Eclipsed Crown

The MacLee Chronicles Book 3

By

Jina S. Bazzar

Copyright (C) 2023 Jina S. Bazzar.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

Cover art by MiblArt.

Table of Contents

Eclipsed Crown

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Shadow Walker (Shadow Walker Book 1)

Character list & Glossary (in alphabetical order)

Other books by Jina S. Bazzar

About The Author

Chapter 1

I awoke in my cabin, lying on my bed. The lights were dim, the hum of the engine underneath me steady and somewhat soothing. There were no blaring alarms, and a glance around revealed I was alone in the room. I stretched, flexed my muscles, and wiggled my toes and fingers, and everything obeyed, though a bit stiffly. A tentative probe in my head told me Mac was out, but I had expected that after the deep merging, so I wasn’t concerned yet. I only hoped that it didn’t take him as long as the last time to come back online.

Self-assessment complete, I sat up and my stomach protested, along with my brain. I dropped my head into my hands and took slow, shallow breaths until my insides stopped flopping about and the cabin ceased spinning. I skimmed my fingers over my right side, finding sore, but whole and unmarred skin. However long I’d been out, it was long enough for the injuries I’d gotten shielding Ravi from the plas grenade to heal.

Someone had changed my ripped and bloodied clothes into a large black tunic. I pulled the collar up and sniffed. It smelled of Ravi—his soap, cinnamon, and smoke, as well as the masculine musk that was entirely him. He must have left it behind when he’d disembarked a few days ago because he sure as hell hadn’t packed a bag this time.

It was the unique blend of his scent, more than my controlled breathing, that settled my nerves. It gave me a semblance of safety that was at odds with my situation. A situation I’d created. Yet had I not acted when I did, I had no doubt Dolenta, Zafra, Cassandra, and even Lorenzo would all be dead. Hell, I’d barely made it in time.

While I probably wouldn’t have shed a tear for Lorenzo, Cassandra was another matter. Not counting how Zafra and Dolenta had grown on me, despite our limited acquaintance. I didn’t want to mourn their loss if I could help it.

They could still die, I thought. We can all still die. But for now, we were all alive.

I reached for the stand and pulled open the drawer with my emergency stash of protein bars just as the cabin door slid open.

I knew who it was, even before I met flat, umber eyes.

Here we go.

Sighing inwardly, I picked up a meal bar and a bottle of water. Ravi watched me demolish three bars and drink the whole bottle in silence, his blank mask in place.

“Go ahead,” I said, balling the wrappers in my fist. “Just say it.”

“Thank you,” he said.

My head jerked up so fast, I almost gave myself whiplash. “What?”

“May I?” He indicated the chair across from me.

I inclined my head. His calm demeanor didn’t fool me. I’d remotely piloted the Splendor to the rescue, engaging in complex maneuvers and fleeing out to space. Without any gadget. Something no one in the galaxy was supposed to pull off. Yes, things had been pretty chaotic then, but I was sure that tidbit of information hadn’t been lost on him.

“I had an interesting talk with Mac before he shut down,” he said casually as he unlocked the chair, moved it around, and sat. He didn’t look up as he spoke, as if the act of turning the chair needed all his attention, so I had time to process the shock and conceal my anxiety.

I made a non-committal sound in my throat. I was going to kill Mac. I was going to unplug him from my wrist, put him in the airlock, and cycle him out. Preferably in deep-space.

“He threatened to space me if I so much as harmed a hair on your head.”

“Uh-huh.” I selected another meal bar, though I really didn’t want to put anything in my now queasy stomach. Although I grasped the seriousness of what I’d done and how damning Mac’s revelation was, I wasn’t as freaked out as I should have been, not yet. It always took me a few minutes to shake off the apathy of melding with machine, probably more, considering the last merging had been deeper. On the other hand, this was supposed to make it easier for me to think objectively.

It wasn’t.

“Do you want to tell me about him?” Ravi asked as he finally looked up.

I stopped chewing and met his gaze. “What’s there to say? He’s a sentient AI and we’re connected. Isn’t that enough?”

“Do you want it to be?”

I scowled at him. “Just say what you want to say.”

There was a flash in his eyes, a flicker of emotion too complex for my brain to discern.

“We’re landing on Dupilaz Moon in an hour,” he said. “That trick with the registration was clever. It bought us the time we needed to figure out our next steps. I have connections I can reach out to, but we don’t know who was involved in the attack, so we’ll lie low for a bit while I try to suss them out and see where their loyalties lay.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. I felt like the world had paused on my end while the rest had gone on, leaving me out of sync with the universe. I didn’t understand what he was doing or the motive behind it. Was he trying to keep me off guard by ignoring the blazing topic? Had he missed the part about Mac being a sentient AI? I thought back over his words. No, he definitely knew; he’d spoken with Mac, for crying out loud.

Ravi noticed my perplexed expression and stopped speaking. Understanding dawned on his face, making his eyes warmer, more approachable. He always seemed to read me effortlessly. Most times, he was spot on.

“What-what are you doing?” I asked.

In response, he leaned forward. He stopped centimeters away from my face, his breath—smelling of coffee and pastry—caressing my cheeks.

“I don’t care what you are,” he breathed, eyes fixed on mine. From this close, I could see the sincerity in them, the depth of emotion he held in check. “I don’t care if you have a murderous AI implant riding in your wrist or not.” His hand traced the air around my head, his focus going distant. “I can see the vitality around you, that’s enough reassurance for me. I don’t need tests and evaluations, and I don’t care what others think. I care that you’re you and that you’re mine. Is that straightforward enough for you?”

My heart was pounding in the base of my throat. My eyes prickled with tears at the genuine acceptance conveyed in his words. I lowered my head and blinked them away. “Thank you.”

His fingers cupped my chin and raised my face. “I do care that you put your life at risk for me and that you don’t trust this thing between us. I don’t want that. I want you to be open with me, to trust that I won’t harm you or shut you out.”

“Trust is earned,” I said softly. “It isn’t something I can give freely, even if I wanted to.”

Ravi nodded. “Then I’ll endeavor to prove myself to you.” He caught my hand and brought it to his mouth. “I’m not going to let you down, beloved. You’re mine, now and forevermore.”

It sounded like a binding vow. It made me more nervous than it ought to.

“How’re the others?” I asked to change the subject.

Ravi leaned back, a faint smile tilting the corners of his mouth, as if he knew this was making me uncomfortable and wanted to give me the space I silently asked for. “A bit banged up but otherwise fine.”

I smoothed the blanket on my lap. “What did you tell them? About me?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Lorenzo knocked his head and was unconscious when I brought you in.”

“The others?”

“Cassandra and Zafra saw me bring you in. They have yet to ask me anything.”

“What are you planning to tell them?”

“Nothing. It’s up to you what you want them to know.” He hesitated a second.

“What?” I demanded, bracing myself for the other shoe I knew was ready to drop.

“My parents, Furox, and Zafra are aware of your cybernetics. Maybe she figured it allows you to remotely pilot. But I don’t think she’ll bring it up unless you do first.”

I didn’t have time to feel anything about that, or ask the questions that came to mind: who told his family about my illegal modifications? What did they say? Why were they told in the first place?

Footsteps approached the cabin at a fast clip. We turned to face the door. Cassandra appeared a moment later and took us in—me on the edge of the bed, wearing Ravi’s tunic while he sat only a few centimeters away, facing me.

“You’re up.” She took the five steps that brought her to my side and threw her arms around me. “I was so worried,” she said and dropped her head on my shoulder. “I thought I lost you again.” Her voice shook with emotion.

I patted her on the back and tried to come up with something to say.

“There was so much blood,” she whispered into my neck and squeezed me tighter.

I met Ravi’s eyes, caught the anguish that her words conjured, and felt something inside my chest unfurl. Warmth at their obvious concern, and regret for being the reason for it.

“I’m fine,” I promised. I rubbed Cassandra’s back and held Ravi’s gaze when I added, “I’m tougher to kill than I look.”

Ravi dipped his chin in acknowledgment, stood, and left the cabin silently.

“What about Sullivan and Lorenzo?” I asked.

“I’m waiting to hear from Sullivan,” Cassandra said, leaning back and wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “I sent out a message, though he hasn’t replied. It might take him a while before he remembers to check his backup comms, so I’m not worried yet. Lorenzo was irritated that we left Krozalia and complained that we should go back, but Ravi put an end to his bitching with a few terse words.”

That surprised me. “Lorenzo wants to go back? Why? I’d think he’d be jumping on the first shuttle out of a conflict zone.”

Cassandra shrugged. “He has things to prove, I guess. He doesn’t want to go without making sure the trade will hold with or without the emperor.”

A memory of Vera’s empty eyes and the emperor’s limp hand flashed in my mind. “What do we know about the attack so far?”

Cassandra’s expression turned cold. “Not much. Someone killed the emperor and tried to kill the princess. Because they didn’t get Dolenta, the planet went bat-shit crazy. Zafra said that in three days, if no one tames the Tanue, Krozalia would self-destruct.”

I paused in the act of throwing away the protein wrappers and glanced up in alarm. “I’m sorry. What did you just say?”

“There’s a spirit in the core of the planet called Tanue.”

I waved my hand in dismissal. “I know that. I meant the three-day deadline; explain that again. Are you saying I should have let them kill the princess?”

Cassandra scoffed. “Of course not. There’s this link between the royal family and the Tanue, something about the bloodline taming the spirit. It’s very woo-woo and half of it went over my head.” She dropped into Ravi’s seat. “It seems like the rebellion was to kill the emperor and princess at the same time, or as close as possible so that they could announce this Moresy Cotelum competition thing to ferret out the next ruler.”

I canted my head to the side, eyes on the gray ceiling. I remembered that Thern had mentioned something about the competition before but was unable to recall if there had been an explanation. I made a face. “I think I heard about that before.”

“It’s crazy stuff, but it’s the Krozalian solution when there’s no royal heir to claim the throne. Anyone capable of using magic can compete to prove themselves worthy to the Tanue. Whoever wins becomes the next ruler.”

“But Dolenta didn’t die,” I began, forming the rest of the problem in my head, even as Cassandra voiced it aloud.

“No, and the Tanue is untethered and in distress. Moresy Cotelum can’t be invoked, and in three days—well, two days and six hours, if the kid doesn’t tame the spirit, the planet will implode.”

Chapter 2

Sneaking onto Dupilaz Moon with the most important person in the galaxy was surprisingly easy. Everyone seemed to be holding their collective breaths, anxiously waiting for Krozalia’s fate. A mass exodus from the planet was underway, with people wanting to escape its imminent destruction. Dupilaz was overrun with panicky Kroz. It made me wonder if the moon was the farthest they could go, despite the presence of other stations in the system and colonized moons. And yet, if something happened to Krozalia, Dupilaz Moon wasn’t going to come out unscathed.

Because we’d come out from the hop on the other side of the moon, it was easier to fake our arrival as coming from deep-space. With the Splendor’s new registration, we docked into the work bay as Diamond Star, a privately owned cargo ship.

“If you need anything, use the fake ID I set up,” I said to Cassandra.

“Yes, yes,” Cassandra said as she stood and stretched. “You’ve said that already. Five times.”

Since Cassandra was the least likely person to be recognized, it was decided she’d be the one to get supplies for the rest while we searched for suitable and safe accommodations. We could stay on the ship for a few more hours, but we needed to keep our ears to the ground and find out what was happening and what was being said about Krozalia.

“There’s a vacancy in the Drell Hotel,” Mac said in my ear. He’d come online half an hour ago and refused to tell me what he and Ravi had discussed. Fine by me, as long as they didn’t get into the habit of talking behind my back.

“It has two bedrooms and a parlor that can be converted into a third.”

“Hmm,” I said, checking the specks on my screen.

Ravi appeared behind me and studied the floor plan. “Which floor?”

“Third,” I said. “It has a back maintenance entrance here we could use for a quick getaway.” I indicated the door.

Mac shifted the view to the back street. “If you take this road and then the right,” he said through the speakers, “you’ll be able to come out by the docks. If you need a hasty retreat, you can be on the ship within ten minutes.”

Ravi grunted. “Sounds good. We’ll take it.”

“Excellent. I’ll make reservations under Captain Barenik from the Diamond Star.”

I slanted my head to glance up at Ravi, needing to see his expression.

“He told me he wouldn’t come online for a few days,” he mused. The tender look in his eyes quickened my pulse.

“He set a backup charge after the last time in case we burned out again, but he thought it was better to keep expectations low.” I shrugged one shoulder, as if it was perfectly normal to discuss Mac with Ravi.

Zafra walked in with Dolenta in tow, the former still dressed in a floral dress, the latter in one of my shirts and drawstrings. It was a bit big on her, but she’d been covered in blood from a deep gash on the forehead she received when I’d maneuvered to avoid the plas cannon fire. Zafra had cleaned and bandaged the cut, claiming Lorenzo needed the med unit more.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Zafra said, dropping into the co-pilot’s chair. “It’s not your fault.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t feel the guilt,” I muttered.

“Had the plas cannon hit the ship, we’d all be fish food in the bottom of the sea.” Zafra pointed a finger at Ravi. “Tell her.”

“I did,” he said with a sideways glance at me.

“I could have ducked,” I muttered. Rolling was more efficient, but I could have ducked fire by dipping the ship.

“I’ve had worse training with him,” Dolenta said with a chin point at Ravi. “This will heal quicker than my father’s death.” A tear accompanied her quiet words and my heart constricted.

Ravi took a knee in front of the princess and crossed his right arm over his chest, fist covering his heart. He spoke lilting words in Krozalian that carried the intonation of poetry.

“I failed my emperor,” Mac translated in my ear, “but I’ll not fail you. I’ll avenge his death. I’ll make those responsible pay and then I’ll sunder them all.”

More tears fell from Dolenta’s eyes. Ravi stayed kneeling, head bowed.

Dolenta sniffed and replied in Krozalian.

“Nothing will bring my father back,” Mac translated. “I don’t know that I can rule Krozalia. I don’t think I have what is needed. My magic isn’t strong and—”

“You’re strong enough,” Ravi interrupted in Universal, his words firm and filled with conviction. “You’ll be a fair and fierce empress. Your father would have never announced his abdication had he not believed in you. I believe in you.”

“If my vote counts,” I added, “so do I.”

“As do I,” Zafra put in. “You can do this, Koshka. We believe in you.”

Dolenta dried her tears with the hem of the t-shirt and nodded. “I can do this.”

“Damn right you can.” I gave her a thumbs-up to emphasize my support.

Cassandra returned with shopping bags filled with clothes and gadgets and news. Lorenzo followed her in, slinking quietly to the emergency seat. I expected him to say something abrasive and was surprised when he kept his vitriol to himself. Even his expression was void of hostility. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Cassandra distributed her purchases by their tags, passing Zafra and Dolenta matching gray boxes before handing Lorenzo and Ravi brown ones. She’d changed too, though she had been the least tattered of us, managing to keep her clothes intact and mostly void of bloodstains.

“Let’s get cleaned up before we tackle the news,” Cassandra suggested.

I stood. “I’ll throw a meal together while you do.”

***

“I got a message from Sullivan,” Cassandra announced once we finished the pasta casserole I’d made with canned corn and green peas.

Lorenzo straightened from his slump, his attention focusing. “What did he say?” he demanded.

“A group of Kroz is keeping everyone prisoner in the castle in the guise that they need to find the person who killed the emperor and kidnapped the princess.” She squeezed Dolenta’s hand in apology and glanced at Ravi and me. “They’re blaming the two of you, telling everyone in the castle that they’re being held to keep them safe.”

I scoffed. “They can’t believe that. It’s an obvious lie; no one is going to fall for it.”

“Actually, some did. They seemed to have planted a communication device in your room. Sullivan said they used the rebellion attack plan recorded in the device to convince the advisory board.”

I was in the process of denying the accusation with sarcasm when I cringed. The strange device I’d taken from Flenna, the Kroz with the Shivarhi blade. I had left it in the pocket of the jacket I’d been wearing.

“What is it?” Ravi asked.

I licked my lips. “Was this communication device about the size of my pinkie, with holes on one side and bumps on the other?”

Zafra pulled back with a gasp. “You had a communication device?”

“I didn’t know it was a communication device. It looked like a toy piece. I took it from Flanna on the day of the riot. It was in the pocket of my jacket.”

“Well, shit.” Ravi raked a hand through his hair.

“They’d assume Ravi gave it to you for safekeeping,” Cassandra said. “Since your CTF status gives you diplomatic immunity.”

“The CTF is not responsible for Captain Colderaro’s actions,” Lorenzo interjected.

Ravi spared him a withering look, and Cassandra shook her head at him.

“Sullivan said that some of the Kroz were brought from outside,” Cassandra continued. “They were still dressed in night clothes, as if they’d been rousted from bed.”

Ravi nodded. “It’s easier to catch someone if you round up everyone who hasn’t pledged their loyalty to you.”

“Prevents your enemy from seeking help,” Zafra added.

“You don’t look surprised,” I remarked, studying him.

Ravi sighed. “It’s what I would do.”

“This means Dupilaz’s guards will be on the lookout for us.”

“The Kroz hasn’t revealed to the public the details about what happened,” Cassandra said. “The only thing they announced was the death of the emperor. In my opinion, there doesn’t seem to be enough panic.”

“There’s an exodus from the planet,” I reminded her incredulously.

“Hardly. Not everyone understands the importance of the Tanue,” Zafra explained.

“So the ships leaving Krozalia?” I asked, a bit confused.

“Some of those who understand what the emperor’s death means will try to leave. Others will wait, trusting that the next ruler will do what needs to be done. Others simply don’t have the resources to leave. Krozalia is a wealthy planet, but space travel is not something everyone enjoys. Many have never left their towns, much less their cities. For them, escaping Krozalia will not be an option.”

“That,” Cassandra said with a pointed finger at Zafra. “And the massive campaign to reassure the citizens that the Tanue is not unstable and that things will soon be resolved.”

“They don’t want mass hysteria,” Mac observed.

“There’s no gain if the powerful Kroz evacuate before they announce Moresy Cotelum,” Zafra finished.

“That’s why those who are leaving are coming here,” Ravi put in. “They want to get out of the way and at the same time, stay close, should they find themselves needing to make a quick return.”

“Makes sense,” Mac said in my ear.

“Did Sullivan give you any names of the people holding the castle?” Ravi asked Cassandra.

“He had a message for you.” Cassandra pulled her commlink and tapped a few buttons. “He said as an officer for the Confederacy, they had no right to keep him prisoner and demanded he be released. So the Kroz sent him back to the Blue Wing. There are guards at the door, apparently for his safety, and they send someone to check on him every two to three hours.” Writing appeared above her commlink, columns of Krozalian text that I couldn’t read. “He said it was from Furox.”

All three Kroz relaxed with the news. For that matter, so did I. I’d only known Furox for a few days, but I came to consider him a friend.

“What is it?” Lorenzo asked, leaning forward to look at the foreign script as if less distance would suddenly make him Kroz-literate.

“I don’t understand,” Dolenta said. “Those are all members of the advisory board and prominent Kroz. What does that mean?” She pushed her plate away and looked between Ravi and Zafra for an answer.

“It means that we have some house cleaning to do before we instate you as empress,” Zafra said grimly.

“But Linsky?” Dolenta asked, then firmed her trembling lips. “He can’t be in on this. He was close to my father.”

“The emperor was aware of Linsky’s duplicity,” Ravi said softly. “He had people watching him.”

Dolenta exhaled, dabbed away a stray tear, then squared her shoulders.

Cassandra covered her hand and squeezed. “Let it out, kiddo. No one here is going to judge you.”

“No. Not now. I’ll grieve properly when this is all over.” She raised her chin as if defying anyone to contradict her resolve.

“We’ll grieve with you, then,” Cassandra said.

Ravi tapped a line of symbols a few lines down from the top. “Romero. My contact here is his brother.”

“Kiflo?” Zafra asked with a thoughtful expression. “He might not be part of the rebellion.”

Ravi grunted. “Maybe not. But we’re not in a position to take risks.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked. “If Dolenta needs to tame this Tanue spirit, shouldn’t we be heading back to Krozalia?”

“They’ll be on the lookout for that.”

Lorenzo cleared his throat. “I might know someone who can help.”

We all turned to look at him.

“Here, on Dupilaz Moon?” Zafra asked with incredulity.

“Who?” Ravi demanded at the same time.

Lorenzo shrugged. “I have an address and a code. I know they can give us a safe place to stay for a while, and maybe even help us sneak back to Krozalia undetected.”

Ravi leaned forward. “Human Confederacy here in Krozalian Space? Are you saying the CTF has a clandestine base here?”

Lorenzo furrowed his brow. “Don’t you think they’d be your best bet?”

I winced.

“He can’t be this stupid,” Mac chuckled.

Yes, oh yes he can.

Lorenzo pointed at the list Furox sent. “You don’t know who’s loyal and don’t want to take any risks. But you know the CTF is not part of this coup.”

Ravi didn’t respond to that, but his eyes had turned a deep shade of yellow.

Lorenzo huffed. “Come now, Lord Drax, you don’t think the Confederacy has anything to do with the chaos on Krozalia, do you? Whatever clusterfuck is happening, that’s all you.”

Mmm, he has a point.

“How do we contact them?” I asked.

Lorenzo ignored the glower Ravi sent him and turned to face me. “It's a series of steps we’ll do to catch their attention and let them know we're from the Confederacy.” Lorenzo spread his palms on the table. “I don’t know much, only that if we needed anything while on Krozalia, it was to them I was to reach out to.”

Zafra crossed her arms. “No offense, but how do you know they're trustworthy?”

“Like I said, without knowing who is on your side and who isn't, the CTF is the safest bet you have.”

I tapped my fingers on the hard tabletop and thought fast. “We only have a narrow window to keep the planet from destroying itself,” I began and gave Ravi an inquiring look. Technically, he hadn't said that, but I assumed Cassandra heard that tidbit from them. Once Ravi nodded, I went on, “Because Dolenta is still alive, there's no way for anyone to announce the Moresy Cotelum competition. That means all we need is Dolenta back on the planet undetected. If nothing else, we can ask Lorenzo’s contact to lend us some nondescript ship.”

An escort would have been better, but I didn’t think Ravi would agree to any situation where he was at the mercy of unknown people.

Ravi rubbed both his hands over his face, eliciting a rasping sound from his stubble.

“That’s the most basic view, but it’s more complicated than that,” he finally said. “The Tanue is a wild spirit. It needs a connection to the land. Simply taking Dolenta back to the planet won't work. She needs to bond with the Tanue to provide a link from the Tanue to the land. There's a ritual for that, passed down from ruler to ruler.”

I nodded. “We'll perform this ritual then. Is there a specific location for it?”

Ravi gave me a long, considering look. “I don't know what the ritual entails,” he admitted.

And there it was, the crux of the problem.

“The board of advisors should,” Zafra began.

“But we don't know who we can trust,” Cassandra finished and slumped, letting out a long, frustrated breath.

“I can vouch for my parents,” Zafra put in. “We only need to get them past the rebellion.”

“I know what the ritual entails,” Dolenta said in a small voice. “Papa told me. He told me about what I'd need to do to become the empress before his announcement. He wanted to make sure I agreed to the burden before committing. If I hadn't…if he hadn’t made that announcement…” She trailed off, eyes filling with tears, but they didn’t spill. Instead, she straightened, hands balling into tight fists on the table. “I want those responsible dead. I want to look into their eyes when I ascend, so they'll know all they tried to do was for nothing. I'll tame the Tanue, and I'll make my papa proud.”

“Yes, you will,” Cassandra agreed with conviction. “And you'll be the best ruler Krozalia's ever seen.”

Chapter 3

An hour later, Ravi and I arrived at the plaza square. I was dressed in casual pants and a long tunic, with my hair pulled back into a ponytail. There were a lot of people milling about, seated on benches, enjoying drinks and food. It was a diverse crowd with individuals from various races too. Some had round pupils like mine, but blue or green skin tones, some had gills, others had claws. It looked like I was the only human among them.

Somewhere behind me was Ravi, maintaining his distance so as not to spook our contact. I was to have come alone, but Ravi had adamantly refused it. Cassandra, Zafra, and Ravi outvoted me three to one. Lorenzo couldn’t care less and hadn’t volunteered his opinion. Ravi's only concession was to stay back and act like we weren't together.

I spotted my quarry—a kiosk selling baked goods and a woman with green hair, pale skin, and gills tattooed on her neck in black ink. Her eyes were metallic silver with slit pupils, but there was something other than Kroz in her DNA, something distinctly more feral than I was accustomed to. I perused the pastries on display as I waited for her to finish with another customer. When she approached, I pointed to a round pastry that resembled my mother’s doughnuts and said, “I wonder when the sun will show up.”

The woman stared at me as though I'd grown a horn and a tail. I felt like maybe I'd approached the wrong kiosk. Or maybe Lorenzo was fucking with me.

The woman leaned down to grab the doughnut lookalike and placed it in a paper bag. “Usually, it takes a few days. What else would you like?”

I pointed at random, my pulse increasing. “It's been a long voyage. Do you know a place I can rest my weary bones?”

“Sure,” the woman said and bagged a brown square—presumably what I'd pointed at. “There are a lot of benches around.”

I scanned the bustling plaza, noting that yes, there were plenty of benches where I could sit and rest. “What about something private,” I said. “Somewhere I can close doors and catch up with the news?”

“Ten notes,” she said as she handed me the bag. “That bench is empty at the moment and you can plug in and listen to the news while you eat.”

I passed the woman ten universal credits, not sure of how the currency exchange worked here, but aware I could buy a box full of confections with that sum anywhere else. I hadn't had any chances to buy anything while on Krozalia. I didn’t even know if they had a local currency.

When the woman said nothing more, I hesitated. What if she was used to crazy talk and had just gone along with me? Surely, for a moon that catered to so many different races, cultures and traditions were bound to clash. But would asking more questions ruin the code? Unsure what to do, I headed for the indicated bench, eyes scanning everything, trying to find an anomaly in a sea of variables.

I spotted Ravi leaning against a decorative brass post, casually playing with his commlink. He wore the clothes Cassandra had gotten him, dark pants and shirt, and a gray coat with the hood raised.

I took a seat, pulled the doughnut from the paper bag, and resigned myself to wait. I didn't have to wait long. I didn't even need to keep an eye out for suspiciously acting individuals. Hell, I wasn't even sure if the woman had slipped something into the desserts to make me see things. Because while I sat there scanning faces and slowly munching away, I spotted someone I had resigned myself never to see again.

Alex.

A strangled sound escaped my throat as I stood, the pastry slipping from my hand. I ignored Mac’s expletives and the multitude of individuals going about. Everything moved in slow motion. Every person in the plaza took on a background quality, like white noise.

Alex saw me and froze. I watched the slideshow of emotions cross his face—recognition, surprise, relief, wariness, anger, resignation. The stab of familiarity was sharp and fierce. My lips wobbled under the surge of my emotions: relief and joy and confusion.

Suddenly, Alex’s expression hardened into a stone-cold mask. Then he pivoted and ran.

He…ran.

Alex, my best friend, the man I’d sacrificed the past ten years of my life looking for…ran from me.

Oh, fuck no.

I dropped the bag with the other pastry beside the doughnuts and ran after him. Somewhere behind me, Ravi shouted something that I didn’t catch and didn’t care to hear.

“Don’t let him disappear,” I said to Mac. “Hijack the moon’s system if you have to, but whatever you do, don’t let him disappear.” In the back of my mind, I knew giving Mac free rein to do whatever he wanted would come back to bite me in the ass, but in that second, I didn’t care. So long as it meant he kept visual on the man doing his best to lose me in the crowd. All that I cared about, in fact, was catching Alex and finally having answers to the million questions swirling in my head.

“Baby, if only I’d known it would take a ghost for you to give me carte blanche, I’d have conjured one for you long ago.”

My gaze remained fixed on Alex’s black shirt and my ears tuned to the pounding rhythm of his heavy footsteps. People made way for him, some pausing to watch the chase, others not paying attention. I had no idea where I was going, how much attention I was drawing, or even considered repercussions. All I cared about was that the man I was following was the same person for whom I put my life on hold to avenge. The person I’d been hunting for a decade. The man that haunted my dreams and nightmares.

And he was doing his best to escape me.

I ran until the crowd thinned, the corridors narrowed, and the smell of filtered air replaced the smells of people, various foods, plants, and herbs. Until my footsteps echoed along Alex’s in front and Ravi’s behind me. Until my breaths were ragged pants.

I leaped over a cart and dashed into the narrow corridor I saw Alex slip into and came to a sudden halt. The corridor dead-ended fifty meters ahead. There were several doors set in recesses both to my left and right, plain and undescriptive.

“Mac?”

“I’m trying. Dupilaz system is a bit complicated.”

I moved forward in the middle of the corridor at a steady walk. “Alex?” I called. “It’s me, L-Clara.”

It never occurred to me during that lengthy run that Alex was a danger to me. I didn’t stop to consider why or how, when, or where. So when he jumped out of the third alcove and pressed a pulse blade against my neck, I froze with disbelief and betrayal.

“Who are you?” he demanded, his voice nostalgically familiar, but the anger more than alien. My friend had never spoken to me in such a manner. My friend would have never raised a weapon at me. Hell, my friend would have never fled from me. Slowly, the realization that I had made a horrible mistake began to creep in.

“Alex?” I croaked, hurt and a bit angry. At myself, at whoever thought putting the face of my best friend in my path was a good idea.

“Who. Are. You?” he asked again through clenched teeth.

“It’s me, Clara.”

“Clara is dead. I was there when she died. Try again without the bullshit.”

I swallowed, feeling the pulse blade dig in and a line of blood sliding down my throat. “My name used to be Clara,” I whispered. “Back when I was the captain of Terra 9. Before my crew left us to die after the Genesis Mission went wrong.”

Alex inhaled through his teeth. “Who told you to say that?” he demanded harshly, digging the pulse blade deeper.

“No one. I am who I said I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

But there was just a bit of doubt in the spoken conviction. His doubt sparked a glimmer of hope and it surged up, engulfing me with static and possibility. Were I in his shoes, would I have accepted that a person I’d believed dead was who she claimed to be?

“You planned to ask Cassandra to marry you when we returned from that last mission. You asked for my opinion and told me you’d cut my hair if I so much as gave anything away. You—”

The pulse blade vanished, and I glanced up. Alex was looking at me as if I was a ghost, the blade hanging from his loose grip.

“I saw you—I saw you die. The rescue team told me they couldn’t—they said you were too far gone to be revived.”

“They told me you were dead, too,” I murmured.

I caught the stricken look in Alex’s brown eyes just as Ravi tackled him. One second, he was standing there, a myriad of thoughts and emotions sliding over his face. The next, I was blinking at empty air while Ravi and Alex rolled on the ground and attempted to pummel each other’s faces into mush.

“No! No! Stop it, both of you.”

I dropped to my knees beside them and tried to pull Ravi off. He had him pinned down, hands around his neck while Alex was punching him left and right.

“Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him!” I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to, but they seemed to have heard me at the same time.

Alex let go first, then Ravi’s hands loosened. Alex inhaled and coughed, and Ravi leaned back, spitting blood.

“Oh God. Oh God. Are you okay?” I touched Ravi’s bristly cheek, then helped Alex up.

“What’s going on?” Ravi demanded. “He had a blade at your neck.”

I shook my head and tried to raise his tunic to check his sides, but he held my hands away. He climbed to his feet and took a few steps back. Far enough to be out of Alex’s reach, but still close enough that he wouldn’t be able to run again.

“Leann,” Ravi warned.

“It’s Alex. Ravi, this is Alex.”

Ravi’s eyebrows lowered. “The co-pilot?”

I laughed, then choked. “Yes, yes.” Then I turned and threw myself at Alex. “I thought you died. I was told I was the only one.”

“He’s been working for the Confederacy all along?” Ravi asked, breaking through my joy and relief.

I pulled back, reminded that this meeting was happening because we needed help. And Lorenzo had been the one to suggest it.

“The Confederacy?” Alex repeated and turned to me. “Is that who you work for?”

“No, well, technically, I’m still a soldier.”

“Who do you work for, then?” Ravi demanded.

“I work for the IGATF. The Inter-Galactic Alliance Task Force.” He tilted his head in my direction. “Why did you initiate contact?”

Ravi gritted his teeth, clearly unhappy. “We have a situation back on Krozalia. We were told we could reach out for aid.”

Alex’s eyes went distant. “We heard about the emperor. I don’t see how we can help.”

“His wasn’t a natural death,” I said slowly. “Besides, in two days, Krozalia will be destroyed unless we do something.”

“Pardon?”

I cracked a smile at Alex’s quaint colonial accent and smoothed the furrows on his forehead. “I missed you.”

His expression cleared, and he pulled me close for another one-arm hug. “I missed you too, shortcake. Now, explain what you mean Krozalia will be destroyed?”

Ravi shifted. “I think that’s a conversation for a more private setting.”

Alex glanced around as if just realizing we were still in a dead-end corridor. “You are?”

“Madrovi Fidraxi. I’m head of Krozalia’s royal guard.”

Alex’s eyebrow raised at that and he spared me a glance. He didn’t have to ask the question I could read in his eyes. What are you doing with him, they said.

“It’s…a long story, and as he said, better not spoken out in the open.”

Alex nodded. “Come on,” he said and began walking. “Let’s get out of here. What can you tell me?”

“We were on Krozalia negotiating a trade agreement. We ran when the shit hit the fan. We left Sullivan behind…holy fuck, Cassie is going to flip.”

Alex’s steps faltered. “Cassandra is here?”

I smiled, but it wasn’t delight I saw in his eyes. It was sheer, undiluted panic.

***

Alex gave us an address and instructed us to meet him there. Ravi thought it was a trap, and although I didn’t want to even consider that Alex would do anything to harm me, I forced myself to listen.

“He’s not going to hurt me,” I muttered as we crossed the courtyard of the hotel where we’d booked a suite on the third floor.

“He ran when he saw you. He had a blade to your neck. He obviously needed to warn the others of our arrival.” He waited a beat, then added, “And he’s been alive all this time. If that doesn’t come out as suspicious as a stellar explosion to you, I don’t know what would.”

“I’ve been alive all this time too.”

“But had you seen him in the streets, would you have run from him? I’ll tell you: no, no you wouldn’t. You’d have run for him, the way you did the second you spotted him.”

Was that irritation I heard in his tone? I gave him a sideways glance and stepped into the small lobby of the hotel.

“I hate to say this,” Mac chimed in. “But I agree with him.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“Fine, what?” Ravi prompted.

The hotel was manned by an automated machine that took up the back wall, and I inputted the key code provided after the registration had been made, then headed for the bank of elevators.

“Look, I understand your caution and I’m not going to throw myself blindly into danger. I know Alex isn’t scheming some grand plan to have us killed or bound and shipped to a slavery camp. I’m not going to let you cast him into some villain role just because he wanted some time to process the fact that in a few hours, he’ll come face to face with the woman he planned to marry.”

Ravi’s eyes flashed—relief and sadness and frustration, but mostly relief.

I canted my head to the side and studied him. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“You’re jealous.”

He scoffed, tugged on the lobe of his ear, looking everywhere but at me before wincing and meeting my eyes head-on. “I can’t help myself. This is my first time doing this.” He motioned a hand between us. “I’ve never had reason to feel jealous before.”

“Aw, he’s so adorable,” Mac said.

Yes, he is.

I pushed myself onto my tiptoes and kissed him. I liked that he respected me enough not to deny or try to bluff his way around a sensitive topic. I liked that he felt he could trust me with his feelings. I’d also seen a hint of sadness that I didn’t like.

“Alex is my brother in every way but blood,” I told him. I knew that he was also thinking of Thern and how blindsided he’d been by his betrayal. For that, I placed both palms on his cheeks and added, “I promise to be careful.”

I stepped back when the elevator doors split open, but Ravi pulled me back against him, his fingers spearing my hair as his mouth claimed mine with a possessive hunger that told me just how much this Kroz, this man, wanted me. I met him kiss for kiss, my world spinning with the expanding feelings in my chest. Need and love and desire. God, I wanted this man more than I wanted anything else at that moment.

A whistle from the direction of the room broke us apart stars knew how long later, followed by Cassandra telling Dolenta to stop staring. The latter was like a cold splash to the face, and we both stepped away from each other.

“Sorry,” Cassandra said. “I wanted to show Dolenta this hidey-hole I found downstairs in case we get separated.” She said it with a spark in her eyes and a big grin, and I realized this was the first time she’d actually seen me and Ravi together.

“Downstairs?” Ravi asked with a frown.

“Yeah, there’s a balcony outside she can scale if push comes to shove. I showed her where to step and where to hold earlier. I was about to take her down to show her how to reach the spot from various directions.”

“Where’s Zafra?”

The question was barely out when said Kroz appeared at the door.

“Oh good. I thought I was going to have to plug my ears and sanitize my eyes. It’s not nice to watch your big brother dancing the mating ritual in public.”

