The Bastard Prince (Blue Moon Rising Book 3)

by Blair Bancroft

  “Captain Rigel’s orders.”

  “I seem to have stepped into a pit of vipers,” Kass said so softly only Jordana could hear her. “I do beg your pardon.”

  “A long story, Highness. No, I take that back. A very short story, a long time ago.”

  Ah. “I do not mean to intrude, Captain, but I know it must be difficult for a female captain to find anyone to talk to about, shall we say, personal matters. Please know that I am available if you prefer not to suffer in silence.”

  Jordana Tegge’s sculptured face, customarily set in the stoic pose demanded of ranking Reg officers, wavered for a moment before crumbling into the features of a female without a single friend in the world. If, that is, one discounted Gregor Merkanov, who many suspected fulfilled duties beyond that of Scorpio’s First Officer. “Highness, I don’t know what to say. I am hon—”

  “Ten, nine, eight . . .” The murmurs around them grew into a roaring chant. The crowd surged closer to the window wall. Kass held Tal’s hand tight, even though she knew his mind had left her far behind. That he was on the bridge with Alek, willing Tycho out of the docking bay, willing her into space. Carrying her on his back on this, its second maiden voyage, a planned circumnavigation of Blue Moon.

  “She’s moving,” someone hissed. Kass held her breath as the words echoed around the room. “Moving . . . moving . . . moving . . .”

  Tears misted Kass’s eyes as Tycho crawled past them, meter by meter, seemingly as slowly as all the months it had taken to put her back together. And then, at last, she was gone, and Kass heard Tal speaking into his comm unit, responding to word from Station Command. He turned to Kass. “So far, so good. She does ten kilometers an hour remarkably well.”

  Kass gave him a hard whack to the shoulder. “Your faith astounds me.”

  “You’re the Psyclid, my girl. I leave religion and magic to you. I’m just a poor Reg rebel who had to put his faith in a bunch of engineers and grease monkeys. I doubt I could have managed to bolt the captain’s chair back in place.”

  They still had their noses within inches of the crystos wall, where it was apparent Tycho was picking up speed, rapidly becoming nothing more than a shining dot in the black of space. “Someone seems to have done it rather well,” Kass murmured. “Is this it, Tal? Are we really taking Psyclid back?”

  “Give it a couple of hours, midamara. And don’t hold your breath. Even if Tycho makes the circle, the mechanics will likely have a thousand things they want to fix.”

  “Ten days, Tal. That’s plenty of time.”

  As the crowd around them drifted away, Tal tilted up his wife’s chin, studying her in a way he hadn’t done for far too long. “Are you sorry?” he asked. “Do you regret not being Princess Royal?”

  Kass gasped, clenched her fists, amber eyes flashing fury. “What brought that on? I chose you, remember? Did you think it some schoolgirl infatuation? Do you want out, is that what you’re saying?”

  With heads turning as Kass’s voice rose, Tal propelled her into the nearest office, a jerk of his head sending the two people inside on a run for the door. He plopped his wife into the well-upholstered chair behind the room’s sole desk, then paced, running his hands through the golden blond waves of his hair. “Dimi, Kass! You know I love you. But you gave up your right to be queen of Psyclid for me. I can’t help wonder sometimes—particularly now when we’re about to make Psyclid a sovereign country again—if you did the right thing, if you regret it.”

  In a flash Kass’s anger faded to an incipient smile. “Sovereign country. I like the sound of that.”

  Still looking doubtful in the face of her mercurial emotions, Tal lowered himself to sit on the desk beside her. “With me, there may be nothing more than prison or death.”

  “I’ve been in prison. Four long years, if you’ll recall.”

  “A velvet prison. And death was not an option.”

  “But I didn’t know that. I’ve already faced the worst, Tal—those days when I thought you dead, leaving me forever alone. Believe me, there are worse things than death, particularly death for a righteous cause.” Kass paused, her words taking on the cutting edge of a solemn vow. “Nothing short of another Liona Dann would get me to leave you. Wherever we’re going, we go together. That’s what was in your mind when you rescued me from the Archives. That’s what was in my mind when I chose to marry you. Whether we rule Blue Moon, Regula Prime, or some empire of our own making doesn’t matter, as long as we do our best to make life better for the people Darroch holds under his thumb.”

