Star Pirate

Mia Archer

Contents

1. Flynn

2. Flynn

3. Seleya

4. Flynn

5. Seleya

6. Flynn

7. Seleya

8. Flynn

9. Seleya

10. Flynn

11. Seleya

12. Flynn

13. Flynn

14. Seleya

15. Flynn

16. Seleya

17. Flynn

18. Flynn

19. Flynn

20. Seleya

21. Seleya

22. Flynn

23. Flynn

24. Seleya

25. Seleya

26. Flynn

27. Flynn

28. Seleya

29. Flynn

30. Flynn

31. Seleya

32. Seleya

33. Seleya

34. Flynn

35. Flynn

36. Seleya

37. Seleya

38. Flynn

39. Seleya

40. Flynn

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Star Pirate

By Mia Archer

Copyright 2018 Mia Archer

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.

First digital edition electronically published by Mia Archer, November 2018

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1

Flynn

“Oh my Lady, your glory truly shines brighter than the stars. Anyone can see that,” I said, running a hand down her arm and delighting in the way the queen’s skin turned a deep purple everywhere I made contact.

I grinned. It was a sign that I well and truly had her. Another moment and the queen would be so much purple putty in my hands.

Also? Totally not the sort of thing a girl from earth ever expected to see. It’s not like the assholes who abducted me and dragged me out here to the civilized galaxies asked me what I thought about that. Though I’d made the best of it.

I took in the Levonian queen and her skin that would’ve been perfect for some good old fashioned red-blooded American cosplay boudoir photography back home. If they still did that back home. It’d been awhile since I’d been there, after all.

“Go on my darling,” she said, reaching a seven-fingered hand up to caress my neck.

Her fingers were a little scratchy. That was the thing about Levonians. They had skin that could be considered rough, but they came from a desert planet where their ancestors had spent most of their time trying to stay alive in the sand so it was hardly surprising.

Comparative biology could be a bitch out here in the civilized galaxies.

Still, the Levonians had the same basic form that most intelligent life in the galaxy had. Selevas normative, they called it, since that was the powerful species of bastards who ran things out here.

Two legs. Two arms. Sure the number of fingers, toes, eyes, and noses could differ from species to species, as well as the color, but all I cared about was there was a beautiful woman before me.

A very rich beautiful woman. For this job the rich mattered more than the beauty, but I wasn’t above mixing a little pleasure with my business.

“How could I go on?” I purred into her ear. Or what passed for an ear on Levonians. It was really more of a hole covered by a flap of skin to keep sand from getting in there. I imagined that’d been important on their homeworld in ancient times before they discovered fold space travel.

It wasn’t so important on a massive battlecruiser floating through the inky blackness on the edge of the a galactic disc, but the funny thing about evolution was it took longer than the few thousand years since the Levonians had made natural selection their bitch on their home world for changes to show up.

She sighed and let out a low purr as I kissed along her neck and delighted in her neck turning that deep shade of purple wherever my lips explored.

“Go on,” she said with all the confidence of a woman of her station. A woman of her power.

A woman of her wealth. I grinned. So much wealth.

She was a beautiful woman, and she was also one of the richest women in the civilized galaxies. Almost as rich as the Selevas royal family, and that was saying something.

Even if “almost as rich as the Selevas” meant her fortune was a small fraction of the big fortune. That the Levonian queen’s possession of a fraction of a percent of the wealth the Selevas possessed put her in second place said more about the Selevas royal family fortunes than it did the comparative wealth of everyone else.

It wasn’t a knock against the money queenie here had so much as it was a testament to the stranglehold the Selevas held on the civilized galaxies.

“Your beauty is greater than the stars themselves,” I said. “The mightiest supernova, the most powerful gamma ray burst, the raw power of black holes mating, is nothing compared to the shining radiance of your majesty.”

She sighed again and the pebbling on her fingers started to vibrate in time with her breathing. I looked the gentle curves of her body.

The queen’s curves were accentuated by one of the largest Torvolian Power Gems I’d ever seen. Large being relative, since it was barely larger than the nail on my pinky finger, but as Torvolian gems went that was huge. The thing could be chipped apart and each almost microscopic chip used to power an entire battle fleet for the duration of a lengthy war and yet there it sat nestled between her impressive breasts glowing through her dress.

The view of her breasts was almost as magnificent as the view of the jewel. Though of course the jewel won out. Only just. It glowed with pure power.

Only the most rich, the most powerful, could afford jewelry cut with Torvolian Power Gems. The thing had to be insured for a fortune, and I was going to do my damndest to introduce the queen to that insurance settlement by the end of the day. Night. Whatever.

Concepts like day and night sort of stopped mattering floating in a massive battlecruiser on the edge of one of the more civilized of the civilized galaxies.

“Tell me more,” she whispered, almost on the point of hyperventilating. “The things I’m going to do to you Lovara. You have no idea…”

It took me a moment to remember that was supposed to be my name. I was so distracted by the queen’s… assets that it was hard to keep my mind on the job at hand.

Then it was difficult for me not to chuckle. Lovara was a little play on words in my native tongue, English, that queenie here wouldn’t understand or appreciate even if I bothered to explain it to her

Lovara. That was my name right now. Not Flynn. Another little inside joke between me, myself, and I that no one in the civilized galaxies would understand unless they went out to the backwater of the Milky Way and happened to be passing through the broadcast bubble created by earth and also happened to have equipment set to VHF that was sensitive enough to overcome the inverse square relation that, Hollywood misconceptions notwithstanding, meant it was impossible for aliens to pick up television signals from Proxima Centauri, let alone in deeper space.

Yeah, something told me there weren’t many non-humans out here familiar with the works of Erol Flynn or why I would choose that name for myself out here. Most aliens assumed it was a female name since I was a female of a species no one knew or cared about beyond the fact that humanity, and yours truly by extension, was a dead ringer for Selevas normative in all but the color of my skin.

Though I was doing my best to make that name famous for more than buckling swashes and making out with Olivia de Havilland. Yeah, that name would set off alarm bells in every security and intelligence agency the Levonian queen had, even if they obviously didn’t have a good image of me considering I was here in her suite and not a pile of dust on the floor courtesy of the queen’s honor guard.

They were monumentally bad at their jobs. I’d take it. It was time for mama to enjoy her work.

I allowed my hands to move down… down. Towards the jewel. Towards those glorious curves that were famed all through this portion of the civilized galaxies.

There were men and women who would kill to be in my position. There were aliens who didn’t stick to the male/female binary who would kill to be here. It turns out that intelligent life all mostly looking the same had resulted in galaxies of aliens more than willing to get busy with each other. Especially since getting busy with an alien meant no worries of pesky pregnancy.

Despite what scifi on earth said about people like Mr. Spock, it turns out aliens who evolved on different worlds can’t make hybrids even if they can pass an enjoyable evening together. Not that reproduction was ever a worry for yours truly considering that’d never been a problem in my love life.

Yeah, there were plenty who would kill to be this close to the queen and her famed beauty. To be honest I was having a hard time concentrating on the job because of that beauty.

Hey, it’s like I said. I was never one to avoid mixing business and pleasure.

So I moved my hand down into the plunging neckline of her dress that sparkled with multihued colors that changed based on her emotion. Right now they were bright orange, the color of passion in Selevas space, which meant it was the color of passion just about everywhere, and it made a striking counterpoint to the ever changing purple hues on her skin.

Her breathing picked up more, more, as I gently caressed her with my lips and my hands. As I fulfilled her every fantasy.

I also wasn’t above using an earthling’s close resemblance to the Selevas to exploit their stranglehold on the galaxy, militarily and culturally, to get ahead in life. I figured you took your advantages where you could. It was a cold dangerous universe that was doing its best to kill everything living in it, and there was no shame in using what you had.

Especially since that cold uncaring universe hadn’t asked me when I was abducted from earth.

In my case it was a winning smile and the ability to talk myself into almost anything. That and the fact that millennia of Selevas dominance, both cultural and military, meant I looked an awful lot like the aliens who were the beauty standard in the civilized galaxies. Though I had pink skin rather than the Selevas light blue.

It’s not like it was my fault I was one of the better looking of an already sought after look, but you bet your sweet asteroids I was going to use that tool to get ahead. Wink and a nudge.

“Oh Lovara,” she gasped as I moved lower in her dress.

She threw her head back and let out a shriek that only a Levonian woman in the throes of passion could conceive of. It was music to my ears as her body tensed under me. She shook with pleasure as I did one of the many things I did best and brought her to the brink without sending her over the edge.

“Tell me how much you need me my queen,” I whispered in her ear.

Both her hands grabbed my head and pulled me against her neck which eliminated any conversation for the time being. Okay then. The queen wasn’t one for talking in the boudoir. Fine by me. I continued my exploration and her breath picked up faster, faster, and then it happened.

The explosion was almost deafening. Her body tensed and I allowed myself to be washed away in the moment. Her dress exploded with bright orange light as her back arched and she pressed her body against me. Over and over she gasped.

Loud enough that I worried her bodyguards might come in and find us in this supremely compromising situation. I mean it would hardly be the most compromising position I’d ever been found in when it came to the bedroom, but it would certainly be in at least the top five.

Okay, top ten. Definitely the top ten.

Finally the screaming subsided, replaced by quiet gasps and that low purring that only a Levonian could let out. It was amazing to me how many aspects of cheap Internet erotica had turned out to be true once I got out here in the great beyond to try out some of the theory in those stories in practice.

Her mouth opened and closed a few more times as she locked eyes on me. A regal queen in her full power, and one hell of a hot woman. I didn’t care if her skin was a shade of deep purple that tod me I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

That’d been fun!

2

Flynn

I held on for a moment longer before pulling her in for a kiss. It was dizzying. It had been far too long since I’d been with a Levonian. It’s not really something you ever forgot how to do, but it was nice to have a refresher.

“You may rule all you see, but in this moment you are mine, my queen,” I whispered.

I’d gotten that line from some cheesy soap opera my grandma used to watch when I was very little and she’d watch me during the day. If the old lady had any idea half the interesting stuff I picked up from that show she would’ve been clutching her pearls from beyond the grave.

A grave that was very far from here, of course. Maybe she had no idea where her granddaughter even was to look down and be disappointed.

“Oh Lovara,” she whispered back, and then she fell forward face first onto the cushions laid before us that we didn’t even get a chance to use. Well, not properly at least.

My face split into a huge grin. I couldn’t believe it was really going to be this easy. I mean I’d known it was going to be this easy, but it was still a surprise when a plan came together this easily.

It was a trick of Levonian biology that I’d only learned due to the somewhat unique set of skills I brought to this business.

The queen was fast asleep, and she would be for at least the next half hour. Back on earth the big complaint was always men getting sleepy after finishing, another problem I never had to deal with thanks to my preferences, but in the Levonians it was the woman who conked out, and the sleepy time started right after they got off.

Oh what fun I had learning that particular bit of Levonian biology.

I leaned down and rolled her over. Paused for a moment to take in her beauty. The Levonian Queen was easily the most breathtaking creature in her dominance. But even more breathtaking was the Levonian Supernova, which of course was the grand name they gave that Torvolian Power Gem nestled between her perfect breasts that she swore up and down were not artificially enhanced in any way.

I had my own opinions on that after feeling them up close and personal, but now wasn’t the time to reflect on the obvious skill of the surgeon who worked on her. The fact that the Levonians weren’t naturally blessed in that particular anatomical way was one knock against her miraculously growing an incredible set of tits.

That was the beauty standard set by the Selevas, though, and so if the Levonian queen wanted nice tits so she could look like the Selevas queen then by the civilized galaxies she was free to use some of her considerable wealth to get a pair of nice tits.

It’s not like I was complaining. Not about the queen’s choice of anatomical enhancements, or about the beauty standard the Selevas handed down. They looked close enough to human that it put me and my feminine wiles in very high demand.

You bet your ass I took full advantage of that while I was at work!

I leaned down and pulled at the clasp on the Supernova. It came free and I held the chain in my hand. It seemed almost a crime to hold a power gem in something as cheap as platinum, but there wasn’t anything more impressive that had been found yet.

The one attempt to make a chain out of a filament of neutron star material had resulted in an entire Jeweler’s Guild battle fleet being destroyed by the gravity well created when their containment field inevitably collapsed.

I licked my lips as I stared at the jewel, the queen forgotten. It was small. Barely the size of the nail on my small finger. Yet it would make me rich. Richer than most in my line of work could ever dream of, and I knew some people who could dream very big.

Most would take this and retire, but it was merely a stepping stone for me. The end for so many others was only the beginning for me. This power gem would provide us with the money to pull off the next job.

We were going to need funding to go after the Selevas royal family, after all.

“I have the quarry,” I said into my implanted communicator.

“No sign that anything is wrong yet,” Keva said.

I grinned and pocketed the jewel. “That’s because I haven’t left yet. I figure we’ll get their attention in either the next five minutes when I leave her chambers or the next thirty minutes when she wakes up and realizes what happened.”

“You really think you’re that good?” Keva asked.

“You of all people should appreciate how good I am,” I said with a grin.

“You wish,” she said. “Now get your ass down here before they turn those turrets in the hangar bay on us and blow us out of the stars.”

“I doubt they’ll do that, but point taken,” I said.

I paused to look down at the queen. She’d wake up in a half hour ready to pick up where we left off. She’d be insatiable, another lovely side effect of Levonian biology that made them a great time if you could stay worked up for the half hour it took them to wake back up, and it was a pity I wasn’t going to be around to see it.

Not that I had any intention of waiting around to see her reaction when she realized she’d been robbed of the most priceless possession in her vast jewel collection. One of the most priceless jewels in the civilized galaxies, for that matter.

“It’s been a pleasure, my queen,” I said, hitting her with a mock salute.

I stepped out and noticed both guards had turned a very light shade of purple. I schooled my face to what I hoped was a look of the utmost discretion. I needed to look like a woman who’d just had the time of her life with the queen and now I was trying to preserve her modesty.

Of course the queen’s appetites were well known, and her shrieks would have alerted the guards to what was going on in there even through the blast door, but I had to play the part.

I was a rube. A stranger from a strange unknown species in the western spiral arm of a galaxy so far off the beaten path that it was utterly inconsequential. I was unfamiliar with Levonian customs or their queen’s insatiable libido. I was a human who didn’t know their ways and was embarrassed that someone might find out exactly what I was doing in there because I’d made it well known that my species were kind of prudes when it came to matters of the bedroom.

“The queen is resting,” I said, trying my best to look embarrassed. “I’ll need to rest and get something to eat before she… wakes.”

I swallowed. Tried to look nervous. Nothing to see here folks. Just a rube from a backwater planet no one had ever heard of where they still thought digital watches were a neat idea. I totally stole that, by the way, but no one out here had read Douglas Adams so what did it matter?

Though there were times when I suspected he might not have initially hailed from earth to begin with considering how on point a lot of his stuff was now that I was out here in the wider galaxy.

The guards were still the pale purple of embarrassment, but they also grinned. They knew what I was in for. Or at least what they thought I was in for. No doubt there was also a touch of jealousy there.

The queen was well known for her appetites, and even more well known for how indiscriminate she was about gender when it came to satisfying those appetites. Which could get interesting in the civilized galaxies where evolution had made a veritable gender buffet available to anyone hedonistic enough to partake in the numerous species that weren’t Selevas standard.

“Make sure you’re back in time or you’ll be sorry,” one of the guards said.

“Oh I wouldn’t want that,” I said, trying to convey the proper amount of anticipation and fear I imagined a gal lucky enough to be picked by the queen should show.

The last thing I wanted to communicate was that I was about to sneak out of here with the single most valuable piece of property in the Levonian empire, which would likely result in these two getting busted down to latrine duty on the outer rim for the rest of their lives. If they were lucky.

Guards could be touchy about job security.

I whistled a happy tune as I made my way down to the hangar where the Fortune Found waited. Though naturally we didn’t tell the Levonians that was the name of the ship when we docked. That was a name that would’ve resulted in an immediate response. I was a businesswoman. Not suicidal.

I was almost to the docking ramp when the alarms started to go off. Damn it. Security looked around in confusion, no doubt wondering what was going on, but then they started listening to their comms and turning towards me.

Any hope I’d had that there might’ve been some freedom fighters trying to escape via the garbage compactor fled when they turned on me. Damn it. I figured it was time to get out of here when they started pointing weapons at me and shouting.

“I told you this was going to end in tears,” Keva said.

“I could do without the color commentary, thank you very much,” I replied.

I sprinted for the Fortune. I made it onboard as blasts hit the side, but rifles couldn’t hurt her. Of course the giant turrets guarding the entrance to the hangar bay could, and the last thing I saw before I got onboard was those turrets ominously turning towards my baby.

“We should get out of here now!” I shouted as I slammed my hand down on the ramp control. It moved up nice and fast, there was something to be said for well maintained hydraulics on a smuggling ship’s boarding ramp, and I felt the ship rumbling beneath me.

Good. Rvannk kept the engines idling while I was busy. Engines that could idle without setting off sensors that looked for that sort of suspicious thing were equally as valuable as well maintained hydraulics on the offramp.

I made it to the cockpit just in time to see the hangar turrets stop their slow traversal. I grinned.

“Looks like they weren’t designed to turn all the way inside after all,” I said. “I owe Liir half a percent of the take on this thing, and you owe me five hundred credits.”

“Good thing you owe him that,” Keva said. “Otherwise we’d all be dead. And I’ve never been happier to pay up on one of your ridiculous bets.”

I settled into the pilot’s seat and felt the familiar thrum as the Fortune purred under my touch. It was almost as distracting as the queen’s purr.

Almost.

Still, there was something about getting behind the controls of the Fortune. This was something I’d dreamed of ever since I was a little girl playing Star Trek with my sister when we were little girls oddly obsessed with Jean Luc Picard. Now I got to live the fun, and all it took was getting abducted from a sci-fi convention once upon a time.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “We have to get this to the Selevas Separatists to help power their little budding revolution and then it’s off to Selevas Prime for the big job.”

“Your funeral,” Keva said.

“Yours too if we don’t pull this off perfectly,” I reminded her, earning me a disgusted noise.

Blasts started hitting the ship as we pulled away from the Levonian royal yacht, more of a battlecruiser really, at full speed, but the timing of our escape couldn’t have been more perfect. Plus those turrets turning ponderously inwards to try and take us out meant they had to turn ponderously outwards again which gave us plenty of time to escape.

Whoever maintained the hydraulics on those things clearly had been shirking their duty.

From there it was simple enough to outpace the battlecruiser to the nearest jump point, and that was that. There were too many systems we could get to from here. They’d never track us down. Not with the head start we had.

That was the problem with staffing a battlecruiser with a bunch of royal sycophants whose only qualification for running the damn thing was how well they kissed the royal ass to get their job.

“Are you sure you want to do this? Dangerous to double cross the Selevas,” Keva said as the ship hurtled through fold space.

I grinned as I looked out across the star field and picked out the glowing pinpoint of light that was Selevas Prime.

“Oh yes,” I said. “I’m absolutely sure. This is the job we’ve been working towards for years. It’s time to pay a visit to the Selevas royal family and pull off the biggest heist of our careers.”

3

Seleya

“Mind your mother, Seleya.”

I rolled my eyes and looked down at the massive dais that held my mother’s small but imposing figure. It always felt like overcompensating to me, but no one ever asked me what I thought about the throne room.

No one would care until mother passed her powers on to me.

The way things were going it didn’t look like that was going to happen for a good long while. If it ever happened. Crown princess was one of the most fatal jobs in the civilized galaxies, after all.

“This is exhausting. Tell me again why I have to be here?” I asked.

“You have to be here because your mother commands it,” Terek hissed.

I turned to look at the royal advisor. He looked ridiculous clenching and unclenching his hands in a white knuckled grip as he looked out over the assembled throng waiting to hear mother’s judgments.

I allowed the hint of a smile to play across my lips. I couldn’t tell if that clenching was for me or for one of the numerous delegations coming to my mother to win her favor, but I liked to think I was at least partially the cause of the old man’s frustration.

“I understand that mother wishes it,” I said, glancing down to the dais again to make sure she wasn’t listening in on our conversation. She was preoccupied talking with one of her own advisors as some delegation from a species I didn’t recognize readied themselves to approach the glorious queen of all of creation.

I’d never bothered to learn the names of all the species under our rule. What was the point when there were billions of stars in the civilized galaxies and millions that held intelligent species? It would take an eternity.

Though mother seemed to have invested that time. That was just like her. Then again she had the time considering her unnatural life that had already gone on several spans beyond what it should have.

“But you aren’t mother,” I said, glancing up to Terek and allowing my smile to come to full bloom. “And I am the crown princess. That means I outrank you, a mere advisor, and you cannot tell me to stay here if I don’t want to.”

Again with the clenching and unclenching. Oh yes. I loved being the cause of that frustration. There were days when that was the only amusement I was allowed.

I sighed. I also knew from the look he gave me that this undeniable logic wasn’t going to sway him. It never did.

“You will stay here because your mother ordered you to stay,” he said, biting off every word. “You will stay here because I speak with the full authority of your mother where you are concerned, and those orders outrank the crown princess even if the crown princess is of the opinion that a lowly high advisor to the queen doesn’t outrank her.”

I glared at Terek. Fire burned inside me.

“Very well,” I snapped.

I filled the words with all the authority I could muster. I wanted him to realize I was the one allowing him to let me stay here even though we both knew that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“You might pay attention to the next delegation coming up for an audience,” Terek said. “They come from a system that has been in rebellion for several cycles, and it’s likely to be interesting.”

I did my best to suppress a yawn. Terek was steeped in court politics, and not just because that was his job. No, he actually thought things like delegations from rebelling systems was interesting.

I was forced to observe the court since this boring never ending run of lesser beings coming to ask mother for favors was destined to be my future. At least mother liked to maintain the polite fiction that this would be my future.

I thought it would be far more interesting to go to those rebel systems and teach them in person what it meant to challenge the Selevas. A little action and adventure. That was what I needed, even if it wasn’t something I would ever see since I was the one unlucky enough to be the current first in the line of succession.

I could remember a time when that wasn’t the case. Back before Selemna was stupid enough to step on a disintegrator plate so obvious that a blind person could see it. At least that’s what I’d thought at the time.

The more I’d learned about what it truly meant to be first in line the more I suspected he’d seen that obvious assassination attempt and taken the easy way out.

“I don’t see what’s so interesting about a bunch of rebels being put down,” I said. “That’s the natural order of things. Lower lifeforms think they can tell us how to run the galaxies and we show them why that’s not the case. Why would it work otherwise?”

“Hush and pay attention, your highness,” Terek said.

I hit him with such a glare, but he wouldn’t even do me the courtesy of paying attention to that glare. No, his eyes were all for the dais down below.

Oh well. If this was all the entertainment I was going to get for the day then I might as well pay attention to that entertainment. After all, a group of rebels learning about how the galaxy truly worked was more interesting than the last delegation that had asked for a tax abatement or some such nonsense because a solar flare had destroyed their power grid rendering them incapable of providing for their people, much less paying their bills.

Silly lower lifeforms with their silly little problems.

I leaned forward as I got a good look at the lower life form leading this particular delegation. The woman was tall with a well muscled frame. It was obvious she was a proud leader who took care of herself.

Something stirred deep inside me looking at this lower life form. Desire welled up inside me, and I wasn’t sure if it was the desire to have this lower life form or if it was the desire to go out into the galaxy and see things as this woman no doubt had, for all that she was an inferior species from a lesser world under our protection.

Certainly she was seeing the galaxies as the leader of a delegation that had been subjugated by my people, but the fact remained that she was seeing the galaxies. She had freedom, of a sort. The kind of freedom I could only dream of.

I sighed, and Terek must have picked up on the sigh.

“You can forget all about that your majesty,” he said. “You’ll find a suitor your mother approves of at one of the balls your mother throws and that is that. Only appropriate matches for you.”

I glared at Terek again. I seemed to do that a lot. This time he realized I was glaring at him, but he only smiled down at me.

I hated the way that man could seemingly read my mind at times.

“I wasn’t thinking anything like that,” I huffed, crossing my arms.

“Of course you weren’t your highness,” he said. “Now pay attention.”

The leader of the rebel delegation had reached the foot of the dais where mother stared down at her, her imperious glare taking the subcreature in like she might inspect an insect.

Not that there were insects buzzing around the palace outside of the gardens. The environmental controls ensured that any insect that dared fly inside the palace was quickly eliminated by microlaser drones.

“O great and mighty queen of the civilized galaxies!” the woman said, her voice booming through the audience room as her skin rippled an odd chromatic rainbow as she spoke. My eyebrows rose at that. It wasn’t the first odd skin patterns I’d seen in intelligent life, but it was unique. Her voice was picked up by sensors and broadcast through the hidden sound system so she could be heard by the assembled thousands. “I come from the Abronis system to pay tribute to your great majesty!”

I frowned. That wasn’t the proper form of address. The woman smiled. It was almost as though she was mocking mother with her platitudes. Mother wouldn’t like that.

And sure enough I saw mother grip the throne a little tighter than she normally did. Judging from the way the assembled thousands in the room started chittering they’d realized that this upstart from a nothing system in the uncivilized backwater of a backwater galaxy was mocking the ruler of all creation.

“The impertinence of that one,” I said, scandalized on my mother’s behalf. Disregard for the throne was disregard for me, after all.

“Patience,” Terek said. “She shows some rebellious spirit even now in front of the queen. The question is whether that will annoy your mother or be cause for admiration.”

“I don’t see how it would be a cause for anything but annoyance,” I said.

Though I was willing to admit that my own encounters with mother were typically when she was annoyed because it was typically after I’d done something rebellious to stand up against her. In my own small way. It was entirely possible that her reaction to a rebellious daughter would be entirely different from her reaction to a rebellious leader who was supposed to be here to signal her species’ surrender.

“Watch and learn,” Terek said. “After all, this will be your job one day. Spirits of ancestors past have mercy on us all.”

I ignored his plea to the spirits of ancestors past. They could go stuff themselves for all I cared. Not to mention the ancestors past hadn’t seen fit to put any of the others who’d been first in line to the throne onto that throne.

No, I was more interested in what was happening on the dais down below. I’d always hoped something interesting might come of these observations, and this was the closest things had ever gotten to interesting.

Mother tapped a single finger against the throne and the assembled throngs went silent. This rebel might be from a system where they didn’t observe the niceties of the court, but regulars knew the meaning of the tapping finger and they went silent in fear.

“You mock me,” mother said. She turned her head from side to side to view the entire delegation and the Torvolian power gems in the crown jewels on her head pulsed in time with her irritation.

Neat trick, that.

“I don’t only mock you, highness,” the woman said, her smile never wavering. “I come here to threaten you.”

A dead silence settled on the throne room that made me realize the previous silence had been nothing in comparison. I arched an eyebrow. What was this rebel on about, threatening the rightful queen of all creation?

“Do you now?” mother said. “And how is a lower life form such as yourself going to threaten me?”

“With this,” she said, holding up a simple device with a single button on it. “This is for all the peoples who are living under the tyranny of the Selevas! Our atomic fires will purify this throne room and this galaxy with…”

I sighed. She’d smuggled atomics in and she thought she was going to get a chance to use them. Clearly this rebel wasn’t up on her history. This wasn’t going to be nearly as interesting as I thought, but it would still be more interesting than tax abatements.

Talking too long was her mistake. It was always their mistake. They wanted to go on about how the order in the galaxy was fundamentally unfair. How they were going to right all the wrongs and blah, blah, blah.

All it amounted to was giving mother time to take care of them. Before her guards could move into place, before a sniper could try to kill the woman and risk her hitting the button regardless, before the shielding system designed to withstand even an atomic blast could move up around her, mother sent a reminder to the assembled throngs exactly why we were the power in the civilized galaxies.

She stood from the throne and took two steps. By the end of the second step she had her hands out, though the thin filaments that were moving out from her fingers weren’t visible to the naked eye.

They wouldn’t be even if someone stood right next to her. A swipe of her hand and the rebel leader no longer had her arm or the atomic grenade attached to it.

She didn’t have time to reflect on her lack of an arm for long though. No sooner had mother eliminated that threat than she danced through the delegation. They ran towards the crowd with cries of terror and a sickening sound as they found themselves pressing against a shield wall that left them trapped with mother until she was finished demonstrating her irritation.

Mother stood over the rebel leader. She’d saved the woman for last. The leader’s eyes went wide then squeezed shut as mother raised her hands with her thin filament claws that were sharper than the sharpest blade and brought them down a final time.

Only she didn’t kill. She merely maimed. The leader tried to pull herself away with her one good arm, but with the trail of her insides she was leaving behind it was clear she wasn’t going to get far.

A medical team appeared to ferry her away. That leader’s torture was only beginning, of course. She would be patched up and made as good as new just in time for mother’s Inquisitors to begin their work on her.

I shivered at the thought.

As though nothing out of the ordinary had happened mother moved back up onto the dais. She sat and regarded the assembled masses in the throne room. The barest hint of a smile touched the corner of her lips, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the display.

“Is there anyone else who wishes to question the proper order of the galaxy?” she asked.

There was no response. Who would dare respond to her in the affirmative after that display? No one who valued their life.

Yes, far more interesting than tax abatements.

Terek cleared his throat. When I looked up he was staring down at the assembled masses with worry. As though he expected someone to leap out of the crowd and try to kill me next.

They would find that I was just as adept as mother when it came to fighting if they did that. I made a clawing motion anticipating the joy of the distraction.

“I think it would be best if we left for now,” he finally said. “That might not be the only attack they had planned, and you are the heir.”

“Come Terek,” I said. “Are you really going to let some common rebels chase you away?”

“Yes I am,” he said. “And I’m not too proud to admit it. Now come Seleya. It’s time for us to be off.”

I sighed. I didn’t ever get to do anything exciting. Just once I’d like to do something where I wasn’t expected to be the perfect heir. Where I didn’t have to continually act the part mother expected of me. Was it too much to ask for a little excitement and adventure?

I looked down to the throne and for just a moment mother looked up. Nodded with approval. She wanted me out of here as much as Terek did.

Well then. Who was I to argue with that? When the ruler of all known intelligent species across the civilized galaxies wanted you to avoid having a good time there wasn’t much to do but avoid having a good time.

At least there’d been some excitement today.

4

Flynn

“This place gives me a case of the shivers,” Keva said.

“Come now Keva,” I said. “This is the premiere location for skullduggery and other unpleasant and less than legal interactions, and it’s helpfully within a short jump distance to the Selevas homeworld.”

I should know. This place had been my home away from home when I’d first been introduced to the wider galaxies. The thing about operating within the home system of the ruling family was it became very difficult to do anything remotely illegal without paying the kind of bribes that only the large syndicates could afford, which is where Darkpoint came in.

Having a station in an abandoned system one jump away from Selevas Prime was cheap enough to be convenient for the less wealthy members of the criminal underworld, far enough away to be of interest to the more wealthy criminal elements in the civilized galaxies, and close enough to the seat of power without being under their thumb to be useful to all of the above.

“That’s exactly why this place makes me so nervous,” Keva said. “We have no business being this close to the Selevas home system.”

“And yet we’re going to get a hell of a lot closer,” I said. “Do you have the docking in hand?”

“I do,” she said. “And I wish you’d stop reminding me of that.”

“That’s the whole reason we’re coming here in the first place. We need a transponder that’s Selevas freight nominal. We’re not going to find that anywhere but here.”

“I still don’t like it,” Keva said. “This place has to be a front for the Selevas royals. There’s no way they let a base like this operate so close to their home system.”

“And yet they do,” I said. “That’s the nice thing about going after people in power. They’re often so convinced that their power is enough to save them that they don’t ever bother to look for someone looking to do exactly what we’re going to do.”

“You know that sort of logic never makes me feel better Flynn,” she growled.

“Then think of it this way. Perhaps this is the fabled gold fusing star that the Selevas have set up to draw in criminals so they can keep an eye on them as they make their way into the home system. It’s a good strategy if that’s what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter to us, though, because we’re going to be in and out of their system before they even realize we’ve taken the little operation they set up here and used it against them.”

“Again, if you’re trying to make me feel better about this it’s not working,” she said.

“This is Darkpoint to the Fortune Found,” a voice came through the commlink.

I grinned and sat back down in the pilot’s seat next to Keva.

“What are you doing?” Keva hissed. “I thought you were going to leave this to me?”

“That was before I heard the voice of an old friend,” I said. “Besides, this is my ship.”

I keyed the commlink and ignored the irritated look Keva flashed my way. She could be irritated all she wanted. This was my ship, and we were operating on my plan. I muted the commlink for a moment.

“Look. If you have a problem with the way I run this ship you’re more than welcome to get off at Darkpoint and find a new crew,” I said.

“You’d trust me to do that considering all I know about what you’re planning?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’d be in and out before you could tell anyone that would both believe you and matter enough that they could stop me. By the time they realize they’re being tipped off it’ll be too late, and the Selevas are the type to torture the messenger for information. Besides, I know you’re not abandoning me. Not now when we’re so close.”

“There are times when I hate you and these plans,” she said. “And I hate it even more that they always seem to work.”

“You shouldn’t think that way,” I said. “Because there’s going to be a dark day when one of my plans doesn’t work like we’d hoped, and that’s going to be a bad day for all of us.”

I flipped the commlink back on. “Tera! So good to hear your voice again. Are you running the docking station, or have you ascended the ranks since we last spoke?”

“I run Darkpoint now Flynn,” she said, her voice not exactly welcoming. “And I want to know what the hell you’re doing bringing your face and your ship within jump distance of Selevas Prime before I let you on my station.”

Keva turned to look at me. I deliberately didn’t return the look. Not when I knew she was going to be hitting me with one hell of an “I told you so” look.

I didn’t have time for that kind of crap. I hadn’t scraped and scrounged and worked my way up from the very bottom of the criminal ladder just so I could find myself being bested by Tera coming back into my life and causing trouble.

I tried not to think about the fact that she probably had a couple of very good reasons not to trust me considering the way I’d blown out of Darkpoint the last time around.

“Come on Tera,” I said, trying to hit her with my best ingratiating tone. It was a good thing this wasn’t a video chat. Otherwise she might see just how nervous I was. “Let us dock for old times’ sake?”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on here,” she said, sounding as no-nonsense as you could get. Yup. Tera hadn’t changed a bit.

Keva’s hand shot out and hit the mute button on the commlink.

“You weren’t going to tell me about this little complication?” she growled.

“Well I was hoping this little complication would actually be a secret weapon in our quiver that we could use to stick it to the Selevas,” I said. “I didn’t know she would be so annoyed.”

“Of course she would be annoyed,” Keva said. “She came into contact with you, thought you were gone for good, and now she’s having to deal with the fact that you aren’t as out of her life as she thought. I’d be annoyed too.”

I flipped Keva a gesture that was considered very rude in most of the conquered galaxies. Her eyes narrowed, but instead of responding in kind she stuck her tongue out.

An odd gesture, that. Sticking one’s tongue out had such a variety of meanings from species to species that most people didn’t bother with it considering it could be everything from a grievous insult worthy of a duel to the death to an invitation to mate with species most people didn’t want to mate with thank you very much.

On the Fortune it meant what it did back on earth though. That was something my crew had picked up from me. Though it didn’t last long. She looked down to the flight panel and her eyes went from annoyed to very wide.

“We’ve got problems,” she said.

“What could possibly be worse than…”

My eyes fell on the flight panel and they went wide as well. The Fortune Found was tracking several weapons that had targeted our ship. Weapons that would be more than enough to blast us out of the stars.

A quick scan also showed multiple ships arrayed around us in spots where they could cause some serious damage both in and out of fold space. Spots that would make it difficult for us to escape the system.

Damn.

I slammed my hand down on the mute button. The commlink sprang to life and I could hear Tera on the other end giving us a monologue we hadn’t been able to hear because Keva had muted both ends.

“…swear if you don’t tell me exactly what you’re doing and why it isn’t going to bring the Selevas down on me then so help me by the civilized galaxies I’m going to turn you into plasma dust.”

“You always did have a way with words Tera,” I said. “I can assure you that I’m only here to refuel. We ran into a spot of trouble on the other side of D547.”

“D547,” Tera’s voice came through flat. Not good. She wasn’t buying what I was selling.

“Yes?” I said.

“You were all the way over at the other end of D547 and the closest place you could refuel was my station?”

“Um, yes?” I asked.

“And I don’t suppose that business in D547 has anything to do with the Levonian queen losing the second largest collection of Torvolian power gems by mass?”

Keva shot me a warning glance. Clearly she didn’t like the idea of me revealing too much to Tera. Hell, I didn’t like revealing too much to Tera. As a rule I tried to reveal as little as possible about myself and my plans to anyone and everyone I came into contact with.

I pulled at my collar. I was actually feeling a bit nervous on this one. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to. I didn’t care for it. I shouldn’t have mentioned something so close to Levonian space, but it’d been on my mind and I figured there was no way news could’ve traveled that fast.

Especially when the Levonians were trying to keep that embarrassing loss on the down low.

“No,” I said, the lie coming easily even though all those weapons were pointed at us. “I have no idea what’s going on there. You say some genius hit the Levonians?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. A pause where all those many weapons arrayed against us, weapons that were meant to buy a few minutes against a Selevas invasion should they decide to swat the torvask buzzing around their home system, weapons that could take care of the Fortune Found in no time at all, continued to charge.

Keva hit mute again. “I don’t think she’s buying it.”

“Give it time,” I hissed. “We’re old friends.”

“The problem is I’m well aware of what it means for you to have an ‘old friend,’ and I’m not entirely sure she isn’t going to react the same way as your ‘old friend’ the Levonian queen might if she were to run into you again,” Keva said.

“Fine,” Tera finally said. “You have clearance to land.”

I blinked in surprise. Keva blinked in surprise. I probably should’ve been insulted that she was so surprised that actually worked, but I was too busy being surprised that it actually worked to be too insulted by Keva’s surprise that it had actually worked.

Not that I let that surprise show. Not for more than the space of a breath, at least. I hit Keva with an easygoing smile.

“See? Was that so hard?” I said.

“Yeah, well they haven’t taken those weapons off of us, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t relax until we’re safely docked in one piece rather than going into orbit around this star in tiny pieces,” Keva said.

I put a hand on her shoulder and she actually smiled, though the smile froze at my words.

“You worry too much,” I said. “If they actually blast us then it’s not like you’re going to be around long enough to feel anything.”

“Comforting as always,” she said.

“Don’t worry too much,” I said as the autodock took over and pulled us towards the station that had been carved into the side of a hunk of rock just big enough that gravity had turned it into a sphere but not quite large enough to be considered a planet. “I have a feeling everything is going to be smooth sailing from here.”

“Yeah, all we have to do is get that fake transponder, infiltrate the Selevas homeworld without anyone being the wiser, sneak into the Selevas palace without tipping off their security, seduce the heir to the most powerful dynasty in the civilized galaxies, and then make off with the largest collection of Torvolian power gems in the civilized galaxies. Easy, right?”

“When you put it that way it does seem easy, doesn’t it?” I said with a grin that earned me a kick in the ankle.

5

Seleya

A beep at my door brought me out of the lazy drifting thoughts that were my only escape from this boring life.

I sighed and stood. Looked out over Selevai. The city truly was beautiful, and my quarters on the side of the palace afforded one of the best views of that city.

One couldn’t get a better view without launching in a starfighter. Or I suppose a freighter, but my starfighter had always been my preferred method of one upping this view.

Thinking of flying that sleek beauty made my hands squeeze together as I thought of the freedom of being behind the controls once more. I yearned for it, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

Not with another one of mother’s interminable balls in the offing.

“Come Terek,” I said, standing and smoothing my dress. Something comfortable and suitable for lounging around my apartments.

The door faded away as the molecules were scrambled and loaded into a pattern buffer. The man who stepped through that door wasn’t Terek.

My eyes narrowed.

“Revas,” I growled. “What are you doing here?”

The too-handsome noble stepped through the door and looked around my apartments as though he’d just stepped into a barn on one of the food worlds that fed Selevas Prime. My eyes narrowed. How dare he look at my apartments like that when they were larger than any palace he owned?

“I see you’re enjoying your evening before the ball,” he said.

“Are you forgetting something Revas?” I asked.

He paused for just a moment longer than propriety would dictate, and then bowed ever so slightly. Far more slightly than he should considering the difference between our stations.

“Your majesty, of course,” he said. “My apologies.”

The apology was on his lips, but it never reached his eyes. Eyes framed by a too-handsome face. Too handsome by far. The kind of face and body that had all the women at the court fluttering over him and trying to catch his attention.

All but me, that is. When I saw the way he looked at me I saw a man looking at a prize. Not a man looking at a woman. I knew what he wanted when he looked at me, and it had more to do with increasing his station than it did with trying to find a suitable match.

Never mind that what he was offering held no interest for me.

I heard he had a sister who was quite fetching, but she wasn’t anywhere near the scheming of her brother and Selevas Prime so I’d never get to see if the female version of Revas’ line was as fetching as what he had to offer to ladies who were interested in species with a male half.

“How did you get in here?” I asked. “The guards are not to let anyone in this wing.”

“The guards will do whatever I want for the right price my dear,” he said, stepping forward and placing his hands on my shoulders.

I raised a single hand. It wasn’t as threatening as when mother did it. I didn’t have her long years or her ability to terrify with a look.

Still. He knew I could kill him where he stood and there would be no consequences. I could order to have all of his vaunted freighters that supplied our worlds destroyed and no one would raise an eyebrow.

Mother might be displeased for a short while, but that didn’t mean she would actually take action against her heir. No, she would likely be forced to make up some pretext to justify my actions and Revas knew it.

“Get your stinking hands off me you damned dirty merchant,” I growled.

“Come now,” Revas said, but he did take a step back. “I think we both know I’ve become so much more than a simple merchant.”

“I think we both know you’ve bought everything you’ve ever had, and that has given you aspirations that could be the end of you.”

That was good for another blink. Still, he didn’t give up.

“I assume you will be attending the ball tonight?” he asked, smoothly moving around me and looking me up and down as though he was inspecting an animal to be bought at market.

“Of course I’ll be at the ball tonight,” I said. “I attend all of mother’s balls.”

The unspoken truth was I was forced to attend all of those balls. I didn’t particularly care for them, but mother had never asked my opinion on whether or not I wanted to attend.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Revas said, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out that made my eyes go wide.

“Is that…”

“I can assure you that it is,” he said. “I also won’t bother to tell you how much this cost, but I think you know considering some of your fashion choices.”

His eyes darted to the tiara that was always on my head. A tiara that contained part of the heir apparent’s Torvolian power gem collection. There was enough power in that tiara to run a low level civilization for millennia, and we used it as decoration. As was appropriate for the Selevas royal family.

What he held in his hand was merely a sliver of one of those gems, nothing that came close to what the royal family possessed, but that sliver illuminated a crystal that had been carved to resemble a Seles flower. My namesake and a rare show of sentimentality from mother.

Though not much sentimentality since the flower had been named in honor of our royal line and family. Like everything else on this damned planet.

“I refuse,” I said. “The contract is denied.”

Spending a lifetime next to this swine, letting him touch me and do what he so obviously wanted, made me want to lose everything I’d eaten. That was not what I wanted from life, or my love.

Revas moved in front of me. I didn’t care for him appearing in front of me. He was full of himself on the best of days, and the fact that he was putting himself in front of me so brazenly was proof of that.

“I want you to know that when I ascend to the throne there are going to be new controls on the merchant class,” I said. “Even the merchant class who have managed to buy their way into the nobility.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he said with an oily smile that never touched his eyes. He leaned in closer. Entirely too close. As close as a man who was my betrothed would lean, but I hadn’t taken the crystal or the power gem from him.

I never would. No man would ever be my betrothed if I had a say in it.

“The problem with that plan, my dear princess, is that you have as much chance of ascending to your mother’s throne as every other heir who’s ever rotted or been assassinated while waiting,” he continued.

The thing that grated the most was how true it was. I was marking time. Waiting for the next person to step into line. Knowing they would step into that position over my dead body.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take advantage of some of my royal prerogative in that time. That was something Revas had obviously forgotten, and something I needed to remind him of now.

I held up my hand. Tiny slivers of material barely thicker than a few molecules but dangerously rigid appeared out of my fingers. I reached out for Revas’s favorite bit of anatomy.

He grinned, no doubt thinking he’d won me over. Because he didn’t realize the danger. Those filaments couldn’t be seen now any more than they could when mother used them to put down a rebellion in the throne room after all, until after it was done. I pulled my hand back an it was covered in blood. The cuts were so fine that of course he wouldn’t realize what had happened to him until it was too late.

