It was near the day's end, nearly a week later; the sun was making its slow descent into the horizon. Marley half lounged on his hoverbike starting his end-of-day checks before releasing the slaves for the night. In truth the checklist had less than half of his attention as he wrestled in his mind with his brother's actions. On the one hand he understood the need for fear as a tool to keep such a vast populace from entertaining the thought of revolt, on the other hand, gratuitous loss of life was hardly called for. He understood that slaves were viewed as little more than cattle, but even cattle has value. Even given everything he understood about Rednasi culture, politics, and world view, leveling an entire city made no sense. Even so, Marley more than understood that he would be forced to support whatever stance the crown took on the incident. It made him sick to his stomach.
Marley's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a scream off in the distance. His keen hearing instantly picked up on the direction the noise was coming from, and he rushed toward it without thinking. Before long, he saw exactly what was causing the commotion. There were two large bearcats slowly bearing down on a group of young slaves. One of the women seemed to have fallen and was bleeding from her head. Marley landed his speeder bike between the women and the bearcat and hopped off, hoping the noise and surprise of it would scare off the animals. One of the bearcats growled and shook his head while the other reared back on its hind legs and roared at Marley angrily. Marley stood his ground as his muscles tensed, readying him for battle. Marley's eyes glowed a bright electric blue and his heart pumped hard. The women behind him had already begun loading their injured friend on the speeder bike in preparation for a quick getaway. The oldest of them looked over at Marly and noticed his hands glowing blue and froze. "The old power" she whispered, shocked, before climbing on the bike. Once on, she twisted the handle causing the bike to lift just high enough off the ground to be out of the bearcats' reach. Marley looked over his shoulder to make sure they were safe. As he turned his attention back to the bearcats, he noticed a flash of light and movement in the wood line behind the bearcats. "What in the..." were his last thoughts before his lights went out.
Lastirk was in her chambers lounging on a plush chaise, having retired for the evening. She had herself covered in an incredibly soft animal fur blanket, a glass of wine in her hand, and her feet propped up on the back of a very handsome slave whose lips were working magic between her legs. She would have been at the peak of bliss if her blasted com unit would quit its infernal ringing. She reached over and slapped the unit answering the call angrily "What! Someone important better be dead!" As she spoke, she used her tail to push the head of the man between her legs back down, letting him know that a call didn't afford him a break.
"It's Prince Marley." said Notalap on the audio line. "He's gone missing my Queen."
"What?" Lastirk sat up and shooed away her companion for the night with her tail. "What do you mean 'missing'? What happened"
"We um... we are not um... entirely sure..." The overseer's terror was evident in his voice. It was well known that bad news was not very well tolerated by the Queen.
"Notalap, you fat sack of crap, if you do not tell me what happened to my son, right damn now, I swear by the emperor himself, you will be the next one to go 'missing'." She hissed through gritted teeth.
Notalap gulped and took a deep breath before beginning. "Roving patrols reported a bearcat sighting on the east edge of the grain fields. They waited for back-up before moving to confront the animals. By the time our forces arrived on the scene, they found two bearcats dead with their throats cut. There was evidence that a speeder bike, three small individuals, and two large individuals had been there. There was also a lot of blood. Scans indicate the blood on scene belonged to the bearcats... and the prince. The bearcats were the only bodies found."
"Notalap?"
"Yes, my Queen?"
"You have two days to find my son before I send you to meet the Lord of the Seven Hells."
"Yes, my Queen."
"Bearcats? Bearcats! Was that the best you could come up with?" Ginipesh admonished Notalap. The overseers had reconvened their secret council meeting, late that night, and they were not happy with Notalap in the least.
"We agreed it was supposed to look like an accident, I figured no one would look too deep into an animal attack." Notalap feebly tried to defend his actions.
"But you botched it! Ignoring the fact that bearcats don't even roam that far from the river, you lost the body! Now you have more problems than you started with." Ginipesh nearly screamed, red faced, standing with his palms on the table, eyes wide with rage. "Now Lastirk is going to turn the planet UP. SIDE. DOWN. Looking for her missing son. I don't why we thought you were the one to handle this job."
Danerg sat leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his massive chest, shaking his head. "I told you all to call the whole thing off."
"As did I" ReDolb agreed. "He's actually a sharp kid. He obviously has a soft spot for the slaves, but I think he'll be good for business."
"Ok, ok I goofed, I get it. The question is what are we..." Notalap began before being cut off sharply by Ginipesh.
"We? We? Oh no, no, no, sir! This is YOUR mess. The rest of us are washing our hands of the whole thing! YOU wanted this done, YOU screwed it up, now it's up to YOU to fix it! If any of US get caught up in this mess," Ginipesh gestured to all the overseers not named Notalap. "Then WE will give you up faster than you can take down a sandwich, you super-sized MORON!"
Notalap just sat there stunned, fuming, as one by one each of his fellow overseers got up and left the room, not sparing him another glance. Once he was alone in the dark room, despair hit him hard as he put his hands on his head and cursed quietly to himself.