The tragedy of Colonel Toros's life was not that he had lost a mere race at the high point of what had otherwise been an illustrious career. It was that he had lost to a team of children and therefore had forfeited the right to look anybody of consequence in the eye without that shame hanging over him. The Crogs of the Imperium were proud but they could still thrive having been defeated by a worthy foe. Strength was a virtue in their society. It was inevitable that one should experience loss. To say otherwise would belittle the achievements of those rare outliers who defied the odds and lived their lives in a cycle of victory. Those were the paragons of Crog society, favored by the gods for their success and not the other way around.
Children were absolutely not worthy opponents. They were the next generation, meant to be better than their forebearers in every way. But not yet. Caught between being sacred and being nothing at all, children held hazy esteem in the eyes of the Crogs. They were valued for what they would one day be, not for what they were - something that was only almost a functional being. There was no distinguishing between the worth of an infant and the worth of an adolescent. Both were something less than an adult and therefore less valuable to society as a whole. A Crog was not a Crog until he could survive a week out in the wilderness by himself, with no supplies besides his boyhood knife. That was the tradition of the southwestern clans. Short of that point, he was not worthy of any real attention.
It was simply bad luck for Toros that he had lost to the wrong team at the wrong time. Had he lost to the Earth team's original pilot, the shame would have been nonexistent. Perhaps it would have even set the grounds for grudging respect between the teams. That option had long since been annihilated, however, by the sheer horror the Imperium felt at having been bested by a child pilot so close to nothing in terms of respectability. As a result, Toros had willingly given up his place as pilot, retiring quietly out of public eye. It was better not knowing the end of his story. Kross doubted he would hear so much as a obituary at this point, never mind the fact that Toros had been until recently serving directly under him.
In truth, Kross was vexed by his sudden involvement in the Great Race and Toros's forcible retirement. His stint on Alwas had been shrouded in secrecy; nobody of unimportance was to have known that he was training up a protege to take his place. Toros might not have been related to him in blood but considering the generation gap between them, their camaraderie and shared culture, they had been a bit like a nephew and uncle pair. Toros was supposed to be the Crog to overshadow him, to bring back the Ultimate Prize to their people. Instead, he was disgraced and Kross was left again in the spotlight without a suitable successor. That was decades of work washed down the drain, all because of a petulant child who would not know her place.
To add insult to injury, their vassal planet of Nourasia was proving to be especially uncooperative. Their continued will to fight was commendable but had their prince simply lost to a single competitor at no cost to himself, then the Earth team would not have progressed to Oban and some justice would have been served. For whatever reason, however, Prince Aikka had decided that he would rather face the ire of the Imperium and sacrifice the safety of his planet than give up a fleeting friendship that by all accounts barely existed anyways. It was maddening but then again, the prince himself was barely an adult of his species.
What could one expect of children? Kross had to scoff at the thought. It was times like that when he questioned the wisdom of the Avatar and his so-called omniscience. For a being so ancient and powerful, he was proving to be either remarkably short-sighted or remarkably biased against the Imperium. It was only sheer luck that Kross had decided to accompany Toros on what should have been a routine campaign, otherwise the Crogs would have been left without a competent pilot. Mentally, he made a note about the Scrubs - arrogant and poor in resources, they were low priority targets for the Imperium after the truce ended. Whether or not they remained a hub of intergalactic activity after the races end was something to keep an eye on, however. The humans had shown how quickly trade between planets could empower any one relatively fragile species and it would not do for another to follow their example.
He did not see Toros off of Alwas. Face had to be saved in some way and being formally driven off by his direct superior surely would have ended Toros for good. There were rules and customs that had to be observed in order for the blow to be lessened, all of them requiring time which Kross did not have. Within two days of the races ending, he and his own Trident were headed for Oban alongside the other finalists, though it almost physically pained him to label them as such. They had not come to snatch victory from the hands of babes and he prayed that they would not be remembered for such an honor-less thing in the future. If the Avatar had any sense at all, then the other competitors at least should be adults of their species. Kross refused to be optimistic and thus was pleasantly surprised. Not by much but it was a start.
As it was, he was not terribly impressed with the other pilots who had made it to the finals. There was the Nourasian prince as a familiar yet still unwelcome face, a robot, two Inna warriors, two creatures of indiscriminate origin, and then one being who made Kross squint at his mere presence. Bathed in ethereal blue, it was impossible to miss his presence. Sul of Gumaria had evidently decided that the Ultimate Prize was worth his time, surprising considering his reputation for elusiveness. Kross supposed that every person had their price and marked him as the only real challenge in the finals. The Earth team was also regrettably present, though there was a brief period when he entertained hopes that one of the other competitors had devoured them.