This time it was Ravi’s turn to look sheepish.

“Did you meet with the contact?” Cassandra asked next.

“We…ah, we did. I think you could postpone your training after we talk. I need to ask Lorenzo a few pointed questions and you need to hear this.”

Chapter 4

Lord Drax

I stood in front of the mirror in the en-suite and angled the commlink to capture the back of my neck. I already knew what I’d find, but I wanted visual confirmation.

My tribal tattoo reflected back, the same as it had appeared the day it manifested when I turned thirty, with one small, life-altering change: the mark of a fulfilled mate-bond.

I dropped my hand and frowned down at the image on the commlink, trying to understand how the bond had set in without the ritual. Rubbing my chest where my Carindum beat steadily, I glanced back into the bedroom, not seeing anything.

My entire life, I’d never heard about a life-mate bond that had formed without the pair going through the ceremony ritual—the exchange of blood, vows, and a series of steps that took anything between days to months to complete. I had come across tales where mated pairs had to redo the ritual more than once because they hadn’t performed it perfectly the first time. To say the ritual wasn’t a chance occurrence was an understatement. Life-mate bonds didn’t set in by accident. Yet, that was exactly what happened. And I couldn’t fathom how.

But Leann isn’t a typical human, is she? My mouth tightened at the thought. None of the stories I knew mentioned a bond between a human and a Kroz. Maybe this glitch had occurred due to her unique circumstances. Had the KKM in her body amplified the link between us, causing the bond to set in during our shared intimacy?

I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand and contemplated the logistics of telling Leann about our bond. But what good would it do her? She obviously wasn’t bonded to me the way I was to her, and she planned to leave. My thoughts ground to a halt. She’d planned to leave because of Alex, and Alex was here on Dupilaz Moon.

A knock sounded before I could follow that train of thought. I expected to find Leann on the other side, but it wasn’t her.

“No need to look so disappointed,” Zafra said with a smirk and pushed into the room.

A glance at the narrow corridor told me my sister was alone. I didn’t like leaving Dolenta out of sight, but I trusted Leann to alert me if anything came up. Maybe even Mac. He had, after all, used his access to Leann’s commlink to text me more than once before.

“Yes, please, come in,” I said as I shut the door and turned to face her.

Zafra ignored the sarcasm. “We need to talk about this IGATF matter,” she said in Krozalian. She began pacing in front of the bed, three paces to the right, three more to the left. “I don’t like this meeting you arranged with this Alex person. Something about it feels wrong to me.”

“Agreed.”

Zafra’s head whipped around. “You do? Then why, by the void, did you agree to it?”

I sighed. “Because Leann is going.”

Zafra’s bafflement came loud and clear. “You’re not going to talk her out of it?”

“I tried. She’s been searching for Alex for years and refuses to be dissuaded from meeting with him.”

Zafra’s eyes hardened. “Then I’ll go with her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure that’s better?”

“For one, I’m not sick with love for her.”

I scoffed. “And if I am, then I’m incapable of protecting her? You know that’s not how it works. I’d go to extremes to keep my mate-match safe.” Not that she’d welcome any of it.

Zafra’s expression softened and she closed the distance between us. “You look miserable, brother. Things between you two not going well?”

“It’s nothing,” I said flatly, then raised a finger. “No, it’s obviously not nothing. But I’ll deal with it. So stop looking at me like that. My love life is the least of your concern.”

The knocking on the door derailed whatever my sister planned to say, and I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not. But again, it wasn’t Leann on the other side of the door; it was Dolenta.

“May I come in?” she asked, eyes downcast.

“What’s wrong?” Zafra demanded when I moved aside for the princess—the empress—to pass.

Dolenta moved into the room, making the space feel more confined. She glanced around, hands clasped in front of her, but it was obvious she wasn’t registering a thing.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Are you going to accompany Captain Lee to this meeting?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Zafra said at the same time.

Dolenta glanced from Zafra to me but didn’t comment on our contradiction. “She’s getting ready to leave.”

Chapter 5

“You can’t go,” Zafra said for the umpteenth time.

“I’m going,” I replied mildly, cutting off Zafra’s protest, and meeting Ravi’s eyes. “You can come with, or you can wait to see how things unfold.”

Ravi set his jaw. “I’m not going to let you—”

“It wasn’t a request,” I retorted coolly.

“Harsh,” Mac murmured.

Ravi’s eyes tightened at the corners. I took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m not suggesting I face danger alone. I meant that I was going to the specified address and that you could watch my back and bail me out if it’s a trap which, I should add, it’s not.”

I punctuated my words by zipping my duffle shut and straightening. My eyes zeroed in on Cassandra, standing by the window and staring down at the front of the hotel. I didn’t think she was watching the pedestrians, admiring the view of the golden dome protecting the moon, or even here in the present. Much like Alex, she hadn’t reacted to the news the way I had expected. No, she hadn’t taken the news of Alex’s survival very well. I recalled her crestfallen look when I broke the news and tried putting myself in her shoes.

I didn’t like the result.

Over the past decade, I had kept my distance from the Confederacy because of my forbidden genetic enhancements. I had changed my name, occupation, and maintained a low profile. I’d always pivoted whenever mentions of the CTF were dropped in my vicinity, always veering in the opposite direction. But Alex, whatever reason he’d had to stay dead was clearly different from mine. It had to be. The Inter-Galactic Alliance Task Force was a separate agency from the Confederacy, but Lorenzo had known how to reach out, implying a working relationship between the two. During our trip here, Lorenzo had been sending encrypted messages to Dupilaz Moon—starting the moment we’d entered Sector 5. He had known how we could contact the IGATF and told us they could help. And Lorenzo was a commodore in the CTF.

He’d been shocked when I told them who the contact was, and I didn’t think he was faking it, or even that he’d been aware about Alex surviving the Genesis Mission. Hell, I’d caught the hint of confusion when I’d mentioned the IGATF, which meant he believed we were contacting some CTF spies here in Dupilaz Moon. My intention had been to drill him for information then and there, but he could wait. I had warned him when I returned from this meeting that we were going to sit and have a talk and that he better tell me the entire truth. His response was to get up, head into the small kitchen, and shut the door. No huffing, no puffing, and beating on his chest with indignation. No, he’d seemed…resigned.

I didn’t know what all that meant. Ravi was suspicious, Zafra was suspicious, and Cassandra was…disillusioned. Her love had lied about being dead all this time.

And I did the same. I looked over at her, seated by the window, staring vacantly at the comings and goings outside.

I didn’t think she wished Alex dead, but the knowledge of his survival had cut her deeply.

“That’s settled,” I told Zafra and Ravi, and moved to where Cassandra sat. “I owe you an apology,” I said without preamble.

Her shoulders tensed when I reached her, but she didn’t turn to face me.

“You deserve to know the story about why I never returned.”

That caught her attention. She turned her head slowly, the sight of her red-rimmed eyes squeezing my heart.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Sunny said…” she exhaled. “He was lying?”

“No. But he doesn’t know the whole story either. Come,” I said, and she followed me into the closest bedroom. I had an hour before I had to go and meet with Alex’s superiors, but something told me I needed to do this now, before I left.

Cassandra went straight for the chair placed by the window, beside a small potted plant. As if she didn’t have the strength to be standing to hear what I had to say.

“First,” I began, moving around the twin bed and taking a seat at the edge nearest to Cassandra. “You need to know that I didn’t know Alex was alive. All these years, I’ve been looking for a trace of him, trying to avenge what had been done to us.”

Cassandra stiffened, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve been working against the CTF?”

The accusing tone, combined with the words, took me a few seconds to process. “No, no. I’m not talking about being left behind. I’m talking about what came after that.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “You should know that the Genesis Mission wasn’t what Commander Alto told us. The lab we destroyed…it wasn’t a research lab that served its purpose and was scheduled for demolition. It was a dark lab, one where scientists were experimenting with genetic manipulation and nanotechnology.”

Denial flashed in Cassandra’s eyes, followed by acceptance. “They were the ones who took you, then?”

I gave her a wan smile. “Along with a few other things, yes.”

“So, we were sent to destroy evidence of foul play.”

“Yes. But they fucked up when they sent us. The place had already been rigged with explosives prior to our arrival. I don’t think Commander Alto was aware when he sent us in. Not about the dark lab or that explosives had already been set.”

The emperor’s words from a few days ago came back to mind. We granted the CTF the opportunity to investigate and either deal with the lab or request aid. When my people asked for a status report, they identified it as a false alarm.

“I think the CTF realized there was a facility conducting forbidden experiments, and they tried to get rid of the evidence. But the scientists were a step ahead. They’d already evacuated—hours, if not minutes, before we arrived. Alex and I, we sensed something was wrong with the place the moment we went in. We separated, me to set up the explosives, he to look around. When Sullivan told us about the Cradox patrol, I couldn’t reach Alex. So I returned to where we’d separated to fetch him.” I frowned down at my hands. “Commander Alto sent me a private message telling me to abort, but I refused to leave Alex. I disobeyed.”

Guilt, so acute I could feel it like a breeze, emanated from Cassandra. I leaned forward and grabbed her tight fist. After a second, she turned her hand over and clasped mine.

“I headed back to where I’d left Alex, remembering his last words had been something about a basement. I was going over each room, searching for stairs or trap doors going down. I kept open commentary with Sullivan so he could keep tabs on my progress.”

“I remember that,” Cassandra murmured with a faraway look.

So did I. Ten years and counting, and I still had vivid nightmares of that day.

***

“Damn it, Alex, answer me,” I snapped into the EVA suit’s comms. “Time to go. Cassie’s scans are all up. Everything is a go. We’re ready to detonate.”

I kept up commentary, moving down one corridor and another, going back to the last lab. I wished I had a weapon. I regretted not having brought a pulse blade. It was easier to grip with the EVA suit than the handle of a weapon, even though I risked nicking the suit if I handled it wrong.

The double doors for the lab where I’d left Alex came into view, illuminated by the garish green and red of the backup lights.

“Captain Colderaro,” came Sullivan’s voice inside the EVA suit. “We got orders to move. Come on, pack it up.”

“Copy that. Will be there in five,” I said.

I hit the room in a half jog and scanned the overturned lab equipment, again thinking the place had been evacuated in a hurry. This looked nothing like a temporary facility that had been useful once and then served its purpose.

I found the stairs to the basement level on the other side of the lab, half-hidden from the entrance’s door by a tall cabinet. My feet moved in that direction, mind stuck on the signs of a hasty retreat.

I’d just reached the top of the stairs when Alex appeared at the bottom.

“There you are.”

“Sorry, the containment room has some kind of frequency block. I hadn’t realized it until I tried contacting the ship a few seconds ago.”

“It’s fine. What did you find?” I asked, eyeing the small box in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice sounding staticky still. “But it looked like it fell without anyone noticing. Clara, the equipment down there, it’s not normal. There is stuff in glass cubes.”

Anxiety tossed in my belly. “We’ll discuss this later,” I said. When there wasn’t a chance of our conversation being recorded by our suits.

He took the stairs two at a time, as if he was in a hurry to put whatever horror he’d just seen behind him.

“Did you get any explosives down there?” I asked, backing up to give him room. Something clicked under my right foot, but I didn’t need to look down to know what it was. Not that I had time to look down. I had barely locked eyes with Alex when the world went out with a silent boom of blue fire and white smoke, accompanied by Alex’s screams.

When I came to, everything was dark, and I was sweating rivers inside my suit.

“Come on, Captain!” Sullivan shouted. “Answer me!”

“I’m coming,” Alex gasped.

The bright light of Alex’s headlight on my face as he pulled off the rubble covering me had me blinking away tears. “Found her,” Alex called.

“Oh, thank fuck,” came Sullivan’s reply.

“Come on, Clara. We’re running out of time. Come on, give me a hand. That’s it; push that one.”

I pushed the large block of rebar and Alex took hold of the sides. Once there was a gap large enough for the bulky suit, he helped me scramble from under the debris.

“I’m bringing the ship closer,” Sullivan announced.

“Negative,” I said. “We’ll call when we are clear.”

“Then hurry the fuck up,” Sullivan growled.

We tried. We really did.

“Go,” I said to Alex. My leg was barely holding up, despite the way the suit had hardened to brace against whatever injury I’d sustained.

“Not without you. We’re going together, so stop arguing. The explosives will go off in three minutes. We have time.”

He helped me limp through the empty corridors, supporting half my weight. The shadows had taken on a sinister meaning. I’d stepped on a trap. Someone had put a bomb where anyone coming out of the basement would be caught.

My eyes wheeled around, searching for an unseen enemy. My right foot was numb, but I couldn’t assess the injury without taking off the EVA suit. I knew it was bad. We made a desperate dash for the ship, my arm around Alex’s shoulder, our breaths loud inside the EVA suits. Alex had dropped the container somewhere, and his visor only emphasized the strain in his eyes.

“You’re hurt,” I said, knowing it for the truth it was. I had stepped on the trap, but he hadn’t been far.

“Nothing a few rounds in the med unit won’t fix,” he clipped.

And I knew it then. We weren’t going to make it. The distance to the pickup spot wasn’t great for two healthy individuals, but given our condition, it was interminable.

“Terra 9, this is Captain Colderaro. Abort mission, this is Code 6.”

“This is Terra 9,” Sullivan replied. “We’re coming in.”

“Go. Damn you,” I snapped. “There was a rock tube on the left field. We’ll burrow there until it’s safe for you to return. Go.”

“We’re not leaving without you!” Sullivan shouted.

But he hadn’t had a choice.

***

“You were hurt,” Cassandra whispered, the regret and guilt gleaming in her eyes. “We left you there, and you were both injured.”

“I’m not telling you this because I blame you. I used to, for a long time,” I admitted. “Even though I knew if you’d stayed, you’d all be dead or have suffered the same fate. I could barely walk. I was concussed and had fractured ribs. I still don’t know the extent of the injuries I sustained. But I was moving. Then the first of the explosives went off.”

Cassandra nodded. “It was a minute early.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Confusion came and went in a dark cloud. I watched as Cassandra realized that the Genesis Mission had been much more than a major fuck up.

“It was our explosives,” she insisted quietly. “The ones in quad 7. I saw it blink off in my handset.”

I nodded. “They were triggered prematurely by something else,” I explained.

***

We didn’t have time, even if we could full-out sprint. Terra 9 had left—the explosives would call attention to the Cradoxians, and our proximity to the border meant a patrol would arrive quickly.

Why the Confederacy put a lab so close to Sector 9, I didn’t know and didn’t question. I was a young foolish thing, believing in the system and its infallibility.

“Come on,” I said to Alex, tugging him to the left where I thought I’d spotted the asteroid tubes. The explosion had depressurized the facility, and I was glad I’d insisted we kept on the EVA suits. We hopped together, trying not to stray too far from each other. My suit had fifteen hours of oxygen and a fully charged battery for hovering and maneuverability, which could come in handy if we survived the explosives.

The problem with zero gravity was that things traveled with the same force they began with. So when the next explosion came, debris flew at us like guided missiles. At first, I thought I’d been hit by a rock, a door, or something. But then it shifted, and above the ringing in my ears, Alex’s breathing was loud and harsh. I managed to dislodge him from atop me and saw the jagged edge of the metal impaling his side.

“Alex,” I breathed. My hands hovered near the metal, but I didn’t touch it. The suit had foamed around the breach, sealing all the edges to prevent it from deflating.

But he was bleeding inside the suit, and he was in pain. His teeth were gritted, mouth white with agony. I didn’t think he could hear or see anything but the hot, blinding pain. And then he fainted. Somewhere to my left, another explosion went off. I was woozy from my injury, Alex was unconscious, and half the asteroid was already space dust.

We didn’t make it to the rock tube before the next explosion. Hell, we didn’t make it anywhere, but there was a pocket cave that I thought would be a nice hideout for Alex and me. At the very least, it had a cliff-like rock wall that I thought would protect us. I had no idea how to get both of us there, but it never came to that. The asteroid had been rigged long before we’d gone in, and combined with our charge, the entire structure disintegrated into dust and debris.

***

“My memories after that are fragmented. I remember hurtling loosely in space. I remember flashes of the EVA suits that rescued us, the med unit I was put into and Alex’s motionless form on the second unit. I remember waking up in a hospital bed, surrounded by masked doctors and unending pain. I asked after Alex, demanded answers, but they always fell on deaf ears.”

I’d asked for Cassandra and for Sullivan too, for the commander and our location. I’d screamed and cried and begged, but no one ever answered. Whenever I got out of control, they’d simply sedate me. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. I never knew how much time had passed until much later, when Baltsar had helped me escape.

Cassandra’s hand on my arm snapped me back to reality. She was crying. Big fat tears rolled down her face like a faulty faucet.

“You don’t have to finish,” she whispered.

I was crying too, I realized. I wiped my hands over my cheeks, then used the hem of my shirt. “It took me a while, but I finally realized that I’d been captured by scientists and that I was their next test subject. I couldn’t escape what they were doing. Hell, I didn’t know what they were doing until they were almost done.”

“Leann,” Mac cautioned. “Maybe it’s best to cut the sob story here. She doesn’t need to know the rest.”

I smiled without humor and looked away, determined to tell her everything but not wanting to see her reaction when I told her the next part. Mac’s concern was solid—before my stint with the Kroz, I’d never told anyone this story, only Baltsar, but he’d been there through most of it.

“They’d cut my leg and my arm and replaced all the bones of my right side with mechanical implants. They’d already done my skull and the right eye and were in the process of integrating the AI with my brain when a scientist intervened.” I ignored the choked sound she made and plunged on. “He erected a buffer between the AI and me, instructed me to comply with the orders I was given, and keep my emotions locked up tight. For the next six months, I was programmed and trained—to walk, to eat, to speak, to fight.”

The memories moved in my head like slideshows of a horror film. The hairs on my body stood at attention, my chest chilled. “Their goal was to create one hundred percent obedient soldiers. The AI was to take over my body and mind and simulate real reactions and responses by using my memories. They had no intention of creating hypermorphs. Not because they were afraid of the galactic rule, but because hypermorphs could be unpredictable and they aimed for submission. So whenever an experiment failed to conform, they terminated it. Millions of universal credits wasted because their perfect soldier slipped their leash. It mattered not if it was a glitch, a sign of defiance, or whatever.

“By then, my handler—the scientist helping me—had become a friend. I was in the middle of a weapons training session when I overheard them talking about their next batch of experiments: a group of teenagers they stole from an orphanage. They were joking about how easy it had been and how the orphanage would be relieved they were lighter three mouths to feed.

“I had the stun gun aimed and had shot two before I realized what I’d done, and that they were going to terminate me. I was going to die, and I had nothing to lose. So I went on a rampage.

“I was still recovering from all the procedures done on my body, and I still had mobility trouble. But I could hold a weapon. I let my rage fuel me, and shot anyone who crossed my path with the stun gun. When they fell, I used a pulse blade to cut off their heads. I waited for that switch to be pushed, for my brain to explode, but it never happened. Baltsar, my handler, had disabled it less than a week earlier.

“While I’d been going through the lab’s personnel, Baltsar was eliminating all the surveillance and security alarms, and making sure no one escaped to tell the tale. Together, we destroyed the lab and escaped. He helped me recover, rewired the implant to my wrist to prevent accidental possession, and helped me set up a new identity.” I opened my arms to both sides. “And here I am, Leann Smith, captain of the Splendor, passenger and freighter ship.”

Chapter 6

“What about Alex? Wasn’t he there too?” Cassandra asked.

“No. Alex…I was told he didn’t make it through to the second phase.” When Cassandra’s eyes remained blank, I explained. “He didn’t survive the mechanical implants.”

But he had, and it hurt to think what that meant.

“He wasn’t in the facility, and the only mention about him in the documents I took was that the experiment was inconclusive.”

I’d told Ravi that I trusted Alex, and I truly did. But I was speaking about the Alex I knew from a decade ago, and the Alex of earlier was probably someone else. Even if he wasn’t like me, he wouldn’t be the same man today that he was a decade earlier.

Clara Colderaro had died on that asteroid. I had no right to believe or convince anyone else that Alex hadn’t too, even if it was figuratively speaking.

“I’ve spent the past ten years searching for evidence of his death. In all those years, I’d never found anything.” My search had taken me to other illegal facilities—satellite labs where nothing but preliminary tests were conducted, before the subjects were transferred to other facilities, depending on the phase of the research and how the subject responded to each. During my search, I’d come upon drug labs, human trafficking, slave camps. I’d terminated the ones I could and reported the others. I’d seen people at their most desperate and their most depraved. But I’d never came close to solving the mystery that was Alex. The weight of years’ worth of searching pressed down on me, making me tired and hopeless. What was the point of fighting for something when I didn’t even know what, who, I was fighting against? I gave a soft tug on the ends of my braid and tried to banish the negative thoughts from my head. Maybe this puzzle was still missing pieces, but if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have found out about the KKM or Alex. I wouldn’t have met Ravi, reunited with Sullivan and Cassandra.

No, I hadn’t found all the answers I was seeking, but I’d gained things from the past, things I hadn’t dreamed to wish for, even during my darkest days.

Cassandra's silence was an echo in the room, carrying her unspoken thoughts. What complex calculations was her mind conjuring? What cog was turning now in her inquisitive brain?

Her voice broke the quiet like a ship slicing through the void. "Thank you," she breathed, her words a soft offering of gratitude. "For sharing this secret with me.”

My throat closed up and I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you sooner.”

A smirk tugged at her lips and put a playful glint in her eyes. The sight made me relieved and satisfied with my resolve to confide in her.

“I’m glad you’re not controlled by a brainwashed AI.”

I chuckled. “Me too. Mac can be a pain in the ass, but he’s still cool.”

“Thank you,” Mac said in my ear, voice demure.

Cassandra jerked and jumped out of her seat and screeched. “What! You have an AI implant?”

Her reaction was forceful and as electric as a lightning strike. I pushed to my feet, heart cracking. I smiled faintly, shoved my pain aside, and shrugged one shoulder as if it didn’t hurt. “That’s what I’ve been telling you for the past ten minutes. Mac’s been my rock, my anchor to reality for years. He’s my friend and my sanity. I—humph.”

Cassandra tackled me. I stumbled back but managed to keep us from tumbling to the ground.

“I can’t believe this,” she was saying. “What can he do? What’s his processing capacity? Can I talk to him?” Her questions poured out one after the other like a torrent.

“See, see, I told you,” Mac crooned. “Ladies find me irresistible.”

I grabbed Cassandra’s shoulders and pulled her back. “That’s the geek in her talking,” I said sub-vocally, studying the feverish gleam of excitement in her eyes.

Mac harrumphed. “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport.”

“How do you communicate? Is he telepathic? Oh my God, can he do magic?”

“Mac the wizard,” Mac mused. “I like that.”

I snickered. “No. Baltsar put in some implants for us to communicate. One in my ear, another in my larynx. Mac’s main matrix is embedded in my wrist.”

Cassandra grabbed my wrist. “Can I see it?”

I pulled my arm back. “Wrong wrist. All my implants were done on my right side, and no. I’m not going to pick my mechanics apart so you can study them.”

Cassandra’s expression fell with disappointment.

“Nope,” I griped. “No need for the puppy dog eyes, the begging, or the tears.”

“I can set up live communication between your commlink and hers,” Mac suggested. “Though you really should get going if you want to make it to the meeting with Alex.”

I grunted. “Mac said he’ll open communication so you two can geek out. Meanwhile, I should get going.”

This time, Cassandra’s sadness wasn’t faked. I touched her shoulder. “Whatever reason Alex had, give him a chance to explain himself before you shut him out.”

Cassandra nodded and stuffed her hands into her jumpsuit pockets. “Yeah, I’m sure he had his reasons.”

I suppressed a wince. Somehow, I didn’t think Cassandra was going to be as forgiving with Alex as she had been with me.

***

I found Ravi and Zafra waiting for me in the parlor. Neither looked thrilled, and I wondered if they’d overheard my conversation with Cassandra. Dolenta wasn’t in sight, and neither was Lorenzo, but the door to the kitchen was ajar, and there was the clatter of banging pots.

“Where’s Lorenzo?” I asked, striding to where I’d left my duffle.

“Taking a nap,” Zafra replied.

I nodded and holstered the pulse blade. I’d have liked to take a laser pistol too, but projectile weapons were forbidden in space stations unless you had clearance from the station authorities. Pulse blades weren’t as easily detectable by scanners, but if I was caught with one, they’d whisk me to a prison cell so fast, my head would still be spinning when the bars activated.

When the silence felt oppressive, I looked up.

Zafra’s eyes were curious, but I knew she was an expert in hiding her feelings. I let my eyes drag to Ravi, bracing for what I’d find. Anger, resentment—jealousy? What I found, however, took my breath away. Pride, assurance, and some deeper, warmer feeling I wasn’t sure I was ready to process.

Unable to hold Ravi’s intense stare, I looked back at Zafra and raised my chin.

“Well?” I asked.

She tilted her head. “Shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

I opened my mouth to remind her of my decision.

“Yes, yes, you’re going,” Zafra said dismissively. “But we still need to plan your backup in case you get captured, so my brother doesn’t get killed in a heroic attempt to rescue you.” A dark emotion crossed her eyes, something fleeting that I couldn’t read.

“She doesn’t look so happy about you,” Mac commented.

Ravi sighed. “I’m not a blithering idiot,” he muttered.

“Nice try,” Zafra said under her breath, but it was loud enough that I bet even Dolenta heard it from the kitchen.

I wanted to tell them that I didn’t need their rescue attempts, backups, or even company, but I knew that was an irrational thought. So I let them discuss a plan and an exit strategy, occasionally chiming in to show I was taking it seriously.

I really was, but I still felt they were exaggerating.

After much argument, it was decided that Zafra would accompany me to the address Alex had given us. Before we left, I took Ravi aside and told him he could keep track of us through the open comms Mac established with Cassandra. I didn’t press Cassandra to come, didn’t even ask her once. She simply didn’t say a thing, and I let it be, even though I’d promised Alex that I’d be bringing her along.

The open comms would allow them to keep track of Zafra and me, while also allowing me to keep track of anything happening to them. It was a win-win situation, and the relief in Ravi’s eyes made me feel better about it. Climbing on tiptoes, I kissed him on the cheek and left with Zafra through the maintenance exit to keep our comings and goings less conspicuous.

We followed the path Zafra and Cassandra had suggested. It had the least traffic, which everyone agreed would be best for keeping a low profile. We had settled on the simplest plan of action: we needed a way to escort the princess back into Krozalia so she could prevent the planet from destruction. It was agreed that even with a fake registration, the Splendor would be recognized by model. I’d have taken offense to that, but it was true—and I had been the one to point it out first. My ship was an old one. There wasn’t many of its ilk in Confederacy Space to begin with, much less here in the Krozalian System.

Our goal was to acquire a new ship, a few escorts, and possibly a platoon that would keep the opposition occupied while we helped Dolenta do whatever she had to do. No one denied that the plan had enough holes to make a colander jealous. But the fact remained that Dolenta needed to be planet-side. Anything else was up for debate. Besides, we didn’t know enough about this IGATF or the situation on Krozalia to plan much further. We’d sent inquiries for more information to Sullivan, but by the time Zafra and I left, there was still no reply.

We made our way in silence. Zafra was fully focused on our surroundings, having donned her royal warrior persona the moment we stepped out of the suite. All she was missing was her armor and a few weapons. Because Mac’s debate about enhanced loops and variable array iterations made my brain hurt, I had him mute his output. I loved Mac to pieces, and it warmed my heart that he and Cassandra were moving toward the best-friend-forever zone, but I didn’t need to know about clean syntax and handling processes.

I’d have liked to blame my request for Mac’s silence for what happened next, but I knew better. Mac had a habit of diverting his focus to various matters, so we weren’t always in each other’s spaces, despite the fact he was literally a part of me.

There wasn’t any plausible reason, actually.

I only recognized something was wrong with our connection when the right side of my vision flickered and dimmed. I checked my stride. “Mac?” I asked, putting a hand on Zafra’s shoulder when no reply came. “Something’s wrong,” I said to Zafra’s questioning gaze, scanning back the way we’d come.

We were on a residential corridor, lined with small, boxy houses and squat trees on stamp-sized yards, with the occasional hover cart visible on the roof. The position of garbage disposal shafts, emergency posts, and a three-story building up ahead were the only things that broke the mirror effect of the place.

“Mac?” I tried again. I could still feel him in my psyche, but he didn’t respond.

A frequency block wouldn’t keep him from responding to me for the simple reason that his main matrix was in my wrist. But why wasn’t he responding?

“Why?” Zafra demanded, her eyes perusing the area. “What are you seeing that I’m not?”

“I’m seeing nothing,” I began. “But I have a bad feeling.”

I thought I’d need to give her something more substantial than that to convince her, but she surprised me. Without a word of complaint or demand for an explanation, she turned around. “Come on, let’s go back.”

That was when the attack came.

Several people jumped down roofs, several more climbed out from inside the three-story building, and a few swaggered out of the narrow passageways between houses. Six, eight, fifteen, twenty. They had on black combat wear, their hoods raised. Like the group that had attacked Ravi and me on Cyrus Station.

“Mercenaries,” I spat. “Do you have any weapons?”

“No.”

I pulled my pulse blade from the holster on my hip and handed it over. “You should have said something,” I murmured.

“It’s against station regulations,” she said and waved the pulse blade away. “I’m not exactly helpless without weapons.” She wiggled her fingers to indicate that she had magic. “And I don’t have a projectile weapon, but I do have a Shivarhi blade.” She threw up her hands, fingers splayed, and all the mercenaries halted, looking at each other questioningly.

A mercenary whipped out a laser gun and opened fire somewhere to my right. I instinctively whirled and ducked in time to see the air two meters away ripple.

“Is that a shield?” I asked, straightening when my brain processed what I was seeing. Several more shots were fired, causing the shield to turn iridescent and answering my question.

“So much for the prohibition of weapons,” I muttered, glancing back at Zafra. “How long can you hold that? The laser signals should alert station personnel of the attack.”

Zafra didn’t look strained or like she was making any effort. On the contrary, she had crazy, glowing eyes, and a deranged smile.

“We can’t be here when security arrives,” she informed me calmly. “We don’t have the time to clear this up. I sent Ravi a distress signal. I’ll hold the barrier until he arrives.”

I straightened and let out a grunt. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming. I scanned the shadowy faces of the Brofils and couldn’t help but note they had picked a perfect spot to ambush us. There wasn’t anyone out and about. If there were any surveillance cameras, they were well hidden too.

“I don’t think he’s coming,” I said, pulling out my commlink and sending Ravi a text.

No reply. I texted Cassandra and Lorenzo next with the same result. “Something is wrong on their end,” I murmured, ignoring the ping-ping-ping sound of the laser fire hitting Zafra’s barrier. “None of them are replying.”

“I knew this was a trap.” Zafra snarled. She made a hand gesture, like drawing in the air, and the aimed laser guns all began to smoke. In the heartbeat where the mercs were distracted by their smoking guns, Zafra opened her palm and pushed the air in front of her, sending all the mercenaries flying back. Pulling a handle from her jumpsuit pocket, she flicked her wrist and deployed the Shivarhi blade. “Try to keep to my side or behind me.”

And then she was running, blade whirling as she stabbed, sliced, and ducked. The pain of Alex’s betrayal was a throb in the back of my mind. I shut the door to my emotions to be opened later, preferably when I was alone. I didn’t have the time to feel the hurt. Mercenaries converged on me, and I quickly lost sight of Zafra. I dodged a punch and tackled a second merc, punching and kicking left and right. There were so many of them that all my moves hit a target.

A piercing whistle had some of the Brofils stepping back and forming a circle around Zafra and me. Then three mercs rushed us while the rest watched. Each time Zafra and I downed one of them, another left their formation and rushed us.

Chapter 7

Lord Drax

I slumped on the sofa across from Dolenta’s sleeping form and half listened as Cassandra and Mac debated ways to build a secure connection with Sullivan. Telling them spyware didn’t work in the castle had been met with a defiant glare from the system’s engineer and a snort from the AI, so I let them to it. I didn’t like that Leann and my sister had left on their own to meet with a potential traitor, but Zafra had been right. If it came down to protecting Leann with my life, I wouldn’t think twice. I’d probably ignore the fact that she wasn’t a helpless human and endanger my life so she could escape unscathed.

My sister was a fierce opponent, and so was Leann. I’d seen both women fight and I knew both could hold their own if push came to shove. But I also knew firsthand how betrayal could paralyze the unwary, Thern’s treachery still smarting something fierce in my chest.

Granted, there was a chance that Alex hadn’t planned an ambush. Not if I factored in the way he’d done his best to lose Leann when he thought she wasn’t who she said she was. Still, there was something unerringly wrong with his emergence so soon after we’d learned that someone was supplying the bioengineers with KKM. There was also the hybrid human—Doctor Reme—who had tried to assassinate Leann before the origin of her KKM implants could be determined. An assassination attempt that had coincided with the murder of the emperor and his entire entourage. How and what they’d done to get past every warrior protecting the emperor remained a mystery, one I couldn’t yet fathom. I had a feeling the emperor’s murder and the attempt on Leann’s life were connected, but I couldn’t come up with one plausible link between the two, aside from the timing.

Questions I hadn’t had time to consider since last night surfaced now: what had prevented the emperor and his warriors from fighting back; and who had known about Leann’s physical?

The answer to the former eluded me, and the latter was no one. Only Vera, the emperor, and Doctor Lamis had known. The first two were dead. That left Doctor Lamis. Her shock of the attack could have been fake, but it had looked genuine. It could also have been any of the personnel in the KKM facility. A few had tried to fight back when I’d gone after Doctor Reme’s assistant, and any of them could have leaked our arrival. At this point, anything and everything was possible.

In the other room, Cassandra exclaimed something, and I wondered about spyware. I gritted my teeth because that too shouldn’t be possible. The castle was an impenetrable fortress, and so was any facility of high importance—like the KKM one.

Scans happened every morning and evening, and Vera had always kept her senses open for incoming and outgoing frequencies. It was a safety protocol…that had failed so catastrophically, the emperor had been killed.

A twinge on my nape brought my attention to another urgent matter. I yawned and rubbed my chest where my Carindum beat steadily in sync with Leann’s heart. I should have known our bond was different; each intimate moment we shared had stimulated the Carindum. I had no idea what to do about it. Not that I wanted to do anything about it.

I could feel every shift in Leann’s mood, her sorrow, her excitement, her fear, even the glowing appreciation she felt each time she looked at me. It was overwhelming and wonderful at the same time, and it pained me to know that it wasn’t something Leann wanted or even shared.

I yawned again, sighed, and dropped my hand to my lap. I’d need to tell her about this development, but first I needed to see the princess on the throne and Krozalia balanced.

Cassandra whooped loudly, followed by Mac’s smug tone. I pushed off the sofa and stretched. I longed for a few hours of unperturbed sleep but it wasn’t safe yet.

Time for some tea and a snack.

I pulled the sheets up to Dolenta’s shoulders and brushed her hair off her face. I remembered a time not so long ago, playing ball with her. Throwing her in the air as a toddler, her laughter as she demanded I send her higher. The fond exasperation on the face of the empress each time I obliged. She was so young, just a vulnerable child with the weight of an entire system on her shoulders. I straightened and padded quietly to the kitchen, remorse tightening my chest. So much had been lost.

The sound of a shower running came from the second room, telling me that Lorenzo had awoken from his nap. He’d seemed subdued since our mad escape from Krozalia, retreating into himself. Something that made my distrust—and disgust—for the Commodore increase.

I yawned and set to prepare a strong cup of herbal tea. Cassandra’s shriek had me dropping the cup and rushing to the bedroom, clumsily hitting the doorframe on the way. Energy sparked the air around my hands as I readied to fight.

I found the female muttering incoherently as she tapped on her commlink, then the e-pad.

“What?” I demanded, scanning the room for any danger.

“Everything just shut down,” she exclaimed without looking up. “This better not be a prank, Mac.” She snapped the e-pad on the edge of the table twice, glanced at the screen with a scowl, then smacked it twice more.

“What did you do?”

Cassandra glared blearily at me. “I did nothing. The connection to Mac dropped and everything shut down. Check your comms,” she said amidst a jaw-stretching yawn.

I narrowed my eyes at her exhausted features, then struggled to open my eyes when they shut on their own volition.

The room tilted to the side. I tripped and hit the table, bringing Cassandra’s gadgets down with me.

It was an attack. The thought had barely crossed my mind when a loud explosion shook the hotel, followed by hissing smoke.

Chapter 8

I stepped back from the coming mercenaries, my back touching Zafra’s. My heart thrummed with the tension of the clash.

Several mercenaries were on the ground, but at least three times as many were up and circling us. They had discarded the weapons that Zafra hadn’t smoked, but they had the advantage of numbers. I’d lost my blade but had grabbed the Shivarhi blade Zafra had dropped when a round kick to my back had sent me stumbling to the ground beside it.

