The Bastard Prince (Blue Moon Rising Book 3)

by Blair Bancroft

  “You’re risking your family, the Reg underground, our business. Everything. On the word of a . . .” The elder Rigel stumbled to a halt, biting off words that would have insulted his son’s new Psyclid family.

  Kamal good man. Friend. No bad thoughts. Sorrow.

  Rand Kamal’s eyes widened. He stifled an oath. “I heard him. How is that possible?”

  “You hear him because he wants you to hear him,” Kass said. Turning to her father-in-law, she added, “Please don’t be upset, Admiral. K’kadi’s gifts often astound us all, but I believe he has made a sound judgment.”

  Retired Admiral of the Fleet Vander Rigel, not yet convinced, could swear he heard the death knell of the rebellion tolling in the distance.

  At one point in the conversation that followed, K’kadi spoke only to Kass. Wife, children, loyal to emperor. Worry.

  He cares about them, or he worries they will betray him? Kass asked.

  Both. Wife like court. Kamal, no.

  The children?

  Young. Follow mother.

  With an infinitesimal nod of her head, Kass indicated she understood the admiral’s dilemma. But she already knew what Tal would say. Every Reg in the rebellion had left family behind. Members of the underground, both Reg and Psy, kept secrets from spouses, parents, siblings, children, and best friends. Not easy, but rebellions demanded sacrifice. She had been luckier than most—all that had been demanded of her was giving up a crown.

  As the long conversation wound down, Tal leaned back in his chair and offered Rand Kamal his most enigmatic look. “I hope you don’t have any urgent plans, because you realize we can’t let you leave here until after we do.”

  “Supposedly I’m on a hunting trip,” Kamal returned without a hint of irritation. “Which, come to think of it, is the truth. Therefore”—he nodded to Vander Rigel—“if the admiral will be gracious enough to extend his hospitality, I fully understand the necessity. Under the circumstances I wouldn’t trust me either. After all, your wunderkind could be mistaken.”

  “If he is, we’re all dead,” Vander Rigel muttered. Stiffly, he inclined his head in Rand Kamal’s direction. “You are, of course, welcome to stay as long as necessary. How fortunate my wife’s hospitality stands like a rock, no matter how high the waves.”

  “Dimmit!” Tal growled a short time later. “I don’t want to leave Dagg and his crew behind.”

  “We have no choice,” Kass said. “We can’t keep Kamal here for any length of time, he’s too well known. I mean, I’m sure your servants are reliable, but it’s so easy to slip up.”

  “We’re leaving our own on Reg soil. That’s unacceptable!”

  “Your father and Kamal will see they get out. And Dagg’s a clever man. Who else would have thought to take on a load of the emperor’s favorite treats?”

  “I am in awe,” Tal snapped. “That doesn’t make the situation any better.”

  A knock on the door saved them from further hot words. “Dad’s announced an inspection trip of our factory on Ep 3,” Kelan told his brother. “We’re leaving at two this morning.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Oh no you’re not!”

  “Dad said.” Kelan, using words reminiscent of their childhood, flashed a mischievous grin. “Come on, Brother, you can’t have all the fun.”

  “Fun!” Tal exploded. “You think running a rebellion is fun?”

  “Sorry. But what’s so bad about me coming along for the ride?”

  Tal heaved a sigh. “Isn’t it enough that Dad and I are constantly at risk?”

  “We’re all at risk. The whole family, the business as well. Here or in space, I don’t think it really matters.”

  Tal ran fingers through his hair, studied his booted feet. “Fine. But when you get back, just do your job, mind the business, be the loyal face of Rigel Industries. Rebels are a bunch of disorganized malcontents, we’re well rid of the Psyclid weirdos, etcetera, etcetera. Got it?”

  Kelan snapped off a smart salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

  At two that morning Admiral Rigel and his younger son left in his chauffeured hovercar for Rigel Industries’s private spaceport. Following close behind was the same well-cloaked van that had delivered his four unexpected guests. By three, they were all on board the admiral’s personal pinnace. Twelve hours later, when Reyla Rigel was confident her husband and son were safely into the newly verified Pyka wormhole, she concluded the polite conversation she had been enjoying with her unexpected houseguest and asked, “Tell me, Cousin, should I pack up my children and flee the moment you are out of sight?”