  Tal, relieved from his nasty, and rare, bout of uncertainty, shook his head. “Guess I’d better find out if Tycho’s still in the air. Otherwise, our boast of taking Psyclid becomes moot.”

  Tycho was not only still in the air, her circumnavigation of Blue Moon was one quarter complete. After a hearty sigh of relief—and not just for the battlecruiser’s survival—Kass pondered a problem she’d acknowledged for some time. Romance and rebellion did not mix well. Not for any of King Ryal’s four children.

  Psyclid Freedom Day

  When Tycho was directly over Crystal City, nose to nose with the Reg frigate Kepler, K’kadi, at Captain Rybolt’s command, lifted the invisibility cloak. Then, with an enormous sense of satisfaction, watched the battlecruiser’s brief scuffle with the frigate—an exercise in intimidation needing no Psyclid talents to assure success. Now his job was done. The rebels were liberating Psyclid, his homeworld, and Tal had assigned him but a single task. Now complete. K’kadi’s scowl, already deeply etched, grew darker. He was standing around, doing nothing, not even able to ameliorate his gloom with a glimpse of Alala, who had been left on Blue Moon.

  And so it went—K’kadi, the observer, watching Admiral Kamal wrestle with the inevitability of the moment, listening to his speech of capitulation, observing with awe the beginning of the Reg evacuation. Every minute of that long day K’kadi had done as Kass asked—forced himself to focus on what was going on, even as he inwardly raged at his role on the sidelines. And then, just when the day was winding down, the rebels triumphant, his world shattered. Horror seized him. Stabbing pain. He dropped to his knees, hands over his face, trying to shut out the image of three rogue Tau-15s strafing the celebrating crowd, cutting down Psyclid’s leaders, including his sister M’lani. Screams. Suffering. Death. Lifeless faces peered at him out of a swirling gray mist. No no no no no no! He should have seen, should have known . . .

  “K’kadi!” Tal’s bark. But he couldn’t think, couldn’t form words. He could only feel.

  “K’kadi.” Kass’s voice, soft and frightened. She knew it had to be something bad. Have to tell her. Have to . . . How many hours had Kass spent teaching him to focus, to concentrate on doing what must be done instead of losing himself in the intricate complexity of a leaf, in the urge to paint pretty pictures? How many hours—useless hours—had his military trainers spent teaching him to be a soldier?

  At last his thought-speak formed. M’lani. Jagan. T’kal. Anton. Joss. Hurt. All hurt.

  K’kadi clung to Kass as the bridge erupted around them, reports from the ground catching up with his vision of the disaster below. Nothing, nothing, nothing he could do. His sister M’lani needed a healer, and all he was, was the irresponsible, worthless bastard prince, the genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.

  “Shuttle’s en route to our med bay. Come. Both of you, sit over here.” Tal’s voice, as several pairs of strong hands guided Kass and K’kadi to the captain’s ready room.

  “Don’t worry. Tycho’s doctors will have them fixed up in no time.” Captain Rybolt lying through his teeth.

  Long hours of waiting followed, K’kadi and Kass crammed into a small waiting room outside the med bay with an assortment of people of such remarkable and varied power that the air around them vibrated with it. Tal was there, of course. And the witch B’aela, whom he’d never actually met, though he’d known she was Jagan’s mistress since he was old enough to understand such things. And not so l
ong ago Kass had told him B’aela was also a sister, another bastard like himself, though his senior by many years. K’kadi knew he was not what was called “worldly,” but even he could appreciate the strangeness of his sister M’lani discovering that her husband’s long-time mistress was her own bastard half-sister.

  K’kadi had not met T’kal Killiri’s sister either. Nor did he want to. She reminded him all too vividly of the night he’d met the Psyclid rebel leader. The night he’d dropped the invisibility cloak, exposing the shuttle to everyone in the Royal Park, and bringing Killiri and his men on the run. But Kass had been brought up with the impeccable manners demanded of a royal, and even as they suffered agonies over the condition of the wounded, she introduced him to both B’aela Flammia and L’rissa Killiri.

  When B’aela squeezed both his hands before enfolding him in a fierce hug, he knew it was true. She was family. Daughter of his father, and a powerful purveyor of magic in her own right. No wonder the waiting room fairly danced with sparkling wonders of the mind. As for L’rissa, he supposed she couldn’t help being Killiri’s sister. He would try to conquer his instinct to shun her. She, like the rest of them, was suffering. Nor was it Killiri’s fault that K’kadi had failed his mission.

