Dressed in his formal Consulate uniform, medals and all, to do the Consulate’s work, the emperor spanned the big space between them, marched up to the great desk and halted before the Secretary General, propped his hands on the great half-circle of table. He leaned into the tri-colored vision of the Tillian commander, wishing to drag the man over the desk and beat him dead.

      "You’re disrupting a private meeting, Deauxdaytryxss, uninvited," the despot of the reptilian race hissed, tossing up a resentful growl the emperor planned to blast off his scaly face if the report from the lizard’s planet returned to confirm Joren’s suspicions.

      "Why would you hold a meeting without me, Raeleth? Do you not remember I hold the most powerful administration in this union? The most worlds, the biggest army, the most affluent trade routes. The strongest technology. The highest esteem."

      Raeleth ground out a chuckle no one else in the room enjoyed. "You are lessss loved than you think, Deauxdaytryxss."

      Joren sat on the table before them to irk his nemesis further. "I’ve many ambassadors on each of your planets and know much of your people and worlds. Yours especially, Raeleth. Your people consider me a hero. In their whispers, your citizens call me the Liberator of Pygras."

     "They also call you the Subjugator of Cig since you’ve removed that world’sss ruler by invasion."

      "Only someone who hadn’t attended the birthday party Cig had thrown for me last year might call me that. Someone who wishes to ignore the fact that the worlds I own rule themselves in union with the Consulate. Each has its own governing congresses to care for the people while my governors care for Consulate interests in cooperation. My people love me."

      Joren flashed his arrogant Rhontaian smile to his enemy. "Your people, on the other hand, Raeleth, despise you and seek your death."

      The looks on the other five men’s faces were gaunt.

      "Don’t frown yet, Statesmen," Joren told them. "It’s all about to become much worse for you."

      A beep came from his pocket, pleasing him almost as much as the discomfort in their gazes.

      Joren went on to say, "I’ve given my people what they most wish for. Freedom. ‘Tis my gift to them as my benevolent grant. A gift I hear you’ve stolen from some of them. At the taking of my throne, I’d sent out a call for the slaves of Pygras, citizens taken in battle and sold by the former master of Cig."

      "Your people were returned to you. Your shipsss had come and searched for them."

      "That was when my search beams couldn’t penetrate a brig field. I now possess a stronger search beam."

      "Schedule fruitlessss searchsss at your leisure. What isss the point of your interruption and vague threatsss?"

      "Be patient, Raeleth. I’m sharpening my point. I’ll stab you in the heart with it on my own time."

      Joren looked them all over, suspecting their guilt. They hardly seemed like men to him for their despicable crimes. "One of my officers has discovered many of the Pygrian women still held away from their homes.

      "And I’ve come for them."

      "No one hasss your women, Deauxdaytryxss."

      Joren drew the communicator from his pocket, engaged the speaker, then he set it on the table, allowing all to hear the upcoming conversation.

      "Above each of your planets are several Consulate battlecruisers, searching your worlds for my people, as we speak," he informed the council. Each one of them, the least reputable members of the Union, displayed some pathetic cognition of upcoming doom. The drop of a jaw, the swelling of alien eyes. Their fear froze them in their places.

      Before their shocked expressions, Joren spoke downward into the communicator, "High Commander Cardonnell, report."

      "My lord," the voice from the communicator speaker replied, "4,532 Pygrian females are on Akrion V."

      Joren narrowed his vision on the leader of Akrion V. "Why, Delfo, are my undeclared citizens on your planet?"

      The man gave no verbal answer, but the emperor could see the realization of his ugly future in his eyes.

      "Cinafyreed, 2,879 Pygrian females. Evantal II holds 5,318 Pygrian females."

      The emperor’s visual address moved down the line of them, fixing their fates for their evil.

      "Favestid Moonbase, 649 Pygrian females. Plasies IV, 6,382 Pygrian females. Satikide, 2,945 Pygrian females. Teladag, 4,502 Pygrian females."

      Joren regarded his most trusted officers, and Ty and Kade shook their heads. "Foolish thing for them to do, Joren," Ty commented, crossing his big arms.

      Down to the communicator, the emperor declared, "That convicts every world leader in this room but Raeleth and his pit of vipers. You can’t tell me Raeleth is innocent, Cardonnell."

      "The battlecruiser over the Tillian empire reports 7,080 Pygrian females held in an underground network of cells. They’ve intercepted a Tillian freighter containing another twenty-eight Pygrian females held against their wills. That freighter contained the records of their sales on the black market."

      "I’ve no knowledge of it," Raeleth spat.

      Cardonnell had more. "Three Pygrian females are present in Raeleth’s personal residence."