The body’s nerves took time to realize that kind of damage had been done, after all. Especially if it was a fine cut.

“I believe you have a problem that should be seen by a medical kiosk before you bleed out Revas,” I said.

The look of dawning horror on his face was worth it. It was true that I was probably going to hear the worst of this from mother before all was said and done, for all his boasting about his money he wouldn’t be in here if she didn’t allow it, but there were some moments in this life that were very much worth the trouble.

To his credit Revas managed to maintain some semblance of control. It was more than I thought he would under the circumstances.

His eyes narrowed.

“You haven’t heard the last of this Seleya,” he said, his eyes roaming up and down my body in a way that made me ill. “I will have you, and I have your mother’s permission to court you. You know what that means.”

I blanched at that. Mother’s permission. That was as good as announcing to the court that she no longer wished for me to be in the line of succession.

Certainly it would take time before she’d gotten rid of me entirely, but the line of succession was quite clear. Once I was part of another noble house, however minor, I would be out of the running for the most sought after position in the civilized galaxies.

“Oh yes Seleya,” Revas said. “You might be full of yourself now, but soon enough you’re going to be nothing more than the disgraced wife of a merchant who bought his way into the nobility. Knowing that you’re chewing on that while I’m off getting this fixed will be more than enough to help me through the pain you’ve caused.”

I opened my mouth, but couldn’t think of anything. No, he’d certainly gotten the best of me. I wasn’t sure what it was I’d done to displease mother.

It could have been something. It could have been nothing. I wouldn’t be the first heir to be moved out of the line of succession because mother had a fit of pique. Such were the lives of the great and the low alike decided in the civilized galaxies ruled by the capricious whims of a woman who’d been getting her way for the length of several lifetimes.

I managed to hold my composure until Revas had left my chambers, at least. Just barely. He placed the ring with the Torvolian Power Crystal on a table near the exit.

A reminder. He would be back. Once someone had permission from mother to court a member of the royal family, no matter what their position in the line of succession, that was as good as announcing to the civilized galaxies that the marriage was going to happen.

I collapsed as soon as Revas was out the door. A cushion of antigravity obligingly rose under me and caught me, which left me with the irritated thought that it almost might be better if the safety systems didn’t catch me.

A nice blow to the head from landing on the floor too hard might have been welcome considering the decidedly unpleasant future that faced me.

6

Flynn

“Are you sure about this?” Keva asked.

“Of course I’m not sure about it,” I said into my comm. “That’s the problem with plans like this. You never know when everything’s going to go wrong and you’ll find yourself in front of a firing squad.”

“Nice to know our glorious leader has so much confidence in her plan,” she said. “I still can’t believe you convinced that woman to give you a transponder with charm like that.”

“I could do without your sarcasm and distractions,” I said, though she had a point. I was pretty sure Tera hadn’t believed a single lie I fed her, but she’d been willing to go along. For old times’ sake.

Plus I had a feeling it made her nervous having me back on Darkpoint. Yeah, she couldn’t have gotten me off her station any faster, and she clearly was willing to do anything to see the back end of my thrusters.

Thoughts of Tera weren’t the kind of distraction I needed as I looked up at the Selevas royal palace though. It was less a palace and more a massive arcology and space elevator that housed the population of a medium sized planet in its halls that reached all the way to orbit.

“Now be quiet. Mama’s about to play her part, and I don’t need you buzzing in my ear. I really don’t need more transmissions than are necessary. You never know what the Selevas are capable of listening in on.”

They kept it that way on purpose, of course. It made criminal scum like yours truly less willing to take them on when they had a reputation for having tech toys that were the next best thing to magic for ferreting out people crazy enough to do exactly what I was attempting.

I guess that simply meant I was crazier than your typical criminal scum. Crazier and smarter considering I was still alive after making a career of doing things like this.

Though this would be the biggest job like this we’d ever pulled, to be sure. Far more dangerous than stealing the Levonian crown jewels right off of the queen in the middle of her heavily armed battlecruiser turned pleasure yacht.

“Got it,” she said. “I’ll feed you information as you need it.”

“I’d expect nothing less. This is the big leagues,” I said.

“And taking on the Levonian queen wasn’t the big leagues? You know you have the death warrant throughout the Levonian worlds and even with a couple of puppet systems they strong armed?”

“Nice to know the queen thinks that highly of me,” I replied with a frown.

It really was a pity. The more I thought about the Levonian queen the more I thought there was a heck of a lot more that I could’ve done there. Which is to say there was a lot more fun I could’ve had before I gave up the pretense of courting her and made away with the jewels.

Oh well. That trick of Levonian reproductive biology had presented itself early enough that I couldn’t resist taking advantage early on. Even if it had left me antsy through the entire flight towards the Selevas homeworld. Even if I was dealing with an almost constant state of irritation now because I’d been all worked up with no outlet.

It was so bad that I’d even started to contemplate trying to bed Keva. Contemplated it, but never went through with it.

She’d made it clear on multiple occasions that she was only interested in me in a professional capacity, and the moment I tried to work my charms on her was the moment I’d find myself on the business end of one of her blasters.

Which was a damn shame. Perhaps I could’ve convinced her in the name of the mission, but even then it seemed dicey.

“What’s wrong with you? Keva asked. “You’re weaving back and forth on the palace steps. They’re going to think you’re a drunk or something. Not the image you’re trying to project, Lady Erol.”

The emphasis placed on my title and false name was sarcastic enough to snap me back to reality. I frowned and forced myself back to thoughts of the job.

Distractions were dangerous. The last time I’d gone into a mission distracted I’d ended up being chased halfway across the first civilized galaxy by a randy duchess who thought I was the woman she’d marry.

It was just my luck that they were more open minded about that sort of marriage arrangement in that galaxy than they were back home on earth. Or at least how it’d been back on earth. Maybe things had changed since I left.

One thing that hadn’t changed with me was there wasn’t a chance I was settling down with some minor duchess. I wasn’t going to settle down to herd Yorblats on some out of the way agro planet thank you very much.

I paused to gather myself. If I was going to do this then I needed to keep it together. This was the big leagues. Well, I already played in leagues so big that I was the only criminal who dared try them, but this would be my crowning achievement. Literally.

This was what I’d been working towards my entire career.

I looked up at the Selevas palace. I’d seen it from a distance once before when I was learning the ropes on Darkpoint and went on a brief trip to Selevas Prime, and I’d known since that day that this was my ultimate destination. I was going to have a palace like this of my own one day.

Of course it was going to be far smaller than this palace, even the Heiress Jewels weren’t enough to buy something this extravagant and the staff to run it while also defending it from the kind of people who tried to attack you the moment you were stupid enough to paint a target on yourself like tha, but I could live like an empress for the rest of my days on a fraction of what we’d make from this job out in some distant dwarf galaxy where even the Selevas couldn’t cause too much trouble.

Heck, I could buy an invasion fleet and conquer earth with the kind of money I’d have if I pulled this off.

And if the Selevas did try to cause trouble? Well I could hire my own mercenary army and make myself empress of the Milky Way. Home was far enough out on the fringes of the civilized galaxies and the end of Selevas supply lines that I could probably hold them off long enough to live out my days, though that would mean being far from the delights of civilization. Not to mention setting up earth for a world of hurt when the money ran out.

That might be a fair price to pay to continue breathing.

Breathing. I took in a deep breath. Let it out. It was a big moment finally facing the thing you’d spent your entire career working towards. This was going to be my magnum opus. The crowning achievement in a long line of seducing and stealing.

The Selevas royal family. Anyone who went against them had to be crazy, but that was me.

I did a little dance the rest of the way up the steps and performed a little flourish and a bow for the unimpressed guard standing at the entrance. He was done up in the livery of the Selevas royal family. The guy probably had more gold and platinum on his uniform than some planets produced in a year, which was saying something considering how long some of the years could be on mining worlds quietly rotating the outer reaches of their star’s atmosphere every few millennia as years were reckoned on earth.

He even had a tiny Torvolian chip on the top of a spear that looked decidedly unceremonial and very practical.

That was power coupled with obscene wealth for you though. That much power and riches made me think it wouldn’t be much of a problem for them if I took some of those riches off their hands.

“Good evening,” I said.

I held out a holo chip that displayed the credentials we’d meticulously created for this job. Like we’re not talking a forgery either. No, this was the kind of fake ID that was so real it was in the all the right databases and the only way someone would be able to figure out it was fake was by putting the corrupt officials we bribed to put it there under the knife to get them to talk.

Which was a worry, to be sure, but I figured they wouldn’t start torturing mid level bureaucrats until after we pulled this job. Which would leave us plenty of time to escape.

In the meantime I had to act natural lest I give them a reason to torture me. It was unlikely with guests at a royal ball, but not unheard of if someone was acting as suspicious as some asshole trying to sneak toenail clippers through a metal detector at the airport back home.

“I am Lady Erol from the outlying sector of…”

“Whatever,” the guard said, barely giving me an irritated wave and not even glancing at my credentials. “Get in there with the rest of them. You’re going to hold up the entrance.”

I blinked a couple of times. I’d spent so much time working on my backstory that it felt wrong not to use it. Yet this guard was waving me on without so much as checking to ensure I was who I said I was.

It was enough to make me think some of the money made from selling the Levonian queen’s Torvolian jewels to the Selevas separatists had been wasted going to the expense of fabricating a noble lineage from a backwater system in an outlying dwarf galaxy that wouldn’t be questioned too much.

The guard glared until I moved on. Even when I moved on he was muttering something unflattering about the chastity of my mother and stupid hayseed nobles from backwater systems who thought they mattered.

I had to agree with him on that score. If there was one thing I hated in the civilized galaxies it was pompous nobles. Maybe it was some of the innate republicanism, small r republicanism thank you very much, that came along with being a girl raised in the good old U.S. of A. Discovering that most of the nearer galaxies seen from earth through the Hubble were ruled by a less than constitutional monarchy had been an unpleasant surprise.

Which is why I didn’t feel bad about liberating those pompous nobles from some of their money and valuables.

I also had to remind myself that the name of the game on this mission was not drawing attention to myself. Getting indignant over a guard not questioning my fake ID was the exact opposite of not drawing attention to myself.

I comforted myself with the thought that I’d have far more money than I’d wasted on those false writs of nobility once this job was done.

“That was a lot easier than I thought it’d be,” Keva said.

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t reply. Not without looking like a madwoman. The nobles around me talking into their communicators were using the video function on their holochips like a civilized person. If I went around talking to myself it would be immediately suspect.

I was still nervous that they had some device in the palace that could detect our signal. All the people I’d bribed at the military contractor that made the secured system we were using said it wasn’t possible, that this was the same secure commlink the Selavas used, but what they said wasn’t possible and what actually wasn’t possible for the Selevas could often be two very different things.

It wouldn’t be the first time an organization paid the people making their stuff so much money that they immediately turned in or sold out anyone trying to bribe them. From the point of view of the person getting bribed it was a win-win. They got the money from their patrons and the bribe, and what concern was it of theirs if the poor bastard they sold down the river got slowly and painfully vaporized?

The Selevas could pay out mountains of money to get military contractors to say anything to fine upstanding criminals such as myself no matter what sort of bribes I paid out. It was no skin off their back if I wound up in prison or executed.

Assuming my paranoia was true. I couldn’t fault them for double dealing either. I would’ve done the same. Hell, I would’ve tried to find a third buyer to make even more money.

Those unpleasant thoughts accompanied me as I swept into the grand ballroom of the Selevas royal family, and the word grand really didn’t do the place justice.

The thing was a massive cylinder with balconies and columns that allowed partygoers to enjoy their dinner while looking down at the true power brokers of the civilized galaxies.

At least the more powerful and wealthy could look down on the ball. The cylinder moved up higher than some skyscrapers on less civilized worlds that still thought buildings that didn’t go into orbit were the pinnacle of engineering. Higher up would be the minor nobility and above them the people rich enough to afford attending a royal ball but not quite rich enough to buy their own writs of nobility.

Above that were the people who were noble or rich but out of favor with the queen. Sparkling above all of that, far in the distance up above, sparkled the molecules of people who’d really fallen out of favor with the queen. To the point that the sparkling remnants of the matter that’d once made up their bodies provided a swirling fantasyscape for the enjoyment of guests.

One last service to the Selevas queen, and all that.

I tried to project the appropriate mood as I looked around. The kind of mood that wouldn’t add my own molecules to that display far above. I tried not to think about how many traitorous molecules were needed to create a sparkling light display that could be seen all the way down here.

A job was all about acting the part, and the part they’d expect me to play at this gathering was that of some yokel who had enough money to get to the homeworld and was naive enough to think being a noble on some minor out of the way planet somehow gave me the ability to hobnob with the truly powerful in the galaxy.

I needed to look like an idiot who didn’t realize she didn’t belong on the lower levels with her betters. In short, I was a rube. A dumbass who didn’t know what she didn’t know. The kind of person that those rich and powerful would look at, laugh at, then dismiss.

The perfect disguise for a mission like this.

7

Seleya

I stepped into the grand ballroom and sighed. I suppose I should have been happy that I was down here on the lowest level. After all, it wasn’t everyone in the civilized galaxies who got to move at these heights.

Even if the higher you were, socially speaking, the lower you were in the ballroom physically speaking.

I frowned. The first thing I saw when I stepped out was Revas’ smiling face. He wasn’t talking with mother, but he was close enough to her, talking to a group of high nobles, that it was worrying.

A merchant like Revas who’d recently bought his way into the nobility shouldn’t be down here among his betters.

“Is something amiss your highness?” Terek asked.

“What is he doing down here?” I growled.

“Ah. You would be speaking of Revas, I believe?” Terek asked, not missing a beat.

“You know he came to my apartments earlier Terek. Stop playing your games.”

There was a slight pause. Terek was in an interesting place where he was my servant, but at the same time it was well known that he worked for mother and his main responsibility was keeping tabs on me.

If I’d done something to displease mother then there was a good chance that information had come from Terek. I needed to be careful around him until I found out exactly what it was that had put me in disfavor.

“I believe that Revas is down here at your mother’s invitation,” Terek said. “And it would also appear that he is doing much better after his recent injury.”

I turned and arched an eyebrow. Terek tried to hide a smile. Now that was odd. I’d never seen the man smile before in my life. He was always so stuffy and proper.

It was almost as though he approved of Revas being injured.

“That kethak,” I muttered, not daring to use one of the many colorful swears that involved mother, her anatomy, her predilection for sexual impropriety, or any of a number of interesting imprecations the intelligent life of the civilized galaxies had come up with for her.

That wasn’t wise so close to mother where her Inquisitors could be listening. It would only get me a talking to, but I didn’t want to do anything to fall any more out of favor than I already was.

Even the light swear earned a few sharp looks from the people surrounding us, but they turned away as soon as they realized who’d used that very inappropriate language.

That was one of the benefits of being a member of the royal family. I didn’t have to worry about maintaining the proper sense of decorum in the presence of the royal family since there was only one member of the royal family who could be scandalized by my language, and I made a point of annoying her whenever possible without rising to the level that she felt like she had to address me and waste both our time.

Come to think of it, a lifetime of pushing just to the edge of propriety without quite stepping over might’ve been enough to push me out of favor. Avoiding Revas would also push me further out of favor, but I didn’t care.

“I want to be away from him,” I said. “Now.”

“I don’t know that we can do that your highness,” Terek said. “Revas is your betrothed, and as such that means…”

“He is not my betrothed,” I hissed. “He never was, and he never will be if I have anything to say about it. I did not accept his offering.”

“That is the problem your highness,” Terek said, speaking in a tone that said he was trying to be delicate. I hated how often he used that tone around me. Terek being delicate meant he was about to tell me something unfortunate about a decision mother had already made for me. “You may not think the two of you are betrothed, but your mother does. As far as the civilized galaxies are concerned that means that you are, in effect, betrothed to Revas. One doesn’t go against the word of a living goddess and the ruler of all creation.”

“Not easily, at least,” I said.

Terek’s only response was a hiss. He pulled away as though I was a Yorkonsenin fanged Blarfulen.

“You will attend to me Terek,” I said, taking his hand and pulling him off towards one of the many alcoves that dotted the side of the grand ballroom.

The perfect place to have a bit of palace intrigue. After all, palace intrigue was one of the main reasons anyone who was anybody ever came to one of these things in the first place. That and the free food.

It was even rumored among the nobility that these alcoves didn’t have listening devices in them to further encourage that intrigue, though I didn’t believe it.

As I pulled Terek towards one of those alcoves I glanced to the entrance, and stopped for a moment.

I don’t know why I stopped. Not exactly. It’s difficult to explain.

I knew it was the woman I saw stepping into the room. She looked like a minor noble from one of the outlying galaxies. No, on second inspection she looked like a very minor noble from one of the outlying dwarf galaxies that orbited one of the farther flung galaxies in the massive galactic cluster that made up the civilized galaxies.

In short she looked like she didn’t belong with the way she stared around the room as though it was the most wondrous thing she’d ever seen and not something she saw day to day as part of doing business.

I’d seen that look plenty of times before in minor nobles, but there was something about this woman that drew my attention.

She was beautiful. I think she was the most perfect specimen of woman I’d ever seen, and it was more for what she wasn’t than for what she was.

I was used to seeing pretty women. I was used to seeing dangerous women. At least I was used to seeing women who thought themselves dangerous up to the moment they found themselves going up against mother. I was used to seeing women so painfully gorgeous and toned to the perfection shown on the entertainments we exported throughout the civilized galaxies that it made me ache to the core of my being to look upon them and think about all the things I would do to them when I invited them for a tour of my apartments after the ball.

Having my pick of any woman who came to the palace who didn’t catch mother’s interest was one of the nicer perks of being the heir. That tended to be quite a few since her preferences leaned more towards species that had a male gender whereas my preferences were the opposite.

Mother knew that. Which made it all the more galling that Revas would dare to think about trying to tie me down. Or that mother would go along with that plan.

I wouldn’t mind being tied down for this one though. There was something different about her. Her skin was a pleasant pinkish color that looked exotic. It had none of the light blue that adorned Selevas skin, but somehow that lack of traditional colors merely added to her exotic flair.

Certainly she looked as out of place here as any of the minor nobility making their way to the palace for the first time, but there was a quiet confidence in the way she carried herself. She looked at the room as though she owned the place.

It was a silly notion. That couldn’t be confidence so much as it was simply the look of a woman who didn’t know what she didn’t know about the true currents of power in the galaxies, but it drew me to her.

It didn’t hurt that she had a lithe athletic frame that showed she was a woman who was no stranger to the recreation room on whatever ship had brought her to the home world. Her face was pleasantly symmetrical, but there was a roughness to her. As though she’d lived life rather than watching it pass her by in a gilded cage.

Which was also not surprising for a minor noble. If she truly came from one of the outlying dwarf galaxies then she came from the sort of place where the nobility were still expected to work for what they had. Considering anyone in the nobility from those outlying areas usually had to buy their way into the nobility or be exiled it was no surprise that she looked like someone who was no stranger to work.

If she was the type who was exiled then she wouldn’t dare show herself at a ball like this. Not without risking becoming one of the dancing motes of mother’s enemies that entertained guests from on high.

“My darling,” a smooth voice said from behind me.

Hands came around my stomach and I took in a sharp breath. Strong arms surrounded me, but those strong arms seemed almost hesitant. As though they were worried their owner might be the subject of another attack.

I’d been distracted by that strange noble long enough to find myself in Revas’ clutches once more. The last place I wanted to be.

“Get your hands off of me and there will be no trouble,” I hissed low enough that only he, Terek, and I could hear the warning.

“Come now my beloved,” Revas said. “Is that any way for you to speak to your future husband? Besides. Your mother is right there. You could pull what you did earlier because there was no higher authority to call you on it, but what do you think your mother would think of you doing the same in her presence and in front of all these assembled notables?”

I stared around the room. At the assembled throngs of people who were mostly there to be seen among the rich and powerful. To be close to mother. There were so many of them that didn’t care how dangerous it was to be in mother’s presence. All they cared was that being near her meant they were powerful in their own way. More powerful than many who boasted of ruling entire empires.

But with the ever present threat of a swift death if they stepped out of line in the wrong way.

None of those notables were going to come near me to rescue me. Not when they would all know that anyone manhandling me without being approached by security or rebuked by Terek was someone who had mother’s permission to do that manhandling.

I was trapped. There was no way out. Then I heard a voice that astonished me. A voice that went down to the very core of my being and made me shiver and shake.

It was a voice that promised things. A voice that was confident, full of pride, and belonged to someone who obviously didn’t know a thing about what they were getting themselves into. Someone who clearly didn’t know the danger of crossing mother.

I turned and found myself looking at her. The beautiful minor noble who’d caught my eye earlier, and she was looking between me and Revas as though she had a problem with what Revas was doing.

Someone had come to rescue me. Someone who was going to get herself killed by coming to rescue me if she wasn’t careful, and if she was already stupid enough to interrupt then that meant she was stupid enough to not know what she was getting into.

Yet I didn’t want her to go. I stared at her, my eyes begging her to catch my meaning and save me from Revas. From this whole situation.

I knew it was impossible, but I could hope.

8

Flynn

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the ballroom was the queen herself. As I looked up at her throne that rose a good five stories up the columned cylinder I realized I was looking at true power.

The Levonian queen had been impressive, she’d been beautiful, but she was nothing compared to the Selevas queen. Then again I should’ve known that. She was the only power in the civilized galaxies that truly mattered.

A death penalty from the Levonians was something I could live with. Levonian territory eventually came to an end which meant it was possible to escape her reach by setting the old fold space drive to max and not turning it off until I was on the other side of the civilized galaxies where even the Levonian assassins and bounty hunters would give up well before they reached me.

A death sentence from the Selevas would be the death of me if I didn’t get well away from the galaxies they controlled. Which was difficult considering they controlled all of them. Sure I could go to a backwater like the Milky Way, but even there it was only a matter of how long it took them to find me.

That wasn’t going to stop me from moving ahead with this plan, but it was good to be reminded of the kind of power we were going up against. Getting away from them was going to almost be more of a trick than getting in and getting the jewels in the first place.

It would be so worth it for that fortune though.

The queen wasn’t my target though. Tempting, but too dangerous. I’d heard of her moods. How she could sniff out someone who was looking to take advantage of her. Pull out her claws, literally, and gut someone before they knew what was happening.

The last thing I wanted was to tangle with her. Especially not in the seat of her power.

No, I was lowborn. A minor noble who had no idea what I was doing here or how dangerous it was to be swimming in these waters. I wasn’t worth noticing, and if someone did notice me the only thing I wanted them to think was that I was a rube from an outlying dwarf galaxy who wasn’t self-aware enough to know what I was risking by gawking like a tourist down here on the lowest level of the ballroom and the highest echelons of power.

I was looking for someone who would be far more amenable to my charms. Someone who was almost as rich as the queen. The only difference was she hadn’t inherited that fortune yet, but as I got a look at the Torvolian power gems glowing atop the Heiress Crown my breath caught.

And to be honest my breath catching was only partially for the power crystals. Most of it was for the heiress herself. She stood in a bubble all her own, as though people were afraid to approach her.

Or perhaps they knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to approach her. To approach her was to risk the queen’s displeasure. To risk the queen’s displeasure was to risk almost certain death.

I say almost certain because there was always the chance the queen would decide to have someone tortured for the rest of their natural life rather than killing them outright. If she was feeling merciful.

But that was the nature of the game, and I’d come here tonight to play. So I puffed up with all the authority I should think my small planet title gave me and walked through the crowd.

Then stopped. Something was wrong with the good princess.

“I think we might have a problem,” I muttered into the comm, low enough that the people around me wouldn’t be able to hear the subvocalization.

“What?” Keva asked, panic clear in her voice.

She’d been on edge ever since we reached the Selevas homeworld, and it would appear she was going to stay on edge until we were on the other side of the local cluster. Even then she’d likely be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

A good idea considering what we were planning here tonight.

“Someone has moved in on the princess,” I whispered. “That shouldn’t be happening, right?”

“One moment,” she said.

I could imagine her working at her console to her right in the cockpit. Trying to figure out what was going wrong with one hand while keeping the other hand on the engine controls so they could escape at a moment’s notice.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“What uh-oh?” I asked. “Uh-oh is not good on a job like this Keva.”

“Don’t I know it,” she hissed back, even though she wasn’t in the middle of a ballroom in the home of the most powerful royal family in the universe. “Is he tall? Handsome? Broad shoulders? Dark hair? A look that says he owns everything he sees?”

“You just described every maleish noble in this room,” I said.

“Well is he or isn’t he?” she said.

“I mean I don’t think he looks as handsome as all that.”

“Damn it Flynn,” she said. “It looks like there might be trouble. All the gossip channels on the fold space relays are going on about how the princess might be in disfavor and about to be pawned off on some merchant named Revas who bought a very minor writ of nobility.”

“Why would the queen allow that?” I asked.

“Because he bought that writ with money he gained from running most of the freighters that supply the Selevas home system,” Keva said. “Looks like he’s a major player even if he doesn’t have much in the way of noble influence. The princess getting handed off to him is probably meant as a bribe from the queen.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said. “The plan hasn’t changed. We just have a time limit now if she’s about to be disinherited. Time to separate from her jewels before her change in circumstances does it for us.”

“Are you crazy? We can go after the next heiress,” she said.

“Not a chance,” I said. “We’re here now. We’ve been planning this forever. We do this tonight or not at all.”

I could feel the stares and the comments as I made my way to the princess. Nobles who knew better than to do what I was about to do realized what I was about to do and they laughed and pointed.

I ignored all of them. Let them think I was some idiot from an outlying system. Let them look at me like I was the entertainment for the evening without realizing it.

They were playing into my hands.

I pierced the bubble surrounding Princess Seleya.

“My lady,” I said.

She whirled around and looked me up and down in surprise. A look that pleased me. It would appear that all the reading we’d done about her preferring species that hewed towards the female of a species if that species had a gender binary were absolutely correct. I’d found that people out in the wider galaxy were much more open about that sort of thing than they’d been back on earth which was one pleasant change of pace.

I reached out to take her hand as I bowed deeply. I pointedly didn’t look at the man who’d grabbed her. The man, Revas if Keva’s intel was anything to go on, tensed.

Clearly he didn’t like me touching his betrothed, but that was his problem. I wouldn’t be around long enough to make anything of any rivalry he might feel towards me. He was trying to get his from the princess in his own way, and I was doing the same.

Though I did think the princess was going to like my way of getting what I wanted from her a hell of a lot more than she would like anything from this potential husband.

I looked up to gauge her reaction. If she was going to take exception to this then this would be the time. I could hear the chattering all around me, feel the eyes on me as they looked at the small time noble who dared touch the heiress, but her reaction was all that mattered.

I locked eyes with her. The corner of her mouth quirked up ever so slightly. There was also something else there. Her eyes darted to Revas and then back to me. Almost as though she was pleading with me to save her.

I knew in that moment I had her. It was simply a matter of playing the situation just right. This Revas might have even made it easier for me to get near her since he provided a convenient excuse for me to come to the rescue.

“I must say I’m surprised to see you’re so beautiful,” I said, standing from my bow.

“Excuse me, but that is the heiress and my betrothed that you are speaking to and I will not…”

I held a hand up and it shut this Revas guy right up. He looked surprised that I would do something so brazen, but on paper we were about the same rank if what Keva said was correct. I was a minor outlying noble of no consequence, which put me on even footing with someone who’d just bought their writ.

Though of course his status as betrothed to the heiress with the ear of the queen and a fleet that supplied the home system meant he had far more soft power than I could ever hope for even if we were evenly matched on paper.

“Pardon me,” I said. “But I was talking to the lady.”

That half smile that had quirked up at the corners of her mouth stayed frozen in place. She looked me up and down as though wondering who I thought I was to speak to her like that.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her tone icy, but that note of pleading still there.

“Simply this,” I said, offering her an arm.

She reached out and took it without thinking. Oh yes, this was going splendidly. She seemed surprised as she found me guiding her across the dance floor arm in arm, but she didn’t try to pull away.

She wasn’t half as surprised as her betrothed who released her as we moved away. He spluttered and hissed and looked as though he was going to try and stop me, but then someone who could only be a royal attendant was there between us stopping him.

Interesting. There were dangerous currents here. Lucky for me I only had to survive them for a few hours of one night, but even that could be deadly.

I had her attention though. I’d intrigued her. That was a start.

“You were going to tell me what you meant when you insulted my beauty, I believe?” she asked. “Why it would be so surprising that I am so beautiful?”

“Oh that?” I asked. “That’s simple. Have you seen your typical high noble? Fat pigs who indulge their every hedonistic desire to the point that they hire outfits who get paid exorbitant sums of money to make them seem more beautiful than they are.”

“You walk dangerous ground,” she said.

“But I don’t,” I said, turning to her. “Because I’d assumed the Selevas royal family would be the ultimate target for those PR firms, and therefore your beauty would be the ultimate exaggeration.”

“There is a certain strange logic to what you say,” she said after a long moment where she was clearly deciding whether she should be flattered or insulted to the point of ordering me killed.

I was relieved she fell on the flattery side of things. I was well aware that this could be the most dangerous part of the whole operation. The moment where I was at the capricious whims of a spoiled brat.

“There is, but alas it falls apart with one look at you,” I said.

“It does?” she asked, a slight twinkle in her eye. As though she could see the compliment coming from light years away, but anticipated it and relished it nonetheless.

“But of course. Your beauty goes far beyond anything any PR firm could conjure. Truly you are the most stunning creature in the civilized galaxies.”

She smiled. A genuine smile. And it was a genuine compliment. She was beautiful. She made the Levonian queen look like a mere guttering candle compared to the supernova that was her beauty.

“I must admit I am unaccustomed to anyone approaching me, let alone complimenting me so Lady…”

The obvious question hung in the air and my grin widened. Finally I was going to get an opportunity to use the cover story I’d worked so hard on. I was sure Keva was listening intently to everything, but she stayed blessedly quiet.

She wouldn’t want to interrupt me while I was working. Well she wasn’t going to get to enjoy the peep show any longer. I shut the comm off by tapping my fingers at my side in a prearranged code.

The thought of Keva beating at her monitor because I cut her off just as things were getting good only enhanced my enjoyment of the moment.

“Lady Erol, ruler of the fifth planet of the De Havilland system and member of an ancient and illustrious house dating back some three hundred years.”

I bowed again and noted the amusement dancing in her eyes. Ruling a single planet was nothing. Dating back three hundred years was barely a blink in the scale of galactic politics.

Still, it was an interested amusement. A planet could’ve had its flirtation with republicanism and the inevitable slide towards populism, nationalism, dictatorship, and the seemingly inevitable reestablishment of royal families in that blink of the galactic political eye.

I’d take her amusement though. It merely added to my cover.

“Such a grand title for such an unassuming noblewoman,” she said, a hint of mockery coming to her voice.

“My lady does me injury,” I said. “It is a proud world and we do good work there.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of the De Havilland system,” she said.

I felt a chill. It was said the queen knew every species and every system in her dominance. I should’ve picked a real system, but that had its own risks. If the princess had memorized the worlds in the same way her mother had then…

“It’s in one of the dwarf galaxies that was thrown into a far orbit by a collision between two of the civilized galaxies,” I said. “Not many have heard of it.”

“Of course,” she said, that amused twinkle still in her eyes.

I resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief. She had no idea what I was talking about. Good.

“Come, great Lady Erol. Let us walk and you’ll tell me more about yourself and your travels from your distant dwarf galaxy to the home system. You must have seen many interesting things along the way.”

I was in. Not quite a success yet, but getting there. I took her hand and allowed myself to be guided away.

This woman was beautiful, rich, and she was going to be the crowning achievement of a long and notable career as a lovable rogue.

9

Seleya

The music of the ball faded as we stepped out onto one of the many balconies overlooking the city. Of course there was something special about this particular balcony. Out of all the balconies attached to the ballroom this one had something that no other did.

Privacy. We were away from Revas, though I’d seen him glaring from his spot around the edge of the ballroom.

He didn’t dare move in though. He might have the upper hand in the long run, but in the short term I was still the heiress and he couldn’t manhandle me in public like he had.

Not for long. Not without risking mother’s wrath. That was the last thing a schemer like Revas would want to do when he was so close to getting everything he wanted.

At least he thought he was close to getting everything he wanted. I would find a way to avoid that fate.

This escape was merely temporary. There was a forcefield on this balcony attuned to my unique biosignature that only allowed me through. Me and anyone I touched directly, which tonight included this strange woman who’d claimed she was from an outlying system that would be difficult to verify.

Exactly the sort of thing someone who wanted to get close to the crown would say, but I didn’t care. Even if this woman did mean me harm it wasn’t like she could do something here where we were surrounded by security.

Maybe she was who she said she was. Maybe she wasn’t. Either way I was in a mood to indulge her, and myself. She was beautiful, and she’d rescued me. That was enough for now.

Bumps rose over my skin as I thought of that. There was a touch of adventure to this woman. A touch of intrigue that didn’t have anything to do with political or palace intrigue, which was a pleasant diversion.

It was a bunch of poppycock I was making up so this seemed like more than it was. I knew, deep down in my hearts, that this woman was who she said she was. A boring noble from the backwater of the galactic backwater. The kind of place far flung exiled nobles looked to with relief that at least their lot in life wasn’t that bad. She didn’t know enough of life at court to know she never should have done what she did tonight in approaching me.

Still, for this moment I could entertain that she was some rogue sent here to seduce me and assassinate me. Besides, without Terek breathing down my neck it felt like a night for indulgences.

Ancestors knew the real civilized galaxies and all of their boring responsibilities would come crashing down around me soon enough.

“The view really is quite lovely here,” she said.

“I know,” I said, leaning against the balcony and looking out over the city.

The ballroom was set in a massive cylinder made to look like ancient marble on the outside and reinforced with the best defenses modern building technology could offer on the inside and all around. The queen’s mighty pleasure palace was set up with the kind of armaments that would make it one of the most powerful military structures in the civilized galaxies should she desire to pull it away from the palace and go on a destructive bender.

Which she could do. The cylinder was designed to separate from the palace in emergency and make use of those armaments, though that had never happened before.

And this balcony was the second best view on the side of that heavily militarized ballroom. The best was reserved for mother of course, but this looked out over the sprawling lights of the city below rather than the glowing mountains in the distance.

I preferred this view, to be honest. Some liked nature, the one bit of nature that was allowed to exist on this world since it was there for the queen’s pleasure, but I figured nature was everywhere in the civilized galaxies. I preferred the twinkling lights of artificiality. A scream into the uncaring void of the universe that there was life here and it would make its mark on the uncaring universe.

The city stretched out across most of a continent by now, and it was ever expanding. Above was a view of several of the civilized galaxies merging, though of course the light coming down to this planet showed a much different picture than the star charts thanks to how long it took that light to travel to our world.

Then there were the civilized galaxies beyond, all part of the local supercluster and all ruled under mother’s carbon fiber filament claws.

“This view is something that has always taken my breath away,” I said. “The two galaxies colliding. It seems to say something about life, about nature. It helps that they’ve set up a field from here to the upper atmosphere that filters out the light pollution. You can’t see this anywhere else in the city.”

“I wasn’t talking about the colliding galaxies,” she said, her voice soft and insistent. “Though I suppose there is a certain poetry in their collision.”

I turned to her and wanted to take a step back from the intensity of her gaze. Her eyes ran up and down my body in an appreciation that was entirely too forward for a woman of her station addressing the crown princess.

Then again a woman of her station should have never been allowed this close to me in the first place. Perhaps she was continuing to take liberties because she’d been allowed them in the first place and didn’t know how dangerous those liberties were to her continued existence.

I wanted to go on allowing her to take whatever liberties she wanted with me. Especially if it included looks like that.

“Perhaps we should get back to the ball,” I said.

I moved to brush past her, but then she did get entirely too forward for a woman of her low station. She was so far below me that she might as well be a commoner, and yet as I tried to brush past her she reached out and took my arm. She dared to touch me!

And oh what a touch. It was a touch that went right down between my legs. It was a touch that made me go weak in the knees. It was powerful. Confident.

Not at all what I would expect of a woman so far below me. As though she didn’t care about the yawning gulf between us.

I looked up at her and my mouth fell open, betraying something of the arousal washing over me. And as I looked at the fire burning in her eyes I knew that if I stayed out here for much longer then I was going to find myself burned by those fires burning in her eyes.

“Let me go,” I said.

“No,” she replied.

Simple. Commanding. It let me know that we were out on the crown princess’ balcony and I was the heiress, but as long as I was in her hold she was the one calling the shots out here. The impertinence! I never had someone tell me no. No one but mother and Terek, that is. To hear it from this common low noble trash was…

Exhilarating. She kept me in that firm grip. Refused to move.

“I could make you let me go, you know,” I said.

Of course we both knew that me making her let me go would involve a lot of unfortunate messiness. We both knew that would invite the sort of attention I didn’t want.

Or perhaps she didn’t know that. She was new here. She didn’t know anything of court. She’d survived entirely on her ignorance up to this moment. Whatever her reasons, my words didn’t seem to intimidate her in the least.

“No,” she said.

“No I can’t or no I won’t?” I whispered, not sure which it was myself.

“Pick whichever you like your worship, but I think we both know you don’t want to go back to that ball,” she said with a thin secret smile. As though she’d just made a grand jest of some sort. “I know what you’re thinking. You’ll be forced to deal with the same toadies who try to curry your favor every time you go to a ball. Not to mention that this time around it looks like you have a husband-to-be that you’re not all that interested in.”

This time my mouth fell open not because of the intense feelings washing over me, though they were quite enjoyable, but because of how she seemed to be able to reach into my mind and tell me my thoughts.

She stared for a long and intense moment. Arched an eyebrow as though she was challenging me to tell her to let me go again. I opened my mouth to say the words, but couldn’t bring myself to get them out.

“That’s what I thought princess,” she said.

She whirled me around until I was leaning against the balcony. Pressed me over the edge and then her hand that had been on my arm moved down to my waist. Wrapped around it and pulled me against her.

I couldn’t believe this. I could look down and see people streaming in and out of the ballroom from our vantage point, though of course none of them would be able to see me.

That was another advantage of this spot. Special forcefields kept anyone from looking up and seeing what was going on. They also kept any would-be assassins from doing their thing considering this was a spot that was wide open to just about any convenient vantage point from the city. Though there were shields in place to prevent anything short of an orbital bombardment from getting through.

“I could scream and the guards would come,” I lied.

I was banking on her not knowing anything about how this worked. Of course no one could come to help me here because I was the only one who could get through. Sure eventually the guards could bring the field down, but it would be too late.

It was a flaw in how this balcony worked I’d never thought of until now.

“Are you going to do that princess?” she asked, her voice right in my ear.

Her body pressed against mine and I squeezed my eyes shut. I started to shake. I couldn’t help myself. This situation was so delicious. So far beyond anything I’d expected when the night started. I breathed in and let it out in a delighted sigh.

She laughed. The confidence in that laugh was almost too much for me.

“That’s what I thought your worship,” she growled.

And with that her hands started to move. I shivered under that movement. Her hands trailed fire wherever they brushed against me, even through the dress.

I knew I should have been scandalized. She was a low noble. I shouldn’t allow her to touch me like this. I was the crown princess. I was the heir to the throne. she had no right to touch me like this!

And yet her touch was pure pleasure. It set me on fire and it was all I could do to hold onto the balcony and maintain a tenuous grip on reality.

“Lowborn scum,” I hissed.

“Something tells me you don’t mind being with lowborn scum right about now your worship,” she said, her tone showing exactly what she thought of the difference in rank between us.

“I could have you executed for this when it’s all over,” I gasped.

“And that tells me all I need to know princess,” she said, her voice right in my ear.

It was so low. So sensual and sexy. Her voice was a lover’s caress that pressed deep into the core of my body and set my stomach twisting with the nervous energy of being so close to her.

And I realized, too late, exactly what I’d told her when I said I could have her executed when this was all over. That assumed I was going to allow her to have her way with me.

I wheeled around. Stared at her with my eyes lidded. There was no denying the feelings rushing through me. This woman had peeled me away from the ball and brought me out here so expertly that I could almost think she wasn’t the backwater noble she claimed to be.

Though of course that had to be my wishful thinking hoping this was more than what it was.

“So you have the crown princess all alone on her balcony and no one can see what you’re going to do,” I whispered. I locked eyes with her. Hers burned with a fire, with a desire, that made my legs feel like rubber. “So what are you going to do?”

She grinned. “What am I going to do princess? I’d think that would be obvious. I’m going to do whatever I want.”

Turning around had pulled her hands away from me for a moment. Only a moment, but that moment was torture. In that short moment I realized how much I needed her touch.

She didn’t waste time giving me that touch again. she pressed her hands to my waist, but she didn’t indulge in any of the exploration she had moments ago. Any of that forbidden touching that was so wrong and so incredibly hot because it was so forbidden.

I licked my lips and arched my eyebrow. This one was so cocky. So confident. I had to have her. I was going to make her mine.

“I can think of a few things you might do, lowborn,” I hissed.

My hand moved down and I found my prize. Her whole body jerked and I knew in that moment that I had her. I’d gone from being the pursued to the pursuer and I felt myself regaining a tenuous control over a situation that had been spiraling out of my control since the moment she got me out here alone.

And then she pulled away. Both from me and from my touch. I was left standing there with my hand hanging in the air where it had been in contact with her just moments ago, and I needed more of that contact.

The smile that had been forming on my face disappeared. Confusion reigned. Why would she pull away from me? Had I done something wrong? Had I displeased her?

Why was I worried about displeasing her in the first place? I was the crown princess of the Selevas empire. Future ruler of the the civilized galaxies. I didn’t worry about displeasing some lowborn.

She was supposed to worry about displeasing me, and oh was I displeased as she leaned against the railing next to me and stared up at the stars rather than focusing on me.

I glared, but she seemed oblivious to that glare. She stared up at the view of the colliding galaxies with a grin, though I didn’t think that grin was for the view above.

Amusement. She was amused with me. Amused with this situation. Amused that the crown princess was throwing herself at a lowborn.

My nostrils flared and blood pumped through my body. I was going to show this lowborn what it meant to cross me.

“Who do you think you are? How dare you…”

She held a hand up. A simple gesture. I couldn’t believe that she dared. She commanded me to be quiet? Who did this one think she was?

And yet I found myself doing as she asked. It was as though I was hypnotized by that hand. Hypnotized by her. I stood there waiting to see what she would say next, hating that I’d allowed myself to fall under her sway but unable to resist.

10

Flynn

I pulled away from her royal highness and stared out over the view of the city. It had been so long since I came to the capital city. Long enough that I’d forgotten the beauty to be found here.

Though as I thought of her royal highness I couldn’t help but think about the beauty on offer here on the homeworld. It’s why I needed to pull away. I was starting to get distracted.

Distracted wasn’t good on a job like this. Distracted was a one way ticket to a visit to jail. If I was found trying to pull over a job on the Selevas royal family then it’d probably be a one way trip to an execution.

Damn.

Still. The princess was beyond anything I’d expected. I hadn’t been lying when I said I expected her to be artificially enhanced. It was the sort of thing royals did.

I should have realized that a family as rich and powerful as the Selevas royals would have had plenty of time to intermarry with some lookers. Even if they probably didn’t start out looking the greatest when they first rose to power.

“You have to be kidding me,” the princess said.

I turned to her and she was a sight to behold. She wore a radiant gown that seemed to sparkle with its own light. As rich as they were there was a good chance her dress was made exclusively of Torvolian power gem chips that provided their own light.

Maybe they used something a little less expensive for that effect, but I doubted it. Everything I’d seen of the royals since coming to this palace screamed “fuck you money.”

The dress was probably worth a fortune that could buy a planet in its own right, but it was nothing compared to the fortune inside it. The dangerous curves of a princess with eyes that seemed to pierce into my soul. Hair that was done just so. Features that were perfection and a tribute to thousands of years of intermarrying with genetic perfection.

Though her beauty was nothing short of intimidating right now.

Dangerous. This could lead to mistakes. Mistakes would lead to death. Death was the last thing I wanted. I’d been doing so well so far for an earth girl abducted into the wider galaxy, and I didn’t want my career to end now on the verge of true greatness.

“Is something wrong your highness?” I asked.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her voice taking on a singsong mocking quality. I blinked. That wasn’t the sort of behavior I’d expect from a prim and proper princess.

Then again there was the way she’d advanced on me earlier. The way she’d touched me in a way that had me thinking less about the job and more about all the fun we might have if I decided to forego business for pleasure.

