The Bastard Prince (Blue Moon Rising Book 3)

by Blair Bancroft

  Alek threw her an evil grin. “I can think of a number of diabolical things, but perhaps telling Merkanov about our little interlude tops the list.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Alek’s grin faded. “No, of course not. But in private we’re on a first-name basis or else, my girl.”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone called me a girl.” She wanted to add more—most particularly something about Gregor Merkanov being no more than a friend with benefits. But that was, of course, quite impossible. She had achieved her rank by being better, tougher, and more ruthless than Fleet’s male officers, and even now that she was second in command to the dashing, much-admired Alek Rybolt, she could not bend so much as a centimeter. They might be Reg rebels headquartered on one of three moons of a negligible planet in an obscure star system, but the military protocol learned at the Regulon Fleet Academy still prevailed.

  Jordana managed a smile. “Agreed . . . Alek.”

  Over a second glass of karst, they discussed Blue Moon’s civilian governing council known as the Hierarchy, relishing shared negative opinions of the ones most likely to cause them trouble while Tal and Kass were gone. Most particularly, the chairman and former Regulon ambassador to Psyclid, Torvik Vaden.

  When Jordana stood up, stating she had a meeting elsewhere, Alek made no move to stop her. Without so much as a quirk of a flirtatious eyebrow, he matched her formality to perfection. Captain to captain. Senior officer to his second-in-command. Fyd! Jordana muttered as she stalked down the corridor, not caring who saw her—it’s a wonder he hadn’t expected her to salute.

  Omnovah, maybe he had.

  The ever-stiff-backed Captain Tegge’s shoulders slumped. If only she knew how to find a secret passage back to her room, so no one would see what those private moments with Alek had cost her. Particularly her abrupt exit.

  Iceberg! You did it to yourself. He was looking for a bit of fun and games, and you blew it.

  Not what I wanted.

  So you froze him out.

  To that she had no answer.

  And then there was Gregor Merkanov.

  Chapter 7

  En route to the Regulon System

  “Pok!” Tal swore as he cracked his head on the cabin ceiling on this, the very first morning of their scouting trip into Reg space.

  “Did we have to take a merchant ship?” Kass wailed. “I mean, bunk beds? This is ridiculous. Surely the captain has better accommodations?”

  Tal poked his nose over the edge of his bunk, gazing down at his wife below. “Pegasus is the fastest non-warship we have, Dagg Lassan the best of our merchant captains. And most reliable. And since we can’t expect K’kadi to keep us cloaked around the clock, we have to look innocuous.”

  “There are larger merchant ships that look perfectly innocuous! And they have more guns!”

  “Ka–ass, we’re not looking for a fight, we’re scouting. And yes, there’s nothing I’d like better than to run Astarte up the Emperor’s ass, but this time around, it’s not going to happen. We’re checking out those coordinates you memorized back in the Archives. The gates so ancient they may or may not still be there.”

  Kass frowned. “What happens if a wormhole is open at one end and not at the other?”

  “Dimmit, Kass, you ask too many questions. Stop thinking for a minute, would you?”

  “Answer me.”

  Tal heaved the long-suffering sigh he had perfected since first meeting almost-Ensign Kass Kiolani. “As far as I know, it is physically impossible for a wormhole to collapse at only one end. We’re not about to fly into some dead end.”

  “But there are a remarkable number of spatial anomalies.”

  “I don’t think a one-ended wormhole is one of them.”

  His remark was met by a short silence, followed by: “What if I got it wrong? What if I didn’t remember correctly?” She knew she was spouting nonsense, of course. Manufacturing objections for no sensible reason other than clinging to the peace of Blue Moon and not wanting to begin the long dangerous trek toward the unknown.

  Tal slipped down from the top bunk and sat beside her, though a bit warily, as their quarrel over Alala still loomed between them. “You recorded all those coordinates as soon as you were back on Blue Moon. It’s not like you’ve relied on them sticking in your head through all our adventures since we took you from the Archives.”