I met the eyes of a charging merc, his gaze intent and predatory. Like the ones from Cyrus Station, those Brofils had been well-fed, the blue-tinted skins barely discernible. Instinct kicked in and I sidestepped an attack, ducking under a swing that had been aimed at my head, and countered with a precise swipe of the Shivarhi blade. It met no resistance as it penetrated skin and cut tissue, muscle, and ribs. As he stumbled back, hand clutching the mortal wound, I pivoted to face the next merc.

“Mac?” I murmured for the umpteenth time as I switched the now sticky blade to my other hand. I detested sticky blades.

Several mercs converged and I lost sense of Zafra, though the static of her telekinesis was powerful enough that I could feel its echo to my bones each time she employed it.

My blade arced, a fist flew. I blocked a pulse blade aimed at my neck. I jumped back, meeting Zafra again. The ground was littered with blood, gore, and bodies. I had no doubt that the moon’s authorities were on their way, the laser fire having triggered their automatic alarms. We needed to wrap this up and get out of there, or we’d be spending some time in whatever this moon used as a brig. We didn’t have time for that.

The mercenaries circled us, warier than they’d been when they had advanced. No doubt having realized that we weren’t the easy money someone had probably told them we’d be. Or maybe not. With the number of mercs sent to kill the two of us, they’d come prepared. Oh yes, they meant to drop in, shoot us dead, and disappear into the woodwork before station personnel could come to check the alarm triggered by the weapons fired.

“We should resolve this and get going,” Zafra murmured.

I grunted in agreement.

On an invisible signal, they converged again, all at the same time. Zafra exploded forward with a war cry. She met them head-on, her punches reinforced with telekinesis, each sending a merc flying without even making contact. Hell, even Ravi hadn’t been that efficiently savage when we’d fought the Brofils on Cyrus Station.

My blade swept through the air and deflected the strikes of two Brofils. The sizzle of energy and metallic blood permeated the air. I dodged, parried, and retaliated, my body moving with liquid, economic cues.

Gone was the hesitation to kill the mercenaries for my passengers, replaced with a roaring determination intent on obliterating anything and anyone who stood in my path.

Still, the Brofils were no easy opponents, their hits no less devastating than Zafra’s. My adrenaline was too high for me to feel any of the punches, kicks, or cuts from their blades, but I was aware of the bruises and nicks accumulating on my body.

I lost tabs on Zafra again as a merc tried to grapple me, but I twisted free after elbowing him hard in the stomach. He bent over, wheezing hard, and without mercy, I stabbed him in the back.

An arm wound around my neck and pulled me against a hard body that smelled faintly of rot. Before he could snap my neck, he convulsed and the pressure against my trachea disappeared. I whirled, ready to stab, but there was no one there. I met Zafra’s eyes with a nod of gratitude.

“Mac?” I tried again as I dodged, flipped, kicked, and ducked a blow to the head, swept the feet of the Brofil from under him, then rolled to prevent a mag boot from crushing my ribs. By the time I managed to get upright, things had changed and not in our favor.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected us to hold our own for this long. Not against such a number.

Zafra had blood on her face, her tunic was ripped from shoulder to belly, and she was favoring her left leg.

There were more mercs on the ground, unconscious or dead, but there were still too many standing and still fresh. No one had come to check on the commotion, no sirens had gone off. Yet.

There was no way around this dilemma but to see this through. The quicker, the faster we could go back to the hotel and check on the rest. I knew something terrible had happened there.

I flicked my blade and motioned for the nearest merc to come closer.

His lip curled, revealing a delicate fang. I braced, but instead of attacking, all the Brofils took a step back and fled as if they’d rehearsed this move.

Zafra backed up against me, one hand raised and emitting some kind of static.

“What are they doing?” she asked. “Why are they running?”

“I don’t know.”

It certainly wasn’t because they were losing. “Maybe they realized they had the wrong people?”

Zafra snorted. “Tell that to my ribs.”

But they could have done worse if they’d stayed. Then we heard it: the sound of marching. The cavalry had arrived.

“Time to go,” I said as I turned and began running back to the hotel. When I realized Zafra wasn’t behind me, I stopped, feeling a twinge of relief when I spotted her. Limping and winded, but upright and running. She motioned for me to go, her jaw set, either with pain or stubbornness.

Despite her limp, she wasn’t very far behind me when I ran into the lobby of the hotel and made for the elevator.

Mac’s voice came back at the same time as the vision in my right eye flickered twice and the car doors parted.

“I can’t believe this.”

“Mac, shit. What the hell is going on?” I asked as I stepped inside.

“A communication block. I’m guessing it had some virus that clung to the open comms and infected my matrix.”

Not an EMP beam then. I was almost sure that the hotel had been hit with one, the same way the Brofils had unknowingly disconnected him when they’d kidnapped the princess from my ship on Cyrus Station.

“How were you hit?” I asked.

For a few seconds, he didn’t answer. I thought the block was up again. “Shrimples, they keep multiplying. I need to get my system cleared. Why are you back at the hotel?”

“We were attacked,” I said just as I reached the third floor and the doors opened.

I spotted the first signs of a scuffle: the door to our suite was standing ajar, the frame dented. The smell of recycling air and melted iron hung thick in the air, along with wisps of smoke near the ventilation systems.

Mac swore. “Are you okay? I thought I tripped some cloaked failsafe and triggered the moon’s security defenses. That was a boatload of destructive coding.”

“You said communication block,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, didn’t want to alarm you.”

I inched sideways against the wall, trying to peer inside the room. “We’ll talk about that later. Do you have visual of the room?”

“No. Cassandra disabled the original ones and her comms are off.”

The second elevator dinged and Zafra came out, limping and bloodied. She looked at me, huddled in the corner, then at the ajar door, and scooted sideways against the wall, much the way I had. But there was no need to hide because whoever was inside knew we were there. I hadn’t realized it before, but the ding of the elevator was as good as a voiceless announcement.

“Ravi?” I called.

“Good. You made it back,” Ravi said, his voice carrying.

Ravi’s casual tone took me aback. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but casual dismissal hadn’t been it. Zafra and I exchanged glances. She motioned for me to stay put. She limped past me and came to a halt two steps in. Stomach shrinking, I followed, taking in the wreckage—broken furniture, holes in the wall, Brofil bodies, and the two men facing off with Ravi.

Men I knew and trusted.

“Well, fuck,” Mac said. “This just keeps getting more and more complicated.”

My eyes zeroed in on Cassandra’s huddled form at the other end of the room and belatedly, I realized she was hunched over a body. Lorenzo.

“Is he dead?” Zafra asked bluntly.

“No,” Cassandra said. “I’ve stabilized him, but he was shot in the chest. He needs medical attention.”

I moved closer, cringing both at the large clamp Cassandra had fastened to Lorenzo’s chest and the fact that he was naked, save for a kitchen towel that had been hastily placed over his groin. Lorenzo was conscious, eyes open and blinking at the ceiling. When Cassandra finished applying the stabilizer, she helped him sit. Lorenzo grimaced, his complexion paler than usual, but he was conscious and aware.

I turned to face the two other men—friends once who I wasn’t sure deserved that label anymore.

“Baltsar,” I said. For the first time since he’d helped me escape the lab, I looked at him like he was a stranger. My eyes moved to Alex, standing to his right like a bodyguard. Or a close friend.

“You set us up,” I accused, my lips numb. I should have listened to Ravi. I should have taken his suspicion more seriously.

Alex’s concern morphed into irritation in a blink. “I came to help,” he said.

I cocked my head and looked at Baltsar next. I didn’t have words for him. My thoughts circled all the runs I’d done, all the information I’d gathered about the scientists and given to him. All the times the scientists had pulled one up on me. All the times I’d been too late to do much good but pilfer goods for orphanages and Odette’s convent. My information had always come from Baltsar. Whenever I’d come upon something he hadn’t known, I’d made sure to update him, never taking precautions that one day he could turn on me. I had trusted him implicitly.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Baltsar said mildly, “let me explain.”

“This is Baltsar?” Cassandra echoed, eyeing the man up and down. “The scientist friend you told me helped you?”

I gave Cassandra a silent nod and turned to Baltsar. “Explain then,” I said.

“We should first go somewhere safer,” Alex suggested. “Dupilaz authority is bound to have been notified after all that racket.”

I glanced at Ravi. He had his head of royal guard mask on, his expression hard and implacable. It gave me no clue what he was thinking.

“Where’s…” I trailed off, unsure if I should bring up the fact that Krozalia’s princess and upcoming ruler was here.

“She was taken,” Ravi said through gritted teeth.

I jerked and whirled around. Zafra cursed.

“What did you do?” I demanded, looking from Baltsar to Alex and back again. “Where is she?”

Baltsar and Alex exchanged a look.

I took a menacing step forward. I’d just killed and maimed for that kid, the evidence still painted on my hands and clothes. “Where?” I demanded again.

“We were notified of the attack and arrived in time to get those three.” He pointed at the bodies. “We didn’t know you were missing a crew member until just now.” He glanced around, as if searching for clues. “Who did they take?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again. “Why are you here? Who told you of the attack?”

Baltsar winced. “Alex put a tail on you. He thought you were working for someone else.”

My eyes jumped to Alex. “If you put a tail on me, where were you when I was ambushed by Brofil mercs?”

A furrow formed on Alex’s brow. “We didn’t see you leave.”

Because Zafra and I had taken the maintenance exit. I waved my hand. “No. We don’t have time for that.” I pointed at Lorenzo. “Get dressed while Cassandra cleans and bandages Zafra’s wounds and I get changed out of these clothes.” We didn’t want to have escaped station security just to be caught again because we were covered in blood.

I turned a level look on Baltsar. “You can explain what you’re doing here in the meantime.”

Baltsar’s mouth thinned into a straight line.

“Start talking,” I said as I headed to the adjacent room. The only signs of a disturbance here were the broken table lying on its side by the window and some of Cassandra’s gadgets on the ground.

“I’m a commander in the IGATF,” Baltsar called with a slightly raised voice. “When I was still an operative, I got a lead on a case I’d been working on for years. I was able to infiltrate their ranks as a biotech engineer.”

The dark labs. He was talking about being employed by the scientists. I stripped off my clothes as Baltsar continued the story I already knew, though he was careful to edit mentions of genetic manipulation, nanotechnology, and sentient AIs.

“By the year mark, I excelled at everything I did to the point where I was finally brought into the inner fold. That’s when I finally had the evidence I needed to bust the case, but by then I was being watched closely. So I stayed and tried my best to thwart their illegal operations while I searched for a way to send word out to the IGATF. You know the rest.”

Yes, yes I did. By that time, he’d been presented with a broken soldier presumed dead in action, a person who was hanging on the will to live by a thread. I knew; I was that person. But there were still a lot of holes in the story, holes that hadn’t been there when I hadn’t known about the IGATF and Baltsar’s role in it.

I grabbed a few wet towels and began wiping off the dried blood on my hands and face. “You told me Alex didn’t make it,” I called as I pulled a clean shirt over my head. Silence stretched in the other room as I slipped into black cargo pants and grabbed my boots.

I returned to the other room only to find everyone in the same place I’d left them, though at least Lorenzo had drawstring pants on and an unbuttoned shirt.

“My injuries don’t need fussing,” Zafra explained when I looked at her. She too, had changed into a clean jumpsuit, though her face was still bruised, lip swollen, knuckles split. But we no longer looked like we’d been wrestling in a slaughterhouse.

I turned back to Baltsar and raised an eyebrow. “So? You told me for years that Alex didn’t survive. Care to explain?”

“He didn’t,” Baltsar insisted. Beside him, Alex shifted. “After”—Baltsar gave me a meaningful look—“he was in a coma. Alex awoke five years ago and was given two choices. He chose to serve the IGATF.”

Alex pinned Baltsar with a flat look. “What he isn’t saying is that the other choice was death.”

Baltsar shrugged.

From the other side of the room, Cassandra stared at Alex, expression stricken.

“As much as this reunion warms my heart, I think we should get going.” Zafra turned to Ravi. “Do you know where they took her?”

“No,” he said shortly. “But I know where they’re going.”

“Who did they take?” Baltsar asked.

We all turned to him and said nothing.

Baltsar crossed his arms. “Do you think I’m lying?”

“I don’t know,” I answered quietly.

“Fair enough. Have I ever done anything to indicate I wished you any harm?”

“No,” I said reluctantly. If nothing else, he’d put his life at risk more than once to make sure I made it out of the lab in one piece.

“I’ve never heard about The Alliance working in Sector 5,” Lorenzo said for the first time. “As far as I know, the IGATF never intervened with the Kroz.”

“That’s because you don’t know shit,” Alex shot.

“We didn’t use to,” Baltsar said at the same time. He gave Alex a hard look and shifted to Lorenzo. “I’m assuming you’re our operative from the Splendor?”

I whirled and scowled at Lorenzo. “You?”

Lorenzo sighed. I couldn’t tell if the look in his eyes was defeat or pain. “I’m the person sending the updates, but I’m not an operative yet.” He looked at me, one hand covering the thick stabilizer, the other balled into a white-knuckled fist. “I won’t be approved until I can bring you back to the HSA.”

My eyes narrowed. “Why? What do they want from me?”

“Fuck if I know.” Lorenzo shrugged and hissed when the motion seemed to have jarred his injury. “The HSA only gave me the assignment when Admiral Fulk failed to convince the Kroz to accept another escort. If I brought you in, I’d be promoted as the overseer of the human representative in the IGATF.”

Alex made a sound of disgust. Lorenzo shifted and flinched, eyes pressing closed with pain.

“We should take you to see a proper doctor,” Cassandra remarked, checking the clamps of the stabilizer. “Preferably a clinic with an advanced med unit. The meds the stabilizer pumped in won’t last for long.”

“There’s one north of the plaza square,” Baltsar proposed.

“So the trade agreement?” Ravi began.

Lorenzo pursed his lips, his eyes moving from face to face before dropping. “A side bonus. My main goal was to bring Clara back, no matter what it took.”

“That’s an interesting development,” Mac murmured. “I bet ten circuit boards that the HSA knows what you are.”

I recalled all the times Lorenzo had antagonized the Kroz, the way he hadn’t seemed to care if he was ingratiating himself or not. No, he had acted like he wanted the Kroz to cross us, the humans, as nuisances from the moment he’d stepped foot on my ship. Because the KKM trade—a side bonus—wasn’t his true goal. Had they known before that stunt on Cyrus Station, or had I become a priority after that? Whichever was true, Mac was right. The HSA knew what I was.

“If the IGATF used to have no dealings with the Kroz, why are you here now?” Ravi asked, shifting the attention away from me.

I didn’t think his effort was necessary. There wasn’t a person in this room, maybe save Lorenzo, who didn’t know I’d been genetically enhanced.

“We’ve been meeting with a Kroz representative on and off for the better part of the past three years.”

“Since the empress died,” Zafra concluded.

“Yes.”

“Times are changing,” Baltsar continued. “We had a meeting with the emperor next month.” He shook his head. “Alex told me there was foul play in the cause of death.”

“He was assassinated,” I confirmed.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Baltsar said, pressing his right fist against his heart and lowering his chin.

“Your condolences mean nothing to me,” Ravi spat. “I’m the Head of the Royal Guard and I have never heard about this meeting.”

“You can ask Vera Oshar. She was the Kroz’s spokesperson.”

Silence hung heavy in the room.

“Vera Oshar is dead,” Ravi intoned flatly.

Baltsar blanched. “How?”

“Shot with a long-range laser sniper rifle.”

Baltsar lowered his head.

“They shared similar talents,” Mac observed. “Maybe they bonded over that, since bioelectricity is rare, even for the Kroz.”

Mmm, it was possible. But even if not, it was obvious Vera’s death had affected Baltsar more than the emperor’s had. A fact confirmed when Baltsar raised his head, not hiding the shine of his eyes. “What about Sigol?”

“All the emperor’s personal security was killed,” Ravi said, not unkindly.

Baltsar swallowed and rubbed his mouth. Then he inhaled and threw back his shoulders. “The situation is more dire than we’d assumed. Before Alex informed me about your presence, I was in a meeting with station security. They have a bulletin out for your capture. I assume that you ran to divert attention from the princess, but if Vera and Sigol are dead,” he looked around, realization and dread leeching the remaining color from his face.

“They took the princess,” I confirmed the thought I could see clearly on the old man’s face. I scanned the three dead Brofils. They resembled the ones who had ambushed Zafra and me. “But I don’t understand how?” I looked up at Ravi.

I’d seen him fight before. How had they overwhelmed him?

“Sleeping gas,” he said through gritted teeth, kicking a round object my way. It rolled with a heavy, metallic vroom and came to a stop near my right foot.

“They introduced nitrous oxide gas first through the ventilation system,” Cassandra put in. “By the time we realized something was wrong, we were already loopy. That’s when they launched their attack. Lorenzo was in the shower and wasn’t as affected. He heard the mercenaries and came running out.”

And got shot in the chest. I was impressed. I didn’t think Lorenzo had it in him. His modus operandi was to run and hide whenever there was a conflict, not to race toward it.

“They were after the kid,” Lorenzo muttered when my scrutiny lingered on him too long.

“We came in when we heard the explosion,” Alex said. “We walked in and found the three mercs about to eliminate any witnesses.” He kicked the boot of a downed Brofil. “This one had a laser pistol on dear Lori’s head.”

I looked at the merc in question and saw the telltale signs of a shot to the temple.

“Name is Lorenzo, moron.”

“Lorenzo Moron,” Alex said with a nod. “I like it too, though I think Lori is such a cute nickname. Anyway. There was no one else in the suite. They must have taken the princess out some other way.”

“The stairs?” Zafra suggested.

“No,” Alex said, frowning at her. No doubt trying to figure out if she was being sarcastic. “I took the stairs, Commander Baltsar took the elevator.”

“They took the emergency exit,” Cassandra said quietly.

“There’s no emergency exit,” Alex said with a frown. He glanced at her and quickly looked away. I remembered the panic in his eyes when I’d mentioned her presence on the moon earlier.

“It doesn’t matter which way they used,” Ravi cut in. “We need to go.”

Baltsar turned to Ravi. “You said you knew where they’d be taking her.”

“Yes,” Ravi said. “Back to Krozalia.”

Baltsar looked thoughtful for a second. “We can prevent that,” he said and pulled out his commlink. “I can put a request to have all ships grounded for a few hours. It’ll buy time for the next move.” He typed out a message and then returned his attention to Ravi. “Do you know who hired the mercenaries?”

“No.”

Baltsar gave Ravi a flat look, as if he thought he could intimidate a more detailed answer from him. “But this isn’t your first tango with the Brofil mercenaries.” Baltsar turned to me. “Were you attacked by Brofil too?”

I made an ascending sound in my throat.

He peered at Ravi again. “They surprised you as well on Cyrus Station. Brofils have the highest merc prices in the galaxy. Usually, they travel in packs of four. Someone with coffers deep enough to pay for so many and across the galaxy is someone The Alliance will want to know about.”

“Then do your homework,” Ravi snapped.

Baltsar inclined his head. But we all knew that all fingers were pointing back to Krozalia.

Chapter 9

We didn’t go to the address Alex gave us during our first meeting. We didn’t know how the Brofils had found us. We all had lingering doubts about Alex and Baltsar and the possibility of them being moles. Well, Ravi, Zafra, and Cassandra had that suspicious glint in their eyes when they looked at the two. For my part, I was half undecided, half in denial. I didn’t want Alex to have betrayed me, not after all these years I’d dedicated to finding answers. He remained, in my heart, the friend I could always rely on.

I wasn’t even going to debate Baltsar—because regardless of whether or not he had given us away to the Brofils, he had lied to me, no matter the reason.

Alex was alive.

And Baltsar had been helping me search for him, knowing all along I wouldn’t find him.

We left the hotel together in one group, though we separated soon after. Ravi refused to waste time updating the IGATF about the situation on Krozalia. Still, he understood the importance of forging an alliance, especially when everything else was so uncertain. It was decided that Zafra and Alex would initiate negotiations, while Cassandra would accompany Lorenzo to seek medical care at an IGATF-operated clinic that Baltsar had arranged. Besides, with the notice of Ravi’s capture circulating among security agencies, it was best that he kept his distance. Hoods could only obscure so much.

Baltsar, Ravi, and I would be procuring a new ship from an independent source. Baltsar knew someone who would be willing, for a price, to rent out a ship, since Ravi had outright declined an IGATF escort. Even though we had initiated contact for exactly that reason, I understood his reluctance. I would be hard-pressed not to do the same thing, were I the one calling the shots.

Dolenta was a constant, nagging worry in my mind, but both Ravi and his sister were confident that the mercenaries had orders to return her to Krozalia alive. According to them, as the last heir, the rebellion needed to kill her on Krozalian soil for the Tanue to accept the invocation of Moresy Cotelum. Before, when the rebellion was doing their best to get rid of Dolenta, her father had still been alive—and dying. The emperor would have had no choice then but to call for the Moresy Cotelum himself if Dolenta had died before reaching Krozalia. But we had made it, and the rebellion’s mission had teetered at the edge of failure when the emperor had stepped down. Now, everything had been tossed to the wind, and the rebellion was throwing all they had on bringing the princess back so the Tanue would feel when the last link to the royal family was extinguished. It was all so ruthless.

The IGATF office was housed within the government building, the tallest structure standing on Dupilaz Moon. If we’d had any doubt about Baltsar and Alex being IGATF agents, taking us to their office dispelled it. At least for me.

Ravi’s contacts were all housed in that building as well, but they had all been downgraded to the suspicious list. I could imagine how it felt to have trustworthy people he’d vouch for one moment, only to realize that what he saw was nothing but deceiving masks in the next. I was sure somewhere along that list there were people he could trust, but it would take more time than we had for him to clear them.

Thankfully, Baltsar knew the right people, or the wrong, depending on who you asked. Either way, we would be leaving Dupilaz on a nondescript ship fit for combat, stealth, and no questions asked. If we managed to get Baltsar’s “people” to agree to our terms. Renting a ship with the power we needed was more of a deal between trusting individuals. No one wanted to hedge their bets that a stranger would return a rented ship when tracking them would be impossible. It was the reason escort companies did brisk business no matter the sector, station, or race.

Baltsar led us in the other direction from the government building, up the honeycomb of Dupilaz’s docks, and into the business district.

“I’ve never seen a system with so many failsafes,” Mac remarked in my ear. There was a tinge of admiration in his tone that I didn’t think would be healthy for me in the long run.

“How much longer do you think you’ll need?”

“I don’t know,” Mac replied. “I don’t even know how far I’ve made it. I don’t know if we have enough time for me to untangle things before it becomes a moot point.”

“We’ll find her,” I said.

Ravi looked down at me, and I realized I’d said that out loud.

“This might go faster if your boy toy uses his position to get me into the system. Not that it’ll keep us from any hazardous accidents. Just throwing it out there.”

“You know the whole reason we’re dealing with the IGATF is because we don’t know whom we can trust here?”

Mac was quiet for a few steps. “Then see if Baltsar has the authority to have the IGATF intervene. Normally, I wouldn’t mind a challenge, but a kid’s life is on the line here.”

I winced and turned to Baltsar. “Do you have clearance to get Mac into the moon’s security system?”

Baltsar frowned. “Why?”

“He wants to go over the station’s feed.”

“You think he can locate the pr-the girl?”

“If she was captured in any of the cameras, yes.”

“Tower control will never allow someone without clearance to tap into the moon’s feed,” Ravi said.

Baltsar tapped his fingers on his leg as he considered me. “No, but maybe an IGATF representative could petition to watch the feed.”

“It might be worth it,” Ravi said and pulled out his commlink. “I’ll contact Zafra and have her put in the request.” He glanced down at Baltsar. “Unless you can do it?”

“I could, but I’d still need the IGATF’s seal of approval, so go ahead and have Zafra put in an official inquiry. It’ll streamline things down the line.”

Without a word, Ravi walked a few meters away, commlink in hand.

Baltsar cleared his throat and I looked away from Ravi’s backside, face flaming.

“You told him about Mac?” Baltsar asked skeptically. “Why?”

“I—um—it’s complicated,” I said lamely.

“And he’s fine knowing you have a sentient AI sharing parts of your body?”

“That sounded lewd,” Mac murmured distractedly.

Ravi’s return kept Baltsar from interrogating me further. We watched him close the distance in silence. He’d pulled the hood of his cloak down to the bridge of his nose, obscuring his features in a way I didn’t think the hood alone ought to. It was probably some kind of Kroz technology, or maybe the manipulation of his Ashak.

“They’ll join us once Zafra’s done,” Ravi said when he was close enough. “We should secure transportation in the meantime.”

***

The shop Baltsar took us to looked more like a chop shop than a reputable rent-a-ship store. At Ravi’s dubious expression, which no doubt mirrored mine, Baltsar chuckled and motioned to the back.

“I know the owner. She’ll provide what you need and keep her mouth shut about it.”

The play of warring decisions in Ravi’s eyes told me he wanted to decline. If he declined, Dolenta could pay the price, and if he agreed, Baltsar could double-cross us.

“I trust him with my life,” I said after I pulled him aside.

Ravi dipped his chin and scrutinized my face. “Do you trust him with Dolenta’s life?”

I considered his question, recalling all those many years ago when Baltsar had put his cover in jeopardy and, by default, his life, to help me. The way he provided me with names of hospitals, orphanages, and schools with the least funding and resources so I could drop off spoils from the labs I’d raided. As a commander in the IGATF, he shouldn’t have encouraged that, but he’d taken the needs of the people first and looked the other way. Hell, he’d even helped me make sure the spoils had gone to the right people.

Yes, Baltsar had lied to me all these years, but objectively, I could understand his side of the story. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t doubt him.

I met Ravi’s eyes. “I trust he is trying to help.”

Ravi pursed his lips, my reassurance not quelling his uncertainty. But he indicated for Baltsar to lead on. No, Ravi wasn’t happy with the situation, but he wasn’t swimming in choices and he knew that. Better the devil you knew and all that shit. Or the devil of the devil you knew.

“It’s all legal,” Baltsar assured him, tapping on Ravi’s shoulder twice. “No need to give me the avenging angel glare.”

“More like the devil’s,” Mac muttered.

I stifled a chuckle and followed Baltsar into the shop, bypassing several garage spaces with various ship parts, to the sounds of welding and cutting and muffled music. The smells of mechanic oil, hot metals, and something astringent were thick in the air. No one paid us any attention. There wasn’t anyone manning the back desk either.

The room we stepped into was the polar opposite of the one we had just left. Instead of stripped parts, a showroom of holographic ships greeted us. Even the smell was different, the citrusy perfume welcome to my nose.

“Wow,” Mac said.

“Balty!” someone called from our right, and we turned to find a short woman dressed in blue dress pants, a beige button-down shirt with blue trimmings, and heels so thin they could double as weapons. She waved enthusiastically from the door of an office.

“That’s who we’re here to meet?” Ravi asked when Baltsar changed direction. There was something odd in his tone, but his expression was his trademark flat.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know Provacs were allowed to set up establishments here in Dupilaz Moon.” The comment was mildly casual, but the threatening undertone came loud and clear.

Even Baltsar stopped abruptly and turned to face him. “The Provacs on this station have been here for more than a century with Emperor Rokoskiv’s approval, and under the aegis of the IGATF. They applied for mercy citizenship and were granted it.”

Provacs? Before I could ask, Mac said, “They’re a scavenging race from Sector 2. It’s rumored that they ate the less predatory species of the entire system before Kroz Warriors were dispatched to defend the rest. According to some articles I’m seeing, Provacs find Kroz meat a delicacy.”

I shuddered with revulsion.

Ravi bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “So long as they keep their peace and don’t eat anyone…” He let the sentence drop, but the threat was there.

Baltsar grunted. “They won’t. Penalty for breaking the law here is getting spaced. If you didn’t know, there are no long-term prisons here. They are all aware of that.”

The Provacs woman stayed by the door, hands clasped in front of her as she waited and watched. I suspected she had heard all we’d said, despite the distance.

At first glance, she looked like any other humanoid race: head, two arms, two legs, one torso. But at closer inspection, the similarities dropped. Her eyes were black all around. As if each was one enlarged pupil. Her teeth were small and sharp, her hands ending in talon-tipped fingers. There was a leathery quality to her skin too, like parchment weathered by time. Not that the distinctions jumped out at me, save for the eyes. They were subtle enough, but with the biometrics playing in my right vision field, it was easier to spot them.

“Balty,” she greeted with a creepy smile. “I wasn’t expecting you until next week. I don’t have your order ready.”

“Mior.” Baltsar clasped his hands together and bowed over them. “I’m here for other business,” he said, gesturing at us. “My friends here require a ship. To rent.”

“You know I don’t rent ships, Balty.”

“For our friendship, I’m sure you can arrange something. Besides, they’re willing to pay.”

Mior leaned her upper body forward, her eyes gleaming as she addressed Baltsar. “You will vouch for them?”

“Yes,” Baltsar replied without hesitation.

Mior gave Ravi and me a once over, her eyes lingering on Ravi longer. “What kind of ship?”

“The one with all the additions and no hassle.”

The woman turned to Baltsar, her look inquisitive. “For when?”

“The sooner, the better,” Ravi replied.

Mior cocked her head, the movement bird-like. “You’ll have to sign a disclaimer that indemnifies any liability incurred during your trip.”

“Of course,” Ravi agreed.

“In that case, I might have the ship you need. Please, follow me.” She whirled around, causing the hem of her shirt to billow out, revealing nubby protrusions under her armpits through the shirt’s slits.

We followed Mior into her office—big, airy, and elegantly feminine. For some reason, I expected something more violent than delicate flowers, abstract paintings, and round, graceful furniture.

“Please, have a seat,” she indicated, rounding her large desk, and pulling out a hologram port. “I’m not in the habit of lending ships, but for old times’ sake, I’m obliged to help.” She glanced at Baltsar and winked. “For you, of course, I’ll offer my best. It’s a G-203 Ogada ship that just finished renovation.”

An image of a slick black ship with a naked mermaid painted on the hood came to life above the hologram port. It flipped on all sides, showcasing all its curves and deadly edges.

“It’s a twelve-seat ship with a comprehensive med bay unit and—I’m assuming you want weapons?” she asked, looking up from the keypad she’d been tapping on.

At Ravi’s nod, she continued, “It has a laser port, a six-missile carrier, and a plas cannon. It also has a three-layer shield that can endure two minutes of direct hits and a spare FTL drive. Does that suit you?”

The hologram moved from the interior to the weapons’ chute, and then back to the slick lines. I loved it.

“My loyalty to the Splendor only goes so far,” Mac said in my ear. “Can we have it? Can we, please?”

“We’ll take it,” Ravi said.

Mac whooped in my ear so loud, I had to suppress a wince.

Mior’s smile turned predatory. “Rent is one thousand universal credits a day. How long would you need it for?”

“Three days should be enough.”

My eyebrows rose at that, but then I got it. We only had two days left. If Dolenta couldn’t tame the Tanue, nothing would matter after that.

“Excellent. You’re responsible for any damages and the return of the ship. Delays will incur an additional thousand credits per day. Our deposit is two thousand credits plus half the rent upfront.”

“I’ll pay five hundred now and the rest upon the ship’s return.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Mior said smoothly.

Baltsar scowled. “Now, Mior, that’s no way to conduct business.”

Mior’s attention shifted to Baltsar. “It is how I do it,” she responded with a silky shrug. “That’s my only offer. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll pay,” I blurted.

All three looked at me. I shrugged. “I can pay.”

“No, no, no,” Mac complained. “We’re saving for upgrades, remember? You can’t blow all that money for three days on a ship, no matter how glorious.”

Ravi stood and pulled me up. “I need to talk to you.” Without waiting, he dragged me behind him and out of the office.

“We can’t risk anything tracing back to you,” he murmured near my ear.

I stifled a shiver as his breath brushed against the side of my neck. “It won’t be in my name.”

“I don’t think you should tell him that,” Mac advised. “No matter how hot you find him, some things should stay secret.”

Ravi pulled back far enough to look me in the eye. The thrilling flicker I felt and my speeding pulse had nothing to do with the speculation in his expression.

“It’s for emergencies, you know? You should do that too—stash some money in untraceable accounts in case you find yourself in need of anonymity.”

His head dipped, his mouth brushing against mine with a soft caress that had all sorts of muscles inside me clenching.

“I have an account for that,” he murmured against my mouth. “But I forgot to charge it when this hard-to-get captain drained most of it with her tough bargain.”

“Oh.”

Ravi’s eyes glinted with affection and amusement. “I’ll reimburse you,” he promised as he stepped back.

“You better,” Mac snapped. “Tell him that.”

I ignored him.

“Fine, I’ll tell him myself.”

A moment later, Ravi pulled out his commlink, peered at it, and raised an eyebrow at me, mouth quirking at one corner.

I shrugged and followed him back into the office. Both Mior and Baltsar were on their feet, engrossed in a discussion about ship components for an order he needed to be sent to Cyrus Station

“Have you decided?” Mior asked, eyeing Ravi.

“Yes,” I said, pulling out my commlink. “Where should I transfer the funds to?”

Once the transaction concluded, Mior took us out and back to the dock maze to show us to the Space Mermaid, the ship I’d just emptied my account to pilot for the next three days.

I didn’t need the tour inside the ship to know I would like it, but once we’d gone through the ship from front to back—starboard to port and up and down its decks—I not only liked it, I loved it.

I cleared my throat as we exited the ship. “How much does it cost to buy the ship?”

Mior looked at me over her shoulder. “The Space Mermaid is one of my best. It’s the latest model in a line of only two thousand. As a favor for being Balty’s friend, I would charge you only fifty thousand universals.”

“Heh-heh, she’s a comedian,” Mac guffawed. “I don’t like comedians.”

I nodded and smiled faintly. “I’ll think about it.”

Cassandra and Zafra were waiting outside with Alex and an unfamiliar man. I took a step toward them when a squeal and a snarl had me whirling around and crouching in a defensive position. I found Ravi holding Mior by the neck with one hand, and a rope in his other. A rope that disappeared into the slit of Mior’s shirt.

Ravi’s expression was thunderous, his eyes blazing with fury. “Do that again and you won’t have to fear being spaced because you’ll be in pieces when that happens.”

“Relax,” Mior gasped. “It was just a lick.”

Ravi dropped her not so gently, and after a stumble, Mior straightened and rubbed her neck. There was a sinister smile on her face that gave me shivers.

“I wasn’t going to bite,” she pouted. With the sharp teeth and thin lips, the expression shouldn’t have worked.

Ravi threw the rope at her face, and it quickly recoiled—no, retracted into one of the nubs on her side. I understood the purpose of the slits, though I had yet to understand what those tentacles did. Aside from licking unsuspecting Kroz.

“Touchy, aren’t you?” Mior taunted.

“Our business here is concluded. Go.”

With one last avaricious look, Mior turned and disappeared into the crowd.

“What was that?” Zafra asked.

“Nothing,” Ravi bit out, still scowling after the Provacs.

Zafra looked at me for an answer. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my cargo pants and snickered. “I think your brother just got fondled.”

Zafra’s eyes widened. Mischief glinted in her eyes as she turned to Ravi. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Ravi bit out. “It was just a lick.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Zafra moved around him. “Let me see,” she said, pushing his hair away before he could dodge her hands.

Ravi jerked. Zafra made a strangled sound, all her humor gone. Her eyes were wide, the shock in them as clear as the sun.

“What?” I demanded, reaching for Ravi. “What did she do?”

Zafra whipped around. “You—”

“Drop it,” Ravi interrupted with a warning.

“Why?” I demanded. “What did she do?”

“Nothing, damn it.” He raked his hand through his hair. “This isn’t the time or the place.” He aimed the latter at his sister.

Zafra dropped her still raised hand and stepped back with a wounded look.

Ravi lowered his voice. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

“Yes, fine,” she clipped. “We should go. Marcus is going to escort us to the tower so we can request access to the surveillance feed.”

Marcus Fuller was the stranger who’d arrived with Zafra and the others. He was the personal assistant to the human advisor of the IGATF and Baltsar’s counterpart.

Zafra made the introductions as we moved. Marcus gave each of us a nod, his brown eyes lingering on me the longest. On his lapel was a symbol I’d seen before, amidst Baltsar’s office back in his shop in Cyrus Station. It was embroidery of a twelve-point star clutched by a dove at mid-flight. The symbol of unity and peace.

And apparently the IGATF insignia.

“Madam Drax informed me of the situation on Krozalia,” Marcus began as our group took the lift down to the moon’s center. “I’ve tried contacting Krozalia’s space administration center since I heard about the emperor, but no one has replied. We agreed to send in a team to investigate when you reached out and Madam asked us to wait for your orders.”

“I appreciate that,” Ravi said. “With all the ships on Dupilaz grounded, we should be able to clear things up soon.”