  Jagan, his head swathed in bandages and balancing on a crutch, soon joined them. The Sorcerer Prime, reduced to “walking wounded” as all med beds were needed for more serious cases.

  They waited, mostly in silence, as Tycho’s doctors struggled. Again, they waited while Kass’s mother, Queen Jalaine, and B’aela’s mother, Morgana Flammia—both gifted with the art of healing—ignored their personal animosity to do what Tycho’s doctors could not.

  And somehow the magic the Psyclid psys were working was so powerful it spilled over to a mind K’kadi knew to be as wounded as the bodies in the med bay. His own. Whatever the reason, a new clarity told him he could never let himself fall apart again. No matter what, he must learn to shield himself. If he faltered in the long battle ahead, others he loved could be hurt, the rebel cause with them. So he had to be strong. Kass, Tal, B’aela . . . Alala—dear goddess, Alala—might need him, their lives depend on him . . .

  No more boychild. No more, no more, no more.

  K’kadi blinked as he felt a surge of light coming from the med bay. Triumph. Relief. Joy. Goddess be praised, they would live! All of them. Tamping down the euphoria the old K’kadi might have shown, he confined himself to forming four faces in the air above the heads of those who waited. He formed words just as carefully, making sure even L’rissa could hear him. Alive. Four alive.

  Those around him were too absorbed in their personal joy to recognize the significance of the moment. But K’kadi knew the day of Psyclid’s freedom was the turning point in his life. The day the boy became a man. He had very special gifts, and now, thanks to Tal, he had something more. He had suffered on the training field and in the gym, and hated every moment of it, to the extent of sending his instructor flying twenty meters downfield. Twice. (After the second time, there had been a more equitable distribution of respect.) But the physical discipline, on top of the discipline of his talents that Kass had been trying to teach him, was helping. He felt it all the way to his soul. Whether he was sighting a P-11 rifle or creating an illusion that was more than fireworks and flowers, he was able to concentrate for longer periods of time, less likely to be distracted.

  He liked himself more now. Perhaps Alala would as well. He was beginning to see a future when he was more than the bastard son of a king, gifted but mercurial, skittering on the wind. If he could discipline himself, stay focused, he might—just might—surpass the all-powerful gifts of the Sorcerer Prime.

  Oh yes, he’d like that. He’d like that very much.

  But, as had happened so often in the past, K’kadi’s dreams had to wait. For the great freedom celebration held on the night of the Tri-Moon Festival, all they asked him to do was provide fireworks. Which he did, and even enjoyed it. But from now on . . . his life was going to be more than pretty pictures. And chasing Alala. She was his, and what was ordained would happen, whether he followed her around or not.

  As the last sparkling ember faded into a sky still lit by three moons—red, white, and blue—K’kadi smiled. Life was good, but he was about to make it a whole lot better.

  Chapter 4

  Kraslenka, the Emperor’s palace on Regula Prime

  Emperor Darroch Rysor Karlmann von Baalen sat behind the ornately inlaid desk in his private office, his thin face, scarlet with fury, contrasting sharply with his flowing mane of white hair. The glare he was casting at the much younger man sitting in front of him was enough to send lesser men running for their lives, but Admiral Rand Kamal held firm, returning his uncle’s gaze with cool composure. He was, after all, the one and only son of the emperor’s favorite sister, his military successes legend. He was also a sight to warm the emperor’s heart—the ultimate example of a Regulon warrior—blond, blue-eyed, heroically handsome in spite his forty-some years, highly intelligent and strikingly competent. A true hero of the empire until, in his role as acting Governor General of occupied Psyclid, he signed a peace treaty with the rebels.

  “You surrendered an entire planet without a fight?” the emperor raged. “Have you gone mad?”

  “Psyclid was not worth a fight, Majesty. They have few valuable resources, no armaments, no soldiers we can conscript into our army—”

  “We hold what we have,” Darroch shouted. “We do not sign peace treaties at the first whiff of rebellion.”

  “With all due respect, sir, Psyclids are even more strange than we knew. I signed a peace treaty because a battlecruiser and two hunterships held our frigates captive, our soldiers were immobilized—frozen in place—and our weapons would not fire. If I had not surrendered, the Psyclids would have begun to disintegrate everything Regulon, from machines to men.”

