The Bastard Prince (Blue Moon Rising Book 3)

by Blair Bancroft

  BLUE MOON RISING

  (in order)

  Rebel Princess

  Sorcerer’s Bride

  The Bastard Prince

  Royal Rebellion (2018)

  Cast of Characters

  ON BLUE MOON:

  Kass Kiolani - born L’ira Faelle Maedan Orlondami, Princess Royal of the Planet Psyclid

  Talryn Joffre Rigel - aka S’sorrokan, rebel leader. Captain of the huntership Orion (now Astarte). A Regulon

  K’kadi Amund - Kass’s bastard half-brother, a fey-like sorcerer whose powers seem to increase daily

  Anneli Amund - K’kadi’s mother

  Alala Kynthia Thanos - a Herculon warrior

  Alek Rybolt - captain of the battlecruiser Tycho. A Regulon

  Jordana Tegge - captain of the huntership Scorpio. Home Planet: Epsilon 3

  Gregor Merkanov - First Officer of the huntership Scorpio. A Regulon

  Dorn Jorkan - First Officer, Orion/Astarte. A Regulon

  Mical Turco - Chief Navigation Officer, Orion/Astarte. A Regulon

  Zandra (Zee-Zee) Foxx - Bridge officer, Orion/Astarte; Dorn Jorkan’s girlfriend. A Regulon

  Liona Dann - a doctor & Tal Rigel’s former mistress. A Regulon

  Torvik Vaden - Chairman of the Hierarchy. A Regulon

  Dagg Lassan - captain of armed merchant ship Pegasus. Home planet: Turus

  Shaye Lassan - his wife & First Officer

  Talora Lassan - their daughter

  Romy Lassan - their elder son & Navigation officer

  Pieter Lassan - their youngest son & general gofer

  B’ram Biryani - majordomo, Veranelle

  J’rett Zelaya - K’kadi’s bodyguard

  Jor Sagan - Tal’s aide

  Tige Bellan - head of Tal’s security guard

  ON PSYCLID:

  King Ryal & Queen Jalaine - rulers of Psyclid, parents of L’ira (Kass) & M’lani

  M’lani Sayelle Zarana Orlondami Mondragon - newly made Princess Royal

  Jagan Sitric Cormac Mondragon - Sorcerer Prime, married to M’lani

  B’aela Flammia - Jagan’s chief assistant & former mistress, half-sister to Kass & M’lani

  T’kal Killiri - long-time leader of the Psyclid rebels. Construction engineer & werewolf

  L’rissa Killiri - his sister, girlfriend of Anton Stagg. A shapeshifter

  Anton Stagg & Joss Quint - Jagan’s Marine bodyguards. Regulons

  D’nim & T’mar - Jagan’s long-time associates & assistants. Psyclids

  Kaya Samadi - Psyclid police officer, M’lani’s sometime bodyguard

  D’lila Lyrae - wealthy widow, rebel sympathizer. A Psyclid

  Sibella Cyr - rebel shapeshifter. A Psyclid

  ON REGULA PRIME:

  Admiral Vander Rigel - Tal’s father. Actively aiding the rebellion

  Reyla Rigel - his wife. Rebel sympathizer

  Kelan Rigel - Tal’s brother. Rebel sympathizer

  Dayna Rigel - Tal’s sister. Rebel sympathizer

  Emperor Darroch Rysor Karlmann von Baalen - the enemy

  Admiral Rand Kamal - his nephew, former Acting Governor-General of Psyclid

  Rogan Kamal - Rand’s father, Chief of Regulon National Security

  Montiene Kamal - Rand’s wife. Not a rebel sympathizer

  Colonel Alric Strang - former aide to Rand Kamal (on Psyclid)

  Cort Baran - once Kass’s jailor, now a friend

  ON HERCULA:

  Alexias Thanos - Alala’s father, chief advisor to King Nekator

  King Nekator - Herculon chief of state

  Hypatia Kalliste Eliades - chief concubine

  Timaios Andreadis - wise old admiral

  Nikomedes Drakos - a general, expected to marry Alala

  Kephas Petros - King Nekator’s chief aide

  Foreword

  In the infancy of the rebellion against the Regulon Empire—when the huntership Orion was thought lost in a battle against the Nyx and the entire planet mourned Captain Tal Rigel and his crew—Ridó Command on Blue Moon, the third moon of an insignificant star system in the Nebulon Sector, made the most dramatic decision in its history. A decision which set a precedent for Regulon ships seeking asylum from the power of the Empire. When Ridó Command’s viewscreens showed an unidentified spacecraft of considerable size being fired upon by a Regulon battlecruiser, it opened the force field protecting Blue Moon just long enough to allow the unknown ship in, before closing it in the face of the pursuing Reg warship. The cruiser, bounced off into space, limping back to Regula Prime with a tale that brought derision at every level of command. You fired on a ship that identified itself as a merchant delivering farming supplies? Omnovah! What else would it be? Everyone knows what fydding cowards the Psyclids are. Strategically, it’s worthless. We only took over their weird planet because we couldn’t let them flout their independence so near our home space. Yet you try to shoot a ship out of the sky just because you thought she looked like a warship. Fyddit! Let tell you, Captain, we have better things to do with our resources!

  And so the rebel leader Talryn Rigel—the blond, blue-eyed epitome of a Reg warrior—came back to Veranelle, the summer home of the Psyclid royal family, a place he had visited when his father, Vander Rigel, was the Regulon ambassador to Psyclid. He took the king’s apartments in the palace as his own, and at the imposing desk in the king’s study, what had been little more than a determined gleam in Tal’s eyes became a rebellion against the Empire he had served so faithfully for nearly a decade.

  In the coming years Ridó Command welcomed a steadily increasing number of ships to the rebel fleet. None, however, could compare to the spectacular arrival of the battlecruiser Tycho, captained by Tal’s life-long friend, Alek Rybolt. A ship that would double the rebellion’s firepower and begin the life-changing transformation of K’kadi Amund, son of a king, genetic experiment. The boy who could not talk.

  Chapter 1

  The night Tycho crashed on Blue Moon

  He could feel them. Four hundred-twenty men and women, their terror tightly controlled by their military training, by their faith in their captain. Each doing his job, some stoically calm, some praying, some spouting inventive streams of profanity at the Reg ships chasing them. Ships manned by people they knew, people who had been their friends only ten days earlier. And beneath their calm façades, every last one of Tycho’s crew knew they were on a crash course for Blue Moon, with only the slimmest chance of maintaining enough control to keep the largest warship in the Regulon Fleet from plowing a hole all the way to the moon’s core.

  K’kadi Amund, son of Ryal, King of Psyclid, stood in the middle of his room, head bent, fists clenched at his sides. Mute, as always. Suffering their pain.

  A hiccup jolted the emotions streaming from Tycho as K’kadi recalled what his brother-in-law said to him the last time he’d popped up in his bedchamber at an awkward moment. But, fizzet, he had no option.

  Wincing, K’kadi closed his eyes and sent a vision flying to his sister’s bedchamber. If she was alone, he’d be forgiven. If not . . . surely the importance of his news would keep Tal from flaying him with words.

  Kass was not alone. K’kadi honed his images to vivid clarity while steeling himself for a blast of Tal’s temper before he could get his brother-in-law to stop what he was doing and fully take in what K’kadi was showing him: a Regulon battlecruiser closely followed by a huntership and two frigates, all three firing everything they had. But Tal Rigel had not become a rebel leader without a mind that could deal with crises at lightning speed. A mind that knew when to choose duty over personal inclination. Anger at K’kadi’s untimely interruption of a private momen
t with his wife had already transformed to action mode by the time Ridó Command called, confirming the news. Tycho was coming in hot, about to crash on Blue Moon.

  Mission accomplished, K’kadi threw off his ornately embroidered green satin nightrobe, and scrambled into one of the blue jumpsuits that had become the rebel uniform. Glancing into his full-length mirror, he ran his fingers through his tousled white-blond hair, frowning at the change from elegant princeling to just another reb in a no-rank coverall. Fizzet! Even the lowliest Reg recruit walked tall in snappy gray trimmed in black.

  K’kadi grimaced as he realized he had let his thoughts drift off topic. He did that—everyone knew he did that—which was why there were so many rebels who didn’t take him seriously. Kass knew he had powers beyond making pretty pictures. So did Tal. But not being able to stay focused was bad. Maybe worse than not being able to talk.