The station’s flight tower was a squat building smack dab in the middle of the moon. Had it not been for all the tower signals atop the building and the plaque decorating the front, the building would have been unassuming. I’d have expected it to be housed in the government building along with the IGATF’s office, but then realized that here, alone, it made a statement: it answered to no government but its own.

Before we entered the building, Baltsar pulled me to the side. Both Cassandra and Ravi slowed. I motioned for them to go ahead. I might have been suspicious of Baltsar’s presence, but I had no doubt he meant me no harm. He had had plenty of opportunities throughout the years to do that.

Maybe he just didn’t want to break his toy as long as it was to his advantage, a tiny, ugly voice whispered in my mind.

I recalled the toolbox Doctor Lamis had used to examine the KKM in my body, the same toolbox Baltsar had been using to calibrate my mechanical parts for years.

Cassandra disappeared into the dark interior of the side entrance, but Ravi stayed put. “I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

He gauged me for a few seconds more. “I’ll wait for you by the entrance.”

Baltsar waited until the doors whooshed closed. “The head of Krozalia’s royal guard?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “Are you sure you want to go down that path?”

I sighed. “It’s just a fling,” I said. “When this is over, we’ll each be going our separate ways.” The pang of regret I felt was more acute than it had any right to be. But maybe I didn’t need to go, now that I knew Alex was well and alive. My thoughts jolted at the realization, and I looked to where Ravi had disappeared. Alex’s presence changed everything, but at the same time, it did nothing.

Baltsar’s response was a tiny grunt. As if he didn’t want to be rude by contradicting my answer. He turned his back and angled his head so that his profile was to me. Away from the cameras at the entrance of the control tower structure.

“Be careful around Marcus,” he said without preamble. “He’s the assistant to Xavier Vargas, one of the twelve chairmen of the IGATF. When we get in there, make sure Mac behaves. If they get a whiff of his existence…it’s not going to end well.”

Dread carved a hollow in the pit of my stomach.

“If he asks,” he continued, unaware of my disquiet, or simply choosing to ignore it, “we met on Cyrus Station when you needed repairs done to your ship. Understand?”

I nodded. “What about Alex? Don’t they know about his…” I rolled my hand instead of saying it out loud, just in case.

Baltsar’s eyes darkened. “He was in a coma after the changes done to his body, Lee. He never had anything similar to Mac. Otherwise, he’d have been terminated.”

I gasped.

“No wonder the old man kept you in the dark,” Mac said in a subdued tone.

I swallowed, suddenly all too aware of how precarious my situation was.

Baltsar exhaled forcefully. “If Alex hadn’t barged into a meeting demanding answers about you, I wouldn’t be giving you this warning. But Marcus seemed all too interested. It helps that Cassandra and Lorenzo are here, and that the rest of your old crew is down on Krozalia. Vargas won’t seek you out on his own, because the HSA has already staked a claim, but Marcus is an ambitious son of a bitch. If he feels that you’re more than you seem to be, he’ll take you in to gain favors, and he’ll do it before the HSA can react.”

“I don’t like that part about the HSA staking claims,” Mac said. “I think it’s time we pull a disappearing act.”

“It would be best if Mac disengaged while Marcus is close by,” Baltsar continued. “The IGATF…they have a lot of gadgets that could pick up his signal.”

I recalled the box Ravi had used when he’d interrogated me on the Splendor. A hypermorph detector, he’d said.

“I’ll be careful,” Mac promised.

I didn’t think that was what Baltsar meant. “I’m almost through cracking the moon’s system,” Mac told me. “I could work on that front from the Splendor while you guys get the clearance and start reviewing the feed. It’s not the perfect plan, but it’s a solid one. I stay out of frequency, and if I find something first, I can ping you through the commlink.”

I looked back at the unassuming building. “I don’t understand. This Marcus guy—the IGATF hunts hypermorphs?”

Baltsar tugged at the cuffs of his tunic. “There’s been an uptick in bioengineering experimentations lately. It was brought to our attention.”

“I thought the Kroz were responsible for the upkeeping of that particular law.”

Baltsar looked away, eyes hard.

I opened my mouth. Then shut it. Talking theories with Baltsar had always been easy, no hesitations to share what I knew, no suspicion that he’d hold back. It occurred to me then and there that the ease of communication was all one-sided, that Baltsar wasn’t the friend I thought he was.

“They are—why are you looking at me like that?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Go on.”

Baltsar scanned my face for a few heartbeats before continuing. “We have intel that the Kroz are behind it. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly.”

“The KKM,” I murmured.

Baltsar’s surprise would have been comical had the topic been something else.

“The emperor told me,” I explained. “You’re not so far off. He also believed someone on Krozalia was smuggling the KKM to the scientists. Up until I arrived, they had yet to pin down which race was behind it.”

“The Cradox,” Baltsar said with conviction, and this time I was the one surprised.

“What? I thought humans were behind that. The scientists—”

“Were hybrid humans,” Baltsar finished.

I wanted to deny that, but he was right. Doctor Reme was a hybrid, a Halfling, Ravi had called him. Like Baltsar. “It’s why they hired you,” I murmured. “Not because you were passing as human, but because you’re a hybrid.”

“Yes.”

“A hybrid attempted to kill me in Krozalia,” I said. “He was one of the doctors who supervised my cybernetics.”

“They tried killing you before that too,” Baltsar stated.

I frowned, thinking back and coming up blank.

“The HSA intercepted a mole amidst the CTF leaking information about your sudden return from the dead. By the time they managed to follow the source, you had already left. I think that the only reason you weren’t overwhelmed by the hits was because you eschewed Centaur’s Gateway and they were running blind.”

Puzzle pieces clicked into place. “Blackbird. The Voners only came when it became obvious which gateway we were taking. Before that, everyone but the Kroz were in the dark.”

“As far as I was able to figure, they wanted you back alive, but barring that, to terminate you before someone discovered what you are.”

“The scientists didn’t know about me either.”

“No. And now that they do, someone’s going to piece together the fact that there’s a hypermorph running around free.”

“Because they don’t know their experiment failed.” At Baltsar’s raised eyebrows, I rearranged my thinking. “No, it didn’t fail. You just made adjustments for Mac and me to retain our separate consciousness. That’s why the HSA wants me. They think I’m a hypermorph.”

“Probably. The commodore did say his main goal was to take you back no matter what.”

I pursed my lips. There were so many thoughts and ideas running amok in my head.

“I’ll work on something for you before we leave here,” Baltsar promised, touching my hand. “For now, we have eyes on the Cradox and hybrids, and our team here is working on the Kroz angle.”

Cradox, hybrids, and Kroz—but not humans. My eyes narrowed. The words brought up a realization that made me grit my teeth. “You always sent me to human colonies and asteroids to investigate.” My eyes hardened. “Were you sending me on wild goose chases?”

“No. Maybe a bit. We didn’t know about the Cradox until a few months ago. But I never sent you to suspected dark labs because I didn’t want you near them. For one, if I suspected a facility, chances were high my information came from the IGATF and that they already had eyes on it. For another, if you got caught by either side, you wouldn’t leave alive. But the places you busted were suspected side hustles the scientists used to funnel money back to their facilities. So it was never a wild goose chase.” Baltsar put a hand on my shoulder, eyes earnest. “Please, I only wanted to keep you safe and off the radar.”

“I don’t think I can blame him,” Mac told me.

I exhaled a long breath. Neither could I. “I should be mad at you,” I said, squeezing his hand with affection.

“Let’s go in before our chat makes Marcus suspicious enough to aim internal affairs at me.”

I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When he looked back, I searched his eyes. “Are you in trouble because of me?”

His eyes softened. He patted my hand twice. “I’ll be fine, kiddo. Don’t worry about me. Marcus and I have had an ongoing feud since the day I was chosen to infiltrate the only known lab we could pinpoint. The fact that the lab was destroyed before the IGATF could gather evidence made him incredibly bitter. He’s been trying to foil any step I take toward cracking this case so he can step in and take the credit for himself.” He patted my hand twice more. “I know how to handle him. I just need you to be careful.”

“Fine,” I said. “But we’re still going to have a long talk about your annual checkups and what your toolbox really does.”

Chapter 10

The security tower was an ordinary work room, filled with communal cubicles and individuals hunched over multiple screens each. We bypassed the large space to the back, climbed a few flights of stairs, and entered a circular room covered top to bottom with monitors.

A sizable oval table dominated the center of the room where our group gathered. Marcus was speaking with a blonde man two heads taller, though Marcus seemed to have been doing all the talking. He gestured with a hand to Zafra and the others, who stood some distance away. To my relief, Marcus’ voice didn’t carry, not that anyone was paying them any attention.

“That’s Benedict,” Baltsar murmured.

Benedict glanced up when we approached, eyes the color of spun gold meeting mine briefly before moving to Ravi. Recognition made the golden turn bronze, even as Ravi stiffened beside me.

I had thought with a name like Benedict that we were meeting someone human, but I was wrong. The slit pupils and the gleam of magic in them told something else—and made him a possible rebellion ally.

Kroz.

From his ready posture and the evident muscle tone, either Benedict was a warrior or he enjoyed rigorous workouts.

I paused beside Zafra, while Baltsar and Ravi moved to flank Marcus. The IGATF aid didn’t even spare them a glance.

“Romel is a family acquaintance,” Zafra explained in a tone that didn’t carry. “I didn’t know he was working here.”

From Ravi’s reaction, neither had he. “Do you think he could be a rebellion sympathizer?” I asked.

Zafra shook her head. “It’s hard to tell.”

I bit my lower lip and considered it. “He’d refuse us access to the feed.”

“He’d attempt to detain Ravi,” she added.

Both actions carried a high probability rate—if Benedict turned out to be in cahoots with the rebellion. I shifted a step away, and Zafra did the same. Cassandra gave our stance a once over and did the same. Not that I thought we’d be able to fight our way free from a secure building, but we wouldn’t be caught off guard. Judging by the tension in Ravi’s shoulders, I didn’t think he would either.

Marcus fell quiet. Benedict turned and regarded Ravi for an extended moment, then sighed.

“I accepted this position because I detest bowing to politics,” he lamented with a headshake. “Come on, let’s talk somewhere more private.” He motioned for us to follow, and after a second of hesitation, we all did, like good, obedient soldiers.

We descended one flight into a large reception area where another Provacs, dressed in a dark suit, sat behind a terminal. Beyond opaque glass doors, we entered a corner office.

Benedict rounded the rectangular, black executive desk and took a seat. He braced his elbows on the smooth finish of the desk and fixed his attention back on Ravi. “It’s good to see you, Ravi. Though I wish you didn’t bring this problem to my doorstep.”

“We don’t always get what we wish for, do we?” Ravi drawled.

“No. No, we don’t,” Benedict acknowledged, his eyes flicking briefly to Zafra. “Please have a seat.”

Once Ravi settled across from him, Benedict nodded at Zafra. “Chief Zafra. It’s good to see you again.”

“You as well, Ben.”

“I trust your parents are well?”

“As well as they can be,” Ravi said succinctly.

Benedict gave the rest of us assessing looks, then spoke to Ravi in Krozalian. I wanted to ask Mac to translate, but Ravi’s next words made it easy for me to guess.

“They stay. They’re privy to what’s happening.”

Benedict dropped his chin atop his clasped hands. “And what’s happening? Your side of the story. I know what the media is saying.”

“The emperor was killed, along with his guards,” Ravi told him. “We managed to smuggle the princess out. We came here to figure out our next step, but we were ambushed and the princess was taken. We need to find her and return to Krozalia. We have about two days before the Tanue destroys the planet.”

A weighty, stunned silence fell in the room. I hadn’t expected Ravi to state things so bluntly. He must have been more worried than he let on. By the way Marcus and Baltsar stared, they hadn’t expected the situation to be so dire either.

“So, we’re facing the worst-case scenario. Good to know.” Benedict rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, as though hoping to vanquish the words hanging in the air like a sharpened axe.

Marcus cleared his throat. “I thought the Tanue was a mythical creature?”

Ravi gave him an annoyed look. “It’s the spirit of Krozalia. Since its inception, Krozalian rulers have been the link between Tanue and the planet. Without a ruler, the Tanue becomes untethered and the planet suffers. Volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes—they’ll escalate until Krozalia is a vast wasteland.”

“If you find the princess…” Marcus began.

“She can tame the Tanue,” Ravi finished.

“I don’t understand,” Marcus began. “What do the rebels want? Krozalia to fall?”

Benedict waited for Ravi to explain, then dipped his chin slightly when Ravi said nothing. I wondered if that meant he accepted Ravi wouldn’t say more, or if he agreed that Marcus didn’t need to know.

“You understand that we have several protocols in place to access the moon’s surveillance feed. I can wave all escorts if I accompany you myself, but only you. I can’t allow you complete access, not even given your position.”

“We can work with that.”

Benedict’s posture eased. I couldn’t tell whether it was from avoiding an argument with Ravi, or if it was because it was easier to tamper with the feed when only one person would be watching it.

From the distrustful way Zafra was watching the exchange, she was thinking on the same wavelength too.

Benedict pushed off his chair. “Then we have no reason to delay this.”

Ravi stood. Benedict motioned to an unobtrusive door at the far end. “We’ll take the private lift. The rest of you can wait here.” Ravi fell in step beside him. Benedict continued, “You’ll be cleared for the requested section and nothing more. Your steps will be monitored and flagged if you attempt to go beyond your clearance. If you need to check anything further, you—”

I tuned him out when my commlink pinged with a message from Mac: Got those fuckers!

Before I could feel the spark of hope, claxons started blaring. My horrified gaze met Zafra’s, though I didn’t think her dread was for the same reason as mine. I was certain Mac had tripped some warning system and that we were screwed, while Zafra had inched closer to her brother.

A man ran into the office, meeting Benedict halfway and speaking frantically in Krozalian. Then Baltsar was there, giving me the grim news.

“Several ships have launched,” he informed me. It was so at odds with the words I thought he’d say that it took serious seconds for them to filter through the panic in my mind and register.

“What?” I demanded as Baltsar herded me out of the office and behind the others.

“Mac? Did you do that?”

“What? Launch ships I don’t have from a station that has grounded all outbound ships?” Mac scoffed. “I know you think I’m a genius, but so far, magic is outside my skillset.”

“It’s the Brofils,” Alex shouted amid the clamor ahead.

“They’re taking the princess to Krozalia,” Zafra snarled.

“We’ll follow,” Ravi announced, already several steps ahead of everyone.

“Mac?”

“Gimme a second,” he said distractedly.

“What did you find?”

Someone seized my arm. “Come on, Lee. Hurry,” Cassandra shouted as she pulled me after her. “We have to catch them!”

Mac let out a triumphant crow. “She’s in the business district.” A map of Dupilaz Moon took over my right field of vision. “The bastards are clever, but they’re no match for me.” The map contracted, expanded, and zoomed by in a rush until I was looking at the image of a large building.

Croffor, read the sign above the door.

“They went in there and have yet to come out,” Mac said. “Those launched ships are a diversion. I’ll keep watch for any activities.”

“Can you get inside?” I asked, barely paying attention to where Cassandra was dragging me.

“If they’re using an outside provider, I’m sure I can piggyback into their system.”

“Be careful,” I cautioned. “If you give them any indication we’re on to them, they’ll bolt.”

“On it.”

“…before they’re too far ahead,” Ravi was saying.

“She’s not with them,” I told him.

“What?” he asked, looking down at me with a frown.

I moved past him and took the lead. “She’s not in any of the ships. That’s a diversion.”

Ravi’s powerful strides brought him in step with me. At my words, he halted and grasped my elbow. “What are you saying?”

“Then where is she?” Zafra demanded at the same time.

“She’s in the business district,” I said, scanning the chaos around us for the exit. “How do we get outside?”

Ravi pulled me behind him, weaving through a group of people marching in the other direction, a narrow corridor I didn’t remember taking when coming in, and through a blank door that spat us into the lobby. “How sure are you?” he asked.

“One hundred percent,” I answered.

Ravi pinned me with a level look. There were no hints of doubt or suspicion in his eyes, only speculation and worry. Something inside me twanged with the trust. I struggled with the urge to kiss him and lost the fight. I stood on tiptoes, curved a hand on the back of his head, and guided his mouth down to mine. The pleased look of surprise in his eyes and the taste of his mouth urged me to deepen the kiss, but I restrained myself.

It wasn’t an easy feat.

“She’s at a building called Croffor. Those ships that launched are no doubt trying to get us to follow so they can make an easier launch in the chaos.”

We stepped outside just as several more ships launched. “Dupilaz patrol,” Zafra said, neck crooked as she watched them streak away.

“Come on,” I said, turning in the direction the map indicated.

“I’ll secure transportation,” Zafra announced and darted off.

A rough hand grabbed my wrist. I turned, only to find Marcus watching me, head cocked. “How do you know? Where did you get that information and when?”

My mouth went dry.

“Release my mate at once,” Ravi snarled.

Marcus dropped my arm and stepped back, but his eyes never left mine. “How?” he demanded.

“I got a tip,” I said. “I had a few feelers out for Brofil groups. I got a notification just as the claxons went off.”

Marcus eyed me up and down, his gaze making my skin crawl. “Finding a group of Brofils on a moon teeming with different races doesn’t mean they have the kidnapped princess. What else did they tell you?”

Ravi took a step forward, half-blocking me from the IGATF agent’s view. “Careful with your tone there.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Baltsar intervened when Marcus looked like he was going to push.

Ravi gave Baltsar a nod. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said and motioned for me to move.

I did, shoulders itching under Marcus’ penetrating gaze. Cassandra followed, but Alex and Baltsar stayed behind.

At the corner, Zafra was waiting for us, already seated inside a hover craft. It was only when I grabbed the handle to heave myself inside that I realized how much my hands shook. I’d been forewarned, damn it.

“Is this the place?” Ravi asked, and going by his impatient tone, not for the first time.

A glance outside showed we were still parked, and that Marcus and Baltsar were having a heated discussion. Alex had his arms crossed, watching them with pursed lips.

“Leann,” Ravi rumbled. “Pay attention. Is this the place?”

I forced my attention back. In the space between the seats, a hologram image of a building rotated, showcasing the place from all sides.

“That’s the one,” Mac confirmed, switching my right vision to that of the building as seen from above.

Pushing my worries to the side, I double-checked that the image projected was the same Mac was showing me.

“Yes.”

“What kind of security do they have?” Zafra asked.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. She was acting as if my knowing this stuff wasn’t a big deal. She cast me a sideways glance, found me watching, and canted her head sideways. “Yes?”

“Don’t you want to know how I know?” I waved my hand at the holographic image. Ravi made an impatient sound low in his throat.

“Will my knowing affect how we rescue the princess?” Zafra asked in turn.

“No?” I said, but it came out as a question.

“Now is not the time,” Ravi began.

“I agree.” Zafra nodded. “Now, what kind of security do they have? Do you know?”

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “But they have cameras.” I pointed to the spots where Mac indicated. “Here, here, here, and here. I think there should be more, but these are the obvious ones.”

The door to the hovercraft yanked open. I jerked, Ravi snarled. Zafra had a laser pistol out and aimed. Cassandra was the only one who didn’t react.

Alex raised both palms. “Whoa. I come in peace.”

“What happened to no weapons?” I grumbled.

Zafra flashed me a quick smile. “It’s still valid. But I learned my lesson.”

“What do you want?” Ravi demanded.

“I want to come,” he said, climbing inside when Zafra tucked her weapon away. He took the seat beside a subdued Cassandra.

“By all means,” Ravi said sarcastically. “Come in.”

“That the place?” Alex asked, studying the image and ignoring the sarcasm. I gave him points for that—not everyone would dare defy a Kroz, much less when that Kroz held a warrior position.

“Why?” I asked Alex.

Alex looked at me, his gaze steady. “Because Baltsar thinks you can use the backup. Besides, I want to help.”

I glanced out the window, found Marcus gesticulating wildly, face red with irritation as Baltsar listened, expression implacable. He glanced up, met my eyes, and dipped his chin in acknowledgment.

“Very well,” I said.

“Can you broaden the image to the surrounding area?” Alex asked. “I think I know the place.”

Ravi tapped on his commlink and the holographic view zoomed out, bringing the street and other buildings into view.

“This one,” Alex said, tapping the air above the building across from Croffor. “It’s a dance school. I can get us in through the back. I know the proprietor.”

“There are cameras at the front,” Ravi noted, pointing to where I’d shown him. “Here and here. They’ll see us when we leave the building. They already know our faces.”

Alex clucked his tongue. “I have a jammer. It would only buy us a few seconds, but it’s better than nothing. Besides, they don’t know my face. I can come up through here.” He indicated the front street, “and activate the jammer when I reach this point. While I head to the back entrance, you’ll hit the front. This way, we have both exits covered.”

For a spur-of-the-moment thing, it was a good plan. If the grudging agreement on Ravi’s face was any indication, he thought so too. It was definitely better than hitting the place with brute force and no plan.

“Let’s go,” Ravi said and programmed the hovercraft’s nav system.

Chapter 11

The dance school proprietor was a tall Kroz woman with golden skin, caramel-slitted eyes, and a cheerful smile. She greeted Alex with enthusiasm; cheek kisses and a hug. Beside me, Cassandra stiffened and looked away.

To his credit, Alex didn’t linger or act like there was anything intimate going on between the two. Not that I’d have blamed him. His relationship with Cassandra had ended the day we stepped into the Genesis facility. I didn’t fault him, or Cassandra, if they had moved on. It didn’t mean that their feelings for each other had been extinguished—on the contrary. Their avoidance of each other indicated their emotions were running high. They hadn’t yet confronted each other, but I knew them enough to know they’d wait until Dolenta’s life wasn’t in imminent danger.

Alex disentangled himself politely from the Kroz woman’s embrace and introduced us.

“Lorita,” he began, “these are my friends. We were hoping you’d allow them to use your front door.”

Lorita gave each of us a shrewd look. “I’m assuming it’s work-related and that my questions will be better not voiced?”

“Yes,” Alex said apologetically.

Lorita sighed. “What should I do with you, Lex?”

“Let them in and I’ll owe you.”

“I still have to collect the last favor. At this rate, by the end of the year, you’ll owe me enough that I can make you my slave.”

Alex leaned forward and lowered his voice, but I heard him loud and clear. “Maybe I’ll let you make me your slave.”

Lorita’s eyes sparkled with avarice. Cassandra’s hands balled and she turned away. Shit, it had been loud enough for her to hear him too. My heart went out to her, but this wasn’t the time or place for comfort.

Lorita stepped back and opened the door wider in clear invitation. “I’m counting those favors, Lex.”

“I’m sure you are.” He waited for us to pass him into the dim interior. “At my signal,” he said to Ravi.

I touched his shoulder before going in. “Be careful. Those mercenaries are tough to down.”

“I know.” His reply was simple, but it carried a world of meaning.

Beside him, Zafra shifted. “I’ll brief him,” she assured me.

It had been agreed that Zafra would accompany Alex as backup, while the rest of us would attack from the front. Mac had only seen six Brofils with the princess and had gone back far enough that only three other Brofils should have been waiting. Nine against five wasn’t bad odds. Hell, Ravi and I had fought more than that on Cyrus Station and won. I wasn’t going to count the ambush with Zafra earlier, mostly because I had a niggling suspicion if they’d stayed, we wouldn’t be here now—if at all alive.

Lorita guided us through a room with nothing but one bench against the wall, through a sparkling kitchen, and into a narrow corridor. The doors we passed were all open, the rooms dark and empty. Some had mats on the ground and mirrors on the walls, others had a stage, yet another had several floor-to-ceiling poles. The front room had the requisite desk, potted plants, and chairs with small ports and headsets attached.

“Here you are,” Lorita announced. “Please shut the door on your way out.” With that, she turned and disappeared back through the hall. I wondered if her willingness to leave strangers in her parlor said something about her, or if it said something about Alex.

“How long do you think it’ll take them?” Cassandra asked, playing with the leaf of a tall plant in the corner.

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

“They’re about thirty meters away from the building,” Mac said.

“Not long,” I amended and touched her arm. “You okay?”

Cassandra jerked her shoulder, but the heartache was there in her eyes.

“Do you want to wait for us back by the ship? We’ll retrieve the princess and leave.”

Her eyes flashed with indignation. “I can hold my own,” she said. “I’m not usually on the frontlines, but I was combat-trained the same as you and Alex.”

“I know …” I began.

“Don’t you dare finish that,” she snapped, scowling.

I raised my hands, palms up. “Fine, fine.”

“Twenty meters,” Mac reported.

“Get ready.” I checked to see if the front door was unlocked.

Mac’s “go” came at the same time Ravi’s commlink beeped. I opened the door and sprinted across the street. The distance from the dance school’s front door to Croffor was only fifteen meters, but it might as well have been an entire sector. Ravi bypassed me and reached the door before I’d reached the line delineating the street from the yard. I’d fully expected him to kick the door in, but instead, he reached for the keypad and placed his hand atop it, eyes glowing eerily with magic. A small flash of light accompanied the sound of static, followed by wisps of smoke wafting from the keypad. Incredibly, the door opened with a faint whoosh.

Eyebrows raised, I stepped into the gloom after Ravi, Cassandra a step behind me.

The entryway was dimly lit, branching to the left and right and curving out of sight. Ravi paused, his indecision about which direction to take evident in the tension etched on his face.

“We’ll split,” I proposed.

I could tell Ravi wanted to say no, but we didn’t have a choice. I turned to Cassandra. “Someone needs to ensure they don’t slip past us.”

“I’ll stay,” she volunteered, shutting the door and assuming a guard position to the side.

“Here,” I offered her my pulse blade. “Don’t hesitate to use it.”

Cassandra waved it away, patting her jumpsuit pocket. “No need for that.” She pulled out a kinetic gun and showed it to me. It was compact and looked like it had been modified in some way. Knowing Cassandra, it was probably more lethal than a normal KEW.

“Don’t hesitate to use it,” I repeated.

She saluted. “Sure thing, boss.”

I flashed her a smile and went left while Ravi took the right. The corridor was narrow, dark, and smelled of melted rubber. I paused at each door and scanned inside the dark interior with infrared, but none of the rooms or offices I passed had any living beings. I took the right at the end and found Ravi already there, reaching for the double doors in the middle. He motioned for me to step back, then rushed in and to the side. I held my breath, but there was nothing. No weapons discharging, no sounds of flesh meeting flesh, nothing breaking.

I took a step forward, about to bend and rush in, and all hell broke loose. A burst of light followed a resounding crash, reminiscent of thunder after lightning. My heart leaped into my throat and I dove through the door, rolled, and came up crouched, facing the spot where Ravi should have been.

The room was large, open, and brimming with Brofils. More than nine. More like fifty. I deployed the pulse blade and waded in, screaming and swinging indiscriminately.

In my ear, Mac was shouting, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

I stabbed a Brofil and drove the blade up and to the right, then yanked the blade out and sliced his throat when he fell to his knees. Not waiting for him to fall to the ground, I whirled to the next, dodging reaching weapons. I kicked the closest Brofil in the balls, stabbed when he doubled over, feeling gratified when he howled with pain. Punch, kick, slice. Moved to the next. On the other side of the room, Ravi was fighting his own group of Brofils, his movement liquid and lethal. They fell in pairs, some twitching, others dead. Others tried crawling away even as he held them down with magic and finished them off.

A Brofil grabbed my wrist and twisted me around, reaching for my throat with something that gleamed in the dull light. I deflected with a forearm, feeling his blade slice from elbow to wrist. I pulled on my arm but his grip remained firm, so I stomped his foot. It got them all the time. No one expected a five-foot-two-inch-tall woman to pack so much force in one stomp.

The Brofil gasped, his grip on my wrist slackening. I yanked my arm free, turned my torso around, and flipped him over, stabbing him in the neck and severing the artery before he could roll and recover his footing. The blade sank in hard, stopping only when it hit the ground. The Brofil covered his neck with one hand, eyes bulging as he realized it wouldn’t be enough.

“Mac? Can you find the princess?” I asked as I stabbed a mercenary in the back and then kicked him off my blade.

“I’m almost in.”

“There’s no need for stealth,” I grunted. “Dupilaz authorities are probably on the way.”

“I’m holding off the distress signal,” he said. “But if you don’t want stealth, I can hammer in. It’ll raise all sorts of alarms that I won’t be able to block.”

I spotted Zafra and Alex fighting a few meters away but lost sight of Ravi.

Still, the Brofil’s numbers didn’t seem to be thinning. One managed to sneak behind me. He grabbed me by the hair and yanked. So very hard. My eyes watered with the sudden pain, but I curbed the urge to drop my blade to try to loosen the pressure, reversed my grip, and stabbed backward. A grunt and the tightening of the grip was all the warning I got. My head was yanked back forcefully in the next heartbeat. I had a split second to realize how vulnerable my position was before I felt the tip of a blade on my neck. I didn’t even have time to react.

There was the pricking of skin, and then nothing. The pressure on my scalp eased. Through my peripheral vision, I saw the Brofil’s head thump on the ground and roll to the side, eyes still open and filled with triumph.

“You okay?” Alex asked, coming to stand guard in front of me.

I climbed to my knees and touched my burning neck. It was slick with blood, but otherwise whole.

“I will be,” I said, grabbing the blade I hadn’t known I’d dropped and standing.

Alex made sure I was steady on my feet and waded back in. I looked around, assessing the situation with a new objective. There were too many Brofils and too few of us. We were better than them, but they only needed one lucky strike. I touched my neck again and turned from the fight, scanning the building.

“Mac?”

“I’m in. Give me a second…there’s a suite on the second level that has a different setup.”

I glanced up at the thick beams in the ceiling and recalled the structure from outside. I turned, eyes searching, and found a balcony overlooking the open floor. “Up there?” I asked.

Mac grunted.

“You’ve cleared this level?”

“Yes. She has to be up there. Unless there’s a basement that I can’t find.”

“How do I get up there?” I asked, scanning what I could see of the large room.

“Stairwell back by the entrance.”

“Show me.” I ran, keeping to the edge of the fighting, engaging only two more Brofils before I was through. I followed the mapped instructions in my right vision.

“I’m in. Well, hello there, princess.”

“Oh, thank the brilliant stars.” I hit the landing and took the left. I almost got myself skewered by a long pulse blade poised to gouge my middle.

“Sorry! Forgot to warn you about the guard,” Mac apologized as I dove sideways. Still, the tip of the blade burned a trail down my left side.

I kicked, hitting the Brofil’s right knee with a crunch, then rolled sideways and climbed to my feet.

We circled each other. Each time I made a move, he defended or stepped back, staying out of reach, eyes watchful. It was at odds with the behavior of the way the other Brofils fought. So much so that I paused and cocked my head.

“He’s buying time,” Mac said at the same time that the thought crossed my mind. He wasn’t advancing because if he did and he lost, there would be no one to prevent me from reaching the princess.

I attacked. He parried and blocked, keeping on the defensive and mostly avoiding my moves.

I pulled back and we circled again. Then I smiled. Threw the blade to my left hand, and when his eyes flicked to follow, I surged and punched him with an uppercut to the jaw. The Brofil stumbled and I sliced down with the blade, then up, and sideways in one swift motion. Like a figure eight, with the top curve going so deep, it almost decapitated him.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

“Get the door,” I told Mac.

“Already unlocked.”

“Any surprises inside?” I asked before pushing it open.

“Not that I can see. The camera is focused on the bed and Dolenta’s figure.”

I pushed in cautiously, scanning the corners for additional mercenaries.

“Looks sedated. Get a visual on her so I can scan her vitals.”

I didn’t hurry. I inspected the front room—a reception area, the side room—a conference room, the mini kitchen, and finally, the office, which had a cot with Dolenta’s sleeping form. My right vision zoomed in and focused, and biometrics began scrolling.

“Damn it, Mac. I need clear vision.” The text disappeared. The last room was a tiny bathroom, and also empty.

“Her vitals are strong,” Mac said as I touched Dolenta’s shoulder and shook.

“Princess?”

Nothing.

We didn’t have time to wait. I holstered the pulse blade, hoisted the kid over one shoulder, and left one hand free. The sound of fighting got stronger the closer I got to the ground floor.

Cassandra was waiting for me downstairs. “Mac said you needed me.”

I propped the princess against the wall and told Cassandra to keep watch. Then I ran back into the fray. The tableau I encountered wasn’t so different from the one I’d left, except bloodier and with more bodies. There were still too many Brofils standing and my team was showing signs of wear. Alex had a bruise on his cheek, Zafra’s clothes were ripped and disheveled, and Ravi…Ravi had so much blood covering him; I couldn’t tell if any belonged to him. I punched the first Brofil I came across, kicked the second, and sliced their throats when they were down. I’d never been more grateful to my cybernetics than when I was facing a larger opponent. To say I packed a hard punch was to say the galaxy was vast.

Zafra saw me first.

“Let’s go,” I mouthed and motioned with my chin back outside.

Zafra whistled, the sound piercing. Ravi slammed a Brofil against another and they fell hard. He glanced at Zafra, seized the foot aimed at his head, and swept the other foot from under the merc. Once the Brofil was down, he twisted the ankle he held and even from where I stood, I heard the crack of the bone breaking. On the same breath, he threw the blade he held into the skull of another Brofil, then used the Brofil struggling to his feet to brace and jump-kick a third. Bending, he pulled his blade free from the dead merc’s skull and returned to stabbing and slicing.

“Watch it,” Mac warned.

I dove to the left, rolled over a dead body, and came up swinging. My angle was a bit off, my blade digging into the Brofil’s wrist even as his blade cut a path down my shoulder and sent my entire arm to sleep. The force of his downward swipe, combined with the force of my upward swing, had my blade going deeper than I’d planned, through muscle and tissue and bone until the hand fell, still gripping the blade. With a mad howl, the Brofil threw himself at me, only to be jerked back by Ravi. With a twist, the neck snapped to the side and the life faded from the merc’s eyes.

“You found her?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go. Come on.” Ravi helped me to my feet. I tried wiggling the fingers of my left hand, but aside from a painful twitch, nothing happened.

Still, my pain was nowhere at the level it should have been for all the injuries and bruises I’d sustained.

“Are you blocking the pain?” I asked Mac. The ability was a double-edged knife, allowing me to concentrate in life-threatening situations, but also nulling the warnings my body was sending me. If I wasn’t careful, I could crash unconscious, my body shutting down before I recognized I had surpassed my limit.

“Partially,” Mac acknowledged.

We were at the door when I realized Zafra was still fighting, preventing any of the mercenaries from following after us.

Had there been fewer of them, I might have kept going, but having fought the Brofils on multiple occasions, I knew there was no way Zafra would be able to defeat that many on her own, not even for the time it took us to retreat.

I spun around, intent on going back to help, but before I could take more than one step, Zafra glanced up at the rafters. She raised an arm, grabbed the air, and yanked down.

Or that was how it looked to me.

A resounding groan accompanied the ceiling raining down in thick metal panels and hefty beams. I lost sight of Zafra amid the crash. The devastation was so deafening, I couldn’t even hear my screams.

Not again. No sacrifices on my watch. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Denial thundered incessantly in my head, stuck on repeat. Ravi whirled me to face him, his hands like two vices on my shoulders. His mouth moved, and he shook me until my attention snapped to him.

“She’s fine. Look.” He turned me around again, keeping me still. All I could see was the high dome of the moon’s protection above, and the still sliding and settling debris. I didn’t care that his grip was exacerbating my wound, relishing the pain instead. Then I noticed the way some of the wreckage bulged and bucked as if something big was crawling underneath it.

A moment later, Zafra stumbled out from under all the heavy metal, hands splayed, eyes glowing a brilliant green with magic.

My body sagged with relief, and air I didn’t know I was holding whooshed out, leaving me light-headed.

Zafra was pale, but otherwise looked triumphant, a satisfied curve to her mouth that faded when she noticed Dolenta’s limp body in Cassandra’s arms.

“Those bastards,” she hissed and spat a wad of blood. “I should have sundered them to oblivion.”

“We should go,” Alex said, the urgent note to his voice sharp.

“Can you run?” Ravi asked no one in particular.

“Yes,” we all lied.

Chapter 12

We were all battered and bloodied, as if we’d crawled out of hell by way of a busy day through an abattoir. Thankfully, Alex knew a way through the maintenance halls, so while Mac tampered with surveillance, we followed Alex through the twisting corridors to the docks. Although it had pained me to do so, I’d asked Mac to make sure Alex wasn’t leading us astray. My confidence had been shaken by all I’d learned in the past few hours.

“Ahead of you on that,” Mac assured me.

Half an hour later, we reached the honeycomb of the docks—the level where the Space Mermaid was docked. We huddled behind the maintenance door and considered our options. There wasn’t any way to cross to the hangar without stepping into the open, and the docks weren’t just busy, they were also in complete chaos. I didn’t need sensitive hearing to know that, what with all the shouting on the other side of the door and the announcements being made overhead.

