the Sguvan continent like a mangled hand reaching down from its northern sea.

  “What don’t you know?” Srell said snidely. He rolled his eyes at Leanna after having waited for the first opportunity to insult her.

  “That’s common knowledge…” Lorias said even more snidely.

  “Anyway, I agree with that assumption, my dear.” Wadaw nodded to Leanna, then looked at Mela. He leaned forward and quietly said, “They’ll be arriving on a Destructor airship.”

  Mela touched her chest and said, “Scandalous!” with in an exaggerated tone that satisfied Wadaw.

  “That's crazy. Their airships are clunkers that crash more than they fly. Why would Gusa or the Queen trust them to transport diplomats?” Srell asked before Leanna could.

  “I’m just the messenger.” Wadaw said with raised hands.

  "For all we know, they want them to crash and die. It would create one hell of an international crisis." Mela said with a sigh.

  "We'll be in Zazi before their ship arrives, right?" Lorias asked Mela.

  "If the plan Prism proposed works out, then yes, we should be there before noon." Mela nodded to him.

  "That's assuming that the ship really is arriving int he afternoon. I'll remind you all that I got this information from the chatter of a bunch of peons." Wadaw raised a finger and said.

  Three loud and peculiar knocks were heard on the door to the large suite. Each of them looked at the door, then at each other. Mela waved to them and smirked as she rose from her seat to answer it. They all watched her cautiously as she walked over to open the door.

  "Don't worry; its just Sebeto, my lieutenant," said Mela as she turned the doorknob. The gaunt, well-dressed man bowed to her before she'd even fully opened the door. His pleated black robes parted at his chest as he bent forward, revealing a sizable emerald pin that sat at the center of his black ascot.

  "My deepest apologies for bothering you and your guests, my lady. I have important information to discuss with you if I may be allowed to enter." Sebeto spoke with a formalness that the members of RED-1 seldom heard.

  "You may." Mela said in an especially lady-like manner.

  She stepped to the side to let her hotel manager in before gently closing the door behind him. He gave her a curt nod as we walked past her before taking the emerald from his neck with an effortless flick of his wrist. He went over to the black screen hanging on the wall and placed the grape-sized gem's flat side upon it. A flash of colors appeared on the surface, followed by text and images that streamed across it. The images showed scenes of Wadaw and RED-1's entry into Toto, their ride on Biti's truck, and their entry into The Toto Inn. Some of the pictures were specifically of Prism, who was bound with a bag over his head in each one.

  "As you can all see, Toto's military informants have already been quite busy sending as much intel back to their base as they can. Many of these were sent over unsecured lines all over town, so we can assume that civilians are in contact with the base as well," Sebeto said while he used hand gestures to direct the display of information on the screen.

  "What has been the base's response?" Mela asked. She slowly walked back over to the middle of the room with her arms cradling her bosom.

  "There was an initial rush of standby orders from the base to the informants that lasted until an hour before Gusa's speech. Since the speech, however, the base has been radio silent." Sebeto explained as the timeline of his intel-gathering showed on the screen beside him. "As you ordered, I did not tap into the base's internal communications."

  "Good...thank you, Sebeto..." Mela bit the nail of her thumb while she watched the data flow across the screen. Leanna was the first to make sense of it all.

  "The peace talks announcement..." Leanna began to speak while her eyes focused on the screen. "The soldiers really had no idea...how absolutely ridiculous...they were all completely stunned. It looks like the base was preparing to send a contingent to town to help escort who everyone believed to be a captured Prism, but those plans really were swept to the wayside..."

  "You can figure all of that out from that mess?" Srell pointed both his hands at the screen with the exacerbation of a toddler.

  "You must like it when she calls you an idiot. She's a Xypno. She was genetically designed to have greater mental faculties than us no-mods." Lorias shook his head at Srell.

  "I know, I know, of course! It's still amazing to me no matter how many times I see it..." Srell sat back in his seat dejectedly.

  "Indeed it is." Wadaw nodded.

  "I must say, even our system wasn't able to glean some of your insights, Lady Leanna." Sebeto said with a bow in Leanna's direction.

  "Oh, thanks...just "Leanna" will do," the analyst said with some embarrassment. "I just recognized a recursive function that I've seen in other Sguvan communication networks. I was tasked with cracking their messages back when I was just an analyst," she added while her eyes remained glued to the screen. She slowly stood up and walked over to the screen as though she were in a trance. She then tapped on it in a few places, then used both of her hands to magnify a specific section of what looked like gibberish. "This was just received from their central command in Zazi...maybe ten minutes ago? It must've been right before you encoded all of this to your datastore," she said with a quick point at the emerald still attached to the bottom-right of the display.

  "What does it say?" Wadaw and Mela asked at the same time.

  "They are using codewords but it essentially says, "Except for the Destructor airship, block all entry and exit from Zazi by any means necessary until further notice."," said Leanna before she covered her mouth with her pale, slender fingers.

  "So, no unauthorized entry...that shouldn't affect our plan too much since we have a "Royalist" on our side." Srell nodded to himself.

  "No, the order doesn't make any provisions for other military forces. It reads like I said it does. No entry or exit whatsoever." Leanna clarified.

  Wadaw and Mela shared a pensive look before Wadaw sighed and placed his hands on his hips. "Lockdown," he said solemnly.

  "I'll go wake up Prism and Ursun. They need to know all of this." Srell said as he began to stand.

  "No, let them sleep." Lorias held up his hand to Srell which caused the smaller man to stop moving completely. "This isn't a significant setback. Our plan took this "lockdown" possibility into account. We can brief them in the morning."

  "It's probably best that we all get some rest, now. There's no need for some of you to stand watch; all of my staff are loyal to the Gospel. They'll wake us the second any of these queenies try anything here." Mela said scrappily.

  Leanna, Srell, and Lorias nodded to the vivacious proprietress before getting up from their seats and heading to their respective bedrooms. Ursun had already told them to do the same before he'd gone to bed, a rare show of trusting a person he'd only just met. Prism, however, had merely entered a low state of mana-restorative meditation. He was still conscious enough to have been aware of everything that had transpired that evening before the rest of his team fell into an anxious slumber.

  For some reason unknown to him, Prism was afraid to fall asleep.