THE COMMANDO HAD BARELY SURVIVED.
He'd been but microts from expiring when air had rushed back. Having collapsed back into a niche off the Command he'd gone unseen.
He'd hazily watched Muukarhi come onto command, begin her check on what had happened and he had been prepared to overlook it, for it had appeared that she had been the one responsible for the negation of what had happened.
When Crais entered, all he saw was a deserter, traitor and condemned criminal and the probable cause of the death of his comrades. He'd not considered simply hiding – his cold hate simply powered him out of his alcove and straight at the defector.
A swift blow to the back of Crais' head dropped him and a heavy-shod boot crashed into his back, bending Crais into a bow of pain. A sharp backhand flung the female aside and for a quick moment, the Commando pondered the many ways Crais could die – chose the immense satisfaction of choking the life from him. Another heavy blow stunned the ex-Captain and the Commando threw himself down, pinned the renegade and pulled the garrote he had on his belt, looped it around Crais' neck, locked it in and started pulling.
A choking gasp and renewed struggle exploded from him but the Commando knew there was little he could do. In moments, one of the more infamous – and reviled – Peacekeeper Captains would soon be nothing more than a fading memory.
Crais' only thoughts were of a rapidly-receding hope of survival and Talyn. He fought, but was weakening fast.
Muukarhi came from a society of cultural divides. Not in the human sense of there being disharmonious divisions, a born-into caste system with no hope of advancement or crossover, but of a society that made clear delineations of who did what, bent toward society's overall good.
Those of an intellectual or scientific bent, pure rationalists, hardcore realists, the technicians, the engineers, architects, etc., formed one caste (usually the one that ran the planet and colonies) – the one to which she belonged. There were those castes of the artisans, craftspersons, entertainers, those of that ilk. The religious castes (these tended to be small on the Homeworld simply because there were few organizations that actually encouraged irrationality as it was blatantly counterproductive). The philosophers castes, the warrior castes. With a few obvious exceptions, there was very little overlap, and fortunately, there was very little discrimination. All talents were taken into consideration, and were taken with the utmost seriousness and cultivated as well as could be. A scientist in the Science Caste had access to everything that would allow that scientist or tech or engineer to become the absolute best one possible.
That said, it was no surprise that Muukarhi was neither a warrior nor even of the mindset that permitted her, as a rule, to consider personal violence on her part toward another.
In the moment, and completely rationally, however, it was a different story.
Her intellectual pacifism aside, it did not prevent her from bringing the butt of a heavy rifle down across the back of the Commando's head and saving Crais' life.
It was not until she realized that she had killed the man did it begin to trouble her and not until Crais thanked her – to her mind for the man's death and not Crais' life – did the full horror of what she'd done come over her; cause her mind to simply blank out and for her to faint.
Crais, for his part, dazed, very sore and hurting, knew nothing of her turmoil and made her as comfortable as possible, nursed his wounds as best he could, and pointed the Vigilante back toward Abbanerex.