“We have approximately three minutes to cross the promenade, get to the ship, strap in, and launch,” I said. Mac would cause a distraction at the other end of the docks, but even that wouldn’t be sufficient to make people disregard our appearance. Maybe we should have gone back to the dance school and asked Lorita for somewhere to wash. Or change. But we weren’t willing to play with the risks that option involved. We hadn’t gotten rid of the Brofils. Besides, the ones acting as diversion were already in space. We didn’t want to give them the opportunity to come back and box us in.

I turned to Alex. “Thank you for helping us,” I said. “I owe you. I’ll—”

“I’m coming too,” he interrupted with a scowl.

“You don’t have to,” I began.

“Save it, Captain Stick. I’m coming.”

The nickname I hadn’t heard or thought about in so long, given so offhandedly as if there wasn’t a ten-year gap between our last mission and tonight, shut me up.

As if realizing the impact such unassuming words had, Alex’s expression softened. He touched a scraped hand to my shoulder. “You’re not getting rid of me this easily. Consider us stuck. Capish?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“I think I’m feeling jealous,” Mac grumbled in my ear. “If you try to replace me, I’ll sabotage your cybernetics so you’ll have to drag yourself wherever you go.”

I chuckled. Everyone gave me a funny look, but I ignored them. “Ready?” I asked.

With the princess now secure in Ravi’s arms, we opened the door and sprinted for the ship. It was only fifty meters away, but it was more than enough. People started screaming the moment they saw us. Unlike at Cyrus Station, where everyone had maintained their distance when I was dragging Dolenta to the Splendor, here, individuals attempted to stop us. Zafra kept our path clear, using telekinesis to push away anyone who tried to come closer.

Even with Mac blocking our mad dash from the tower security, shouted orders for us to freeze or else began broadcasting from hidden speakers before we’d reached the Space Mermaid’s hangar. I made quick work of unlocking the ramp, and we rushed in the moment the gap was big enough. We dashed single-file onto the bridge. I hurried to the pilot’s seat, strapped myself in, and started the engines. Alex took the co-pilot’s seat, and it felt so right that something inside me unfurled with familiar comfort, despite the grim situation.

“I’m jamming the airlock,” Mac said. “It’ll only buy you a few seconds though.”

I grunted and finished finalizing the launch. The ship jerked but the clamps didn’t break.

“Fuck,” I said and switched to the manual flight control, gripping the stick and yanking. Same result.

“We have an incoming communication from the tower,” Alex said from my right.

From my left, Ravi hit the blinking light. “This is Lord Madrovi Fidraxi aboard the Space Mermaid.”

A smooth voice replied. “This is Commander Zev. You do not have permission for takeoff. Please power down and—”

There was a commotion and then a new, familiar voice took over. “Lord Drax. This is Benedict Romel. I need you to come to the tower and bring your companions with you.”

“I can’t do that,” Ravi replied. “In the next three seconds, we’re launching. I suggest whatever you’re using to keep us docked is removed.”

There was a splutter and a curse, but it wasn’t close enough to have been Benedict.

“Was that a threat?” Benedict asked tightly.

“I don’t have time to diddle with threats. You want it to be a threat, consider it one. As head of Krozalia’s royal guard, I have all the authority I need to bypass any permissions from you or anyone else.”

“Your position doesn’t grant you immunity,” Benedict began just as Ravi terminated communication.

“Yes,” I hissed and the ship yanked back and up, breaking the clamps. The next second, I hit the thrusters. We zipped away from the station and into the vastness of space.

“Are they following?” Cassandra asked from somewhere behind me.

“No,” Alex and I answered at the same time.

“They’re not going to,” Ravi added. “Benedict is not a stupid man. Dupilaz still falls under Krozalia’s edict.”

“He didn’t seem to recognize you’re the authority,” I murmured.

“He did. He was doing what his position demands of him.”

“He was covering his ass,” Alex interjected. “In the event you turned out to be a traitor, he did attempt to stop you.”

“Yes. It was within my rights to wrest control of the moon’s security had I been inclined to, and Benedict was aware of that.”

“Why didn’t you?” Cassandra asked. “It would have saved us time and blood.”

“Politics,” was Ravi’s simple reply.

“It wouldn’t have saved time,” Alex remarked. “It would have done the opposite—meeting with Dupilaz officials, the interspecies department, filling forms and petitions. What we did was the equivalent of act first, ask for forgiveness later.”

“How is she?” Zafra asked.

I glanced back, found Zafra crouched in front of the unconscious princess. Cassandra was strapped on the emergency bench beside Dolenta, one arm keeping the princess snug to her side.

“Asleep,” Cassandra said. “We should put her in the med unit. It’ll help flush anything keeping her unconscious.”

“No,” I objected. “Stay strapped in. I don’t want anyone moving anywhere yet. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.”

“Besides,” Alex started, “I think Clara should go for a spin in the unit first. She can barely move her left hand.”

Ravi was on me in the next second, jaw tight as he examined my arm. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I glared at Alex. “It’s fine,” I said to Ravi. “It’ll heal on its own.” I slapped his hand away from my harness. “Stop it; we’re not out of danger yet.”

“I’m sure Alex can pilot while you have one cycle in the med unit,” Ravi argued.

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Shut up,” I snapped at Alex and pushed Ravi away with my free arm. “I’ll take some time in the med unit once we get to a safer distance. Okay?”

Ravi’s eyes traced my face, no doubt searching for signs that I was about to keel over, then reluctantly nodded and resumed his seat.

“Ah, for a second I thought I was going to lose my bet with Cassie,” Mac intoned.

Behind me, Cassandra sighed loudly.

“Fuck off, you two.” I checked my screen and scanned for any signs of pursuit, traffic, or lone ships. There was nothing. The cameras on the Space Mermaid weren’t as long-ranged as the ones on the Splendor, though. “Can you see anything?” I asked Mac.

“No. Dupilaz just declared a lockdown to the public. Authorities are rounding up any and all Brofils they can find. Should have done that when we announced the princess missing, but better late than never.”

“It might help catch their employer,” I said sub-vocally.

“I doubt that, but who knows? I could be wrong.”

I turned to Ravi. “Where are we going on Krozalia? The castle?”

“No,” he said and tapped something on his screen. An image of Krozalia appeared on the port view screen. It rotated and zoomed until I was looking at thick yellow clouds somewhere high north of the capital. It was so cloudy, visibility was almost nil. Then the image zoomed out, moved south, and zoomed in again, this time displaying red desert sands and distant rocky mountains.

“Here will be best. The Etherium is too hazardous for space flight.”

“Etherium?”

“The place where the veil to the ether is thinnest,” he explained, zooming back to the yellowish cloudy view. “It’s where the princess will need to make her stand and claim the Tanue.”

“I could fly us there,” I proposed, taking control of the view and trying to zoom closer. The screen blinked twice, then went blank.

“No.” Ravi tapped his console to reset the view and brought back the image of Krozalia. “The terrain there is rugged, filled with canyons and mountains and other natural hazards. There aren’t any maps you can use and the place shifts constantly, even if you could find one. What was a sand dune last year could be a canyon today.”

“And we’re sending the princess into it?” Cassandra asked, her skepticism loud and clear.

“I’m going with her,” Ravi assured her.

“So am I,” I added.

“Me, too,” Alex murmured.

Cassandra sighed. “Bunch of suicidal idiots. Fine, count me in.”

Several hours into the journey, I signaled the all-clear. We were all injured, aching, clothes ripped and stiff with blood, hungry and tired. No one said a thing as they filed out, Dolenta again in Ravi’s arms. She hadn’t stirred or made a sound the entire time we’d had her back. I was beginning to worry. Whatever those Brofils had administered, it was potent. Stronger than whatever they’d given her the day she’d been kidnapped from my ship on Cyrus Station.

I offered to treat Zafra’s injuries, but she refused, claiming she only needed to clean up and rest. Alex and Cassandra each claimed a cabin without saying anything to each other—or any of us—and I let them be. Once this mess was sorted out and Dolenta had claimed her rightful heritage as ruler of Krozalia, I’d try to get them to talk. If they didn’t get themselves sorted by then. The way they were eyeing each other gave me the impression they’d be arguing about the past, probably sooner than later.

I verified our speed and course, made sure the alarms and shields were set, and assigned Mac to watch duty. I left the bridge and headed for the med bay, where Ravi was waiting, Dolenta hooked to one of the two units.

“Climb in,” Ravi ordered without looking up from the monitor of Dolenta’s unit.

“How’s she?” I asked as I began to strip. My injuries would heal on their own—were already healing on their own. But I had sustained so many injuries in the past few days, my body wasn’t regenerating as fast as usual.

I programmed the cycle for a quick overall mending. Nothing too detailed; a surface healing to take off the edge of my injuries should work. I climbed onto the second bed and suddenly, Ravi was there, cataloging all my bruises and injuries with a clinical gaze.

“Told you it’s not as bad as you think,” I said when the bed buzzed underneath my body and the dome started closing above.

Ravi’s eyes met mine, the warm umber switching to yellow and back again. “No, it’s worse,” he said, just as the dome clicked shut.

***

When the med unit released me, Ravi was nowhere in sight. I climbed out slowly, testing my arms and legs and twisting my torso from side to side.

I was still stiff as a board, but all my injuries were gone. There were scars, the telltale yellow and green splotches, but they would all be gone within a few hours. I put the bloodied clothes back on and left, choosing one of the unoccupied cabins at random.

“Anything?” I asked Mac.

“We’re clear. We have eight hours before we hit Krozalia’s orbit. Rest some more.”

“Yes, Mom.” I stripped again as soon as the door behind me slid shut and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Healing marks adorned my neck, and a slice to my side curved to my spine that I didn’t recall getting. But they all looked weeks old. Food and rest would quicken the process. I unbraided my hair, feeling a sore spot on my scalp. Whoever had hired those Brofils was still at large, along with Kroz rebels and more mercs.

Since there was nothing I could do about that, I grabbed my clothes, stuffed them in the sanitizing bin, and stepped into a warm shower with real water and real soap. Once done, I toweled off and crawled into bed, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I awoke briefly when Ravi pulled me against him, cradling my back against his front. He was still damp from his shower and smelled of the soap I’d used. I snuggled closer, interest piquing at his naked body pressing against mine, but drifted off before I could act on it.

When I awoke a few hours later, Ravi was on his back, my head on his shoulder, arm around his middle, legs entwined with his.

I savored the sensation for a few seconds, then untangled myself carefully. I didn’t require as much sleep as an average person. Before I’d stepped foot on Krozalia, I’d thought it was the consequence of something the scientists had done to me. It was because the scientists had done something to me, but not the way I had imagined it. Before, I had believed the change was molecular, something in my DNA.

But it wasn’t.

It was all the KKM embedded in my right side, amplifying bodily functions along with everything I did: my thoughts, my actions and reactions, my metabolism, and my healing. Although I wanted to know more about all the changes the KKM could do to my body, had already done to my body, my curiosity took a backseat to more pressing matters.

Currently, Dolenta was my top priority, getting her to Krozalia safely one step below that, and helping her claim, or tame, the Tanue third on that list. My relationships with Ravi, Alex, and the Confederacy, all ranked low on that list, among other things.

I hastily dressed, eyes drinking in Ravi’s naked torso, then padded toward the med bay where Dolenta still lay unconscious in one of the two units. The room was quiet, only the hum of the machine preventing complete silence. I stepped to the enclosure and peered inside it.

I was wrong. Dolenta was awake, eyes open. They met mine and held, but she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t look surprised to see me. I supposed she’d been awake for a while.

I checked her chart, found everything in order and “treatment complete” flashing under healthy, robust vitals.

I clicked the unit open. “Hey, kiddo. How’re you feeling?”

“Good.” There was no inflection in her voice, no expression on her face. She didn’t try to get up, lying there as if she lacked the strength and will to move.

And I understood that, more than I wanted to. “Do you want to talk about it?” I murmured.

“No.”

My heart ached for her. All this time, we’d been focused on getting her safely to Krozalia, then keeping her safe on Krozalia, then getting her back safely from the Brofils, and now sending her safely back to Krozalia to claim the Tanue. No one had stopped to inquire about her emotional state. How she was dealing with all the mayhem and disaster dogging her heels. The loss of her father, the trauma of being drugged and kidnapped, the fear and helplessness of knowing that her life rested in the hands of someone else.

I unclamped the chair from the corner and secured it beside the unit. “Did I ever tell you how I went from a Confederacy soldier to the captain of a freighter ship?”

I waited until she shook her head to continue. “I loved being a soldier. From a young age, I knew that as the eldest child, I would end up in the military. My parents didn’t cover me with attention and affection, but they wanted me to succeed, to not be just another tally in the CTF, of a soldier who had come, had fought, and had died in action. My parents had me tutored in strategy, martial arts, and weapons—ranging from pistols to blades and even swords. They enlisted me in advanced classes on the nature and biology of other species, planets, and sectors.

“At sixteen, I was already flying small freighter ships to and from neighboring colonies. When I attended boot camp at eighteen, I had a big advantage over most. Within the year, I was the leader of my squad, and within two, we were taking missions all over the sector. We were one of the best crews the Confederacy had ever trained. We were so good, we were given classified cases that only the most senior crew were given, and that had higher risks than most. We built a reputation too. People called us the Arctic Fox Crew because we were cunning and sly, and we always managed to come out on top, no matter the challenge. And then, one day, we were sent to this asteroid at the very edge of the sector, to a facility located at the border of Cradox Space. The mission was straightforward, one with fewer risks than any other we’d been given in a while. Get in, set up explosives, get out. I figured we were assigned the case because of the location, so close to Cradox patrol.

“Our mission there was simple. The research and development human agency had put up a lab on that asteroid so they could closely monitor Cradox behavior. It was a covert facility conducting secret research to help the CTF better understand and combat our neighbors.”

Dolenta didn’t interrupt, didn’t ask questions. She listened and watched, emotions flickering in her purple-slitted eyes as I spoke.

I recounted everything I had shared with Cassandra not so long ago, reliving the helplessness, the anger, the futility of fighting back, the loss. The only thing I held back was Mac.

“They broke you,” she whispered. There was fear in her voice and in her eyes. The kind of terror that came with the realization that no matter what happened next, she’d never be that person again.

“Yes,” I said simply. “And then I broke them back. I killed them all, obliterated the facility, and then I walked away. Since then, I’ve been hunting them down so that no other person would suffer the way I did.” I leaned close, bringing my face centimeters from hers. “But I’m only one woman and a fugitive at that. I can’t imagine what you, with the power of the best warriors in the galaxy and the essence of a mystical creature, will be able to accomplish.”

“I don’t know that I can. I feel helpless, pathetic. My father was a fierce ruler, so was his father before him, and his grandmother before that. They had the spark even as children, and people revered them for that. I’ve never been that strong. People look down at me and see a weak child. They pitied me and hoped my parents would hurry up and produce the next Krozalian heir because I’d never do. I grew up with that knowledge in my head. Then my mother died.”

She covered her face with both hands, inhaled a shaky breath, and continued speaking, her voice muffled by her palms. “She died, and with her gone, so was the hope for a stronger ruler. I don’t have it in me to order someone’s death. I don’t have it in me to command my people into battle, much less a war.” Her hands dropped to her sides. There were tears sliding down her temples and anguish in her voice. “I want people to live happily, harmoniously, peacefully. I know that’s a naïve thing to want, but violence and ruthlessness have never appealed to me. I cave when someone speaks firmly to me.” A sob broke out, a tiny sound that she tried to suppress by covering her mouth, though the tears continued to trek down her temples freely.

Movement had me glancing up and meeting umber eyes. Ravi’s expression was torn, his hands fisted by his sides. She was just a kid who’d been dealt a shitty hand and was having a meltdown that I wasn’t sure I could help with. But I could try. I returned my attention to the distraught child. I wasn’t a people person, but I had been once, in another life.

I covered her hand with mine. “You’re not violent, and you’re not ruthless,” I said, and big, shimmering eyes met mine. “You’re kind and you’re beautiful, inside and out. This means that when you ascend to the throne, you’ll rule with your heart. Your people can’t see it yet, but you’ll be the best empress Krozalia’s ever had. I don’t say this because I’m trying to comfort you, I say this as someone who’s traveled the stars and witnessed the consequences of violence and ruthlessness. Yes, ruthlessness breeds fear, which in turn prompts obedience, but those rulers are never truly loved”

“Papa said that rulers need to be ruthless because sometimes that’s the only way to keep people in line.”

“He wasn’t wrong.” I squeezed her hand. “But that’s why you have an advisory board. You rule the way you feel is right in here,” I touched her chest, “and you stand by it if you can’t stomach what your advisors say you should or shouldn’t do. But when you’re uncertain, you heed their counsel. You learn and you grow. You don’t need strong magic to be a good ruler. You only need to believe in yourself.”

Chapter 13

Ravi was in the compact galley when Dolenta and I entered some time later. He looked up, his gaze questioning. I shook my head once. I didn’t know what good my words had done. Dolenta was still withdrawn, the haunted look I had glimpsed earlier lingering in the purple depths of her eyes.

“What are you making?” I asked, sniffing the air.

“Doogash. It’s a hardy breakfast warriors eat before heading to battle.”

I grunted and pulled one of the high chairs. “As long as it’s not Comula, I’m game.”

The paste had tasted amazing, but I remembered the violent reaction I’d had when Vera had served me the dish. It had been a test then, given that the dish, or the cubes sprinkled on it, disabled the KKM in my body. Had I been completely hypermorph, I should have gone comatose after consuming it.

Ravi’s expression darkened at the reference, but he said nothing. “Would you like to make dessert?” he asked the princess. “There are some frozen fruits in storage.”

Dolenta stood still for a few seconds. I had the impression she’d been expecting Ravi to bring up her capture or outline our next steps and what she’d need to do. And he’d probably meant to do that when he’d come to the med bay unit to find the princess on the verge of a breakdown. He was a considerate man, but then, I’d already known that. He’d understood that thwacking stardust would only create enough wind to nudge Dolenta off the cliff’s edge she was teetering on. He was good with the kid, good for her. He’d be a great advisor, and he wouldn’t balk before jumping into violence so that Dolenta didn’t need to. Even though I knew he didn’t relish the violence either.

Dolenta turned to me, then threw her arms like a vice around my torso. “Thank you,” she breathed into my collar. “Thank you.”

I tapped her on the back and met the warmth in Ravi’s expression. Dolenta straightened and turned to him. “I’d like that,” she said and moved to the cabinet Ravi had indicated.

They worked in silence side by side, occasionally passing each other ingredients or giving feedback on the texture or taste of what they were making. I sat a few meters away, watching and letting my mind wander. I hadn’t been able to just sit and relax in days, days where I’d gathered a lot of pertinent information. Everywhere I looked, there was an abundance of Brofils or the smuggling of KKM.

Someone high in the Krozalia government was smuggling KKM to outsiders. Someone high in the Krozalian government was leading the rebellion. Someone had hired Brofil mercenaries more than once to capture the princess. Someone had also leaked information about my appointment with Doctor Lamis. KKM was also used to create hypermorphs. Was I seeing parallels where there were none, or was there a connection? But if so, where and how did the hypermorphs fit in with the rebellion?

Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were pieces of two puzzles, mixed up in the same box. But something inside me, this niggling suspicion scratching in the back of my brain, told me that they were only one. But how? How did they connect, aside from the commonality that only high-ranking Kroz had the power to orchestrate both?

Even the alliance had a hand in all this, though their pieces felt more detached.

“Glad you’re up.” Cassandra’s quiet comment brought me out of my rambling thoughts.

Dolenta gave her a shy smile, but continued whisking whatever she was mixing in the bowl.

“Did you sleep?” I asked, eyeing the dark circles under her eyes.

“No. I’ve been talking with Sullivan.”

I straightened and Ravi stopped chopping vegetables.

“According to him, who got his information from a palace server, who got the information from Furox, the conspirators holding the palace are two advisors: Linsky and Zefron. They have followers, people who come in to take orders and then leave. They haven’t hurt anyone, but they’re holding the rest of the advisory board. Furox said they have a plan, but he doesn’t know what it is. They speak in hushed tones and when someone gets close, they shut up. And ah, he said to tell you your parents are well, though your mother is ready to fry them all.”

“Why aren’t they fighting?” Ravi asked. It was clearly something that had been weighing heavily in his mind.

“Something about Co-con…Comkaz? No, wait, I wrote it down.” She grabbed her tablet and read. “Conchaz.” She waved a hand. “They’ve been exposed since before the attack. He said it’s how they got to the emperor.”

Dolenta exhaled a distressed sound and Ravi placed a hand on her shoulder. Regret filled Cassandra’s eyes. “Sorry. I’m too wacked to think properly. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” She covered her eyes with her right hand, rubbed it back and forth, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ve noted everything down here.” she plonked the tablet on the table and pushed back. “I’m going to go grab a few hours of sleep. Save me some of that; it smells wonderful.”

***

I was checking the ship’s screens when Zafra dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. She scanned the readings, index finger tapping on the arm of her seat, obviously gearing up to say something.

I let her be, mind blissfully empty of tumultuous thoughts. Talking about my ordeal twice in a row had loosened something inside me, a knot of turmoil that had festered throughout the years.

When Zafra finally raised her head, I was ready.

“Done thinking?” I asked.

Her eyes flickered with some hidden emotion. She sighed, shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry.”

I straightened and swiveled my seat to face her. “For what?”

“It’s not my place to judge. It’s your life, and you two have the right to make your own blazing decisions. It just hurt, you know, to find that out after, and not because you were told, but by accident.”

At first, I thought she was talking about my cybernetics, but then she lost me. I played her words back, but no, they didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?” I asked, perplexed.

She waved a hand in dismissal. “The bond, of course. I’m hurt that you two went about it in secret, but I get it. I want you to know that I’m happy for you.”

“Oh, we didn’t,” I began, then blushed, remembering what Ravi had told me before—how mate matches avoided dalliances before the ceremony ritual. No doubt, she’d realized that Ravi and I were sharing a bed and jumped to the conclusion that we’d gone on with the ritual in secret. Which was ludicrous, considering we’d done nothing but sleep.

The memory of our one intimate time came to mind, and warmth pooled inside me.

“I let Ravi know that we couldn’t—so we only—uh, we didn’t do the ritual. I plan to leave, and he has to stay. He understood…” I trailed off because the more I spoke, the darker Zafra’s expression grew. “Look,” I began, “Ravi and I agreed to enjoy ourselves while we can. I don’t need your permission, or forgiveness, or approval, and neither does your brother.”

“I see.”

“I don’t think you do,” I murmured, studying her face. “I don’t want to antagonize you, Zafra. I thought we had a friendship growing between us, and I’d like that to continue. So, I’ll tell you this: it’s not that I don’t want to be Ravi’s mate, but I left some things undone that I need to see through. I’ll be leaving, he’s staying. We agreed that it was best for both of us to not go through with the ceremony. I’m sorry that you misunderstood our arrangement.”

Zafra nodded with a distant expression. “How long will it take you?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I told Ravi that it would be best not to do the ceremony. I don’t want us tied in a bond when it might take me years—it’s already taken me years.”

Zafra nodded, then kept nodding. She stood abruptly, fingers covering her mouth as if holding the words she wanted to say.

“You okay?” I stood as well, unsure what I’d said to make her this upset. I got that she was close to her brother, but we each had duties that prevented us from being together. Zafra wasn’t a child, and surely, she understood not everything worked the way we wished them to.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, her eyes moving behind me and chilling. “How could you?” she asked, then switched to rapid Krozalian.

I braced myself and turned around, expecting to find Ravi behind me. I wasn’t wrong. He stood there, head lowered, posture defeated. He said something to Zafra that made her stumble.

He raised his head. “It’s my choice to make,” he finished in Universal.

“Mac?” I asked sub-vocally. “What—what are they saying?”

“Oh, honey,” Mac murmured, but it was the edge of grief in his tone that got me. “I think that you and Ravi need to talk.”

I looked between the two siblings with a sinking feeling. I didn’t need anyone to translate to know they were talking about something big, life-altering big, and that I was somehow in the middle of it all.

“Your choice to make,” I repeated. “About what?”

“Don’t,” Ravi snapped at Zafra when she opened her mouth. “You’ve said enough.”

“She deserves to know what a fool you are.”

Ravi exhaled. “Yes, but she’ll hear it from me.”

“Fine.” Zafra moved away, her shoulder bumping mine when she passed, head held high. “I hope that fuck was worth your life,” she hissed to him. I wasn’t sure if the hint of tears I detected in her voice was my imagination or not.

We stood in silence, listening until her footsteps faded. “Leann,” Ravi began, not moving closer.

“Are we mated?” I asked, looking down at my hands. I didn’t need any translation for what had just happened. I was smart enough to connect the dots on my own.

“Leann.”

“Are we?”

“Yes.”

I dropped my hands and looked up at that. I had suspected the answer, but hearing it was a different matter. I dropped into my seat and closed my eyes. “You said there was a ceremony,” I whispered. “I thought…” I inhaled and shook my head. “Never mind. Why?” I opened my eyes and glared up at him. “Were you even going to tell me before I walked away?”

“No,” he admitted and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t want to hold you back, to have you with me just because the bond settled.” He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the ground. “I never heard of the bond falling in place without the ceremony.”

“What does this mean? For you…if I leave??”

“Nothing. I wasn’t going to take another mate, even if another mate-match presented itself.” He met my eyes then, and there was no remorse, no guilt in them. “I didn’t plan for it, but I can’t say I regret the bond to happen like that either.”

I scowled. “Maybe you should. Because if you haven’t realized it yet, this bond is one-sided.” I tapped my chest, where the Carindum would have been if I were a Kroz. “There’s nothing here connecting me to you. I can walk away without feeling a twinge of pain.”

“I’d go with you wherever you wanted to go.”

The statement, delivered with such ease and no heat, turned all my anger to grief. “But you can’t. Not now that Dolenta needs you by her side.”

“She won’t need me forever,” he said quietly. “Once Dolenta settles into her role as empress, I could come and join you.”

I chuckled, the sound so dry, it should have cracked. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is. Unless you were…unless you don’t want me to do that.”

I rubbed my hands over my face, then dug the heels into my eyes until I saw colors.

“You don’t have to go. You told me you’d have stayed if it wasn’t for Alex. That you’d be my life-mate.”

And Alex was here. Except, the scientists were still out there. It had never occurred to me that I would solve Alex’s mystery without first destroying the scientists, so I hadn’t considered the fact that Ravi would see Alex’s reappearance as a solution to the problem.

“I see.” The words, spoken without heat or inflection, had me dropping my hands and meeting his gaze. Umber eyes locked with mine, and although they possessed the flat quality he put on for the world, it didn’t quite fit. I could read the edges of the heartache and the longing and the resignation.

“Ravi—”

“It’s okay,” he cut me off. “I’m not going to pressure you to stay.”

“No, I meant that. That I’d stay with you. I meant that.” I touched a fist to my heart. “I meant that in here.”

“But in your mind, you think you can’t.”

There was a chasm opening between us, a distance that seemed to double, triple, quadruple in size in front of my eyes.

“How would my distance affect you?” I asked, swallowing back all the reassurances I wanted to voice. “Please, I want the truth.”

He raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “It won’t kill me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It wasn’t. But Zafra had made it sound like it would be severe.

“My sister is a romantic fool,” he said, seeming to have read my mind. “As long as you’re alive, my life will go on. I will never take another mate, however, and I can never have children.”

I blanched.

Ravi chuckled and closed the gap between us. He touched the tips of his fingers to my cheek. “I’m okay with that because I don’t plan to be with anyone else. I want no family other than the one we could have had together.”

“What if I don’t want a family?” I whispered.

“Then it’ll be just the two of us.”

I sighed and pressed his hand flat against my cheek and mouth.

“Do you want me to come find you, once Dolenta is empress?” There was a vulnerability to the question that hadn’t been there during our entire conversation. This man had just laid his heart bare for me, and I had no idea what to do. Would it be cruel to feed his hope, or was it better if I lied?

I looked up at him and found that I didn’t have it in me. Not to be cruel, hard, or guard my heart. “Yes. I’d like that.”

“Then it’s what I’ll do.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, rising on tiptoes and pulling him down with a hand to his nape.

“For what?” he asked an inch away from my mouth.

“For understanding.”

His mouth touched mine, light as a feather. “Always.”

Chapter 14

Lord Drax

I found Zafra tending to the small hydroponic garden two decks down from the galley. Her shoulders tensed when I paused behind her, but she ignored me, viciously yanking the little weeds from around the herbs and small tomato plants.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. I was sorry that my sister was hurting, I was sorry that I hadn’t told her about the bond. But I wasn’t sorry about the rest, and I wouldn’t apologize for something out of my control.

“We all accept death as our due, in battle, protecting the innocent, or even through accidents—something is always bound to happen. But Carindum deprivation because you’re too stupid to bond yourself to someone who doesn’t plan to share your life—that’s senseless suicide for no other reason than cowardice.”

I scowled at her back. “Carindum deprivation doesn’t cause death and you know it.”

“You might as well be,” Zafra shot back. “When your mate’s distance starts taking a toll on your Carindum, eroding your senses until you’re nothing but a husk of yourself, blind to everything but your need for your mate.”

“It’s not going to get that bad because I’m not going to let her go.”

Zafra glared at me over her shoulder. “Does she know that? Because it sounded to me that she planned to leave and stay gone.”

“Hence the reason I will leave once the affairs on Krozalia are settled.”

At that, Zafra turned fully around, her eyes wide. “You would leave Krozalia?”

“Would you rather I suffered without my mate?” My question was sarcastically rhetorical, but when Zafra paused to consider her answer, I threw my hands in the air. I understood she was acting out of hurt and betrayal and fear of losing me, but…I exhaled. I could never understand why the female gender tended to make so much fuss even when reason was being shoved in their faces.

“Look, we didn’t plan for the mate bond to fall into place. We didn’t even go through the ceremony. It’s not how I wanted, or planned for it to happen, but I can’t just apologize and take things back. It’s happened, it’s active. I don’t regret it; I don’t resent it. Even if the bond hadn’t happened, I wasn’t going to sit back and wait for the next mate-match, or a suitable partner. Leann is it for me. I’d love to have my family by my side, happy for me but—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Zafra snapped. Then, more gently, she added, “I am happy for you. I just don’t want you wasting away, pining for someone who obviously can’t reciprocate your feelings.”

I wanted to reassure Zafra that regardless of the bond, Leann felt the same way about me that I felt about her. But in the back of my mind, a niggling thought arose: did she?

She had listed her reason for leaving as Alex, but Alex was right there, and she still planned to leave. Yes, she had professed to want us to be together, but she had done it with one foot already out the door. Maybe she didn’t feel about me the same way I felt about her. Doubt ate at me, and I shoved it away, recognizing how destructive it could be. As I had told Zafra, Leann was it for me. If I had to spend my life making her fall in love with me, then that was what I was going to do.

Chapter 15

Once Ravi realized Conchaz was being used against the Kroz held in the castle, the plan changed.

In powdered form, the substance inhibited a Kroz’s Ashak. When a Kroz’s Ashak became inert for a prolonged period, their senses dulled, and their organs started failing. The condition was usually fatal, and had no available treatment. Conchaz was odorless and tasteless and the more deadly for it. Administered in a certain amount, it caused the Ashak to stop functioning at once. Although small exposure didn’t result in anything more dire than a headache for a few days, extended exposure almost always ended in certain death. It was a substance prohibited on Krozalia for obvious reasons. Anyone in possession of it in any form was punished, usually to death.

I’d be dropping Zafra outside the capital, where she’d make her way back to the castle to gather allies and assess the situation. Should she find the opportunity to free everyone, she would take it, though Ravi had cautioned her to wait for Dolenta to tame the Tanue first.

We had to disable the ship’s shields before entering Krozalia’s orbit. For one, there was a possibility that the planet’s defenses would interpret the energy as a weapon. For another, the shield, even if recognized for its intended purpose, would highlight our entry point like a bullseye

Not that our chances of going unnoticed weren’t slim, because they were. Cassandra had informed Sullivan of our impending arrival. In turn, Sullivan had told Furox, who promised the spaceport commander was on our side and would do his best to mask our entry. The mass exodus from Krozalia had trickled out, but the skies were still busier than usual. Many had taken the advantage to make a profit out of the panic and were now ferrying citizens to the nearest moon and returning to pick up others. That meant while most ships were leaving Krozalia, there were still enough entering the planet that the Space Mermaid wouldn’t stand out.

Concern that Furox would trust the wrong person pinched, but there was nothing I could do. We were going in, whether we were seen or not.

Mac had already told me the possibility of a pursuit before we reached our goal was eighty-eight percent, and that chances of a fight were ninety-two.

We hit atmospheric pressure sometime after that and headed toward Sarkar, where Zafra wanted to be dropped off. It was the closest point to the capital Ravi believed we could get without being cut off from a hasty retreat. In the capital, air traffic was heavy, the buildings too numerous for quick maneuvers, even though the Space Mermaid was half the size of the Splendor.

Zafra was already in the cargo bay, strapped into the emergency harnesses. The moment we lowered to jumping altitude, she leaped out, hitting the ground at a run. I waited thirty seconds to make sure she had moved far enough from the thrusters’ hot zone, then sped away.

“She’ll be fine,” Alex told me.

I bit my lip. It wasn’t that I doubted her capabilities, but more like the way she had avoided me in the past couple of hours.

“Any word on Lorenzo?”

“He responded well to the healing. He’s up and about, though the doctor doesn’t want him exerting himself.”

I smiled faintly. “Never thought the day would come when I’d be concerned for Lorenzo’s well-being.”

Alex chuckled. “He’s a bastard, but only because he’s misunderstood.”

I cast him a sideways glance. “You’re-you’re defending him?”

Alex’s shoulders bunched. “No. I just understand why he acts the way he acts.”

Ravi entered the bridge and took the seat to my left. “We’ll take a roundabout way to the Etherium,” he informed us, fingers flying over the console and bringing up a holographic map of Krozalia. “Linsky will no doubt have warriors watching the surrounding area, from the ground and satellite view. We’ll need to fight to get there, so the closer we get without sparking combat, the better.”

“I can disable the satellite view,” Mac suggested in my ear.

I pursed my lips. Disabling Krozalia’s satellite view would be cause for alarm, and no doubt put any patrol Linsky had on alert. But they wouldn’t know which way we’d come in.

Ravi brought up the holograph image of the sea and another of a dark jungle. They were both taken from the ground, the yellow clouds that had obscured our view the first time he’d shown us the Etherium hanging like a portent of doom above and casting everything in twilight.

“We have two options,” Ravi said. “We can take a circular route through the southwest and then loop to the cave.” The holograph shifted from black waters to ice, to black again, then a rugged terrain with jutting rocks and black earth, the dratted clouds obscuring the view. Ravi reset the map and the holograph image shifted, showcasing Sarkar from above in its entirety, then zooming in and down, flying east. The transition from city to desert was swift, going from buildings to red sand in the blink of an eye.

“Or we can try the Red Desert from the north and come down through the Abali Jungle.” Again, the transition from desert to lush greens was so swift, I wondered if Ravi was skipping forward.

“Either way we come to it, the last leg will have to be done on foot and out in the open.”

I reached out and rotated the map, catching a glimpse of high cliffs and deep valleys before the entire holograph blanked.

Ravi tapped, brought the image up, and managed to freeze it before we lost the image again. Still, I’d never seen a grainier projection, as if I was wearing blackout glasses with small holes in them.

“That’s the Canyon of Despair,” Ravi explained before I could ask. “Aircraft don’t fly above it, and caravans don’t cross it. Only the desperate risk entering it, and they usually are never seen or heard from again.”

“What’s there?” I asked, studying the way those canyons looked like black, endless pits from above.

“The Zha-nofrel. The Empty Pit,” Ravi translated, and I pulled my attention from the map to him.

“You mean it’s bottomless?” Alex asked.

Ravi chuckled. “No. I actually have a map of the canyon’s ground. I used to drive the emperor to the Tanue from down there. It’s dark, but on a hovercraft, the clouds don’t interfere as much.”

Ravi let the projection run, then restarted it again, moving in fits to give us time to take in the surrounding area to the Tanue’s cave.

“We’ll need to hike from this point on,” he explained, highlighting a point that didn’t look different from the others.

It took a three-sixty turn around the area for me to realize that the midpoint was a tall mountain, and everything around it was cracked, scorched black, and very much dead.

“The Tanue is a fierce and possessive spirit,” Ravi murmured. “Nothing living gets near it without meeting a brutal and swift ending. That includes animals, plants, and minuscule organisms like bacteria.”

Alex beat me to the question his explanation provoked. “So why are you taking the princess to it?”

“Because the princess is the only one who can tame the Tanue now.”

“What if it attacks us before we can get the princess there?” I asked.

“It won’t. It’ll sense her royal blood the moment we cross into its territory.”

“Then,” I said, rotating the holograph back, “we’ll cross it from here.” I brought the image of the canyon back. “It’s a more direct route. What are the chances the rebellion would put a scout there?”

