Kia's Biehshah Gift

Chapter 24 Arguments And Fears

Many people stared at Ry'nao's empty chair. "Who will be emperor now? Was he sick?"

I held my hands up. "He's been fighting! Ry'nao is still emperor—"

"My Collective showed me how big this battle is! We can't win it! All of us need to bring our people back and run!"

Ir gasped. "There is no safe place from him! His troops surround our star systems, and if we try to leave, we will be slaves! Please, be calm—"

"Calm? We just saw our emperor die, and all of us are next! He saw what we're up against!" So many people shouted! You can't talk things out when emotion's this high! All of our Biehshah and Zheien paled by a lot.

"Look, everyone, you need to think about this. All your Collectives are upset. When you take a breath and stop, they will. Together, we can do this. We have powerful enemies, but we have powerful friends, too." I studied the panicked faces, but my Collective reached out to all the others. We tapped into the Diplomatic Link and showed 'em victories won by people like them, new to Cubes.

A man stood up. "Did you show them how many people like us died?"

Dromie ran around and firework lights came from his hands. "I brought them back! I brought entire galaxies of civilizations back, and all of my people, to fight him! Most of them want revenge on Rentappenen. Feel his fear? He can't hide it from us!"

I shivered. Ryonne~'s golden eyes opened past wide. "Dromie, you must ne do this! He can strike at us—"

"It works both ways. Feel the deaths in his Collective? In Eriganh's? They work with death and fear. If their members of their Collectives try to argue, he kills them. Many are leaving, now that they see us releasing slaves. They want to be free! Their new clones see this and refuse to help him! He is losing strength and we are doing it.

Most of the arguments died down. They saw it happening. We did, too.

I saw Daka, and he gathered escaped people from Eriganh's Collective, Rentappenen's, and people who left Satauuver's, but now that Ray gave King Wtensau the Cube, they rejoined it and took these disgruntled members there. Showed Ir. Our son is not only fighting, he is healing people fighting. I let them see that, too.

"I'm scared! I want to quit!" That teen sobbed in her parents' arms.

"Honey, I know you're scared. We were, too." Her mother also cried.

"But, we helped Daka organize people. Ry'nao said, courage is not lack of fear. Courage is acts despite fear. All of us were afraid. We saw people die horribly who disobeyed their slavers. Do you know how few the slavers are? They work by terror. They make examples of people who can't fight back." Her father hugged her.

"We showed them that people who can't fight might have good ideas. Some of our most disabled people were that way because they fought, and even when they couldn't do some things, they found ways to slow down the enemy. At times, the timing of where they were in a mine created a bottleneck and slowed production.

"One slave was Zheien. Everyone loved him because he showed love to even injured guards, and they became our double agents. They would put him on a narrow path that slaves had to carry ore up for processing. People refused to walk on him, and they couldn't go around. People made an obstacle and guards couldn't tell what was going on. Slaves used the ore by his directions to build a wall to block that path, then they moved up and found people barely able to walk and built a wall there, until they got to the guards at the entrance. Slavers are stupid. They expect trouble outside the entrance, not inside it! Organized slaves either convinced their guards to help them or put them in stasis, because they now had tech, and they took over ships.