The Refugee (The Korvali Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

in space. The ship, very small in size and quite unimpressive in design, was distinctly Korvali. It barely qualifies the title of ship! The vessel was similar to others encountered previously. Our best men very quickly and easily gained entry to the vessel. The vessel contained six Korvali persons, all deceased. The bodies will be handled in the usual way.  

    Signed,

    Gro Karo, 4th Class, Rank 2
    3rd Regiment, Jula

    Catherine sat back in her chair. This has happened before?
    Reading over the report again, Catherine’s lip curled at the officer’s tone. She’d heard that Sunai males were full of themselves. She glanced at the officer’s class and rank: he was only a Gro and not especially high up on the Sunai military totem pole. If this report were any indication, others’ accounts of Sunai men were not unfounded.
    Catherine moved on to the second, longer document. She could find no insignia or other sign of its origin, which meant it couldn’t have come from any planetary government or from the Alliance. A quick glance over the first several lines revealed that the English was acceptable, although choppy enough to indicate that either an otherworlder had written it or an interpreter had translated the document into English. But after reading the first of many long paragraphs, Catherine realized that the document’s author was not Sunai, human, or even Derovian. The author was Korvali, one of their Guard.
    Catherine read the entire lengthy document in one sitting. It offered a first person narrative of the unsettling political situation in the industrialized region of Korvalis, and all the historical events that led to it. After scrolling down more, she found an appended report from the Alliance that summarized the document’s important points. She chuckled; the brass, especially if not scientists, never wanted to read a long, detailed document.  

    Summary:

Korvalis’s industrialized region had known peace at one time under the rule of the previous monarchial line, all of whom were descended from the Osecal clan. However, the young Osecal malkaris (monarchial leader) died unexpectedly. His only sibling, a sister, also died at a young age, and both passed before either married or bore any heirs. Next in line for the throne was the eldest cousin, who took her place as ruler.  
In an unusual turn of events, the new malkaris severed her bond with her current mate and instead chose a mate from the Shereb clan. Such an unjoining and rejoining is an extremely rare occurrence among the Korvali. This began the shift in power to the Shereb clan after fifteen generations of Osecal rule.  
Together, the malkaris and her mate eradicated the Osecal representatives from their government seats and appointed a new kunsheld (non-monarchial political leader). The new kunsheld, a Shereb and former assembly member called Elisan, usurped most of the assembly’s power. The people protested this violation of Doctrine; but nothing changed. Korvalis has experienced turmoil since.  
The political upset had its far-reaching consequences for their social and economic structure, and it created unrest among the clans and fostered occasional rebellions of minor scale. Escape attempts by non-Shereb citizens became a challenge for the Korvali Guard. Korvali Doctrine forbids its citizens to leave their planet without permission from the kunsheld. However, until the shift in power to the Shereb clan, attempts to leave without permission were unheard of.
With these escape attempts, the Korvali Guard retrieved the rogue vessel and took its passengers to prison. No outsiders knew of these attempts that got no further than ~300 parsecs from Korvalis. Lack of FTL technology and the planet’s isolated location made successful escape extremely difficult. Those few ships managing to avoid the Guard’s detection lacked the ability to reach Suna—the closest inhabited planet—in a timely fashion; the Guard eventually found them. If not caught,