Ravi rubbed his chin as he considered the question.

“Yes?” I prompted when his silence went on.

Ravi traced the path I suggested, rotating the holograph left and right and zooming in and out. A furrow formed on his brow as he examined the map. He moved the holograph back until the edge of a town filled with quaint buildings came into view. “There’s a watch tower here,” he said, tapping one of the tallest buildings. “Most of that route is close to a city, where patrols could be waiting. Linsky could just ask for the regular patrol to detain anyone crossing for any reason. He wouldn’t need to waste manpower there and it would be just as efficient.”

“We’ll steer clear from their visual range,” I assured him.

My finger itched to smooth the furrow from his brow as he gave the broken and grainy holograph map a thoughtful scan. “Very well. I’ll go speak with the princess. Keep the weapons offline unless you absolutely need to use them. Otherwise, the planet’s defenses will lock on to the ship the moment they’re engaged.”

“He trusts you,” Alex observed once Ravi’s footsteps faded.

“Hmm,” I murmured as I plotted our course around Sarkar.

“Make that curve deeper,” Mac suggested. “There’s no reason to shorten the course if you’re not going to break the sound barrier.”

I reset our course and fixed our path in a more convex curve around the city.

“Good,” Mac said.

“There’s power in that,” Alex was saying. “The Head of the Krozalian guard, the princess who’s soon-to-be empress of the most powerful planet in existence, bowing to your expertise even though it wasn’t something he was comfortable with.”

I cast Alex a sideways look. He was watching the scenery outside. But his hands were tense on his console, his shoulders stiff.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Why? Why are they listening to you?” Alex looked at me, and the emotion in his eyes wasn’t something I recognized. “What happened to you after the Genesis Mission?”

I gazed down at my console, then outside at the expanse of the blue sea closing in. “I suspect it’s the same as what happened to you,” I said softly. Though I knew for certain that it was. While Baltsar had never told me Alex was alive, my quest to find him had never faltered. But Alex had believed me dead, hadn’t considered the possibility that I’d survived past the explosion on that lone asteroid. My memories flashed back to the scene in the rescue pod, with Alex’s unresponsive body on the gurney next to mine. Even before I awoke on Raptune Planet after the transformation and implants, I’d retained that memory, the knowledge that both Alex and I had been rescued. But he didn’t have that to fall back on.

He had been unconscious when the explosives had gone off, and later in a coma. For five years. He hadn’t seen the facility, hadn’t felt the pain of healing the replacement of bones and muscles and tissues, hadn’t had to fear his mind being taken over by a sentient AI.

“And what would that be?” Alex asked, tone neutral.

I met his eyes and asked a question of my own. “How much of you is made of metal?”

The blaze of surprise in his eyes came and went in a flash.

“For me,” I continued, “it’s my entire right side, along with my eye.”

“You’re genetically enhanced.”

“Yes.”

Alex swallowed. His eyes flickered to the entrance of the bridge before turning to the outside view.

“Satellite view is down,” Mac said. “It’s not going to last, so I suggest you speed it up.”

“Strap in, people,” I said into the intercom. “I’m going to increase our speed.”

It took Alex less time than I’d expected to voice the question I could read in his expression.

“Does the Head of the Krozalian guard know?”

“His name is Ravi. And yes, he knows. So did the emperor and Vera Oshar.”

I prepared the thrusters and waited until Ravi returned. He strapped in mechanically, his hands deftly locking the harness as his eyes scanned the view outside and the map on the console.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said and engaged the thrusters.

***

We were cruising over the red sands of the desert when a stealth ship bleeped into existence behind us, closer than it should have gotten given the open terrain. Mac squawked in my ear. I swerved sideways and pushed the thrusters faster, crossing over to the cracked and desolate land of the Etherium in two seconds flat.

From one moment to the other, fog clogged our view, yellow and sickly, like the polluted air of the industrial colony of Velof 3.

“Lower altitude!” Ravi shouted.

I hit the back thrusters, causing my harness to dig hard into my shoulder and chest. The proximity alarms went off, but I couldn’t tell if it was due to the other ship behind us or if we were about to ram nose-first into the dirt. I brought the ship to a crawl as we lowered.

“Just a bit more,” Ravi said, hands fisting around the arms of his seat.

I scanned my screens and the port view, but nothing had changed.

And then it did. Just a darkening ahead, but it was like a beacon in the yellow fog-like clouds.

A moment later, we broke out of it, a few hundred meters above the black, cracked ground, filled with jutting rocks and deep canyons.

The stealth ship appeared again, and I had to dip halfway into one of the canyons to avoid the blast of kinetic fire it shot at us.

“It keeps appearing out of nowhere!” Mac shouted in my ear with indignation.

I’d gathered that, but I didn’t have the time to figure out how they were doing it. Like Ravi had said, the canyon was pitch dark, but the Space Mermaid adjusted the view at once, the port view screen and the console screen both lighting the contrast for normal visibility.

Ravi linked his commlink to his console and brought up the ground map of the canyon floor. He traced a path through, quickly plotting our course.

“I suppose that means they’re not taking any chances,” I murmured as I avoided the protruding rocky face of the canyon wall. It was safer on the ground, but there was a reason why spaceships performed better in a vacuum.

“Will it fit?” I asked Ravi as I maneuvered up and down the deadly obstacles. If we crashed, we’d go up in a ball of flames, considering the ample oxygen circulating through the ship.

“Should I get the satellite back online?” Mac asked. “I can’t guide you without seeing where the enemy is.”

“With that thick cloud?” I asked him instead. It was a sign of how rattled he was if he wasn’t computing at full capacity.

“It should,” Ravi replied. “Though the fit might be a bit tight.”

I checked the plotted path against the map and the canyon we were in was curved and bent in several spots. All but two paths diverged from our destination. On the map, one of the canyons looked darker and narrower, while the other—the one Ravi had charted—was evidently better. I would have taken that one even without Ravi’s suggestion, had the stealth ship not appeared behind us again, obviously having decided we were worth the risk.

Mac swore. Ravi cursed.

Alex reached out for the weapon’s control. “Don’t,” I told him. “I can get rid of him without setting off the planet’s defenses.”

“Return to the surface,” Ravi commanded.

I ignored him and increased our speed. We didn’t know if other ships were waiting to attack from up there. Maybe the stealth ship behind us wanted exactly that: to flush us out so we could be ambushed by a waiting ship. We didn’t even know if the same ship that kept appearing behind us was the same or if there were several others.

As expected, the ship behind us accelerated too. I dove and avoided rocky formations, the pursuing ship keeping up seemingly with ease. They were good. But then, their ship was half the size of the Space Mermaid.

“Incoming,” Mac warned a moment before the stealth ship shot a pulse of kinetic fire at us.

I dipped fast, recognizing my mistake the moment my eyes fell on the narrow passage ahead. Above us, the canyon wall was impenetrable with rocky protrusions.

“Shoot it down, shoot it down!” Mac shouted in my ear, muffling whatever Ravi and Alex were shouting at me.

“Hang. On,” I gritted out and flipped us sideways with not one second to spare. The fit was too narrow, and the rocks scraped the belly and the top of the hull, sending sparks and highlighting our passage in the dark. I checked the stealth ship, about to enter the narrow passage, and increased our speed.

A moment later the formation behind us exploded.

We came out on the other side. I brought the ship’s nose up, climbing back to the middle of the canyon among debris and dust.

We lost visibility for a hair-raising second, and when I could see again, the stealth ship was there, less than fifty meters away. A shot in that distance wouldn’t miss, I thought, just as the bend I’d been aiming for came into view. I thrust forward and took the bend right, already pulling the nose of the Space Mermaid up hard.

The dead end was so close; if there had been another rocky formation, it would have impaled us up to the middle deck. As it was, I pulled so hard on the controls, we climbed out of the canyon in a vertical position, and we still lost several more layers of paint.

The stealth fighter wasn’t so lucky. It hit the canyon wall so forcefully; it exploded like a water balloon—only with fire and lots of debris and dust.

For a few stunned seconds, no one said a thing.

“I think I lost some processing capability,” Mac said with a hint of relief.

I chuckled. Both Ravi and Alex gave me odd looks. I shrugged and set us back on our course. We were close to the Tanue’s cave. The mountain loomed ahead, a dark spear that disappeared through the low-hanging clouds before we could see the tip.

No more ships were lying in wait, but we all remained tense, wondering if that had been our only obstacle.

At least, that was what I was thinking. Getting to the Tanue shouldn’t have been this easy.

“We’re about to reach the highlighted zone,” I said to Ravi. “Any particular place to land?”

Before Ravi could reply, the worst thing that could happen to a ship happened: every control in front of me suddenly went dark and the hum of the engines just stopped. The Space Mermaid had lost all power. All the lights blinked out, including the auxiliary ones.

Chapter 16

We plummeted like a rock in freefall, propelled only by our previous momentum. Like a comet falling to land, we blazed out of control. Our altitude hadn’t been great, but every bone in my body clacked when we impacted.

My head spun, my vision blitzed, and I went deaf for at least a minute. Or maybe I was just too stunned to hear anything beyond the buzzing inside my head. A coppery taste lingered in my mouth, and my fingers clung stiffly to the control console.

“Is everyone okay?” I croaked.

“I think you’ve loosened a few screws,” Mac said in my ear. “I don’t feel quite right.”

“For real or is that a metaphor?” I asked.

“Don’t know yet.”

“Fair enough. What about the ship? Can you assess the damage?”

“Sure. It’s one hundred percent.”

Even before I had joined the CTF at eighteen, I had trained for crash-landings, emergency evacs, and what to do when parts of the ship were compromised. But never in my life had a ship just stopped responding the way the Space Mermaid had. There was nothing to see, the bridge pitch-black. Not one green light, or the red of the auxiliary power blinking on. Had I not been in my seat, touching the controls, I wouldn’t have known it was there.

“Ravi? Alex?”

“I’m here,” Alex rasped. “My harness is stuck.”

“Ravi?” I asked again.

No answer. With trembling fingers, I undid my harness and reached to my left, where Ravi’s seat was supposed to be. Only there was nothing there.

“Ravi?”

There was a groan on the opposite side of the bridge. “Alex? Was that you?”

“I’m. Stuck. In. My. Chair.” Every word accompanied the screech of scraping metal.

I moved away, trying to orient myself. “Engage infrared,” I said sub-vocally, and the world took on a blue tint with hints of reds and greens. There was a thick slice of red further ahead, and I took a step, bumping into the jagged edges of the navigator’s seat support beam, where Ravi’s seat should have been.

A loud clank followed Alex’s triumphant hiss. “Yes.”

“You’re free?” I asked.

“I am.”

“Good. Help me find Ravi.”

A small light illuminated the bridge then, and I blinked the spots from my eyes even as the infrared switched off.

The dim illumination confirmed what I’d already figured out. Ravi’s seat had broken off and was overturned in the corner, only his thigh visible from where I stood. A strangled sound escaped my mouth at the sight of the pooling blood underneath his unmoving body. I hurled myself at the corner and reached for Ravi’s neck. A groan of pain escaped him before my shaking fingers reached his jugular, and his eyes opened. Yellow-slitted pupils looked at me, glazed but alive.

I pushed the back of the chair, trying to turn it around, and suddenly Alex was there, his flashlight placed atop the console. With the back of the navigator’s seat flat on the ground, Ravi blinked at the dark ceiling.

“Talk to me,” I said as I tried to unbuckle his harness.

“I’m good,” he said hoarsely.

“There’s blood,” I said, trying to see where he was hurt, afraid to move him any further.

“Left arm hurts a bit but that’s it.”

“You have a slice in your bicep,” Alex said, crouching to his left and examining the cut.

I leaned down and ripped the sleeve of his shirt. The gash was small but deep, bleeding freely.

“I can stitch it,” Alex offered.

“What about the princess?” Ravi asked.

I worked on his harness, freeing him as Alex grabbed for the first-aid kit. “Can you stand?” I asked.

Ravi’s hands clenched and unclenched. “Nothing seems broken. I promise I’m good. Have you checked on the princess?”

Alex touched my shoulder. “Go,” he said. “I have him.”

I wanted to refuse, to tell Alex to go instead, but I knew Ravi didn’t trust him yet. With one last look at Ravi’s pale face, I scrambled to my feet. By the light of the commlink, I navigated the narrow corridor, the Space Mermaid’s pristine halls looking ominous in the shadowy dark.

“If they’re locked in,” Mac told me, “you might need to cut them out.”

I checked long enough to make sure that both were locked but alive and aware inside their bunks before I rushed to the armory cabin in the corner of the galley.

I yanked open the cabin door and selected a blowtorch. “I’m so not getting back my deposit,” I muttered as I sparked the torch and began cutting the door to Cassandra’s bunk.

By the time I freed both Cassandra and the princess, Ravi had joined us. Alex had cleaned and stitched his arm and stepped out to make sure no one approached our crash site, though I was sure that no vehicle or aircraft could, not with the way everything on the ship had shut down. It meant we had plenty of time to hide should any scouts be sent our way.

“I thought we still had a few miles before we were supposed to land,” Alex said to Ravi as we stuffed three go bags with protein and water.

“I thought so too,” Ravi said without heat. “But this is the Tanue’s land, and the dead zone has been known to be a bit unpredictable.”

“You should have told us that,” Alex bit out.

Ravi stopped with a folded tent in his hands and looked back. “What would you have done? Landed on the canyon floor? Asked the stealth ship to wait for us to check if it was safe to venture in or not?”

Alex’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing.

Fortunately, none of us was too injured to walk, considering we had a long journey ahead. Our commlinks had no signal, only displaying basic functions—flashlight, clock, and vitals—so we couldn’t call anyone. Not that we would have called for backup, but it would have been nice to have options.

We climbed out of the airlock door, which had a manual lever, unlike the cargo bay ramp. Not that it mattered if we cut ourselves out or not; we had racked up enough damage. There was no way Mior would accept this broken thing back.

***

The Tanue’s cave, which had been only two minutes away by ship, now might as well have been on another continent.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?” I asked Ravi, but it was Mac who answered.

“If you run at full speed, you can be there in five hours. If you walk fast, that would take you twelve. If you rest in between—”

“I get it,” I grumbled.

Ravi arched a questioning eyebrow.

“It’ll take long enough,” I murmured.

It was decided that Cassandra would stay back and try to rig something and get the Space Mermaid working long enough to push it back away from the dead zone and that Alex would stay to keep guard. Cassandra’s clenched jaw told me she didn’t like that plan, but she was wise enough to put her feelings aside and go along with it. She was a soldier through and through, trained the same as Alex and I had been. She was aware that her attention would be on fixing the ship, not the surrounding area, and that it would be prudent to have someone watching her back while she worked. So she hadn’t voiced any protests.

In the corner of my mind, I hoped leaving the two alone would give them a chance to speak and maybe hash out their differences. But I wouldn’t hold my breath, and I didn’t have the luxury to spare my thoughts on that.

I jumped down from the airlock, backpack filled with provisions on my shoulder, and surveyed Ravi and the princess. Both carried similar bags, though Ravi’s bulged with extra provisions. Just in case, he had told me.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dolenta said, and Ravi grunted.

I looked back into the dim light of the ship, illuminated by Alex’s commlink. “If you get it powered, get out of here. We’ll find our way back once we’re done.”

Alex nodded.

“We will wait back on the other side,” Cassandra stated.

“No. You’ll be a sitting target. If you get the ship online, you get gone. If we need you, we’ll get in contact.”

“How?”

I shrugged. “If the commlinks don’t work, that means the ship won’t be able to get to us either. I’ll get in contact if we need you when the commlinks are working.”

I took Dolenta’s other side and together we began making our way to the Tanue’s cave. Gravel crunched under our feet as we walked and walked. For the first hour, it felt like we were moving in place, the distant mountain never coming nearer. It was only when I looked back and could no longer see the Space Mermaid that I could tell for sure we were making progress.

That, and Mac’s absence.

We’d expected this could happen when my right side began to feel not sluggish exactly, but like I needed to concentrate to make it respond to the commands of my brain. It meant my attention was focused on keeping one foot in front of the other but otherwise, I felt fine. I suspected that, had it not been for the KKM, I’d have been rendered immobile a few miles back.

We stopped a few hours later for water and some food, and to give Dolenta some time to sit and rest. Though I suspected the princess had better stamina than I did. I felt like I had run for days on end, my muscles like quivering gelatin.

When twilight turned to true darkness, Ravi called a halt to our march. “We’ll camp here,” he announced, dropping his bag by his feet.

“We can cover more ground still,” I began.

“No. We’ll rest now and pick up the pace in a few hours. If we time it right, we can reach the cave at first light.”

I peered into the dark in the direction of the mountain, not seeing anything but black. Even the yellow clouds above were obscured. Our commlinks had died completely an hour or so back, and there was no light to guide our way. “You’re right,” I acknowledged. The twilight had at least given us the illumination we needed to keep us from hurling blindly into a ditch, or worse, a canyon.

The night was chilly, but we didn’t light any fire for fear of giving away our location. We didn’t set up the tent Ravi had brought either, preferring to stay out in the open and see or hear if anything tried approaching. Dolenta rolled out a blanket and lay atop it, not saying a word of complaint.

“She’s a tough kid,” Ravi murmured. “She’s going to be a great ruler.”

If she managed to tame the Tanue.

If she didn’t—we wouldn’t live to know the difference.

I lay beside Dolenta, hands cushioning the back of my head as I stared at nothing. If I focused hard enough, I could see the translucent clouds drifting back and forth, or maybe it was my imagination.

Despite all odds, I fell asleep, though I had only planned to rest for a bit. Ravi woke me with a light touch to my cheek. I could barely see the outline of his body bent over me, but I’d recognize his cinnamon and smoke scent anywhere.

Dolenta was already up. She’d rolled her blanket and was stuffing it into her bag, a couple of meal bars on the ground beside her water canteen.

Standing was a study of mind over matter. My muscles were stiff and unyielding. I felt like I was a hundred years old, my body refusing to take orders.

Teeth gritted, I forced myself to a sitting position, exhaled, then crouched. Ravi was beside me in the next instance, expression tight with worry. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” I waved my hand at him, took a deep breath and straightened, then crouched again. The third time, my muscles obeyed with a bit less resistance.

Two protein bars and half a bottle of water, and I was feeling marginally human. My body wasn’t at full capacity, but it was working. I forgot what it was like to have limited strength. I didn’t think that I liked it anymore.

The horizon gradually brightened, casting a pale yellow hue on the fog above, providing us with some visibility of what lay ahead. I realized then that what I’d assumed last night was the vast waste of this dark land, was actually the black mountain we’d been traveling toward since we’d left the Space Mermaid. It was so large that I couldn’t see where it started or ended, the summit veiled by the fog halfway up.

It was then that questions of how, where, and what finally surfaced in my mind.

Chapter 17

“Where’s the cave and how are we going to get there?” I asked. “And what exactly are we going to do once we reach it?”

Ravi regarded me thoughtfully and I realized I could see his features. Shadowed still, but I could make them out; the sharp nose, the angled jaw and cheeks, his arched brow, and kissable mouth.

“The cave’s entrance is not far off, about a hundred or so meters once we start climbing. We’ll escort Dolenta as far as the entrance to the Tanue’s cave.” He glanced down at Dolenta. “You know the rest?”

“Yes.” The affirmative came out as an exhaled breath. “I know what I need to do.”

To my surprise, the mountain face was made entirely of a black rock. Our boots clinked as if we trod on glass, and in certain patches, the ground was so smooth that we had to detour around it to avoid sliding back down. But we made it to a plateau some distance up, where a slash on the rock face indicated the entrance to the cave.

“We can camp here and wait,” I suggested, glancing about. The wind was strong but not unbearably so, and there was enough space to put up a tent.

“This isn’t the entrance to the Tanue’s cave,” Ravi clarified, continuing forward with Dolenta. “Consider it the foyer, and the Tanue’s cave the bedroom.”

“You’ve been here before?” I asked.

“Yes. Every time I escorted the emperor, but I don’t want to say that things inside haven’t changed. The Tanue has a tendency to rearrange passages to deter trespassers from reaching the heart of its territory.”

“So how will we know if we’re following the right path?”

“I should be able to feel its presence,” Dolenta murmured, eyes focused ahead.

“What happens if a common civilian comes here?”

Ravi glanced back to where we’d come, the distance we’d covered. “They usually don’t get this far.”

I suppressed a shiver at his words. It was a testament that the planet was falling apart. Or not. No one had followed us this far, which could also mean the Tanue was keeping them away, only allowing us through because Dolenta was with us. I didn’t know which scenario I preferred.

My mouth twisted with the knowledge that we were walking into the lair of a spirit who had the power and sentience to prevent even bacteria from surviving in its presence.

Halfway through the plateau, Dolenta came to a sudden halt, a look of awe in her eyes when she glanced at us. “I can feel the Tanue,” she whispered. “It’s a she. I can feel her distress.” With that, she hurried for the cave.

Although the urge to pull Dolenta behind me surged inside me, we let her lead the way. My muscles were trembling, either from exertion or adrenaline—or maybe both—but I didn’t slow down.

The opening on the face of the mountain was bigger than I’d thought. From afar, it had looked impassibly small but up close, I could see it wasn’t the case. Ravi stopped Dolenta from barreling in and resumed the lead, only needing to angle himself sideways for a bit. Dolenta followed next, with me bringing the rear.

Once we cleared the opening, we found ourselves in a low-ceiling cavern. Ravi had to stoop, but Dolenta and I fit with centimeters to spare. The walls to both sides appeared smooth, resembling polished obsidian, and for the first time, I wondered if this was the case. Had this been a volcano once upon a time? But the more disturbing thought was, was it still?

We moved in single file, even though there was ample space for us to walk side by side. Light emanated from ahead, dim enough that I hadn’t noticed it upon entering, but now that we were a few meters in, I could see better ahead than I did looking back. The cave dipped, then branched to both sides, the two passages looking almost identical, save for the imperfections on the separating wall. Dolenta moved past Ravi and paused by the rocky partition, her fingers examining the bumps and divots on the wall.

I flexed the fingers of my right hand, the motion coming a bit delayed, like the relay of a communication from a few light years away. But my limbs obeyed all my commands and for now, despite the weird sensation, it was good enough.

Finally, Dolenta dropped her hand and pointed her chin to the left tunnel. “This one.” She didn’t wait for Ravi to take the lead. We let her go, assuming that this was the part she understood better. And that was our mistake.

Dolenta turned the corner, momentarily disappearing out of view. Our only warning was her muffled shout of alarm, quickly cut off.

Ravi and I sprinted forward, coming to a sudden halt when we turned the corner.

There, standing in a circle surrounding Dolenta, stood five men I didn’t know but didn’t have to. Four had on the Kroz armor of royal warriors, while the fifth was dressed in the fine clothes of nobility. I had seen him standing beside the emperor during his speech when he renounced his status as emperor and named Dolenta the next ruler.

“Linsky,” Ravi spat with so much venom, I was surprised there wasn’t any green goop dripping from his mouth.

Linsky said something in Krozalian. It sounded apologetic, and he even looked remorseful. Dolenta was struggling against one of the Kroz, but he kept her in place without much effort.

“That’s your empress you’re manhandling,” I snapped at the warrior. His head raised, but with the helmet on, I couldn’t read his expression or tell who he was.

“None of that,” Linsky addressed me in Universal. “You are not a Kroz and don’t understand our ways. This isn’t what I want, but it is what it needs to be.”

“The murder of a child is no solution to any problem.”

Linsky glared at me. “You’re right. She’s a child, and a child cannot be the empress of the greatest race in existence.”

“And you think you’re better? A usurper who climbed to the top over the body of his friend? You think people like you won’t suffer the same fate? What kind of example do you think you’re setting? What do you think will happen when down the road someone decides they’d make a better ruler?”

Linsky shook his head at me, a look of pity in his eyes. “I don’t want to be the emperor. I’m not even going to participate in the Moresy Cotelum.”

“Then why have the emperor killed?” Ravi demanded. “We both know there’s no one better suited to rule than him.”

Dolenta screamed, almost breaking free of the warrior’s grasp.

“I am sorry, little one,” Linsky soothed. “I wished it hadn’t come down to this, truly. You know I care about you like my own, don’t you?”

Dolenta kept thrashing, her face red with effort and rage. “You killed Papa! You killed him for the throne.” She continued in Krozalian, sharp words that I didn’t need to translate to understand were laden with recrimination and hatred.

Linsky dismissed Dolenta’s rapid-fire Krozalian spew and turned to face Ravi. “Rokoskiv was a great ruler once, but he lost his vision when he found his mate. All his grandiose plans to expand, explore, and conquer were put aside. For decades, I attempted to reason with him, but he would have none of it. He was content, he claimed, and told me, us, time and time again that Krozalia was perfect as it is. He refused to see that we’re a failing civilization, that we’ve about reached our limits. Our lands and seas are no longer sufficient to accommodate our population, our moons are full to capacity.

“Tell me, what do you envision Krozalia becoming in fifty years? A hundred? Because prosperous is not going to be it. If we continue as we are, we’ll devolve into savages battling each other for land, akin to your mate’s people over there.” Linsky turned to me, a sneer on his lips and earnestness in his eyes. “When in your history has your race been peaceful? Not even when you were confined to one planet were you amiable. There was always a battle, a war, a skirmish to be fought.” He shifted to Ravi again and clasped his hands in front of him. “Krozalia possesses far more advanced weaponry, not to count magic, to allow us to go to battle. We’d annihilate not only the planet in contention, but that entire system as well. You know this, I know this, the emperor knew this. And yet, he refused to do anything about it. But I didn’t plan treason. No, I stayed loyal until the empress’ death. Instead of recognizing the perilous condition we were in, Rokoskiv withdrew entirely. I knew then that I had to do something for the sake of Krozalia and its citizens.”

“I’m unsure how killing your emperor would solve that,” I asked, genuinely curious, but also wanting to stall. I knew when Linsky stopped speaking, Dolenta’s life would be forfeit. “If you’re not planning on becoming the next emperor, what makes you think that the next Kroz who does will share your vision?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Linsky scoffed. “All your race knows to do is fight.”

“But I’d like to know the answer too,” Ravi put in. “I can’t see how you plan to expand or explore. Or do you mean you wish Krozalia to attack and conquer some other race?”

Linsky waved his hand in the air. “Of course not. But we all know that there’s an unclaimed system beyond Sector 1, a large swath of vacuum with habitable planets and moons. With that in mind, I’ve been pouring over our star maps. Sector 1 got its name because it’s where we started. But we’ve never gone beyond Sector 9 to prove if the galaxy circles back to Sector 1.”

Ravi made a sound low in his throat, something akin to derisive laughter. “We haven’t explored that for good reason,” he retorted. “First, we can’t open a gate back to Sector 1. And the Cradox guard their territory zealously. You only need to look at the centuries-old feud they have with the Confederacy to know that. Whether space continues in a linear path or curves back to Sector 1 is irrelevant because you’d need to start a war with Sector 9 to travel beyond. Regardless of our good standing, I assure you they will not allow the Kroz to annex a portion of their sector to set a base for exploration, or a gateway, or any of the million details you’ll need to explore the unknown.”

“That’s almost the same thing Rokoskiv repeated each time I broached the subject,” Linsky said with disdain. “I’ll tell you what I told him each time: there’s a price for everything. It’s only a matter of finding what the Cradox would be willing to trade.”

“You based an entire rebellion on theories?” The incredulity in Ravi’s voice was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Linsky’s shoulders stiffened and his eyes turned frosty. “I’m not stupid. I established an alliance with the Cradox first. In fact,” he smirked, “I started talks for this alliance almost two decades ago, in hopes to be ready when Rokoskiv finally saw the merits of an alliance.”

I gasped, the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place. “You’re supplying them with KKM.”

“We have enough to spare.” Linsky brushed me off. “They need it to end this senseless war they’ve been waging. Your race reproduce like a contagion, so it’s not like you’d go extinct.”

I took a menacing step forward and Dolenta gasped. One of the Kroz warriors pressed a pulse blade against her throat, silently warning me not to move.

“KKM is forbidden to be used in the makings of weapons,” Ravi snapped. “You gave a foreign race the means to create a weapon for mass destruction.”

“No. We have an agreement. They’re not allowed to use the KKM for weapons’ creation. I have safeguards in place. I’m not stupid.”

I opened my mouth to tell him the Cradox used the mineral for something much worse and that he was more stupid than I’d first thought, but Ravi beat me.

“You’ve put so much thought into this,” he mused. “Two decades. Did you start planning the moment the emperor found his mate?”

Linsky sighed. “I had nearly convinced the emperor to attempt to open negotiations when the empress opposed the idea. I thought once she was no longer in the picture that the emperor would see reason, but alas, it was for naught.”

By the shocked look in Ravi’s eyes, he hadn’t expected that answer. I had a suspicion he had uttered the first thing that crossed his mind to keep me from revealing anything about the hypermorphs. Clearly, Linsky had no inkling about the threat the Cradox posed, a threat he helped create.

“You—you killed my mother?” Dolenta rasped, her voice small.

“It was nothing I enjoyed,” Linsky said with genuine regret. The fucker believed if he hadn’t wanted to do it, then he wasn’t culpable?

The grief in Dolenta’s eyes had me wanting to punch into Linsky’s chest and pull out the black organ he called a heart. “But how? The physician said—she had been ill for so long.”

“Conchaz,” Ravi murmured. “It’s not available here on Krozalia, but it’s abundant in Cradox Space. That’s it, isn’t it? How far have you fallen, Linsky, to use such a foul substance on your own people? How did you manage to poison the emperor and all his guards?”

“It was easy to lace their drinks in the Flying Crown. I suspected he was on to us when he had the conference room guarded against me. The way Vera looked like she was imagining all the gleeful ways to murder me, while you looked seconds from sundering me. Really, had your reactions been any different, I might have believed his excuse about wanting to increase security. But I knew then that you were on to us and that we needed to act.”

Ravi shook his head in disgust. “You did the same to the empress, didn’t you? Do you even know what Conchaz does to the body?”

Linsky’s mouth thinned. “I only gave her enough to keep her weak. The administered dose was always a mere smidgen; rest assured, she didn’t feel the magic depletion.”

There was a silent pause, as if everyone was taking a moment to process Linsky’s words. Dolenta let out a wail that pierced my eardrums and made everyone stumble. No, the ground was shaking, and there was an echoing quality to her scream, as if something else was responding to her anguish.

I braced against the rocky wall, seeing Ravi doing the same on the other side. Linsky was on his knees, hands pressed to his ears, eyes screwed shut in pain, mouth open in a silent cry. The four Kroz warriors were on the ground too, three in the fetal position, while the fourth lay unmoving.

In the middle, Dolenta stood, her eyes shifting from a warm purple to black—like her father’s. If possible, the wailing increased in pitch.

Linsky collapsed forward, smacking his face on the ground and busting his nose. He started convulsing, and a quick glance told me so were the other three.

Whatever was happening, I knew Dolenta was the cause. She fell to her knees, head thrown back, neck taut, veins bulging as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawled to her, instinct telling me whatever she was doing, she would get hurt if it continued for much longer. I touched her clenched hand just as Ravi grabbed for her shoulders. Her skin was dry and burning hot. Fear for the princess grabbed me by the heart and squeezed.

“Dolenta!” I shouted, but she didn’t move, didn’t twitch or pause to take a breath.

Ravi shook her shoulders, and, aside from ruffling her hair, nothing.

I pushed Ravi’s hands away and pulled Dolenta’s stiff body to me, cradling her head against my shoulder and stroking her hair. This close, her keening crying reverberated in my brain, but I held on.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I rocked her from side to side, stroking her hair and her back, repeating myself over and over.

I was starting to despair that we’d lost her to some horrible throes when a hiccup broke through the screaming.

“That’s it, kiddo. I’ve got you,” I murmured when she fit her face against my neck. Hot tears trickled down into my shirt and soaked into my collar. Her silent grief was even more devastating, bringing a sting to my eyes. I closed my eyes and swallowed past the lump in my throat. I rubbed her back in a soothing round pattern, and breathed repeatedly, “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Ravi placed a hand on my shoulder. “Leann, look.”

I glanced up and there, at the far end, obstructing more than half of the entrance, was the head of a creature with a snout the size of a hovercraft and teeth the length of my arms. All the renderings of the Tanue I’d seen so far—Ravi’s tattoos, the ones the Kroz had displayed in the Ancestry’s Hall, and those depicted in the castle—none resembled the creature before me. Long, square muzzle bracketed by four large fangs, colored scales that shimmered without any light, horns that grew from its temples and curved away and to the back of its head like braces. Intelligent eyes swirling with colors and a slit pupil stared at us, watchful, expectant. Completely lethal. It was neither ugly nor beautiful.

I climbed to my feet slowly, supporting Dolenta under the armpits, and took a step back.

The creature—the Tanue—chuffed, sending a plume of fetid, sulfuric air over us. Dolenta pulled away from my arms, wiping her wet cheeks on her shoulders as she turned to face the Tanue.

I grabbed her elbow when she moved away from me. She turned back, eyes swollen and red, her cheeks splotchy, but she gave me one of her sweet smiles and covered my fingers with her other hand. “It’s okay. It’s here for me.”

I eyed the creature with distrust, then looked at Ravi behind me. There was awe in his eyes, maybe a bit of fear, but not nearly enough to my taste.

“Maybe you should wait a bit,” I suggested.

“It’s okay,” Dolenta reassured me again. “I know what I need to do.”

Against my better judgment, I dropped my hand, and Dolenta threw her arms around my shoulders. “Thank you. For everything.”

My eyes did that prickling thing again as I enveloped the princess for what I knew was going to be the last time. The next time I saw her, she wouldn’t be the innocent, shy kid I’d met a lifetime ago on Station V-5; she’d be an empress.

Dolenta embraced Ravi next. Then, without a backward glance, she approached the Tanue, shoulders thrown back, chin raised high.

When she was only a meter or so away, looking like a miniature toy in front of the Tanue, it chuffed, blowing her hair off her face. Then it did the unthinkable.

It opened its mouth and swallowed her whole.

“No!” I screamed and lunged at the retreating Tanue, only to be pulled back. I hit Ravi’s arm around my middle, then elbowed him hard enough for him to let go. Ravi shouted for me to stop, but I didn’t heed his warning. I reached the mouth of the cave…to discover there was nothing on the other side but an endless void, like the one in the Ancestry’s Hall back in the bowels of the castle. No ground, no walls, no nothing. The Tanue screeched, a bellowing sound that carried hints of triumph. I looked up and found it flying up and up and up. In its entirety and from afar, the creature looked more like the dragons of old myths, scales a brilliant green, mottled here and there with reds and yellows and purples.

“No!” I shouted again.

It flew higher and higher until I could no longer see the thing that had gobbled the princess of Krozalia in one go.

Chapter 18

The trek out of the cave seemed endless, but it only took a few minutes. Linsky and the other guards were all dead, apparently by Dolenta’s hands—or magic. Ravi didn’t know how she’d done that but speculated that she had strangled their Ashak. There were only so many things a dowser could do. Ironically, Conchaz worked in a similar fashion, slowly throttling the Ashak from magic.

I was in a state of numbed disbelief, haunted by the recurring image of the Tanue’s gaping maw. The way the princess had been there one moment, gone the next.

The hike back to the Space Mermaid took less time than the initial journey to the cave, mostly because we didn’t stop, but also because of my distracted state. Ravi assured me the princess would be fine, but when I demanded to know if he had been expecting the Tanue to gobble the princess whole, he admitted that he hadn’t anticipated it.

“Then how do you know she’s fine?”

He glanced at the yellow cloud, looked down at me, and shook his head. “The bonding ritual is a process that only the emperor and the next heir are privy to. That’s one secret the emperor never revealed to anyone.”

“So, you don’t know if she’s well or being digested in the belly of a mystical creature?” My voice was shrill, even to my ears, but I didn’t care.

“Whoa!” Mac squawked in my ear. “What was that?”

“Mac,” I breathed. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him until I felt the fist-sized clog in my throat.

“What do you mean being digested? What creature? And damnation, are you talking about the princess?”

“I’ll fill you in,” I promised Mac sub-vocally and cocked my head at Ravi, still waiting for an explanation.

Ravi raked a hand through his hair. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know what’s happening, or what should happen next. There’s a ten-year bonding period each ruler goes through. We don’t know where they go, what they do, but no one can reach them and they always return changed. I’ve never seen it happen before, okay? I don’t know if what happened was the Tanue accepting Dolenta or something else.”

I swore.

“So, you left the kid inside the cave?” Mac asked incredulously.

“More like in the belly of a monster,” I muttered loud enough for Ravi to hear. I spun around and began marching faster.

“Where are you going?” Ravi asked, falling in step beside me.

“Back to the castle. You don’t know, but someone else might. How else would the empire know that their next ruler is being prepared? There must be something.”

