Rebel Princess

by Bancroft, Blair

  “Of course, Captain.” She added a tiny impish smile, amber eyes glowing with some of those secrets she was so determined to keep. The whole, more than enough to make him groan.

  “You may go, Kiolani. I suggest you make an effort to find some clothes that are neither wealthy young dama nor lowly kitchen maid. Casual, but fit for Astarte’s bridge. There are also times . . .” Tal’s customary confidence wavered for a moment. He began again. “There are times when we must pass as free traders. I will order clothes for you for those expeditions.”

  Kass blinked. “Smugglers, Captain?”

  “Pirates, if you will,” Tal responded blandly. “S’sorrokan has many incarnations.”

  He caught the flash of delighted intrigue that flooded her face before she banished it, rising from her chair, once again the dutiful Fleet-trained officer at stiff attention beneath her servant’s clothing.

  “I will do my best, Captain. I’m not fond of these clothes either.”

  “Oh-eight-hundred,” Kiolani. Don’t be late.”

  “Aye, Captain.” She flashed him a look so full of excitement, hope, and something a good deal more personal, he felt himself grow hard. Blessings to Omni, he was safely hidden behind his desk.

  Now, at last, Tal thought, the rebellion could begin to move from the grim struggle to increase their forces, from sheer determination to survive to a new and more active attack mode. The revolution had found its heart.

  Kass peeked around Anton Stagg’s broad shoulders, offering a tentative smile to the vaguely familiar female standing in the long line of Regulons waiting to board the shuttle that would take them to the orbiting docking bays. To Astarte and its scout ship Gemma. But the young woman, an assistant Comm officer, was looking up to the air some six meters above their heads, where a miniature Astarte was defending itself from the attack of an equally small Regulon battlecruiser. Oh, pok! K’kadi. Frantically, Kass looked around, but the Psyclid teen was well hidden in the line of brawny Regulons.

  Kass, like everyone else, watched as the two ships executed impossible maneuvers, wheeling and turning more abruptly than birds in flight through an almost solid curtain of laser flashes. The Regulon cruiser exploded, drifting toward the ground in a shower of sparks before winking out just above the tallest heads. A few ducked. Everyone cheered. Three meters behind her, K’kadi’s thin but wiry arm shot skyward, clenched in a triumphant fist.

  Kass readjusted the brand new carry-all that was slung over her shoulder, using the action to hide a what-are-we-going-to-do-with-you headshake and an indulgent smile. They were going to war, and what better boost to morale than such a graphic victory? And yet, to those who still associated Psyclids with witchcraft, such a display of K’kadi’s skills could be the equivalent of kicking a hive of wasps. Not wise.

  But how to tell K’kadi that without dampening his spirits and possibly affecting his remarkable gift? She would have to find time in her tight schedule to discover exactly what he could do and how to turn those skills to the rebellion’s advantage. And while doing that, assure him he was the rebellion’s secret weapon and he needed to be very careful about flaunting his talent.

  But K’kadi loved the amazement on people’s faces . . .

  How could he help it? His mother was an actress of great renown, his father . . . also a man of remarkable skills. A man who commanded the stage wherever he was, as accustomed as his mistress to spotlights, rapt audiences, and thunderous applause. Poor K’kadi. He could no more avoid being a showman than Kass could avoid loving Tal Rigel. Even if he was a far cry from the man of her dreams.

  Stagg broke her reverie, shepherding her into the shuttle. Twenty minutes later, Kass followed the lieutenant down unfamiliar corridors on the deck designated for officers’ quarters, while Sgt. Quint brought up the rear. All of them were lost.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Kass demanded when they turned down yet another hallway punctuated by evenly spaced doors on each side.

  “No.” Sgt. Quint didn’t bother to hide a chuckle. Lt. Stagg merely looked annoyed. “We pretty much stick to D Deck when we’re not guarding a landing party or fighting,” Quint said, “but don’t worry. Once we find your quarters, there’s bound to be a lift closer than the one we took.”

