To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch36 The King

The King

King X'thar had been expecting the Hellworlders to request a meeting, aggrieved clans who had no hope of winning their case always tried to sway things in their favor by groveling before him. In fact he had pulled some strings to push some council members closer to Kazlum's side to place some pressure on the Hellworlders and force those proud fools to throw themselves before his throne, begging and pleading for his help.

He had done this many times before, meddling in petty trials so that he could extort a large tribute in exchange for his support. He had amassed quite the fortune by playing the squabbling factions off each other, some tens of thousands of acres of land within the pricey core worlds, several city blocks on the richest worlds of the Union, and his own private fleet of luxury super yachts where he would often spend his time in leisure. In fact he wasn't the first of his dynasty to come up with this idea, his ancestors had used the pride and arrogance of these barbaric pirates to establish themselves as one of the galaxies richest families. When X'thar had come to power over two hundred years ago his greatest concern was with eliminating his sibling and far-flung cousins so that he could slowly bring the vast wealth of his dynasty thoroughly under his control. And now that he was the last of his dynasty he no longer had to worry about rivals or challengers, he just had to continue to do what his ancestors had done for years.

He sat imperiously in his highbacked chair in his expansive and richly adorned office as the Hellworlder was let in by his steward. He looked over the smaller female with barely a hint of interest, which was only sort of an act. His dynasty had watched other deathworlders rise and fall through the ranks of the pirate rabble many times before, and the Terrans despite their great feats and terrible reputation would fall just like every other deathworlder before them. They couldn't escape that fate; it was the curse of all deathworlders. Their worlds were not conducive to creating lifeforms that could survive their own success. Deathworlders lived on the knifes edge of annihilation throughout their whole history, always just barely keeping ahead of the hostile environment by being greedy, aggressive, and ruthless. Such creatures simply could not last long in a galaxy that had long since learned to thrive off of peace and stability. Deathworlders either turned their impressive military on the galaxy and became just another marauding deathworld empire, or slowly drove their worlds into an environmental decline as they overworked the land and exhausted their resources. The Terrans were of the latter sort of deathworlders and their homeworld's extremely high classification drove them into that decline faster than anyone had ever seen before.

He knew that he had nothing to fear from these creatures, in hundred years or so they would fade away and he would reap the benefits of their aggressive rise and fall. He had nothing to fear from Terrans as a whole, but the female before him made him uneasy. In only a few years she had risen in through the ranks of the Terran fleet, broken away and established her own fleet, and had grown so fast that she now rivaled some of the weaker factions that made up the Council of Nine. She had destroyed the Terran fleet and now seemed to be on the verge of war with someone as feared as Kazlum. X'thar might have nothing to fear from Terra in the long term, but in the short term this woman could potentially overturn the status quo that had existed long before X'thar was even born. Disruption like that was dangerous for his interests, and if it hadn't been that arrogant little upstart Kazlum that she wanted to destroy X'thar would have taken this opportunity to crush her.

The Aunviry had grown too strong under Kazlum, and X'thar had a suspicion that he might be angling for his throne. So now he was forced to work with the lesser of two evils, and he planned to extort an exorbitant tribute from her hide.

"Greetings my King" she said respectfully.

X'thar glared at her, though he was in all rights the king of this ridiculous confederacy his ancestors had meticulously insisted that they were only a simple elected figure. "Know your place girl, you shall address me as Grand Chairman."