  For what must have been the millionth time in his nearly twenty-one years, K’kadi raged at the fate that kept him silent. Mute as a stone. They told him he was the only baby in Psyclid history who never cried. Which meant there was no one who could understand his fury, his frustration, his despair. As he grew—stumbling with often disastrous results into powers he could not understand or control—his only solution was to cocoon himself behind a wall of illusions. Pretty pictures to distract not only others but himself from the turmoil inside. Truthfully . . . he’d come to enjoy his role as Blue Moon’s oddity, the boychild who never grew beyond an entertaining, if somewhat unreliable, clown. Until his sister L’ira returned to Blue Moon as Kass Kiolani, and he’d been swept, willy nilly, into the rebellion.

  And if he didn’t get moving, he was going to be left behind. Teleport? Better not. Ever since Kass saved Astarte (once the Regulon huntership Orion) at Choya Gate, he’d been practicing, but all the way to the airfield? He could, however . . .

  K’kadi, grinning with the delight, plopped down beside the helo’s gaping door just before Tal and Kass arrived. They had to take him. Tycho called to him, though he had no idea why. Assuming his most innocuous face, K’kadi Amund, the slight, fey, bastard son of King Ryal, regarded his brother-in-law from azure eyes that might well have belonged to a starving puppy begging for a scrap of food.

  Tal’s response was a curt nod from a head whose mind was clearly many kilometers away, attempting to visualize Tycho’s crash course through Blue Moon’s terraformed atmosphere. As soon as they were on board the helo, K’kadi showed his appreciation by painting an all-too-vivid picture of the fiery hull of the pride of the Regulon battlefleet plunging to its possible death. Tal scowled, waved the image away. K’kadi shut down his vision and hung his head. He wanted so much to be helpful, but he never seemed to get things right.

  Warmth filled him, however, as his sister took his hand. He’d learned to think of her as Kass, the name Tal called her, but in his heart she would always be L’ira Faelle Maedan Orlondami. Former Princess Royal—now new-made ruler of Blue Moon. Big sister. Though he now topped her by half a head.

  When they arrived at the potential crash site, the helo hovered at the edge of a broad expanse of meadowland surrounded by forest. Tal said the location was good—it meant Tycho still had some control, enough to try to set down where there were no buildings and no people. K’kadi peered down at the ground. Every emergency vehicle within fifty marks must be on site. The lights on the ground were a symphony of blue, red, and white, the same colors as Psyclid’s moons. Flashing, strobing, almost as good as fireworks. For a moment K’kadi’s attention wandered, lost in a swirling sea of light. And then he felt the call. Not Tycho. Something—someone—on board Tycho. Someone who might be lost tonight. Might never be part of his life.

  No-o-o. The someone was . . . special.

  The someone was for him.

  Slowly, K’kadi shook his head, shoving the thought into a deep crevice with all the other nonsense that insisted on stumbling through his brain, distracting him from what Tal and Kass expected . . .

  Wordless, formless, the siren call bounced back. At greater intensity. The essence of someone important, who could be dead in the next few minutes. Someone calling him.

  Never! Not die—he wouldn’t allow it. K’kadi clutched Kass’s arm, his pleading gaze stabbing through the dim light. Help!

  Kass’s eyes widened. She stared, unable to accept what she had just heard. If only in her mind.

  Help! Ple-ease. Ah, good, she understood. He could see it in her eyes.

  “K’kadi, did you just speak to me?”

  No speak.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Waste time. Help ship. Please!

  Tears welled up in Kass’s eyes, her lips trembled. “I can’t, K’kadi, I can’t. Even if we had Jagan and all his people, this is too much. Tycho’s the largest ship in the fleet. It’s out of control, coming down hard no matter what we do.”

  Slow it. You, me.

  “K’kadi, we can’t. Look at it—it’s nearly down. It fills the sky!”

  Do now! He grabbed her hand. Do!

  Later, K’kadi liked to think they’d helped. Actually, he was almost certain of it. Everyone said only five dead was a miracle. At the time, however, all he knew was that he was preserving his destiny. Whatever was calling to him was his.

  Ares be praised, she was alive! In the dim glow of emergency lighting, Alala Kynthia Thanos struggled to sit up. Following Captain Rybolt’s command, as a good soldier should, she had stayed in her cabin as Tycho hurtled toward the rebel base on Blue Moon. Every moment was agony, as she longed to do something, anything to be useful. But in spite of being a Herculon warrior, she was confined to quarters, a rescued captive in a sea of Reg traitors. Which was, of course, the reason she was on board Tycho. Admiral Rigel had asked—more likely, ordered—Captain Rybolt to take her aboard the defecting battlecruiser on its run to Blue Moon.

