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Regna couldn’t differentiate Wellnigh individuals, but she could hazard a safe guess. The name hissed past her incisors. "Tidniak."

"Pleased I lense you again, commander," the Wellnigh greeted. Even his screeching voice couldn’t disguise notes of triumphant sarcasm.

No chair had been provided for Regna. She stood before the seven aliens, but the seated Blakkarrions still rose closer than Regna’s own head. Their shoulder whips writhed. She stiffened, then angled her chin upwards. Brought before such a committee, she expected to die this day. A robot stood in the rear corner of the room. Regna could reasonably assume that it stood behind the organic members of the assembly to record her debriefing/trial, execute her when the Blakkarrions saw no further use of her, or both.

"How do you answer the charges?" the Blakkarrion at the center of the table commanded.

"I’m sorry, sir, but no charges have been expressed to me."

"This Qualmloid was taken into custody on my will as soon as we had landed on Beld following the retreated Angroolia," Tidniak screeched.

"Serious charges," the center Blakkarrion whispered.

"That we failed to take Angroolia?" Regna asked. If she omitted a few things that Tidniak might not be aware of, she held to the hope that she might live through the interrogation.

"We Blakkarrions place more emphasis on failure than Shalhoon," the center Blakkarrion said. "There has, in fact, been little failure since the Unifikashun formed. This makes yours unforgivable."

Quickly, Regna bowed her head and prayed her goodbyes to her husband and parents. When she straightened her neck, she faced the center Blakkarrion squarely to his yellow eyes. "I am a Shalhoon. I expected some of my own people at any hearing."

"Your people serve us," the center Blakkarrion hissed. "Emperor Tsaan’s alliance with your Shalhoon is in the clear role of the superior power. We demanded you, they gave you." The skin that covered the sharp frontal point of the bone plates on the Blakkarrion’s face wrinkled around his nostrils. Blakkarrions’ jaws set entirely beneath their large bulbous skulls. The nostril-wrinkle was the Blakkarrion’s best imitation of a sneer. "When the time is right, Tsaan will dispose of Kajer and his Shalhoon as easily as we shall dispose of you."

Regna’s eyes clouded even beyond the normal smoked translucence of Qualmloid eyes. They wouldn’t make threats against or admissions of intended betrayal of Shalhoon if they had any intention of letting her live....

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