Page 37 of Alien Mercenary’s Wife (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne #7)

T he conference area at the back of the bridge felt smaller with the entire crew packed inside.

T'Raal stood at the head of the conference table, hands gripping its edges while his people arranged themselves around the cramped space.

The Sprite's engines hummed somewhere beneath them as they sat in Earth's outer system planning something that might get them all killed.

Reese had been gone for eighteen hours. Eighteen hours of silence. Every minute that passed made any rescue more complicated and her survival less likely.

"Talk to me, Mayce," T'Raal said, his voice tight with barely controlled anger. "What are our legal options?"

Mayce looked up from the stack of documents spread across the table, his jaw set in hard lines. The investigator had been working nonstop since they'd hacked into the court system and 'acquired' the court files for Reese's case.

"There are none," the big Navarrian said flatly. "Not through human courts. Not with what they've constructed against her."

Silence fell. T'Raal's gut clenched as Mayce carried on talking, each word like a hammer blow to his hopes.

"The terrorism charges are fabricated but professionally done.

False evidence, manufactured witnesses, documentation that will pass even detailed scrutiny.

" Mayce gestured at the files surrounding him.

"They've created a narrative where Reese is the architect of an anti-government conspiracy and Hughes and Mason are unwitting accomplices.

The other veterans are just victims of her manipulation. "

"What about the medical evidence?" Tal asked from his position near the wall. "The neural pathway damage, the implant failures?"

"Dismissed as psychological manifestation of combat stress. Any physical deterioration will be attributed to guilt and pressure from her crimes." Mayce sounded disgusted. "They've covered every angle. Her condition becomes evidence of her guilt rather than corporate malfeasance."

Red shifted in her chair. "So we break her out. Hit the facility, extract all three of them, disappear before human security can respond."

"And then what?" Fin asked quietly. "Earth declares war on the Warborne? Puts bounties on all our heads? Makes us fugitives from every human settlement in the galaxy?"

"We're already fugitives," Sparky pointed out with a shrug. "Most of us, anyway. What's a few more warrants?"

"This is different," Eric said, his expressionserious. "This isn't criminal charges or mercenary politics. This is a potential interspecies incident. If we attack federal facilities, Earth could petition the Empire for extradition. Or worse."

Nobody spoke as the reality sank in. Attacking Earth's detention facilities would cross a line they couldn't come back from. Even the Warborne couldn't stand against the might of the Empire.

"There has to be another way," Skinny rumbled. "Someone with authority to override the charges. Federal contacts, military connections."

"I've run every angle I can think of," Mayce replied, spreading more documents across the table.

"The charges have federal backing, corporate support, and media narrative construction.

Anyone who tries to intervene will face the same treatment.

Character assassination, fabricated evidence, mysterious accidents. "

T'Raal stared at the files without seeing them. Every legal avenue blocked. Every potential ally neutralized.

"Dad?" Red's voice carried careful concern. "What are you thinking?"

He was thinking about Reese locked up somewhere, her body failing, being interrogated.

He was thinking about the one option no one had mentioned, but that hung in the air between them. The option he'd sworn never to use.

"There is one possibility," he said quietly.

The room fell silent.

"Dad," Red said carefully. "You don't have to?—"

"Don't I?" He looked around the table. "We've exhausted every other option. Legal channels are corrupted. Military intervention would start a war. Direct action would make us enemies of Earth itself."

"There has to be another way," Skinny rumbled. "Some option that doesn't require you to give up who you are."

"Who I am," T'Raal repeated, testing the words. "And who is that, exactly? The leader who couldn't protect the woman he?—"

The words lodged in his throat.

"The woman you love," Skinny finished quietly.

T'Raal nodded, the confession easier than expected. "Yeah. The woman I love."

Silence filled the room. Everyone knew what that meant.

"Well, fuck ," Eric said eventually. "That does complicate things."

"Doesn't complicate anything," T'Raal replied. "Makes it simple. I'll do whatever it takes to get her back. Even if it means dealing with my father."