  Kass groaned and hiked her bag higher on her shoulder. The batani bag was too new and shiny. It kept slipping. Grimly, she followed the towering lieutenant, whose booted feet seemed to thump more loudly with each disgruntled step. He came to an abrupt halt before a door that looked exactly like every other door they’d passed, except this time the number on it matched the info on Cass’s brand new handheld. “I hope you’ve got the code,” Stagg ground out.

  As if she were K’kadi instead of Kass!

  She swallowed her pride. Anton Stagg and Joss Quint might be friends, but like other males, they were disconcerted when their navigation skills were found wanting. Kass tapped in the code she’d been given. The door opened . . . and they all gaped at the female in a skintight bodysuit who was in the process of transferring clothing from a carry-all into one of the room’s built-in drawers.

  Dimi! Only once before had Kass shared a room—those six weeks aboard Orion as a cadet. This time she had assumed no one would want to share with a Psyclid.

  Never assume. How many times was that cardinal rule drummed into her head? Not enough, evidently.

  Tal should have warned her!

  Training, training. Rise to the occasion. Handle it.

  Kass summoned a smile to match the one offered by the room’s unexpected occupant.

  “Greetings,” the stranger said. “I’m Zandra Foxx. Everyone calls me Zee-Zee. As long as you promise not to do to me what you did to the snake, we’ll get along just fine.”

  Kass nodded, summoning a tentative smile. She had been trained since infancy to handle social surprises. Somehow she would manage.

  “This is it, Kiolani,” Anton Stagg told her. “No more bodyguards. You’re on your own. So take care, dama. And know you always have friends on D Deck.”

  “You can’t just disappear,” Kass cried. “Surely, there’s a common area some place—”

  “We’ll keep an eye on you, we promise. And if we can wangle a visit, we will.”

  Kass hugged them both, then stood in the open doorway as the marines marched shoulder to shoulder down the hallway.

  She was alone. Abandoned again. Her marines gone into military isolation, a stranger for a roommate, Tal Rigel’s quarters were probably as far from hers as it was possible to get, and the goddess only knew where they’d put K’kadi.

  K’kadi. Who was bound to be more alone and isolated than she was. She should have asked, demanded to know where—

  Well, fyd!

  “Feeling sort of lost?” asked a voice from behind her.

  Turning slowly, Kass faced her new roommate.

  Chapter 12

  Tal leaned back in the fixed-based swivel chair in the room that served as his personal lounge, dining area, and office and stared up at the unexpected visitor standing just inside the door. Although he was making an effort not to look intimidating, it didn’t seem to be working. K’kadi Amund continued to project a dark cloud, clearly indicating he was unhappy.

  Which was a mystery, because while still on Blue Moon, Tal had set the astute Dorn Jorkan to investigate the boy’s background. Dorn had reported that young Amund was eager to join the crew of Astarte. He’d also stated that the boy’s mother was still breathtakingly beautiful, enough to turn any man’s head. There was no father in the household, but the family lived in unexpected affluence, which included the mother’s parents, an almost sure sign the boy’s father acknowledged him and supported him. But when questioned about the family’s source of income, the mother had merely raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and smiled.

  But now, from the look on K’kadi’s face, Tal expected to see lightning flash across the room at any moment. “Amund, I thought you wanted to come with us. Can you show me why you’r
e so unhappy?”

  A face formed in the space between Tal and K’kadi. An instantly recognizable face in full color—black hair, amber eyes . . .

  Mallik! The boy could create people? Correction—the illusion of actual people. The implications were so startling Tal almost forgot his initial question. “Uh—you want to know where Kass is?”

  A vigorous nod. A huge question in K’kadi’s tilted azure eyes.

  “You came to me because you don’t like your quarters. You want to be nearer to Kass?”

  Only an infinitesimal chin jut this time, but the boy’s shoulders straightened and his eyes were now glowing brightly. The black cloud vanished.

  Mystery solved. “I beg your pardon,” Tal said. “I left billeting to my staff, when I should have anticipated the problem. But now you know how Kass must have felt when she went off to the Space Academy all by herself.”

  A solemn look, another jerky nod.

  Tal spoke into his comm unit, and one of his officers instantly appeared. “Arrange for Amund to have quarters close to Ensign Kiolani. And K’kadi,” Tal said to the young Psyclid, “I’m glad you came to me. That was the right thing to do.”