Wait. What was I saying? Putting pleasure before business? Maybe on a small job like the Levonian queen, but this was the big leagues.

She snapped her fingers in front of me a couple of times and brought me back to reality. Back to the stunning view of the city and a couple of the civilized galaxies colliding trillions of kellicams away and all around us. Back to the even more stunning view of the Selevas crown princess standing before me.

“What’s wrong with you lowborn?” she asked. “You get me out here, something any woman or man at the court would kill for, and now you’re playing a game of hot and cold with me? Do you really think that sort of backwater dwarf galaxy manipulation is going to work on the crown princess?”

It was a good question. I was allowing myself to be distracted by her beauty. To be distracted by the way she felt against me. I was putting pleasure before business and forgetting why I was here.

I wasn’t just doing this for money. I was doing this for the kind of fortune that allowed people to buy and sell entire dwarf galaxies.

But who said I couldn’t mix pleasure and business? I was getting in a funk here and that wasn’t me. It was time to act like the most notorious pirate in the known galaxies.

I fixed the princess with a smile. Reached out and took her hand. It was time to turn up the charm. It was time to introduce her to a bit of how the galaxies worked outside of her royal bubble.

“Come Seleya,” I said, pulling her hand up and brushing my lips against it. “You can’t tell me you don’t enjoy the sound of your voice on my lips. I think we both know that’s not the only part of you you enjoy feeling on my lips.”

Her breathing was picking up. Her chest rose and fell even as her eyes narrowed to angry slits. Oh yes, I was confusing her royal highness.

Better she should be confused than me.

“What is this? More games? They won’t work on me,” she said.

“Ah yes, my backwater dwarf galaxy games,” I said. “You know you talk a big game for someone who’s already fallen for those games a couple of times tonight.”

Now her eyes went from narrow slits to large saucers. I had a feeling I was the first person other than her mother or perhaps her aged nanny to ever talk to her like this.

Yes, I was getting back into the swing of things nicely. I needed to remember I was the one in charge here.

Otherwise everything would fall apart and I’d be the one getting thrown in the slammer for life. Assuming they didn’t try to execute me first.

I reached an arm around her. Pulled her against me. Tried to get back some of the mojo I’d lost when I let myself get distracted by the hotness in front of me.

Captain Flynn didn’t ever get distracted by the hotness in front of her. The hotness got distracted by Captain Flynn.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t dreamed of a moment like this,” I said, laying it on thick. “Looking at the magic of the twin galaxies coming together. Imagining what it would feel like to come together with…”

In that moment something broke inside me. I looked at her staring at me so intently. Looked at the view around us. Thought about how I was in the middle of the biggest job in my life and I was spouting the cheesiest lines I could think of.

It was ridiculous, and so I smiled. That smile turned to a laugh, and a moment later I’d released her again and I was leaning against the railing in hysterics.

Her highness didn’t seem as amused as I was, but you couldn’t win them all.

“What is it now?” she asked, arching an eyebrow and crossing her arms causing her dress to shimmer and sparkle like multiple stars going supernova at once all over her body.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this,” I said.

“Seriously? I mean I’ve heard of women who…”

I held up a hand to stop her and I was hit with another fit of laughter. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t believe I was losing it at the greatest moment of my career.

“No, it’s not like that,” I said. “It’s just that…”

I looked down at the city. Anything to distract me from the royal fury brewing in front of me. And in that moment I didn’t want to be on. I didn’t want to be the suave pirate.

“Have you ever waited for a moment for so long that when it finally came you had this idea of how it would go and it turns out the moment was nothing like that?” I asked.

She looked at me for a long moment and I figured I’d blown it. I’d finally cracked under the pressure. Thousands of jobs leading up to this one moment, and the only time I broke was on the big one.

Then, for a wonder, she smiled. It was a small upturn at the corners of her mouth to begin with, then it turned to a full laugh herself.

A laugh that was musical. Melodious. A laugh that did more for me than pressing up against her body had earlier. It was a laugh that could drive a woman to distraction.

That and every other part of her body.

She let out a sigh and seemed to deflate along with that sigh. She leaned against the balcony and she didn’t look at all like the poised princess she was supposed to be. No, for that moment she looked almost like a normal person.

Almost. It was impossible for someone decked out in that many Torvolian power gems to look truly like a normal person. No, there would never be any mistaking her for anything but what she truly was in that getup.

“I know how you feel,” she said. “I can only imagine what it’s like for you. Coming from your out of the way system that’s ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the galaxies and finding yourself face to face with royalty. It must be quite the experience for you.”

I nodded. That seemed to be the thing to do. She expected me to be awed by her, and I’d give her a little of that.

Even if I was more impressed by the wealth on display than I was by her rank. The last thing I needed was to let on that I only saw her as a payday. An impossibly attractive payday, but a payday nonetheless.

“Something like that,” I said. “What about you? What’s your story?”

“Why would I have any story?” she asked.

I laughed, and this time it felt genuine. This time I felt more like the person I was when I was back on the ship with my crew and less like the dashing noble I was pretending to be on this job.

“You can’t tell me there isn’t something going on here,” I said. “Look at this. Look at me. A girl like you doesn’t take a lowborn to a private viewing like this unless there’s a story behind it. So what’s going on with you?”

She sighed, and if anything she seemed to grow more tense. I found myself wondering what could possibly make the crown princess, a woman who’d had her every whim catered to before she even knew she wanted it, so frustrated.

And I was interested in learning. I wasn’t simply making conversation to distract her long enough for me to get away with the jewels, though that was still very much on my mind.

I was surprised to realize that I wanted to know more about her. A lot more about her. Now there was a new feeling. One I wasn’t used to at all. A feeling that could be dangerous if I allowed the pleasure side of things to dominate this business transaction.

“It’s my mother,” she said. “She’s down there in the ballroom holding court and running the galaxy, and meanwhile I’m expected to sit beside her and observe everything as though I should be happy to watch the galaxies passing me by while I do nothing. And now she’s trying to marry me off which is the end of even that frustrating life as I know it.”

“I can see where that would be frustrating,” I said.

“You have no idea,” she replied, leaning a little closer. It wasn’t nearly as close as we’d been moments ago, but somehow that simple scoot along the railing seemed more telling, more intimate, than anything we’d done up to that point.

Maybe we’d both been acting a part. Maybe that was changing. Maybe alarm bells should have been sounding in my head, but I didn’t care as long as I was close to this beauty.

“I feel like a beautiful trofalv locked up in a cage forced to look pretty for everyone without being useful beyond being locked in that cage,” she said. “There’s nothing I’d like more than to get out there in the galaxies and truly see the systems I’m supposed to rule one day if mother ever gets tired of living forever. In a way I envy you for having a chance to go out there and see the galaxies as they are and not through the lens of the court.”

“It’s really not as glamorous as you might think,” I said. “I’m a little envious of you, to be honest. Living a life of luxury where you have everything taken care of. Where you have real power.”

“Mother has the real power,” she said. “Like I said, my only responsibility is to be pretty and observe. The idea being I could take over, but none of the eldest have ever lived long enough to do that. Mother plans on living forever, and her children are merely pawns in her political games. I’m the latest to be offered up for sacrifice.”

She let out a growl of frustration. I found it impossibly alluring.

“Thank you,” she said when she’d let that growl go to its natural conclusion.

“For what?” I asked. “For taking you out here and trying to seduce you?”

Her eyes twinkled. There was no pretense between us. No playacting. I had the distinct feeling that we were just two people enjoying a conversation, and it was… nice.

“I believe I was the one who brought you out here,” she said.

“And I let you think that was your idea,” I replied. I might not be going for the cheesy lines, but I still knew how to work my audience.

She reached out and took my hand. “You know this balcony has a door that leads to my room in the palace. Would you be interested in seeing more of how royalty lives up close?”

I arched an eyebrow. For one a door that led to her room in the palace proper meant they were using a wormhole or folding space on a local level so she could step from her balcony to her room without an inconvenient walk. The power and cost involved for such a simple thing was staggering.

Mainly I was surprised that this had actually worked. I wasn’t the rogue. I wasn’t using any of my usual tricks, and yet being me had been enough to entice her. Was this actually happening?

There was only one way to find out. I smiled and extended my arm.

11

Seleya

I forced down a shiver as I stepped through the door to my room. Typically the shiver was from the knowledge that I was stepping through a fold in spacetime accompanied by the ever present worry that something might happen that sent me stepping out in the middle of the vacuum of space or somewhere on the other side of the universe.

But no. The shiver had nothing to do with the laws of nature being bent for my convenience and everything to do with the woman I allowed to escort me to my room.

To my room. To the most private place I had in the palace. A place that no one could enter without my permission. Not even mother. Not without some difficulty, at least.

Though that bastard Revas had found a way to trick me into letting him in. That would never happen again. I’d since resolved that I would rather kill him and suffer the consequences than be married to him.

I enjoyed the wonder in her eyes as we stepped through and I couldn’t help but bite my lip and giggle. From the way she looked at me and arched an eyebrow she seemed to like something about that look.

I thought back to her words earlier. To her flattery. Telling me she was surprised at how beautiful I truly was. I wondered if that was the truth or if it was flattery to get into my good graces.

Whatever it was, it had worked. It made me wonder if it really had been all my idea to allow her to escort me to the balcony in the first place.

“Amazing,” she breathed. “This is like a palace all its own.”

“This is nothing close to a palace all its own,” I said.

Still, I looked at my room, at the place I’d taken for granted for most of my life, through her eyes. I imagine it would look impressive to someone who’d come from one of the outlying dwarf galaxies. I wondered if she came from one that orbited the civilized galaxies or one that had been thrown free by the twin galaxies combining.

We’d have to do something about the ones that had been thrown free in a few million years, but they were still close enough for now that it wasn’t a major concern for the moment.

“I suppose it is like a palace in its own way,” I said. “I never really thought of it like that. To me this is home.”

She looked around again, her eyes going wide as she took it all in, and I was left with the impression that this was the first time all evening that I was seeing a genuine reaction out of her. There was something about the way she’d been acting before that seemed put on compared to this.

Here, now, looking at the room I took for granted as I grew up, it was obvious she’d seen the first thing tonight she was truly impressed by.

Well, the first thing since she laid eyes on me in my dress of Torvolian power crystal chips, at least. I smiled at the thought and reached out to take her hand. She looked down at me and then her eyes took in the rest of me, and it was obvious she was distracted by the sight of me in the Torvolian dress for the second time that evening.

She stared at me with an impressive focus. With the eyes of a woman who only had eyes for one thing in the room. I shivered under that gaze and wondered what it might mean.

I was no stranger to the touch of a woman, to be sure. I’d had my dalliances. It was only natural for the crown princess to enjoy herself a little before being elevated to queen, a polite fiction that everyone, myself included, still pretended to believe, and finding her lifemate, but this was the first time I found myself enjoying the company of a woman so quickly.

Her eyes burned with a fire that made me want to take a step back. That left me worrying I would be burned to a cinder by her gaze, though of course that was ridiculous.

My breathing picked up. Goosebumps rose across my body. I wanted nothing more than to feel her body pressed against my own. To feel our bodies coming together in a merging that would piss mother right off if she knew I was consorting with a lowborn noble from one of the outer dwarf galaxies.

If anything that merely added to the experience. Made me enjoy it all the more.

Her arm wrapped around me and there was none of the hesitation from earlier out on the balcony. This was a woman who was sure of herself. Who knew what she wanted.

She knew what she wanted and she was going to take what she wanted whether I liked it or not. I suppose it was a good thing, then, that I very much liked the idea thank you very much.

“I think you knew exactly what was going to happen when you brought me back here your worship,” she said.

Odd. I’d heard almost every form of address there was for a royal, but that was a new one. There was something about the gently mocking tone that only served to excite me all the more. I shivered again as she pulled me against her.

Her desire washed over me. I wished for nothing more than for this woman to make me hers.

Maybe she was a mind reader, because no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than my wish came true. Her lips pressed against mine. They were full of the desire this woman obviously felt for me, and that desire stroked my vanity.

I purred under the attention. Romantics might go on about grand gestures and whatnot, but I’d always known that the surest way to my heart was a woman who knew how to stroke my vanity just right.

Among other things.

Occupational hazard of being the crown princess of the most powerful royal family the known galaxies had ever known.

“You know I think I rather like the idea of taking the crown princess in her room,” she said. “There seems to be something almost poetic about the idea.”

I didn’t get a chance to respond to her bold statement. A bold statement that had me quivering in my dress, I might add. No, no sooner had she made that bold statement than she was following through on it. She lifted me up and I wrapped my arms around her.

I was caught up in the moment. Normally I was the one in control, unless I was around mother of course, but in this moment with this woman I was carried away by the feel of her body against mine.

I groaned and trailed kisses down her neck as she simply stood there. She held me with a surprising strength as her hands roamed all over my body. Slowly, deliberately, almost reverently.

But only for a moment. Then the reverence was gone. She carried me forward and let go, and I felt a moment of surprise as I flew through the air.

Then I landed on something soft and giving and smiled again. Of course. She’d merely thrown me down on a cushion of antigrav. Far more comfortable than anything physical, it repelled the body from the floor making it feel as though one was quite literally floating on air.

Which, in a way, I suppose was true. Sure the science types might go on about charged particles and reversing the polarity of this or that to counteract the localized gravity created by the nearest gravity well, in this case Selevas Prime itself.

For me it was floating on air, and the most delicious woman in the civilized galaxies with that irresistibly sexy body fell down onto the antigrav cushion beside me with a rakish grin.

“Having fun yet your majesty?” she asked. She cocked an eyebrow as I frowned. Her next words were softer. “Or would you perhaps prefer to be called by your true name, Seleya?”

Her mocking tone had done wonders for me when she called me your worship or your majesty, but there was something about the feel of my true name on her lips that drove me wild. That had me throwing myself on her.

There were no more words between us. Only the moment. Only our two bodies coming together. This was a pleasure that I needed, and I hadn’t realized how much I needed a roll with a lowborn noble until a cocky and beautiful one appeared ready to fulfill my every desire.

I pressed my lips against hers. Pressed my body against hers and a supernova of pleasure traveled out from that point up through the rest of my body.

Ancestors above and below was this amazing. Her hands roamed over me with confidence. As though it didn’t matter to her that I was the crown princess. Other women I’d been with were hesitant. They seemed afraid that they would hurt me, or afraid they would do something to displease the princess and be punished as a result.

None of them realized that they were doing the very thing they hoped to avoid by being so hesitant. Though none of them had ever been punished for displeasing me in the sleeping chamber.

I wasn’t mother.

She reached up and put her hands at the spot where the dress barely preserved my modesty. I never understood why intelligent creatures seemed so intent on protecting that modesty, but I had to admit that it did seem to add spice to the mating dance.

I suppose some of the most fun I’d had were from visitors to some of the more reserved and buttoned up worlds out there. I’d found that there was something about species that came from a more repressed society that made them absolutely wild once they broke through that repression.

It added spice now as she tore at me and the dress split down the middle. I looked down with wide eyes. This dress cost more than several planetary systems thrown together and she ripped it to tatters as though it was nothing.

My hands were on her dress uniform in a moment, pawing and tearing at her in turn. I had to have her.

She laughed at my eagerness, and if anything that drove me to greater heights of passion. That was a laugh that said she was the one in control. That she was amused at how turned on I was, though her own eagerness showed me that amusement was the least of the emotions she felt.

“Help me,” I asked.

She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sorry Seleya, I didn’t quite hear that.”

I growled, but this was all part of the game. Who was I to deny this lowborn when her game was so distracting and delicious?

“Please,” I said, adding a note of begging to my voice.

Oh my was that a turn on. I never begged. I was the crown princess. And yet I was willing to beg for this woman. Willing to do whatever she wanted to have her. I’d never lost control like this before, and I loved it.

“Please what?” she asked.

“Please take me,” I said, the words barely a whisper.

That was what she needed to hear. She rolled over until she was floating on top of me as I was pressed down against the invisible cushion.

Her eyes ran up and down my body and once more I shivered. That seemed to be a common reaction for me with this woman, and yet I couldn’t deny it. I needed this.

And as she slowly started working at the buttons on her dress uniform it looked like I was going to get my wish.

12

Flynn

I stared down at Seleya. The woman truly was beautiful. Easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever bedded, and believe me I’d been with a lot since I was abducted from earth by a slaver who’d realized that human women were very close to the Selevas beauty standard with a skin color that would make us exotic on the usual markets.

It was a lucky thing for earth that slaver wound up getting himself killed very shortly after arriving at Darkpoint and before he could let the galaxies know about the treasure trove of flesh earth represented. Though honestly it didn’t take much luck for me to shove a plasma blaster up what passed for an ass on his species and pull the trigger.

There’d be none of that here tonight though.

I looked up at the crown adorning the top of her head. I wondered if she even realized she’d left that on the entire time? It had been fascinating to watch it as her body writhed in pleasure beneath me.

The crystals had actually seemed to pulse in time with her pleasure. I knew it had to be my imagination, but there at the end with the whole room shaking under her screams those lights had seemed almost blinding.

I stared at the crystals. At the object of so many years of preparation. I recalled the first time I ever saw a video of the things when I was newly arrived on Darkpoint and decided that one day they would be mine.

At least they would be mine for as long as it took for me to find a buyer.

Now that I was here in the moment, now that I was on the verge of fulfilling that desire that had taken me when I was first introduced to the wider civilized galaxies, I was having difficulty actually going through with it.

I looked to Seleya. Ran my eyes over her body. She was perfect. That had been the single most perfect joining of bodies I’d ever felt, and it had nothing to do with that joining being the thing that would result in the culmination of my life as a professional rogue.

That body and how I was starting to feel about the beautiful princess was dangerous. Very dangerous. Not the sort of danger I’d expected when I started this job, but even worse in many ways.

I’m not saying it was love at first sight or anything like that. I didn’t believe in ridiculous crap like that outside of cheesy romance novels and movies where that sort of thing was sort of accepted with a wink and a nudge.

But she was intriguing. There was a strength to her I hadn’t expected from the Selevas royalty. Something that told me there was a damn good reason they’d been in control of the civilized galaxies for so long.

Though there was none of that hardness to her now.

I sighed. She slept now. So peaceful. I knew what needed to be done even if I was reluctant to do it. Even if suddenly there was a very real part of me that screamed out that it was the wrong thing to do.

It might be the wrong thing to do, but my entire career was based on doing the wrong thing. There was no reason to stop now.

Besides, who was I trying to kid with that line of thinking? It’s not like I had any future with this woman. She’d used me for a moment’s pleasure. A roll with a lowborn. I laughed as I thought of the surprise she’d have if she realized who she’d truly been with.

Yes, she’d used me for her pleasure and now it was time for me to return the favor. There was no future for the two of us because of who she was. Because of who I was.

So while I did what I always do with a little reluctance, I still did what I always do. I brushed my hands reverently against the crown princess jewels still stuck in her hair.

I always thought this would do more for me, but the moment didn’t come close to brushing my hands against the crown princess. Odd how priorities could change in an instant.

Though they hadn’t changed to the point that I wasn’t going to do what I came here to do. Slowly, delicately, gently so as to not wake her from her slumber, I pulled the crown off of her head.

She shifted just a little and terror clenched at my stomach, but then she rolled over with a smile which gave me an unobstructed view of her distracting beauty.

I drank it in. This was a rare sight that I was sure few had enjoyed. It would likely become a rarer sight when she realized what had happened here this evening, but that wouldn’t be my problem.

It wasn’t like there was a chance for us. I felt a surprising pang of regret at that thought, but now wasn’t the time for idle fantasies about what never could have been.

No, now was the time to make my exit.

I stood and quickly pulled my clothes on. Sketched a slight bow to the princess.

“This was far more fun than I’d ever hoped for your worship,” I said, then headed for the exit.

I ran into my first bit of trouble when I tried to exit the same way I came in. Unfortunately it seemed the localized wormhole or fold in spacetime or whatever it was they did to give the princess the ability to get from her balcony to her room without the inconvenience of a long walk was attuned to her and her alone.

I looked up and around. There were large windows running all over the place, but I knew from my studies that the princess’s room was near the top of the palace and there wasn’t an easy way to get out of there unless I had Keva come along to do a pickup.

Which was something I wanted to avoid if at all possible. That would attract the sort of attention I was trying to avoid. The Fortune Found would be shot down before she could get close enough to pick me up.

I turned back to the princess, and an idea occurred to me. If this thing was attuned specifically to her then there really was only one way I could make my escape.

I just hoped she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of it. That would make things awkward.

I hefted her over my shoulder. She was surprisingly light. Surprisingly delicate.

“Trust me your worship, this hurts my back far less than it’s going to hurt your ego if someone finds us like this,” I said.

No response but a loud snore. Tough crowd. Then again this was the one time I was happy to have a tough crowd. If she was a light sleeper this would’ve all been over in an instant.

And of course that was a lie. If the palace guards or the Selevas military found me in a compromising position with the crown princess then things would get very hairy indeed for yours truly very quickly. I didn’t have any illusions that even a talented pirate such as myself would be able to talk herself out of that one.

I passed through the door to her balcony. It still boggled my mind that they would bend spacetime in a localized fashion like that, inside a gravity well no less, so she wouldn’t have to walk however long it took to get from the ballroom balcony to her own room.

Not to mention I’d heard the usual horror stories about fold space collapsing at bad times out in space. Like when a ship was in the middle of going through the fold. The end results of one of those collapses weren’t pretty when it happened to a massive space vessel, and I didn’t want to think about what it would do to yours truly and my soft easily squished flesh.

So it was with no small measure of relief that I stepped through to the other side. That relief lasted until the moment I came face to face with a squad of palace guards who were doing their best to swarm the balcony, though there weren’t nearly enough of them and the balcony was far too large for them to succeed.

Okay then. They’d disabled the security to the balcony, but not whatever lock kept her royal highness from being the only person to use that door to her room. Or maybe her royal highness was the only one who could take her cute ass, and friends apparently, through that door.

They all turned. Noticed the crown princess tossed over my shoulder like a sack of rations. Their hands moved to the weapons at their sides or slung over their backs as their expressions darkened.

Shit. I had to think fast. Luckily that was one of the specialties that’d kept me alive for so long in this business.

13

Flynn

“I’m so glad I found you!” I hissed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the princess. You need to call medical personnel immediately!”

That stopped them from pulling their weapons, though a couple of them did keep their hands on those weapons. Well it was better than shooting me, at least.

Though I got the feeling the only reason they weren’t shooting me was because I had the crown princess slung over my shoulder. Something told me none of those guards wanted to be the one to tell the queen they’d accidentally shot her daughter in the process of trying to save her.

Plus she was still covered in the tattered remains of that dress that consisted of Torvolian power gem chips. Torvolian power gems didn’t like being introduced to things like plasma bolts, and if any of them were stupid enough to fire on me and the princess they risked blowing up a good chunk of the palace along with Seleya’s modesty.

That was one hell of a security flaw in this whole place, come to think of it.

The princess stirred and I cringed, but I tried my best not to let that show to the guards. The last thing I needed was for her to wake up and realize she wasn’t wearing her crown jewels any longer. Or that she was in front of the guards with the tatters of a dress I’d ripped apart showing off a lot more of her than she probably would’ve liked.

I was just thankful to the stars above and the great merging supermassive black holes that I’d thought to stuff the Heiress Jewels in my pocket.

As it was they burned there and I worried the guards would notice their glow and blast me, but none of them made any move. For now. Which was good since blasting those would take out a good chunk of the city along with the palace.

“Who are you?” one at the front with an impressive number of rank insignias on his chest barked. “What are you doing with the crown princess?”

“That’s not important,” I said. “What’s important is something happened and she passed out and I don’t know what’s wrong!”

I tried to put the proper amount of worry into my voice. After all, this was the crown princess we were talking about. I was supposed to be concerned about her wellbeing as a loyal subject. Or maybe they thought I was concerned because she’d passed out while she was in my presence and that was more than enough to get someone executed if the queen was in the wrong sort of mood.

From what I’d gathered the queen was in the wrong sort of mood an awful lot.

That went both ways though, and they had to know that. If they were the ones who didn’t act fast enough when there was truly something wrong with the crown princess then the queen wouldn’t hesitate to toss them in the agony booth on their way to the disintegrator either.

I had to distract them. So I slung the princess around and gently laid her on the ground. The guards clustered in around her as one of them pulled out a commlink and started talking into it.

This was it. This was the moment. They were all distracted by the crown princess and there’d never be another time like this. Any moment now one of them would turn around and politely ask me to stay, and if I tried to go then they’d politely point their weapons at me to encourage me to stay.

I needed to get the hell out of here before anything like that happened.

I slowly edged my way towards the exit into the ballroom proper. Once I was out there I could blend into the crowd and make my way back to the ship. Just a few more steps and I was in the clear. Just a few more and…

I could hardly believe it when it worked. The guards were so preoccupied with her royal highness, probably because they knew their lives depended on it, that they didn’t give another thought to me.

Weird. I’d totally expected one of them to turn and see me trying to exit, stage left, at the last moment. That was how it would happen in a movie.

Not that I was knocking it if the universe was going to do me a solid.

Of course that meant they’d be in a world of trouble when the queen realized they had the person who’d stolen the crown jewels right from her daughter’s head and they hadn’t detained me, but that wasn’t my problem. Maybe “saving” the crown princess would be enough to grant them clemency.

Where “clemency” was defined as being exiled to some lovely asteroid mine on the outer reaches of the known galaxies to live out the rest of their unpleasant days.

I stepped into the crowd proper, but there was a quickness to my step. After all, I was still on a timer here. The princess hadn’t really passed out. She’d merely fallen into a restful sleep after yours truly gave her the time of her life.

The time of my life too, if I was being perfectly honest. It was enough to make an honest pirate regret that life of piracy that would keep me from being with a woman like that long term.

Then again if it weren’t for the life of piracy I never would’ve come in contact with that woman in the first place. The lifestyle was full of tradeoffs. Not to mention with the fortune I was about to enjoy I could find plenty of fun out in whatever dwarf galaxy I ended up buying and heavily fortifying to make sure the Selevas could never get to me.

I turned my comm back on and immediately Keva was there in my ear. Of course she’d be waiting by a console for the moment I rejoined the commlink. She’d probably been grinding her teeth the entire time, too, coming up with things to yell at me when I turned the comms back on.

“So are you going to tell me where they hell you’ve been for the past hour?” she asked, her voice more than annoyed.

“Enjoying a little alone time with her majesty,” I said, my voice low. I didn’t want someone in the crowd to overhear me and get the wrong idea.

Or really the right idea. Anyone getting the right idea about why I was slinking through the crowd would be deadly for yours truly.

“Are you serious? Do you have them?”

I felt the small bulge in my pocket to be sure the jewels were still there. Just a quick pat. Again, I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea. I didn’t want to do anything that would stick out in their minds, for that matter.

“The package is being delivered,” I said. “But you probably want to make sure the ship is spooled up and ready to blast off. Like we need to be ready to slip into fold space as soon as we leave the planet’s atmosphere.”

“Why?” Keva asked.

“Because I have a feeling we’re about to be at the center of one hell of an interstellar incident,” I said.

“What did you do Flynn?” Keva asked, her voice irritated. I smiled. Everything was right with the galaxy if we were on a job and Keva was irritated with me.

The howl of sirens off in the distance was almost a welcome distraction. I’d made my way through the ballroom while Keva was doing her irritated routine and down to the front steps.

The guards there were busy talking into their commlinks. Clearly something was up, and I figured it was only a matter of moments before that something had them shutting off access to the palace. Which meant it was a good thing I’d been making double time towards the exit.

Guests all stared up into the sky where searchlights pierced the night, blotting out what few stars could be seen from this location with all the light pollution from the city and no special forcefield to give a view to eternity like what’d been on offer up on her worship’s balcony.

“I see you’ve been busy,” Keva said.

“Exactly,” I said, stepping off into the plaza in front of the palace where a crowd was milling about. The guards on the palace steps pulled their weapons out and pointed them at the people in that plaza to keep them away from the palace even as they pointed them at the guests on the steps above to keep them from leaving.

I could have laughed. They were pointing their weapons in the wrong damn direction, but again that was their problem. Not mine.

“You should probably get to work on those engines,” I said. “We have however long it takes for the Selevas to scramble their defenses to get the hell out of here. Something tells me they’re going to be shutting down traffic to the planet and then the system very soon. I’ll be back at the ship shortly.”

“You always knew how to make an exit,” Keva said.

“That I do,” I said.

I broke into a run along with the rest of the crowd who seemed to realize now was a good time for them to be anywhere but in front of the palace with guards pointing weapons at them.

Probably a good idea, all things considered.

14

Seleya

I didn’t feel so hot as I woke up. Confusion washed over me. I stared up at a royal guard.

Why was I staring up at a royal guard? After all, I’d just spent the most delicious time of my life with that incredible woman from one of the outlying dwarf galaxies. An incredible woman who was about to have her life changed in ways she couldn’t have imagined when she came out here.

Of course she didn’t know that, couldn’t know that, but it would make the surprise all the more delicious when she realized just how much her life was about to change. Revas might think he’d maneuvered me, mother might think she’d found a way to get rid of me, but if she was going to give her consent to have me married off to a minor noble then I would happily take the letter of that arrangement and make an end run around its spirit.

Mother might even be happy about the arrangement. It would get me out of her hair, after all, and out of the crosshairs of anyone looking to take out the heir. Someone else could have that dubious honor.

I didn’t care about any of that, though, as long as I had that incredible woman and her skilled body working for me whenever I wanted it.

I frowned. I didn’t see her anywhere. Only those guards standing around me. Guards who shouldn’t be in my rooms.

That was another problem. It didn’t look like I was in my rooms. It seemed impossible, but it looked as though I was back on the balcony.

“What are you doing here?” I snapped at the guard hovering in my vision. A lieutenant by his rank insignia and the slightly pompous way he carried himself. He had the look of lower officers everywhere who had just enough authority to feel important but not enough real authority to go through life unquestioned.

“Your majesty,” he said, licking his lips. He was obviously nervous in my presence. Nothing at all like my missing lover. He was also not looking down with such effort that it made me wonder why.

I looked down. Blushed as I remembered the way Lady Erol had torn at my dress leaving it in tatters. Tatters that did nothing to cover me.

It wasn’t that I was partially nude that bothered me so much as I was partially nude in front of the guards. I’d never hear the end of this scandal, damn it.

“Where is my… friend?” I asked, not wanting to let on exactly what we’d done. Not yet. “I will be very cross if it turns out you’ve detained her.”

The guard’s eyes went wide and he looked up and around. If anything my frown deepened. No doubt they had detained her and now they were terrified that I would discover the fact and make things go very badly for them.

Very badly indeed.

“She’s not here sir,” someone said just outside my vision.

The lieutenant cursed. My eyes went wide. I was astonished that he would dare to use that kind of language in front of me, but it also started a worry deep inside me. Something was very wrong about all of this.

I sat up. Used the railing from the balcony to pull myself up. Stared at each of the guards in turn. None of them would meet my gaze. Even the lieutenant, so full of his own self-importance, refused to meet my eyes.

“What is going on here?” I asked. “Report.”

“We were sent out here when the queen asked after you, your majesty,” the lieutenant said. “We had to lower the security field when it was reported that you were last seen coming out here, and the alarm was raised when we realized…”

I held up a hand to stop him. Simply raising a finger was enough to send someone to their death, though I wasn’t nearly as fond of that as mother was. Raising my entire hand was enough to terrify all of them into silence.

There was still something wrong though. That lieutenant still refused to meet my gaze. He kept glancing up instead. As though he was looking at something he didn’t care for on my head, and trying very hard not to look like he was looking at me.

My head. Something was off there as well. My eyes widened as I realized what he was looking at.

Or, rather, what he wasn’t looking at.

My hand shot to the spot where a stylist had spent entirely too much time molding my hair around the Heiress Jewels. That hair was in disarray now, and the jewels were nowhere to be found.

“Sound the alarm,” I said. “Highest priority. You’re on the lookout for a woman dressed like minor nobility from the outlying dwarf galaxies. No traffic is to take off or leave from the city. Nothing is to leave the world or the system until the pirate is discovered.”

I rattled off the orders without thinking. Mother wouldn’t be happy if she discovered the Heiress Jewels were missing, but this wasn’t something that could be covered up either. Even liquidating this squad of guards wouldn’t keep it a secret for long, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that to these men simply for doing their jobs.

“Your majesty,” the lieutenant said, pulling up his commlink.

A moment later alarms sounded all around the city and spotlights went up. The spotlights were maybe a bit excessive considering there were tracking systems that would prevent anyone from leaving the city if we didn’t want them to, and considering my orders had covered the entire system that meant there was a lot of traffic that had just been grounded.

Some would get through, to be sure. It would take some time for the orders to go out to everyone, but the important thing is the order was given. That rogue couldn’t outrun our communications, that was for sure.

This would mean a hit to commerce that was fabulously expensive, but it would be worth it to find those jewels. They were worth more than whatever was lost by bringing all traffic in the home system to a halt.

Fury filled me as the enormity of what had happened hit me.

What little freedom I’d enjoyed was at an end. After this mother would never let me come out on the balcony on my own. She’d probably remove what little privacy I enjoyed. I let out a terrible roar of frustration and annoyance.

The guards shied away from me. They had to know that I could easily destroy them if I so desired. I didn’t have mother’s impunity, but they likely knew that a royal in a bad mood wasn’t a good thing to be around.

Especially when their deaths would likely be forgiven.

As I roared starfighters took to the skies. They wouldn’t necessarily be searching, but they were a reminder to any thief who’d gone to ground that we weren’t going to rest until they were found. I smiled as I imagined the terror she must be feeling right about now knowing that the full fury of the Selevas royal family was searching for her.

It must be terrifying indeed. I knew the thought of mother bringing the full fury down on me was enough to make me want to find that woman.

I wanted to be with those starfighters. I was one of the best pilots on the planet, and I needed to fly. I needed to find this woman who’d taken advantage of me. Who’d seduced me and used me and stolen from me and tossed me to the side when I was no longer of any use to her.

I wanted to find her and tear him limb from limb, but blowing her and her ship out of the sky would have to be good enough. She might’ve played at being more powerful when we were having our fun, but I would show her what it meant to face the full fury of a member of the royal family, the heir to the throne no less, in her fury.

I tapped at a control panel on the wall leading into the ballroom. It wouldn’t do to go through the ballroom, mother was in there and would stop me, but I had other options available to me.

“Your majesty,” the lieutenant said, hesitating as though he knew he was taking his life into his hands by daring to bother me.

“No time,” I said, finishing the sequence.

Beside me the door that had led to my chambers shifted. It showed a hangar where people were throwing on their uniforms and running to and fro. One of the highest alerts had just been issued, after all, and that meant anyone who had the ability to fight would very shortly be in the air.

I would get there first though. I strode through the fold space door attuned so that only I could use it and found myself next to my starfighter. The crew blinked in surprise, but jumped into action as I held my hands out and made it clear I was ready for them.

Moments later I was in the cockpit and in my flight suit rather than that tattered Torvolian chips dress. No one down here was asking questions of the crown princess.

Of course that would change very soon, after everything got out, but for this moment I was still in control. For this moment I could still call the shots and feel the thrill of wrapping my hands around the flight stick as I prepared for launch.

I didn’t bother to enter into the regular flight line. There was no point. As soon as I was ready to go and my crew were clear I rose on antigravity and headed for the exit. Other ships that were in the process of taking off for their own launches were instructed by their slave circuits to stay well away from a royal craft making an exit.

I smiled a thin smile. This might very well be the last time I was able to use that sort of authority. No, after all this mother was going to be furious, and I hated to think what she would do to me.

Taking away privileges that allowed me to do something like this would be the least of my problems, but for now I could hunt. For now I would be among the first starfighters launching over the city.

Good. I needed to destroy something. Preferably that pirate who thought to defy me.

There was no question that she would still be in the city. Once we shut transportation off planet down there was no chance anyone could leave the world without express permission, which they weren’t going to get in a situation like this.

Well it was time for me to deal out my own brand of justice. After all, it would be some time before I was allowed out to fly my starfighter after this. Mother was going to keep me confined to the palace until she died and I was married off or killed for the shame of what I’d allowed to happen tonight.

Such was the level of shame I’d endure for losing the Heiress Jewels. Jewels that had been in our family for thousands of years. Since well before we even realized the potential and only kept Torvolian power gems around because they glowed and looked pretty.

I flew low over the city and people down there ran in terror. I would’ve smiled if I wasn’t so furious.

I wasn’t certain what I was looking for. The only certainty I had was I would know it when I saw it. On a hunch I swept out over the outlying parts of the royal city, which was a small subset of the continent sprawling city.

Even saying the city sprawled a continent wasn’t entirely correct since the city kept going. It merely went from being anchored in the ground to floating on massive antigrav platforms hovering above the ocean. There wasn’t a millimeter of space on the home world that wasn’t given over to the royal family and the administration of our galaxies spanning empire.

A warning beeped in the bottom corner of my controls. A warning that told citizens they needed to be inside if they knew what was good for them. That anyone who was out and about would be under suspicion. Especially if they were flying.

Of course I could ignore that warning since I was the one who’d given the order for it to be broadcast in the first place.

That was the key. Look for anyone who was trying to make an escape even though the planet was on lockdown. Anyone who was brazen enough to steal the Heiress Jewels would also be brazen enough to attempt an escape in contradiction of royal decree.

No sooner had that occurred to me than I saw what I was looking for. Off in the distance, between the signals from all the starfighters quickly swarming the skies, was the power signature of an old style freighter clawing for the sky. A freighter that was putting out entirely too much power given its condition.

That had to be her ship. The woman who’d seduced me. Used me. Taken advantage of me and robbed me of one of my most prized possessions.

Not the jewels. My freedom.

I fired several plasma blasts that lit the city below. Anyone looking up would have seen an impressive sight indeed. The blasts slammed into the ship and it rocked under the impact.

Good. I was going to make her pay for what she’d done to me. I was going to disable that ship, recover the gems, and see her brought to the kind of justice only the Selevas could mete out before this was all done!

15

Flynn

“I don’t know what you did to piss her off but she’s on the warpath now!” Keva shouted. “And we’re loaded down with some Torvolian power gems that will make one hell of a boom if she hits us!”

“She’s not looking to blow us out of the skies,” I muttered. “She’s smart enough to know blowing those gems will take a good chunk of the planet with them.”

At least I hoped her worship knew that. That she wasn’t so pissed off that she didn’t care.

Keva hunched over her control panel. The ship lurched to the side and dropped down. I looked at the monitor on my chair and saw heat indicators rising all around the ship.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

“It’s exactly what you think it is,” Keva said. “The bleeding royal princess of the gravity-forsaken Selevas royal family is coming at us and blasting us with her heavily modified starfighter!”

I couldn’t help a slight smile. Keva seemed to sense what I’d be thinking in response and shot me a warning glare.

She knew exactly what I’d done to deserve this. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and boy had her worship been scorned tonight. I looked down at the glittering Torvolian gems still clutched in my hand.

Enough to buy a small galaxy. Enough to set all of us up for the rest of our natural lives, and those would be very long natural lives considering all the longevity modern medicine could buy a carbon-based lifeform in the known galaxies.

Assuming we could make it out of our current predicament.

“Does someone want to tell me what in the merging black holes is going on up there?” Rvannk shouted from the engine room.

“A little busy,” Keva said, her voice tense.

“I’m taking the ship,” I said, leaning forward and activating my controls.

“Captain’s ship,” Keva said as she pulled her hands away from her own stick.

I banked the ship around and went right at her royal highness with all the speed we could muster in atmosphere. Which was a considerable amount of speed for something that looked like an ancient freighter that should barely be able to fly.

I’d gotten the idea of heavily modifying a freighter from a favorite rogue of mine who’d warned someone in a situation very like this not to get too cocky. Well that was just tough, because it was time to do something dangerous.

Walk softly and carry a lot of modifications that made your giant freighter’s big ass handle better than a fighter. That was my motto.

“Are you crazy?” Keva shouted. “You’re angling right for the angry royal in a tricked out Selevas starfighter trying her best to kill us!”

“What’s she doing? What was that?” Rvannk shouted through the comm.

I didn’t respond to either of them. There was a reason I was the one in command and they were the ones who worked for me. I took the risks, and right now I figured this was worth it.

“This is not good,” Keva breathed beside me.

I looked to her for a moment. She was staring, eyes wide, through the window. I looked up and saw the princess zoom past us close enough that I didn’t need instruments to see her. A glow gathered at the tips of her plasma cannons. It would only be moments before she hit us with another broadside.

Except she didn’t. Sure she fired, but I had no intention of being where those plasma blasts were going to be by the time they got to where she thought I was supposed to be. I grinned as I poured on the speed.

I could only imagine the surprise registering right about now. The sure knowledge that my little freighter was moving faster than it had any business moving. She wouldn’t be the first person trying to kill me who’d been surprised, and I doubted she’d be the last.

At least until I reach the Selevas separatists to sell these damned gems and be done with this life forever.

I banked at the last moment as she passed close to us. The bad news? I didn’t bank fast enough to avoid a close in shot. I cursed. Most pilots wouldn’t be good enough to adjust that fast and get off a shot, but she was good in addition to being beautiful and fabulously wealthy.

Damn. It really was a pity I wasn’t going to have a chance to pursue anything with this girl, because she was something. I could respect the hell out of someone who could make a shot like that.

The Fortune Found rocked under the impact. Warning lights went off all around us. I felt added drag on the freighter which already didn’t handle all that well in atmosphere, which meant some of the shielding I’d added to make what was essentially a giant hunk of metal that was all planes and corners and hard edges handle better in the atmosphere were starting to go.

Damn.

“Anything critical hit?” I asked.

“Where do you want me to start?” Rvannk’s voice piped through the comm.

“Start with anything that’s going to keep us from getting out of this planet’s gravity well and into deep space,” I said through gritted teeth. “From there let’s move on to anything that’ll keep us from going into fold space and making a jump to another system.”

I put the ship into a steep dive. It seemed counterintuitive, but there was a starfighter attached to my ass getting ready to fire on us again. Not good. I needed to shake her before she broke through something keeping us alive rather than something that made the ship handle a little better than she should.

I twisted the ship around, but that only shifted the resistance while we still had a starfighter on our ass. This was going to be difficult. Her royal highness was doing her best to rip my ship apart around me.

“Rvannk, can you give us power to some of the exterior turrets?”

“Well sure, but… You can’t be serious.”

“I’m totally serious,” I said.

“Now listen here Flynn,” he said. “Stealing is one thing, but assassination?”

“Would you just get me those damned turrets?” I snapped.

I glanced to Keva. She’d gone pale as she looked out to the city below. At the last moment, just before we smacked into the top level of very tall buildings, I pulled the ship up. It still wasn’t enough to get rid of the princess even though that should have been enough to dislodge all but the most skilled of Selevas pilots.

It would appear that her worship was better at this than I ever would’ve imagined.

Unfortunately we’d just gone up against perhaps the second most dangerous Selevas in the entire galaxy. The first was still down in the palace, at least.

“I’ve transferred power from the fold space drive to the turrets,” Rvannk said. “There’s a chance you’re going to blow out our ability to enter fold space or jump between systems if you use them, but…”

“Better alive in this system without a royal brat clinging to our ship than dead on the planet surface,” I said.

That was one thing I loved about this crew. They knew what the odds were. They also knew that desperate odds had gotten us out of scrapes more often than not, so it was time to take a gamble.

“Fire up the turrets and give the princess a royal welcome,” I said.

“Are you serious?” Keva asked.

“I don’t have time to fly this ship, fire the turrets, and convince you to do something that might require a half second’s notice, so maybe you could help me out?” I said.

“Got it,” Keva said.

I heard a familiar humming through the ship followed by a loud thunk as the turrets came out of their hiding places. That was another surprise we weren’t supposed to have on this ship.

Too bad.

The ship rocked under something powerful. I felt an explosion and more warning lights went off on the panel, but nothing that looked like it was critical. Sure we’d lost one of the turrets, but that wasn’t something that kept the ship running.

Except in cases where we were trying to blow something up that was trying to keep the ship from running.

“Any idea what happened there?” I asked.

Keva slammed her thumb down on a button and I felt the odd sensation of the turrets going off in the atmosphere. I was used to compensating for them in a vacuum. This was different, to say the least.

“Looks like our friend tried to take out one of the obvious turrets. Also looks like she didn’t see the one hiding behind the ventral exhaust,” Keva said.

“Did we hit?”

“Hard to tell, but she’s peeled off,” Keva said.

I looked at damage control again and then pulled up an exterior view from behind the ship. Sure enough there was a starfighter with some charring tumbling down towards the city below.

