Page 13 of Star Prince (Star #2)

Chapter Thirteen

Two small, strong hands sliding under his leather jacket jolted Ian back to reality. What the hell was he doing? Exactly what you swore you wouldn’t. But what had he thought would happen if he stopped in an isolated meadow that screamed of picnics-for-two and romantic interludes, with a fun, sexy woman who was not only a fantastic pilot, but gorgeous too, despite her totally bizarre hair?

He tore his mouth from hers. Hands flat on the cool grass, he raised himself over her. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her flushed face alive with passion as she grabbed his collar, tugging him back down to her. As their lips met, white-hot desire blazed through him. Ian tried to fight back. He wanted her, but without the possibility of a future together, he couldn’t have Tee. He would not repeat the sins of his father— physical intimacy without emotional loyalty. The only solution was to demonstrate the restraint expected of a Vash prince.

But damn if she didn’t blow apart his best intentions.

The wet pointed tip of her tongue was teasing, tempting. “Come on, Ian,” she coaxed, her fingers playing in his hair. “Kiss me again.” She seemed so different...so carefree out here, alone with him.

It’s only kissing, he reasoned, using logic he didn’t want to examine too closely. They could kiss but no more. Call it a line in the sand, he thought. One he simply wouldn’t cross…

Hungrily, he took her mouth. She uttered a muffled cry and locked her hands behind his head, kissing him back with an indescribable mix of eagerness and uncertainty, knowledge and unpracticed innocence. She felt good. Too good. He wanted to touch her, to taste her everywhere; he wanted to feel the tight, liquid heat of being inside her. But when her splayed hands slid from his chest to his abs and under the waistband of his jeans, he broke off the embrace with an effort that nearly killed him.

The line … don’t cross it.

Tee regarded him with perceptive golden eyes. “Well?” she asked breathlessly.

He exhaled. “Wow.”

Her low, husky laugh revealed her pleasure at his comment. “Better than the Harley ride, yes?”

“No contest.” He closed his eyes as she swept kisses along his jaw. “But we can’t do this. ”

“Really?” Her attention lazily shifted from his eyes to his mouth. “What do you call that, then—what we just did?”

“Playing with fire.” He pushed himself up, leaving Tee lying on the trampled grass. Sitting next to her, he drew one leg up to his chest and balanced a forearm on his knee. “Which everyone knows is not a good idea.”

“I see.” She rolled onto her side, suddenly engrossed in a blade of grass which she twirled between her slender fingers. “You have a woman, then. I should have—”

“No, Tee, it’s not that. There’s no one else.”

She dropped the blade of grass, came up on her knees, and flung her arms over his shoulders. “Good,” she said against his lips. “I could not tolerate anyone who was unfaithful to a mate. Now, where were we?” she asked, tracing her fingertip over his mouth. He caught her hand and pressed his lips to her damp palm, then pulled her into his lap. She shifted in his arms, her supple body molding to his.

He needed to stop this. Now. Get up and walk back to the Harley. But Tee was to his soul like an open window was to a long-sealed musty room. The lightness of spirit she evoked in him was addictive. As a boy, he had taken it upon himself to make his mother’s life as easy as possible, to compensate for the pain his father had caused her. No one had asked him to; he had simply acted out of an inner, driving sense of decency. Consequently, his life for so long had been serious, heavily laden with responsibility, self-imposed and otherwise.

And his future promised more of the same. But this wasn’t a crime, doing something for the fun and the pleasure of it. He might as well sow a few wild oats while he still could. And she definitely seemed to want it as much as he did.

It’s only kissing.

“We were doing this ,” he said and rolled her beneath him. He nuzzled her ear, nibbled the velvety lobe. She smelled like green grass and soap. They kissed again, sweet and light, caressing each other for what seemed like hours. The affection between them flowed so easily, so naturally. It was as if they had known each other all their lives. How was that possible? he found himself wondering.