      "Thisss isss either a lie or a setup, Deauxdaytryxss. I’ve no knowledge of it."

      Kade burst into a rude laughter, so Joren turned his way.

      "This is great, Joren. I love how he’s denying it. I always love it when they lie." Kade triggered his wrist communicator. "Cardonnell, send down the mind-sweep."

      Raeleth gave a reptilian sneer. "You’re not going to usess your brain-ripper on a fellow world leader, a man like yourself commanding armiesss that could see to your great misery. The entire Union would see you hang, Deauxdaytryxss."

      Joren returned a spiteful revelation between gritted teeth. "You and I have little in common other than holding worlds in our hands. Your army is not here to defend you. You are nothing but a man in this room at this moment, and less of a man than me to cause harm to helpless women."

      The Rhontaian mind-sweep appeared in the chamber behind them, its comfortable-looking chair open and inviting, its probe helmet sitting in the seat of the recliner. Atop the investigative tool sat a vial of the black-death poison that taps into the truthful mind, but sometimes leaves the unlucky for dead. Anyone who’d ever seen the mind-sweep in operation knew it to be cruelty on sight.

      Whistling, Kade strolled over and powered up the device, wasting no energy hiding his glee. The man had quite a history with the interrogation tool, which should probably be outlawed. The faint whine of the machine was music to Kade’s ear.

      "Torture for information isss banned in the Union bylawsss, Emperor," Raeleth snidely remarked.

      "So is the sale of my family. You see, the Pygrians are my family, Raeleth. And no one harms my family and does not face me for it. You didn’t hear an accurate account of the invasion of Cig if you did not pick up on that lesson. Besides, I’ll not be torturing you for information. I already know all there is to know of your slavery ring. I’m here to torture you for justice. I am the hand of MotherCig, whose children you’ve stolen."

      "I’m not scared of your measly lie-detector."

      "The fear in your scaly face says the opposite."

      "Measly lie detector," Joren heard Kade mock aloud. Louder, the past-head of the Consulate police invited, "Take a seat, Raeleth. It won’t hurt at all, I promise. Once your friends watch your lies fall in screams, they’ll tearfully beg to confess every detail."

      "Get up and sit in the chair, Raeleth," Joren ordered, feeling short in temper for a beast.

      "You’re bluffing, Your Excellency."

      Joren pulled his favorite laser pistol from his uniform shell and aimed it at his lizard head.

      "I’m not bluffing. Test me. I don’t need you at all, Raeleth, and that should scare you. I’ll burn a hole through some unneeded appendage of yours to see your friends giving my men a list of every person involved in this conspiracy and their home addresses. We don’t plan a long visit, and I have few boundaries today, considering the subject of my family’s freedom.

      "I’m no longer a patient man, Raeleth. I’m in no mood for diplomatic strategies nor do I hold a drop of mercy for slavers, and I will see to your deep pain as the custodian of the Pygrian people. And Kade Quil has no mercy at all."

      "I don’t know where the off button is," Kade added.

      "You’ll kill me before you get me in that chair," Raeleth hissed.

      "That must’ve been a request, Raeleth. One I’ll gladly grant. You wouldn’t have suggested it if you knew how unnecessary you are to my search for truth. I already know the right answers, Raeleth. Anything I don’t already know, your friends will eagerly provide. Or ride the lightning of the mind-sweep."

      The emperor of ConsulateRhonta leaned closer to Raeleth's lizard gaze, the last time he’d look into such an evil soul. "I’m just here to look you in the eye and tell you that. That you’re unnecessary."

      Then he pulled the trigger, shot the lizard-tyrant in the head, a perfect hole bore through his thick skull.

      "Hail to the liberation of the Tillian Empire," the emperor said low as he watched the lizard man hit the floor. "Your brother will make a fine leader."

      Joren turned to address five sets of eyes bugged out at the sight of their co-conspirator’s quick execution. "Sometimes justice isn’t pretty, Statesmen. And I’m short-tempered today. I do not take betrayal well."

      The emperor examined Raeleth, now a cooling body absent of its owner. "The seat of the Secretary General is now open. I nominate myself for the position. Do I hear an aye?"

      "Aye, my lord," Ty and Kade shouted, and Joren sent the remaining world leaders a silent dare to mention Ty and Kade held no voting rights in the Union.

      "Is there a nay in this room?"

      Not so much as a sound circled the table, only fear in their eyes.

      Ty shouted, "Congratulations, Your Excellency."

      "Thank you, Governor. I’ve plans for many beneficial changes. Gentlemen, an undeserved compliment to you, you now have a choice. Watch the coronation of the Tillian Empire’s new commander on video-feed from a brig cell or a grave."

