Aftermath

"They view it as an act of war sir." Ambassador Forlein did not like his job, he didn't like working for Morlatech, but he was born into their service and it was his job to serve. Being in Morley's chambers made him feel more than uncomfortable, he had heard several tales of people speaking to Morley and never returning he did not want to be one of those.

"Of course they do, the damned fools." Morley had seen the reports watched the video, those damnable Morderes, he'd attempted to wipe them out over several hundred years but they persisted like an infection you could never cure.

"They want reparations for the offense."

"What will it take for them to go away?"

"The Zanatoni sector." Morley growled though it was hard to hear over his implants, Zanatoni had a lot of promising materials and relics to plumb, but not promising enough to go to war over.

"Fine, fine give it to the damned fools we'll just wait until they overextend themselves and beg for our help, but Ambassador if they request something else it will go badly for you."

"You're very generous sir, thank you sir." Forlein walked out and Morley was left alone with his rage.

"LORENTINO!!!!!!!" He knew this was Trezlan, somehow that clown had arranged his son to wind up on his ship and get saved and he knew that Morley would pursue the child all the way into imperial space. Somehow he had arranged this and that pissed Morley off because Trezlan was an idiot and no way should ever get one over on Morley not now not ever! Morley resolved to send someone to kill Trezlan again, maybe this time it will be successful.

***

"You ever get the feeling you've pissed someone off for something you didn't do?" Trezlan was standing in front of a table full of guns the sketchy character in front of him looked at him oddly.

"No? Can we just finish this deal and get out of this cave I don't like it." The cave had at one time been the lair of a group of spiders, but Trezlan had killed the spiders, mostly he was pretty sure he got all of them.

"Sure sure, just let me savor this for a moment." He didn't know why, he didn't know how, but he knew somewhere Morley was very angry and that brought a smile to his face.