“Quin’s going to wonder where we went,” he murmured finally, touching his lips to the tip of her nose.

Softly she laughed. “Let him.”

He tightened his arms around her. His kisses turned deep, wet, and hot, the way he longed to make love to her. Her impassioned response nearly spun him into oblivion, almost made him forget all the reasons he shouldn’t be with her— they had no hope for a future; she lacked the holy bloodlines required of the proper wife he must marry in order to placate the Vash Nadah .

From inside his jeans pocket, the comm crackled .

“ Sun Devil to Captain Stone.” Muffin’s muffled deep voice emanated from somewhere near Ian’s crotch, which happened to be nestled deliciously between Tee’s thighs.

He pushed up on his arms, and his pants “spoke” again. “Captain, what is your status?”

Their faces inches apart, he and Tee burst into breathless laughter. Then they sat up, brushing torn grass from their clothing.

“Shall we tell him?” Tee asked impishly.

Ian pulled the comm from his pocket and offered it to her. “Go ahead.”

“Is that a dare?”

“Interpret it any way you want, pixie.”

She grabbed the comm. “This is Tee. Go ahead.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “It’s been two hours since you two left. Everything under control?”

“Well, it is now.” She winked at Ian. “For a while there I wasn’t quite sure. But I tweaked the captain and I think he’ll be fine now.”

Ian gave a bark of laughter.

“Hmm. Sounds like a maintenance problem to me,” Muffin said. “I’ll give you to Quin.”

Without seeing Muffin’s face, Ian found it hard to tell if the man was pulling his leg.

Quin came on the comm next. His voice was an octave higher than usual. “What’s the problem? Do you need me or Push to come out there?”

“No! ”

Ian snatched the comm from her. “Everything’s fine. We took the hog out for a spin and went farther than I’d planned.” To his amusement, Tee blushed. “We’re headed to the market now. Give us a standard hour. Captain Stone out.”

They stood, brushing themselves off as they walked back to the Harley. There Ian pocketed the comm. “I can’t believe you said that.”

Her face fell. “Ah! What was I thinking?”

“Tee, I was only teasing. I thought it was funny.”

“Oh.” She lowered her hands and managed an embarrassed smile. “All my life I’ve been told I’m too brash and too forward. So, I assumed—” She shrugged. “Well, I do ramble on sometimes.”

“Hey. I happen to like your rambling.” Her eyes glittered. With happiness? With tears? Before he could decipher her strangely emotional reaction to his simple comment, she folded her arms atop her head and turned in a slow circle, her face tilted into the sunshine. “Oh, Ian. The ride… this ... it’s wonderful.” She lowered her arms, sighing in pure pleasure. “I never really felt part of the events and people around me. I thought I must be defective in some way, because I felt as if I were living my life inside a bubble. But not anymore.” Her mouth twisted in a slow, shy smile. “Did you ever just dare yourself to leave behind what was safe and familiar, so you could finally experience what it was like to be alive—crazily, utterly alive?” Her voice faltered and became husky. “Then did you ever get so frightened by what you’d done that you could hardly breathe?”

The back of his neck tingled. The moment our lips met, I felt all those things.

“Yes,” he said carefully. “I have.” He kept his expression neutral as he helped her climb onto his Harley. Not for the first time, he contemplated the enormous responsibilities that went along with his new role as heir to the galaxy. Obligation, sacrifice—they were what gave his life meaning, and he couldn’t picture living without a defined sense of purpose. Only now, in an instant, he couldn’t picture living without Tee. With no apparent effort, she had taken his just-fine-the-way-it-was, black-and-white existence and blasted it into sense-wrenching color. He fought a sharp sense of loss, envisioning the day they would have no choice but to go their separate ways.

He zipped his jacket to his chin, turned up his collar, and lowered his helmet visor. The last thing he wanted was for Tee to witness his inner battle; it would only complicate what was to come.