I turned off the display. The important thing was we’d gotten away from her. She’d be fine. She was a tough girl, and the emergency antigrav she no doubt had built into that thing wouldn’t have any trouble with a fall from this height.

“We’re heading into the upper atmosphere. I don’t care what the Selevas authorities have to say about it. Redirect all power to the engines and shielding,” I said. “Crazed princesses aren’t the only thing we’re going to have to worry about as we make our escape.”

“On it,” Rvannk said.

I moved the ship up, but sure enough I felt the ship lurch again. For a terrified moment I worried her royal highness might’ve recovered from her fall and decided to give us more trouble, but after a moment I realized the sensation was comfortingly familiar.

At least as comforting as it could be when someone is shooting at you.

“Looks like we have company from the locals. More starfighters,” Keva said. “Want me to fire on them?”

“No,” I said, pulling the ship into a sharp climb and punching the engines for everything they were worth, and that was a lot. “Discretion is the better part of valor. Especially when you have an entire planet coming after you.”

“Running scared. Got it,” Keva said.

I hit her with an irritated glare, but she stared at me with a grin on her face. I didn’t have time to chastise her for being a smartass in the middle of combat. I was too busy trying to keep us alive.

Blessedly the dull pink caused by the planet-spanning imperial city reflecting off of the atmosphere turned to a deeper darkness and more and more stars became visible as we moved out of the atmosphere and into the relative safety of space.

Relative being the key word there.

“How long until we make it to a safe departure point?” I asked, still dipping and weaving and doing my best to avoid the fighters on our tail.

At least we were lucky. We only had one wing of fighters following us. That meant they hadn’t had a chance to scramble more, and the ones who were on us right now were the only ones who’d be able to catch up to us from the planet.

Though of course the Selevas would have more fighter wings hiding out there in the system. And in most other systems in the civilized galaxies, for that matter.

“Calculating now,” Keva said. “But… Queen’s dangling ballsack!”

I eyed her sideways. An interesting curse, and the kind that could get you killed for saying it around the wrong Selevas authorities. Though that wasn’t much of an issue considering the following we had right now.

“Anything out there I’d want to know about?” I asked.

“Well a familiar Levonian battle yacht just came out of fold space at the jump point we were planning on using and they’re hovering there with intent,” Keva said. “Not to mention the Selevas are scrambling, though whether that’s for us or for a Levonian battlecruiser hopping into the system is anyone’s guess.”

“Yeah, I’m willing to be that’s for us,” I said. “They know the Levonians are on their side. We’re about to get double teamed in the worst possible way.”

I looked frantically at all the instruments in front of me for some sign that what she was saying wasn’t true. That was just what I needed right now. Pursued by the first and second most powerful royal families in the civilized galaxies. How the hell had the Levonians even tracked us here?

Thankfully a glance at the instruments showed that it wasn’t true. I glared at Keva all over again.

“Not funny,” I said.

“Yeah, well it wasn’t funny when you went dark on the comms down there, so I figure that makes us even,” she replied.

I rolled my eyes. I was going to pay for that forever. Or at least for as long as it took for us to sell the power crystals and part as very wealthy friends.

Yeah, that would be nice.

Of course there were still Selevas fighters scrambling all through the system and screaming towards us as fast as they could in fold space. But I had a moment to breathe and take stock of our situation. I looked down at the readout. What I saw there wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the end of the world either.

“Problem?” Keva said.

“We’re going to have to make a stop off somewhere where we can do some repairs. There’s no way we’re going to make it out of this local cluster with the damage her royal highness did to the ship.”

“You always knew how to make an impression on the ladies,” Keva said with a frown. “And the only place we can go to repair is Darkpoint.”

She didn’t sound happy about that. I wasn’t either.

“I know,” I said. “I don’t like going back there any more than you do.”

“I hate that place,” Keva said. “I feel like the only reason we got out of there the first time was because your old flame couldn’t figure out exactly what we were pulling.”

“It’s still the only spot we can make repairs,” I said. “We’ll just slip in and slip out before word of all this gets to them.”

“We’re going to die there,” Keva said. “I don’t want to die on fucking Darkpoint.”

“We’re not dying,” I said.

I looked down at the display that showed the location of all shipping in the system. One advantage of using fold space to move around was we could see everything mostly in real time by using fold space sensors. None of that nasty relativistic stuff from the bad old days when you had to hope you saw something before it blue shifted right on top of you.

“This is what happens when you mix business and pleasure,” Keva growled.

“My dear Keva. By now you should know that for me there’s no difference between the two.”

I cracked my knuckles. It was time to do some fancy flying and get the hell away from our hot pursuit so we could sneak through the jump point that led to Darkpoint.

16

Seleya

I felt the shame of my failure as I reached the landing platform. Several guards stepped forward with intent, as though they’d been given orders to bring me in.

A glower in their direction followed by my hand casually resting on a plasma pistol at my side as I stepped out of the cockpit was enough to disabuse all of them of the notion that they had any chance of taking me in. I had no intention of going quietly.

I didn’t care if it was likely that mother was the one who gave the order. She could order them to order me around all she wanted and it wouldn’t change the fact that I was still the crown princess and they were merely servants.

Armed servants, to be sure, but servants nonetheless.

Then someone else stepped out onto the platform and I immediately fell to the floor.

Mother. That she was out here rather than back at the ball was proof enough that I was in it deep. I never would have imagined in a thousand rotations around our star that she would bring herself out to meet me directly.

I felt the clicking as she approached. Mother was always a fan of heels so high that I suspected she placed small antigrav generators in them to maintain her balance.

Then she stopped, but I didn’t dare look up at her. All around I could hear others falling to the floor as they realized the queen was in their midst.

I waited for her to give me permission to rise. Some indication that I was a royal. That I was above acting like the commoners out here on the platform.

That permission never came. The shame of it burned deep inside me. This was the punishment for my failure. This was what she would do to me for allowing the gems to be stolen.

“My daughter,” mother said.

I didn’t look up at her. I knew it was a trap. I knew this was her way of making sure I still observed all the appropriate forms even in the depths of my shame. So I kept my eyes on the landing platform.

“We are disappointed enough in you for engaging in a dalliance with a lesser noble who turned out to be less even than that,” mother said. “But the shame of losing the Heiress Jewels, a symbol of the power of our people from long before I wrested the throne from my enemies, burns deeper than any shame I could feel at discovering that my daughter has shown herself to be a common whore.”

Every one of her words stung as though I’d been slapped in the face. Every word caused anger to stir deep inside me. A fire that I wanted to use to lash out. I wanted to burn her with that fire. To show her I was just as powerful as she was.

Only I knew that wasn’t the case. She was the most powerful creature in the known galaxies. No one dared oppose her. I didn’t dare oppose her.

To oppose mother was folly. That was surely death, as opposed to the mere high probability of death I faced now.

“What do you have to say for yourself, common whore?” mother asked.

It spoke volumes that she wasn’t bothering to censor herself in front of the commoners surrounding us. She wasn’t content with shaming me for my failure. She wanted the depth of my failure to be known far and wide.

I knew how gossip worked in the palace. I knew the tale of my humiliation would be spread throughout the city within a day. Throughout the local cluster within a week. Throughout the civilized galaxies in the span of a month.

It might take a few months for it to reach the outer galaxies that criminal claimed she was from, and by then my humiliation would be complete. The story of the princess who allowed herself to be seduced and robbed would be everywhere.

“Good. You know your place. I give you permission to look upon me and speak. Answer my question, whore,” mother said.

I looked up at her. I didn’t hesitate even though I worried that not hesitating might mean my death. I was furious with mother for doing this, and I was certain she would be able to see that fury burning deep in my eyes.

If she saw that fury she gave no indication. That didn’t mean she didn’t see it. Merely that she refused to comment. Instead she crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow.

I took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult. Perhaps the most difficult thing I’d done all evening. It would be made all the more difficult by the commoners standing around observing my shame.

“I am sorry mother,” I said. “I allowed myself to be…”

“You allowed yourself to give in to desires that are not yours to indulge in as the crown princess,” mother said.

A rich statement considering some of the strange desires it was rumored she indulged in regularly. Then again she was the ruler of the civilized galaxies and could do whatever she wanted. I wasn’t. Not yet. Not ever, after this. Any hope that she wouldn’t try to marry me off were gone with this shame.

“Now because of you I’m going to have to risk the lives of some of my best people to go out and fix the mess you’ve made.”

“Allow me to go on the search with them,” I said. “I want to track this rogue down. I want to make her pay for what she’s done to me!”

I was hissing by the time I finished. I burned with the desire to get revenge. Though at the same time I was ashamed to admit that I burned with the desire to see her again. To feel her. To ask her why she’d done what she did.

Even though that should have been obvious. Those jewels might be a trinket against the vast wealth our family held, but it was a fortune that could set up anyone else for multiple lifetimes. Multiple lifetimes they could easily afford if they found a buyer stupid enough to purchase something that would bring down the full fury of the Selevas on their heads.

I was surprised that no one had tried something like this before. Then again no one would be stupid enough to think they could pull off something like this.

The sharp look mother fixed on me was enough to tell me my pleas fell on deaf ears. She made a sharp cutting gesture and my breath caught.

Something new and terrible washed over me. Something I wasn't accustomed to. Something that was so different from anything I'd ever known before that for a moment I had trouble identifying exactly what the emotion was or where it was coming from.

Fear. And not the simple fear that normal commoners talk about in reference to mother. No, this was the horror of knowing a single gesture could revoke all of the protection I enjoyed in my status as crown princess.

There was one woman in the entirety of the known galaxies who could order me killed. At least legally speaking. There were plenty in the known galaxies who would order me killed without a second thought for the legalities if they wanted me dead. There were many who had tried if the tales from the security detail were to be believed.

Mother could do it legally though, and she just made the same gesture she made whenever she was frustrated with someone to the point of ordering their execution.

"Mother…" I said, and then I stopped.

What was there to say? That gesture had made it very clear she was considering my end, which had me considering my own end as well.

It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"You will be silent child," she said, her voice sounding both frustrated and annoyed.

It was an odd combination that I hardly ever heard. Any other time, any other person, and the source of that frustration and annoyance would have been dead before the conversation got to this point.

She looked down at me. Her eyes locked onto mine.

"You will return to your quarters,” she said. "I will decide what I want to do with you while you stew there and think about what you have done to yourself and the reputation of the royal family this night. You’ll consider yourself lucky if a marriage to Revas is the worst thing that happens to you, daughter.”

She made another gesture. A casual wiggling of her index finger. I was to be gone from her sight, and I needed to get out of that sight sooner rather than later.

I stood and smoothed out my dress. Through sheer force of will I didn’t look at the surrounding commoners who were there to witness my shame. I knew they would be thinking about how I'd fallen from favor. About how they couldn’t wait to get to some form of communication so they could spread gossip about this moment through the civilized galaxies.

Which is precisely what mother would expect them to do. The woman was a master manipulator. No doubt part of the reason why she’d remained in power for so long.

My mind wandered to other siblings of mine over the long years of mother's rule. How some of them had perished before their time. Actually a lot of them had perished before their time. That was sort of an occupational hazard of being part of the royal family.

Though the ones who perished before their time were the lucky ones. Some of the greatest advances in modern medical technology had supposedly been made by doctors working to keep members of the Selevas royal family alive so they could continue to be in good enough health to endure whatever torture mother wanted to send their way.

I mustered all of the dignity I could as I made my way down the landing platform. I felt every eye on me, but I kept my head held high.

I was a princess of the realm. The eldest. Who cares if being the first in line for the throne also meant I would be the first in line for any assassin? I didn't even care that those assassins would be growing more bold now that mother had shown her disfavor.

No, there was something far more troubling than mother's disfavor on my mind as I made the long walk back to my chambers. The chambers where all this had started.

That woman. That beautiful rakish scoundrel. She’d worked her way into my good graces. She’d taken advantage of me.

Sure she’d also given me the single most amazing night of my life in the process of taking advantage of me, but I told myself that wasn’t something I should be thinking of. I should be thinking of the disgrace, not how skilled she was in leading me to that disgrace.

I should hate her. I should want nothing to do with her. And yet I couldn't stop thinking about her. I couldn't get her out of my mind.

I suppressed an involuntary shiver. There were still plenty watching me as I made my way through the vast halls, and a shiver would be seen as a sign of weakness in a court where anyone with power was watched constantly for any sign for cracks appearing around the edge.

In a way a shiver at the thought of the woman who'd put me in this position was a sign of weakness.

As I reached my chambers and thought of what had happened here tonight something other than terror filled me. Fury. Desire. A terrible resolve to see her again.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to see her again so I could kiss her, or so I could blast her and her smarmy smile out of the skies.

Whatever the reason, I would hunt her down and I would find her. I didn't care what mother said. If I was already marked for potential death, or even worse for exile in the form of a marriage to Revas, then I might as well go out in a way of my choosing.

17

Flynn

"Would you look at that?” I said, staring at the star that was so bright that even the compensators were having trouble keeping up with it. "No wonder they never settled this place."

“I thought they never settled this place because all the habitable planets had been baked to nothing by the expanding star,” Keva said.

“Details,” I said. “The point remains this place is a horrible place to build a summer home. It’s no wonder the Selevas never bothered doing anything more than passing through here.”

“The fact that the jump point takes you out of the way of anything interesting probably didn’t hurt,” Keva muttered.

“Of course, but that’s what makes this place perfect for us,” I said. “Assuming we can get Tera’s permission for a layover.”

“That’s a big assumption there,” Keva groused.

“Come now Keva,” I said. “No need to be so snarky about all this.”

I deftly move the ship in between some of the rubble that made up this system. One of the things I’d quickly learned when I’d been abducted into this new life was there were very rarely situations where someone entered a rock field like, say, the one depicted in Empire Strikes Back or the old Wing Commander games.

Space was mind bogglingly big. Which meant anything floating out in space was usually so far from anything else that it was a miracle anything ever ran into anything else at all. Like the dinosaurs were really down on their luck the day the planets literally aligned to end their rule.

Darkpoint was different though. It was an astronomical anomaly. The place was lousy with the remains of planets that had knocked into one another recently because of the expanding star, at least on the galactic scale, and so there was plenty of space rubble to pilot around as we approached Darkpoint Station.

All this space rubble was happening in the blink of an eye on a cosmic scale, but that blink might last for a few million years which meant it was a blink that would be a navigation hazard for any spacefaring civilization using fold space jumps for the foreseeable future.

“If we’re not careful they’re going to shove a nuke right up our tailpipe,” Keva said.

I suppressed a grin. Keva had no idea what a tailpipe was. Internal combustion engines were so far in the past for her planet that they weren’t even in the mythological legends. That’d been an eye-opener, coming across civilizations so ancient and so technologically advanced that the internal combustion engine was a curiosity they learned about by observing other less advanced worlds and not something people outside of xenotechnological anthropology departments knew about.

"I doubt it," I said. "Atomics aren’t Tera’s style. When she comes after you she’s far more classy about it."

"You mean classy like the princess who nearly shot the ship out from under us?" Keva asked with a wry sarcastic twist to her voice and an even more twisted grin on her face. “Because it seems to me that dead is dead no matter how classy someone is while they’re killing you.”

"I'll ask you not to inquire too closely into my personal life thank you very much," I said with a lopsided grin of my own.

I couldn’t help it. What I’d done with the princess might’ve been rash and more than a little stupid, but damn had it been a hell of a lot of fun!

Keva let out a disgusted noise and looked over her readouts.

“They know we’re here,” she muttered. “So why aren’t they saying anything?”

I tried not to think about that as I kept my hands on the controls. Tera hadn’t exactly been happy to see us. In fact she’d pretty heavily insinuated that the last thing she wanted was me making another stop at Darkpoint.

Any port in a storm, though. Better to be here and take my chances with a former lover who sort of hated me, but it was a lingering hate from a long time ago, than to be back on Selevas Prime where I’d be dealing with a lover of a much more recent vintage whose hatred was also far more burning.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said, trying to sound cool and not sure I was doing a good job of it.

This wasn’t part of the plan. Sure I was pretty good at winging it, but at the same time it made me nervous when I was doing things that weren’t part of the plan.

“Yeah, nothing,” she said. “Just like you were only going to take a little harmless stroll into that ballroom and we wound up with the crown princess herself firing on our asses. A whole lot of nothing.”

I shrugged and grinned, trying to play off my nerves with bravado. That usually worked well enough.

"What can I say? There's crazy, and then there’s crazy stupid. Either way, we’re still alive. As long as we’re still alive there’s a chance. Even if we are in a tight spot right now.”

I looked at the readout that showed our situation and grimaced. To say we were in deep trouble was a charitable assessment of our current situation.

It wasn't pretty. That was for damn sure. There were several parts of the ship that were going to need to be completely overhauled if not outright replaced. I hadn’t had a chance to get a look at the outside, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the damage that crazy royal bitch had done to my baby when I did get out there.

The damage readout was a solid wall of red indicators that would’ve made my asshole pucker once upon a time. I felt marginally better knowing we were heading to Darkpoint which, for all that the place was run by an ex-girlfriend who’d made it clear she didn’t care for yours truly, still felt sort of like home.

As much as a place I’d been stranded on after being abducted by someone who’d been killed before he could sell me into slavery could feel like home. Maybe it was more of a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing, though even that didn’t make much sense in a galaxy where most living creatures had no idea what or where Stockholm even was.

Not to mention going to Darkpoint with our cargo was a risk. Sure that precious cargo was carefully stowed in a special part of the cargo hold that no scanner could penetrate, supposedly, but I wouldn’t put it past the pirates on Darkpoint to come up with some way around that.

Having a cargo hold that couldn’t be penetrated by any scanner didn't mean it couldn't be penetrated by high explosives or plasma weapons, after all. Somebody who really got suspicious could do a number on my beautiful baby and rip her apart in the interest of finding my precious cargo.

“I’d feel better about this if this was a regular pirate outpost and not a place being run by one of your numerous exes,” Keva groused. “Honestly. How you got around so much of the civilized galaxies after being dragged off your backwater is beyond me.”

I hit her with my best grin. The kind of grin that had seduced queens and princesses. A princess who outranked all but one queen in the known galaxies, I might add.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe part of the reason we keep conveniently running into former flings on these trips is because I intentionally do that to make former flings current flings in the interest of passing the time on a layover?” I asked.

Unfortunately the charm of my grin didn't work quite as well on Keva as it did on the numerous and varied royalty of the civilized galaxies.

Oh well. You couldn't win them all. I might’ve been insulted if I didn't know for a fact that Keva’s preferences went more towards species that had an identifiable male gender.

"You already tried that look on me once today," she said. "Don't do it again or I might just leave you on this hunk of rock."

She turned to look at the hunk of rock. Not that it was within visual range, but the fold space transponder was blinking out there for anyone who knew what they were looking for.

Not knowing to look for that was a big part of the reason why the Fermi Paradox was still a seriously debated thing back home.

“Assuming we even get on that hunk of rock in the first place,” she said. “I don’t like this at all.”

I held my hands out as if to say "what can you do?" Besides, I was pretty sure she wouldn't try to throw me out of the airlock of my own ship. I was reasonably certain, at least. Maybe.

As though on cue we were hit with a buffeting that told me there was someone out there who was trying to get our attention.

“What the hell was that?” Keva asked, her eyes darting over the various instrument panels as she tried to figure out what was going on.

I sighed. This was one of the problems navigating a system that was so full of rock and rubble. There was a definite tactical advantage for Darkpoint.

“That would be a fighter coming towards us through normal space so they don’t show up on any of the fold space scanners we have running,” I said. “Probably hid behind a rock too, and practiced to be able to hit us from normal space when we’re at fold space speeds.”

“Normal space?” she said. “Like subluminal speeds and all that? What kind of crazy bastard would do something like that?”

“The kind of crazy bastard who wants to sneak up on someone who relies too much on fold space scanning, which is just about everyone in the known galaxies,” I said, a slight frown passing across my face.

At least the weapons moving into our fold space envelope meant there wasn’t going to be the massive explosion that relativity said to expect when one hunk of matter ran into another at faster than light speeds.

Not that relativity had much to say about anything that moved faster than light, but whatever. I figured if the explosions were supposed to be big when something was traveling at a fraction of the speed of light then it would be even bigger if something was hit going faster than that speed. Though we weren’t exactly at FTL. That would be suicide navigating this system at those speeds.

Whatever. The point is it was lucky for us fold space didn’t work that way.

“Okay, so what are we going to do about the ships that just snuck up on us so they couldn’t be caught on a fold space scan?” Keva asked.

My frown only deepened. I shouldn’t have let myself get caught like this. I should’ve known Tera would come up with something crafty like this. About the only advantage to making her home in a system like this that was mostly rock and rubble was it made for a convenient way to sneak ships up behind someone without using fold space.

Which wouldn’t work all that well against the Selevas, they would just demolish everything in the system that came between them and what they wanted to destroy, but it was great against smalltime pirates who trying to get through to the station and maybe they didn’t want said pirate to get through to the station.

Just great. I still projected outward calm because I wasn’t going to let Keva think I’d ever been out of control for even a moment, but I was really worried that this was going to go pear-shaped very quickly.

I pulled up an old fashioned radar scanner. It was something I’d had to go to an underdeveloped world that was still pretty close to twenty-first century earth technology to pick up, most everyone else didn’t bother with something like this when they could use fold space scans to get an idea of everything that posed a navigational hazard in a system instantaneously, but it’d been worth the pain of going out to an underdeveloped world that still hadn’t been picked up by the Selevas.

I’d almost considered going back to earth, but that would’ve been too much of a trip.

“There they are,” I said, tapping at the screen.

Keva’s eyes went wide as they looked at the screen that was slowly returning results all around us. They were close enough that the radar was actually useful. It wouldn’t typically be the kind of thing that was worth a fart in the wind at typical interplanetary distances, but this system was a special case that finally won an old argument for me.

“I told you this thing was going to be useful someday,” I said, turning to her, but she didn’t look amused at my “I told you so” moment.

“Yeah, it’s going to be useful enough to show us our demise as it comes right at us,” she said. “I don’t see why I should be happy about something like that.”

I shrugged. “At least we’ll see it coming. Someone who just uses fold space scanning wouldn’t even see the end before it rammed a chemical propellant missile right up their rear thrusters.”

I was still staring at the radar display with some worry when the communication link came to life.

“Unidentified ship," a familiar voice crackled. "Identify yourself or get shot out of the stars.”

18

Flynn

I glanced at Keva. She didn't seem particularly worried by the threat. Not that I would expect anything less from her. For all that she groused and worried about situations like this, she could be one hell of a cool customer when the shit actually hit the fan.

No, the best way I could think to describe her look in that moment was "nonplussed."

"It looks like the locals aren't as friendly as you said they'd be," she said.

I reached out a hand and hovered over the communication line. "Just give it a moment. She’s having some fun with us, but I promise everything will be fine."

I hit the button and the commlink opened up. I put on my most ingratiating tone, and hoped that would be enough to get through to Tera who I was pretty sure was just fucking with us for the fun of it.

“Now is that any way it to treat an old friend Tera?” I asked.

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“I thought I told you never to come back to this place again after the last time,” she said.

“Yeah, well it turns out I need to make use of your fine facilities one more time Tera,” I said, still hoping that some of the old Flynn charm would work on her.

There was a sigh and a growl on the other end. I wondered if she put that through on purpose, or if she was so frustrated that she hadn’t even realized she’d left the line open while she was cursing up a blue storm at me.

“She sounds like she’s your number one fan,” Keva said, her voice flat and dry as always when we got in situations like this.

I glanced at the comm panel to make sure I didn’t have the line open. I didn’t. Good. Tera might be perfectly happy to give away how annoyed she was at hearing from me again, but I didn’t want to give anything away to her.

“Hush,” I said. “I’m working here.

“Give me a good reason not to blast you out of the stars,” Tera said. “And what are you doing coming back from Selevas Prime so quickly? I thought you had a job you were running over there.”

“Yeah, well run a scan on my ship,” I said, deciding that a bent version of the truth would be a hell of a lot better than outright lying to her. “As you can see, the job we were running didn’t exactly go the greatest.”

Another pause. I held my breath for this one. Whatever ships Tera had hiding in this stellar rock garden plus whatever weapons she had stashed on Darkpoint against a very damaged Fortune Found weren’t the greatest of odds.

Hey, it's not like any part of this plan had relied on anything other than sheer brass balls up to this point. What was one more risk?

Even if I didn’t have balls, and I wasn’t one of the numerous species out there that could apparently switch genders at will which I’m sure made gender studies courses on those worlds an interesting free for all.

“Is this supposed to be working or something?” Keva hissed.

“Give it time,” I muttered.

I figured the worst that could happen was the most expensive set of jewels in the civilized galaxies would be scattered all over some the orbit of a forgotten system that was of no use to anyone. Then again it’s not like they would be scattered for long. If the Fortune exploded around them it would most likely set them off.

Torvolian power gems were very energy dense. It was one of the things that made them ideal for powering things that sucked up the power like fold space drives. They were also prone to releasing all of that energy at once under the slightest provocation, which meant a good chunk of any ship’s fold space drive was devoted to safely containing a Torvolian power gem’s energy output.

Not to mention even a battlecruiser was powered by a mere chip, and I had actual cut jewels of an obscene size. The Fortune exploding around them, coupled with the fold space drive reactor explosion I was going to set off to take as many of those bastards with me, would probably be enough to set them off. Which, in turn, would create a minor nova that would probably take any of the bastards following me right now with it and maybe even a chunk of Darkpoint even at this distance.

Think a warp core breach on steroids.

It would also let the Selevas know exactly what had happened here in a few years when the light of the explosion reached Selevas Prime and they inevitably came to investigate.

Not that I thought it would come to that. At least I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would almost be funny. The only problem with the joke was I wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. Damn it.

"Why am I liking this plan less and less with every passing moment?" Keva asked. “You have that stupid grin on your face that says you’re about to do something really stupid.”

“I’m insulted,” I said. “Besides, all those stupid plans you’re talking about do tend to work out in our favor in the end.”

“All of your stupid plans walk the bleeding edge of getting you killed and taking me with you,” she replied.

"But they never do and we always get rich for a little while,” I said. One of the reasons we were pulling this job was I figured stealing the crown princess jewels would give us so much money that there was no chance we could spend it in one lifetime. "That's why you keep coming back for more."

Keva rolled her eyes and let out a disgusted noise, but she didn't make any other argument. The plain truth of it was I was right. Sure my plans tended to be crazy and sure I was making them up as I went along more often than I let on, but the simple truth of the matter was I was still alive. My crew was still alive.

Most of them at least.

I opened the commlink again. "Come on Tera,” I said. "Is this any way to treat an old friend?"

“I’m still trying to decide if I want to blow you out of the skies and search the wreckage of your ship or let you land here and risk some of my men boarding you,” Tera growled.

Another glare from Keva. Okay, so that one was probably deserved. Just a little. I hit back with a laugh.

“You always were a joker Tera,” I said. “You know you don’t want to find out what I have up my sleeve if you try to do that.”

That was true. She was likely signing her death warrant if she fired on us and set off those gems. Not that I was going to tell her that unless it seemed like she actually was going to fire on us and we were dead either way.

“So are you going to let us land or are you going to test me and see what I’ve worked up for the poor bastards who try to board me?” I asked, once more relying on sheer bravado to carry me through a tough spot.

The scorn in Tera’s voice was obvious even through the scratchy commlink. "You wish," she said, though there was enough of a hint of uncertainty in her voice that I knew my threat had gotten to her. This was one of the rare occasions where I could even back up that threat, even if acting on that threat would end me as well as her. "But I am going to let you land."

I turned to Keva. Hit her with my most smartass grin. And that was saying something. I enjoyed me a good smartass grin.

"Told you it wouldn't be a problem," I said.

“I’m supposed to feel better about landing at a station where one of your ex lovers just said she was considering boarding the ship and killing us all?” Keva asked with an arched eyebrow.

"She has to be joking," I said. "At least I hope she's joking."

She would find out how serious I was about not coming quietly if she wasn’t joking. That was for damn sure.

I went about looking at the damage control panel to see if there was any way to reroute some of our power to the shielding systems that’d taken a pounding back on Selevas Prime. Hey, I might be pretty certain Tera was merely having some fun with me, but it also never hurt to be prepared when it came to jilted lovers who were in command of their own pirate fleet and a station that could blast me out of the stars.

"You're taking one hell of a gamble here," Keva said.

I shrugged. "What can I say? I’m always gambling with my life.”

"That's all that well and good," Keva said. "But I don't like it when you’re gambling with my life too."

“I figure our choices are to take our chances here and risk an uncertain death or take our chances back with the Selevas and wait for a very certain and painful death. When I put it that way it doesn’t seem like as much of a gamble, does it?”

Keva said a couple of things under her breath that I was pretty sure I wasn't meant to hear.

Besides, she did have a point. I was gambling with all our lives. For all that I tried to act like it wasn't a big deal, there was part of me that worried this wasn't going to end well. I well knew from my time on Darkpoint that Tera could be a vindictive bitch of the highest order, and we were going to have to be on our guard while we were down there on that hunk of rock I’d once called home.

I felt a familiar warmth as we moved in close to the place. Sure I’d long since moved on to bigger and better things, but that didn’t change the fact that coming back to Darkpoint felt like coming home almost as much as when I thought of maybe going back to visit earth.

Not that I intended to ever visit earth again. Not when there was a good chance I might bring all sorts of nastiness chasing after me. I figured the fewer people who knew about a nice pretty M-class planet populated with beautiful women with an exotic skin color who looked remarkably like the Selevas the better.

The last thing I wanted was to let more slavers know about the place. Not while there wasn’t much of a chance the planet’s militaries could fight them off.

As we got closer to Darkpoint scans lit us up. Both the kind of scans that were necessary for making a safe docking maneuver and the kinds of scans that usually only lit up a ship when it was about to get painted with something a lot more lethal than a fold space scan.

"Grab hold of anything you don’t want vaporized,” I said as we got closer and closer to the docking bay. The whole thing reminded me of scenes of landing on the Death Star, though of course in this case that was no moon.

It was a dwarf planet, technically speaking.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Keva asked, a note of worry touching her voice.

"It means if anybody down there is going to take a shot at us than this will be the moment they do it," I said, again hitting her with a grin that looked like it was less than reassuring from the sickly look she gave me.

"You're really not helping at all," she said. "I want you to know that."

"Don't worry too much," I said, not buying my own bullshit. “Tera and I go way back."

"That's what I'm worried about," Keva said.

19

Flynn

"What are the two of you going on about?" Rvannth asked.

"Nothing you need to worry about," I said.

"Yeah," Keva said, interrupting me. “She's just talking about how we’re all probably going to die here in a few seconds."

“So business as usual?” Rvannth sighed.

I muted the commlink before he had a chance to really start complaining. The last thing I needed was both members of my crew griping at me while I was keeping one hand on the controls and one eye on the readouts to see if I needed to try and pull a fast evasive maneuver that probably wasn’t going to work with the Fortune in her current condition.

I shot Keva a nice glare to let her know exactly what I thought of her end of our lives predictions. The last thing I needed was Rvannth getting all bent out of shape. Not that Keva seemed to care.

"He should be concentrating on fixing the ship and not worrying about having his ass blasted out from under him," I said.

"Don't worry too much about him losing time worrying about having his ass blasted,” she said. "It's not like he's going to get much in the way of repairs done until we have a place to do those repairs."

I concentrated on the flight computer as we made our way in. There really wasn't much for me to do at this point. Assuming Tera didn’t fire on us. Just keep an eye on things and resist the urge to reach out and smack my copilot.

With the way I was feeling right about now that was some of the most difficult flying I think I’d ever done.

We came in low over the desolate rock that was Darkpoint. It always reminded me of the moon just a little which was good for a pang of homesickness. That didn’t happen to me often, but when it did I reminded myself that my life out here among the stars was way more awesome than the stupid receptionist job that was the only thing I could get after graduating.

There were times when I thought getting abducted from that convention was the best thing that ever happened to me, even if it had sucked and been mildly terrifying at the time.

I frowned, and Keva seemed to pick up on it. Because of course she would pick up on it. She was always watching me like a hawk when we were doing dangerous and potentially stupid things like this, and she’d be watching me now for any sign that shit was about to go down.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“This isn’t the right approach for the hangar bay,” I muttered. “I mean it’s entirely possible they changed things around since I lived here, but…”

We crested a range of mountains that were likely the last remains of a crater edge once upon a time and found ourselves staring down the barrels of a bunch of high powered plasma turrets pointing straight up at us. I didn’t need the sudden warning that told me we were being painted by those weapons, they looked like something that’d been smuggled away from a Selevas cruiser at some point, and on the verge of having a very bad day.

I moved my hands over the controls in a panic, worried that this was going to be my last moment seeing the twinkle of the civilized galaxies outside the Fortune, but then as soon as the guns had tracked on us they stopped and lowered.

"I just wanted to remind you who is in charge here," Tera’s voice came over the crackling communication line.

I very carefully didn't let out a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed was to let on to Keva that I’d been legitimately worried for even a moment. I very carefully moved my hands back to the flight controls. Carefully because I didn’t want her to see that my hands were shaking.

Though a glance over to her was enough to tell me she'd seen my panicked dance across the flight controls. She had to know I'd been freaking out for just a moment. I can't say that I liked that she saw me freaking out, but what could you do?

"The mighty captain of her great ship. Steadfast and strong," she said. “Cool under pressure. Isn’t that how they phrase it on your world?”

"Shut up," I said.

Keva actually let out a giggle. I turned and arched an eyebrow at her. Giggling was distinctly out of character for her. Especially when we’d nearly been blasted out of the stars.

Sure that blast would’ve taken Tera with it considering what we were carrying, but I wouldn’t even have the satisfaction of seeing or hearing her realization that she’d killed herself along with us.

“Follow the new transponder signal,” Tera said. “That’ll take you to the hangar bay, though honestly I’m surprised that even worked on you. You used to know this place like the back of your hand.”

There was a hint of accusation in her voice. Of course there would be accusation there. She was rehashing an argument we’d had long ago. An argument that sent me out among the stars to find my fortune while she remained in one place, a spider in her hole, gaining wealth by exerting control over one small but lucrative corner of the galaxy in particular.

We both had our way of doing things, and it’d caused a messy breakup once upon a time. One I didn’t like thinking about these days any more than I had to. Though I was starting to think her strategy might’ve been the better one considering I was descending into her web with the culmination of my life’s work since leaving Darkpoint.

I hated that I was forced to do this.

“Clever, that," Keva said.

"Too damn clever," I replied. “I don’t like it when people who might try to kill me get clever. Makes it harder to try and stay alive.”

Obviously Tera wasn't a huge fan of having company like me in her private little fiefdom. And so she’d set up a little surprise for anyone who tried to come down and cause trouble for her. It really was clever, if heart attack inducing. I’d have to give her my regards once we landed.

Assuming my plans for not getting off my own ship and never seeing her in person the entire time we were on Darkpoint didn’t work out. I had every intention of staying aboard as much as possible seeing to repairs and not thinking about a murderous ex.

The ship glided over the dead asteroid for about the space of another ten minutes before I finally saw something that looked familiar, though it wasn’t as homesickness-inducing as thinking of the moon in the skies back on earth.

"That's more like it," I said.

"What?" Keva asked. "I thought you were so confident in your ex that you weren't worried at all."

I grimaced. To be perfectly honest I was getting more and more nervous the closer we came to landing in the belly of the beast.

It's not like we’d parted on entirely negative terms the last time. Well actually the time before the last time considering the last time we ran into each other was the stopover I made on my way to the biggest heist of my career.

Back at that first parting one could almost say we hadn't parted on any terms at all. I'd sort of ended up sneaking out of her bed in the middle of the night to avoid any pesky confrontation about the fact that I had business to attend to in other parts of the galaxy.

Only once more I was reminded of some of the promises she'd sent my way in a rather heated communication after she’d realized I'd left. And requisitioned one of the modified freighters in the cargo bay along the way. Sure I’d left payment rather than, say, winning it in a game of cards, but that hadn’t helped if some of the things she said in that communication were anything to go on.

I hadn’t thought she’d ever be in a position to follow through on those threats before, and it was a testament to the universal power of karmic retribution that she’d somehow managed to take control of Darkpoint rather than getting killed off like so many others who went for that job.

Not that I should’ve been too surprised. She’d been a scrappy survivor back then, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she still was today.

That nervousness was only compounded as I set the ship down and saw that there was already someone standing out there waiting up with her arms crossed under a very inviting pair of breasts. She stared up at me with the sort of look that could have been even more dangerous than those turrets that’d been pointed at the ship just moments ago. If someone figured out a way to weaponize a woman's gaze then she’d be every bit as dangerous as those turrets.

I smiled at her through the flight screen. It was my most winning smile, but it didn't seem to be doing anything for her. If anything her frown grew even deeper. It turned to something that could only be described as a glower.

Great. Things were going from bad to worse.

"You and your old girlfriends," Keva said.

20

Seleya

I paced back and forth around my room and thought of all the terrible things I would do to that woman if I could find her.

Though of course my traitorous mind kept going to some very interesting places that were definitely not in the realm of nasty things I would do to her. Thoughts of ripping her apart where she stood invariably turned to thoughts of pulling her against me and feeling her lips one more time.

I didn’t lack for companionship in the bedroom if I desired it. One of the benefits of being second in line to the most powerful position in the civilized galaxies was there was always a line of suitors who were willing to pass a night in the hopes they might hitch their own tractor beam to my rising star.

Though given the number of betrothed who’d found themselves reaching an early and untimely demise because they got too close to previous seconds in the line of succession I was surprised there were still so many takers willing to gamble their lives like that.

That woman had been different though. Sure it turned out she was different because she wanted to use me for my position in an entirely new manner than what I was used to, but there was something about the way she’d acted around me that left me thinking of her and wishing I could be with her again even as I also found myself thinking about all the ways I wouldn’t mind ripping her to shreds if I could.

I paced to the other end of the room. Found myself staring at the small crystal Revas had left behind. The asshole. If he thought he was going to get with me he had another thing coming. I would rather die than…

I stopped. My mouth quirked up at the corners. I would rather die than face the fate that mother was threatening to deal out to me. There was something to that. Something that felt suddenly freeing.

If there was already a fate worse than death waiting for me then what was the harm in doing something that might result in my own untimely death? Particularly when death would be preferable to what mother was planning for me?

It was audacious, and there was a part of me that screamed living under any circumstances would be preferable to death, but I was no longer listening to that voice.

I held my head high and walked to the exit. Opened it to stare at the guards waiting there. Both of them started, and they both looked like they were on the verge of lowering their weapons at me.

I arched an eyebrow and that stopped them from doing anything of the sort. Though they did glance at one another in clear confusion.

“I am going for a walk,” I said.

“But that’s not allowed,” one of the guards said. I stared at him until he lowered his head slightly. “Your highness.”

Certainly he was a little late in giving me my appropriate title, but I suppose that was something that was going to start happening far more often if I let things continue as they were. I could sit here in my quarters and wait for mother to marry me off, or I could risk it all and maybe get myself out of this situation.

I wasn’t holding my breath on that count, but it was possible.

“Did you really just tell the crown princess that she can’t go wherever she pleases in her palace?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well actually you’re not exactly the crown princess since you lost those jewels,” the other guard said. “Not to mention this isn’t your palace. This whole place belongs to your mother, and we’re dead if we defy her orders.”

“Very well,” I said, sighing and turning as though I was about to go back into my room.

I moved in a flash. Whipped my hand out with the thin filamentary claws, almost as thin as an atom and sharper than any razor ever invented, and slashed into the first guard. He looked down in surprise at his midsection, but that surprise didn’t last long as gravity caught up with the trauma I’d committed and one half of his body went one way while the other went in a completely different direction.

The other guard managed to get his weapon up. I wondered how that would have worked out for him had he actually managed to get off a shot. On the one hand it would’ve saved his life for a short while, but on the other hand mother wouldn’t have been pleased with any guard who killed the crown princess. Even if I was out of favor.

Allowing commoners to start killing royalty set a bad precedent. Even if that royalty was on the outs with the lady in charge of things.

Thankfully for the guard he never had the opportunity to find out whether or not shooting the crown princess would get him in trouble. My claws moved up through his chin and did terrible things to his brain, and he slumped to the floor as I brought the claws back in.

I dusted my hands off against my dress, though it wasn’t strictly necessary. The claws were so microscopically thin that various bits of a person’s body never remained on them like with a more substantial piercing or cutting weapon.

“I suppose you could have lived a little longer if you bothered to listen to me rather than worry about mother,” I said, though I knew these men’s lives had been forfeit the moment I decided I was going to make a break for it. Unfortunately for them at that moment they were stuck between the queen’s wrath and my desire to get out of here.

I briefly thought about pulling them into my room, then thought better of it. After all, they were both leaking their interior contents fast enough that it was going to cause a mess that anyone walking by would see regardless. Better to simply leave them here and hope I got to the hangar before anyone else came along and raised the alarm.

I started down to the palace hangar bay at a rapid clip. Colonel Garvin waited at the entrance to the hangar. The man was a familiar sight to anyone on the flightline, and he’d been a particular thorn in my side when I was learning to fly since I’d entered the flightline chain of command upon taking up that training, and the good colonel had never missed an opportunity to remind me of that. He looked up and his eyes went wide when he saw me stalking towards my ship.

"Your highness!" he shouted.

When it became apparent that I wasn't going to stop for him he fell into step slightly behind me. I might’ve been a recruit once upon a time, but I’d long since graduated which meant I was the crown princess to him now and deserving of the respect that position demanded.

It was nice that someone around here still remembered that.

“Your highness," he said. "This is very out of the ordinary. Considering what happened with your mother…"

I grimaced. Of course he would know all about what had happened with mother. I imagined everyone in the palace knew about my dressing down at this point.

I wheeled on him. Hit him with my most furious glare. I didn't think it had anything on what mother could pull off, but it worked on the good colonel.

“What of what happened, Colonel?” I asked, biting off every word.

He looked away. Maybe my look was doing more than I gave it credit for.

"Well it's customary after an incident such as that for…"

He trailed away. Obviously he was uncomfortable talking with me like this. As well he should be. I might be out of favor, but I was still heir to the throne and the crown princess of the realm. Second in line to rule the civilized galaxies, even if there was a seemingly immortal queen in my way.

Even if it had been made abundantly clear to me by recent events that I wasn’t ever going to be allowed to take my place on the throne since I was to be removed from that line of succession.

"Did my mother give you a direct order to keep me away from the starfighters?” I asked, my voice quiet and full of menace.

At least I hoped it was quiet and full of menace. That was something mother pulled off with ease, but I wasn't sure how well I did it and whether or not I was being humored when people looked terrified.

I couldn't shake the feeling that they all laughed at me behind my back. Talked about the princess playing at being the queen even though they all knew I would wither on the vine before I had a chance to actually take anything approaching real power rather than the reflected power I enjoyed because of mother.

"Well the custom is…"

Again he cut off at a mere look. I was going to have to remember that look. It seemed to be working quite well today.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You are going to keep the first in line for the throne away from her personal starfighter because of a tradition? And not because of a direct order from mother?"

I put added emphasis on the mother part of that sentence. I figured if I was going to bask in the reflected power then I might as well reflect as much of it as possible. Besides, there was a twisted part of me, deep down inside, that enjoyed the idea of using her name to get myself out of a sticky situation she’d placed me in.

"I'm sorry princess," he said. "But I just can't…"

I shrugged. "That's fine. I understand."

He blinked a couple of times. Obviously my sudden acquiescence had caught him off guard.

"You… Understand?"

"Of course I do," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me."

I’d been very hands-on in learning the ins and outs of spaceflight. I figured if I was going to do something then I might as well do it one hundred percent. There was a reason I was considered among some of the best pilots in the Selevas starfighter command.

If I was going to do something out of the ordinary like learn to fly a starfighter then I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was more than some royal dilettante dabbling in it. I wanted them to know I was the best.

So I walked around the edge of the fighter to a power coupler. Pulled it out and attached it to my ship. Flipped it on, carefully making sure everything was attached before I did so. The last thing I needed was to send the charged plasma fuel spewing all over the flightline and potentially killing someone.

That stuff was dangerous, but energy dense and more than able to power a craft that was too small to make it worth installing a Torvolian power gem reactor.

"What are you doing?" Garvin asked.

I arched a single eyebrow at him. He hadn't addressed me by the proper title, and from the way his face drained to pure white he realized that. Too late, but he realized it.