Briefly, he had to wonder if the other competitors really thought so little of him that he would simply murder his way through their ranks in blatancy. That sort of thinking worked wonders on Kramm in its open councils but within the clans themselves, politics was both a matter of physical strength and careful tactical maneuvering. There were peers to cow, elders to impress, and children to corrupt. The southwestern clans in particular were vicious about their social hierarchies. Every Crog there was a soldier in heart, born to different classes to better serve their home. There had to be a certain amount of flexibility when dealing with others outside the clan, let alone outside the planet.
The first race itself proved that the other competitors were of little consequence. It was laughably easy to find the stone doors, their vibrations tracked instantly by his Trident's sensors. He passed by the Inna with ease, though there was a white speck in front of him and a blue one from behind, quickly gaining on his ship.
Kross frowned as Sul came fully into view. Lacking movable turrets, all he could do was perform maneuvers in an attempt to block the magician's way. It was no use, however. With a growing sense of disgust, the Crog watched as Sul's pyramid danced tauntingly in front of his ship's proton cannon. If the magician was going to be so overt in his arrogance, then Kross would make him work for it. There might have been a rule that one could not intentionally take the life of another competitor but if Sul were as powerful as rumored, then he should at least survive the barrage. With this in mind, Kross fired.
The Trident was an instrument of war. Racing and speed itself was only a secondary priority to pure firepower. One blast from its main cannon at full power could level several city blocks, though Kross refrained from going at full power for the time. He wanted to test Sul first, to see the true extent of his power. He fired off a series of low to moderate-powered blasts, each time striking true. The first few seemed to catch the magician off guard and he slowed; this was not for very long. Much faster than Kross would have liked, Sul was back at full speed, having brushed off his attacks as if they were nothing. Powering up his Trident to maximum thrust, Kross then fired twice, only to be met with the same result as Sul pulled ahead of the white racer and the first race on Oban was concluded.
Coming in at third place should have been an intolerable affair, not when the Crogs had been otherwise scoring so highly in the races. Kross, however, was contemplative. O, he was certain, had simply gotten lucky. Had he focused his shots on that racer instead, it was very possible that he would have come in at second place instead. No, the real vexation there had been Sul. If there was any exaggeration about his abilities, it could not have been by very much, at least not in terms of defensive capabilities. Any offensive abilities he might have were still unknown and somehow, that irked Kross more than anything. His opponent had not even deigned him worthy of a single shot. To a Crog, such an act was a show of extreme arrogance. It proclaimed that one was so pathetic and untrained that their opponent simply had to avoid them and allow them to defeat themselves first.
Magic was far from commonplace in the Imperium. At its purest, it was the domain of rural shamans and their apprentices. In the lowlands, the shamans communed with the spirits of the land. In the highlands, they favored the spirits of the skies. Sul seemed to fit in neither category. His brand of magic was the stuff of fairy tales, power that had either been lost to the Crogs or never obtained in the first place -it was not entirely clear. But Kross had to wonder what it would be like to have that sort of power at his side, of the planets that could be conquered by it. Were all Gumarians the same way? He thought not; of the entire species, only Sul was especially well known.
Thoughtfully, he gazed in direction of the module that Sul had emerged from during the race. There were rituals for making relationships of all types in Crog society - for friendships, for betrothals, for blood brothers. The problem here was that none of these were in any way close to what he was plotting to achieve. Crogs as a whole did not do alliances. They practiced vassalage instead, with themselves as the lords. That was the case with Nourasia. In most instances, however, they would merely raze a planet down to its barest defenses and take whatever was left over as spoils of war, as was with Byrus and countless others.
In actuality, Kross was not an advocate of scorched earth. The policy was far too punishing on land that could be better used otherwise and to strip a planet entirely of its resources only ensured that its tactical value would be completely lost in favor of what was ultimately a short term gain. Kross was a child of a merchant and a clan ambassador - he knew the importance of patience and diplomacy. It was not what the Crogs were known for but then again, nobody thought of a butcher's use as a doctor either.
Sul was the most powerful being on the planet, minus the Avatar, who was nowhere to be found, and Kross found that attractive in several ways. The merchant in him said that an asset like Sul would be invaluable but at an indescribable cost. There was nothing that Kross could reasonably offer him, being untrained in the shamanic arts and as religious as a lawyer. There was most likely nothing that Sul even desired, which raised questions of what he would possibly do with the Ultimate Prize in the first place. Kross could judge him for that later, however. What he needed at the moment was firstly a way to catch the magician's attention and then a way to retain it.
His inner diplomat was gleeful at the prospect of such non-violence.