At the market, Tee’ah recognized admittedly exotic versions of many ingredients she had seen presented at meals on Mistraal. Although she had never visited the kitchens, she often strolled through the shady, peaceful orchards and humidity-laden vegetable gardens in the vast greenhouses on her homeworld. Fresh produce made the best meals, in her opinion, and she decided to prepare dinner from as many fresh ingredients as she could gather, mentally recalling the myriad dishes she had admired and consumed over the years.

After the purchases were made, she and Ian walked back to his Harley, which was secured beyond several trees. “I suppose we do have to go back now,” Tee’ah said. “The crew will be wanting their dinner.”

“We can always go on another ride some other time.” He regarded her for a moment, an affectionate smile playing around his lips. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier…how you feel alive now, but you didn’t before. I can’t imagine you any different from how you are now.”

As they stood in front of the motorcycle, Tee’ah shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He was making an obvious attempt to get to know her better. She relented and took the first step; someday, if things progressed as part of her hoped, there would be no more secrets between them. “I had a very comfortable life, actually. I should have been content, happy, satisfied, all those things. But I wasn’t. I loved my family. I still do. But if I’d done what they wanted, if I’d married, I would have died a little more every day until my spirit, the part in here”—she tapped her chest with her right hand— “that’s me, drained away.”

She dropped her hand. “But I don’t expect people to understand why I was so miserable in what others would consider extremely pleasant surroundings.”

“Not everyone has the strength to fight what is expected of them, Tee. If you ask me, it takes more guts to leave a nice life because you’re supposed to be happy. If you’re not, it’s easy to blame it on yourself. What you did took courage,” he said admiringly. “So many people never go after what they truly want out of life. You did. Be proud.”

His comprehension took her breath away. They stood there, a few feet apart, more passing between them with a simple gaze than what a thousand words could convey.

“You speak as if from experience,” she managed finally.

“It was my mother’s experience, not mine. Her story is a lot like yours. It took her years to work up the courage to change her life, but she did, and now she’s married again and happier than I’ve ever seen her.” His mouth tightened and he jerked on his gloves, one finger at a time. “My father had other women. It hurt her. But she held the marriage together for the sake of my twin sister and me. When we were teenagers, my parents separated and my father remarried a much younger woman, and he had a kid with her. They’re divorced now too.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “But I digress. What I’m trying to say is that after the marriage ended, my mother had friends, a career she was passionate about…a perfectly nice life. But not contentment, not happiness. She felt that with all she had, she had no right to complain or to crave more.”

Tee’ah felt a shudder ripple through her. Ian’s description of his mother’s quandary was so close to her own experience. It was reassuring to learn that others felt as she did. Which didn’t take away her guilt over leaving home, but it made it easier to bear.

Ian pulled on his helmet. “You’d have thought a woman who flew jets wouldn’t have been afraid to break out of a rut,” he said, lowering his visor. “But she was.”

Tee’ah felt the blood drain from her head. “She—she flew jets?” Her world tilted, and she clutched the Harley’s seat to keep her balance. Jas Hamilton B’kah was a pilot. She was also Rom B’kah’s queen and—

The crown prince’s mother. Numb, she prayed Ian would again offer her something, anything, to indicate he was not Ian Hamilton, the prince admired for his faultless adherence to Vash Nadah tradition. She couldn’t fathom what he would be doing in the frontier, without luxuries, without the trappings of power. Was this a way to prove himself to those who doubted his ability to rule?

Perhaps. But what good did it do to show he could live without riches, without protection, when he would never be asked to?

Ian spoke as he tightened her helmet’s chinstrap. The dark visor hid the panic in her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “She’s a pilot. A good one too. Like you.”

Her dry lips formed a hoarse. “Thank you.”

He patted the seat. “Let’s head home before Quin has a heart attack.”