"Are you a new recruit on your first day in the hangar?" I asked. I enjoyed that. It was a mirror of something he’d said to me on my first day in the hangar when I’d still been under the notion that being the crown princess would earn me some special consideration. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Garvin sputtered. I knew that move. It was one of those moves that terrified new recruits, but now that I knew him better I knew he was simply stalling for time.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Now I’m going to prep this ship for takeoff because I’m well aware of the entire process. Then I’m going to launch myself into space and I’m going to do my best to track down the bitch who stole my jewels. And I don’t care if you send someone after me, because I’m as good as dead as it is. Better dead trying to do something than suffering a fate worse than death with Revas or whatever else mother wants to do to me.”

I was well aware that there were entire towers in the palace that were dedicated to mother’s Inquisitors and their torturers. It was almost unheard of for a member of the royal family to find accommodations in one of those towers, but at the same time the “almost” in “almost unheard of” provided mother with enough wiggle room on that point that I wasn’t in the mood to test whether or not she would send her current eldest under the plasma knife. Or whatever it was they were using to torture people these days.

For a wonder Garvin’s expression softened. He looked almost sad.

“You do what you need to do Seleya,” he said, laying a hand on my arm which was entirely too familiar. For anyone but the man who taught me to do what I was doing now, that is. “I’ll be over at the entrance making sure no one bothers you, but if anyone asks I didn’t see a thing.”

“Of course,” I said, a thin smile playing across my face. “And thank you.”

21

Seleya

I glanced at the three dimensional heads up display that showed me a map of the system. The thing was full of all sorts of information, and with a thought I dismissed all but the most important.

Which was mostly the Royal Guard flying through the system stopping anyone and everyone they found. Clearly they all thought they were going to find the people who’d done this by shutting everything down, but I had my doubts.

“Are we showing any freighters that are acting out of the ordinary?” I asked. “Anything at all that might indicate someone trying to make an escape from the system?”

“Negative,” my AI chimed in. “All traffic in the system is running the normal transponder signals.”

I bit back a couple of choice phrases. The freighter I’d fired on over the city was running a regular transponder as well. As far as anyone was concerned that was a normal freighter doing its normal business of flying low over the imperial city in a desperate attempt to break free of a royal order to cease and desist.

I sat back in the cockpit and thought this through. Only before I could think it through too much I had another unpleasant surprise. One of those Royal Guard units broke free from pursuing a freighter, no doubt something from Revas’ fleet, and headed straight for me.

“Damnation,” I breathed. I could drop out of fold space, but I was already making good time away from Selevas Prime. Besides, this was a simple enforcer unit. It’s not like they would be able to do much against me.

“Unidentified craft,” the enforcer chimed over the comm system. “Please identify and remove yourself from fold space. Prepare to be boarded.”

I cursed a few more times. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but here we were. There were ways out of this. The only problem with those ways out of this was it involved using access codes that would probably only work a few times before word got back to mother and she told them to bring me in.

“This is an imperial starfighter on official business of the throne,” I sent back, hoping it wouldn’t come to the point of having to send out the proper identification. “You’ll leave off if you know what’s good for you.”

“Imperial starfighter identification acknowledged,” the enforcer said, but then he went on to show the kind of dedication to the job that would’ve been admirable if I wasn’t trying to make an escape from the damned system. “Please provide proper authorization codes.”

I mumbled a few unpleasant things about the chastity of this enforcer’s mother as I put through the proper codes. It was a pity I didn’t have a proper stealth ship, though that technology was something mother would never let me play with.

No, that was the sort of thing that was only allowed with her Inquisitors. The kind of bastards who would be looking for me soon enough. I really hoped that Garvin didn’t get into too much trouble with them for letting me go.

“Identification accepted,” the enforcer said. “Happy hunting.”

There was a pause, then the guy couldn’t seem to resist interjecting some of his own opinion into what had, up to this point, been a mostly official interaction.

“You’re going to need it. Seems like those assholes have already left the system, but we’ll pick up the pieces the princess dropped, right?”

I knew it was meant to be a moment of levity between two people who were stuck searching the system for some stolen jewels that never should’ve been stolen in the first place. Not if the idiot princess who let them be stolen had been watching herself.

I nearly blasted the bastard out of the skies for those words. There were two things that stopped me. The first was he didn’t deserve it, and I wasn’t going to be like mother. Everything he said was true. It was entirely my fault that all freighter traffic in the system was being brought to a grinding halt at an astronomical cost that would be totally worth it if those jewels were recovered.

I wouldn’t be like mother and kill someone for telling me an unpleasant truth. That was a good way to get people to stop speaking the truth around you, even if it wasn’t exactly the case that this guy even knew who he was speaking unpleasant truths to.

My second reason for not blowing him out of the stars was far more practical. If I went blowing friendly ships out of the skies then that would bring the attention of more friendly ships. That would have me using more codes to justify what I was doing, and that would only move up the chain of command to mother even faster than before.

Better to avoid all of that entirely.

“Yeah, that princess is a real idiot,” I said with a laugh. The surprising thing was I actually meant it.

I moved through the system as fast as the fold space drive would carry me. Which wasn’t fast enough for me at the moment, for all that it was the fastest way to move through space without using a jump gate.

I put a finger to my mouth. Thought that through. A jump gate. That would be the way they used to get out of there, but all the main jump gates were supposedly cut off at the moment.

“You there?” I asked.

“Yes,” the computer said.

“I need a listing of all the jump gates in the system as well as all the jump gates that are currently being blockaded. And the times the blockades started on those gates.”

She dutifully provided me a list in the heads up display. Which, a little disconcertingly, was always located outside the cockpit since there wasn’t enough room for a full 3D display inside the rather small, relatively speaking, cockpit of a starfighter.

“Okay, so all the main trade routes were shut off rather quickly,” I muttered. “But what about this gate down here? Beneath the southern axis and off by about seventy degrees?”

“That jump gate leads to an uninhabited former mining system that is a short five light year jump,” the AI said. “Apparently there is never any traffic from that gate and so it is under automated monitoring. They blockaded it, but there were no forces in place immediately as with the other gates where there is traffic.”

A tingle ran along my fingers as they danced along the controls. I was onto something here. Not to mention there was still only a token force down at that gate. I could see them plain as day on the fold space readout of the system.

“You say there’s automated monitoring of that gate?” I asked.

“There is,” the AI said. “Would you like me to bring it up?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to know if anyone has gone through that gate recently.”

There was a brief pause. I figured a brief pause was good. A brief pause meant there were actually records for the AI to go through, and not simply a matter of her telling me there was nothing to report.

“There was one use of that jump gate two days prior, and one today. The same freighter both times, running Selevas Prime transponder tags,” she said. “Would you like footage of that arrival?”

That tingling was getting more and more intense. I was onto something here. I’d found something that no one else in the entire Royal Guard had thought of. Or perhaps it was a matter of mother’s spies being the ones who were tasked with running down this investigation.

The real investigation. One that wasn’t being trusted to the Royal Guard.

In which case there was always the worry that there would be stealth ships positioned down there. Not the kind of trouble I needed. They would all be well aware of how far my power extended, which is to say not very far at all.

“Move us in close to that jump gate,” I said, not even waiting for her to bring up the footage. “I have a feeling if we’re going to find anything out there it’s going to be there at that gate.”

“Adjusting heading now,” the AI said. “Footage is coming up on your display now.”

The view of the system winked out of existence. It was replaced by automated drone footage of a jump gate being put into use. There wasn’t anything large and dramatic such as a structure being used to hurtle ships between systems. Jump gates were more two points between stars where it was easier for a fold space drive to bridge the distance between those stars.

It was all technical and jump gate and fold space physics were two areas where I’d never bothered to pay all that much attention. All I knew was it worked.

“There we are,” I said. “That’s it!”

Because none other than the freighter I’d been firing on came through that jump point. One moment it was an elongated bit of mass, an optical illusion that came whenever something was moving between two jump points, and the next moment it was moving at a fast clip through fold space.

I smiled. I wondered if she thought she was clever for coming through that jump point in particular. I wondered if she really and honestly thought no one was watching.

It was a ridiculous notion, the thought that no one would be watching one of the approaches to Selevas Prime, but then again the thing about criminals was they were always caught when they wound up thinking they were more intelligent than the people pursuing them.

“We’re going on a little trip through that system,” I said. “I want you to bring up everything we know about it.”

Now all I had to do was sit back and wait for the AI to pilot me to the jump gate and send me hurtling between the stars. From there it would be a simple matter of discovering where the wounded freighter was hiding while they underwent repairs, and finish the job I’d started over the city.

Sure it was a little touch and go as we approached the jump point. There were a few enforcers waiting there, but it was easy enough to send them the proper codes letting them know that what I was doing was no business of theirs, and under no circumstances were they to talk to anyone about what they’d seen me do.

That wouldn’t stop information about those codes being used from being kicked up through the automated reporting systems until mother’s Inquisitors figured out what had been done, but that would take a little while for them to realize what I was doing out here.

It would take some time for them to follow up on this lead though. Especially with all the resources that were being dedicated to tracking down that bitch who’d stolen my jewels. There was so much information flowing in that I hoped the use of a couple of codes wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention until I was back.

Yeah, I had plenty of time to pop into that system and begin my pursuit. Maybe I could even return to Selevas Prime triumphant with that woman’s head in my tractor beam to present to mother and prove to her that I wasn’t completely useless.

22

Flynn

"All I'm saying is, if you'd managed to keep from getting too personally involved in one of these jobs for a change…"

I held up a hand to stop Keva before she could really get going. When she got a good head of steam going, a term that was an anachronism on earth and was really out of date out here in the civilized galaxies, she could be as unstoppable as a locomotive barreling out of control down the tracks. Not that anyone around here would know what a locomotive was either. Or tracks for that matter.

"You know my ability to get personally involved in these cases is exactly why we continue to have the success that we do," I said.

Keva looked out the viewport. I still called the thing a windscreen from time to time even though it was hardly ever put to use inside a planet’s atmosphere where it would actually screen the wind.

"And you think this is a…"

I shot her a furious look and she immediately clammed up. Talking out of turn could be dangerous in a place like Darkpoint.

"The job might’ve been a complete and utter failure Keva,” I pointedly said. "But we can be glad we got away alive even if we didn’t get away with the material. There are a lot of people in this business who don't even get that."

I made a point of looking down and fiddling with some bits of the control panel. I checked a couple of the statuses on various things that didn't really need to be checked, but I wanted to look like I was busy.

I was putting on a show, truth be told. In a place like Darkpoint it was impossible to tell whether or not someone was listening in. I know when I'd been stuck on this shithole back in the day it hadn't been out of the ordinary for them to bug anyone and everyone who came through the place.

The last thing we needed to be blabbing about to the listening devices Tera no doubt had pointed at the cockpit was the job that’d just gone off mostly without a hitch.

That was the kind of talk that would invite unfortunate attention from Tera. Her brand of attention might've been fun once upon a time, to be sure, but these days it was far more likely to involve some heavy guns in the hangar bay and some fighters chasing after us if we managed to escape than it was to involve a roll in the sheets. That's assuming she didn't get onto the ship and rip it apart, bit by bit, before we even had a chance to get away.

We were walking a dangerous line here. No doubt Tera had some idea that something was going on. As soon as the news from Selevas Prime got back that there was a commotion at the palace it would be even worse.

The trick was to finish all of the repairs the princess had necessitated with her little attack on us, and finish them before word got out that some Torvolian power gems had been stolen from the royal family. Assuming they even let that little bit slip. They might be so invested in the idea of royal infallibility that they wouldn't want to let news of a robbery get out, for all that any species with sensory organs could see something was going on in Selevas Prime that’d pissed off the Selevas royals.

I wasn't banking my survival on that, though.

"I still say it was a terrible idea to come here," Keva said. "I know you have a history here and everything, but I don't trust the place."

I looked through the viewport again. Out towards the hangar bay. There was a motley collection of ships out there. Freighters that looked like they weren’t anything special, but of course they’d all be modified to the far reaches of the civilized galaxies and back. They’d pack the kind of power that one wouldn't expect from something that looked like a hunk of junk.

I smiled a thin smile. Chances were nobody out here in the civilized galaxies was even aware of Star Wars, any broadcasts would’ve been diffused to the point that even the most sensitive equipment probably wouldn't be able to pick up those signals even a few light years from earth. The idea of TV signals being beamed into space with enough strength that some distant alien could watch old episodes of Friends or Single Female Lawyer was unfortunately not very grounded in scientific reality.

Space was big, and it turns out signals like that lost most of their punch well before they reached Proxima Centauri, let alone the wider universe. Sure there was the remote possibility that, say, the warlike blue aliens I’d seen on Proxima Centauri when we had a brief stopover there in the middle of my abduction might pick up some earth signals and decide to send a bunch of their warriors screaming towards earth in cold sleep ships, but it wasn’t terribly likely.

Say what you will about the asshole who abducted me, but she made sure not to say anything about where she’d been or what her business was during that stopover.

Still, there were some ideas from those classic movies that were gleefully adopted by smugglers out here in the wider galaxy. Like the old chestnut of a freighter that could do more than meets the eye.

"I don't like being here any more than you do," I said. "But all we have to do is keep our heads down and try to stay out of trouble. This is no different from any other smuggler station we've ever stopped by. The only difference now is we have a little bit of damage we need to repair as soon as possible."

"Right," Keva said. "I keep reminding myself of that. This is just a normal station where you have an angry ex-girlfriend running things who would love nothing more than an excuse to throw you out of the airlock.”

“I mean that’s not all that bad,” I said. “I’d have a good thirty seconds as long as I remembered to empty my lungs and close my eyes. Nasty business having the moisture in your eyes boiling off into space.”

“What are you even talking about?” she asked.

“I’m just saying getting thrown out of the airlock isn’t instant death,” I said. “Plenty of opportunity for someone to pick me up.”

“Yeah, someone’s going to randomly pick you up in the vastness of space after you get thrown out of an airlock,” she said. “That seems really probable.”

“I’d say the chances are about twenty-two billion to one against,” I said with a thin smile.

Keva stared at me blankly. Right. My copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide was, unfortunately, one of the things that hadn’t made it off world with me when I’d been abducted. Still, reading it at a young age had been remarkably helpful in preparing me for the experience of being abducted. That was something.

“You’re quoting something from your homeworld again, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Something like that,” I said. “Don’t worry about that, and get back to making repairs. And remember: loose lips blow up ships!”

That wasn’t exactly earth pop culture, but she wouldn’t know the difference between pop culture and wartime propaganda. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but she wisely kept her mouth shut. She knew what the stakes were just as much as I did.

It would be a hell of a pity if we ended up escaping from the most powerful royal family with the most powerful military in the known galaxies at their disposal only to find ourselves taken out by a bunch of pirates and smugglers who were after what we’d stolen fair and square.

I wasn't going to let that happen. Not when I'd invested a good chunk of my life since gaining my freedom from this place trying to make that job happen.

I patted Keva on the shoulder. "Everything is going to be okay. Just you wait."

She frowned. Usually she didn't frown like that when I was trying to make her feel better about one of these jobs. But then I followed her gaze and saw the source of her frown. The commlink was blinking an angry red.

I sighed. I was getting tired of people trying to call us.

"Who the hell would be calling us now?" I muttered.

"There's only one person I can think of," Keva said. "It's not like we're going to get a call from…"

Again she cut off just before saying something dangerous. Which was dangerous in and of itself. If she kept cutting herself off like that at critical conversational points then someone listening in might figure out there was a subject we were avoiding.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I should've figured it wasn't going to be that easy to get away from Tera. She'd waited this long to get her claws back into me, after all, and she wasn't kind to waste an opportunity.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Keva asked.

"Not sure at all," I said. "But I know if I keep her waiting I'm going to regret it even more."

Keva gave a shrug as though to tell me it was my funeral. That was a gesture she'd picked up from me. They didn't have it with her species, but I guess being around a human captain for long enough had been enough to change some of her body language.

Not exactly the body language I wanted to change on her, but you couldn't have everything.

I hit the commlink. "This is Flynn,” I said. "Go ahead."

I tried to use my sweetest possible voice. My "everything's fine here, how are you?" voice. The voice that was so dripping with pure innocence that anyone who was in the business would immediately know I was trying to hide something.

"Trying to throw me off guard?" Tera said. "How interesting it would be to inspect that hunk of junk you're flying around in."

Damn it. I should've known she’d know my sweet and innocent voice and be able to figure out that I was up to something. I had to remember that she knew most of my old tricks.

I'd just have to hope that some of my new tricks were enough to get around her suspicions. Not that I was holding my breath.

"What do you want Tera?" I asked, cutting through the BS. She’d appreciate that.

"Such a tone," Tera said. "Can't an old friend call on another old friend and see how she's doing? It's been so long since I've had you around. Don't you miss those old nights in the bunks together? Talking about all the things we’d if we ever got out of those bunks?”

My lips compressed to a thin line. Partly because I did remember those nights. They were good memories. Fond memories, for all that they’d since been poisoned with how I departed Darkpoint and how she was acting at my return. I'd been terrified after being forcibly removed from Earth and discovering that yeah, there was a wider galaxy out there. Tera had been there and she’d been a comfort.

I owed her that much, for all that she was a thorn in my side now.

The less said about that, the better. All I’ll say is if you meet a pretty girl at a sci-fi convention who’s too pretty to be true, with a costume that seems to realistic to be true, then maybe it's time to listen to your gut instinct before you find yourself being rocketed off planet.

Though I guess it wasn't fair to say I was rocketed off planet. More like I was antigrav thrusted off planet under the radar so no locals would realize that an abduction was happening, but that didn’t have the same ring to it as getting rocketed off world.

Honestly. That was the kind of thing that was supposed to happen to groups out in the middle of nowhere who got anally probed. Not to a girl looking for a good time at a weekend sci-fi convention.

That girl had done some probing, all right. I hadn't even minded most of it. But I had minded been kidnapped from my planet, thank you very much. Even if my predilection for going to things like sci-fi and comic conventions predisposed me to be more accepting of an abduction than someone else would.

That was all unimportant, though. What was important was Tera was trying to butter me up. I was immediately on guard. Tera wasn't the kind of person to butter someone up unless she had a good reason. Like she was playing with them.

I couldn't shake the unpleasant feeling that I was the proverbial mouse in the cat’s paws. She was playing with me because she had fun doing it, and any moment now the teeth were going to come down and have a snack. I didn't like being the snack.

23

Flynn

"If I'm going to cut the bullshit then can you do the same courtesy to me?" I asked.

"Fine," Tera said. "But I am disappointed you don't want to rekindle some of the fun we used to have together. Such a pity."

"You were about to tell me why you're calling and gloating when I have repairs to do?"

"Fine," she growled. "I need to see you up in the control center. Immediately."

I shot a worried glance to Keva. I didn't have any intention of going anywhere in Darkpoint I didn't have to. I especially wasn't going to go for a leisurely stroll into the belly of the beast. Not when I had a feeling there were going to be a bunch of people with weapons waiting to take me hostage so she could search the ship.

I didn't think there was much of a chance she’d find those Torvolian power gems even if she did do a search of the ship, they were well hidden and well masked from her scanners thank you very much, but it would still be irritating and just a little bit stressful to go through the experience.

Not to mention it would be wasting valuable time we could be using to repair the damn ship so we could get as far from the seat of Selevas power as was possible.

"I'm afraid I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your proposition," I said, smiling at the reference even though I was the only living creature within trillions of miles who’d catch it.

"What?" she said. "The translator didn't quite pick that up. Are you quoting one of those ridiculous moving pictures from your dirt ball again?"

The thin line my lips had compressed to turned to an outright frown. I hated it when she referred to my planet as a dirt ball. Weren't all rocky planets, when you got down to it, dirt balls to some degree or another? Besides, it wasn't exactly a fair comparison considering my planet was mostly water and not dirt.

At least on the surface.

"It means no," I said, once again completing the quote and once again knowing she’d be completely oblivious to what I was doing. Which was a pity, considering how irritated she got when I spoke in earth pop culture.

It was like a language all unto itself. A language no one out here was fluent in. Like we’re talking there were entire conversations I could have with friends back home using exclusively Simpsons quotes, and all that was lost on people in the wider galaxy.

I felt like there was probably a way I could use that. Assuming I could find someone who was interested enough in the earth pop culture I had on the laptop that’d been abducted right along with me to bone up on that stuff.

Sadly I hadn’t found any aliens interested in a Netflix and chill. They were interested in the chill part, to be sure, but less so in the part where they had to endure earth pop culture to get to the chilling. Not to mention it wasn’t even a proper Netflix and chill out here since there was no way to connect to the human Internet.

Thankfully I hadn’t been above hoisting the black flag, in an Internet sense, back on earth which gave me plenty of hard copy backups on the considerable space in my gaming laptop’s dual solid state drives.

"I'm sorry Flynn,” Tera said. "But I don't think you quite understand that I'm not giving you a choice here. You need to get that cute hairless monkey ass of yours up here, or else.”

That was good for another frown. She had no right to lord my evolutionary ancestry over me just because her species had descended from a group of desert dwelling creatures that had evolved with the kind of digits that allowed them to create and manipulate tools and…

"Um, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't quite catch that last bit. Maybe your repeaters here on the station aren't working all that well or something?"

"You cut the crap Flynn,” she said. "You're not going to pull a Solo to distract me and you know it."

My lips turned to a frown. I was really starting to wish I hadn't explained some of the finer points of the earth pop culture origins of my delaying tactics to Tera, but there'd been a time, it felt like a very long time ago, when we'd been a heck of a lot closer than we were now. Which probably explained why she despised me so these days.

I sighed and looked to Keva who was hitting me with one hell of an "I told you so" look.

I really hated it when she hit me with those looks. It was bad enough to have her acting all high and mighty. It was even worse when it turns out she was right.

"Don't say it," I said.

"Don't say what?" Keva asked, her face the very picture of innocence.

I growled in frustration.

"We still have a lot of repairs to be done, but I want you to prioritize anything that will allow us to make it to the jump point in this system."

Of course that was glossing over quite a bit. Like the fact that Tera was the unquestioned mistress of this little known and little cared for system and there was a good chance she controlled all approaches to every point where the mathematics of fold space-time made it possible to tell special relativity to take a hike briefly and fling ships between two gravity wells.

Once we managed to reach that spot where we could tell the laws of relativity to take a hike and go hurtling in between two star systems we could safely get away from her and from the Selevas who might be following us. As with all things, though, it was getting to the jump point that was going to be the hard part.

"And what do you intend to do while we're here doing all the grunt work trying to get this ship working again?" Keva asked, her voice dripping with a sweet sincerity that I knew she didn't feel. Sarcasm had been one of the first human linguistic nuances she'd picked up from me after joining my crew.

Not that it was an exclusively human thing, but it was definitely a linguistic nuance that some species developed while others didn't.

Like, for instance, right now she was talking to me in that too sweet voice because she was obviously doing everything she could to get the ship ready to go. Me giving her an order to continue doing exactly what she was already doing was a tad bit superfluous.

I stood to my full height. Patted myself down. I liked to think I still looked pretty good. Maybe I still had it to the point that I could distract Tera from trying to blow us to bits. I didn’t have to do it forever. Just long enough to get repairs done.

"I'm going to do what I do best," I said. "I'm going to distract her long enough for us to get the heck out of here."

Keva rolled her eyes.

"That's what I figured you’d say," she said.

"What's wrong with that plan?" I asked. "It's worked for us plenty of times before. Think about with the…"

I trailed off just before mentioning the Levonian queen. There hadn't been any official announcement about the loss of those royal gems, but that didn't mean the usual underworld chatter wasn't all over the place talking about her recent separation from the Levonian crown jewels.

Not to mention even more underground chatter from the Selevas separatist movement bragging about how they suddenly had Torvolian power crystals they planned on using for some of their more interesting schemes.

Not that what those idiots did was any of my concern as long as they had cold hard cash they were willing to exchange for those power gems. Anyone who thought they could take on the most powerful royal family and species in the civilized galaxies had to be crazy.

The fact that I’d done the same had no bearing on whether or not I thought someone else doing the exact same thing was certifiably nuts.

"You're crazy," Keva said. "But you're right. You're only doing what you do best. So get out there and do it."

I opened the communication line again. When it unmuted I could hear that Tera wasn’t particularly happy about me putting her on mute.

"… Another thing! I know you put me on mute, and I just want you to know that when you finally unmute me and I get you up here to my control room I'm going to have my men capture you and they’re going to…"

"Going to what?" I asked, grinning even though she couldn’t see it. "Because you know if you're going to kill me regardless I could always just set my reactor to overload. I'm sure your station would have some difficulty continuing to do brisk business if it had a massive hole blown in the side of it."

It would have more than a massive hole blown in it if those Torvolian power gems went with it. We’re talking the whole place would be reduced to rubble, but I wasn’t going to say something like that and give away the scheme. Tera was slick enough to pick up on something like that.

"I see you're back," Tera said. "It's about time."

"Come to think of it," I said, as though this had just occurred to me. "Thanks to your wonderful suggestion I think I'm going to give my crew standing orders to overload the reactor if anything should happen to me."

"You're bluffing," Tera said.

I was bluffing, one of the many issues we needed to repair was the reactor which was in no state to fling us between the stars or overload in a spectacular explosion, but one of the defining principles of a good bluff was not giving away that you were full of it. I couldn’t very well scare her into leaving us alone if I revealed I didn't have any good cards.

Not that I’d expect her to understand a good poker reference. I'd have to rework the phrasing to fit whatever card game was the favorite on Darkpoint, and I couldn't remember what that was. There were so many variants in a civilization that spanned multiple galaxies.

Oh well. I was an earth girl. And that meant I was holding nothing and going in for one hell of a bluff in the hopes it would keep Tera occupied just long enough to let us go. It wasn't much to go on, but I'd had less than nothing before. It was time to play the cards I had and see what happened.

24

Seleya

I bit back a string of curses as I came through the jump point. There was always a slight feeling of queasiness when I moved through the fold space between star systems. It was far more intense than the feeling of using fold space to move through a local system.

I did a quick fold space scan of the system which gave me a fast sketch of what was out there. Just as I suspected, there was nothing of interest. Just a bunch of old space rubble that had long since been mined out. The readout on this system said it was believed to be the first system the Selevas reached, and it’d been thoroughly mined by our ancient ancestors.

There were the remnants of a few planets that looked like they could have supported life once upon a time, probably a billion years ago or so, but the light from the local star had long since intensified with its expansion to the point that the worlds had been rendered uninhabitable.

If there ever had been a civilization in this planetary system then clearly they’d either not developed the ability to engineer their own survival as their star expanded, they’d killed themselves off before they reached a level of technology where they could do that kind of planetary engineering, or they'd long since moved on to other worlds.

It was impossible to tell which was which. A lot could happen in a billion years, and the xenoarchaeologists assumed the Selevas didn’t find anything considering there were no signs of an interplanetary war, though that had all happened so long ago that it was difficult to tell anything for sure.

The important thing was I saw no signs of modern civilization. I smiled. That meant that pirate was probably hiding on one of those rocks with their fold space drive spooled down so I wouldn’t be able to detect them. Maybe they thought they could make repairs to their ship in time to make an escape.

I probably should’ve called for backup, but I wasn't going to do anything of the sort. No, I was good and annoyed. When I captured these pirates I was going to personally bring them back along with those gems. I was going to personally handle the execution as well. Prove to that pirate that no one did that to the crown princess of the Selevas. No one put me in an awkward position like that with mother.

Though, to be honest, it's not like being in an awkward situation with mother was new. I frowned as I thought of her dressing me down on that landing pad. My hands tightened on my controls.

It was enough to make me wish there was a way for me to break through the palace defenses and land a couple of well-timed shots on the royal chamber while she was there with all the lickspittles constantly vying for her favor. Not that there was any chance of that happening. Even I wouldn't be able to give an order that lowered those defenses.

I’d have to settle for taking out my frustrations where I could.

"Pirate vessel," I said in a comm broad enough to hit the whole system via fold space. "This is Imperial starfighter out of Selevas Prime. I know you're out there. Reveal yourself or be destroyed when I do find you."

This would be a simple sweep. I smiled as I continued deeper into the system, a predator looking for her prey.

My ship rode through a small pocket of fold space created around the ship which allowed me to move through the system at faster than the speed of light without worrying about pesky things like hitting a speck of dust that would cause an explosion that would be bright enough to be seen from Selevas Prime in a few years. Assuming someone happened to have a telescope pointed at this system, which was a big assumption.

"I know you're out there you bastards," I growled, venting some of my frustration into the local space comms. Any civilized ship out there, even a ship crewed by a bunch of uncivilized pirates, would hear me.

Though, of course, them hearing me and them deciding to respond to my threats were two very different things. If I was a pirate who’d just stolen from one of the most powerful people in the civilized galaxies then I’d be reluctant to reveal my position when that person came calling. It was just simple survival.

I blasted out with active measures and hit the system with all the power my fighter had, which was quite a bit. There was no point in being subtle about the fact I was here since it was just me and that pirate freighter. I searched using anything and everything I had at my disposal, and that was a lot considering I had one of the most advanced starfighters in the civilized galaxies.

Maybe they were trying to hide from me, but I had the best sensing suite available to the Selevas, which meant I had the best sensors available to any military or private organization in the civilized galaxies.

Sure enough the screen lit up. A projection of three-dimensional space appeared in my heads up display. I watched as it brought me a far more detailed outline of the system than what I’d seen with basic scans earlier, and more importantly it started pinging as it found a large technologically advanced structure hiding on the other side of the local star.

Fascinating. I'd found exactly what I was looking for, even if there was some interference making it look larger than a freighter had any business being. My smile wasn’t pleasant.

"I've got you now, you bastards," I growled into the commlink. "Give up now and I'll go easy on you."

"Those are awful big words for someone who's pretty far off the beaten path," a voice came through my commlink.

I frowned at my controls. That voice didn't sound like my pirate. It was a male sounding voice, though with all the many varied species throughout the civilized galaxies there were times when it was difficult to tell whether a deep voice was the male or female of a species. But there was something rough and decidedly male, at least by the standards of the Selevas, to that voice.

"Identify yourself," I said.

"Identify yourself," the voice said back to me in a faintly mocking tone.

"I am a craft operating under the authority of the high Imperial Majesty of the Selevas royal family, and you will…"

"I think we're going to settle in and have a nice chat with you, little lady," the voice said, its tone turning cruel and promising nothing good for me.

A slight chill hit me. There was something confident about that voice. Something that said it knew exactly what it was doing. That they were going to try and rip me apart piece by piece.

I pushed down on those worries. I was the crown princess of the Selevas royal family. I was flying in a ship that was top of the line. They wouldn’t be able to take me down without a fight, and if that scoundrel thought she could intimidate me by putting on some male, well she had another thing coming. I'd gone up against better when I was training, and…

Something appeared in the three-dimensional space overlay in front of me. Something impossible. One moment there’d been nothing there, and the next the whole thing was lit up with ships moving through fold space and heading straight for me.

"Damn," I said, looking at the blips heading towards me at a rapid speed. They must’ve moved into fold space shortly before beginning their attack, which meant I’d pulled the idiotic move of not scanning things that weren’t giving off a fold space echo.

Fighters of that size would be too small to give off a proper signature unless I was using some of the more old fashioned sensing methods like radar. Which I hadn’t bothered with as part of my active measures because it moved at the speed of light and wasn’t of much use in modern space combat.

Unless I was trying to find fighters that’d been stationed on the rubble surrounding me waiting to sneak up on someone stupid enough to only rely on their fold space sensors alone. Damn it.

This was far worse than I’d thought. I hadn't stumbled upon a single pirate freighter that was stopping at this system to try and make repairs before they moved on. This had to be a pirate base of some sort if there were this many casually hanging out on those rocks waiting to catch anyone who showed up to cause trouble.

Which explained the large technological signature on the other side of the local star. No doubt there was a base of some sort over there.

I’d stumbled on a den of thieves. Obviously whoever had come here thought they could best me by coming to this secret location with some of their friends to try and intimidate me, but that wasn't going to work.

"I am giving you one final chance to surrender," I said, accelerating and diving straight for the craft that were coming at me in a semi sphere, though it quickly became a sphere as they surrounded me.

I didn't bother to look outside the canopy for a view of the fighters. This was combat in fold space. There was no point in looking for your enemy. If you were close enough to see them then things had gone terribly wrong. It was nothing like some of the entertainments that were produced for the masses that had an utterly unrealistic idea of what ship to ship combat in space looked like.

The vastness was, after all, part of the reason why they called it space. There was a whole lot of nothing but trace elements of various gases left over from star creation in the distant past. Sure they were the kinds of trace elements of gases that could really ruin someone's day if they were silly enough to accelerate to superluminal speeds, or even to a fraction of light speed, without a fold space envelope around them, but still.

Space combat was long distance, so I didn’t wait for them to close before I launched my first salvo. It’d probably be my only attack. After all, I flew a ship that was the best in the civilized galaxies. As was befitting my station as the crown princess. Even if my trainers probably never thought that I’d actually be going into combat when they taught me how to use these weapons.

"Time for you to die," I muttered.

The commlink was still open, and there was laughter on the other end. I frowned. They weren't showing the appropriate terror they should have considering the situation. They should be begging for mercy. That was what usually happened when mother's Imperial forces showed up. So what was going on here?

I frowned and punched up the speed. Perhaps I was being reckless considering we were moving through a system where there was plenty of clutter, clutter these pirate bastards had clearly used to sneak up on me without using fold space drives, but I was furious now.

I shouldn't have allowed that fury to get the best of me, that was one of the first lessons I'd been taught when I first got behind the controls of one of these craft, but I couldn't help it. They did not talk to me like that. They did not fight the authority of my family and my species and my mother!

My shots flew in, picking up speed at the end of their run to thwart anyone who might think they were getting away by punching their fold drive, and I let out a triumphant whoop as they made contact with a couple of the ships.

The heads up display lit up with the telltale debris signs of a ship that had suddenly had a hole punched into it. Followed by a fabulous explosion that only lasted for however long it took for the explosion to eat up whatever atmosphere was in the life-support system. There was still the telltale glow of a reactor going up that I could see as a thin pinprick of light even at this distance, but it wasn't flames in space like so many planetbound entertainers liked to put in their stories about space battles.

That should be enough to get them in the mood for a surrender. I opened the commlink again, and couldn’t help but let a small note of triumph sneak into my voice as I addressed this pirate scum.

"I want you to know that I accept your surrender if any of you choose to do so now,” I said.

25

Seleya

I did a quick visual scan of the battle space. And by a visual scan I mean I checked my sensors. I also flipped on the more primitive radar and visual tracking systems in the interest of being thorough.

There would be no surprises this time. At least not that I didn't catch well before they hit me. They might think they were clever, but they were nothing. I was Selevas royalty. They would learn what it meant to…

Something slammed into my ship. The shields took care of it, but there was a shimmer as they were activated.

That was no strange sight to me. After all, they activated regularly when I was training, but they weren’t supposed to activate in real combat. I was good enough at this deadly game that these lowly pirates shouldn’t have been able to do anything to me, damn it!

"What the hell was that?"

"Hit off the starboard engine," my computer helpfully told me.

"I know that," I said. "How did that sneak up on us?"

"Insufficient information to determine where the weapon came from," the computer chimed in.

"Well you're helpful," I said.

"Selevas combat AI. We aim to please," the computer said, completely missing the sarcasm. Damn bucket of bolts.

That was the problem with AI. It could never tell when you were giving it the business.

"We’re in some serious shit now," I muttered.

"I apologize. I don't detect any fecal matter near the ship," the AI said. "There isn't a planet with life forms capable of producing that in such quantities that has blown up in the vicinity recently to provide…”

"Would you shut up?" I growled.

"Affirmative."

I focused on the battle space around me. That was all that mattered. Focus. Keep an eye on everything. I must’ve missed whatever they hit me with. I must’ve…

Something rocked my ship again. "What the…"

Finally the radar picked something up. Faint pings moving in all around me, which meant a bunch of ships that were moving around outside of fold space at sublight speeds and dropping in just long enough to almost be detected. Not that they could catch up to me, but if, say, I was distracted by a bunch of their friends using fold space drives and they herded me to a point where they had an attack prepared which would’ve been pretty easy in a system as strewn with rubble as this one was…

Damnation. They were basically mining the space where I was going to be by lying in wait outside of fold space then ghosting in just long enough to fire a weapon at a close enough range that the sensors wouldn’t even pick it up before it hit!

“Project where those ships are now based on their trail,” I said. “See if you can use that to tune the fold space scanners to track them.”

“One moment,” the AI said.

It was less than a moment. Immediately the battle space lit up with more ships coming in from behind me. Firing off weapons as they dropped into fold space just long enough to fire something that could hit me. I cursed.

I could see them now, but they’d managed to get off another sneak attack. I wasn’t sure how many of those I could endure before things started getting really fucking bad.

"Son of a…"

I hit my thrusters. The ship accelerated and I barely managed to get away from an old-fashioned chemical missile that’d entered its own fold space envelope. These assholes were taking everything in the rulebook about spacefighter combat and turning it on its head, and all because they had so many little hiding places they could use.

"You stupid hunk of circuits," I shouted. "Why didn't you warn me there were ships coming up on us at sub light?"

“If you are unable to see them on the battle space monitor then I am unable to see them either,” the AI helpfully and patiently explained in a way that only a computer intelligence could in the middle of heated battle. “The ships ghosting in and out were deemed to be scanner artifacts.”

I did another scan of the system. Cursed as I saw the sheer abundance of rocks in this system where someone could pop out and do a hit and run.

Basically this setup was perfect for really messing with someone who thought being in fold space would be enough to protect them. If I was running a pirate enterprise this close to the seat of the most powerful species in the known galaxies then I’d be a little paranoid as well.

"Are you ready to surrender yet pretty?" the cruel male voice asked.

"As soon as I destroy you," I growled.

I fired off more shots. This time missiles struck true with two of my pursuers who were still flying like they didn’t think I could see them, but there were more of them on me. Damn it.

And now they’d know I’d figured out how to track them. Double damn it.

"This is all your fault," I said to the AI.

"Systems were set to scan fold space as a designated by the pilot," the AI said.

The quiet rebuke from the artificial intelligence was made all the worse by the cold and unfeeling nature of that rebuke. There was no satisfaction from the ship that it had just gotten one up on me. It didn't care what happened to me or the ship beyond what its programming told it to care about. The ship would do everything it could to save my ass, that went without saying, but when it came down to it everything it did was only because that's what it was programmed to do. Not out of any sense of loyalty or true concern for saving my ass.

"Damnation," I growled.

"Instructions unclear," the AI said.

I put my hands on the controls. It was time to do some fancy flying. Things had just gone very bad for me, but whatever. I smiled. I relished this kind of attack. It was time to show off some of the flying skills I'd gained over the years.

I just hoped the pilots I'd gone up against weren’t taking it easy on me over those years of training because I was the crown princess. This would be a bad time to discover I'd been flying against other people who were pulling their punches.

"Okay you assholes," I said, closing in with some of the ships that’d been moving in on me.

I switched to the mass driver. Which was a fancy way of saying I’d just activated a couple of railguns that accelerated hunks of metal to very close to the speed of light and sent them flying out at whatever I was targeting.

I didn't even bother using fold space to accelerate those chunks of mass past the speed of light. It was possible, but not really necessary right now. Not when they were so close.

The trouble was actually hitting the pirates with the way they were taking evasive maneuvers. Like they didn’t want me to hit their ships and blow them out of the stars or something.

There were so many of them that it was only a matter of waiting, though. One of them got too close, and I blasted them from the stars. There was a spectacular explosion that was the sort of yield one might expect from a small chunk of mass hitting a large chunk of mass that wasn’t traveling in fold space at close to the speed of light.

I was starting to feel pretty good about this fight. Sure they'd managed to sneak up on me, but I'd managed to give as good as I got. I was just one fighter, after all, going up against a bunch of pirates who were doing their best to blast me out of the stars and so far they'd failed.

I was feeling so cocky that I couldn't resist another bit of fun on the commlink.

"So how many more of you are going to die before you give up?" I asked.

Cocky? Yeah, maybe just a little. Totally deserved considering the way I was wiping the stars with their asses? Yeah, totally.

I probably should’ve known not to get too cocky. It was something my instructor drilled into me time and time again in training. It was a bit of advice I’d ignored time and time again, and it finally came back and bit me in the thrusters.

Something hit me and the ship went dead around me. I looked at a bunch of displays flashing all sorts of unpleasant colors and indicators showing I was losing power rapidly. Which shouldn’t have been possible.

"What the…”

"Warning, systems critical," the AI helpfully chimed in.

"No shit," I cursed. "Why is there no power?"

“Uncertain," the AI said. "Something is pressing into the fold space envelope and draining power."

"Son of a bitch!" I shouted.

"Are you ready to surrender now?" the commlink said. “Or are we going to have to drain the life-support by punching holes in your cockpit? Even money on whether one of the holes we punch kills you right away, or you have to wait for the atmosphere to leak out and die nice and slow. Or you can give up."

"I don't know what that pirate is paying you," I said. "But I will be happy to quadruple it."

"Hear that a lot," the voice said, sounding far more un-interested in the offer of a bribe than I would’ve expected from a pirate.

"You're not even going to entertain the idea?"

"Figure there's an even chance you're bluffing, or you really are that valuable. If you're bluffing it's not worth it to consider letting you go since you’re not paying, and if you are that valuable then we can get much more from you through a ransom. Thanks for letting us know it's worth looking into though. Guess we aren’t killing you yet.”

I ground my teeth together. Looked at my options, and none of them were pleasant. None of my options had been pleasant for most of my life. Sit and look pretty. Be a target for anyone and everyone who felt like they would do a better job of being first in line. I never understood why anyone actually coveted that position considering it mostly painted a huge target on your back.

Sure the gilded cage could be nice, but not so nice that it was worth all the bullshit I constantly had to endure for being the crown princess.

And now here I was out here trying to avenge my humiliation, and even that hadn't gone right.

I let out a growl of frustration. I must’ve had the commlink open because I heard laughter on the other end. Not just from the asshole who'd been taunting me. No, everyone out there who'd been doing their best to capture me was also laughing.

"We’re going to have some fun with you," a new one said. "The boss has asked us to bring you in, so I guess you're safe for now. Still, I figure whether or not you’re important maybe we'll get some payback for all our friends you just took out. If the boss will let us."

I looked at the display showing ships moving in around me. Looked at all the blinking emergency displays telling me something terrible had gone wrong with my ship. And I started to shake.

Damnation. Why had this happened to me? I was supposed to breeze in here and blow them all out of the skies before they even realized what was happening. These were a bunch of ramshackle pirates who didn't know how to fly, and they were doing this to me?

It wasn't fair!

There was one final thing I could do, of course. My fingers danced across the control panel. If I could just get off an emergency beacon…

Well it wouldn't be the best ending to this little scenario, but it was the best I could hope for. Mother would be furious when she discovered I was out here. I’d be confined to the palace for the rest of my natural life, assuming she didn’t foist me off on Revas to be done with me.

Still, whatever terror mother could visit upon me seemed like a preferable outcome to worrying about what these pirates were going to do to me. So I hit the button to send out an emergency beacon that would bring down the full fury of the Selevas on this system.

The only problem was the thing launched, but it was immediately blown out of the skies. A moment later another helpful display popped up letting me know that not only was I not going to get off a beacon, but they'd also put up a jamming field to keep any communications from getting out. Not that I had enough power to send a fold space message right now, which is why I’d relied on the beacon.

I slammed my hands against the controls several times and the ship pitched about violently in response, but it's not like it mattered. I was well and truly screwed. I had no way out of this, and all I could look forward to in the near future was being captured by a bunch of pirates who were going to do who knew what to me.

I suppose my only hope was that they’d quickly realize who I was and decide I was more valuable as ransom than as whatever they planned to do to me as revenge for killing their friends.

If that was the reed I was grasping at then I was well and truly screwed.

26

Flynn

I stared at the counter as the turbolift moved up along the central axis of Darkpoint. Not that the thing was actually called a turbolift, but it was what I called it in my mind since that’s what the thing reminded me of. It was more than an elevator since it could move through lots of tunnels built into the station thanks to antigrav, and wasn’t confined to merely go up and down like your typical boring elevators back on earth.

They'd improved the readout panel that showed what level we were on. When I’d started here it had been a bunch of dots in Selevas standard, and at some point Tera had gone to the extravagance of replacing it with an actual screen so it looked somewhat modern rather than a piece of functional space technology from centuries ago that was more function than form.

That would be just like her to replace something that just worked with something fancy that required a hell of a lot more maintenance. Then again this place was her show to run so whatever.

