Page 1 of Star Prince (Star #2)
Chapter One
“He’s not drunk, Captain. He’s dead.”
“Yeah, yeah. We found him like this last week— and the week before. He’s no more dead now than he was then.” Ian Hamilton pushed past his mechanic and the stragglers milling around the bar. His pilot—his only pilot, and the third he had hired since taking command of the Sun Devil —was slumped forward. Not surprisingly, Carn still occupied the perch he had chosen the night before, when Ian had joined him and the rest of the crew for what was—for Ian—a rare drink. Now blotches of early-morning sunlight spread over the pilot’s uniform and the gritty floor, heating the already muggy air.
Ian dragged his arm across his forehead as he pushed toward the bar. The unrelenting tropical weather was another reason, in a long list of, why Donavan’s Blunder, although a bustling crossroads, was arguably the sorriest stopover in the frontier. No worthless lump of space scum was going to keep him here an extra day.
“Move back,” he growled irritably at the onlookers pressing in on him from all sides. His eyes must have indicated how close he was to the edge of wringing someone’s neck, because no one could stumble backward fast enough.
Ian grabbed Carn’s thick shoulders and gave the man a hard shake. “You’ve overstayed your shore leave, Mr. Carn. Get up.” But the pilot’s forehead remained on the greasy table, his motionless fingers clamped around an empty shot glass. “Move your sorry butt— now —or you’re relieved of duty.”
Judging by the grumbling of the crowd, firing the drunk was a worthy threat, one expected of a star-ship captain. “Any of you happen to know how to fly?” he asked. A chorus of apologetic murmurs gave him the answer he expected. Starpilots were scarce in the frontier.
Ian exchanged glances with Quin, the stocky young mechanic who had dragged him off the Sun Devil. Quin gave him an I-knew-this-would-happen frown. Their original pilot had drunk himself into oblivion as soon as they arrived in the frontier, the farthest and barely civilized reaches of the galaxy. Ian had sent him home. Unfortunately, the next pilot he hired turned out to be an alcoholic too. Now pilot number three was following in the others’ wobbly footsteps .
But, unreliable or not, he needed Carn. There wasn’t time to hunt for another pilot. When the king of the galaxy sent you, an Earth guy, on a mission, the outcome of which was possibly critical to the future of the galaxy, you kept on schedule and finished the job. Especially when that king was your stepfather—a concept Ian doubted he would ever take for granted.
Rom B’kah was a king of kings, the hero ruler of the conservative, staunchly pacifistic Vash Nadah, and not even his tradition defying seven-year-old marriage to Ian’s mother, Jas, had diminished him in his people’s eyes.
Ian suspected that the driving reason behind the Vash acceptance of the marriage was the fact that their beloved king was sterile. The most advanced medical intervention hadn’t been able to reverse the effects of radiation poisoning that Rom had suffered during space combat many years ago, so there was no need to worry about potentially unsuitable heirs produced with a non-Vash wife. Or so the Vash had thought.
Rom had broken tradition again, however. He chose Ian as heir—over several eager, genetically qualified young princes in line for the throne—and the decision had left more than a few galactic royals unhappy. “By blood and ability, no Earth-dweller has the right being crown prince,” some whispered in the halls of the Great Council. All they would need for proof was word that Ian had gotten himself stuck on Donavan’s Blunder, marooned by a sloshed, judgment-challenged boozer.
“Sober him up,” he ordered Quin. “Nothing short of a gallon of tock poured down his throat is going to get him back to the ship.”
“It’ll take more than that, sir.” Quin grabbed a fistful of Carn’s blond hair and tipped his head back.
Ian winced. The pilot’s face was puffy and tinged a decidedly unhealthy blue. His brownish gold eyes were glazed and unseeing, and spittle leaked from the corner of his mouth, which was still curled into the idiotic grin he wore when Ian left him and the rest of the crew last night.
Ian drove the fingers of both hands through his hair. “Beautiful, just beautiful.” His starpilot had drunk himself to death.
He tossed two credits to the bartender. “Call someone about the body. And you might as well put the word out; the Sun Devil needs a pilot, a qualified one.”
It dismayed him how quickly frustration blunted his pity for Carn, but now wasn’t the time for soul searching. After only one Earth month in the frontier, he had experienced a year’s worth of setbacks, ship malfunctions, and pilot problems. They weren’t accidents. His neck tingled. His years spent submerged in the Vash culture had taught him to trust his senses, and that instinct now warned him that someone wanted to thwart his mission.