  The boy turned and followed the officer out. Behind him, a huge mouth hung in the air. Grinning.

  Omni! This was going to be an interesting voyage.

  Kass turned to her new roommate, the female she’d seen in line just as K’kadi staged his mock war. Zandra “Zee-Zee” Foxx was everything a Regulon female should be. A few years older than Kass, she was blonde, blue-eyed, tall, and stalwart, with angular features that somehow added up to a woman both appealing to women and enticing to men. Perhaps it was the unusual fullness of her lips or more likely the friendly, even mischievous, lights dancing in her eyes.

  “Greetings,” Kass murmured. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “I was at Comm when you were a cadet.”

  “I beg your pardon, I should have remembered.”

  Zee-Zee gave her a surprising look of sympathy. “Hardly surprising you’d shut out Fleet, the Academy, and everyone associated with it.”

  Everything but Tal Rigel.

  “So unpack,” Zee-Zee ordered breezily. “I left you the bottom two drawers, you being shorter and all.”

  Kass’s lips quirked. Set off by her roommate’s broad grin, she laughed out loud. As she slung her carry-all on the bed Zee-Zee hadn’t already claimed, she asked, “Did you volunteer for this, or did the captain twist your arm?”

  “I volunteered. Dorn and I were the only bridge officers who made money when you took out Archer. We didn’t let pride stand in the way of betting on you.”

  “Thanks for that,” Kass said, and meant it. She had thought no one bet on her. But of course some must have, or there could have been no bets at all. She opened her carry-all and started to unpack.

  “Great Omni,” Zee-Zee pronounced with considerable emphasis, “if we didn’t already know you’re captain’s pet . . .”

  “Pardon? Oh!” Kass felt the color draining from her skin. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, gazing down at the hastily constructed array of brand-new clothes. I’d heard the seamstresses are hard-pressed with so many to outfit, but I had nothing at all, you see. I wore the same three outfits for four years and I couldn’t bear—”

  Zee-Zee pounded her knuckles against her forehead. “No, I’m sorry. I forgot you were alone for so long you’re not used to be teased. How could you be?”

  Kass dropped onto her bunk, shaking her head. “I guess the captain knew what he was doing when he put us together. You’re here to help me be human again.”

  “I’m here as a mentor and, I hope, a friend. And, yes, this friend wants you to be comfortable with people again.”

  Comfortable. For that Kass had to go back nearly five years, to the time before that fateful interview with Captain Rigel on Orion. When he tried to warn her of the coming storm.

  A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. When Zee-Zee answered, a young man said, “Captain’s compliments, Lieutenant. He wishes me to inform you that you have a new neighbor. We’ve moved the Psyclid magician next door.”

  “Which next door?” Zee-Zee snapped.

  “Uh—that way.” The young officer pointed to the right.

  Zee-Zee sniffed and shut the door in his face.

  Uh-oh. “Problem?” Kass asked.

  Her new roommate stared blankly for a moment, as if wondering if she cared to share. Then she winked and said, “Just a wobble. Got an interest in the other side, and I have to tell you the Psyclid kid’s not my type.”

  Kass raised her eyebrows. “Dare I ask?”

  “Dorn Jorkan, and don’t you ever forget it. If he hadn’t come back from that lunatic jaunt to the Archives, you’d be first on my pok list.”

  Kass sighed and stretched out on her bed, staring at the ceiling. “I wonder how long it’s going to be before we stop saying sorry to each other. I never asked them to save me, you know. That’s just who they are.”

  Zee-Zee studied her for a moment. “I can’t stand people who insist on pointing out the truth,” she said in a tone as dry as the Sebi, “but I’m afraid I’m going to like you anyway.”

  Kass had never had a friend before. There had been hangers-on back in the days when she lived her life as darling of the palace, but she’d found them shallow and doubted their motives for offering friendship. With Zandra Foxx she’d never have that problem. Zee-Zee would say what she thought, straight-out, no holds barred.