Outwardly, for the benefit of any recording devices that might be watching, I was looking at the new panel and reflecting on some of the changes that had been made to my old home. Between my ears my mind raced. I needed to figure out a possible excuse for whatever it was Tera was about to accuse me of.

The only problem with that plan was I had no idea what it was she was about to accuse me of, which made it difficult to come up with a plausible excuse to bullshit my way out of whatever it was a she was about to accuse me of.

Which didn't stop my mind from racing and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this.

Unfortunately I only had a moment to think things over. Apparently one of the many things Tera had upgraded was the speed on the lifts. There wasn't even the necessity to reach out and hold a handle on the wall these days.

That was a design note which had struck me as both utterly ridiculous and utterly infuriating at the same time seeing as how it took one of the more ridiculous aspects of the original series of Star Trek and codified it into actual working technology out in the civilized galaxies.

It was enough to make me wonder if someone on the set design team for Star Trek had known about some of the lift technology out in the wider civilized galaxies and incorporated that into their ‘60s set designs.

Set designs that were a hell of a lot closer to reality than I would’ve thought when I was first abducted. It turns out most of the civilized galaxies ran on functional rather than form, with the exception being the occasional time you were unlucky enough to fly the Selevas skies. Unlucky because it was never a pleasant experience if they saw fit to take you onto one of their ships.

Finally the door opened, interrupting my thoughts, and I prepared myself for whatever was coming. I walked in, trying and failing to look natural and relaxed, and ignored the stares I was getting from everyone on the control level.

The control room was pretty much as I remembered it, with one big exception.

"You took the time to clean all the debris off of the glass!” I said.

Though it wasn't actually glass. It was actually some kind of metal that’d been engineered to be transparent. Actual glass would’ve busted open the first time one of the bigger chunks of space rock moving through this system hit. There was something that had accelerated a bunch of small debris in this system to fairly high velocities once upon a time, and those chunks were a lot less forgiving than some of the space junk around Earth.

Tera stood in front of that observation window that wasn’t actually a window. She held her hands together behind her back, and she looked for all the world like the grainy Imperial officers chatting with each other in the opening cinematic of the old DOS X-Wing video game that nobody seemed to remember these days.

Wing Commander had been better anyway.

Tera probably wouldn’t appreciate it if she knew I was comparing her current stature to some of my old earth entertainments. Geeking out on that stuff had been something she played along with, then tolerated, then eventually grew to hate as our dalliance went on.

"Tera!" I said, throwing my arms wide and trying to act like I was happy to see her. "It was good to hear your voice on the comm, but it's even better seeing you here in person."

To be honest it wasn’t all that bad seeing her in person. She was still an attractive woman, even if she was doing her best to kill me without looking like she was doing her best to kill me. I could enjoy the view while being wary of the source of that nice view.

“Bullshit," Tera said, giving me a once over as well.

Well then. It was nice to be noticed like that. Tara could be a bitch on wheels, that was sure, but she was a hot bitch on wheels. She wore some sort of uniform that looked like it came from the costume department of a cheesy ‘80s Star Wars knockoff. We're talking those old movies that figured having David Hasselhoff with a laser sword would be enough to get people's butts in seats, always missing that there was a certain element of heart to Star Wars that was always missing from the copycats.

Don't even get me started on Krull where they obviously had a sword and sorcery movie like Conan in the pipeline and they tacked on a stupid sci-fi element via narration because they wanted to ride the coattails of a certain popular sci-fi series. Hell, even the Star Wars movies made after 1980 hadn't been able to recapture that old spirit the first two movies exhibited.

Whatever. I wasn't in a cheesy ‘80s movie, even if Tera had taken some of her fashion cues from those movies. Probably because I'd told her all about them and, oddly enough, it was the schlock that had attracted her more than the quality shit.

"Do you like my outfit?" she asked. "I took it from one of your earth classics you were always going on about. Battle Beyond the Stars?"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Your epic tale. Battle Beyond the Stars. I managed to get some of those entertainments you were always talking about smuggled off of your planet. In a curious format called VHS."

A strange tingling started on my scalp and moved down my spine. My fingers twitched as I thought about what she’d done.

It made me nervous that she was looking at earth at all. Tera might be nothing but a pirate, but she had the kind of technology that would allow her to conquer the planet without batting an eyelash if she so desired. She'd probably have a hell of a time holding onto it, we're talking Vietnam on a planetary scale with the natives fighting back guerrilla style wherever they could with nuclear weapons, but she could still conquer the place and cause a lot of trouble.

I suppose I should’ve been happy she was only using her connections to smuggle old VHS copies of ancient bad sci-fi movies off of the planet, but it was a reminder that I needed to shut up about where the hell I was from if I wanted the unknown backwater I came from to continue being an unknown backwater that was ignored by most of the civilized galaxies.

"Right," I lied. "Battle Beyond the Stars. Everyone on earth loves that one so much. I used to quote it all the time with my friends.”

"I thought you would say something like that," she said. “I also thought you would be more pleased to see me taking an interest in your dirt ball’s popular culture.”

“Sure thing Tera,” I said. “So is that all you needed? You wanted to gloat about your questionable fashion choices?"

Boy were those fashion choices questionable. Like we're talking they'd already been questionable even back in the ‘80s when they were probably supposed look all futuristic, and they hadn’t aged well since. The only thing that was keeping all the other tough types on the control deck from laughing her ass out of the place was the fact that they weren't familiar enough with earth culture to realize how ridiculous she looked.

Though from some of the glances she was getting and some of the covered mouths and airholes and foodports and whatever the fuck else the various creatures on the deck used to communicate amusement they were getting a good laugh out of this and the only thing keeping them from showing it was the fact that showing amusement like that around the boss at the boss’s expense was a good way to get vaporized.

Besides, one of the more interesting things about living in a multicultural multi-galaxy civilization that was being held together under the thumb of a not-so-benevolent species that called all the shots was there were so many fashion choices out there, so many combinations of alien body types and looks, that it was impossible for any one thing to look totally ridiculous. There were some interesting fashion choices being made by some species out there, is what I’m getting at.

We’re talking outfits so ridiculous that even the galactic fashion viewed through the lens of an early ‘80s sci-fi aesthetic didn't seem all that ridiculous compared to some of the things I'd seen.

“I didn’t bring you out here to discuss your earth fashion,” Tera said. “I brought you up here for a simple reason.”

"To gloat about something other than your questionable fashion choices?" I asked.

"Would you stop saying that?" she asked. "I am dressed in the height of fashion when it comes to what your society thinks life in the universe looks like, and I will not have you…"

"You look like a glittering Christmas tree sparkling in front of the fireplace at Liberace's place,” I said.

"What is a Liberace?” she asked.

I waved a dismissive hand. Explaining that phrase would involve going through a painstaking summary of what Christmas was, why trees were associated with it, why those trees sparkled, why humanity was still so frightfully primitive that they used burning wood to provide warmth from time to time, and who Liberace was. All things that I got the feeling we didn't have time to go over right about now.

"Never mind," I said. "Now can you please tell me why you brought me up here? I sort of have shit to do.”

"I don't suppose you want to tell me anything about the altercation that brought you here in the first place?" she asked.

I hesitated. I was trying to decide whether or not she knew something, or if she was simply trying to seem like she knew something in order to get me to reveal something.

I wouldn't put either one past her.

"My ship was damaged from an impact," I said. "I figured we needed repairs, and this was the closest place where I wouldn't have to worry about the Selevas asking too many questions.”

Tera's eyes narrowed. She wasn't buying my bullshit. It was a look I'd become familiar with when we were two young aliens working together and falling for one another on a station positioned dangerously close to the Selevas home system. Back before she'd promoted herself, likely via murder, to running things around here.

"Don't think that I don't know exactly what you're doing," she said.

"What exactly am I doing?" I asked. "Because I thought we were having a friendly conversation. You know. Catching up because it's been so long since we were able to talk like this?"

Tera's hand slammed down on a console. The thing sparked as several of the buttons protested her rude treatment. Tera looked down at the thing and let out a few curses in a language I'd never heard before. I filed them away to look up later.

If there was one thing I'd become a connoisseur of since arriving in the wider galaxy, it was xenolinguistic dirty words. It was amazing how rooted in a biosphere and a civilization’s culture swear words were. Not to mention it really cast humanity in an interesting light considering the most severe swear word we could come up with on earth, in English at least, had to do with copulating which, for most species, was considered a pretty groovy thing without all the baggage and guilt it had on earth.

Whatever. xenopotty mouths weren’t important. Tera was pissed off, sure, but I still had no idea what she was doing. My money was still on a fishing expedition, but it was hard to tell for sure.

"So can I go now?" I asked. “Looks like you have some repairs of your own to make.”

27

Flynn

Her eyes went wide. Her skin, already a resplendent shade of blue, turned several darker shades of blue. I'd never seen her do that before. She started sputtering and hissing.

Not because her species was prone to hissing. There were some species out there that were descended from the equivalent of a reptile on their planet. Desert dwellers and that sort of thing, and they hissed and sputtered like a teakettle when they were good and pissed off, but that wasn't the case with Tera.

No, as far as I could tell she hailed from a desert world, but that's about all I'd ever been able to get out of her. That and something about barely escaping from her planet before it was taken over by worms or something. I could only imagine that she was talking giant desert worms. Like the really cool stuff shit from Dune.

Whatever. I was more concerned with getting out of here with my hide intact, and I kept going to my one refuge when I was nervous about something. Cheesy sci-fi that’d been rendered all the cheesier by the fact that I was now out in the wider universe where I could see how galactic civilization really worked.

Some of humanity's entertaining ideas about how that galactic civilization would work were surprisingly quaint. Especially all the parts where humanity was going to create an interstellar civilization that could rival some of the power brokers who’d been out there populating the galaxies for thousands or millions of years.

Yeah, right.

"No you can't go!" Tera exploded. "Why would you think you could leave? You’re my captive!"

"Hold on a second," I said. "Admittedly I didn't read the license agreement that comes along with docking my ship at your station, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't include anything about becoming your captive. I mean that might be fun for a night, I remember some of those games we used to play in the bunk, but is this really the time or the place?”

"You’re going to stay here," she said. "And you're going to tell me exactly what you're doing here. Exactly what job you pulled at Selevas Prime to get the Selevas so pissed off at you."

I avoided anything that might give anything away. It was one of the first lessons I'd learned in this game. If you developed a tell, then it's as good as allowing people to read your mind when it comes to doing skulduggery and other below the board things.

"Why would the Selevas be mad at me?" I asked.

"You came to my station demanding a false transponder that identified Selevas normal so you could slip into the system," she said. "Seems damn suspicious, don't you think?"

"Yeah, and anyone who’s doing anything they don't want the Selevas to know about does that. Considering my rap sheet you can understand why I wouldn't want to announce that the Fortune Found is making its way into their system," I said.

Tera's eyes did a weird little fluttering thing. It was the creepy way her species showed irritation, I think. Or maybe it was amusement. I’d never been able to get a concrete answer out of her, and it didn't help that anger and humor were so closely related with her.

Though I didn’t know if that was a thing with her whole species or if it was just that she was batshit insane.

"You came back to my station, which I imagine wasn't part of your original plan, and you have severe damage to your ship," she said.

She sounded for all the world like one of the many versions of Sherlock Holmes going down a list of the deductions she’d made trying to get a criminal to give something up. Which was pretty funny, because she was terrible at this sort of thing.

Not that it mattered. She was the undisputed ruler of this station. That meant she could detain me and my crew if she wanted to. She could do a whole search of the Fortune, bulkhead by bulkhead, if she really wanted to.

It was still doubtful she’d find the Torvolian power gems, we'd done a very thorough job of hiding a cargo that was more valuable than the entire gross domestic product of most every civilization in the civilized galaxies for the space of a year, after all, but there was still a risk.

She could also decide to kill us and then disassemble the Fortune Found molecule by molecule, in which case she’d have an unpleasant surprise when the molecular disassembler reach those power gems and blew in an explosion that would make this entire star system briefly flare like a supernova, but that wouldn't do me a bit of good considering I’d be dead.

“I’m going to keep saying this until you believe me. We ran into some debris," I said. "It's not like we’d be the first crew that happened to."

"You’d be the first freighter crew that happened to in nearly a thousand millennia as reckoned in Selevas Standard,” Tera said. "The Selevas cleared their system of any and all space junk thousands of years ago so there’d be no navigation hazards.”

I bit back a few choice curses. Of course the Selevas would do something like that, and of course it would be the kind of detail I didn't know about. Assuming, of course, it was even a detail. Maybe she was making that up to try and catch me in a lie.

Either way she was clever, and my lies were getting thinner and thinner.

"Well then it wasn't a rock," I said. "Wouldn't be the first time someone has been hit by space debris that was accelerated to speeds that aren’t completely safe. Are you really trying to tell me you don’t think there’s the possibility that in the thousands of years since they cleared out their system some new space junk hasn’t been added to the interplanetary forecast? I’m getting sick of this whole question game you’re pulling.”

Tera started grinding her teeth. I couldn't tell if she was angry or ecstatic. I figured either way she looked like she was enjoying this entirely too much, which meant she still thought she had the upper hand.

The fact that she still thought she had the upper hand made me nervous.

"Fine," she said. "You have a convenient answer for everything today. So why don't you tell me about the Selevas starfighter that just arrived in the system?”

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. This was not good, but I still had to play it cool.

"Really?" I said. "I'm surprised you're not doing more to evacuate this place! It seems like the authorities have finally found you. You don't think my ship coming into the system is what tipped them off, do you?"

"I… What are you even talking about?"

"I'm talking about the Selevas authorities coming for you," I said. "If they’re in this system then you should be evacuating."

I looked around the control room. There were a few aliens looking nervous. At least the couple of aliens whose body language I could read were acting nervous that any Selevas authorities were in this system at all, and I figured I could extrapolate from those nerves that the other aliens were making moves that meant they were nervous in their own body language.

Tera closed her eyes. Her mouth moved but she wasn't letting any noise out. She was probably counting, or maybe reciting the names of her numerous gods. There were a lot of them on her home world, apparently, or at least there had been back before her whole world was taken over by those damned dirty worms, and she used to recite those gods to calm down.

"They're looking for you!" she hissed.

"I seriously doubt that," I said, spreading my hands. "I am but a humble pirate, after all, and…"

She jammed her hand down on her control panel again. On a part of it that wasn’t busted. A voice filled the room. A voice that chilled me to the bone even as it also set heat racing through me as I remembered some of the things that voice had said to me while I was in the middle of a pretty good time back at the Selevas palace.

"Pirate vessel," the voice said. "This is imperial starfighter out of Selevas Prime. I know you're out there. Reveal yourself immediately or be destroyed when I do find you."

Tera turned to me with a triumphant smile. I bit back a few curses. Good Earth curses she probably wouldn't know, for all that she’d spend a great deal of time with me once upon a time.

"So what do you have to say for yourself now?" Tera asked.

"That you're a sneaky underhanded bitch who should’ve told me from the get-go that you had a recording proving they were looking for me?" I said.

"I said what did you have to say for yourself, not what do you have to say about me!" Tera snapped.

"Well obviously," I said. "But I was more interested in telling you what I thought about you. That’s what I was thinking."

"I've had enough of this charade," Tera said. "Take her into custody. We're going to take her down to the hangar bay and see what she has to say when she meets her friend who was so eager to get in touch with her."

"Wait a second," I said. "You captured that Selevas fighter?"

“Of course we did," she said. "A fighter like that will go for a pretty penny on the black market. Lots of people looking for Selevas stuff that has been acquired through less than legal means."

This was bad. I wasn't sure Tera knew exactly how bad it was, and I also wasn't going to let on exactly how bad it was. Not yet. Not until I had an idea of whether or not she knew what she had.

It was one thing to hide the second largest collection of Torvolian power gyms in the civilized galaxies in a secret hold on my ship. That would get the Selevas good and pissed off, to be sure. We’re talking chase you to the very edges of the civilized galaxies, have to live out the rest of your days in one of the outlying dwarf galaxies or maybe as far as the Milky Way which was less than civilized, but it still meant they’d eventually give up and leave you alone. Maybe. If you had a little bit of luck and bribed the right people and those right people didn't end up getting tortured for their trouble.

Taking the crown princess captive, though? That was the kind of bad where the royal family would probably figure out a way to slowly disassemble someone's body molecule by molecule, in as painful a manner as possible. Keeping them alive the entire time. Reassembling them using the best medical technology in the civilized galaxies so they never quite died, but were constantly living with the torture of having their body being torn apart and put back together at a subatomic level.

Yeah, the Selevas queen was well known for her longevity. It was also well known that it was a curse rather than a blessing for the Selevas queen to grant that longevity to anyone who wasn’t her.

And they were going to do that to everyone on this station if they figured out that Tera had just captured the crown princess and was gloating about it because she thought that allowed her to score a point against her ex-girlfriend.

Damn. Things just went from bad but manageable to really fucking bad, and through no fault of my own.

Okay, so maybe it was partially my fault, but really. I couldn't have predicted this! Fuck.

28

Seleya

"Tractor beam activated," my AI not-so-helpfully told me.

Not that I needed the AI to tell me there was a tractor beam pulling me into this giant rock. I could feel the ship moving despite the fact that all the thrusters and the fold space drive had been knocked out.

I rolled my eyes. "Thank you so much for letting me know."

"You're welcome," the AI cheerfully chirped.

I really needed to have a talk with whoever developed the artificial intelligence for these fighters. The ability to detect sarcasm, given the predilection most pilots had for that sort of thing, would be very important to the day to day operation of these things.

I was starting to understand why my trainers insisted on teaching pilots how to fly these things without the AI. I’d thought it was because they didn’t want us getting lazy in our flying, but I was starting to understand that it was simply that they couldn’t stand the damn things.

The ship shifted and twisted under me. Every moment brought me closer to the pirate station hidden in a massive asteroid.

I wondered how the security forces had allowed something like this to go unnoticed. Pirates shouldn’t have been able to create a massive base like this so close to Selevas Prime. It was enough to make me think that perhaps it was a matter of security forces deliberately ignoring the place.

I’d certainly have some words when I was finished with this whole fiasco. If there was someone out there on the take ignoring this place then I was going to make sure they were tortured for all of eternity.

Assuming I survived both my encounter with these pirates and my encounter with mother if I managed to escape these pirates, that is.

"What to do," I muttered, mulling over my options and not liking any of them.

Pirate ships were arrayed all around me. Apparently they wanted a show of force.

I smiled a thin smile. They shouldn't take me lightly considering all the trouble they'd had pulling me in.

"If you would simply announce who you are and let them know that they will be richly compensated for returning you I am sure that everything will come to a satisfactory conclusion," the AI hopefully chimed in.

I rolled my eyes. Something told me that wouldn’t be helpful. They'd already shown an utter disregard for Selevas authority. Even after I'd blasted several of them from the stars.

It wasn't fair. They were supposed to give up after I'd destroyed several of their buddies. They weren't supposed to continue fighting and try to disable my ship just because they thought they could!

"Yes," I said. "I'm sure that’ll go over well to tell a bunch of pirates who’re already planning on ransoming me that they have the crown princess in their grubby hands.”

"Yes," the AI said. "They will certainly see the logic of their precarious situation and acquiesce."

“Assuming they don’t kill me first when they realize who they have. They’re better off if I disappear. If mother gets an inkling of what happened to me it’d be the end for all these pricks,” I muttered.

Though even that probably wouldn’t save them. Mother’s listeners would have the record of me going through the jump point to this blasted system. Which meant they’d eventually determine they needed to come looking for me here.

Either way the pirates in this system were living on borrowed time, but the question was whether or not that borrowed time would be enough for them to end me. I wasn’t liking my odds considering how poorly everything had gone so far.

I let out another growl and kicked at the bottom of my cockpit a couple of times for good measure.

"Warning. Registering several potential hits, although very small, to the bottom near the cockpit. Suggest sending out a drone to examine damage."

"Stuff it," I growled.

"Unfamiliar command. Please repeat."

Yeah, I was really going to have to have a conversation with the idiots who programmed the artificial intelligence for these fighter craft.

"Be quiet and don't turn back on until I tell you to."

"Affirmative," the AI said.

I honestly didn't think there was going to be anything the AI could do for me at this point. What was it going to do? Tell me my ship had been more thoroughly disabled than it already had? Yeah, fat chance of that.

“Approaching pirate base," the AI said as a massive opening appeared over the horizon line. As though I needed the computer to tell me that.

"What did I tell you?" I snapped.

"Affirmative," the AI said. “Stuffing it now."

The hangar loomed large, and then we passed over the lip and it was too late. There was going to be no last-minute ass saving.

I looked at my options. The only thing guaranteed to get me out of this situation was activating the auto destruct sequence, overloading the fold space drive, and setting off every weapon I had at the same time.

Unfortunately that was a solution that, while it was certain to get me out of this, would also kill me along with the pirates. Which didn't seem like the best solution. Ideally I needed a way to get out of this situation while living.

The tractor beam dropped me none too gently.

"Okay," I muttered. "Time to figure out how to get out of here alive.”

I started by looking through the weapons locker. It was actually a small panel in the side of the cockpit that opened to a conveyor system that brought weapons up from the armory hidden behind me in the ship.

By the time I finished gathering weapons I’d been surrounded by a motley group of ragtag pirates of varying species from throughout the known galaxies, all of them carrying very impressive looking weapons, even if the rest of their attire didn't look nearly as impressive.

I took a deep breath and hefted my weapons. I was ready to go. Maybe. At the very least I could take a few of them out before they subdued me.

Or killed me. I really hoped I could avoid them killing me, but if they thought I was going without a fight then they had another thing coming.

I took a deep breath. "Let's do this."

"Affirmative," the AI said, once again ignoring my directive to stay quiet. "Opening the cockpit now."

I leapt out firing. The pirates who seemed surprised for a moment before they leapt into action. At least the ones who were still alive after my first salvo.

I ducked down as shots landed all around me. It wasn't the most pleasant experience I'd ever had. I mean sure I'd had people firing on me before. Usually when we were doing practice runs at the palace proving grounds, but it wasn't like this. They were firing real shots, and they were trying to hit me!

I jumped behind a console that seemed sturdy enough for now, though I knew it was only a matter of time before the thing was blasted to smithereens and I’d have to find a new hiding place. I peered over the edge just in time to see a plasma blast sizzle through the air and my hair.

I moved down again. Felt at the charred spot that’d been my hair until moments ago.

"My hair! That asshole shot my hair!"

I moved up again. Fired everything I had at the bastards. They looked surprised for just long enough to have a hole blown in their chest cavities, or whatever was the closest equivalent to a chest on their alien body type, and then I was down again before they could get over their surprise long enough to fire at me. They were only shocked for that moment, then more suppressing fire sizzled through the air all around me.

Damn. It wasn't going to be long before these bastards shot through the console, and I was going to be in serious trouble.

“Wait!” a voice rang out. "Hold your fire! I'm going to personally use a plasma cutter to remove the ability to reproduce from the next bastard who fires on that woman!"

I paused. Wondered if I was finally going to get the respect that was owed to my rank. Maybe this woman had recognized me, and she knew what a world of trouble she was about to bring down on this station if she was stupid enough to kill the crown princess.

"Hey you!" that voice rang out. "Feisty pants with the guns."

"I'm not sticking my head up so you can blast it off," I shouted back at her.

There was a pause. I could hear murmuring on the other end of the console. A console that was starting to feel hot. As though maybe all of those shots were starting to cause some issues.

Fuck. That's just what I needed. The console exploding before they had a chance to kill me with those stupid guns.

"Look your worship,” the voice said. "I can understand where you'd be a little upset right now, so I'm not going to ask you to stick your head up, but maybe you could listen to me for a moment? Nice and friendly like?"

I took a deep breath. Looked around to make sure they weren't using this conversation to try and pull a flanking maneuver.

There was nowhere for them to flank me. There was simply the door to space up in front of me. A massive shimmering wall of force field preventing the vacuum of space from killing all of us.

"Yeah, fine," I shouted. "Talking sounds fine. For the moment."

"Right your worship,” that voice said. "So I'm not sure what brings you to my humble corner of the civilized galaxies, but I am very interested in why the crown princess would be pursuing a piece of shit like Flynn.”

"How do you know that's who I am?" I asked, though I had a feeling the time for playing dumb was well past.

There was another pause. More murmuring on the other side where they were clearly talking this over and wondering how they should respond. Then, finally: “Yeah, well I thought you looked kind of familiar when I saw you jumping out of that thing guns blazing against my guys. Really good idea, that. They had no idea what was coming. You should've seen the look on Rutger’s faceplate before you blasted it off. Classic. I can show you the replay if you want."

"You’re stalling," I said, lifting my gun up and firing off a couple of shots to keep them on their toes. It wouldn’t do to let one of these pricks sneak up on me while I was busy negotiating, after all.

Someone cursed. I couldn't tell whether it was a curse because I'd hit somebody who was trying to sneak up on me, or if it was simply the curse of a man who'd been hit because he was standing in the path of an errant plasma blast.

"It’d be really nice if you didn't do that your worship," the voice said.

"Stop calling me that!" I said.

"Whatever, your worship," the voice said. “Y’see that's the thing. You might’ve come to my system thinking you were the crown princess and all that, but I have it on good authority that you're on the outs with your mom. So I have a feeling if I give her your head on a platter I'm going to be solving more problems, for me at least, than I’d be creating. It seems to me your pretty head might be worth more dead than alive. What would you say to that?"

"I haven't even told you I'm the princess," I said. "Everything you're saying is ridiculous."

Another pause. More murmuring as though she was consulting with someone. I thought I heard the faint sound of a slap.

"Yeah. I don’t believe that," the voice said. "Your starfighter looks like it's been tricked out pretty nice, and it even has your name on the side. Unless you stole that thing, which means you're wanted and still worth money, I'm willing to bet you’re the crown princess and worth a large fortune to someone in my line of business."

I bit back a few choice curses. I couldn't believe I'd been so stupid as to leave the markings up on my ship. There was an electrically charged ink that could be used to change the markings based on what the situation called for. I should’ve changed it to something that didn’t tell the civilized galaxies who I was.

"So what do you say?" the woman asked. "Are you going to go quietly and let us turn you over to your mother, or are you going to let us do this the fun way? Lots of my guys are itching to have a crack at you because of what you did to their friends, you know. They’re spouting the usual bullshit about being excited to get with a princess. Gotta say I find the idea a little exciting myself, and I don’t think mommy dearest is going to care much what happens to the rest of you as long as we provide your head and it matches your biosignature.”

"I'll die before I let you take me!" I shouted.

"Yeah, I thought you were going to say something like that your worship," the voice said. "It was nice knowing you. I think I will have a little fun with you myself before we turn you over to your mother and get our reward.”

The firing started all over again. Damnation.

29

Flynn

I looked at all the pirates blasting away at the princess. I was really hoping Tera wouldn’t recognize her, but those idiot markings on the side of her starfighter had been a dead giveaway.

Also? She totally picked up that “your worship” stuff from me. I got the feeling she was using that on purpose to irritate me.

More pirates were streaming in with every passing moment. It was clear there was a numerical advantage here, and it wasn’t working in Seleya’s favor.

This wasn't going to take long. Eventually Tera was going to get enough of her minions in here to overwhelm Seleya, a woman who impressed me more and more with every passing moment even if she did have a frustrating habit of doing things like sticking her nose where it wasn't wanted or needed.

The moment the princess was captured we were both going to be royally screwed. Well, I mean I’d already been royally screwed once in the last twenty-four hour cycle, but I’d be screwed in the not fun way.

I needed to get out of here with my gems, and if I could maybe save the sexy princess while I was at it? Well I wasn't above reenacting one of my favorite movies by saving a princess on a giant spherical battle station that was no moon. Seriously, this was technically an asteroid or a dwarf planet orbiting a star. Not a moon orbiting a planet.

At least Tera's forces were making this easy. They were so busy blasting away at the princess that they weren't paying attention to little old me hanging out behind the lines ready to cause some trouble.

So the pirate standing just in front of me didn't realize what was happening as I gave him a shove and sent him into the rest of the pirate assholes Tera had surrounding her. They were clustered close enough together that they went down in a domino effect that I’d thought only worked in the movies.

Then again people getting abducted from science fiction conventions after being lured to a room by a sexy alien cosplay that turned out to be too good to be true was also something I thought only happened in the movies, and yet here I was.

I snatched up the rifle that’d so recently belonged to the nice pirate who was nice enough to act as the first domino in the line of pirates I’d just sent packing.

The rifle was big, clearly it wasn't designed for human fingers, but it was close enough thanks to being a Selevas design. I could hold the thing and pull the trigger without too much recoil, and that’s all that mattered. I fired into the line of guards who'd gone down and they started screaming and scrambling to get away.

Well the ones I didn’t hit immediately started scrambling to get away. The rest of them sort of just stayed where they were showing off the nice new charred holes I’d blown in them. A few twitched.

Tough shit for working for the bitch who was trying to kill me.

I only got off a couple of shots before something slammed into me. Or rather it slammed into the rifle I’d been using to cause some chaos. I looked over to see Tera crouched and ready to hit me again as the rifle went clattering to the floor where it wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good.

Shit.

"What the hell are you doing?" Tera screamed. "You're going to ruin everything!"

"Go fuck yourself," I said.

Tera reached to her side. Pulled out the plasma pistol she always had waiting there.

"I should've done this a long time ago," Tera growled.

Shit. She was actually going to shoot me! I mean I know everyone is tempted to do something like that with an ex if they had a nasty breakup like ours, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to follow through on that universal desire!

I couldn’t let it end this way. I’d heard some people say the last thing they felt before they realized they were probably going to die was a strange acceptance followed by a pleasing wash of chemicals provided by a brain that wanted the last moments to be peaceful, but the only thing I felt was fury.

I refused to believe this bitch was going to be the one who finally got one over on me. There’d been so many who’d tried to end me over the years, including the Levonian queen and the crown princess of the fucking Selevas adding their names to that list recently, and I wasn't going to let some two bit wannabe pirate be the one who finally took out the great Captain Flynn of the Fortune Found!

“What’s that?” I shouted, pointing behind Tera.

I didn’t expect her to fall for it. No, Tera was far too intelligent to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book. A trick that was as ancient in the civilized galaxies as it was on earth where history didn’t go back nearly as far as it did for some of the ancient civilizations kicking around out here.

The pirates around her did turn and look though, which caused Tera to stumble back just long enough to allow me to escape.

I dove for the nearest control panel. I pulled up the systems that controlled whether or not the atmosphere stayed inside the hangar bay and everything stayed nice and pressurized.

I figured if she was going to try and kill me then the least I could do was make sure I took a bunch of her assholes, and maybe Tera herself, along with.

First things first though. I pulled out my comm and looked at the Fortune. I had no doubt Keva was in there staring at me, but it was difficult to tell with the way the light reflected off of the cockpit.

"Get the Fortune out of here," I said.

"Are you insane?" Keva’s voice came through. “You’re going to get yourself killed out there if you don’t get on the ship now! What do you think you’re doing?”

"The usual," I said.

"So something ill advised that's probably going to result in all of us dying?" Keva asked.

"I didn't say that," I said. "You did, but you’re also right so whatever. I’ll point out that we haven’t died yet though.”

“If that’s supposed to make me feel better it isn’t working,” Keva growled.

My hand danced across the control panel entering a string of codes that would hopefully activate the manual override for the massive forcefield holding the atmosphere in. I held my breath, worried that it might not work, but it looked like Tera never bothered to update the old back doors we'd put into the system back in the day.

Well then. Maybe she'd been serious when she said she thought she’d never see me again. That was her problem though. If I ran this place then the first thing I would’ve done was go through every line of code for every system in the place to make sure there wasn't an ice comet’s chance in the upper atmosphere of a star that there was anything lurking in that code that might be a nasty surprise.

But if Tera was stupid enough to leave some of the old hacks we’d put into the system in place then I was happy to take advantage.

"You’re crazy," Keva said.

"What are you doing?" Tera shrieked. It was a shriek that was very quickly overridden by the sound of wind whipping all around us.

Wind wasn’t the sort of thing that was supposed to happen on a space station. That was the sort of pants-shittingly terrifying noise that meant shit was getting serious.

"What did you do?" Tera shrieked again, though that question seemed a bit redundant considering it was obvious what I’d just done considering there was now nothing between the station’s atmosphere and the cold uncaring vacuum of space.

It was almost comical. Her weapon went clattering past me first, followed by Tera. She grabbed the control panel I’d pressed myself up against because I knew what was coming, and she stared at me with pure hatred.

"You idiot!" she shouted. "You’ve killed us all!"

"You were going to kill me," I said, taking a deep breath. "Might as well take you and some of your assholes with me."

Her glare was pure daggers. Then she let go and went flying, but I lost sight of her before I could verify whether or not she went to meet the vacuum. I was too busy taking a deep breath of my own and holding onto the panel.

I figured I could wait this thing out. Opening the doors would clear out most of the assholes who’d been firing on me, and if I held on long enough the emergency doors would come down and save my ass. From there it’d be easy enough to clear out the remaining pirates and wait for Keva to retrieve me from one of the smaller airlocks that dotted the station.

It wasn't the best plan, but it was the best plan I could come up with on short notice.

"You really are insane, you know that right?" Keva asked, her voice barely audible over the loud wind.

"I try," I said. "Now why aren't you getting out while the shield is down and everyone’s distracted? Emergency doors will slam down soon and then you’ll be trapped!”

"We could still get you?” Keva said.

"Not a chance with this wind," I said. “Get the ship out of here before the emergency blast doors close and trap you in here. I’ll find an airlock.”

Already all around us there were blast doors coming down to protect the rest of the station. Breathable air was a precious commodity. It's not like atmosphere could be conjured up out of thin air. They’d have to trade for that stuff, and they wouldn’t want to lose any.

Between the pirates and the air flying out of the hangar it was a good bet that the air was worth more to Tera. Finding new minions would be a hell of a lot cheaper than carting more atmosphere out here.

Then I saw something that stopped me in the middle of patting myself on the back. Her royal worship, Seleya, was sliding across the floor grasping at anything and everything.

The only problem was the only things she could find to get a hold on were the dead bodies of some of Tera's people I'd already killed. Which meant there wasn't anything she could grab onto that would give her a handhold she could use to stay put while she waited for the big blast doors to close.

"Get out of here!" I shouted to Keva. "I'm going to need you on the outside very soon."

"What are you doing now?" Keva asked.

She might be grousing at me, but at least she did what she was told. The Fortune finally powered up, the roar of her engines loud enough that I could hear it even over the roar of the atmosphere rapidly leaving the station. That beautiful old hunk of junk freighter that had been modified to hell and back moved through the exit even as the big emergency blast doors finally started to move down.

I let go of my console and tumbled through the raging hurricane winds. Sure I could’ve stayed put, waited for the atmosphere to equalize with the vacuum of space outside, which is to say no atmosphere at all, but I could see how fast Seleya was moving towards the exit and do the math. She’d reach the void of space along with every other asshole before the blast doors closed, and there wasn't going to be anyone to come along and rescue her if I wasn't doing it.

Damn it.

I half ran and half flew across the hangar. It was a pity there was no one around recording this, because I had a feeling it looked fucking awesome. I jumped from body to body as the gravity in the hangar started to go. Gravity generators didn't like being exposed to the vacuum of space any more than living creatures did, after all.

I dove for Seleya. Managed to wrap my arms around her, and I had a brief moment where I enjoyed that feeling. It reminded me of some of the fun we'd had in her private chambers back at the Selevas palace. I'm not gonna lie. Having her pressed against me felt pretty fucking good even if the circumstances were less than ideal.

Her eyes went wide. And to my surprise she reached back and slapped me. I saw stars, and it had nothing to do with the stars waiting on the other side of the hangar opening. An opening that was rapidly closing as the blast doors slid shut, but they weren’t going to shut before we were through.

"Take a deep breath!" I said. "And don't fucking hit me again!"

"Why should I…"

"Would you drop the spoiled princess routine for once in your life and fucking listen?" I screamed.

I got the feeling her worship wasn’t used to people talking to her like that, but that was tough fucking shit. If she was going to survive this, and I couldn’t believe I was trying to save her ass when she’d come to this system to kill me or drag me back to Selevas Prime to be strung up and tortured, then she needed to listen.

“We’re about to be sucked into space!” I said. “That’s bad for living things. Breathe out! No air in your lungs! Close your eyes. Squeeze them shut. Fucking listen if you want to live!”

That look that said she wasn’t used to people talking to her like that quickly became a look of wide-eyed terror as she realized how well and truly fucked we were. Sure surviving in a vacuum was possible, it wasn’t the instant death that popular entertainment on earth and in the wider galaxies made it out to be, but it wasn’t fun.

It also caused death fast enough that it might as well be instant. Thirty seconds, tops, give or take depending on your internal body temperature when you were flung into the vacuum, wasn’t a lot of time to get a lot of living done.

“Here we go!” I said as we bounced towards the doors and were lifted up towards the void. If anything the blast doors narrowing the exit for what little atmosphere was left was making that wind even worse. Concentrating it as it sucked anything in its path out to the uncaring darkness of space.

Fuck. This was going to hurt.

30

Flynn

The hangar bay was a marked contrast from the vacuum. On the one end there was atmosphere that was rapidly leaking out into the uncaring void beyond, a roaring maelstrom of nearly hurricane force winds sucking us out, and on the other side was the uncaring quiet vacuum of space.

Things went silent around me. That was the thing about space. There was a hell of a lot of it, and so even though I was rushing out along with a good chunk of the atmosphere on Darkpoint, there was so much space for that atmosphere to fill that things went silent as soon as we crossed the hangar bay doors.

Things got pretty fucking cold too.

The local star in this system might be expanding and gobbling up all of its planets that had maybe sustained life once upon a time, but it wasn't doing jack shit to warm things up all the way out here.

Seleya had emptied her lungs at least. If she’d tried to hold it that would’ve been an unpleasant surprise as the oxygen expanded and ruptured whatever the Selevas used for lungs. Her eyes were wide with terror. Which wasn’t good. I shouldn’t have my eyes open either. Already I was feeling a searing pain as the freezing temperatures of space tried their best to boil away the liquid in there.

I pointedly blinked. Then when she didn't get the message I smacked her and squeezed my eyes shut again, this time pointedly closing them a little longer than I needed to.

She got the point that time and squeezed her eyes shut. That was good.

I did the same. On the one hand it was kind of nice looking at the princess as she pressed against me, the only warmth I was going to get out here, but on the other hand I wasn't really in a mood to have the liquid in my eyes boil or flash freeze. Which were fun things that happened simultaneously when the body was exposed to deep space.

That was the kind of damage that would be expensive to repair. Sure I was good for the money now, but I was also in a situation where I didn't have much in the way of liquid assets, as it were. Which is a fancy way of saying that if my eyes froze then I’d be fucked because there was no one I could pay to inject me with some nano repair units, and even if there was someone around to do it I wouldn't trust any of the shit they used on Darkpoint.

I'm sure there were a lot of people who'd been raised on sci-fi movies with a questionable grasp of the science part of sci-fi who’d think there was no way for us to survive this at all. Who might call bullshit because their only experience with someone going into the vacuum of space was in movies that weren’t big on realism. Like the ending of the original Total Recall. Not that new hunk of crap Hollywood tried to pass off as better than the Schwarzenegger classic.

The thing was I knew I had fifteen to thirty seconds. I’d read my Arthur C. Clarke, thank you very much. I was a huge fan of his stuff back in middle school. Probably more so than was appropriate for someone who was also interested in maintaining a social life in addition to reading entirely too many science fiction books.

Whatever.

I counted down in my head. Pinpricks of ice moved into my body at every point where I had skin exposed to the vacuum. It was a good thing I had the princess next to me. Our combined warmth might buy us a few extra seconds before we lost consciousness.

My only hope was that Keva was out there in the Fortune ready to rescue our asses before we got to the point of permanent damage. Or, at the very least, if there was any permanent damage then the hope was it would be the kind of permanent damage that could be reversed by a good doctor with a good set of nanobots.

Was Keva moving in? Was she trying to save our asses? It wouldn’t be much longer, one way or another. Even though this was a moment that felt like it was stretching on forever. As though my body knew this was it, this was the end, and it was squeezing out every last bit of conscious thought before things finally shut down forever.

The lighting around us changed ever so slightly. Like just enough that it could be from artificial means and not us suddenly being hit by the blinding light of the local star. Because let’s face it, an eyelid wasn’t going to be enough to stop that from blinding me out here in deep space.

That light was just enough that hope fluttered in my heart. I'd counted down to about ten in my countdown to imminent death, and I knew it wasn’t going to be much longer before I lost consciousness and didn’t get to feel my body shutting down around me.

Which was a small mercy.

The atmosphere seemed to change around us. My body was surrounded by an impossible heat. I thought my body was burning. I thought maybe we’d been caught in the wash from a craft leaving Darkpoint. Which meant we were about to be roasted like we'd just dared to threaten Sigourney Weaver for the past hour and a half and she was taking her revenge.

Shit.

But the more I felt that warmth running over my body the more I realized it wasn't actually all that hot. It's just that when a body goes from an environment that’s roughly -274 degrees for anyone counting in Celsius and about -455 degrees for anyone still using freedom units, suddenly finding yourself in room temperature, or actually just a little warmer than room temperature, felt like catching fire.

That warmth could only mean one thing: rescue. I was surrounded by atmosphere. There wouldn't be that kind of warmth unless we’d been pulled into a spacecraft. I slammed into something metal as the world suddenly started having directions again. I coughed and spluttered as I took in a deep lungful of air.

Seleya was doing the same next to me. She rolled around and held her stomach and gasped for air. She opened her eyes and they went wide. She stared past me in terror.

I suppose from her point of view she might as well stare in terror. She was screwed no matter who’d captured her. If it was Tera then she could look forward to being used for ransom, and if it was my ship then… Well honestly I wasn’t sure what she thought I was going to do to her if this was my ship.

Maybe me capturing her wasn't something she'd even thought of. My plans involved offloading her at the nearest convenient planet with an imperial outpost small enough to not be a threat and be done with this.

Unlike Tera, I had my payday and didn’t need the headache of a captured princess on top of everything else.

I needed to know where I was, so I risked opening my eyes. I figured it was safe enough since I could feel a friendly M class atmosphere all around me.

It was awfully convenient that the whole M class planet idea was a real thing. Sure they didn’t call it that, that was my own private little joke, but it turns out terrestrial atmospheres were common enough that most life could exist within that kind of atmosphere without much accommodation.

Which meant I could go around without a breathing mask most of the time. It had something to do with how water was the best building block for life or something like that. There weren't all that many species that resembled the Horta or those weird rock creatures from Master of Orion II, is what I'm getting at. Life that didn’t use water and carbon as a building block existed, but there wasn't much contact with them outside of people who had to specially make stuff to contact those species in the interest of making an extra buck since there weren’t all that many people interested in interacting with those species in the first place.

I took in a deep breath. A wave of relief washed over me. Though it was a short-lived feeling of relief. Because staring down at me with a bunch of guns pointed at us was none other than Tera and some of her merry band of pirates who’d apparently survived having the shields lowered on the hangar bay door.

Crap.

I raised my hands. A reaction from the old days on earth when that was the most common thing you saw people doing when they were getting arrested. Not that I thought it was going to do me a damn bit of good if Tera was in a mood to shoot my ass out from under me.

"So nice to see you again," Tera said. “The next time you decide to try and make an escape by depressurizing my hangar bay you should probably make sure I'm not a few steps away from my personal craft."

I grinned. "It was worth a try."

I briefly entertained a fantasy of Keva moving in and using some of the blasters on the Fortune to end this predicament, but of course that didn’t happen. That was the kind of thing that only happened in ridiculous movies back on earth.

There was no Klingon Bird-of-Prey that was going to appear at an opportune moment with Nimoy at the controls ready to eighty-six God with a well-timed blast. Damn it.

Of course there wouldn’t be. This was real and Keva was smarter than that. She wasn't going to risk the ship and the gems on that ship in the name of trying to rescue me from what was undoubtedly a heavily armed craft that could blast the Fortune out of the sky.

Plus Tera had the advantage of having an entire dwarf planet and all the armaments built up on that thing on her side. That would really tip the balance in her favor.

"So where are we going from here?" I asked, sure I wasn’t going to like the answer.

Tera shrugged. Moved her head from side to side as her skin shifted between different shades of blue. Something that only happened when she was really irritated. When she looked back down at me and smiled it wasn’t a pleasant smile.