"And after?" Tal asked. "Once you've claimed Imperial intervention, you can't go back. You'll be Prince T'Raal forever. The Empire won't let you return to mercenary life."

"Then I'll be Prince T'Raal. If that's what it takes to save her, I'll be whatever I need to be."

Red leaned forward, looking worried. "You've spent your entire adult life rejecting this. Building something independent. Are you sure you're willing to throw all that away?"

"I'm not throwing anything away." T'Raal straightened. "I'm trading something I built for myself for something that matters more. Reese is worth any price. Including my pride."

"The crew?" Eris asked. "If you become Imperial royalty, what happens to the Warborne?"

Good question. He didn't have an answer. Imperial princes didn't run mercenary crews or dodge arrest warrants.

"We'll figure it out," he said. "After we get her back."

"Dad," Red said. "We could disappear. Operate in sectors where the Empire can't find us. We've done it before."

T'Raal's expression hardened. "No."

"But—"

"No. My mother tried that. Spent her entire life running, hiding, operating on the fringes because she didn't want to deal with Imperial politics. I grew up in exile, Red. Always looking over our shoulders, never staying anywhere long enough to build something permanent."

Red's scales rippled with frustrated energy. "It kept you free."

"It kept us isolated." T'Raal's hands tightened on the table edge. "I'm not putting the rest of you through that. Or Reese. No way. No how. You all deserve better than a life spent running from my family legacy."

Mayce looked up. "If we're going to do this, it needs to be soon. The longer they hold her, the more difficult the extraction becomes. Corporate detention isn't designed for long-term imprisonment. It's designed for permanent elimination."

Time was running out. Imperial intervention was their only shot at reaching her in time.

"Alright," T'Raal said. "Red, set course for Lathar Prime. Maximum burn."

"Dad—"

"That's an order."

Red nodded slowly. "Copy that. Course laid in."

T'Raal looked around the table at his crew… his family. They were about to risk everything on a plan that required him to become someone he'd spent decades rejecting. But the alternative was losing Reese. And he wasn't going to do that.

These draanthic had made one critical error. They'd taken something that belonged to him.

And he would burn down reality… or claim a throne… to get her back.

His mother had once walked here.

The Imperial reception hall stretched in front of him.

Marble columns soared toward a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes of conquest and glory, each panel depicting the Empire's expansion across known space.

T'Raal's steps echoed against polished stone as he walked, aware of every courtier and noble who paused to stare at the mercenary captain daring to sully these hallowed halls.

He'd never wanted to be here. The opulence made his skin crawl—gold that could've fed entire colonies, tapestries worth more than most ships… wealth built on the backs of conquered worlds generations ago. This was everything his mother had fled from all those years ago.

But Reese was dying in a human detention cell, and pride was a luxury he could no longer afford.

"T'Raal Verran, requesting audience with His Imperial Majesty," he announced to the protocol officer who approached.

The man was young, probably born into court service, with the precise movements of someone who'd spent years in the service of bureaucracy.

His expression remained neutral as he checked a data tablet.

However, T'Raal caught him staring at the heavy weapons and combat clothing that probably violated at least a hundred court dress codes.

"Captain Verran," the officer said carefully. "His Majesty's schedule is quite full today. Perhaps you could submit a formal petition through proper channels?—"

"Tell him M'Arni's son is here." T'Raal kept his voice level as his hand dropped to his sidearm in threat. "And that I need to speak to him now . "

"One moment, please." The officer activated his comm unit. "Your Majesty, a mercenary who says to tell you that M'Arni's son is requesting immediate audience... Yes, Your Majesty. Of course."

The connection ended. The officer's demeanor shifted from bureaucratic efficiency to deference.

"His Majesty will see you immediately," he said. "Please follow me."

They walked through corridors lined with portraits of previous emperors. Servants stopped as they passed, heads bowed to anyone granted Imperial access.

T'Raal had grown up hearing stories about this place from his mother.

Not fond memories, but warnings about power that corrupted everything.

Walking through halls where his mother had served as bodyguard felt like betraying her memory, but he still couldn't help the slightest curiosity about what her life here had been like.