  In all fairness, Kass had to admit her roommate’s forthrightness would probably do her a great deal of good. Not even four years in solitary had obliterated the natural-born arrogance of the heir to the House of Orlondami. If she was going to fit in, she needed to learn to be humble.

  She could almost hear the captain’s mocking laughter. Who knew better than he how far Kass was from being genuinely humble?

  Zee-Zee gasped. Kass looked up to find K’kadi’s disembodied head floating just inside the door. Fyd! She was going to wring his neck. Kass bounded to her feet, dashed across the room, and opened the door. “Get in here before I spank you!”

  “Kass!” Well, pok! Now she’d shocked the roommate.

  K’kadi smirked at her. Miserable little twirp. Even if he is half a head taller. The disembodied face split into an ear-to-ear smile, then drifted slowly toward the room on the right, disappearing as it seemed to pass straight through the wall.

  “Yes, I know,” Kass told the Psyclid teen. “They’ve put you next door. Which will be convenient because I need to find out just how much you’ve learned in the last eight years.”

  K’kadi struck a pose, one finger to his chin, as if daring her to explore inside his head.

  “You know,” Zee-Zee intoned, “I’m not sure I can take two of you at once.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have our training sessions in K’kadi’s room.”

  “No magical spillovers,” Zee-Zee urged. “Promise.”

  Kass rolled her eyes at the teen and sighed. “I can promise for myself, but as for K’kadi . . .” She left the sentence hanging.

  He moved with such swift grace, he had clasped Zee-Zee’s hand before Kass’s roommate could dart out of the way. He raised the lieutenant’s fingers to his mouth and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. Kass rather enjoyed seeing Zandra Foxx, eyes wide and totally speechless.

  And then he was gone, the door shutting gently behind him.

  “You should know,” Kass murmured, “that he’s a classic absent-minded genius. He doesn’t always remember his promises. He’s also,” she added dryly, “a bit autocratic. That tends to be a problem when your father is a king.”

  Zee-Zee dropped onto her bunk with an audible thud. “King?” she questioned weakly. “The kid’s a prince?”

  Great goddess, Kass thought, give her another female to talk to and she’d gone mad. A secret she’d hadn’t even told Tal, and she’d babbled it to Zee-Zee in under an hour.

  “Not a prince,”
Kass responded carefully. “K’kadi was born outside the king’s marriage.”

  “Poor kid’s a bastard? Well, that’s better. Kind of unnerving to have a prince next door.”

  If she only knew.

  “Kiolani, Amund, move to the front where you can see.” From his position on top of a table, Tal watched heads turn and bodies sway as the two Psyclids made their way through the tightly packed crowd of officers and crew assembled in Astarte’s common room. Fleet Captain Tal Rigel would have addressed them via vid screens, but S’sorrokan preferred the personal touch. Except for a skeleton staff on the bridge and in the engine room, they’d all managed to squeeze into this one space. It was more than five Regulon weeks since they’d all been together, and it felt good to see the sea of upturned familiar faces. Better than good. He was a spacer. This is where he belonged.

  Kass popped out of the crowd directly below him, straight-faced and professional. Not a sign of the strange bond between them. Shoulders wedged sideways, the crowd parted just enough to let K’kadi through. The teen offered Kass the broad welcoming smile Tal could not give her. Mallick!

  “Welcome back!” Tal took his time, sweeping the crowd with a look that managed to make each one feel the greeting was personal. “And welcome to our two newest crew members, Kass Kiolani and K’kadi Amund.” He paused for effect before adding dryly, “I believe you are all familiar with their special talents.”

  A low rumble, mostly laughter, echoed from the crowd. A grinning mouth started to form over their heads. He saw Kass dig an elbow hard into Amund’s ribs. The young Psyclid scowled. The mouth winked out.

  Interesting, Tal thought. If Kass was attempting to control Amund’s talent, he suspected she’d taken on a formidable task. Like turning a wild creature into a pet. But she was very likely right. Amund would be of little use until he learned to discipline his gifts.

  When the room was quiet once again, Tal said, “We’re headed for Tatarus.” Another ripple of sound swept across the room, a mixed reaction from those pleased to learn their destination and those not so pleased at the length of the journey with no immediate fight at the end.