"I was thinking we should probably go back to Darkpoint,” she said. “From there I’ll decide whether I want to kill you or keep you hostage. I'm sure if you're part of the reason why her royal highness the crown princess of the Selevas Empire is here in our presence then the queen will be very interested in having your head in addition to her daughter’s.”

"That's very thoughtful of you," I said.

"Don't think I'm doing this because of some misguided sense of friendship or something. I really do think the queen would be very interested in acquiring the head of whoever was responsible for her daughter winding up in captivity. Your head is worth more alive for the moment than it would be dead. I don’t want to waste a refrigeration unit on you when your body can do the preservation work for me while you sit in a brig and think about your fate.”

"Damn," I said. "And here I was hoping I was getting a break for old times’ sake."

"Take care of them," Tera said.

The thugs around her holding weapons raised those weapons. They crackled with the faint glow of a stun setting. There was a bright flash of light, and everything went dark for a little while.

31

Seleya

My eyes didn't want to open. That was bad. I’d never had a problem waking up before.

I rolled around to try and get a feel for my surroundings without opening my eyes.

"It helps if you give it a minute. Take a deep breath and relax,” a familiar voice said. A voice I really didn't want to hear, considering everything that’d happened to me recently because of the owner of that voice.

"What are you doing here?" I growled.

"I think the question really is more along the lines of what the hell are you doing here," she said. "After all. You're the idiot who came into this system chasing me. What kind of stupid idea was that?"

"What kind of stupid idea was it for you to try and steal my gems?" I snapped.

Finally I managed to get one of my eyes open, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. I cried out in pain.

"What in of the civilized galaxies is causing this?"

"I told you to take a deep breath and keep your pretty eyes closed,” she said. “Not my fault if you can’t listen.”

"You told me to take a deep breath," I said.

"Oh. Did I leave out the other part?" the woman asked.

"I guess you did! What’s happening to me?"

"Your eyes probably froze just a little when you didn’t close the damned things like a sensible creature that’s been exposed to the vacuum of space. The damage won’t be permanent. They picked us up in time. Also, you were totally wrong.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You said I tried to steal your gems, but that’s not true,” she said. “Last I checked I did steal them, and that’s why you’re here.”

"I hate you," I growled.

I turned to look at my torturer. The woman who was the cause of this hellacious experience. She smiled and gave a little wave, just her fingers wiggling, when she realized my eyes were open and I was looking at her. At least one of my eyes.

With a cry I opened my other eye. It didn't feel the greatest.

"You have no one to blame but yourself," she said. "You're the one who decided to come into an abandoned system with guns blazing announcing yourself to anyone bothering to listen.”

I let my head fall back against the bed, and stars danced in front of my eyes because it turns out there wasn't a cushion. Obviously whoever put this cell together hadn’t bothered with creature comforts.

"This is not an abandoned system," I said. "It's within a jump of Selevas Prime. I don't know why these pirates have been allowed to continue operating here when they’re so close to the main system, but…"

The woman started to chuckle. It occurred to me that I didn't even know her real name. At least I assumed I didn't know her real name. No, if she was a pirate then it was likely she gave me a false name.

"Are you really that naïve, your worship?" she asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"You really have to ask yourself why pirates have been allowed to operate unmolested in the shadow of the great and powerful Selevas Empire who could jump into the system and destroy every rock without flexing even a fraction of a percentage of their military might?”

The full import of what she was insinuating hit me.

“It's treason then?" I asked.

"You make it sound so dramatic," she said. "It's not treason. It's just good business on the part of somebody in your space force. At least I'm assuming it's somebody in your space force. Someone out there is getting a good chunk of change for ignoring the traffic that comes in and out of that particular jump point."

I let out another growl. My strength was returning. I sat up, and immediately regretted it.

"What in the civilized galaxies is that?” I cried out.

"Burning sensation all over your body?" the woman asked.

“Yes!” I cried. "What is this?"

"A common reaction to finding yourself out in the vacuum of space and then being reintroduced to regular atmospheric temperature. Don't worry. It goes away after a little while."

I ran my hands up and down my body, and then stopped. It wasn't doing me any good to run my hands up and down my body. No, if anything it made it hurt all the more.

I hit her with a baleful glare.

"How do you know so much about being exposed to vacuum anyway?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Not my first time getting thrown out of an airlock."

I figured there were several good stories to go along with that simple statement, but I didn't have the time to ask her about them. I was more concerned with getting out of here.

Just as she said, the burning sensation was starting to go away. I smiled. A burning sensation after having a delightful dalliance with a pretty woman. This wasn't exactly the same as the previous times that had happened, but the similarity was enough to make me laugh.

“Right. So we’re trapped in a brig on a pirate station in an abandoned system that’s being kept secret by someone on the take at Selevas Prime. What do we do now?”

"What do you mean what do we do now?" she asked. "Didn't you hear? Your ass is going to get ransomed, if you’re lucky you’ll get to keep your head in the process, and I'm going to be offered up as a sacrifice because they figure they can get more money by putting my head on offer along with your cute ass."

I hated that I felt a flush as she mentioned my cute ass. I would not be flattered that this woman was still hitting on me! Especially when she’d used that flattery to try and double-cross me. No, not try and double-cross me. She had double-crossed me. And stolen some of the most valuable property in the civilized galaxies.

I had to remind myself that however pretty this woman was, she was a danger who did not have my best interests at heart. For all I knew she could be working with these pirates and this whole thing was a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security for some nefarious pirate plot.

I wasn’t sure what sort of plan they would be running where they’d want to lull me into a false sense of security, but with the days I’d been having I wouldn’t put anything past these pirates.

"I have no intention of rotting in here until they figure out how to contact mother without getting themselves blown out of the stars in the process,” I said. "And I imagine someone with your resourcefulness isn't going to sit around and allow them to hand your head over to mother either."

She shrugged. "Maybe not, but why should I include you in any escape plan? Even if I leave you here chances are you get to go back to a life of luxury, maybe get a nice spanking for being a bad girl, and I get away. I see no incentive in saving that cute ass of yours, even if we did have a fun little roll in the antigrav.

I wanted to kill her. It was entirely her fault that I was in this situation in the first place. She'd stolen my Torvolian gems. She was the one who’d forced me to come all the way out here to track her down. She was the one who'd pulled that ridiculous move where she sent us flying out into space. She was the reason I was captured here in this brig waiting for a bunch of pirates to ransom me to mother.

Which, I might add, wasn’t going to do any favors for my standing at court. Before mother had simply been on the verge of marrying me off to a convenient business parter.

Now, after I'd disobeyed her orders and come all the way out here in a stolen craft, after I'd allowed myself to be captured and held hostage by pirates, I’d be lucky if she didn't send me to one of the numerous torture chambers that provided so much excellent medical research for the civilized galaxies.

All of that rage built inside me until it exploded. I threw myself across the room and wrapped my arms around this idiot’s neck. I wanted to squeeze the life out of her. I could at least take some comfort in knowing I'd done that much. That would be a memory to keep me warm in the middle of all the torture.

There was only one small problem with that plan, and honestly I thought it was a pretty good plan. She wrapped her arms around my wrists and twisted.

I couldn't be sure exactly what she did. One moment my hands were wrapped around her neck, and the next I was flying. I did a little whirl and slammed into the floor.

Stars danced in front of my vision. I stared up, uncomprehending, wondering what the hell had happened. She was so fast that I had trouble piecing the past few seconds together. She'd use some sort of hold to whip me around.

She was surprisingly skilled, but if she thought she was going to best me in hand-to-hand combat then she had another thing coming. I'd been trained by the best, and I was going to show her what it meant to go up against the crown princess of the Selevas!

I tried very hard to ignore the voice in the back of my head whispering to me that I hadn’t done all that well so far despite being the crown princess.

I faced her and put my hands up in a defensive posture. Meanwhile she merely rolled her eyes while making a disgusted noise.

"Are we really doing this?" she asked.

"You're damn right were doing this!" I growled.

She shrugged as though it was no matter to her.

"Fine. Let's go then. Come get some."

She smiled as though she'd just made some grand joke. I had no idea what that joke might be, but I got the feeling it was at my expense. I didn't care for a joke that was being made at my expense, and so with another growl I threw myself at her.

32

Seleya

Again I found myself staring up at the ceiling. Again stars danced in front of my eyes. Again I wondered exactly what had happened, and again it took a moment for the last few moments to come filtering back to the surface of my consciousness.

I hopped onto my feet. I stared at her.

"I don't know who you think you are, but I've been trained by the best in the civilized galaxies!”

She cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure you were trained by the best? Because I've managed to get in two easy shots so far, and you're not giving me all that much to worry about."

That infuriated me more than the fact that she’d stolen those gems from me and destroyed my life as I knew it. With another yell I reached out to sweep her feet out from under her, but she jumped over my shot easily enough. A moment later she was on top of me.

Having her on top of me wasn't exactly a bad feeling. No, it was actually quite nice. Or it would’ve been quite nice if I wasn’t still filled with a rage that ran deeper than any lust that might be ignited by having her body pressed against me.

I tried to hit her several times, and when she batted my hands away effortlessly I tried my best to break her deflection, but nothing was working. I let out another growl as I tried to bring my leg up between hers.

That worked better with males than with females, but I knew from hard-won experience that it could hurt just as much getting hit there with female anatomy as with male anatomy. Though again she seemed to know what was coming squeezed her legs together. Surprisingly powerful muscles kept me from moving my own leg up any farther.

"Why won't you go down?"

She arched an eyebrow and grinned.

“I’d be more than happy to do that your worship," she said. "But if you're talking about throwing this fight just because it’d make you feel better about yourself then you have another thing coming."

She held her hand up. Squeezed it into a fist. My eyes went wide.

"You wouldn't dare," I hissed.

"Really now?" she asked. “Do you want to try me? Or are you going to yield?”

"I will not yield!” I growled. "I am the crown princess of the Selevas dynasty, and I do not give in to common pirate trash trying to…"

More stars danced in front of my vision. I worked my mouth a couple of times. Most of the pain radiating through my body at the moment seemed to be coming from that spot. That fucking hurt!

"What the…”

More pain bloomed through my body and more stars danced in front of my vision. A profound ache started up in my jaw. I looked up at her and saw that her hand was out, open, and quite red. Like she’d just smacked something with it. I couldn’t believe it. No one had dared something like that since I was training for self-defense.

Training that I was starting to think wasn’t nearly as effective as I’d thought. Not if this pirate was able to best me so easily. Not if she was able to get me in a position where she could lay hands on me like this.

"You bitch!" I shouted. "You laid hands on me!"

She grinned. It was a sexy lopsided grin that’d drawn my attention back in the ballroom. That had led me to my undoing.

"I've done a lot worse than lay hands on you your worship," she said. "And I'm going to keep doing a lot worse than that if you keep insisting on acting like you have the upper hand here."

"I refuse to…"

Blood pulsed in my cheek where her next slap landed. My mouth worked, but I honestly had no words for this terrible thing she was visiting on me.

Sure I’d been hurt accidentally in training from time to time, but never like this. This was the first time I’d been confronted with someone who was deliberately seeking to cause me pain and didn’t fear that causing me that pain might result in terrible retribution from mother.

Well, I suppose there were people who’d sought to assassinate me, but that was always at a distance. Always far less intimate than this.

"You might be a good pilot,” she said. "I'll give you credit for that. Whoever trained you to fly a starfighter knew what the hell they were doing, but the person who taught you hand-to-hand combat clearly owes you a refund.”

I frowned and thought about all the terrible ways I would have her killed if we were back in the palace.

Only that was the problem, wasn't it? We weren’t back in the palace. Sure we were only one jump away from the palace, but that was still trillions of miles away. Without a ship I had no way of getting back there, and without communications I had no way of bringing down the might of the Selevas Empire on these pirates who dared to capture me or this woman who dared to beat me like I was some common pirate trash.

In short, I was completely at her mercy.

Now that was interesting. Why was the thought of being completely at her mercy so compelling? I let out a little sigh as bumps pebbled my skin.

She raised an eyebrow.

"So does that mean the fight’s over for now your worship?" she asked.

"Would you stop calling me that?" I hissed. “You will address me as your royal highness!”

"Fine Seleya,” she said. "Are we declaring peace for now?"

I gritted my teeth at the clear slight, but I had no choice. “Fine. Whatever! I yield!”

"Good," she said. "But keep in mind that if you do decide to cause more trouble then I will be forced to thrash you again."

"Clearly fighting you isn't a good idea," I said.

"I could’ve told you that and saved us both a lot of trouble,” she replied.

"A lot of aching as well," I said, rubbing the side of my face. “Where did you learn to fight like that anyway?”

She grinned. “I got a black belt studying under Sensei Goldstein in a McDojo in a strip mall back where I’m from once upon a time. Turns out that kind of fighting comes in handy out here in the wider galaxies.”

I didn’t know what any of those words meant, they sounded like loan words from one of the numerous alien languages that’d been subsumed but not completely destroyed by Selevas Standard being the language of commerce and government, but truly this Sensei Goldstein in his Macdoujo Stripma’al must have been a formidable warrior. It was almost enough to make me want to track him down so we might put his skills to use training troops for the glory of the Selevas Empire!

She got off of me, and I didn't like that I felt a momentary pang of disappointment that she was climbing off of me.

I shouldn't be feeling anything for a common pirate ruffian who’d taken advantage me, but there it was. There was something about her that drove me wild. It wasn't exactly love, but there was lust in abundance when it came to this woman.

"Okay then your worship," she said. "So do you want to tell me what the hell you were doing chasing me into this system? Because you got yourself in a world of hurt here, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get you out of it."

My eyes went wide. All of that and she was still acting like this was all my fault! I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought of her and the idea that this was somehow my fault, and then sighed. That hadn't gotten me anywhere before and it wasn't going to get me anywhere now.

For now I was going to have to play along, as much as that galled me. If I was going to escape this place then it was going to be with this woman’s help.

“I don’t know why you should be surprised that I came after you,” I said. “I already had next to nothing when you stole the crown princess jewels from me. Mother was on the verge of marrying me off to a lowly merchant to get me out of the line of succession. You stealing those gems merely convinced her that she’d been right in pushing me out.”

“Huh,” she said. “Guess I never thought stealing some gems from you would result in something that big going down. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Not sorry enough to not steal the gems,” I growled.

“Well no, not that sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid that after we hit the Levonians it was either go big or get killed.”

My eyes went wide. “You were the one who stole the Levonian power gem?”

She sketched a brief bow. “None other than. I take it they notified you even if they didn’t tell the rest of the civilized galaxies?”

“Something like that,” I said.

It was more that there were whispers going around the civilized galaxies about the Levonian queen being embarrassed by someone swooping in, seducing her, and leaving her while absconding with something of great value. I hadn’t thought that would be her power gem until this rogue mentioned it.

Which was all the more reason for me to feel shame. After all, we’d known there were rumors that something had happened with the Levonians. If I’d known about those rumors with the Levonians then I should’ve known there was something potentially dangerous that could happen to me as well.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“What is your name?” I asked.

She took in a deep breath, then let it out in a long and slow sigh. As though she was about to admit something that she’d rather not.

“I suppose there’s no point in keeping that from you,” she said. “One way or another we’re probably dead by the time this is all said and done.”

I pursed my lips. I can’t say that I cared for her assessment of our chances. Probably all the more so because I was fairly certain it was an accurate assessment. It was merely a question of whether the pirate running this station was the one to do it, or if we would be lucky enough to survive this place only to be captured by mother’s forces and subjected to all the wonderful things she could do to someone to make them regret ever crossing her.

“So?”

She tensed, then shrugged. “I suppose you were going to find out eventually. Back on my homeworld my name was Lynn, but when I got out here into the wider galaxies I decided it would be better to take on a name that was a little more dashing.”

“So what’s that name?” I asked, not sure I would even recognize her if she did have a name I was aware of. There were a lot of two-bit criminals out there in the civilized galaxies doing their best to make a name for themselves, and…

“Flynn,” she said, and it was like a punch to the gut. “Captain Flynn of the Fortune Found.”

33

Seleya

My mouth worked and I tried to come up with something, anything, that would make some sense of what she was admitting to, but it was difficult.

“You’re him?” I asked, then I looked her up and down and blushed as I realized just how ridiculous that sounded given all the intimate details I knew about her. “You’re her?”

“None other than,” she said, sketching a little bow. “Nice to know you’ve heard of me.”

“Okay Captain Flynn,” I said. “So I have another question.”

She’d stood on one of the cots and was messing with something in the ceiling. I couldn’t be sure what she was doing, but I also figured now wasn’t the time to interrupt her. She seemed to know what she was doing, most of the time. Even if she had thrown me out of a massive airlock in one of her escape schemes.

There was no airlock here to get sucked out of, so I figured we were safe enough.

“Shoot,” she said. “Again can’t promise I’m going to give you an answer you’ll like, but I can try.”

“Right,” I said. “Can you tell me why you thought it would be a good idea to throw us out of an airlock?”

She turned from whatever she was inspecting in the ceiling and grinned. It was the sort of unhinged grin that seemed like it belonged on the face of a notorious pirate.

“Well that was simple,” she said. “I had to do that if I was going to save your life. It was the sure death of getting shot by Tera and her stooges or the probable death of getting thrown into the vacuum. Besides, I could always hope that Keva was on the ball and ready to rescue us on the Fortune. It’s a damn shame that Tera got to us first.”

“Tera?” I asked.

“The crazy bitch running this station.”

“Oh,” I growled. “Her.”

My head spun. There were so many crazy names being thrown at me and I wasn’t sure how to respond to any of this.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” she asked, going back to whatever it was she was messing with in the ceiling.

“I suppose,” I said. “Though I’ll have you know I’m not used to people demanding things of me.”

“I’ve noticed,” she said, her tone flat. “And that dovetails nicely with my question. The same question I’ve already asked and you’ve already dodged. What did you think you were doing coming in with guns blazing ordering a bunch of pirates to disarm and surrender to you when all you had to your name was a single Selevas starfighter? Those things are dangerous, but they aren’t that frakking dangerous.”

I bristled. “How was I supposed to know that a bunch of outlaws and pirates wouldn’t bend to the rightful authority that rules these galaxies?”

I thought about what I’d just said. It struck me just how ridiculous it sounded. What hurt even worse was this Flynn woman didn’t even note how ridiculous it was. She simply stared at me flatly before going back to whatever it was she was working on.

“Your point is taken,” I said.

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “You’ll have to learn that the civilized galaxies are big with a lot of places that aren’t so civilized. Lots of places where your mom’s authority doesn’t extend farther than the warfleets she can put together to navigate through those areas, and it just so happens that one of those spots is a system that’s within one jump of Selevas Prime.”

“Something that I fully plan on taking care of when I get back to the home system,” I said with a sniff.

“Assuming you get back to the home system,” Flynn said.

I didn’t like the way she said that. She was so matter-of-fact. She wasn’t threatening me. She was merely stating that, in her estimation, there was a very good chance we weren’t going to make it out of this alive.

Great. Just wonderful.

“Y’know it’s not fair,” I said.

“There’s very little about life in the civilized galaxies that is fair, your highness,” Flynn said. “But I’m curious. What are you thinking is unfair here?”

“It’s not fair that they don’t listen to me out here, and it’s not fair that they don’t listen to me in the palace. No matter where I go no one listens to me, and it’s frustrating because everyone thinks I live this charmed life where I have everything handed to me.”

Flynn hit me with another one of those looks that said she wasn’t buying what I was trying to sell. Not that I’d ever had to try and sell something in my life. I blushed and looked away.

“Well maybe I had a great deal handed to me, but just because I lead an easy life by some standards doesn’t mean I don’t have problems of my own,” I groused.

“I’ll give you that,” Flynn said, grunting as she pushed on something. “That’s the thing about life. No matter how good everyone else thinks you have it, there’s always someone else you can look at with envy.”

I looked at her with a new appreciation. There was something about that philosophy of life that I could appreciate.

“So who do you look at with envy?”

A part of the ceiling popped up. I couldn’t see exactly what she did to make it do that, but one moment it looked like a solid hunk of bulkhead, and the next moment it was open just enough that she could put the top of her head up through the thing and peer around in the glow of electronics that were obviously running on the other side.

She turned back to me and grinned a lopsided grin that was kind of sexy.

“Me? The only person I’d want to be in the known galaxies is myself. I get to travel around in a modified freighter bilking people out of their money and doing cool shit like this. I love my life!”

I blinked. Of all the answers I’d expected to get that was pretty low on the list, yet there was something about her cocky self-confidence that made that answer seem all the more plausible given what I knew about her so far. I rolled my eyes, but I was more interested in the opening she’d popped her head through.

“What is that?” I asked.

“This?” she asked. “That’s simple. After I was first abducted from my planet I was brought here and left behind after some difficulties with my abductor.”

“Difficulties?” I asked, detecting something in her tone that told me there was an interesting story there. I got the feeling there were a lot of interesting stories she could tell me, even if only a fraction of the stories that were told about her were true.

“Yeah, like maybe I shot what passed for genitalia on his species off of him and he bled out,” she said with a shrug. “I mean how was I supposed to know he kept his business in his knees? I thought that was a bad joke from a sci-fi movie or something.”

I wasn’t sure what a sci-fi movie was, but I was fairly certain that I knew what species she was talking about. The Trokthel were the only warrior species in the known galaxies who’d invented kneepads and the accompanying armor before they’d come up with other more useful weapons like the spear and bow and arrow.

“So you were saying something about being stuck on this station?” I asked.

“Yup. This was all extra cargo space once upon a time. The administrator back then got a burr up one of his five asses about having space to keep prisoners. Should’ve been a hint to some of the people he didn’t like that he was planning on cleaning house, but a lot of them still looked surprised up to the day they were escorted out of these improvised holding cells and vaporized.”

I stared at her, slack-jawed. The world of pirates was sounding like it was every bit as cutthroat as the world of court politics. Maybe more so, in some ways.

“Is there a point to all this?” I finally asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I was in charge of putting together these brigs, and of course if I’m tasked with putting something together I’m going to make sure there’s a way to get out of there. A bit of insurance in case things ever went bad for me around here, and now look at how that’s coming back to help me all these years later!”

She turned to me and grinned. It was a wide infectious grin that was helped by the fact that I was pretty sure all of that was a longwinded way for her to say we were getting out of here.

“So what do you say?” she asked. “Ready to escape?”

I knew she was talking about escaping this brig, but there was something about the way she said it that had me thinking of so much more. Of escaping mother. Of escaping the life I was supposed to lead.

Though I figured escaping this cell and having a chance at maybe getting out of this whole thing alive would do for the moment.

I grinned. “I’m so ready to get out of here.”

“Thought you’d say something like that,” Flynn said, pushing the panel up farther and revealing enough space for someone Selevas sized to slip through. “Let’s get a move on then!”

34

Flynn

“So where’s your authorization?”

“Arr and avast!” Seleya growled in a low throaty voice. “Do ye be doubtin’ us?”

I closed my eyes. I had to close them. Otherwise it would be painfully obvious that I was rolling them, and I didn’t want to be too obvious in front of the giant green alien with a considerable gut who had his tentacles on his hips as he regarded us from his seven eyes.

One of them had an eyepatch over it. Which was sort of in keeping with the whole pirate theme Seleya seemed to be going for, but it didn’t make what she was doing any less embarrassing.

“Is something wrong with your friend?” the tech asked, looking her up and down with curiosity.

There might’ve been some interest there too. The Selevas were the beauty standard in the civilized galaxies since they were the creators of most pop culture. The practical upshot of that being there were all sorts of creatures in the civilized galaxies who were willing to give a Selevas, or someone who had the same basic structure as the Selevas, a try.

Even if it would wind up looking like something straight out of the sort of Japanese cartoon that was likely to get you on a watch list back on earth.

“She’s had a little too much on her lunch break,” I said. “You know how it is.”

The tech eyed her for another long moment, then shrugged. Clearly he hadn’t been in the hangar bay when everything went down, or he’d know exactly who we were. Then again it was a big station, so it’s not like it was all that unusual that there’d be a large contingent of people on Darkpoint who had no idea who we were.

“That makes sense,” he said. “But that’s not getting you close to any of my stuff.”

I bit back a growl. I didn’t want my frustration to be too obvious. We were just a couple of technicians looking to get access to one of the repair bays where I hoped we’d be able to find a ship that was close enough to being in working order that we could make an escape.

I didn’t even have to worry about getting too far on the thing. As long as we made it far enough to get to the Fortune that’s all that really mattered.

“Now ye listen here ye fusion-sucking surface lubber,” Seleya continued. At least until I gave her a swift kick in her very captivating behind.

She really wasn’t helping by talking in the Selevas Standard equivalent of the pirate accent that’d been so popular back on earth. A pirate accent that had no more to do with how pirates had actually talked during the golden age of piracy than how Seleya was talking right now had anything to do with how the people on Darkpoint spoke to one another.

“Ow!” she yelped. “What the fuck was that for?”

I glared at her. I couldn’t come out and tell her she was acting like an idiot who was ruining our chances at getting anywhere by being stupid, but I hoped all of that would be communicated through that glare.

“Y’know I think I’m gonna need to make some calls,” the tech supervisor said, turning towards a comm unit that was sitting on a work bench floating behind him. “Double check that you’re authorized to be down here and all.”

“Damn it,” I muttered.

I leapt into action. Grabbed one of the biggest and heaviest tools from that bench. I held it up to him and turned on the plasma welding part of the tool. At least I was pretty sure it was the plasma welding part of the tool.

It’d been awhile since I’d had to work with stuff like this, which is to say tools that were so ancient as to be museum pieces in most parts of the civilized galaxies where thinking creatures didn’t have to rely on equipment cobbled together from whatever they could get on the black market.

Even this close to Selevas Prime it would seem the pickings were slim. At least for someone who was working as a lowly technician in one of the many shops that dotted the dwarf planet’s interior.

“Whoa there lady,” the tech said, holding up several of his tentacles as his eyes went wide. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Taking command of the situation,” I said. “You’ve got a weapon at your side.”

“Well yeah,” he said. “There was some trouble up in the hangar bay and I figured…”

He paused. Looked at me long and hard. Then turned and looked at Seleya. He sighed.

“Damn it. You’re them, aren’t you?”

“That’s about the size of it,” I said. “Now could you be a darling and toss me that weapon please? You seem like a nice guy and I really don’t want to have to weld whatever passes for an asshole on your species shut.”

His eyes went even wider. Sure it’s not like it was a legitimate threat. It’s not like I could actually weld parts of a living creature shut, but I could do plenty of nasty things to him with the help of a plasma welder, and I think he knew I meant business.

The only problem? He took his sidearm and tossed it, but he tossed it right to Seleya. Which is not how I wanted this to end. The last thing I needed was her getting her hands on a weapon.

Seleya snatched the weapon and looked down at the thing like a kid who’d just unwrapped the toy she’d been begging her parents to get her since mid-October on Christmas morning. Not that they had a concept of Christmas out in the civilized galaxies. There was a festival the Selevas foisted on the civilized galaxies that coincided with the cold and dark season on their planet, but it involved a lot more bloodshed than Christmas back on earth and wasn’t something that was strictly observed wherever the Selevas hold was weaker than usual since a lot of that blood was often spilled by the alien subject race being hunted by the Selevas.

“Seleya,” I said. “Listen. We can talk this over. We’re still in this together and…”

Any hope I might’ve had that she was going to be rational about this was dashed as she raised the weapon and pointed it right at me. The tip arced and it was clear she meant business. The tip even made a nice ominous hum which brought to mind Sergeant Schlock and his favorite intimidation tactic. A pity I was going to die without ever knowing how that story ended.

Well fuck. It would appear that this was the end for Captain Flynn. Talk about an ignominious way for me to go out. Shot by a spoiled princess I’d bilked fair and square in the middle of trying to escape a crazy ex-girlfriend on a station I’d helped rebuild from top to bottom.

Seleya fired. The bolt sizzled across the room. And went right past me.

I blinked and turned to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I mean sure I was glad she wasn’t firing on me, but I wondered if her aim was off or if there was something else going on here.

A technician who’d been sneaking up behind me with his own plasma screwdriver out and ready to do some damage fell to the ground looking very surprised. Seleya turned the weapon back on the tech supervisor.

“Goodnight,” she said, and fired.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell forward in a mess of tentacles. His body rose and fell and the vestigial gill flaps on the side of his neck moved in and out which showed he was still alive.

“Stun setting?” I asked.

“Hey,” she said. “The guy was just doing his job. It didn’t seem very fair to kill him.”

“I guess not,” I said. “We need to get in there and have a look at what’s on offer though.”

“Sure thing,” she said.

I eyed the gun in her hand nervously. “I don’t suppose you’ll give that to me?”

She hefted the thing. She looked like she really knew how to use it, too. Which made sense. It was probably part of her royal training, or whatever the fuck it was they did to teach her how to defend herself. Though it seemed like the effectiveness of that training was spotty at best considering how awesome her flying skills were and how not awesome her hand-to-hand skills had proved to be.

“Not a chance,” she said. “But I’m sure we’ll find another one for you soon.”

I shook my head, but if she wasn’t in the mood to shoot me right away then I figured I’d have to roll with it. I didn’t like not knowing how good she’d be in a fight with a pistol. It was the sort of situation where I’d much rather have something like that in my hands and not hers, both because I knew I could hit anyone who attacked us and I wouldn’t turn that weapon on myself, but whatever.

We stepped into the repair bay and I let out a couple of choice curses from back on earth. It was a bad habit I slipped into when I was really pissed off. There was something about swearing in English that felt better than doing it in Selevas Standard.

“Mother’s dangling ballsack,” Seleya said, using one of the more colorful metaphors that passed for swearing in Selevas Standard.

I stared at her in astonishment. Both because I was surprised to hear her use that kind of language, and because I was surprised she knew enough about the ships in front of us to know that none of them were going to do us a damn bit of good.

Also, her language was just a bit off and just a bit amusing considering she called the queen “mother” rather than using the typical formulation of that phrase which used her mother’s royal title. It was an oddity that could only come from the crown princess.

“What?” she asked.

“Just surprised to hear a potty mouth like that on you, is all,” I said.

“Whatever,” she said. “We’re going to have to find a new repair bay, aren’t we?”

“Something like that,” I said. “And we’d better hurry, because it’s only a matter of time before what we’re up to catches someone’s attention and…”

As though the universe was trying its best to fuck us over in every way it possibly could, alarms started going off all around us. The lights went from Selevas Standard to a deep red which, oddly enough, was the universal color for “shit’s about to get fucked up.”

Chalk up another reason why I had a sneaking suspicion that someone on the Star Trek design team had been an alien on the run from something.

35

Flynn

“Mother choking on a cock,” Seleya growled.

My eyebrows shot up pretty high at the salty language being exhibited by her royal highness. It was still pretty damn funny hearing her unique take on some of the standard swears that’d sprung up with Selevas dominance of the civilized galaxies.

I wondered what the queen would think knowing there was an entire foul language that’d been built up around her doing unmentionable things to people, usually of a sexual nature. Then again there were enough stories out there of the queen’s depravity that for her some of those swears might just be considered Tuesday.

“We should probably get going,” I said. “There are plenty of repair bays around this place, but if we stay in any one place for too long…”

I turned around and was presented with a good example of what could happen if we stayed in one place for too long. It was like the end of Blues Brothers where Aykroyd and Belushi turn around and find themselves improbably surrounded by every cop in Chicago, only we were surrounded by what felt like every enforcer on Darkpoint. And they were all pointing very nasty looking plasma blasters at us that glowed with the promise of what they were going to do to us.

“Fuck,” I said.

I held my hands up as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the inevitable. I figured after everything I’d done to Tera she wasn’t going to be in a forgiving mood. I at least wanted to think happy thoughts of home before I was sent to whatever afterlife was waiting for people out here.

There were so many species who had so many ideas of what happened when someone’s material body stopped ticking that I didn’t begin to presume that I had any idea what would actually happen, but at the same time I also found myself hoping it would at least be one of the more interesting afterlives.

There were more than a few that involved nonstop orgies that seemed like they would be interesting, if a little exhausting, ways of spending eternity. Which led me to thinking about the last time I’d had a little bit of fun with Seleya, which naturally…

Shots went off. I figured this was it. I was going to feel the searing heat of a plasma blast hitting me at point blank range. I’d been singed by the things often enough to know it wasn’t going to be a good feeling, though I’d at least have the comfort of knowing that whatever they fired at me would likely kill me fast enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about the pain for long.

Only nothing happened. Maybe whatever they’d fired had killed me outright, but I didn’t see a light coming towards me. No pearly gates waiting for me, for that matter. I didn’t even see the seedy neon of the outside of the eternal strip club, buffet, and orgy that the Letorna priests insisted was waiting for everyone when they shed their mortal coil either.

If ever there was a religion whose services I could actually enjoy sitting through, it was the Letorna.

I opened one eye. Looked at the array of pirates in front of us. One in particular drew my attention because of the glowing circle in his middle. A glowing circle that ran through several of the unfortunate bastards who’d been standing behind him and, thus, had put themselves right in the line of fire.

They all started to topple over at about the same time.

“What the…”

More shots went off and more pirates started going down. I dove for the ground at about the moment that they seemed to realize we were fighting back rather than going quietly, and it wasn’t a moment too soon.

Shots sizzled through the air. Not a good place to be standing. Luckily most of the idiots firing on us either hadn’t realized I’d hit the deck, or they were so busy fighting off the person who was actually firing at them that they didn’t have time to worry about little old me.

That was just fucking fine with me. That gave me time to get the hell out of there and find a nice place where I could sit down and have a think about how the hell I was going to get out of this.

I crawled behind a big ship that might be useless for getting us off of Darkpoint, but it had a very nice use in keeping me from getting my ass shot off in the moment which I figured was just fine as uses went.

“What the hell are you…”

I turned and realized Seleya wasn’t crawling behind me. I looked out over the repair bay. She was pinned behind an armored cockpit of a very old style Selevas fighter that’d been cannibalized over the years. The armor was still in place on the thing though, the stuff was notoriously difficult to get off considering the Selevas had ways of binding that armor at an atomic level, and so it made for a nice spot for Seleya to hide.

She was still surrounded by all those assholes firing on her though. Which meant it was only a matter of time before they got a flanking maneuver going and managed to flush her out of her spot.

They might be stupid, but they weren’t complete idiots when it came to tactics.

I glanced around the room, looking for something that might help, and found what I was looking for. There was a fuel line hooked up to one of the ships. Said ship wasn’t anywhere close to being in working order, but someone wanted the thing to be powered up while they checked on something, and I could use that.

Especially since the fuel in these ships tended to be a lot more volatile than the complex hydrocarbons that were burned back on earth to power vehicles with ancient dinosaur farts and plant life.

I grabbed at the line and yanked at the coupler. It let out a whine that told whoever was trying to do exactly what I was trying to do that it was a monumentally bad idea, but whatever.

“I’m well aware of how stupid this is,” I said to the warning. “I also find this stupidity preferable to getting my ass shot off!”

I pulled the coupler and turned my head away as a blast of a bunch of dangerously complicated technological innovation by an intergalactic civilization that was more ancient than anything we had on earth came pumping out of the fuel line. The practical upshot was pulling the fuel line out created a concentrated blast of almost pure energy that went lancing out and slammed against the ship.

I kept my eyes squinted and tried to look away from the stuff. After all, looking directly at an exposed fuel line could blind a person. Still, I was doing the galactic equivalent of an ‘80s movie star creating an impromptu flamethrower and a gas nozzle, so I needed to see where I was pointing the stuff.

The last thing I needed was to accidentally point something at Seleya and kill her. I was trying to get the people who were firing on her.

“You need to give up,” Tera’s voice piped through loudspeakers in the room as I wheeled the thing around. “You need to… what are you doing? Get out of the way!”

I was pretty sure that first bit was meant for me, and the last bit was meant for the assholes I was about to take out. What the fuck ever. If they weren’t watching their sides that was their problem.

Several of them disintegrated as the wave of pure energy washed over them. There was a good fucking reason why every technician was taught to treat these things with the respect they deserved. The kind of stuff that was used to power ships out here in the civilized galaxies had a hell of a lot more destructive potential than gas leaking out of a tanker truck.

“Turn off the energy feeds to that repair bay, damn it!” Tera shouted, not bothering to turn away from her mic.

That was odd. There was something about her mic that sounded just a touch off. Like she was short of breath or something. She couldn’t possibly be exercising while her whole station was in the middle of a crisis, could she?

The answer to that question became apparent a moment later when a set of massive doors on the other end of the repair bay opened up at right about the same time that the stream of pure energy flying out of the energy coupler like the galaxy’s most dangerous and awesome flamethrower slowed to a trickle and then to nothing.

I glanced down at the thing and frowned. I was going to have to spend some time in a medical facility having nanobots repairing me at some point in the near future thanks to the radiation dose I no doubt got playing with that thing, but I figured it was still better than not having anything left to repair at all like the bastards down below who’d been hit at point blank range.

“Okay Flynn,” Tera bellowed. “You need to cut the shit now!”

Normally I would’ve tried to do something dramatic like running from the crazy bitch before she had a chance to really cause some damage. Unfortunately the gaggle of pirates coming in behind her armed to the teeth meant I wasn’t going to have a chance to get away before they started firing on my exposed ass.

That was the problem with moving up to a high perch to grab that energy coupler. On the one hand I was able to use my height to take out those bastards who weren’t paying attention.

On the other hand it meant I was a sitting duck if I was going up against an armed party of pirates who were paying attention and had all drawn beads on me. Son of a bitch.

I put my hands up and prayed none of those assholes out there had just had a friend vaporized. Or that Tera decided to just kill me in a fit of pique. So much for saving the day in a suitably dramatic fashion.

36

Seleya

I looked at this Tera bitch who’d been causing trouble ever since I arrived on this station. She seemed pretty proud of herself for ruling over this podunk hunk of junk.

I suppose if I wasn’t the potential future ruler of all the civilized galaxies I might think it was an accomplishment to run a station like this too. Unfortunately I’d seen what real power was. I wasn’t impressed or intimidated by this woman.

Also? In the past few hours I’d gotten a more intimate taste of what real power was. A gun in my hand firing on people who would do me harm. I’d spent so much time training to cause people harm if they intended me harm that I’d never stopped to think about what it would feel like to actually fire on people who had it coming.

I suppose I should’ve been worried that I was developing a taste for it, but it was simply a matter of practicalities. I wanted to live. These people, including that infuriating woman, wanted me to die. More particularly she was currently threatening Flynn, and we couldn’t have that.

I’m not sure why I wanted to leap to that woman’s defense considering everything she’d done to me, but here we were. So I popped over the edge of my hiding spot, tried to ignore the radioactive glowing trail moving across the floor, and fired a few shots at the pirates surrounding Tera.

I was right on the mark, at least. Several of the idiots went down with cries of surprise, and I smiled in satisfaction and kept firing as they fell on one another in a confused mass as they looked around the room and tried to figure out exactly where they were being fired on from.

Luckily for me, and unluckily for them, they didn’t seem to be all that good at identifying threats.

“What in the name of the queen’s balls is hitting us?” someone shouted.

I picked that one out and fired a shot right into the place on his ass where his species kept their brain. I might use the occasional colorful swear regarding mother, but that’s because I was family damn it. This asshole didn’t have any right to talk about the queen of the civilized galaxies like that.

His tentacles flailed and knocked over several of his buddies before the pirates started giving the thing a wide berth.

“Stop it!” Tera shouted. “Stop it now! I will not tolerate this on my station!”

I drew a bead on her. Stood and held my weapon at the ready.

“Seems to me like you’re not in a position to be making any demands,” I said. “Flynn. Come down from your perch.”

Flynn stared, her jaw hanging open. I guess maybe she’d been expecting to die or something when this bitch came in with her pirates at her back, but I didn’t plan on doing any dying yet. Not when I had a weapon at my disposal and the ability to use it against my enemies.

Tera raised her hands and an obsequious smile spread across her face. I recognized it well enough because it was the kind of smile I’d seen plastered on the face of many a species who’d come to mother’s throne room. Species who’d thought they would easily beat back the strange invaders from the sky, had discovered like so many species before them just how impossible that actually was, and now they were willing to come to the negotiating table far too late once it was clear their civilizations were on the line.

“Maybe we can work something out,” she said. “What do you want?”

“You took the crown princess of the Selevas empire hostage and threatened to ransom me back to my mother,” I said, grinding my teeth as I said it. “As far as I’m concerned the only thing I want is your death.”

The woman tensed, and her eyes darted from side to side. She still had numbers on her side, and I was well aware that we were at a point in this altercation where she would probably win this fight given enough time.

It was simply a matter of making certain she didn’t have that time. I had to negotiate now, or all would be lost.

“I’m also willing to admit we’re at something of a stalemate here,” I said.

“Stalemate?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “It looks to me like I have you surrounded and I could kill you given enough time. I don’t know what kind of stalemate that is.”

I fired a shot that landed just to the side of her. The floor charred and sizzled under the plasma blast, though to this woman’s credit she didn’t so much as blink.

“It’s the kind of stalemate where the first person to die if the firing starts again is going to be you. Shall we die together?”

That grin never left her face. I could see the wheels turning in the back of her head. Working out all the possible scenarios and trying to figure out if I had a chance. She must’ve figured I did have a pretty decent chance, of course I did facing her down point blank like this, because finally she shrugged.

“Whatever,” she said. “As long as I get paid I don’t care. So I ask you again. What do you want from me?”

“How about this?” I asked. “You get me to some communication stuff and I’ll send off a note to my mom to pick me up on the other side of the jumpgate.”

“And why would I do that?” she asked, her voice low and threatening.

“That’s simple,” I said. “I’m sure you were thinking of a big number you were hoping to get out of mother. You tell me that number and I’ll go ahead and double it if you let me get the hell off of this hunk of junk intact.”

I had no illusions that she would actually go through with that. No, she’d try to double-cross us at the first opportunity, but right now I was trying to get out of this repair bay in one piece. I’d work out the particulars of getting off a help broadcast after I’d survived the next few minutes.

“What about the other one?” Tera growled, her eyes shooting to Flynn.

I turned to stare at Flynn. Her eyes were wide and she was looking between the two of us as though she was smelling a rat. As though she thought she was on the verge of getting double-crossed. And unfortunately I was going to have to make her think that way for a little while.

“You can do whatever you want with her,” I said. “I don’t care what happens as long as I know she’s being tortured. She’s the one who put me in this situation in the first place.”

“Weren’t you just trying to save her?” Tera asked, full of suspicion.

My mind raced, and I settled on something that seemed like it would be a good justification to a pirate’s mind.

“Only because I figured if anyone was going to kill her then it’s going to be me,” I said. “Though of course I’m willing to leave her with you as long as you promise to finish the job and let me go.”

“I’d give a good chunk of money to know what it was she did to you to inspire you to come out here looking for her,” the woman said.

“Yeah, and you can keep on dreaming,” I said. “That’s between her and me. Suffice it to say leaving her behind to deal with y’all is going to be more than enough punishment to make me happy.”

I turned to Flynn. Luckily she could see me but the rest of those asshole pirates were facing the wrong way. So they didn’t see me give her a little wink. She blinked once, then a grin started to spread across her face.

Only for a moment, and then she had it under control and looked suitably terrified and pissed off.

“You bitch!” she shouted. “I can’t believe you’d do something like that! I thought we had something!”

“It’s the least you deserve for what you did to me,” I growled right back at her.

“Huh. Jilted lover,” Tera said. “Suddenly this makes a lot more sense. Right, well if we could get a move on then…”

“Not so fast,” I said, keeping my gun pointed at Tera. “We’re not playing that game. You’re going to come over here nice and slow so I can hold you hostage nice right and proper. Got it?”

Mother might be a megalomaniacal bitch who ruled the civilized galaxies with an iron fist, but she hadn’t raised any fools. At least not until that unfortunate moment when I’d realized Flynn had taken advantage of me in both the best and the worst way possible.

“Seriously?” she said.

“Seriously,” I said, grinning and letting the plasma arc from the tip of my weapon a bit.

She sighed, but gave in.

A little while later we stepped onto the control deck for this hunk of shit they called a pirate den. I was behind their leader where it was nice and safe, and it was just me and Flynn. I’d convinced her that it’d be a good idea to leave her thugs behind by singing the tips of her toes.

That’d resulted in some interesting swearing involving mother’s chastity, but I tried not to let it bother me too much.

Of course there was a group of heavily armed assholes waiting for us as we stepped onto the bridge, and none of them looked particularly happy that their leader was being led onto the control deck with a gun pointed at her back. They were going to have to get use to disappointment, though, because I had no intention of letting my living screen go.