Ravi glanced up at the low-hanging clouds again. “I don’t know.”

We found the Space Mermaid a few hours later, right at the edge of the Etherium, where cracked, black dirt turned into red sand and the yellow clouds thinned enough for us to see the sky.

There was no sight of Cassandra or Alex anywhere, so after circling the ship once, I inputted the override code. Something I’d suspected would work from the red-blinking panel.

“The satellite is up,” Mac reported.

“Any news on the castle?”

“Nothing that is being broadcast. There’s nothing on the siege anywhere; all the news is focused on preparations for the emperor’s funeral.”

“Are we still wanted?”

“The bulletin is active, but it’s not out to the public yet.”

I relayed the information to Ravi as we climbed inside. Since we hadn’t integrated Mac to the Space Mermaid, we walked in blind. I was clutching my pulse blade, and so was Ravi. Mac was quiet as we crept in, our boots barely making a sound.

We found Alex and Cassandra in the galley, a platter of food forgotten on the table in front of them. Alex had one hand braced on the arm of Cassandra’s chair, glaring down at her from inches away.

“That looks heated,” Mac observed. “I wonder what sparked the argument?”

I backed away fast, not wanting to interrupt them. But when I collided with Ravi, Cassandra’s furious gaze shifted to us. She pushed Alex away and jumped to her feet. “You did it!” She clasped my shoulders and glanced behind me, then at the empty hall. I saw the moment she realized all was not well. “Where is she?”

“Is the ship in working order?” Ravi asked before I could tell Cassandra what had happened.

“It’s not in peak condition, but it’ll take us where we need to go.” Her eyes moved from Ravi to me and back again. “Where’s the princess—I mean, the empress?”

An explosion blocked my reply. The ship rocked as if a giant hand had grabbed it and shook it back and forth. I staggered into Ravi, who pulled me against his body and kept us upright. Alex was pulling Cassandra up, one hand braced on the opposite wall, his feet braced apart for balance.

“Come on,” Ravi called. “We should get outside.”

We all stumbled back to the cargo ramp, not wanting to be confined inside a metal contraption for whatever was going on.

When we stepped outside, there was no fleet attacking us. There were no troops anywhere, in fact. No one but the full-bodied projection of the Tanue blotting the entire skyline.

Its muzzle was open in a feral snarl, wings stretched taut to both sides. But the shock, the shock was Dolenta’s image, a full-bodied projection tattooed on the Tanue’s underbelly.

Eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest, she exuded an air of peace, assuming that was a real representation of herself.

“Holy bloody stars!” Mac shouted. “That’s a freagging fragging hell of a giant beast!”

Beside me, Ravi’s breathing had quickened. “All hail Empress Dolenta Tsakid,” he breathed with reverence and dropped to his knees. “She tamed the Tanue. She did it.”

“Of course she did,” Cassandra whispered in awe and dropped to her knees beside him. “I never doubted her.”

Alex and I exchanged stunned looks and dropped to our knees.

***

Once our shock subsided, we tramped back to the ship. Dolenta had pacified the spirit of Krozalia, but the castle was still under siege.

“We should make haste. Have you heard from Zafra?” Ravi asked Cassandra.

“No. We were out of the grid for a long time. In fact, you came not long after we managed to get the ship running and out of the dead zone.”

And Cassandra and Alex had been too busy glowering at each other to check back on the castle.

“The Tanue’s appearance means the rebellion lost,” Ravi was saying as we jogged to the bridge. “If they’re still in the castle, their next course would be to flee and hide.”

“Good riddance,” Cassandra retorted.

“But they won’t go quietly,” I murmured. “The prisoners will try to stop them, and they’ll fight back.” With the Conchaz impairing the loyal Kroz warriors, it would be a bloodbath.

The bridge looked the same, minus the navigator’s seat, which was nowhere to be seen.

I strapped in and started engaging the engines. “I have news,” Mac told me as the ship stuttered once, twice, then lifted off.

“Give me the bad first,” I said.

“Sure. The Tanue’s presence is blocking any satellite view on the planet. I can’t look in, and I suspect no one can look out.”

I hummed. “And the good news?”

“That’s the only one I had. It can be taken as good if you twist it a bit.”

I glanced at Ravi. “Can ships pass through the Tanue?” I asked him.

The indecision in his eyes made my stomach hollow out. “Ravi?”

“I don’t know. This didn’t happen with Emperor Rokoskiv. Each ruler emerges in a manner that makes it irrevocably clear that the Tanue has accepted them, but each has a unique way to show it.”

“How did Emperor Rokoskiv’s happen?”

Ravi’s mouth twisted into a small smile. “I wasn’t there, but according to the news, he rode the Tanue back to the castle.”

“It looks incorporeal to me,” Mac remarked.

“The Tanue may look incorporeal,” Ravi replied, making me realize that Mac had used the console’s intercom. “We might call it a spirit, but it’s as real as me and you. More, because for as long as Krozalia’s been here, so has it.”

“Wait,” Mac interjected. “The Tanue wasn’t always the spirit guide of the Kroz?”

“It was,” Ravi said, not looking bothered that he was speaking to a sentient AI. “But when we came here, we were at a very low point. The Kroz then, we prayed a lot. So much so that our combined faith, along with the large deposit of KKM, gave the essence of Krozalia the shape of our spirit guide.”

I grunted. If KKM was the key component to creating hypermorphs, it came to reason that it would enhance other phenomena as well. I wondered what else was out there because of the KKM.

“What about the boogie man?” Mac whispered, proving that his mind worked in the same lines as mine did.

I pursed my lips to keep myself from laughing at Ravi’s sour expression.

“The boogie man is not real.”

“But people believe in it,” Mac argued. “If believing in a spirit guide gave it shape and sentience, why wouldn’t the belief in monsters bring them to life?”

Ravi looked at me for guidance.

I shrugged. “He has a point.”

I set the coordinates for the castle while Ravi and Mac argued over the semantics of belief versus reality.

“Ah,” Mac said sometime later. “The IGATF reinforcements came in while we were making nice with the dragon.”

“The Tanue is not a dragon,” Ravi corrected.

“Looks like one to me,” Mac countered.

“Have they done anything?” I asked before the two could start a new argument.

“I don’t know. It’s not like I was twiddling my wires while they came in. I was offline if you’ll remember.”

“Where would they go?” I asked Ravi.

He shook his head, scanning the readouts of his screen. “Zafra was the one who coordinated with the IGATF.”

I flicked on the intercom. “Alex, where were the IGATF ships supposed to go once they came in?”

“The plan was for them to come in the guise of offering aid, and then wait for instructions from Chief Zafra or the Head of the Royal Guard. They weren’t supposed to engage. Why?”

“Where would they wait?”

There was a long pause before footsteps approached. I guessed the strategy to leave Alex and Cassandra alone to resume the argument we’d interrupted wasn’t going so well. Not if Alex jumped at the first opportunity to rush away. I sighed. There would be other times. I’d see to that.

“Why?” Alex asked again from the doorway.

“I want to make sure I can locate them quickly before we head to the castle,” Ravi said smoothly. “In case we need assistance.”

Alex ran a hand through his hair. “The Alliance has been striving to establish a presence on Krozalia for decades. You lean too much on them, and they’ll make you pay more than you’re comfortable paying.”

“Duly noted,” Ravi acknowledged after a pause. “Where are they?”

“Zafra cleared them to land on the royal spaceport. I don’t know where that is.”

Ravi pulled out his commlink, but his eyes remained fixed on Alex. “Why would you tell me that? You’re an IGATF officer.”

Alex’s eyes slid briefly to me. He stuffed his hands into his jumpsuit pocket and jerked a shoulder. “I never wanted to join the Alliance, but I was never given a choice.”

“How long is your term of duty?”

“Indefinitely. If I decide to leave, it will be in a body bag.” Alex licked his lips. “You know about Leann’s enhancements. I-I’m like her.”

Ravi cocked his head, his eyes slanting at me. Since I couldn’t tell him no, Alex was not like me, I only shrugged. “We’re each one of a kind,” I said. “We were together when the scientists came.”

“How much of you is inorganic?” Ravi asked.

“About three-quarters,” Alex replied. “Both arms and legs, my spine, and the left eye.”

Ravi leaned back on his seat, the commlink forgotten in his hands. “Do you understand that Leann went through several tests and a physical evaluation? You won’t be able to forgo any of them.”

Alex nodded rapidly. “I can do that. The Alliance runs tests on me every six months. If you ask them, they might even agree to release the results to you.”

“What exactly do you want?” Ravi asked after a lengthy pause.

“I want to be my own person,” Alex answered readily, telling me his request had been on the forefront of his mind for a while. “I want to come and go as I will without a leash pulling me back every time I stray farther than I’m allowed to.”

“You will,” I vowed.

“Leann,” Ravi warned.

I raised my chin and met his eyes. “He’ll not be a slave to the IGATF or any other organization. I’ll see to that myself if I have to.”

Ravi sighed. “Fine. I will do my best,” he promised.

Alex exhaled. “Thank you.”

“If I’d known where you were,” I murmured. “I’d have done this already.”

Alex’s mouth twisted. “I wish I hadn’t believed Baltsar, that I hadn’t taken his word at face value.”

“I believed him too,” I admitted.

“As much as I hate to come to the halfling’s defense,” Ravi interjected, “I understand his motive. He was protecting you both. Alex because, as you yourself said, the IGATF would rather have you killed than freed, and Leann because no one knew she’d survived.”

And because I wouldn’t have been offered a choice between joining the Alliance or death. Alex had the same enhancements I did, but he didn’t have a sentient AI sharing his body.

“We’ll reach the castle in two,” I said, breaking the silence. “Should I land on the field by the castle?”

Ravi thought about it for a few seconds, then brought up a map of the surrounding area to his console. He brought the small town east of the castle into focus, then moved it down to where the roiling waters flowed onto white sand. “We’ll land here and take a shortcut to the castle. Alex and Cassandra will stay and wait for a signal, in case we need to make a hasty retreat.”

Chapter 19

The Tanue in the sky drew people out of their houses and establishments in droves. Wherever we looked, Kroz were outside, gawking at the sky or kneeling to their new empress.

Neither Zafra, Furox, nor Sullivan was answering their commlinks. Cassandra assumed it was more because of the satellite block than anything else, but the worry in Ravi’s eyes was prominent and matched my own.

We landed on the beach with room to spare. Tall Baleq trees gave me the impression that we were alone on an island, but I knew to my left was a bustling town and up to the east, the castle loomed.

I unclipped myself from my seat, aware of Ravi doing the same beside me. Another confrontation awaited us but for better or worse, my time on Krozalia was drawing to an end. For the first time in years, the path ahead was clear.

All those years, I had searched blindly for the scientists’ headquarters, their backers, and their end goal. Never in a million years had I considered the Cradoxians to be at fault, working with hybrid humans to overthrow the CTF. Looking at the whole of the picture now, I wondered how many more soldiers were out there like me, presumed to be dead in action, but captured by the Cradox, being mutated with mechanics, cybernetics, and sentient AIs instead. How many had died from the modifications done to their bodies? How many were still alive out there, praying for relief they knew would never come?

Ravi stood and cocked his head to the side. “You have the look of someone facing difficult choices.”

“You always read me so well.” I smiled faintly and touched his prickly cheek.

His hand covered mine, squeezed once before our fingers entwined. “What’s bothering you?”

I chuckled. “Have you taken a look at the situation yet? We’re about to walk into a castle under siege with stars know what going on inside. We have no knowledge of their numbers, their weapons, who’s on our side and who isn’t. That’s a disaster in the making—or half done.”

Ravi’s eyes searched my face. “But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it? Or not the whole of it, at least.”

I was going to make a flip remark, to underplay what really weighed me down, but instead, I reached for him, arms circling his torso, and buried my face in his chest.

His arms enveloped me at once and his chin dropped atop my head. “You’re still going to leave.” The words were barely a whisper, but they ricocheted in my head like a gong. “We know who’s behind the KKM and the labs. Linsky was a fool for trusting the Cradox. But he’s dead, and we know where to look now.”

I nodded, my face rubbing against the fabric of his shirt. “Yes, but that only emphasizes how much the CTF is behind. How much KKM did Linsky smuggle to the Cradox in twenty years? The CTF needs to rally their soldiers and fight harder. The moment the Cradoxians find out that Linsky is dead, they’ll know their source is gone. We need to act before that, or we’ll be under the Cradox rule in no time.”

“I understand.”

My hands flexed on his back. “I’ll come back.”

“I’ll be here.”

“Or you can come with me.”

“I’d love nothing more,” he admitted. “But you know I can’t. Not until Dolenta is settled on her throne.”

And that would take ten years to happen.

I glanced up, caught the sadness and the misery in his eyes before they were masked by his implacable façade. I did that. I put that look in his eyes.

I would do anything to take it away.

The thought shifted something inside me, a new perspective that I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell upon. My heartbeat tripped and accelerated, as if trying to escape from its confines. I had never felt this way about anyone. Never wanted to throw caution to the wind and make the impulsive choice I knew we both craved.

And I knew, looking up into his eyes, I knew. I didn’t only have feelings for this Kroz, I loved him more than I wanted revenge. If I left, if I walked away from him, my life would be worthless.

“Ravi,” I began. “I don’t think…I want to—”

He covered my mouth with his hand, halting my words before they could gain traction. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do this for me when we both know you need to go and finish what you started.”

I bit his palm, then pulled his hand away. “I don’t know that I can just walk away. I—I do lo—”

He halted my words with his mouth, a soft kiss that conveyed more than a confession would have. “I don’t want you to stay like that. For now, I need you to go, finish what you started, then come back.” Another soft kiss. “Save those words for when you return to me.”

“Okay,” I murmured, trying to swallow past the lump in my throat. I stepped back, and Ravi mirrored the move. The gap between us was as much physical as it was metaphorical.

“We should go.”

Instead of leading us up the path, through the town, and up to the castle, we followed the shore to a rocky outcropping, where we had to do some hopping maneuvers on slippery rocks to reach a cave I doubted was always above water.

The porous, damp, water-worn walls of the cave confirmed my theory, along with the algae and some other water-based plant life.

Ravi led me through a series of cave labyrinths with sure precision, not pausing to consider which cave to take—as if he used the system frequently and had memorized the right path by heart.

But we weren’t climbing.

“I don’t think I like being underground,” Mac whispered. “Feels like any moment the ceiling is going to come crashing down.”

“I never knew you to be claustrophobic,” I commented, though I was feeling the trepidation too.

“Imagine, tons and tons of rock above you, suspended by what, exactly?”

“Shut up,” I grumbled. “You’re not helping here.”

As if to make matters worse, the caves continued to slope down, and some were filled with water that we had to skirt on narrow ledges. An hour in, we came upon an underground lake that had no handy ledges, the water still and as black as space. Ravi looked back at me with a frown, his gaze assessing. As if he was remembering that I wasn’t as lightweight as my physique suggested. He opened his mouth and I dove into the water.

I regretted my action when the icy cold closed over my head. I came back up spluttering and cursing, the sound of Ravi’s laughter bouncing against the cave walls.

“You could have warned me,” I snapped indignantly.

“I was going to. You jumped in before I could.” He chuckled.

“In his defense,” Mac began, “I was going to warn you as well. That water is almost at freezing temperature.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” I dog-paddled to the other side, cursing again when Ravi jumped in and sent waves of icy water over my head.

By the time I dragged myself out, I was shivering and halfway to turning blue. I undid my braid with shaking fingers, squeezed my hair, then pinned it into a thick bun.

“Better to squeeze the excess from your clothes too,” Mac suggested.

While Ravi watched, I pulled off my shirt, squeezed the excess water, and put it back on, mouth quirking at the way his eyes began changing color to yellow. I hooked my fingers on the waistband of my pants and started pushing it down slowly, only to lose balance when it clung to my knees. Cursing, I stumbled and fell butt down. At once, the heat in Ravi’s eyes switched to mirth.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” I hissed.

“Of course not,” he smirked and crouched in front of me. “May I?” he asked, indicating my pants.

“I can take them off myself,” I muttered but let him pull the clingy material off.

While he squeezed the water from my pants, I did the same to my socks.

“Aren’t you going to do something about your clothes?” I asked.

He looked at me over his shoulder. One eyebrow raised. “Do you think it’s a good idea for both of us to undress?”

The heat in his eyes and the deep timbre of his voice told me it wouldn’t be. I cleared my throat, suddenly embarrassed at my half-dressed state. “Mind passing me my pants?”

Instead of handing them back, he crouched again and helped me put one foot, then the other, into the pants. I held on to his shoulders, fingers combing through his hair when he finished and zipped me in.

When he looked up, his eyes were yellow again. “We should go,” he said, standing and taking a step back.

“Sure.” I sighed. My boots were a helpless cause, so I resigned myself to putting them on and squishing after him. “Do we have far to go yet?”

“Depends on what you consider far,” he replied enigmatically.

I glared at his back. “It was a simple question.”

He moved like the water leaking in his wake was no big deal. As if he did this kind of thing all the time. Maybe he did. Maybe it was a requirement in his line of work. Or maybe he recognized the futility of squeezing out the excess. My eyes narrowed.

“Is there another icy lake we’ll need to traverse?”

“No.”

Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably no more than one, the labyrinth took on an upward direction, slanting at times so sharply, I had to go down on my hands and knees to keep myself from sliding back. The KKM might have enhanced my body, but after spending most of my time in a fifty-meter space, physical endurance wasn’t a function I could boast about. Maybe against another human, I’d do much better, but against a Kroz and a warrior to boot, I was sorely lacking.

It was only when my muscles began to strain and I had to grit my teeth to keep from asking Ravi for a break, that we emerged into an expansive cavern I recognized instantly: the Ancestry’s Hall, where the Kroz had gathered for their memorial ritual a few days ago. The abyss to the other side had a new meaning now that I knew that the Tanue was very much a real entity. I wondered if, like Dolenta, the Tanue gobbled up the Kroz’s dead.

For honor, Ravi had told me back then. I’d rather drift in the vacuum of space than allow my body to become the snack of a dragon-like spirit monster.

We hurried to the passage that would take us to the lift and almost lost our heads to laser blasts when we turned the corner.

With a shout, we dove away, ending up opposite each other, with the long passage between us. The searing sensation on my hip told me I’d been hit. A quick examination told me it was barely a graze, but it hurt like a blazing poker to the bone.

“You okay?” Ravi whispered, tensing to rise.

I waved him back when a warning shot pinged on the rock wall near him.

“I’m good.” I gave him a thumbs-up. Head cocked, I listened for footsteps, but none approached.

“They could be loyal warriors,” Mac suggested. “Maybe they thought you two were part of the rebellion.”

“Tell that to Ravi,” I said sub-vocally.

A second later, Ravi pulled out his commlink and read the text. He glanced up at me and tilted his head as if to say, you think so?

I shrugged a shoulder. It didn’t hurt to check.

“I am Madrovi Fidraxi,” Ravi called. “Stand down.”

In response, another volley of laser blasts shot straight through the passage between us, disappearing somewhere above the black abyss.

“I guess that answers that,” Mac mused.

A small black disk plonked in the ground between us a heartbeat later. I caught the widening of Ravi’s eyes a second before he dove for me. I heard the zing of simultaneous laser blasts, just as Ravi’s body collided with mine and a big woomp lit the cavern like the noon sun.

***

I lay underneath a heavy body, blinking the spots from my vision, trying to understand what had just happened. Mac’s voice in my ear was tiny and fraught with static, and Ravi—Ravi wasn’t moving.

His heart beat fast and steadily against my chest, and when I touched his back, I felt the rise and fall of his shoulders. I didn’t want to move him, but the people who’d lobbed that bomb would undoubtedly be coming to check on their handiwork.

“Damn it all to fiery dust, Leann,” Mac growled. “Move. I swear to all the fuses on the Splendor if you don’t get going, I’m going to shut down and not speak to you for a whole year.”

“You wouldn’t last for that long,” I said sub-vocally.

“Oh, thank the blazing particles, woman. I can’t see anything through the eyecam. It’s all dark over here. But I saw that stun bomb, and you’re probably about to get ambushed by an undetermined number of Kroz. What is Ravi saying?”

“He isn’t.” I patted the ground in search of his weapon. “He’s unconscious atop me.”

“He took the brunt of the attack,” Mac guessed with a note of approval. “Can you move him?”

“Haven’t tried.”

I turned my head and found the smooth rock wall of the cavern. The grainy façade told me that not only was the eyecam in my right vision down but that my cybernetics had been affected too. Whether that extended only to my vision or my entire right side had yet to be determined.

I turned my head to the other side, but Ravi’s weapon was nowhere to be seen. There was smoke everywhere, like misty fingers waving above us, clearer atop the black void. There was no burning smell, however, so it could have been dust. Either way, they wouldn’t help me with what was coming. I needed a weapon. I patted Ravi down, found a blaster on the small of his back. I brought it up to my face, lips twisting when it turned out to be just a stun gun.

It was better than the nothing I had, so it would have to do. I caught the sound of soft footsteps approaching, along with hushed whispers. I raised my head and sighted the entrance to the cave, the position awkward with Ravi pinning me down. I didn’t dare move him and risk making any noise and clue our attackers that one of us was conscious.

A male voice whispered something in Krozalian and another responded with a vicious retort. I held my breath, my chest heavy, but still, no one came into view. Something flickered in my peripheral vision, and I turned to look. There, above the dark of the void, was a white, undulating column of gathering smoke. It rippled as if conjured by a breeze, breaking apart and reforming. I angled my head to the side, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Surely, that couldn’t be…a ghost? Although there were no eyes or mouth, I had the distinct impression that whatever that smoke was—ghost, imagination, something else—it was watching us, watching me.

The soft scuff of a boot brought my attention back to the entrance, where a Kroz stood dressed in civilian clothing, eyes fixed on the smoky figure, mouth agape. At least the apparition wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

The second Kroz raised his weapon the moment he saw I was conscious, but I was already aiming. I shot him twice in the face and then did the same to his companion.

Both went down without a word, but someone’s head cracked loudly when it hit the hard ground. I winced. That was going to hurt when he woke up—if he woke up.

I exhaled, then shifted Ravi off me and crouched beside him. He was breathing steadily, so I straightened his arms and legs, noticed that the smoky figure was gliding closer above the abyss, and suppressed a shiver of unease.

“Can you see yet?” I asked Mac.

“Silhouettes,” he replied.

“There’s a ghost creeping above the dark void. I think it’s coming this way.”

“Mmm. I want to freak out about that, but I think I’m all out of freaks. Or was it fucks? Either way, you two need to get going.”

“Ravi’s unconscious.” I touched his stubbly cheek, but his breathing didn’t hitch. Climbing to my feet, I headed to where the other two Kroz had fallen, noting the blood pooling under the head of the gaping one.

“At least the cybernetics didn’t glitch,” I said.

I didn’t recognize either Kroz. Going by their casual clothes, they probably weren’t warriors either.

“Squint a bit,” Mac requested.

“Why?” I asked even as I did.

“Nah, I wanted to see if it would bring the eyecam into focus.”

I squatted beside the closest Kroz and began tapping him down. “You think it’s damaged for good?”

“Could be. It’ll be a bitch to replace and reprogram though.”

“If it doesn’t get better on its own, I’ll ask Baltsar to take a look.”

“Or maybe Alex could do it,” Mac proposed.

I grunted and surveyed my haul—two laser pistols, a Shivarhi blade, and another of that stun bomb disk. I pocketed the arsenal, palmed a laser gun, and tiptoed cautiously ahead, wanting to make sure the path to the lift was clear.

It was.

I was about to return to try and wake Ravi up when I collided with a hard chest. A hand clamped over my grip on the laser pistol. “Easy,” Ravi said at the same moment I realized it was him.

“You’re up,” I blurted with relief.

“And looking clearer by twenty-seven percent,” Mac said. “The uniformity to this hall seems to be messing with my depth perception.”

Ravi flashed me a closed-mouth smile. “Takes more than a stun bomb to keep me down for more than a few minutes. Are you okay?”

“Yes. You took the brunt of the explosion.”

He touched my cheek with a warm hand. “That was the plan. One of us needed to be conscious.”

I almost told him he shouldn’t have done that, but I knew he was right. If he hadn’t protected me, we’d have both been unconscious when the two Kroz came to check on us.

He pointed his chin to the corner I’d just turned. “Any more guards there?”

“It’s clear.”

“Then let’s go,” he said as he took the lead. Before I hurried behind him, I caught movement from the corner of my eye. The smoky apparition was floating above the two unconscious Kroz.

“What, by all the blazing stars, is that?” Mac asked. “Is the eyecam playing tricks?”

“Is it back to normal function?” I asked in turn.

“About eighty-eight percent. Tell me what that is.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. We watched as white tendrils reached down to the two unconscious Kroz and speared into their ears and nostrils. The abrupt sight jarred a strangled squawk from my throat.

Ravi whipped around, laser pistol ready.

“What is that?” I gasped when he reluctantly dropped his arm. As if the scene ahead was a perfectly normal one.

It was not.

“I don’t know. But given our location, I’d say it has to do with the Tanue.”

It pulled away from the prone Kroz. “Are those legs?” Mac asked.

“And arms,” I added. Or thick appendages that looked like arms and legs and a torso and a head.

“It’s a ghost?” Mac asked shrilly.

“I thought you said you were fresh out of fucks to give.”

“I lied.” He let out a squeal when the apparition came closer. “Maybe it’s time we get out of here.”

I pressed against Ravi, unsure if we should run, play dead, or try to fight it. My grip tightened around the laser gun. I held my breath as it neared. Ravi’s arms circled my torso and pulled me tighter against him. I couldn’t tell if he meant to restrain or protect me.

The entity drifted past us and disappeared around the corner. I let out the breath I’d been holding and stepped away from Ravi. “Where do you think it’s going?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Come on, we’re wasting time.” Ravi jogged after it.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Mac began.

“Stop being a ninny,” I quipped, though in truth, that thing made me anxious too.

I turned the corner in time to see the apparition go through the wall across from the lift.

“That’s certainly somewhere you can’t go,” Mac said, his voice holding more than a hint of relief.

Ravi and I exchanged perplexed looks. Silently, we headed for the lift. I hated walking inside it, recalling the way it had felt the last time, but I hid my hesitancy and moved in. I kept my eyes fixed on the empty corridor, scanning for any movement. There was nothing. Whoever had put the two guards down here either hadn’t anticipated anyone entering the castle this way or were running out of minions to do their bidding. Either could be true.

After a few long seconds, I glanced back at Ravi over my shoulder. “Why isn’t this thing moving?”

Ravi tapped a spot on the wall of the lift—presumably where the buttons were—and waited a few seconds before repeating the tap. Two furrow lines appeared between his eyebrows when nothing happened after the third try.

“Maybe the rebellion did something to prevent others from entering the castle through here,” Mac speculated.

I mulled over his words. “If that was the case, they wouldn’t have stationed any guards.”

The apparition reappeared from the wall across the lift, the misty white of the figure shifting as if caught on a breeze. I edged back, coming flush with the wall of the lift, finding that Ravi had done the same. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one disconcerted.

“So freaking creepy,” Mac whispered.

“Is it waving?” I nudged Ravi when he turned his attention to the lift buttons. “I think it’s…motioning for us…to come closer?”

Mac let out a nervous laugh. “What an imagination.”

“Don’t you have something else to do?” I quipped.

“Not when you hold my life in your reckless hands.”

“Go,” I told him. “Get us eyes inside the castle.”

“I can multitask,” Mac insisted. “But fine. Know that if you get killed by a ghost, I’ll help it haunt your afterlife.”

“You don’t believe in the afterlife,” I muttered as Ravi moved out of the lift.

“Well, you can say that ghost made me a believer.”

I ground my teeth. “Just go.”

“Going,” Mac muttered.

The apparition undulated, half in, half out the wall, and a thin arm-like wisp moved again. It was definitely waving. Then it retreated inside the wall. Ravi glanced at me, closed the small distance to where the apparition had been, and examined the spot. He leaned in, his face less than a finger away from the stone.

“Careful,” I cautioned. I hadn’t checked the two Kroz after the apparition had moved on, but I had this gut feeling that they were very much dead. I inched closer to Ravi, ready to pull him away should any white wisp jump out. “What is it?”

“I think there’s something here,” he said. “A faint residue of energy or something.” He raised a tentative hand to the spot where the smoky figure vanished and tapped a few times—the way he had done inside the lift.

With a muffled rumble, the stone of the wall slid to the side, revealing a square space no bigger than the pantry on the Splendor.

“It’s—another lift.”

Judging the astonishment on Ravi’s face, it had been a secret, even from him.

“Where do you think this goes?” I asked. Glancing back to the opposite lift, I didn’t think it was a valid question—unless this secret lift didn’t move in a vertical trajectory. Not that the thought was a possibility I should dismiss, all things considered. I was nervous at the idea of going in. We had no idea what we were going to find at the other end. I also detested the fact that the confined space could barely accommodate Ravi, let alone the two of us.

Ravi entered first, pressing himself against the back to make room for me, and I followed suit. He touched a spot on the wall and it slid shut, sealing us into a lift obviously designed for one. I felt no vibration to indicate movement underneath my feet, and cast a sideways glance at Ravi. His eyes were more yellow than umber, a sign that his emotions were riding high.

“Is it moving?” I asked, more to fill the silence than curiosity. We were trapped inside this coffin-sized lift with dim lighting and limited air. “Why did we follow that thing into this cage? For all we know, that thing is some clever hallucination one of your guards conjured to get rid of us. We’re going to suffocate inside this wall where no one will find us because no one knows it exists.” The air in my lungs hitched. We were going to die a stupid death, all because we followed a smoke-like apparition that I was sure had already killed two Kroz.

Before panic could seize complete hold of my brain, Ravi pulled my head back with two fingers under my chin. I looked up just as his mouth covered mine. I opened my mouth to tell him this wasn’t the time, and he took advantage to deepen the kiss. The first slide of his tongue had my arms circling his neck, the second wiped all my objections. The third had me backed against the wall, Ravi’s entire body pressed against mine, one thigh between my legs, raising me off the ground.

Before I knew it, the wall to my left was sliding open.

Chapter 20

We came out into someone’s luxurious suite. The sitting room we entered was opulent, filled with big windows that offered a breathtaking view of the sea far below. A brief scan told me we were alone, and a glance back showed that the lift was completely disguised as a small patch of undecorated wall. Bracketed by a painting to one side and a statue to the other. There were no seams—no anything that hinted there was something behind that wall.

“This is the emperor’s private quarters,” Ravi informed me.

The apparition waited for us by the door, and the waving was unmistakably impatient.

“Um, should we follow it?” I asked.

In response, Ravi strolled to where it waited. We trailed behind it out of the room, down a corridor, and around a bend where two guards stood facing the other way.

Ravi and I both raised our weapons and froze when the apparition speared into their eyes, nostrils, and ears. The way it had done to the two Kroz in the Ancestry’s Hall, only faster—like a striking viper. The force shoved both Kroz back and sideways, even as they stiffened and their eyes rolled back. They fell to the ground like statues, and just as hard. The glimpse of their unseeing eyes and the grayish quality of their dry skin told me they were very much dead. And it had taken the apparition what, five seconds—one, two, three, four, five—and bang, they both fell. Not a peep, not a blink.

“It’s the Tanoua-Bach,” Ravi whispered, both with reverence and fear.

“What?”

Ravi dragged his eyes from the two bodies and looked at me. “The Tanue’s vengeance given form. I thought it was a myth, a bedtime story parents tell their kids to keep them in line.”

He didn’t have to tell me anything more. The saliva dried in my mouth. Still, we continued after the Tanoua-Bach, albeit from a respectful distance.

“I’m glad it’s on our side,” Mac muttered.

But is it truly? It had spared Ravi and me, but it didn’t mean it could tell friend from foe.

“Have you cracked the castle’s system?” I asked Mac, trying to keep him occupied.

“Almost there.”

“Hurry,” I urged and kept pace with Ravi.

Down another corridor and a set of stairs and two more dead, grayish guards, we went. We passed three castle servants, eyes wide with terror, their bodies frozen where they’d fallen. Though it killed anyone it encountered, I realized that the Tanoua-Bach was moving with purpose, taking twists and bends and stairs as if it knew how to reach its destination. I wasn’t sure if Ravi planned to follow it because it had beckoned us to, or if it was simply going where we planned to go. It occurred to me that if we wanted to save the people we came to save and keep them alive, we’d need to get in front of it.

The thought had obviously crossed Ravi’s mind too, because he pointed to the opposite direction from the Tanoua-Bach and then we were running. We raced down a set of spiral stairs obviously for the servants, thankfully empty of guards or anyone else. I kept looking back, expecting smoky tendrils to come raging after us, but as far as I could tell, it hadn’t. We burst onto the ground level and bolted for the throne room, where Sullivan had said the rebellion leaders were holding the Kroz prisoners.

We really shouldn’t have.

There were guards everywhere and they all turned at the sound of our footsteps, weapons raised. Ravi threw his hand up, and a concussive boom traveled through the ground. The guards didn’t fall, but the kinetic push unbalanced them enough for Ravi and I to take cover behind pillars.

“Listen to me,” Ravi shouted. “You’ve angered the Tanue. Something is coming and—”

A barrage of laser blasts hit the pillars, cutting Ravi off. He glanced briefly at me, then risked poking his head around. A shot hit the edge of his pillar, sending chipped rock in the air. Ravi cursed when one sliced his cheek. Or maybe he was cursing the rebellion’s stupidity.

He called again, this time in Krozalian, a long string of words that cut off when someone screamed. The sound of thumping bodies followed, over and over and over. I held Ravi’s grim gaze until the atrium was silent again.

Mouth pursed into a flat line, he peered around the pillar, shoulders slumping as he stepped away. Knowing what I’d find, I came from around the pillar and found the Tanoua-Bach gliding away from several bodies. It turned a corner, looking more humanoid.

Ravi spun and resumed sprinting without a word, and I trailed behind. The rebellion was no longer our biggest concern. The Tanoua-Bach could have them all for all we cared. Our goal was to save everyone else.

We came to a stop at the back door of the throne room. Ravi pushed the door open a crack but didn’t go inside. I could hear the murmured voices of a large crowd, but from the narrow opening, could only see parts of the dais.

“Zefron!” Ravi shouted, and the room went quiet. He let out a string of rapid-fire Krozalian.

“You have to evacuate the room now,” Mac translated. “The Tanoua-Bach is heading your way.”

A chuckle sounded, followed by a few words that even I could tell was a command, despite the mirth lacing it.

“Now, now,” Mac continued. “I had no idea the head of our guard was prone to bouts of fancy. Come on out and let us see you, unless you’re afraid of a vengeful spirit.”

“Stay,” Ravi whispered, then eased the door open and stepped inside.

“Hiding behind women now?” Ravi’s voice rang out. “I’ll admit to being surprised, despite having realized how foolish the rebellion’s goals were.”

The voice came again, deep and void of humor.

“He’s telling Ravi he would be happy to exchange her with him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I need one more minute.”

I crouched and tried to look inside, but Ravi hadn’t fully opened the door and my field of vision was limited. I missed the next exchange—and Mac didn’t deem it important enough to translate—but the next string of words I understood.

“Come on out, Captain,” the voice called in Universal. “I know you’re hiding somewhere out there.”

“Don’t,” Mac warned.

“She’s not your concern,” Ravi snapped. “No one here is your concern.” The quick intake of Ravi’s breath told me either Zefron had done something, or the Tanoua-Bach had arrived.

Unable to hold myself back, I eased into the room.

There were fewer people in the room than I’d guessed. Or maybe it was because the room was so big, easily accommodating thousands, that the dozens looked like a small number. But I found Zefron at once. He was not someone I had met before.

Tall, balding, and clearly old, he stood with a laser blast held against Lorvel’s temples. Ravi’s mother looked sick, her skin sallow, her posture hunched. The Conchaz had done a number on her. A quick survey of the others told me they were in a similar condition, save for Sullivan—and Zafra.

Kroz guards were scattered about the room, but only two wore the Kroz warrior armor. I searched for the Tanoua-Bach and only found it because the white was contrasting strongly with the black tall doors on the other side of the enormous chamber. It was seeping from the door like liquid smoke, and no one had yet noticed it.

“Back away,” Ravi said. His voice was low, as if he was afraid to urge the smoke into action, but it echoed loudly enough. “You don’t—”

The smoke shot like an arrow straight for Zefron.

Ravi shouted a warning, but he was too far, and the smoke moved so fast it looked like a white streak. It hit Zefron in the back and disappeared. I held my breath, waiting for it to come out the other side and impale Lorvel. Instead, it trickled out of Zefron’s eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Unlike with the previous Kroz, the apparition took its time coming out, almost as if it didn’t want to risk brushing against Lorvel and causing her any harm. Or maybe it wanted to prolong the rebellion leader’s suffering.

Zefron let go of Lorvel and grasped for his throat, eyes bulging even as his skin started losing color. Zafra reached her mother first, grabbing her under the armpits and backing away slowly.