“Tie up the loose ends and return to the ship,” he told Quin before shoving outside, past the canvas flap that served as a door.
Steamy heat throbbed up from the pavement in the still-deserted marketplace. A poor excuse for a breeze stirred up the odors of stale liquor and urine. Action started late on this disreputable planet and went on all night. Now, most of the inhabitants were either sleeping in their bunks aboard hundreds of trader vessels docked near the outskirts of the city. Or they were in the bed of a pleasure server—a woman specially trained and authorized to sell her body for sex.
Ian hoped everyone was enjoying themselves, because his life lately made the average monk look like a party animal. He had become the consummate prince; his behavior was impeccable, his adherence to Vash ways beyond reproach. It was the only way to earn the honor his stepfather had bestowed upon him.
He had studied galactic history, cultural norms, and religion until he could quote passages from the Treatise of Trade as confidently as most members of the Great Council. Slowly, he was gaining the respect and trust of the tradition-loving Vash; although the recent troubles at home could very well drag him back to square one.
Since first contact, public opinion polls on Earth had consistently showed high approval ratings for the Vash. Earth liked being part of an intergalactic Trade Federation. But not anymore, apparently, thanks to U.S. Senator Charlie Randall’s “Earth First” crusade. The campaign’s central theme that Earth was better off as a sovereign planet was attracting followers like a magnet dragged through iron shavings.
“The Vash Federation is woven like an ancient quilt,” Rom had once told Ian, “a tight center and tattered edges. If the fringe unravels, we will fall apart.”
Ian truly believed in his stepfather’s conviction that peace depended on a strong, benevolent galaxy-wide government. If Earth pulled out of the Federation, the move might entice other frontier worlds to do the same, setting off a dangerous chain reaction and undermining the stability of the entire galaxy. Yet, that view was, and would always be, tempered by loyalty to his home planet. He wanted what was best for Earth. He wanted to continue his stepfather’s legacy and keep the galaxy at peace. Somehow, he had to bridge his two worlds without sacrificing the needs of either.
Which is why, when Rom asked him to go to the frontier and see if the unrest had spread, he had grabbed hold of the chance. In exchange for the answers he promised to bring back, Rom had given him the Sun Devil, a crew of loyal, experienced, merchant-class spacefarers, and his valued bodyguard. But the mission was more to Ian than a covert scouting foray, more than a way to prove himself to the skeptical Vash; this was his chance to demonstrate his worth to Rom, a man he had come to admire—and love, in many ways—more than his own father.
Only, so far, things were not going well.
Ian put on his Ray Bans, brushed his hand over the weapon in his holster, and started back to the Sun Devil to mull over his latest fiasco.
“Captain!” Halfway across the plaza Rom’s bodyguard intercepted him, an incongruously named, six-foot-eight hulk of rippling muscle. “Muffin is an old-fashioned name,” the big man always explained patiently, if a little defensively, to English speakers like Ian, insisting that “Muffin” personified the essence of rugged masculinity on his homeworld, not a sugary breakfast treat.
“I guess you heard about Carn,” Ian said.
“If you can’t die a warrior, you might as well die happy.”
Ian managed a smile. “True.” He appreciated Muffin’s tactful attempt to lift his spirits. Although Carn had been a pain in the rear, he had been a member of their small crew, and they would all feel his passing. “Did he have a family?”
“None that he mentioned. I don’t think anyone will miss the guy.”
Except me, Ian thought wryly. A rookie space captain marooned on a remote frontier outpost with a cantankerous crew, one of the finest ships in the galaxy—and no one to fly her.
A backdrop of stars whirled slowly behind a wheel of ruby, emerald, and platinum. Distance made the bejeweled disk appear as tiny as a child’s toy, but the structure was as large and populous as a city.
“Rotation synchronized,” Tee’ah Dar stated when the spin of the cargo freighter she piloted matched that of the space station ahead.
As expected, Mistraal Control issued final approach instructions via the comm. “Cleared to dock, Prosper. Bay Alpha-eight.”
“Copy. Alpha-eight.” Tee’ah’s hands tightened around the control yoke. You were born for this, her thoughts sang out.