  The run that ended in a crash. Yet somehow they were down and she was alive. Alala pulled herself to her feet, settled her helmet which had been knocked awry, and strapped on her short sword. Ignoring the protests from her battered body—something she had been trained to do from an early age—she gathered up the arrows that were scattered over the cabin before slinging the full quiver and bow onto her back. Good. She was ready.

  The door was a bit of a problem, but she soon found the emergency override for the lock. (Regulons, superb engineers, never failed to allow for emergencies.) Was it Captain Rybolt’s forethought that put her in a cabin near a docking port? Whatever the reason, she found herself among the first to arrive at the exit. Looking, as always, every inch the foreigner, in helmet, armored breast plate, and flowing purple kilt above an expanse of black leggings.

  To her surprise, the Reg crewmen nearest the lock motioned her to the front. She knew Captain Rybolt had ordered them to respect the stranger in their midst, but first off the ship after a crash . . .? Perhaps they were simply acknowledging her senior rank. Or perhaps they were as doubtful about Blue Moon as she was. Did Admiral Rigel know Blue Moon was the rebel headquarters, or was he guessing? On top of that, Blue Moon was part of the Psyclid system, crawling with people who were little better than witches. Or so everyone said. She’d even heard that tales about Psyclids were used to frighten Regulon children into good behavior. Which suggested Tycho’s crew, members of the most mighty and feared space fleet in the Nebulon Sector, were playing it safe when they stepped back and let the Herc warrior go first.

  Fine. She could do that.

  Accustomed to command, Alala raised an eyebrow, nodded to a crewman hovering at her side. He snapped to attention, stepped forward, and hit the emergency Open button on the airlock. Three others leaped forward to haul on the reluctant door.

  A whiff of fresh air. The outer door must have buckled. Would it open? Alala waved the crewmen toward the final barrier. The sound of grinding metal, whooshes of pent-up breath from those waiting behind her, and the door groaned open, the night outside stunningly bright. Spots danced before her eyes. Alala stood ta
ll and proud in the doorway, as a warrior should, until the light finally sorted itself into spotlights, headlights, emergency lights, and wavering glow torches. The deep black silhouettes of a dozen or more figures raced toward them.

  After that, she was plunged into controlled chaos—triage quickly shunting her aside to a dim space at the edge of the emergency vehicles. Alone. Glad for the chance to catch her breath and look around . . .

  Alala swore a soldier’s oath. Tycho’s bridge was buried deep in a mass of trees. Captain Rybolt! Her only friend. Was he dead?

  A pink haze popped into view not six feet in front of her face. Startled, Alala drew her sword. The amorphous mass of pink shifted, gradually coalescing into roses that seemed to shimmer in some ethereal light. The flowers dipped and swirled, forming a heart. A few petals drifted through the air, slowly falling toward the ground.

  Witchcraft! Psyclid monsters! Sword in hand, Alala spun in a slow circle, seeking the source of this abomination.

  A boy? A tallish, skinny, unarmed boy with white hair and a foolish smile? Impossible!

  Shoving her sword back in its scabbard, she nocked an arrow, aiming it straight at his heart. “Be gone, witch! Herculons want no part of sorcery.”

  Friend.

  What? Brave as Alala was, hearing a word not spoken aloud nearly turned her legs to water. Forcing herself to stand tall, she jerked the bowstring all the way back to her nose.

  And then she was flat on the ground, her bow and sword gone, the quiver torn from her back, the weight of three men pinning her down.

  No-o-o! A cry of anguish echoed through her head. From the boy?

  The weight lifted, the three men rolling off her as if tossed by an invisible giant. While she attempted to make sense of the impossible, an unseen force set her on her feet, and she found herself staring across ten feet of space at a boy turned to angry man. A man much worse than a witch. And totally terrifying.

  “You are Herculon, are you not?” a female voice said with the smooth calm of one accustomed to dealing with dramatic situations. “Please pardon my brother. He was only attempting to welcome you, but since he is unable to talk, communication can sometimes be difficult.”