Free Into Tolari Space (Tales of Tolari Space) by Christie Meierz Page B

Undermining the Sural’s authority was his main purpose. The Sural had ruled Tolar long enough. The Jorann should let someone else take power.
    Someone like the Monral.
    He’d spent the last fifty years building and strengthening alliances all over the planet, at the same time doing whatever he could to undermine the Sural’s rule without being traced. When the time came, the ruling caste would see the wisdom of returning to conventional rule, with the Monral as the obvious choice to lead them. The Sural could still keep his province of Suralia, and rumor had it he was not ambitious, that he ruled Tolar only because the Jorann had decreed he would.
    The Jorann. The Mother of all Tolari. She could do as she pleased, and what she had a history of being pleased to do was to avoid interfering in the affairs of her children, with the notable exception of anointing her grandchildren to lead the ruling caste. One of them appeared every several hundreds of years or so, upsetting the balance of power along with the ambitions of many provincial rulers.
    What the Jorann could do, she could also undo. She could decree that the Sural was no longer the planetary ruler, if she could be convinced to do it.
    There was no other way to unseat the man. The Jorann’s grandchildren ruled as long as they wished, and the Sural was no exception. He was impossible to assassinate. Even if someone could get through his stronghold defenses – not a realistic objective, given the absurd number of guards serving him – he was unkillable. There wasn’t a ruler alive who could match the kind of speed and strength of which he was capable. He was in his prime, fully triggered, fully alert, not yet allowing himself to age: a very, very dangerous individual. If ever he allowed himself to become old and doddering, then the Monral, an expert fighter like every ruler on Tolar, might be able to kill him. As it was, the Sural could kill an assassin before that assassin even knew he was there.
    The Monral sighed and pushed himself up from his chair. It was time to prepare his stronghold staff for the humans’ arrival.
    * * *
    The pilot guided the shuttle down at the steepest safe angle of descent, coming in over the ocean toward the coast of Monralar to minimize the chance of being seen by and frightening the Monral’s neighbors. It was a rough ride, and he offered profuse apologies once he was able to level out into a smooth descent onto the roof of the massive fortress that was the Monral’s stronghold.
    “Don’t worry about it, Commander,” Smithton told him. “I’ve been through plenty of worse.”
    Addie agreed by nodding with a solemn expression and wide eyes. The commander laughed and released the shuttle’s hatch. Smithton climbed out of his seat, slung both their travel bags over one shoulder, and stepped out onto the stronghold roof, Addie right behind him. An ominous creak under their feet broke the quiet. He grabbed Addie’s hand and pulled her away from the sagging stonework, shouting at the pilot to get back into the air before that section of the ceiling fell on the stronghold’s inhabitants. The hatch whooshed shut as the pilot sent the small vessel into an emergency lift-off. It rocketed straight up, hovered a moment as if the pilot was making sure the roof wasn’t collapsing, then headed for orbit.
    Smithton breathed a sigh of relief. Addie waved at the departing shuttle, though the pilot couldn’t possibly see them. He shook his head. Women.
    Wondering where the welcoming party was, he looked around just as a head appeared through a corner of the roof. He stared, then realized that the head was attached to a Tolari emerging from a stairwell. He took Addie’s arm and led her in that direction.
    The young male Tolari stopped before them, a welcoming expression lighting his face. Smithton would have judged him to be in his early twenties, if he were human. He was of moderate height, with knee-length black hair tied into elaborate