  Truth time. Surely this was the right moment for a peace offering. They hadn’t stayed angry with each for this long since they’d finally bridged the divide between captain and ensign, Reg and Psyclid. Fantasy and Reality. “The back doors to Regula Prime are stuck in my mind forever,” Kass said. “Even when I thought there was no hope, when I thought you were dead, I was determined to get out of the Archives and someday sneak back, causing as much trouble as possible.” Eyes fixed on the past, she huffed a rueful sigh. “As I recall, I had visions of converting a Psyclid merchant ship to military use, becoming some kind of pirate . . . Oh, I know it sounds foolish—”

  “Foolish! You’re never foolish, Kass. Too soft-hearted perhaps, but . . .” Realizing that was an avenue of thought best ignored, Tal declared, “We’re going to do this. The gates will be there, K’kadi will hold his focus like a true soldier. We will find a back door to Regula Prime.”

  “Tal . . . doesn’t it bother you, the idea of attacking your homeworld?”

  He wanted to slough off the question by telling her that was the pacifist Psyclid in her talking, but truth was, except for the battle at Choya Gate, the rebellion had avoided direct confrontation with Fleet. It was, after all, a case of mouse versus lion. Even when they took Psyclid, the only shots fired were by the three rogue Tau-15s. The only Reg deaths attributable to the rebellions were, quite incredibly, the work of the two Psyclid princesses, Kass and M’lani—acts diametrically opposed to the “live and let live” philosophy that ruled Psyclid lives.

  And now they were scouting back doors to Regula Prime, where he’d been a military hero far longer than he’d been S’sorrokan, rebel leader. Where he had family. Vulnerable family—father, mother, sister, brother. So, yes, it was hard. Fydding hard. Looking grim, Tal said, “We’re taking down the Empire, not Regula Prime.”

  “A fine distinction, midamaran.” Kass frowned. “If only we could tell what parts of K’kadi’s visions are true.”

  “Do you really want to stand on the Emperor’s balcony wearing a crown?”

  “I’ll take you and me over Darroch any day. And, unlike you, I was raised to rule.”

  “So you were.” Tal grinned, his bright blue eyes measuring the lower bunk. “It’s still early. Do you think we could manage . . .?”

  “Are you still angry about bringing Alala?”

  Mentally crossing his fingers, Tal lied. “I am resigned.” And may Omnovah save them all!

  “No wonder you’re S’sorrokan—you lie so well.”

  “I gave in—the blasted Herc is on board.” Tal groaned. “Kass . . . it’s been five whole days . . .”

  “Whining does not become you.”

  “Dimmit, woman!”

  Kass eyed the narrow bunk with considerable doubt. “Well . . . I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to test it—”

  Before she got out the last word, Tal had her pinned to bed, leering down at her. “There are some arguments, wife, I really have to win.”

  At least one aspect of the scouting voyage to Reg space proved successful.

  K’kadi’s eyes popped open, his body stiff with longing. If Kass only knew . . . He’d finally learned to shield himself against other people’s emotions, but strong passions, particularly those of family, still sneaked up on him at times. Like now. And besides, how else was he to learn if he didn’t peek now and then? If he and Alala ever . . . well, he had to be sure he wouldn’t make a fool of himself, right?

  Stupid! Tal’ll skin you alive.

  Hastily, K’kadi shut down his wandering eye. But not for long. What was the point of having remarkable gifts if he
couldn’t use them?

  Was that a snarl he heard? K’kadi felt dragon flames licking at the back of his neck, almost as if Jagan had reached across space and knew what he was doing. Fizzet, but sometimes his imagination really had a mind of its own. Discretion. Responsibility. He was beginning to hate those words, and they weren’t even out of the Psyclid system yet.

  As matters grew more heated in the cabin on the deck above, K’kadi plunged his head into his hands. No no no no no! He was shutting them out. Absolutely, completely out.

  Goddess forbid! Would Kass know when he and Alala . . .?

  Idiot! Kass moves things with her mind; she doesn’t feel other people’s emotions or see through walls.

  In a mercurial switch left over from his other self, K’kadi recalled that it was breakfast time and he was hungry. Time to go. If, that is, his anatomy had subsided enough for him to be seen in public without shame. His intention of casting no more illusions lasted only until several of the more nubile crew members pouted prettily and asked him why he was so solemn. Setting a smiley face above his head, distinguished by a golden halo, he joined the giggling girls at their table. He was, after all, only twenty and flesh and blood, no matter what some less than friendly people thought of him.