  Rand Kamal took both her hands in his and returned just as coolly, “And I might ask if I can expect to live long enough to return to Titan.” In a moment of honesty with the cousin who shared von Baalen blood, Rand allowed his wry thoughts to show on his face. “I am no menace to anyone, Reyla. Just a man fighting his way through a towering maze when I need to be high above it, seeing its intricacies, mapping paths that lead us out of harm’s way. So no, Cousin, you have nothing to fear from me.”

  Reyla searched his face. Satisfied, she nodded. “You are free to go, Admiral. And may Omnovah guard us all.”

  He squeezed her hands as he murmured “Amen” and repeated his thanks for her hospitality, and turned toward the door, only to pause on the threshold. “Be wary with Montiene. She does not share my sentiments.”

  Montiene. Reyla frowned. No, of course his selfish court tart of a wife wasn’t going to favor anything that risked her secure and luxurious life, her position among Darroch’s favorites, the growing possibility she might someday be Empress. Did Rand have any idea what his wife had been up to while he was gone? Reyla wondered. Then again, she’d heard he had not been lonely, particularly during the last months before the rebels took back the planet. There were many, in fact, who credited the Psyclid witch with turning Kamal to the rebellion’s point of view. Could he be bewitched? Under a spell that would eventually dissipate, leaving his knowledge of the rebellion exposed to the Empire?

  Somehow Reyla doubted it. She’d known Rand all his life. His mother, a decade older than she, was always a voice of reason. As was his father, the head of Regulon National Security. Rand had inherited his intelligence and steady powers of reasoning from both sides. He had never been a wild child. No wonder Darroch was considering him as his heir.

  And yet . . . Reyla watched the road until long after Rand Kamal’s groundcar had disappeared. Had the rebellion just gained a powerful ally, or had Talryn made a fatal error? Pale with worry, Lady Rigel went inside and quietly closed the door on an extraordinary three days.

  K’kadi was bored. After his cloak had allowed the admiral’s ship to enter the Pyka wormhole without incident, his job was done. So here he was, more than a week from home with nothing to do. Kass had long since given up teaching him how to control his talent. Though she occasionally hovered like an anxious mother, she seemed to accept that she had taught him all she could. He was on his own. Truth was, these days all he had to do to keep himself focused was think of what a disappointment he’d be if he slipped up. The looks on everyone’s faces—Kass, Tal . . . Kelan, who thought him a hero. Alala, who did not. Well, maybe a little, after he’d landed Pegasus. She wasn’t exactly avoiding him, but the further they moved away from danger, the more her wariness seemed to return. As if she admired what his gifts could do but still considered him too strange to be an acceptable companion. Well, fizzet! A few of Tal’s more colorful Reg oaths whipped through his mind. What did he have to do to make her like him, let alone love . . . ?

  Don’t forget Talora.

  Alala mine. Not Talora!

  Don’t be any more of an idiot than you already are.

  Using her would not be honorable.

  She is willing. You know she is willing. And she admires what you are.

  K’kadi couldn’t argue with that. But Talora was stuck on Regula Prime, and who knew when she’d
be back to Blue Moon. But it was good to think about her, to know he had a friend.

  You’d have a lot more if you returned the looks cast your way.

  No! K’kadi firmed his jaw, slamming the door on his treacherous inner voice. For years it had urged him into escapades that got him into trouble. So he wasn’t going to listen. He was grown up now. Kass said he had to act like an adult. And he would.

  Except sometimes adults got up to more mischief than children. So there!

  Eyes narrowed, his lower lip jutting in something close to his well-known childish pout, K’kadi made his way toward the bridge. Blue Moon should be visible by now, its shimmering blue haze growing brighter by the moment. Perhaps they were close enough for it to fill the viewscreen. Home. Everything would be fine once his feet were back on his home soil. Kass had been born on Psyclid, M’lani and B’aela as well. But Blue Moon was his. He could pull power from its terraformed soil, from the souls of is inhabitants. He was one with the animals, the birds—he could soar high overhead and see . . .

  What? Not enough. Never enough.