“Disable the lift,” I said.

“Fuck you,” she replied.

I held my pistol out and fired again. This time it hit her shin with just a light enough setting that it singed her without doing much in the way of real damage. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by some time with some nano repair bots, at least.

“Want to think about what you just said?” I growled.

“Fine,” she growled. “Disable the lift!”

“And?” I asked.

“And what?” she growled.

“And you were about to say something to all your buddies about dropping their weapons,” I replied.

That was good for a giggle from Flynn. Only for a moment and then she had it back under control. I hit her with a sharp glare. The last thing I needed was her giving things away.

“Do it!” Tera barked.

Her men didn’t look happy. I figured this was the part where she thought she’d be able to talk me into letting her go so she could do the double-cross, but the thing about leverage was I was the one who had all of it as long as I had a weapon pointed at her back ready to blow a hole in her.

“Now you were going to show me your comm unit?” I said.

“Fine,” she growled. “But I want the amount we agreed on to be transferred to my anonymous account immediately, or I’m going to have them kill you and I don’t care if I go with you!”

“I seriously doubt you’re that uncaring about your life,” I said, marching her over to a comm panel.

The thing was old, but it still checked out. It had all the familiar stuff on it, even if that familiar stuff was centuries out of date and running on the kind of technology that I wouldn’t have thought to find within a few light years of the Selevas home system.

Whatever. The principles were still the same even if it used push buttons instead of fancy touch screens. I guess pirates had to work with what they could get.

I hit a few buttons and then entered the right codes to send one hell of a transmission. The kind of transmission that was really going to ruin this woman’s day, but she had no way of knowing that yet.

“What are you doing there?” she asked.

“Sending a coded transmission using information only I have access to,” I said. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“No way,” she said. “Whatever you’re sending is getting sent through open channels. I want to be able to hear what you’re saying to whoever’s out there.”

“Yeah, well you’re going to have to get used to disappointment,” I said, hitting the button to send the codes out.

“Stop her,” Tera growled.

One of the aliens hit a button and the transmission froze on the screen. Tera turned and glared at me.

“If you think I’m stupid enough to let you send something to the Selevas in coded language where I can’t see what you’re…”

“If I may?” Flynn asked, walking over to the comm panel.

“What are you doing Flynn?” Tera growled.

Flynn’s hands danced across the controls. Clearly she was used to the old fashioned controls here, and Tera’s eyes went wide as her skin changed to a deep blue while she saw what she was doing.

“No!” she said.

Flynn hit a final button with a flourish and a grin.

“You should’ve dug out all the backdoors we put in this thing baby,” she said. “Because that’s gonna cost you.”

The transmission left the station at fold space velocities. Which meant they would be getting the transmission in a matter of moments back on the Selevas homeworld. However long it took for that transmission to make it to the jump point and then make the journey between star systems.

I smiled a sweet smile at this woman.

“Tera!” someone shouted from the other end of the command center. “A beacon has activated at the edge of the system!”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “That would be one of the imperial beacons that’s been lurking in this system for the past few thousand years on the off chance someone ever needed to call for help. You’ll be having some visitors very soon, I think.”

37

Seleya

“What have you done?” Tera screeched.

Her eyes went wide and the panic was plain on her face as she looked at her control boards and saw a bunch of warnings lighting up all at once.

Granted I didn’t know a lot about the way the systems worked on this station, but I would’ve bet good money that those things lighting up right about now were a bunch of fold space probes scattered through the system as an early warning system of sorts to tell her that the shit was about to hit the fan.

“What did you do?”

“Y’know it was really clever of you to put a pirate den so close to Selevas Prime,” I said. “I can see where something like that would be really useful. Especially if you’re paying off a bunch of people in the defense forces to ignore the ships that come through that jump gate. You just made one mistake.”

I kept that sweet smile on my face as I stood there telling her about her demise. I was starting to understand why mother had gotten a taste for this sort of thing. It was actually kind of fun looking at someone as their entire world was crashing down around them and letting them know I was the instrument of that demise.

“You got too greedy for your own good, and now you’re in serious trouble.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this!” Tera howled, glaring at Flynn. “You weren’t supposed to actually get anything out of here without my approval!”

Flynn grinned and shrugged. What could you do?

“We’re in serious trouble Tera,” a creature with more tentacles than I could count said. That thing would’ve been interesting to have a roll with, assuming I was into xenosexuality. Which I totally wasn’t, unless the alien was close to Selevas. I didn’t care what people said about how that made me unenlightened in this day and age.

A three dimensional fold space projection of the system appeared in the middle of the room. Now that was impressive. It was nice to know they had some of the modern conveniences, at least, even if they were woefully inadequate in other areas.

The fold space projection told a grim tale. They were fucked, and not in the fun way. No, there were multiple imperial advance ships moving into the system through the jumpgate, and it wouldn’t be long before some of the bigger ships started to appear.

Of course even the smaller scout ships were destroyers that were larger than anything they could ever hope to field in a backwater system like this. No, they were overmatched, and from the look of dawning horror on Tera’s face and the way her blue skin started to go pale she knew it.

“How does it feel knowing everything you’ve ever worked for has been destroyed because you got too greedy?” I asked.

She let out a growl and turned on me. Tried to grab my weapon, but the weapon was pointed down at her midsection which meant it was a little difficult for her to grab at the thing.

Which made it simple enough for me to fire off a single shot that sent her flying back.

The other aliens on the command center stared in disbelief as their commander fell with a smoldering hole in her midsection and some of her insides making contact with the outside world which was never good.

The only problem was they’d all been nice enough to throw their weapons to the deck and send them sliding my way. I nodded to Flynn, who leaned down and picked up a particularly nasty rifle that looked like it was sized to Selevas normal off the ground.

“I worked with a lot of you once upon a time,” she said. “You might be pirate scum, but so am I. This station isn’t going to last long, and Tera’s dead, which means any argument I might’ve had with this place is done. You might want to get the hell out of here while the getting’s good.”

They stared back and forth between me, Flynn, Tera’s smoldering corpse, and the display that showed the kind of imperial battle fleet that was usually reserved for reducing a star system to rubble screaming down on their tiny and insignificant asteroid base.

As one they all decided it was time to get out of here before they were destroyed by that battle fleet.

Flynn glanced to Tera, and she seemed almost sad to see the woman lying there quickly bleeding out.

“Y’know it’s almost a shame,” she said. “She might’ve been a crazy bitch there at the end, but we had some good times together.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t weep too much for the crazy bitch,” I said.

“So, um,” Flynn said. “I know this probably isn’t the time or the place to ask about this, but were you serious about all that stuff about giving me up to your mother?”

I stared at her. Blinked a couple of times. Then shook my head and laughed.

“Serious about that? Of course not!” I said. “Which reminds me. Do you have the secure code for your ship? We’re going to need them to get back here if we’re going to survive what’s coming.”

“Well yeah,” Flynn said. “But you’ll forgive me if I’m a little reluctant to give that sort of information to you given the way you crossed Tera just now. I might die here, but at least my crew will make it.”

That was admirable. She really was willing to stay on this station and die if it meant that her crew could escape and live their lives. At least what they could live of those lives with the might of the Selevas searching for them.

I got the feeling they wouldn’t last nearly as long without Flynn along for the ride to help them.

I waved a dismissive hand. “That’s different. I wanted to kill her because she was trying to push me around. I wasn’t interested in her the way I’m interested in you.”

“I… excuse me?” Flynn said.

I took a step closer. Flynn shivered, and I knew I had her.

“It’s simple,” I said. “Something I’ve been thinking about a lot since I came to this station. Something that became even more clear to me while we were stuck in that cell together.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“My life as I knew it with the royal court was over,” I said. “Mother had decided, for whatever reason, that she was done with me. That she was going to cast me aside and marry me off to a man I wouldn’t be interested in living with even if I was into men, which I definitely am not.”

Flynn licked her lips.

“So what are you saying?” she asked.

I decided to be the bold one for a change. Sure she’d been the one who was bold the last time around what with the way she strutted into the royal ballroom without a noble drop of blood in her body, bought or inherited, acting like she owned the place, but it was time for the crown princess of the Selevas Empire to finally start taking what she wanted rather than letting the world pass her by.

So I pulled her against me. Looked straight into her eyes. Those eyes went wide when I pressed my lips against hers.

It was as though there was a supernova going off deep inside me. It was an explosion of pleasure that was unlike anything I’d felt since… Well since the last time I’d been with Flynn. Admittedly we’d had time to do a lot more than kiss at that last meeting, but the kiss was still nice.

Even if it could only last for a moment. After all, there was an invasion fleet making its way towards the station. If they got here and I was forced to confront mother’s inquisitors then we’d be truly fucked.

So I pulled away from that amazing kiss, as much as I hated to do it.

“We really need to get a message out to your ship now,” I said. “Before the fleet gets here. I assume they’re still hanging around out there somewhere powered down so they won’t be found? If so I need to give them the proper codes that will let them move through the Selevas fleet unmolested.”

“Something like that,” Flynn said. “I’ll put in the code and you can talk with her.”

“Fine,” I said. “But understand that I won’t do anything to cross you. I need you to smuggle me out of this system.”

She was in the middle of tapping the code and her fingers stopped their dance. She looked at me, and the surprise there was even more pronounced than when I’d kissed her.

“So you’re seriously coming with me, then?” she asked. “You know we’re probably not going to even get to the edge of the system before some of that battle fleet catches up with us, and things are going to get messy from there.”

At least she didn’t make any protests about me coming along. She would give me passage on her ship, and she would accept the consequences. Even if that meant a good chance of her ship being ripped apart when they realized the crown princess was on there.

It was a strange contrast to earlier when she’d been willing to die to keep her crew safe. Though maybe she suspected I had something up my sleeve, which of course I did.

“Leave that to me,” I said with a thin smile. “They can be taken care of. I need someone to rescue me, and I think you’ll enjoy the company.”

I winked as I sent a series of codes to her ship. If there was anyone out there listening then those codes would allow them to set their transponder to a signal that would tell the fleet they weren’t to touch that ship under any circumstances because it was under royal protection.

The only person who could countermand an order like that was mother herself, and I doubted she was going to be able to do that from the throne room several light years away, for all that there was almost instantaneous communication via fold space because there was only one jump point between systems.

They would still have to send a courier through that jump point to relay the message, and my hope was that would be enough time for us to escape.

“Flynn?” a voice piped through the comm. “Is that you? What in the civilized galaxies is going on here? There’s an entire imperial invasion fleet bearing down on this place blowing up anything in their path!”

“Yeah, it’s a long story,” Flynn said, glancing at me.

“The codes I just sent you will tell the fleet to leave you alone,” I said. “We will meet you in the hangar bay where you will pick us up so we can get out of here.”

“Who the hell is that?” the voice said.

“That’s…”

Flynn stopped. Seemed to realize that it might not be a good idea to say exactly who I was, even on an encrypted channel. Which was good operational security considering mother’s forces could no doubt break through whatever encryption they were using.

That was the nice thing about being the rulers of the civilized galaxies. Any technology that was considered advanced on the commercial market was usually at least thirty cycles behind whatever mother’s technowizards were developing behind the scenes. There was no one out there who had a competitive edge on mother and the royal family.

“We have the next part of the mission with us,” Flynn finally said. “And we’re going to need you to come down to the hangar bay on Darkpoint so you can perform an extraction. Thanks!”

“I don’t know why I still do this for you,” the voice on the other end said. “But we’ll be there. And if I get blasted out of the skies because of this we’re all going to regret it.”

I frowned. That must mean the power gems they’d stolen were still on their ship. The look Flynn shot me was enough to tell that tale. She didn’t like that her precious cargo had been revealed, but there wasn’t much she could do about it either.

If one of the royal ships were to fire on them and set those power gems off, though… Well that would result in an explosion that would take out a good chunk of this star system. Including Flynn’s ship, this station, and any of the imperial ships that were within the bubble of that explosion.

“I really hope that transponder signal works,” I muttered.

“You and me both,” Flynn said. “You and me both. Now let’s go. We need to get down to the big hangar bay.”

38

Flynn

We moved through the old familiar surroundings of Darkpoint. It felt a little weird. Like I was getting a sense of serious deja vu from the last time I was going through these corridors getting ready to leave the place for what I thought would be the last time.

The big difference being this time around I was pretty sure I really was leaving the place for the last time. This time around everyone was leaving. It was seriously like a scene from the end of Return of the Jedi. The only thing missing was Mark Hamill dragging dear old dad’s body through the place.

Though honestly it was more like the end of Spaceballs when everyone was trying to get off the ship before it self-destructed. The chaos of pirates running and stealing and fighting one another on their way out was more akin to the Mel Brooks classic than it was to a more serious movie about teddy bears taking on the most elite troopers in the galaxy and winning.

We were almost to the hangar. Almost in the clear. So naturally I pulled several of the weapons I’d confiscated from the control room.

Seleya glanced at me and then did a double take.

“Why in the name of mother’s salty ballsack are you pulling out a weapon?” she asked.

“Simple,” I said. “I feel like we’re almost in the free and clear, and in my experience the moment when you think you’re in the free and clear is the moment that things start to go to shit.”

“Are you…”

She didn’t get to finish that thought. I knew what it was, of course. She was about to ask me if I’d gone crazy. It would’ve been a fair question coming from someone who had no experience with this sort of thing, but I’d been on the job long enough that I knew what I was about thank you very much.

And sure enough my suspicion was borne out when we stepped out of the corridor and found ourselves staring down three men in very dark uniforms that looked like they were Selevas military cut, but with no insignias.

A chill ran down my spine. No insignia meant these dudes worked for the queen. These dudes working for the queen didn’t mean anything good when the crown princess stood next to me and the Fortune Found was about to make a landing with the royal Torvolian power gems onboard.

Basically these assholes were the single worst thing we could run into. At least they weren’t trying to kill us, but of course they weren’t going to do anything like that. Not when they could draw out the torture. They were supposedly good at torture.

“Well hello there,” I said, not lowering my weapon. “Can I help you with something?”

Seleya hissed and looked at me like I’d gone quite mad. Which I probably had. I wasn’t going to let these assholes stop me from escaping after I’d already gone through so much to get out of here.

The one in front stepped forward. There was nothing about his body language that said he was particularly concerned that I was pointing a weapon at him. Then again he was one of the queen’s Inquisitors and he was within one jump of the home system which meant he probably didn’t think he had all that much to worry about.

The guys were assholes. Everyone in the civilized galaxies was terrified of them, and justifiably so. They could supposedly track anyone anywhere, and if they decided you’d done anything to piss off the queen then they could make your life a living hell.

“You will hand over the princess and then we will take your life,” the inquisitor said, reaching out a clawed hand and revealing small glowing points that hovered in front of his fingers.

I knew those. I’d heard it was the queen’s favorite way of taking care of an enemy. Tiny filaments of material that were barely a few atoms across. So strong that they had to have a light at the end to let people know there was a weapon there. Assuming a situation where someone wanted the world to know they were carrying a weapon.

They could also be nasty tools for assassination considering they were deadly weapons that could slice through almost anything without being seen if someone wanted to be nice and sneaky about killing someone.

I’d read about stuff like that in old science fiction novels on earth, and it’d been yet another of those moments where I was pretty convinced that some of the golden age science fiction authors were actually aliens who’d been stranded on earth and decided to tell stories about their lives out in the civilized galaxies to make ends meet.

The only problem was this guy was bringing one of those weird melee weapons to a gun fight. None of them seemed to have guns. Everything I’d read about these assholes said they weren’t fans of the things for some reason.

Which I figured gave me the upper hand here.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to ask you to not take a step closer,” I said. “And I’m really not going to be doing anything you ask me to do when you lead with the fact that you’re going to be killing me the moment I give in to your demands.”

That time I did register some emotion in their body language. Assuming they were all Selevas and the body language they were showing off was Selevas standard.

“What are you doing?” Seleya hissed. “They’ll kill you!”

I stared at her. A long suffering stare. She blushed and looked away.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said. “If they’re going to kill me one way or another it doesn’t make sense to go quietly, does it?”

“But they’re inquisitors,” she said, and her voice held every bit of the terror that people in the civilized galaxies were supposed to feel when dealing with these assholes.

Now that was interesting. Of all the people in the civilized galaxies to be afraid of these pricks I would’ve figured Seleya would be the last. She was first in the line of succession, after all. For the moment, though I didn’t think that was going to last long after this.

Then again if everything I’d learned about her and her precarious position in the royal family was true then it seemed like being first in line for the throne merely meant someone was first in line for all the many assassination attempts and thieving attempts that came at the royal family.

It was almost enough to make me feel bad about my own attempt to rob her of her property. Almost, but not quite.

Not to mention if these pricks were still here when that stolen property arrived on the Fortune then they’d do their best to take what I’d stolen fair and square, and we couldn’t have that. I thought I even heard the familiar sound of the Fortune’s engines coming in and braking thrusters firing as Keva brought her in for a landing.

“Yeah, I don’t have time for this,” I said.

I fired three shots. Each one took an inquisitor in the head and they flew back and hit the deck. Something oozed out of the back of their heads that didn’t quite look like Selevas blood. At least not the Selevas blood I’d seen on the few occasions I’d seen one of them get a little to uppity and have holes blown in them for their trouble.

“What have you done?” Seleya shrieked. “You killed inquisitors! They…”

“Were going to kill me and take you back to your mother,” I said. “Seems to me they’re going to keep trying to do that whether or not I kill the ones in front of me right now and make it difficult for them to do that.”

Seleya stared at them for a long moment, and clearly she was thinking things through. Yeah, a moment ago the terror of the inquisitors had been enough to short-circuit her brain, but the old thinker was coming back into action now.

“Huh,” she said. “When you put it that way that actually sort of makes sense.”

“Of course it does,” I said. “Maybe they’ll catch us someday, but if they’re going to be stupid enough to come at me without any ranged weapons when I’m holding a plasma rifle then that day isn’t going to be today. Now tell me, do they carry anything useful?”

“Useful?” Seleya asked, blinking a couple of times and clearly still having a bit of trouble with the thought of killing these pricks.

“Y’know. Weapons? Money? That sort of thing? Something we could loot from their corpses?”

Seleya shook her head. “They carry tools, yes, but they’re likely to have tracking devices on them to allow them to hunt down whoever was brazen enough to kill an inquisitor and loot their corpse.”

“Right. So not a good idea to kill them and steal their stuff,” I muttered. “Damn shame, but I guess I’ll have to be happy with the booty I’m getting away with.”

I looked her up and down. Sure the double meaning between booty and booty was sort of lost in translation when I put it into Selevas standard, one of the problems with thinking mainly in English despite all my time out in the civilized galaxies, but from the look Seleya gave me she understood what I was getting at.

She grinned and pulled me into a hug.

“That was the most amazing thing someone has ever done for me,” she said. “No one has ever stood up for me like that.”

I was a little surprised by that hug, but at the same time the hottest Selevas in the civilized galaxies was pressing her body against mine so it’s not like I was complaining. It’s a good thing it was a hug and not a kiss too, because with a kiss I would’ve had my eyes closed and I totally wouldn’t have seen the movement out of the corner of my eye that told me something was rising from the pile of inquisitor bodies.

“One moment,” I said, reluctantly pulling away from the hug. That felt good, damn it, and I wanted more of it, but I had business to take care of first.

I raised the plasma rifle and turned it all the way up. We’re talking to the setting that disintegrated someone rather than blasting holes in them. So the inquisitor who was rising up and doing his whole Dracula impression was hit full on with the blast and his molecules started disassembling.

I’d heard of them using tech like this on earth, but it was mostly isolated to places like Starlight City which I tried to steer clear of, thank you very much. Though the thought of some of the people who made that city their playground was enough to make me wonder what might happen if aliens did take it upon themselves to ever invade earth from the civilized galaxies.

The other two inquisitors looked like they were staying down, but I wasn’t taking chances. I fired a couple of shots into them as well.

One of them didn’t protest as his body disintegrated from the feet all the way to his head, but the other one twitched and screamed when he realized what was happening, and he didn’t stop until his lungs had disintegrated.

Even then, the rest of him was still twitching until the very last. I winced. Not exactly a great way to go, but I had a hard time feeling too bad for the asshole considering he was planning on doing his best to eviscerate me with those weird claw things.

“Damn,” Seleya said. “I don’t want to ever get on your bad side.”

I reached out and patted her cheek, then decided the hell with it. She’d already hugged me, after all, and I figured that meant she was interested in a little sugar. So I pulled her in and planted my lips firmly on hers.

The kiss was every bit as intense as the last few we’d shared. Every bit as intense and then some, because fuck was she a good kisser, and this time around she knew who I was. She was kissing me, and not the version of me I’d made up to try and get her to give up those jewels.

Sure there’d also been the kiss when we were making our escape, but whatever. Any kiss from her was a good kiss!

I pulled away from the kiss and Seleya grinned.

“That was pretty fun,” she said.

“Well I’d hope so,” I said. “Now come on. We have to get to the hangar bay if we’re going to get out of here.”

“I just hope those assholes didn’t have orders to have the fleet stop me,” Seleya said, frowning down at the spot where the inquisitors had been. There were three charred spots where the process of disintegrating against the bulkhead had left some carbon scoring behind, but that was all that remained.

Even that wasn’t going to last long. I had a feeling when the imperial forces got within firing range of this place they were going to reduce the whole thing to rubble, and then reduce that rubble to gravel, and finally turn that gravel into dust. Especially when they realized the princess and the power gems they were looking for were nowhere to be found.

I grinned and took Seleya by the hand. Keva and the Fortune were waiting for us, and it was time to get the hell out of here while the place was still in “escape the Death Star” mode and not in “blowing up with Billy Dee Williams barely outrunning the inexplicable fireball in the middle of the vacuum of space” phase.

39

Seleya

We stepped into the hangar bay and chaos. More so even than when I’d made my landing what felt like an eternity ago, but couldn’t have been more than a fraction of a rotation.

Aliens were practically flying across the room. Literally in some cases as they’d put on antigrav belts to help them get to their ships faster.

Not everyone seemed to be in a mood to take on passengers though. There were a couple of scuffles taking place where someone was thrown from the ladder leading up to their ship at the last moment as someone else panicked and tried to climb into the thing. In at least one instance it resulted in a comic scenario where an alien that clearly used tentacles to interact with the world around it attempted to climb into a ship that obviously was keyed to Selevas standard.

I watched another pirate who looked Selevas, at least his body had the right number of arms and legs in the right arrangement, trying to climb into the cockpit of a ship that obviously wasn’t his, because it was my starfighter I’d landed under very different circumstances not too long ago.

The moment he touched the controls a bolt of power shot through his body frying him where he sat and a moment later antigrav kicked in to move the body out of the cockpit so it would be nice and empty when I got there. The AI still assumed I would return.

“I really hate that I have to leave that ship behind,” I growled.

“Why would you have to leave it behind?” Flynn asked, looking at the fighter and then to her own ship.

There was a small drama playing out in front of her ship as well. A pretty Selevas woman with glistening purple skin stood in front of the ramp holding a large rifle that was smoking at the tip. The woman looked both intimidating and impossibly sexy with that thing in her arms.

There must’ve been something about the way I was looking at her, because Flynn reached up and patted my cheek.

“That’s Keva,” she said. “Pretty and dangerous, but don’t go getting any ideas about her. She’s not interested in the ladies. Never has been.”

“Right,” I said, suddenly wondering what kind of world I’d thrown myself into that she could talk about one of her shipmates so casually like that. That was the sort of thing that never would’ve been discussed in the Selevas fleet. “And she’s not going to shoot us?”

“I mean I hope she won’t,” Flynn said. “It’s possible she could’ve brought the ship back here just so she could double-cross me in person so she can see the look on my face, but I really don’t think Keva operates like that.”

“Right,” I said. “Well let’s go then.”

The woman, Keva, fired off a few shots as we got near. Thankfully she fired those shots at other aliens attempting to get on her ship and not at us. We reached the ramp and she looked at us with a crazed grin.

“About time you got here!” she said. “You didn’t say anything about bringing passengers though.”

“Yeah, well we sort of have to bring this one along,” Flynn said.

Keva turned to look at me in between firing off shots at aliens trying to get through her zone of exclusion. Her eyes went wide as she realized exactly who she was looking at.

I smiled and nodded. A small token of respect for a woman who’d risked her life to come here and save me. Besides, it seemed like anyone who was holding a weapon that large and using it with enough skill to keep a hangar full of aliens away from her ship was someone who deserved at least a small modicum of respect. Even if I was second in line to the Selevas throne and a mere nod like that was more than anyone had ever gotten from me before.

“Are you kidding me?” Keva said, firing off several shots in rapid succession that took out a group of aliens moving in. “There’s no way we’re taking her on. That’s as good as suicide!”

“Yeah, well I already took out a couple of inquisitors getting her down here, so something tells me the die’s already been cast there,” Flynn said.

“You did what?” Keva growled.

There were more aliens gathering. Flynn pulled up her own rifle and fired off several shots. I didn’t want to be on a ship that was being swamped by people trying to get off this place, so I joined in the fray.

Moments later there were a bunch of dead aliens in a circle around the ship, and most everyone else who looked like they’d been thinking about trying to climb aboard had obviously thought better of it and gone off to try their luck with ships that weren’t as heavily defended.

“Okay, so maybe she’ll be a little useful,” Keva growled, grudgingly. “But I still think you’re crazy for inviting that kind of trouble.”

“More crazy than the plan to steal those power gems?” Flynn asked.

“Whatever,” Keva said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She turned and was about to head up the ramp when something broke through the pile of bodies. I wheeled around, ready to fire on whatever was waiting there, then frowned in shock at what I saw there.

“How in the civilized galaxies are you even still alive to be standing there?” Flynn asked.

Tera glared up at us. She was unarmed. I guess that was something. Still, she’d been shot. She’d had a big hole in her midsection where her vital organs were supposed to be. The fact that she was standing there still very much alive after I’d shot her was irritating, and I think it was as much for the past she had with Flynn as it was for what she’d done to me while I was stuck on this pirate den.

“Nano repair units hidden inside my body in a couple of opportune places,” she said, though she was limping like those nano repair units hadn’t done quite as well as they should, and she coughed a couple of times while she explained herself.

“Of course,” I said. “Mother does the same thing. One of the many ways she’s been able to stay alive for so long.”

There were times when I was tempted to hit her with an electromagnetic pulse to disrupt those nanobots in her bloodstream and then hit her with something more direct that would interrupt all her major life functions. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the fact that everyone else who’d thought they had a way to fight mother over the long years of her life had learned the hard way that they didn’t have anything, and I really didn’t want to add my name to that list considering everyone who’d ever come up with a scheme to kill mother was still very much alive and very much regretted it.

“And what are you doing here?” Flynn asked, raising her weapon.

I felt a surge of satisfaction. Well then. Maybe she regretted that this woman had to be shot, but she looked like she was ready to do the shooting when it came down to it.

“I need passage off of this rock,” Tera said, looking around the place with a profound sense of sadness. “It’s become obvious to me that Darkpoint isn’t going to be around much longer.”

I almost felt bad for her. Almost, but not really. After all, she had been the one who captured me and then tried to use me as ransom with mother. Something that would’ve ultimately resulted in the battle fleet out there descending on her little rock no matter how she thought she was in control of the situation, but the fact that she’d done it in the first place irritated me.

“What makes you think you’re any different than any of the other assholes who tried to get on my ship?” Flynn asked. “Look around. We just blew holes in all of them, and I’m more than happy to do the same to you. I’ll even keep blasting until there’s nothing left for those nanobots to repair.”

“That’s simple,” Tera said. “I have contacts with the Selevas Separatists. They’re going to be pissed off that you just blew up one of their bases, but if I chat with them they might still help you out. They’re the only ones in the civilized galaxies who are going to be able to keep you alive with everything you’ve done here today to piss off the Selevas.”

I looked between Flynn and Tera. Wondered what the hell Flynn’s reaction was going to be. The Selevas Separatists? Just hearing the name sent rage running through me. After all, they’d taken pot shots at me a couple of times before.

Easier to go after the first in line for the throne than it was to go for the woman who actually sat on the throne, after all. No one ever got through to mother, but they had taken out a couple of heirs over the years and crowed about it on the fold space bands for years after they did it.

“Why would you want anything to do with those scum?” I asked.

Flynn looked at me and winked. “You’re going to have to start thinking a little differently if you’re going to be coming along with us Seleya,” she said. “We’re pirate scum, after all, and talking with Separatist scum might be just the ticket.”

“I don’t know why you…”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Flynn said, then gestured to Tera. “Come on. Hop on. I’m going to lock you in a quarters that has no tech attached to it, of course. It’s gonna be a pretty boring trip, but it’s the least you deserve for trying to kill me.”

Tera stood there grinding her teeth as her skin turned several different shades of blue. Though I was more concerned with the fact that she was even coming with us in the first place.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I hissed once Tera was on the ship and escorted away by a rather large Rvalian who looked like he could snap any one of us in two with one of his hands. “If she’s really in contact with the Separatists then aren’t they as likely to try and kill us as they are to welcome us?”

“Yeah, no,” Flynn said, shaking her head and laughing. “I plan on handing her over to the highest bidder as soon as possible. Maybe I’ll throw her in with the bidding when we get to the Separatists. They like me, and they’ll be more pissed at her for getting greedy and losing this base if this really was a place they were using.”

I blinked a couple of times. “You’re in contact with the Separatists?”

Flynn winked. “Of course I am. Who else do you think is going to buy some boosted Torvolian power gems stolen from the Selevas royal family? Not to mention I’m bringing them something far more valuable.”

A chill ran through me. I didn’t think Flynn would do this to me, not after everything we’d been through, but she was being surprisingly mercenary about that Tera woman and they’d clearly been an item once upon a time. What if this whole thing had been a plot to get me on her ship so she could turn me over to the Separatists? They would love having me in their clutches, the bastards.

“Oh don’t look like that,” she said. “I’m not bringing them your cute ass so they can ransom you or anything like that.”

“You’re not?” I asked. “So what is your plan?”

“You said it yourself earlier. You’re second in line to a throne you don’t have a chance of ever sitting on. All that stuff about your mother trying to marry you off, a suitor you’re not interested in, the dashing pirate came in and saved you at the last moment? Tale as old as time, really.”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure if she was making fun of me or not. She grinned.

“What I’m saying is I’ve discovered that if you want something in this world then you have to reach out and take it, and not give a damn what everyone else thinks about you reaching out and taking it.”

My eyes went wide as I realized what she was insinuating. I looked out across the hangar bay. I couldn’t see the star that was Selevas Prime from here, but I knew it was out there. Hanging in the void of space with mother sitting on her throne that she used to rule the civilized galaxies with a carbon fiber fist.

“That’s right your worship,” Flynn said. “I’m bringing the Selevas resistance something they’ve never had before. Someone with a legitimate claim to the throne they can trot out to lend themselves some legitimacy in their fight against mommy dearest. What do you say?”

I stood there on that ramp and knew I was going to be making a decision that was going to change the course of my life. Then again I’d already made several decisions that were going to change the course of my life. This was just a matter of making yet another one.

Though this one was going to involve a lot more danger than simply trying to escape with this pirate.

Then again the more I thought about it the more appealing the idea was. After all, mother was going to send her inquisitors after me no matter what I did. She wasn’t going to let a loose end like the heir apparent still knocking around the civilized galaxies causing trouble for her go so easily.

I grinned at Flynn, and leaned in to kiss her. A toe curling kiss that might’ve turned into something more if we weren’t in a hangar bay of a space station that was about to be reduced to so much rubble orbiting this star for eternity by mother’s fleet.

“I think that sounds like a wonderful idea,” I said.

Flynn grinned. “I thought you might say something like that. Now let’s get going!”

40

Flynn

I settled into the pilot’s seat and Seleya moved in behind me and took position at the navigation and weapons console. We never used the thing considering the same functions could be accessed in the pilot’s and copilot’s seat, but she started rattling off information like it was her job.

“Looks like the fleet is going to be within firing range soon,” she said. “It would seem they decided to take a moment to fire at some of the ships that were trying to escape.”

I frowned as I looked at the readout showing me what was going on in the system. There were a lot of ships trying to make an escape, and there weren’t any escape routes that didn’t take a ship within range of the big guns on those Selevas ships.

“I don’t like it,” Keva said. “They’re going to blast us out of the stars the moment we try to get out of here.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” I said. “We have that transponder, after all. That should be good for something, right Seleya?”

“It should be,” she said, though she didn’t sound as sure as I wanted her to considering we were risking our lives.

“I don’t like the way you suddenly sound unsure of yourself,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

“What’s going on is the moment they realize some inquisitors aren’t reporting back from Darkpoint is the moment they might stop caring about that transponder,” she said. “Especially if mother has given them orders to take me in at all costs.”

“Great,” I said, pulling the Fortune up and moving over to hover over her ship.

“Could you be a dear and remote in so we can grab that thing?”

I opened the cargo door and watched as Seleya’s starfighter moved up on remote and then pinged the autodock on the Fortune. From there it was a short moment to wait for the starfighter to load into the cargo bay, and then we were good to go.

“Rvannk, would you be a darling and head down to the cargo bay?” I asked. “I want to make sure we don’t have any stowaways.”

“Got it,” Rvannk said.

“The systems would take out anyone who tried to sneak in,” Seleya said.

“Yeah, but better safe than sorry,” I replied.

I eased the controls forward and we shot out of the hangar bay. Arrayed before us was a massive starfield, only a lot of that twinkling was plasma cannon batteries doing their best to reduce anything trying to escape to so many chunks of molten metal.

“This is going to be touch and go,” I said, easing around and trying to sneak past the curve of Darkpoint. Away from that fleet blasting everything.

If Seleya wasn’t sure about this transponder saving our asses then I was going to play it safe. I was surprised no one else had tried this. It was the most obvious escape route to avoid the brunt of those plasma batteries behind us and…

The battlecruiser waiting just on the other side of Darkpoint’s curve where it would be hidden by the asteroid’s mass told me I wasn’t the only person who’d thought of this obvious escape route. To the fold space scanners its mass blended with Darkpoint at this close range.

“Son of a bitch!” I growled, going into evasive maneuvers.

Not that it was really necessary. They weren’t firing anything at us to evade. Though there was plenty of debris from the other ships that’d gone for the obvious escape route I’d thought myself so clever for using.

Not the kind of stuff that was a navigational danger, but it meant that battlecruiser was armed and ready to give us the business.

“Got any bright ideas for how we can get away from that fucker?” I asked.

“Keep flying,” Seleya said. “You have the transponder, after all. That should be…”

“Fortune Found,” a voice came through the commlink. “You will power down your ship and prepare to be taken aboard the Indefatigable. Any resistance will be considered grounds for firing on you.”

“Son of a bitch,” I growled again.

“Let me handle this,” Seleya said, keying the commlink.

Keva hit me with a nervous glance. No doubt she was thinking about all the ways the heir to the Selevas royal family could royally fuck us over if she got on the commlink with one of her buddies from the Selevas military.

I shook my head. Keva kept her hand off the mute button. I figured at this point we were pretty much dead no matter what we tried, so why not go for a hail Mary? Not that anyone out here had a concept of who Mary was, or why hailing her had anything to do with pulling your bacon out of the frying pan.

“Terek, is that you?” Seleya asked.

There was a pause on the other end. A pause where I was pretty sure whatever Selevas military type was on that ship was feeling a touch of shock at hearing the crown princess.

Then the voice came through and it was just a touch less imperious this time around.

“What are you doing on that ship, child?” he asked.

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” Seleya said. “I think you know that. There’s nothing waiting for me in the home system.”

There was another pause. The kind of pause that left me wondering if the dude on the other end was thinking about whether or not he was going to blast us from the skies. Then he came on again, and seemed just a touch short.

“You put me in a difficult position,” he said.

“Do I really?” she asked. “You were always bad about taking orders from me, you know. Maybe you could do it just this once. Call off this one time.”

“They’re still pointing some nasty weapons at us,” Keva said.

As though she needed to remind me. I could see the same readouts she could, and it wasn’t a pretty situation for us.

“How do I even know this is Seleya?” Revas said through the comm. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blast you out of the skies where you stand.”

Seleya frowned. “I’ve given you all the signals that would indicate…”

“Those are signals that could be spoofed by any number of pirate technologies, and you’re clearly escaping from a den of pirates,” he said, his voice hard again. “I need to know something that only the real Seleya would know.”

She took a deep breath. Sighed. Looked at me as though she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to pull this off. Which wasn’t reassuring. I really didn’t want to die out here in the middle of a backwater system. Sure it was a system I’d called home once upon a time, but I very much wanted to get out of here alive.

Not to mention if they started firing on us it was going to take out us and a good chunk of their battle fleet as well as Darkpoint. I suppose as a last resort I could drop the shielding we had protecting the Torvolian power gems from scanners and let them know that firing on us would be suicide.

“The night before the last ball, the one where the power gems were stolen, I used my claws to cut into Revas’ favorite piece of anatomy,” Seleya said. “He had to go to a medical pod to get it repaired and I’m given to understand from some of the reports I got from the system that he might never make a full recovery. Not that I’m particularly interested in him making a full recovery since there is nothing he has that interests me.”

When the comm line came back there was the distinct sound of people laughing on the other end. I was pretty sure she was talking about that asshole who’d been manhandling her when I stepped in to rescue her at the ball. I hadn’t known she’d done her best to remove his ability to reproduce, but given the way he’d been acting towards her I approved of that effort.

There was also the sound of a struggle, which seemed odd. As though there was someone on the other side of that commlink who was doing their best to seize control of the line.

Finally a new voice came on. A voice I recognized. The voice that belonged to that asshole.

“You’ll pay for that,” the man I assumed to be Revas said. “I’ll make you regret the day you ever decided to cross me!”

He was hissing into the microphone, and sounded just a touch unhinged. Seleya looked at me, and she was even more worried. She hit the mute button on the commlink.

“What in the civilized galaxies is he doing on one of mother’s ships? He shouldn’t be there. He runs freighters, not military ships!”

I shrugged. I had no idea why anything was done the way it was in Selevas politics. I was much more comfortable moving in the low places of the civilized galaxies, thank you very much, even if I had been forced to ascend to some very high places in the interest of enriching myself.

The voice came through again as Seleya unmuted them. This time I got the feeling that it was something we were meant to overhear so we would know the end was near.

“This clearly isn’t the princess because nothing like that ever happened,” Revas said, his voice distant like he wasn’t talking directly into the commlink. “Open fire.”

“You can’t give that order!” Terek sputtered.

“I am here at the request of the queen,” Revas said. “Which means I speak with her authority.”

“Kind of funny to hear that being turned on Terek,” Seleya muttered. “He always pulled rank on me like that. Pity it has to happen right before I die.”

“Yeah, I think they’re getting ready to fire,” Keva said, sounding surprisingly calm about our imminent demise. Maybe she’d reached that point that a lot of living creatures do when they know the end is near and a strange calmness settles over them as the brain tries to deal with its impending destruction.

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” I muttered. I slammed my hand down on the commlink.

“Uh, yeah, hi there. This is captain Flynn of the Fortune Found?”

There was a pause on the other end. A pause where they weren’t firing on us. I figured that was a good pause if it was buying us some time.

“I owe you something for some of the raids you’ve done on my shipping,” Revas said. “I’ll enjoy blowing you and the impostor out of the skies!”

I wasn’t sure what this guy’s end game was killing me and the crown princess. Unless his orders from the queen included ending Seleya. That sounded like the kind of thing that would happen in Selevas politics.

“Yeah, you might want to wait just a moment before you do something like that,” I said, hitting a button to lower the shielding on the Torvolian power gems.

“Why would I…”

There was a pause on the other end. I imagined someone telling him they were picking up the distinct power signature of Torvolian power gems that weren’t a tiny sliver in the reactor powering the ship. Something that big that wasn’t being shielded would set off every long range sensor alarm they had.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t know much about Selevas politics or why you assholes are trying to kill the crown princess without looking like you’re killing the crown princess. I honestly don’t give a fuck. If that’s your hustle then that’s your hustle. I’m also not going to let you kill my ass while you’re playing your bullshit politics, so you’re going to let us by because if you fire on us you’re going to take out a good chunk of this system and give the queen a nice light show to look at in a few years when the light hits Selevas Prime.”

Another pause on the other end of the line. I was sure the asshole who were under orders to kill Seleya, that had to be what his game was, was debating whether or not he should go ahead with that plan. I’m sure he was weighing whether or not the loss of a good chunk of an imperial battle fleet would balance against killing Seleya.

Not that he’d be around to enjoy the benefits of killing Seleya if they fired on us now.

“You fight dirty,” Revas said.

“Pirate,” I replied. “Not sure what you were expecting.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he spat. “You would consort with lowborn scum like this, Seleya.”

“You know I’m going to enjoy the day I finally get to stand over your body and watch you bleed out,” Seleya said. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance in my chambers.”

“But you didn’t,” Revas said. “Because you don’t have the guts to do something like that. You never did and you never will. I’ll hunt you to the end of the civilized galaxies and returning your head to your mother so she’ll have a trophy to remind others that the penalty for crossing her can be paid by anyone. Even the heiress.”

Seleya ground her teeth, but didn’t say anything else. I suppose there wasn’t much else to say at that point. She could go back and forth with this guy, but he was the on who was backed up by the military might of one of the most powerful civilizations to ever rise in the galaxies, and Seleya and I were only getting out of here on a technicality.

Time stretched out into an awkward silence. We were putting as much space between us and that battlecruiser as possible, it would seem the captain wasn’t all that eager to come near a freighter that could potentially blow and take it along with, but space was big. Even using the fold space drive to move through the system safely at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light still took some time.

Finally, blessedly, we reached the jump point. I’d never been more relieved to slam my hand down on the fold space drive and send us hurtling between systems. Sure there was a good chance they were going to be following and keeping tabs on where the hell we were going, but I wasn’t worried about that too much.

From the next system we could jump to a couple of different systems, and if we had a head start then I could outrun anything the Selevas might try to throw at us.

That didn’t stop me from deflating just a little.

“You going to be okay there?” Keva asked.

“I think so,” I said. “But I was convinced we were done for.”

“Nice to know you’re full of confidence,” she growled.

“Yeah, well it’s sort of been a weird couple of days,” I said, then turned to Seleya. “You weren’t so bad yourself back there, you know.”

She blushed and looked down. Which surprised me. For once she wasn’t acting like the haughty princess.

Then again, she wasn’t exactly the haughty princess. Not anymore. I was well aware that she was completely and totally at my mercy, and I planned on having some fun with that. In a playful way. Wink and a nudge

“So y’know, we have some time before we’re due out in the next system and they’re no doubt going to be chasing us,” I said. “What would you say to heading back to check out my quarters?”

Keva made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and pointedly went back to messing with the controls. I ignored her. I’d gotten used to her passing judgment on some of my lifestyle choices, and it didn’t even bother me these days.

Especially not with a hottie like Seleya sitting there in the navigator position blushing even deeper when she realized exactly what I meant. She might be blushing, but she also smiled.

“You don’t have anything that would be more suitable for the heiress?” she asked, her grin saying that she totally didn’t mean it how it came off.

“Well pardon me your worship,” I said. “I can promise you that my quarters are the best to be found on the Fortune, though you are going to have a roommate.”

“A roommate, you say?” she asked, arching her eyebrow and for a moment looking every inch the imperious princess I knew her to be.

“Well yeah,” I said. “I mean that is the captain’s quarters, and she’s not the type to just give up her living space so…”

“Would the two of you please just go back there and fuck so I can concentrate on flying the damn ship?” Keva growled.

I looked to Keva. Then back to Seleya. Then we both burst into giggles. Giggles that didn’t help Keva’s mood, but I was so used to her being frustrated with me and my lecherous ways that it didn’t bother me.

“Come on,” I said with a grin. “Let me show you my quarters.”

If someone had told me that I’d have the crown princess of the Selevas empire in my quarters for a little bit of fun when this job started I would’ve thought they were insane. If they’d told me I was seriously considering helping that heiress out with the Selevas Separatists to challenge the greatest empire that had ever existed in the civilized galaxies, at least within the living memory of the species that made up the civilized galaxies which meant some very ancient histories, I would’ve thought they were crazy.

But here I was, doing crazy things not because of money, but because of a pair of pretty eyes and a body that wouldn’t quit.

On balance there were probably crazier things I’d done, but I couldn’t think of them. Besides, I was just a little distracted by the way her body moved as she stepped out of the cockpit, and I hurried to follow her.

It was time to give her worship the grand tour of the crew quarters we’d be sharing. Wink and a nudge. The rest of the civilized galaxies could wait.

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