  The smiley face began to whistle.

  In the early days of the rebellion, when Tal—in his guise as the pirate Captain Kane—was approached by the captain of the modest-sized but swift merchant ship Pegasus, he did not follow the old adage of “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” But it took very little research to determine that Captain Dagg Lassan was an unlikely candidate for a Reg spy. In a manner similar to the fate of the Tegge family business on Epsilon 3, Lassan’s thriving transport company on Turus had been taken over by a favorite relative of a Reg admiral. Dagg had loaded his family and most-devoted employees into his fastest vessel and fled, surviving on pick-up jobs throughout the sector until rumors reached him that a pirate called Kane might know how to locate the rebel leader, S’sorrokan. Seven Reg months after the supposed loss of the huntership Orion and Tal’s resurrection as S’sorrokan, Pegasus became the first merchant ship to join the rebel fleet.

  And now she had the honor of carrying the rebel leader and his wife, the ruler of Blue Moon, on a scouting expedition into Reg space. Dagg liked that. He was a round-faced, burly man, steadfast in all he did. His golden skin, brown hair and brown eyes were closer to the Psyclid norm than to Regulons. Since Pegasus was very much a family affair, his wife, Shaye, served as First Officer. Gifted with a mass of chestnut hair and nut-brown eyes, Shaye was as slender as he was broad, her authority just as unquestioned. A grown son and daughter were members of the crew. Their youngest boy, Pieter, functioned in the traditional capacity of cabin boy, fetching and carrying and acting as general dogsbody for honored guests and senior officers. Dagg took considerable satisfaction from the conviction that the young people were growing up stronger and better than if they had remained on Turus, the pampered pets of an extended family of great wealth. And when the rebellion was over and they’d won—as Dagg was certain they would—his business would still be there, waiting for him, for Tal Rigel wasn’t a man who forgot those who helped him.

  The helmsman, obeying previous orders, sang out, “One hundred marks out. Slowing.”

  Dagg felt the slight vibration as Pegasus’s speed abruptly dropped. “Comm, summon our guests.”

  In the ten ship days since they left Blue Moon, the crew had adjusted to having high-ranking guests aboard, but they couldn’t hold back surreptitious glances as the Reg rebel leader, the Psyclid princess, her brother, and the female Herc answered the call to the bridge. Rigel looked exactly as they expected—strong, confident, and in total command of himself and everyone on board—with the exception, as they all knew, of his wife, the Psyclid with skills they’d all had trouble believing. The odd brother, however, scared them. And the Herc, a newcomer, looked like she’d strayed out of the pages of some ancient heroic tale.

  Pride, however, conquered apprehension. They’d done it. Brought this privileged, if strange, quartet to the requested point in space. And now they were about to find out if they were chasing chimeras. Would there be a wormhole with a viable gate at the coordinates specified? And if there was, would it take them to Reg space or propel them into the middle of a debris field, a gaseous cloud, maybe even a black hole? Where had the blasted coordinates come from anyway? Ancient star maps? You’ve got to be kidding! Many a night the crew of Pegasus had beaten the topic to death, only to conclude that leaders of a rebellion against the Regs had to be not only dynamic but just a wee bit crazy.

  Twenty marks out and still nothing. Even as Kass strained to find some anomaly in the black depths outside, she shivered. The coordinates were right—she must have checked her memory against the notes she’d written after escaping the Archives twenty times or more. This was the place. Surely they should see the gate by now . . . But, fizzet, there was nothing but empty space. The back door to Reg space—the one they counted on—was gone. Or the captain who had recorded it in his log six hundred years ago got it wrong.

  “K’kadi?” Kass asked, still holding a faint hope the wormhole might have some previously unknown invisibility cloak.

  Nothing.

  “All stop.” Kass heard the heaviness in Dagg Lassan’s voice, even though his face remained as stoically calm as Tal’s.

  “Nav?” Tal asked.

  “This is it, sir. The exact coordinates, checked and rechecked.”

  “Thank you. Captain Lassan, I believe we gave you a second set of coordinates. Please proceed.”