Zefron fell face-first and, as if he was nothing but a sculpture made of thin glass, shattered into small pieces.

There was a disbelieving pause where everyone stood there gawking, before panic erupted like an angry volcano. Screams sounded from every corner of the chamber, bouncing in echoes and growing in volume as the Tanoua-Bach, thicker and more pronounced, jumped from one guard to the next, skipping everyone else. The guards realized that as well, because some attempted to use the prisoners as shields, only to meet the same ending as Zefron. I’d already figured that the smoky figure possessed a semblance of sentience, but this level of awareness rooted me to my spot as I watched it jump from body to body.

When all the guards were dead, the smoke shot high in the air and coalesced into a thick plume in the ceiling. It circled there for a few seconds—as if regarding those of us watching it—before cascading down to the ground like water, pooling in front of where Ravi and I stood. It had a certain charged presence that hadn’t been there before. It caused all the hairs on my body to stand at attention.

“Shrimples!” Mac hissed in my ear. “Step back. Step back now.”

I reached for Ravi’s arm, uncertain of what to do. The Tanoua-Bach began growing in front of us, then started to take shape. Two legs, a torso, two arms, and a head. It remained white, but the shape was unmistakably Dolenta.

Someone in the crowd gasped, and I realized that being stuck here for days meant they had yet to see the Tanue in the sky. But Dolenta had eyes for only Ravi and me.

“I will cleanse my lands from this rot,” she declared, voice gravelly. It came from outside as well, a booming noise that made the ground tremble. “I will protect my lands from any and all evils. My punishment will be swift and deadly.”

The Tanoua-Bach—I couldn’t call it anything else without tainting the image of that sweet child—turned her head to me. “I will allow your ship, and your ship only to pass, and only once. No one else shall come and go until the Tanue and I separate again.”

With that, the smoke broke into a million pieces and dispersed in the air.

Chapter 21

Lord Drax

I dropped the tablet onto the desk and pushed it away with disgust. For the past hour, I had sat behind my desk, attempting to read the reports Furox had sent regarding Linsky, Zefron, and their involvement with the Cradox and the hybrid humans. Not a single word had registered.

I’d said goodbye to Leann three hours ago, and watched her walk out of my room, head held high, as if she wasn’t carrying half my soul away.

I almost broke down and asked her to stay. She had lingered, looking at me with that careful gaze, waiting for me to say something more than to wish her safe travels. I’d seen the moment her resolve started to crumble. She’d wanted to stay. So, I kissed her and practically pushed her out the door.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to stay. Void, I loved her enough that I wasn’t beyond dropping to my knees and begging her not to go. But I also understood that she would have never truly been here, that a part of her would always wonder if she had made the right choice. And I hated that. I hated myself for letting her go. Hated myself for doing the right thing.

I poured myself a drink and downed the hot ale in one gulp, welcoming the scolding pain in my mouth and throat. Then I poured a second. The cup was halfway to my mouth when the door to my office swished open. I whirled, heart tripping.

“You don’t need to look so glum,” Zafra snorted as she walked in. “I can see you hoped she’d change her mind.”

I glanced down, unable to hold the pity in my sister’s eyes. “She had to go,” I murmured.

“Sure. She’s going to save the galaxy single-handedly.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t my place to tell her what she could or couldn’t do. “I don’t think she can envision any other future for herself until the scientists are dealt with.” Whether she had the entire might of the CTF and the IGATF behind her or she did it alone, she wouldn’t rest without seeing this through to the end. I understood that.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard that you had to convince her to go.” She glanced at her nails. “Almost like you didn’t want her to stay.”

“What do you want?” I snapped.

“Why did you push her away?”

I swirled the liquid in my glass, eyes downcast. “Because I don’t want to be the person to hold her back from a mission she’s been working on for years.”

“Why didn’t you go with her, then?”

My head jerked up and I glared at my sister, who was making herself comfortable on the chair in front of my desk. “You know I can’t go.”

“Why? Because our parents are incompetent regents? No, then I must be the imbecile unable to keep our warriors in line. Or maybe it’s Furox and his soft nature who can’t follow commands? You told me that you planned to leave Krozalia for her. Why aren’t you?”

My glare darkened at each word out of her mouth. “You heard the Tanoua-Bach. Only Leann’s ship is allowed to leave.”

Zafra nodded. “I heard that, yes. Until Dolenta separates from the Tanue, our skies will be closed. That will take about ten years.”

I downed the rest of my drink, then threw the glass across the room. It shattered with a satisfying shower of glass. I knew what Zafra was not saying: the Tanoua-Bach had promised to let Leann’s ship pass, but it hadn’t specified how many people were allowed to be aboard. Something in my belly stirred uneasily. “It’s no longer something I can do.”

“Sure you can.”

“Zafra,” I warned, feeling tired and defeated.

“Here you go,” my mother said from the door, dropping a heavy bag beside her feet.

I hadn’t even heard her come in. I looked between the two, eyebrows raising at their identical looks of “spare me your excuses.”

“What’s that?” I dared to ask my mother, though I already knew.

“Your bag. Now, get going before your female decides you’re not seeing her off.”

I glanced out the window, at the dark wings of the Tanue visible in the sky. “She left three hours ago.”

“No, she didn’t. Something was wrong with the ship you lent her, and Ozvie set to procure a better one.”

I scowled at them, even as I straightened. “You meddle too much,” I told them.

“You’re welcome. Now, give me a hug and go. Try to send news whenever possible. I’d hate to be sitting here day and night worrying.”

I shook my head, kissed Zafra’s cheek, and hugged my mother tightly. “I’ll do that.” I grabbed the bag my mother had packed and ran out the door.

I climbed onto the slick ship my father indicated, coming face to face with a grinning Cassandra. “She’s on the bridge, moping.”

I nodded and rushed to the bridge, where I found Leann bent over the console, staring at it as if it held the secrets of the galaxy.

I dropped my bag beside the door and moved in. “I heard this is the only outgoing ship for the next ten years,” I said.

Leann’s head snapped up so fast it must have hurt. She was out of her seat in the next breath, and in my arms in the one after that.

Her mouth was on mine before I could say anything, and for a long time, I stood there in the middle of the bridge, my mate wrapped around me as we kissed.

It was only when I tasted the salt of her tears that I pulled back. “Leann—”

“Don’t,” she mashed her mouth on mine again, but the tears kept coming.

I had to pull her away firmly to look at her. Before I could explain that I hadn’t come to say goodbye, she pushed me away and pointed. “What is that?”

I followed her pointing finger to the bag my mother had packed for me. “My bag?” I said, but it came out as a question.

“W-why do you have a full bag with you?”

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and waited for her to meet my gaze. There was hope and suspicion in her eyes, her cheeks flushed. She was beautiful—and all mine.

“Like I said, I heard this is the only outgoing ship for the next ten years.” I shrugged one shoulder. “And I’d rather not be away from my mate for that long.”

Leann wiped her cheeks, but her eyes still glimmered with tears. “You’re coming with me? To wherever I’m going?”

“If you’ll have me.”

The tears fell even as her face broke with a radiant smile. I shook my head. “I’ve never seen someone cry and laugh at the same time.”

Laughing, she threw herself at me. My arms pulled her closer, and my head dropped to her shoulder. We stood like that until someone clapped.

I raised my head, only to find Zafra at the door, an identical bag to mine by her feet.

“Mom said that my services were no longer needed.” She raised her eyebrows. “She told me it was about time I left to explore the galaxy.”

Chapter 22

The hypermorph research facility was disguised as a high-end prison, a tall block of dull gray material with laser turrets, and a single door in and out. It was fortified by watch towers and patrolled by hovercrafts. The whole facility was enclosed in a magnetic force field so strong, it distorted the air around it.

It was situated on a small asteroid, as isolated as anything in the galaxy could get. The facility was listed as a super maximum-security prison and legally omitted from any star map in the Cradox files.

I wanted to say that it had been easy finding it, but it hadn’t been. It had taken the might of the HSA, the IGATF, and the Krozalian government working together. Spies had been dispatched, exorbitant amounts of credits had been spent, and a fleet of drones had been set to scour the galaxy to unearth the place. It had taken almost eight months to unveil the location, a few more to monitor the place, and set up a plan of attack. A fact that had made me feel foolish for trying to do it all on my own.

But now, here we were, two dozen look-alike Cradox combat ships the IGATF had manufactured from a transit model they’d been working on for stars knew how long. It had made slipping into Sector 9 so much easier. Everyone had been carefully selected for this mission, and then briefed to an inch of our lives.

Cradoxians, hybrid humans, and Brofils all worked in the facility, but we hadn’t been able to uncover if there were hypermorphs as well. We weren’t able to pin down the number of employees, victims, and the guards’ rotation either, but it didn’t matter. We had worked on a multi-pronged attack that included rescuing, evidence gathering, and destroying the facility. We had backup plans, backup troops, and the IGATF and the Kroz were even now storming the Cradox government. The two had come together with the CTF and decided that the Cradox was no longer fit to govern Sector 9. It was a scary thing, how the three groups had sat to decide the future of billions, and were even now implementing their plan.

Our suppression team, four stealth ships—also IGATF-manufactured replicas of the Cradoxian model—detached from our formation and sped for the towers surrounding the asteroid. Another team made up of ten Cradoxian warships had stayed back facing the way we’d come, ready to run interference and guard our rear. Even though the IGATF and the Kroz were keeping the Cradox authorities occupied, they had their own crisis to deal with: the IGATF to run an internal investigation of the military and all other Cradox authority aspects, the Kroz to enforce compliance if the need arose. And to prevent the Cradox from claiming the IGATF and Kroz were taking sides in the war, the CTF’s main job was to patrol the border, to stop high-ranking Cradoxians from escaping justice. Meanwhile, a group of IGATF, Kroz, and a few CTF agents had been put together to deal with the facility—a group that Ravi and I led.

This would be no sneak attack. Yes, we’d infiltrated Sector 9 disguised as Cradoxian ships through several points on the border to avoid detection. But once we passed BR405 Moon, the last Cradoxian colony, our cover was over. There was nothing on this side of the sector but vast space and the facility disguised as a maximum-security prison.

Now, we were all positioned in clear view of the facility, twelve combat ships waiting for our moment. Alex and Sullivan were on the ship to our left, while Zafra and another IGATF agent were to our right. I only met the rest of the team during a brief meeting, and they were the best of the CTF, IGATF, and Kroz.

The suppression team, the four stealth ships, darted for the guard towers and opened fire immediately. From our vantage point some distance off, we watched as dome-like sections of the towers opened and KEW shots hailed on the stealth ships almost simultaneously.

“Scans can’t find any organic forms in the towers,” Mac said through the comms. “Looks like they’re either automated or manned by hypermorphs.”

I bit my lower lip and watched as a shot hit one of the small ships, breaking through their shield and sending them spiraling away.

My grip on the controls tightened, but we stayed put. Our ships were bigger, less agile, and we had our own mission to conduct. The now unshielded ship zoomed back in, skillfully evading incoming fire, and blasting their weapon at the tower with a single-minded focus.

I flinched when the tower shattered into pieces, even though I’d been expecting something to give. I’d even held my breath. The force field surrounding the base flickered but held strong.

The unshielded ship zoomed to the next tower, joining with the second ship and opening fire. Under their combined assault, the tower fell more quickly, and then the two ships were speeding to join the third.

From there, things moved faster. The last and fourth tower succumbed in under a minute, but the force field held strong. The suppression team attacked it next, directing all their power on the invisible shield, causing it to blink and flicker, clearly weakening under the onslaught but not yielding. Whoever had created and charged that force field knew what they were doing.

“Something is happening back in the facility,” Mac reported, zooming in on the roof of the gray, square structure.

“What’s that?” I asked, watching as the roof seemed to be rippling like waves, spreading beyond the boundaries of the asteroid.

“I think it’s a camouflaged artifact,” Ravi muttered, fingers tapping rapidly on his console.

The walls on the side of the facility slid to the side, halting my questions as two, five, eight stealth ships identical to the ones from our suppression team came out.

“Get ready,” came Alex’s voice through the open coms.

I readied to jump into the fray, waiting for the force field to fall.

It fell without fanfare. By then, the opposition ships were all waiting on the other side, mirroring our position. We advanced, ready to cut them down and get this over with. My heart was pounding with excitement and fear, encapsulating ten years of pent-up anticipation.

The undulation on the roof stretched and contorted as if it was made of liquid mercury. Slowly, it started to take shape. We were wrong. It wasn’t coming from the roof of the facility, but from the air directly above it. I realized what it was at the same time Mac inputted the read-out on the screen. A Class 5 Kroz Battleship. And I bet it was the same one that had attacked us during the journey to Krozalia, back when I was escorting the princess home.

“Well, fuck.” I checked the readouts, but the twelve warships who were supposed to run interference were so far back; they weren’t even showing on the screen.

Ravi’s fingers flew on the console, and a quick look told me he was updating the interference team, sending an SOS beacon.

“You never told me you guys had invisibility magic,” I said tightly as I dodged a thick laser stream from a stealth ship.

“I thought you figured that out during the run to the Tanue’s cave,” Ravi replied just as tightly. “How do you think that ship kept appearing out of nowhere?”

“Teleportation?” I guessed.

“You could have clued us in,” Mac huffed.

“I’ll remember that next time. Now, shut up and let me concentrate.”

Everywhere around us, combat ships clashed with the stealth ships, giving as good as they got. We were bigger, meaner, and carried enough weapons to obliterate a fleet, but the stealth ships were smaller targets and had more agility. Besides, their numbers were more than twenty to our ten. Which weren’t bad odds, if the battleship in the background wasn’t preparing to annihilate everyone.

“Tell me what to do,” I said to Ravi. “How can I disable the battleship?”

“You can’t.” The reply came out strangled, and a moment later I knew why: the battleship let out a long plas bolt that took out three of their stealth ships and one of ours.

“Suppression team,” Ravi called through the open communication channel. “Get out of dodge. Your mission here is done.”

I shot the shield of a stealth ship and ducked a hail of laser fire from a defending ship. On the other side of the field, Zafra swooped in and finished the stealth ship whose shield I’d brought down.

The battleship’s cannons were firing again, this time taking another of their stealth ships with one of ours.

I shook my head. “We need to do something; otherwise, they’re just going to shoot everyone down.” And by the time reinforcements arrived, the facility would be empty of all their research, their test subjects gone to another remote area. It would take us months, if not years, to find them again.

“We don’t have the manpower to bring it down,” Ravi gritted out. “The interference team should be here in a minute.”

We didn’t have a minute, I thought, but said nothing.

“Interference team is on the way,” Ravi announced through the open channel. “Hold your lines.”

“Roger that,” Alex replied.

The affirmative came one at a time. I was ashamed to know that I cared more that Alex and Zafra responded, and guilty that I didn’t know who hadn’t.

We maneuvered, evaded, and engaged in dog fights with enemy ships, all the while keeping an eye on the battleship. The fight wasn’t the most intense I’d fought, it wasn’t even in the top-ten list if I skipped the battleship picking us apart like a lame, moving-target game.

“Try to get closer to the battleship,” Ravi instructed. “I want to tag them in case they run again.”

After all the rebellion members had been rounded, we’d assumed the battleship had been destroyed after its failed attack on us, since we found no mentions of it anywhere.

“Linsky must have traded the battleship with the Cradox,” I speculated. “He couldn’t bring it back into Sector 5, so he got rid of it.” I brought the ship sideways and over the stealth ships, shooting our lasers whenever we had a clear target.

“Do you want to merge?” Mac offered in my ear.

I considered it for a fraction of a second. “No. Not yet.”

“It was the Conchaz,” Ravi said. “That was the only Cradox supply that Furox couldn’t find payment for.”

“That’s a hell of a down payment,” Mac muttered.

The enemy ships seemed to realize that the battleship had no problem plowing through them if they managed a target lock on one of us and started paying attention to the plas cannons. Each time one came online, they dodged away, giving our ships the second they needed to do the same.

Obviously, they were willing to fight for the facility and put their lives on the line, but not to let the facility use them as cannon fodder. Which made me wonder if the fighters were Brofils, Cradoxians, or hybrid humans. None of which mattered if we couldn’t disable the battleship.

Two stealth ships flanked us and fired. Our shield took the brunt of the attack before I managed to dip below a third and bring us back behind them. If we had been on the Splendor, I’d have managed the maneuver with more dexterity, but this combat ship didn’t seem to be equipped for space acrobatics.

“A bit closer,” Ravi told me.

I pointed the nose up and ignited the thrusters, blasting heat onto one of the stealth ships, then dove sideways to avoid a laser blast to the belly that appeared out of nowhere. It clipped us on the side and rocked the ship, causing the shields to flicker. But they held on.

Too big, I thought. The dimensions of the ship were too big, easily twice the size of the Splendor, which was already larger than the Space Mermaid. I had wanted to sneak in on the Splendor, but the possibility of discovery hadn’t been worth the risk. It would have alerted the Cradoxians, and our plan had hinged on us reaching this far with no one the wiser. The only good thing I liked about this ship was the heavy-duty shields and thicker outer hulls.

I couldn’t help but think now that if I’d been on the Splendor, I’d have already gotten us to the battleship. Would have downed more than one stealth ship. And would have, no doubt, avoided most of the hits we’d sustained.

“Got it,” Ravi crowed with triumph. “Let’s hope the battleship scanners didn’t get any improvement since it left our docks.”

I grunted and pulled our ship back to the fight, avoiding laser blasts almost intuitively. For the next few seconds, I immersed myself in the tag-and-run strategy, until another combat ship to our starboard went up in sparks and debris. My heart lodged in my throat.

“It wasn’t them,” Ravi said quietly.

My relief was drowned by guilt, both of which sank under the onslaught of laser fire and KEW shots aimed our way. I couldn’t spare a glance to assess if the enemy ships had increased in number or if we’d been ganged on for some other reason.

“The interference team is here,” Ravi announced into the open channel.

There were a couple of strained cheers, but nothing more. The stealth ships were too busy with us to block the interference team, and the twelve warships headed straight for the battleship, unleashing all their firepower on the bigger ship. With the battleship occupied, we finally started whittling down the enemy ships.

We were winning. Soon, the facility would be no more. The Cradox government would be no more.

And then the battleship attacked the facility. One moment, they were firing all they had on the warships; the next, they rained destruction upon the facility they were supposed to guard. Bolt after bolt after bolt. Even after the facility had been destroyed, they continued firing. Once the asteroid was reduced to dust, the battleship hopped. One moment they were there, the next, they were gone.

There was a pause where everyone took in the fact that there was nothing left to fight over. The stealth ships tried to flee and found themselves surrounded by our ships.

“I got it,” Ravi said. “It’s a few light years away.” He tapped on his console and a star map came into view.

“You want us to follow?” I asked.

Ravi pursed his lips, then opened a private channel with his sister’s ship. “Zafra?”

“Yes?”

“I have the location of the battleship. Think you can go after it?”

I whipped my head to look at him.

It took Zafra a few seconds to answer. “I can give it a try. Send me the coordinates.”

Ravi sent it over. “Report back as soon as it’s done.”

“Will do,” she said. A moment later, Zafra’s ship hopped away.

“You know you sent your sister to fight a Class 5 Battleship on a ship a fraction of its size?”

“Relax,” he said, leaning sideways to touch my hand. “If I didn’t believe her capable, I wouldn’t have asked her to.”

I studied his face, trying to understand how Zafra could manage such a feat. Nothing came up except that maybe the battleship had a failsafe that could be used to prevent the enemy from taking it over. I knew the CTF had methods to remotely disable their ships, so it wasn’t farfetched to assume the Kroz had a similar safeguard. Maybe not a destroy-button someone else could use, but maybe that was why Ravi sent Zafra alone—to prevent knowledge of the fact from leaking.

“Tell me this: will she need to board the battleship first?”

“No,” was his only reply.

I relaxed then and let it drop.

“So,” Mac began. “I guess this is it. We did it.”

I scanned the port view screen of the space outside. It was filled with floating detritus, and we hadn’t saved the victims from the facility, but Mac was right. It was over. I took a moment to mourn whoever had been trapped in that facility, wishing for an end to their torment. They hadn’t been given a second chance; they hadn’t been rescued. When I was in their place, I’d wished for an end, for the relief of oblivion. I remembered that when I had finally fought back, that I had only planned to destroy and take as many scientists with me as I could. Had it not been for Baltsar, I wouldn’t have survived. Not the fight, not the months that followed.

Ravi crouched in front of my seat and reached for me. His fingers wiped tears from my cheeks, tears I hadn’t realized had been running down my face.

“What is it, Koshka? I promise you, Zafra will be all right.”

I buried my face in his neck and clutched him to me. “It’s over.”

He held me tight. “Yes, it is.”

Finally, after all these years, it was over.

Epilogue

Ten years later

“You’re sure you don’t want to watch it through the eyecam?” I asked Mac.

“Why limit myself when I can have a three-sixty view?”

I shook my head. “Ravi should have never allowed you to integrate into the castle’s system.”

The idea had been Ravi’s, a way for him to keep an eye on every aspect of the castle, as well as to give Mac something to do. Apparently, he was too damned curious when it came to the lives of Kroz nobility.

“Hurry up,” Zafra grumbled.

I stood from the chair in front of the mirror and scowled down at the high heels that Lorvel had picked for the occasion, and that Zafra and Cassandra insisted I wear. “I don’t understand the allure of torturing your feet so you can fake being taller.”

Cassandra wasn’t even present, having left with Alex two weeks ago for the honeymoon they’d been planning for the past year. Ravi had come through for Alex and gotten him free of the IGATF, on the condition Ravi took full responsibility for him. He hadn’t even hesitated to sign the documents, though later that day, he and Alex had taken a “walk” down to the Flying Crown, where they’d spent half the night talking.

“Not to count possible humiliation should you fall,” Mac added helpfully.

I glared at him. He was just a ball of white energy inside a glass console, but ten days ago, he had been a monkey, and the previous month, a lemur, and before that a cat. He had yet to find something he was comfortable with. It so happened that Mac hated the constraints and care a functioning body required. In between bodies, he returned to the matrix on my wrist, but this week, he had asked Baltsar to just plug him directly into the motherboard. I had a feeling he had finally found his home, though I refrained from asking, in case he thought I was pressuring him to decide.

“It’s called fashion,” Zafra explained under her breath as she urged me through a side door. “Now shut up and focus on moving faster.”

“If I fall,” I muttered as I wobbled like a newborn foal, “I’ll tell Ravi you pushed me.”

Zafra rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes. Now move it.”

By the time we reached the throne room, I was sweating, legs trembling with effort. But we made it without me tripping over my feet or breaking an ankle. Really, it was a wonder the thin heels didn’t shatter under my weight.

The throne room was packed to capacity—probably more. Everyone who was everyone from all sectors had come to attend Dolenta’s official coronation day. Preparation had begun the moment the Tanue withdrew from the sky three months earlier. Although, everyone knew that the time had neared a year ago when the projection of Dolenta on the underbelly of the Tanue had opened her eyes. It was creepy as fuck, but who was I to judge a nation’s entire belief system?

We’d returned the moment the Tanue had retreated and spent the past three months preparing for the event of the century: the coronation of Empress Dolenta Tsakid.

We crossed by a large window, and I paused to gaze up into the night sky. I’d forgotten how beautiful the Krozalian sky was, dotted with stars and bathed in the glow of the two hanging moons.

“Stop dawdling. Come on,” Zafra urged, tugging on my arm and almost sending me sprawling face-first.

“Coming.” I hobbled a step behind her.

I had allowed Lorvel to put my ensemble for the coronation together; hence, the reason I was dressed in a slick purple gown with a low neckline, fitted waist, and spiked heels. If it had been up to me, I’d have attended in pants and a tunic. Which would have been in poor taste, I realized, as we entered the throne room and I saw all the glamor, latest fashion, and dazzling jewelry.

The pang that I didn’t belong resonated in my chest, gone the moment my eyes sought and met umber ones.

Ravi.

I was attuned to him in a way that defied human logic. I could tell where he was every time, provided he was in the castle or somewhere in its vicinity. While Ravi believed this was a side effect of the mate-bond rubbing off on me, I had a suspicion this was more a KKM-induced side effect. I wouldn’t be surprised if some years down the road, the KKM started moving things inside me to make room for the growth of a Carindum.

When I had proposed the idea, Doctor Lamis had laughed so hard, tears had streamed from her eyes. Yet my gut told me the idea wasn’t as preposterous as the KKM expert considered it to be.

Ravi abandoned Furox mid-speech and stalked my way, his gaze locked onto mine. Vaguely, I registered Furox’s shouted command for Ravi to get back. A Kroz stepped in his path, cutting my line of sight the second it took for him to sidestep and stop in front of me. He took hold of my arms, his gaze intense as he slid his fingers down until he was clasping mine.

“Leann,” he breathed, drinking me in from head to toe. He pulled my right hand to his mouth and kissed the back, his eyes never leaving mine. “You look ravishing.”

I blushed. Even after all these years together, he still had the power to make my cheeks flush with mere words.

“So do you,” I murmured, taking in the sight before me. He was dressed formally, meaning he only had on dark pants and polished shoes, his torso naked and gleaming with oil.

Zafra let out a disgusted sigh. “Save the ravishing for after the coronation. For now, let’s get in place.”

Ravi dropped my hand, the wicked glint in his eyes telling me how much he was looking forward to later.

“You’d think ten years would have mellowed you two out,” Zafra grumbled as she urged me through the throng of Kroz and diplomats from all over. Her grip was firm on my elbow, as if I was a child she was afraid to lose. “Really. I think you need a hobby or something.” She glanced back, eyes assessing. “Maybe a baby or two.”

She looked away before she saw my surprise and waved to Sullivan—now a rear admiral. He stood with a group of humans, both CTF and the HSA representatives—one of which was Lorenzo.

We broke into the clear space in front of the dais, and the shock of her words dissipated at my first sight of Dolenta, all grown and regal, seated on her father’s throne. Her throne.

I pulled my arm from Zafra’s grasp and hurried forward, careful to keep my steps firm, disregarding that Dolenta was now the empress and that there was a certain protocol to addressing her. I ascended the seven steps, and by the time I reached her, Dolenta was up and reaching for me.

She had grown tall, maybe as tall as Ravi, but her frame was thin, barely more than skin and bones. Her features were the same, gaunt but mature. I felt a pinch of remorse for the kid I hadn’t seen grow, that hadn’t been allowed to enjoy her teenage years. The weight of the empire rested on her shoulders, and it showed.

I clutched her tighter, emotions clogging my throat. In return, she squeezed me once and stepped back. I let go and smiled up at her. “It’s good to see you again, Your Highness.” I crossed my arms, fists against each shoulder, and dropped my chin. The sign of respect for a Kroz ruler.

It hadn’t taken much for Ravi to convince the CTF to let me go, citing my years of duty and the detail that I was his mate as sufficient grounds for my honorable discharge. And then he’d filed the papers that would make me an official Kroz citizen.

“It’s good to be back,” Dolenta said in that quiet, lilting tone.

Ravi appeared to my right, Zafra to my left. They each crossed their arms and dropped their chins, and a glance behind us told me everyone had done the same.

Ravi touched my elbow and pulled us to the side, and Ozvie climbed the seven steps to the dais. Lorvel was one step behind him, carrying a cushion with an extravagant crown atop it.

Ravi’s mother beamed at Dolenta, and Ozvie winked before both took their place on each side of the throne and turned to face the crowd.

“We all gather here today,” Ozvie began with a booming voice that carried further than the throne room, “for the coronation of Empress Dolenta Tsakid, daughter to the late Emperor Rokoskiv Tsakid, may his soul prosper in the void.”

Ravi’s hand closed over mine and squeezed. I loosened the grip and entwined our fingers as we listened to Ozvie’s speech about the youngest empress to grace Krozalia, and give his blessings for a long, fair reign.

I leaned close to Ravi, tugging on his hand. He only needed to bend his head a little for me to reach his ear. “I was told something interesting today.”

He made an encouraging sound low in his throat, his gaze never leaving the dais, though I could tell his attention was on me. “What are your thoughts about children?”

Ravi’s reaction was the tightening of his fingers around mine, and the slow turn of his head, the piercing yellow of his eyes telling me how much that question unsettled him.

“I mean, it’s just a thought,” I fumbled, trying to backtrack. “It’s not like we need to make a decision, and even if we do, we don’t have to act on it. We can afford to wait a few decades, or just ignore it. Like I said, it’s just a crazy thought.”

I was relieved when the yellow faded to umber again, but he didn’t return his focus to the dais. I chuckled weakly. “Your mother is giving you the side look,” I said under my breath.

We both glanced back to the dais, though the bulk of my attention had wandered. Ozvie held the crown with both hands and was approaching Dolenta, who was kneeling on a colorful cushion, chin held high. He placed the crown on her head and helped her stand. “All hail Empress Dolenta Tsakid.”

On cue, trumpets sounded, followed by the Krozalian anthem, and servers entered the room carrying trays of food and drinks.

Ravi dropped my hand, then circled my waist and pulled me against him. He kissed the top of my head and murmured, “I want four. Two boys and two girls.”

I started and glanced up, his tender gaze only a few centimeters away.

“You’re sure?” I had to ask. “We can let the thought marinate for a while. There’s no changing your mind later.”

“I’m sure,” he said huskily. “We’ll start practicing tonight.”

***

THE END!

Want more? Check out Shadow Walker: An action-packed fantasy adventure with a flawed heroine.

Shadow Walker (Shadow Walker book 1)

When secrets are deadly, how far would you go to protect them?

A century ago, my family was the elite of the magical community, the backbone of the mages. Then came the plague and the war, ravaging the world. When it was finally over, the mage Houses came out of hiding and divided the resources left.

Now, I live on the fringes of society, stealing to provide for my aunt and brother. But today is the day that things will change. With the end of the term and an opportunity to work for the best firm not owned by the supernaturals, life is finally looking up.

Except, when life seems too good to be true, that’s because it is.

Blackmailed and backed into a corner, I have no choice but to pull one last heist.

Success means exposing my forbidden magic, but failure can cost me the lives of everyone I love.

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Character list & Glossary (in alphabetical order)

Admiral Fulk: (human) high-ranking official for the CTF.

Alex Rubin: (human) co-pilot for the CTF.

Ashak: gland responsible for the storing and the channeling of Kroz magic, located near the vocal chords.

Atek Avenue: famous shopping strip on Krozalia.

Baleq Tree: towering trees native to Krozalia that releases relaxing and fragrant smells.

Benedict Romel: (Kroz) Control Tower Director on Dupilaz Moon.

Bloyer Muz: (Cradox) Control Tower Supervisor on Station V-5.

Brofil: alien race native to Sector 7. They live on a blood-based diet and look human, save for a blue tinge to their skin.

Carindum: a smaller heart the Kroz is born with that stays inactive until the day they form a life-mate bond.

Captain Elias: (human) captain of the stealth ship Eagle 13.

Captain Jacobs: (race unspecified) captain of the Black Court—located on Cyrus Station.

Captain Sullivan, AKA Sunny: (human) captain for the Confederacy Task Force.

Cassandra, AKA Cassie: (human) system’s engineer for the CTF.

Centaur’s Gateway: closest gateway to Cyrus Station—goes from Sector 8 to Sector 7 and vice versa.

Cheche: small furry rodents native to Cyrus Station.

Colonists: humans who live in human colonies.

Commodore Lorenzo: (human) commodore for the CTF.

Comula: Krozalian dish made from sap from the Forlo tree, cooked with spices and flour.

Conchaz: mineral that can inhibit a Kroz’s Ashak.

Cordolis: capital of Krozalia.

Cradox: alien race native to Sector 9. Some are humanoid in shape, others are insectile. They’ve been warring with humans from Sector 8 for decades.

CTF: (human military) Confederacy Task Force.

Cyrus Station: station at the mid-point between two major gateways. Ruled by the Obsidian Court.

Dalman: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Dante’s Gateway: gateway at the edge of Sector 8, close to Sector 9.

Dar Yun: (hybrid human) Doctor Geovanni Reme’s assistant.

Derk: (Kroz) Furox and Rose’s newborn son.

Doctor Geovanni Reme: (hybrid human) prosthetic technician.

Doctor Lamis: (Kroz) KKM expert.

Donnel: (Kroz) high-ranking official in the Krozalian government.

Dradja: person oath-sworn to protect someone at the cost of their own life.

Endoy: underwater city in Krozalia.

Esme: (Feromantics) seamstress.

Evo: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Felicia, AKA Dolenta Tsakid: (Kroz) Krozalian princess and future empress.

Firaz: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Flenna: (Kroz) castle guard and assassin.

Furox: (Kroz) Ravi’s cousin and royal warrior.

HSA: Human Supreme Assembly—the human representative body for all the major space stations and colonies. Located on Earth and comprised of seven members, one from each Earth continent.

IGATF: Inter-Galactic Alliance Task Force.

Jazzy: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Kebet Box: small device used to detect hypermorphs.

Koshka: Krozalian term of endearment.

Leann Smith, AKA Clara Colderaro: (human) once a captain for the CTF and now captain of her own ship, the Splendor.

Leo: (race unspecified) hacker, Leann’s informant.

Linsky: (Kroz) emperor’s advisor and one of the rebellion leaders.

Lorita: (Kroz) dance school proprietor on Dupilaz Moon on Dupilaz Moon.

Lorvel: (Kroz) Ravi and Zafra’s mother.

Mac: sentient AI embedded in Leann’s wrist.

Mada: Kroz word for mother.

Marcus Fuller: (human) IGATF agent.

Meat-peckers: carrion birds native to Krozalia.

Milva: (Kroz) Furox’s mother.

Mior: (Provacs) owns a ship shop on Dupilaz Moon.

Moresy Cotelum: ancient and violent competition put in place to determine the next Krozalian ruler in the event the royal family has no heir left.

Obsidian Court: ruling body of Cyrus Station.

Ozvie: (Kroz) Ravi and Zafra’s father.

Provacs: scavenging race from Sector 2.

Ravi Drax, AKA Madrovi Fidraxi: (Kroz) Krozalia’s head guard, the emperor’s left hand, and the Grim Reaper of the Galaxy.

Renzo: (Kroz) castle guard.

Rodil: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Rodona Gateway: gateway on Sector 5—Krozalian System.

Rokoskiv Tsakid: (Kroz) emperor of Krozalia, Dolenta’s father, purportedly the most powerful person in the galaxy.

Salba: small uninhabitable planet near V-5 Station.

Sarkar: second largest city in Krozalia.

Shivarhi Blade: blade that can cut through steel.

Syam: (Kroz) royal warrior.

Tafari Ocean: located on the south of Krozalia.

Tanoua-Bach: The Tanue’s vengeance given form

Thern Boloski: (Kroz) Ravi’s second in command.

Trawx: (Kroz) Linsky’s guard.

Tregoe: (Kroz) royal warrior.

V-5 Station: artificial space station between Sector 8 and 9.

Vera Oshar: (Kroz) Emperor Rokaskiv’s right hand, spy, assassin, and Leann’s lady’s maid.

Vonar: space pirates.

Vroj: uncle in Krozalian.

Vroja: aunt in Krozalian.

Wedva-Xa: translated to Dark Sky. Ravi’s personal ship, destroyed near V-5 in an ambush.

Xavier Vargas: (human) one of the twelve chairmen of the IGATF.

Zafra: (Kroz) Ravi’s sister and royal warrior.

Zefron: (Kroz) emperor’s advisor and one of the rebellion leaders.

Other books by Jina S. Bazzar

Splendor’s Orbit (The MacLee Chronicles book 1)

Imperial Stardust (The MacLee Chronicles book 2)

Eclipsed Crown (The MacLee Chronicles book 3)

Shadow Walker (Shadow Walker #1)

Shadow Pawn (Shadow Walker #2)

Shadow Flames (Shadow Walker #3)

Shadow War (Shadow Walker #4)

The Roxanne Fosch Files

Heir of Ashes (The Roxanne Fosch Files 01)

Heir of Doom (The Roxanne Fosch Files 02)

Heir of Fury (The Roxanne Fosch Files 03)

The Curse (A Roxanne Fosch Files Novella)

From Fame to Ruin: A Gripping Standalone Romantic Suspense Novel

About The Author

Jina Bazzar is a Palestinian author, born and raised in Brazil. Like most writers, her love of books began at a young age. Unlike most writers, she never aspired to become one.

It was only years after she became blind that she decided to try her hand at writing, giving voice to all the wild, rambling thoughts in her mind.

She now lives in Palestine with her family, drawing inspiration from the smallest things in life. When she’s not writing or networking on social media, you can find her in the kitchen, baking while listening to (often very loud) music.

http://linktr.ee/jina_bazzar

Table of Contents

Eclipsed Crown

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Shadow Walker (Shadow Walker Book 1)

Character list & Glossary (in alphabetical order)

Other books by Jina S. Bazzar

About The Author