  As his world grew—expanding from Blue Moon to Tatarus to Rim Station X-33. To Hell Nine, back through a Reg battlefleet . . . and now to the epicenter of the Empire, Regula Prime— K’kadi’s visions of the future had become less well defined. Too many factors, too many variables. He suspected the goddess herself didn’t know the outcome of the rebellion. Which likely meant Omnovah didn’t either. Or Alala’s god, Ares.

  K’kadi didn’t like confusion. Omnipotence was much preferred to sneaking doubts. Nor did he like to see people hurt. He’d suffered so severely when M’lani was hurt that at one point he had wondered if they would die together. Not that he’d told anyone of this fatal flaw, not even Kass. He was already considered too eccentric, too sensitive, too unreliable. No need to add fuel to the flame. Not that his growing gift for empathy helped with Alala. She was a wall of mag-steel, impervious to his thoughts beyond a few words of basic communication.

  As K’kadi entered the bridge, warning bells sounded. They were about to penetrate the ridó. Legs braced, arms folded over his chest, he wallowed in the residual waves of the force field that protected Blue Moon, drew a deep breath as it snapped closed behind them. Home, at last. And he was returning a better man than the one who’d left. He’d held the cloak, no matter what. He’d been scared, so scared he’d let them down. Yet he’d done it. Landed Pegasus. Saved all their lives. Then exhausted, wet, and cold, he’d continued to hold the cloak as long as he had to. Tal was pleased, Kass hugged him. Alala? Well, at least she no longer looked at him as if he were a monster. A freak maybe, but not a monster.

  They were bypassing the spacedock high above Blue Moon’s surface and heading for a landing on the airfield not far from Veranelle. Even through the ship’s walls, K’kadi could swear he smelled the wonderfully fresh air of Blue Moon.

  A sudden frown darkened the angelic perfection of his pale face. He’d better enjoy Blue Moon while he could. If he knew Tal, they’d barely have time to catch their breath before they were off to Hercula.

  And more days shut up on a ship with Alala. Many more. Except Astarte was ten times the size of Pegasus, making it all too easy for her to avoid him. Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t leave immediately. He’d heard Tal say he planned to take Captain Lassan and his family with them. Dagg, the merchant, was well-known to the Hercs, and trusted. An asset, Tal said. And Tal was good at utilizing every asset he could lay his hands on. That was part of being S’sorrokan. A gift K’kadi needed to acquire. Now that he’d learned discipline—or at least come a lot closer to controlling his wild talents—he needed to learn more than following orders. He needed to know how to initiate orders. How to command.

  With no voice? his inner self mocked.

  But instant depression failed to engulf him, as it had so many times before when he was reminded of his frustrating disability. He was better. He was useful. Tal had told him, “Well done!” And he could talk. Alala had done that. When he’d felt her aboard Tycho, he’d known he was about to lose something precious before he even knew what it was. Known he had to communicate, had to get Kass’s help.

  And now he could talk to people, more than just family. Each time he tried to extend his reach, or attempted to focus on just one person, it got easier.

  More words, more people . . .

  If he could speak into a multitude of minds . . .

  K’kadi smiled.

  Chapter 13

  “So how did it go?” Tal leaned back in his office chair, not bothering to hide the wry humor lurking behind his question.

  Alek and Jordana, in almost identical motions, downed the karst Tal had just poured, slammed the glasses on top of his desk, and huffed coordinated sighs. “Your trip to Hercula is going to take how long?” Alek inquired, looking grim.

  Tal’s eyes gleamed. “That bad?”

  “Worse,” Jordana declared. “That man is impossible!”

  “He had to stick his nose in, even when two middies got into it over a girl,” Alek growled.

  “Nothing we did was right!” Jordana’s words exploded as she lost her customary cool.

  “He was boss,” Alek said, “we nothing more than his assistants. And not very competent ones at that.”

  “Fyd!” Tal breathed. “I thought we’d gotten past all that. I knew Vaden could be a pain, but . . .? Tal’s voice trailed into silence as he considered his years of sparring with Torvik Vaden, chairman of the Hierarchy, the rebellion’s civilian governing body. How to explain Vaden’s transformation from Regulon’s ambassador to Psyclid to a man who thought he had the right to dictate the law on one of Psyclid’s moons. Even after King Ryal gave Blue Moon to Kass?