If she were truly the pious princess she was raised to be, the dutiful daughter her parents thought she was, she would be in bed, sleeping. But with her hands wrapped around the controls of a cargo freighter, she wasn’t the king’s sweet and sheltered daughter; she was six hundred million standard tons of lightspeed-strong trillidium, screaming toward a docking bay that looked too small to hold her. In her imagination, her breaths hissed with hydraulics, her heartbeat with mechanical whirs and clicks. She was the gargantuan starship she piloted, her nearly impenetrable trillidium skin shielding a crew of thirty, ten of whom looked on with experience-forged scrutiny as she decelerated the Prosper, gliding it into its assigned bay.
There was a gentle rumbling of metal sliding over cushioned guards, and a muffled, soul-satisfying thunk as the great ship settled into place. Soundlessly the bay’s external hatches closed, sealing and pressurizing the compartment where the ship now rested from the vacuum of space. Yes.
The crew applauded, and for once she allowed the warmth of pride to flood her. Docking the ship on her own was an achievement symbolizing the culmination of a year’s worth of clandestine visits to the Prosper, a ship used to haul goods between the moon-based mining stations and her home planet, Mistraal, one of the eight Vash Nadah homeworlds. Sure, Captain Aras had greeted her request for flying lessons with polite incredulity, particularly after she had beseeched him to keep her identity a secret—she was a royal woman, after all, and the Dars’ only daughter. But once she proved she had the talent to be an intersystem cargo pilot, hard work earned her a coveted pair of pilot wings and a crew’s respect, a regard infinitely more satisfying than that given to a cloistered Vash Nadah princess.
“Well done.” Aras extended his arm across what would be an unbridgeable distance at the palace and clasped her hand in a congratulatory squeeze.
She responded with the self-deprecating retort expected of a space jockey when complimented. “It’s a testament to your teaching abilities that no one’s now wiping us off the walls of the spaceport.”
An outer hatch whooshed open. She expected to see the usual cargo handler or two, there to confirm the load of goods. Instead, four uniformed royal guards strode into the cockpit, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man with coppery dark blond hair. The exact same shade as hers.
“Father.” The blood drained from her head. She gripped the armrests on her chair to steady herself.
Captain Aras snapped to attention. “Behold, the king! Welcome to the Prosper, Your Majesty,” he said, and fell to one knee. The rest of the crew reacted with similarly respectful, albeit shocked, shows of respect. The cargo crew was civilian, not military, and kings rarely, if ever, boarded mining freighters. But Joren Dar gave the men little more than a cursory wave. His blue travel cape slapped at his boots as he climbed the gangway to where Tee’ah sat.
Her hands fumbled with her harnesses. Finally, free of her seat, she stood, facing him. “Greetings, Father.”
He spoke in a low, ominous tone, so that no one else would hear. “I would not have thought that you, Tee’ah, would have deceived me in such a”—he waved his hand around the cockpit— “blatant manner.”
His golden eyes chilled her with his disappointment and disapproval. Tee’ah fought a watery feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I know it means little now,” she replied in an equally hushed tone, “but I intended to tell you everything.” She squeezed her clasped hands together until her pulse throbbed in her fingertips. “But I thought you would take the news better once I’d officially earned my wings. ”
His eyes flicked to the silver intersystem cargo pilot wings she wore over her left breast. Embroidered in metallic thread onto her rich indigo-hued flight suit, the emblem was a replica of the genuine pair she kept in a box in her bedchamber and treasured above all else. “I’ve had the wings only a month,” she whispered, hoping her achievement would prove to her father how much she desired personal freedom.
Or were you merely longing to spark in him a bit of pride in your accomplishments?
His frown deepened. She cursed herself for thinking that such a tradition-defying feat would win her father’s praise. She should have told him sooner where she disappeared to three nights a week. She should have informed him before he figured it out on his own or, worse, learned of her exploits from someone else.
Joren Dar turned his attention to Captain Aras, who waited uneasily for further instructions. He had risked his career by teaching her to pilot his ship, all because he understood what she meant when she confessed that her yearning to fly, to be free, flared so hot it burned. He mustn’t take the blame that was hers alone.
“Why was I not informed that my daughter was spending her nights flying your ship?”
“I asked him not to,” Tee’ah said before Aras had the chance to answer her father.