  “Nonsense!” Darroch’s fist hit his desk, scattering a stack of papers and sending a gold pen rolling onto the intricately patterned carpet.

  “You saw the reports, sir. Tanks, armored cars, missile launchers turned to dust. A Psyclid reduced a chair to splinters in my office.” Although Kamal’s tone remained cool, inwardly the von Baalen temper he’d been determined to control flared to life.

  “An illusion,” Darroch snapped. “Sorcerer’s tricks. Regulon soldiers could not move? Our guns and missiles could not fire? Nonsense!”

  Fydding narrow-minded old man! Yet how could someone who had never witnessed Psyclid magic possibly understand? “Majesty, do you recall what happened to General Yarian? He too did not believe that Psyclids have powers of the mind that can overwhelm both troops and armaments. And when he saw it happen right in front of his eyes—as I did from my place in the reviewing stand—he was unable to accept the reality of it. Which is how he ended up in a medical facility here on Regula and Grigorev became Governor General of Psyclid.”

  Rand paused as a vision of the general’s torn and bloody body flashed through his mind. “Believe me, dyadya, after what happened to Grigorev, I could never doubt we were dealing with something . . . not normal.”

  Emperor Darroch had not ruled for sixty years without the ability to prioritize his problems, and at the moment his worry over his nephew’s sanity outpaced his worry over a truly insignificant planet he had ordered conquered simply because it was an easy target. In the long run, Rand Kamal, the most intelligent and competent of the younger von Baalen line and the most likely to succeed him, needed to be coaxed away from the pit that yawned before him.

  “Grigorev was in charge by default,” Darroch conceded, “a hothead with no talent for rule. But Hagan Yarian . . .” The emperor’s chest rose and fell in a long sigh. “He was a good officer and a friend. I assure you he had a stroke, not a breakdown over a few Psyclid mind tricks. And you”—he pointed a long, claw-like nail at his nephew—“you will be in charge of the battlegroup that reduces Psyclid to rubble.” With an airy wave of his hand, the emperor added, “Take as m
any ships as you like. I want Psyclid gone!”

  “No.” Though his voice was steady, Rand gripped the arms of his chair, fully expecting his uncle to call for his guards, strip him of his rank, and . . . How far would the protection of a von Baalen mother extend?

  After several moments of apparent incredulity, Darroch eyed his nephew as if he were some rare specimen fit only for a zoo. Idiot boy! “Dimi, but I never thought I’d see the day. My favorite nephew, twisted into knots by a Psyclid witch. It’s not Yarian who needs the psych team, boy, it’s you.” The emperor leaned forward, peering into Rand’s blue eyes. “Did you think I didn’t know about her? That I wouldn’t think it mattered?”

  “It didn’t matter, Majesty. B’aela Flammia and I knew exactly what we were doing. I used her to gain a better understanding of the rebels, and she did her best to make me sympathetic to their cause. We each understood the agenda. I admit my being able to accept that Psyclid powers exist made it possible for me to acknowledge defeat, to save our soldiers from annihilation. I knew what would happen if I did not sign the treaty. Psyclid might be a nation of pacifists, but their time had come. They were willing to do whatever it took to get rid of the occupation. So, no sir, I cannot, will not, attack them. Hopefully, if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. At least you better pray they do.”

  Emperor Darroch stared at his nephew, mouth agape. “Impossible,” he breathed.

  “Believe it.”

  “Go home to your wife and children, Rand. Perhaps that will snap your illusions back to reality.”

  If only.

  Rand stood, snapped to attention, and saluted. Not that military courtesy was going to make the emperor forget that his nephew had just invited a charge of treason. It was a miracle he was being allowed to leave. Or was it all illusion, the guards waiting just outside the door?

  Adhering to formal protocols he seldom used, Admiral Rand Kamal backed out of the room, forcing his hands to remain at his sides and not sneak toward his Steg-9. He stifled a huff of relief as the door closed behind him and he saw only the two guards who were always stationed outside the emperor’s door. He moved through the outer office, looking neither right nor left. Into a long corridor . . . still no one to impede his way. A left turn, another corridor . . . guards snapped to attention as he passed, the outer doors flew open. Down the long broad steps to ground level—certain every step of the way that at least a dozen P-11s were trained on his back.