  Kass beat back the “No” that exploded in her head. Tal was right. Time to move on. But it hurt. What if the other ancient gate was gone? What if she’d gotten it wrong?

  “Sixteen hours out, Captain,” Lassan said.

  “Understood.” Tal stood back, waving Kass ahead of him as they prepared to leave the bridge.

  Was here. The rebel leaders turned to K’kadi. Wormhole here. Gone now.

  “How can you tell?” Tal winced, even as he said it, knowing how ridiculous it was to question any of K’kadi’s gifts. The boy simply knew things. The trouble was, no one was certain just how accurate his “knowing” was.

  Feel it. Alala, never comfortable with K’kadi’s words sounding in her head, scowled.

  Tal turned to Dagg Lassan. “I beg your pardon, Captain. K’kadi is able to communicate a few basic words to those he’s closest to. He tells us the wormhole was here. Evidently, it collapsed, a speculative bit of spatial physics no one has ever been able to prove. Though I suspect he’s right. At least it gives us hope the coordinates are valid, that the other gate will still be there.”

  The two captains exchanged a look of mixed commiseration and understanding. “Nav,” Dagg ordered, “proceed to second coordinates.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Half-way back to their cabin, Kass could no longer hold her stoic façade. “All my grand schemes, my dreams. I was so sure . . . and I’ve failed. Ancient wormholes are just that. Ancient. Worthless—”

  “As Choya was?”

  “That wasn’t as old.”

  “Old enough not to appear on Reg maps.”

  “Fine,” Kass snapped. “I suppose there’s a chance. Rebel captains,” she added with undisguised bitterness, “optimists at heart.”

  Over Tal’s chuckle, Kass heard a ripple of sound she’d never heard before. “K’kadi, did you just laugh?”

  Think so. Strange.

  “You need to do it more often.”

  “You are all mad!” Alala burst out. “You think you can defeat the Regs? You are children living a fantasy, a dream. It’s as much of a myth as your wormhole.” And with that, she charged down the corridor, made a hard right toward her cabin, and disappeared.

  “Not the best day for any of us,” Kass said softly.

  Is okay. Will happen.

  Kass gave her brother a swift hug. “Thank you, K’kadi. I wis
h I could be so certain.”

  Not crazy. I know.

  Tal laid a hand on his shoulder. “Prognostication is great, K’kadi, but can you keep the Regs off our backs?”

  K’kadi snapped to attention, an entirely uncharacteristic pose that startled his companions. He saluted. Sir, yes, sir!

  Slowly, Tal returned the salute, while his inner voice groaned, Omnovah, save us all.

  Chapter 8

  Kass marched straight back to their cabin, disappointment and frustration turning more toward anger with each step she took. The moment the door closed behind them, she burst out, “You were quick enough to order us out of there. Couldn’t we have looked about a bit? Maybe Nav was off by a few degrees.”

  “Pegasus may be small but her instruments are nearly as good as Astarte’s. I didn’t need K’kadi to tell me there was nothing there.”

  “But that was the good one,” Kass murmured, sagging onto her bunk. “The other . . . you know I only have the coordinates for one side. Fizzet, Tal. We could come out on top of Fleet headquarters!”

  “It’s the only unmapped wormhole we have left . . .” Tal shrugged.

  “You could have thought about it a second or two.”

  “I’ve thought about it more times than I care to remember. The plan was to check out both holes, and that’s what we’re doing.”

  “Yes, but I was so sure . . .” Kass’s voice faded away as she dropped her head into her hands.

  “We were sure we’d taken Psyclid without losing a drop of blood. And look how that turned out.”

  “It’s just . . . seriously, we could pop out directly over Titan or the spaceport.”

  “Come on, Kass, did you ever hear of a wormhole that close to a planet? Somehow it doesn’t work that way. And even if it did, I seem to have more faith in K’kadi than you do.”

  “There’s irony for you,” Kass grumbled.

  Tal held out his hand. “Come on, let’s find K’kadi and make sure he really understands our lives are in his hands.”

  “Alala too. It’s important for her to understand that K’kadi doesn’t have to be a warrior to be a powerful weapon.” Tal groaned. “Let’s not start that again,” Kass snapped. “When it comes to females, I claim the right to superior knowledge.”