The captain compressed his lips and made a small sound in the back of his throat.
“He did not understand that what I requested of him was against your wishes,” she went on.
“Your Majesty—” Aras attempted. “I—”
“Well, perhaps he did, Father, but know this— I sought out the Prosper because of Captain Aras. He’s the best in the fleet. He’s professional, knowledgeable. He’s ensured my protection from my first day aboard this ship. The only place I’d have been safer was in my bed.”
Aras’s mouth quirked and he stared hard at the alloy flooring, clearly fighting a smile. Evidently he had given up the struggle to get a word in edgewise.
His yielding to her persistence was not lost on the king, and that was the point she had hoped to make. At times, though only over small issues, even her father fell victim to her cajoling. “If anyone is to blame for my presence here,” she said, her voice pleading and low, “it’s me.”
Joren scrutinized the beleaguered captain. Aras lifted his eyes. Strangely, an understanding of sorts flickered between the men. “I will see you in my chambers tomorrow, Captain.”
Then he gently but firmly took Tee’ah by the elbow. “And you, daughter, I will see in my chambers now .”
The shuttle ride back to the surface was excruciatingly long. On her lap, Tee’ah clutched the satchel containing the handmaiden’s dress and cloak she had used to disguise herself when traveling back and forth to the spaceport while her family slept. Her father’s hands were spread on his knees, his muscular arms braced, his eyes downcast. His expression was guarded, making it difficult to tell what he was thinking, although she had her suspicions as to what occupied his thoughts.
Within a few weeks, her marriage contract would be signed and she would be officially promised to Prince Ché Vedla, a man she met only once, when they were both children. One standard year from the day the promise took effect, they would marry, a union arranged with good intentions but little regard for her personal wishes. Marriages among Vash Nadah royalty were part of a complicated, ongoing stabilizing of power shared by the eight ruling clans. They were political alliances, not love matches, although the Vash culture emphasized the importance of good relations between a husband and wife. Eventually her union with Prince Ché could be a pleasant one, if he had matured from the overconfident royal brat she remembered.
But the extraordinary events of the past few years—her uncle Rom’s stunningly unconventional marriage to an equally unconventional Earth woman, and then, more recently, Tee’ah’s own daring spaceflights—revealed choices she had never imagined, much less contemplated. She was less certain than ever that the path so carefully prepared for her was the one she should take .
Upon their arrival at the palace, Tee’ah walked with her father to his private chambers. The ancient polished white stone walls and floor she normally admired now struck her as featureless and cold.
Her mother met them. Her eyes were swollen, as if she had been crying. Tee’ah embraced her, whispering, “I’m sorry.”
But was she? After all, it wasn’t as if she had run off to a lover, knowing she was about to become engaged— that would have been unforgivable and symptomatic of a weak character. She had only learned to fly. What was so terribly wrong with that?
Joren regarded her for long moments. Tightening his features was a loving father’s complicated mix of emotions. “You have responsibilities, Tee’ah. Maintaining a trade, like flying, drains time and energy away from those obligations. And then, of course, there is the issue of propriety to consider.”
Stiffly, she stepped out of the circle of her mother’s familiar warmth and sweet scent. “But after I marry, if Prince Ché agrees—”
“Don’t pursue this. The Vedlas will not approve. You cannot fly.”
You cannot fly.
There. With three words, he had ended her dream. Apparently, the king’s renowned mercy and open-mindedness didn’t extend to his daughter.
The sensation of suffocation was so real it felt as if a vise squeezed her lungs. Her hand crept to her throat, her fingers trembling. Breathe .
Oblivious to her grief, her father paced in front of her. “‘The welfare of all comes before the desires of an individual,” he quoted from the Treatise of Trade, the holiest document of their people. “Recite the rest of that passage, Tee’ah. Feel the words; feel what it means to be Vash Nadah .”
He halted, waiting. She took a breath, her hands fisted at her sides. Then, at the king’s command, she recited the words she had memorized too long ago to have a recollection of doing so— “‘The Dark Years engulfed us. The monarchy was no more. Warlords arose to fill the void. Disease, famine, slavery, and terror hastened a complete collapse of civilization. Weapons of unimaginable destruction were created and perfected by those without conscience and used by those who embraced cruelty and worshiped soulless power. Eight great warriors banded together to vanquish the evil. Peace for all time, they vowed when the Great Mother’s light dawned once more. Praised be the Eight!’” Flatly she finished, “A reading from the Treatise of Trade.”