      The alien leaders looked sick.

      Joren set his laser across his lap and regarded the ruler of Plasies IV.

      "Palex, a man who has proven to be a good friend in the past. I did not expect you to be involved with the Viper so long ago in the trade of my citizens. I was disappointed to learn of it."

      The Plasien leader, as naturally pale as an albino, turned a red tinge, the likely reaction of a guilty man. Joren could see the dread in his yellow eyes. "How swayful you become, Palex, in setting a leash to the Consulate."

      "I’ve been a good ally at times, Your Excellency," Palex pled, his voice cracking a bit. "Does that not move you to mercy?"

      Joren propped a foot up on Raeleth’s former chair, the high seat of the Secretary General that was now his.

      "Palex, I’ve learned you’ve not only betrayed the Consulate Empire, my father’s reign and my own, you’ve orchestrated the black market to sell my people. I’ve evidence you’d bought the Pygrian women from the Desert Viper, and had harnessed what was left of the Black Watch to move your product through the galaxy.

      "Then, in the guise of a good man, you’ve worked to restrict the Consulate, convinced me to the good and honor of it, and I granted this eyes-closed trust of you. You’ve all collaborated to blind me to the truth, conspired to keep me from learning of your enterprise enslaving my citizens."

      Palex’s ugly eyes held no honor, but he did not unwisely attempt to cross Joren’s cold and definite accusation.

      "You are the Watchman, Palex," the emperor told him, not asked. "Of that, I no longer doubt my sources. The sheer number of my citizens on your planet speaks of your guilt."

      "What of our worlds’ centuries-long cooperation, my decades-long friendship with your father and then you? Does that now mean nothing at all?" Palex tried, a snarl at the corner of his mouth. His eyes revealed a livid spite, forced to grovel at Joren’s foot.

      The emperor’s feelings flowed easily on the matter. "In the light of your betrayal and illicit possession of my family, Palex, you mean nothing at all. You hold the next biggest count of my citizens. Get in the chair."

      Ty and Kade took the distance and clamped onto the man’s arms as he spun his head and shook, at a desperate loss to lie his way out of it. "You don’t have to do this, Your Excellency! I’ll tell you everything!"

      Ty and Kade hauled him to the machine.

      "You’ll confirm all I already know," Joren agreed tartly, watching the man squirm like an insect pinned under a microscope. "And any myth that I am a bluffer will fall away."

      "I didn’t do it for a particular hatred for you, Your Excellency! I only wanted to make money," he pled for the Crown’s sympathy. "I wish to make restitution to you for my theft!"

      "You do not have one theft against me, Palex. You have 6,382 of my citizens and have therefore committed, in the very least, 6,382 thefts against me. Add to that every universal credit you’ve netted from the sale of my people. Only one offense is enough to offend me, Palex."

      "My planet will give up the tainted money, my lord! Pay more so, if you wish!"

      Joren bored of his pleas. "You’ll find every universal credit you’ve received for my people will cost you personally far more than you’d ever estimated, Palex. I’ll see to it the mind-sweep doesn’t kill you."

      As Ty and Kade strapped him into the mind-sweep’s chair, the now-former world leader closed his jaundice-eyes in relief, and blubbered, "Thank you, your Excellency, for your mercy."

      "Don’t thank me. You’ll meet the mind-sweep’s purpose many more times to come."

      "But the physical torture of a man is outlawed, Your Excellency," Palex took a last shot at saving himself.

      Joren didn’t bother to address him visually, but with stone-cold sobriety, he turned to the others pale and fearful.

      "Palex, you’ve sold my people like animals behind the Consulate’s back. My back, Palex, and you stood before me in the guise of an honorable man as you perpetuated more crimes against my citizens for decades. You’ve set in motion the misery of unfortunate people. My people. That makes you a monster deserving more than what fractions of pain I can provide you."

      Screams ripped from the mind-sweep behind the emperor, but he easily ignored the noise, accustomed since teenhood to the interrogation device and the sounds of agony it drew. He heard Kade laugh, then Ty shouted, "That’s going too far, Kade Quil, you sadistic bastard!"

      "Kill-joy," Kade groaned.

      Joren returned his attention back on the four remaining world leaders who thought to turn on ConsulateRhonta, each of them appearing in preparation to meet his deities. "Would you like to know what will save you?"

      Fully engulfed in terror of their immediate futures, they nodded while wincing at the shrieks of their former colleague.

      Done with the delay of his first and true goal, Joren ordered, "You will give me every scrap of black-hole research you hold and every scientist involved."