  “In the beginning,” Tal said, “I didn’t want the rebellion to go the way of the Empire—I didn’t want to be another Darroch. So I actually encouraged Vaden to establish the Hierarchy. I was happy enough to have him deal with everyday problems while I concentrated on the rebellion. Until I wanted to rescue Kass, and Vaden balked. That’s when I knew letting him take himself too seriously had been a mistake. I went anyway, of course, and Vaden and his cronies retaliated by insisting Kass prove her worth. I thought it best to stand back, keep the peace, and fyddit, she was nearly killed.”

  Tal paused, his mind filled with the shocking scene he’d found when he’d been called to the room where Kass had declared her independence: Doctor Liona Dann in hysterics, the remains of the deadly krall still dripping down her face. A smashed viewing window, overturned chairs, and members of the Hierarchy rapidly moving from stunned to awed, abandoning Orion’s psych doctor in favor of a girl who had more than demonstrated her ability as a weapon.

  Except . . . there was still a constant, if subtle, struggle for power. “I’m sorry,” Tal said. “There’s been so little nonsense from either Vaden or the Hierarchy since Ryal gave Kass the right to rule Blue Moon, I never expected trouble.”

  “When the cat’s away, the mice will play,” Jordana quoted.

  “Which makes the long trip to Hercula more of a risk than it should be,” Alek pointed out.

  “May I?” Jordana poured another two fingers of karst for each of them. “Vaden has definite delusions of grandeur,” she declared as she returned the bottle to Tal’s desktop.

  “Which puts him at the tail end of a very long line,” Tal returned easily. “Vaden is a big man in a very small puddle. A few years as ambassador to Psyclid, followed by even less time as chairman of the Hierarchy, does not qualify him for command of anything more influential than a committee.”

  “Not from his point of view,” Alek offered. “Cut the head off the rebellion and what’s left? The chairman of the Hierarchy.”

  Tal choked on a mouthful of karst. Amber liquid spilled from Jordana’s glass onto her lap. “You think Vaden bombed Pegasus?” Tal sputtered.

  “Well, not personally,” Alek drawled. “Suicide mission, wasn’t it?”

  “Or the bomb was timed to go off
over Regular Prime,” Jordana countered. “Pegasus lost in space leaves too much mystery, the possibility of another resurrection like Orion.”

  “But Vaden . . .” Tal shook his head. “We’ve clashed, yes, and we’re far from friends, but . . .” Tal stared at Alek, flicked his gaze to Jordana. “Are you actually suggesting—”

  “Yes.” Both captains spoke at once.

  “Po-ok!” Tal breathed. “That’s a blow I didn’t expect.”

  “Believe me,” Alek said, “he was throwing his weight around as if he didn’t think you’d be coming back.”

  “I was going to ask the two of you to track down the bomber while I was gone, but now . . .”

  “You’d better tear Astarte apart and put her back together before you leave,” Jordana advised. “Use only crew who’ve been with you from the beginning.”

  “Agreed,” Tal muttered as his mind clicked off the unpleasant possibilities. He’d always known the Regs could have planted spies among the many defectors to the rebel cause. But a traitor in their midst as powerful as Vaden—that he hadn’t anticipated. “I’ll set a round-the-clock watch on Vaden and his associates. We need to know how far his influence has spread.”

  “We can already name a few,” Jordana said. “Including Liona Dann,” she added with an unsuccessful effort to keep her tone neutral.”

  “Fyd!" Elbows to the desk, Tal plunged his head into his hands.

  “Sorry,” Alek said. “We’ve heard the story, and there’s nothing more vicious than a woman scorned.”

  “Unless it’s a woman who had a krall slapped in her face,” Jordana added, repressing an urge to smile. She had often regretted not being present when Kass took down Tal Rigel’s one-time mistress.

  “So you’re suggesting Vaden’s gathered the malcontents,” Tal said, “everyone whose toes I’ve stepped on since we came to Blue Moon.”

  “Something like that,” Alek said. “I don’t think he’s turned any Psys, just some of the Regs, but you don’t need an army to plant a bomb. I hear the Pegasus incident was a close call. If Kass and K’kadi hadn’t been able to get Pegasus down, we’d have lost the lot of you. And the rebellion as well.”