Her father nodded. “The blood of the Eight flows through your veins, Tee’ah. That brings responsibilities, obligations that others cannot imagine. We, the eight royal clans, must lead through sacrifice and example.”
She shifted her gaze to the window. Outside was the endless savanna, a vista she often gazed at with longing—whenever she needed to breathe; whenever she feared she would suffocate in her scrupulously sheltered, relentlessly comfortable life.
The long grasses were completely flattened, meaning a Tjhu’nami was fast approaching. The orbital weather stations predicted that one of the dry windstorms that periodically scoured Mistraal would hit by morning, bringing wind velocities exceeding eight hundred standard galactic knots.
Using all her senses, she concentrated. She could feel, but couldn’t quite hear, a steady rumbling—the receding tide of air before a distant massive wave.
She turned to her father. “To be honest, I’m afraid,” she said.
He shook his head. “Afraid? Of the Tjhu’nami?”
Not once in her twenty-three standard years had she waited out the terrifying storms anywhere but ensconced with her family in the noisy communal dining hall. But a greater fear gripped her. “No, Father. Of losing myself .” She pressed her knotted hands under her chin. “I barely remember meeting the Vedlas. Now I’m to join them on a distant planet I’ve never visited…where custom will keep me rooted for the rest of my life. It frightens me.”
But her confession only bemused her parents. “Ah, child,” her mother said, placing a warm hand on her cheek. “Your husband’s family will love you, as we love you. ”
Her mother’s tender maternal caress showed Tee’ah that she believed what she told her. “Before long you will settle in, and you will feel with them what you feel here, with us.”
And that, Tee’ah thought, was exactly what she feared.
With her thumb, her mother wiped a rare tear from Tee’ah’s cheek. “Your father and I will see you in the dining hall this evening,” she said gently. “Change your clothing and join us there. We will tell stories and wait out the storm. Just like always.”
“Yes. Like always, Mother,” she whispered.
Tee’ah bowed her head respectfully and returned to her chamber. A floor-to-ceiling window dominated one wall. She pressed her forehead to the cold surface, her hands spread on the glass-composite pane, and watched the coming storm from the safety of her bedroom, unable to escape the parallels to her situation.
She could stay as she was and be safe. Ché Vedla was considered by many to be one of the most promising young princes of her generation. With him she would look forward to a luxurious—but anonymous—existence as a powerful man’s wife. But if she left the palace, she would face the unknown head-on.
She thought of her aunt from Earth. “Too many people never go after what they truly want out of life,” Jas once told her. When Tee’ah had asked why not, Jas had replied, “Because it’s easier not to.”
Only now did Tee’ah truly understand what her aunt meant. The paths forged on one’s own were the most difficult to travel. If she tried to make her own way, she might fail, spectacularly so, and hurt those she loved in the process. Or she might achieve everything of which she had dreamed. But if she stayed here, she would never find out, would she?
She walked away from the window. Wrung her hands. Walked back.
Outside, ocher plains stretched to the distant, gently bowed horizon, now smudged by blowing dust. The Tjhu’nami. When the dangerous winds arrived, no one would attempt flights in or out of Dar City. What if she were to leave tonight? Steal a star-speeder. Palace security wouldn’t risk going after her until the gale subsided to a safe level. Leaving just before the storm hit would give her a full standard day’s head start, would it not?
She wrung her hands harder. The plan was too rushed. She needed more time to think it over. There would be another storm later in the season. But if she were forbidden to fly, her piloting skills would have deteriorated by then, reducing her chances of success.
She dropped her hands. If she was going to leave, it had to be tonight— if she could find a starspeeder and if the confusion of the Tjhu’nami indeed cloaked her departure.
So many “ifs.” Doubt swamped her.
Her family didn’t deserve the pain her sudden departure would bring them. But if she stayed on in a culture that treated her as if she had no free will, no control over her destiny, no choices, she would soon be as dry and empty as a seed husk in the autumn winds. Her body would live to a ripe old age, yes, but her spirit would be dead long before that.
Go. Follow your dreams. Yes, before they were lost to her forever. Her blood surged. This time when she turned away from the window, it was to gather the items she needed to facilitate her escape.