Or before she did. Shakily, she mounted the two-wheeled transport and balanced herself on the seat. Despite the crisp air, a droplet of perspiration trickled down her temple. She pondered the physical resemblance between Ian and Jas. They shared the same lovely shade of greenish gray eyes, accentuated by dark lashes and brows, but that was all. Yet when she added in Ian’s knowledge and grasp of galactic politics, his scandalized reaction to the conditions on Barésh, and his quickness to defend the Vash, her throat tightened until she could barely swallow. Sweet heaven, what was she going to do?

“Hey.” Ian pressed a gloved hand onto her shoulder. His expression was unreadable behind his tinted visor. “Why so quiet all of a sudden?”

She drew on all her strength to stay calm. There was no use fretting until she was certain of Ian’s identity. And she had yet to figure out how she might become so. “I’m thinking of dreams,” she said softly. “And how badly I want to hold on to mine.”

“Go for them, Tee. Don’t let anyone stop you.”

You wouldn’t say that if you knew who I was. Woodenly, she replied, “I won’t.”

For no reason at all she felt like weeping, and she didn’t understand the reaction. She ought to be terrified at the possibility that she sat inches away from a paragon of Vash virtue. Instead, she regretted that she might never again experience the heart-pounding joy of a Harley ride. Or Ian’s kisses.

If he was the crown prince…

Ian threw his leg over the seat and let the engine warm up before rolling the motorcycle forward over the bumpy dirt to the road. As they raced back to the Sun Devil, Tee’ah couldn’t help but wonder if the handsome Earth-dweller would prove to be her liberation or her doom.

She waited until she was alone in the galley before she fell apart. With the hatch shut against curious visitors and potential crown princes, she leaned over the counter, head bowed, unable to catch her breath. Ian could end her newfound freedom with one call to the palace on Mistraal. Dar security would be dispatched immediately. She wouldn’t elude them this time; they would know exactly who and where she was.

Where is your courage, Tee’ah?

Powerful, impossibly ancient, the voice echoed in the silent, inner passages of her mind. The voice of her ancestors— the founders of the Vash Nadah. Generations ago, those eight warriors saved the galaxy from annihilation. But there were many demoralizing defeats before they finally achieved that victory. Her own setbacks were minuscule in comparison .

What would her heroic ancestors think if they saw her cowering this way?

Hadn’t she escaped her home and come so far already? The quivering in her arms stilled. The roiling of her stomach eased. Eyes closed, she worked on her breathing until it slowed. Then, deliberately, she raised her head. In her moment of crisis, she had instinctively drawn strength and guidance from her noble legacy. With sudden insight she understood that no matter how far she traveled from her roots, no matter how rebelliously she shunned the beliefs she was brought up with, she would always carry the essence of those ancient heroes in her soul. It was an inborn sense of pride no one could erase. It was an odd feeling to take strength from all she had abandoned, but it brought her calm; she would survive, no matter what.

She went to work cleaning the fruits and vegetables she had purchased at the market. Then she attempted to carve them into the ornate designs created by her father’s palace chefs. Dish after dish was assembled and put aside. As she worked, her thoughts circled back to Ian.

His mother flew Earth jets.

Viciously, she shoved her knife into a crispy, bulbous vegetable, twisted until it split in two. Then she hacked it into quarters. Throwing down the blade, she grimaced and pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. She had lost her starspeeder, staggered out of bars, gotten drunk, purchased birth control, admonished her almost-brother-in-law in a virtual reality arcade, and, if all that wasn’t enough, she had just now practically raped her employer, a man who could very well represent everything she had tried to escape!

Tee’ah picked up the knife again and stabbed it deep into another fibrous root—one that rather reminded her of Klark Vedla. She remained uncertain why he hadn’t upheld tradition and attempted to bring her home. Certainly the B’kah heir would have. How often had her father remarked that Ian Hamilton had to be more than perfect if he hoped to gain the trust of the Great Council?

And now she was on his ship. Or might be.

Her anxious chopping had turned the root to pulp. Unwilling to waste the vegetable, she slapped it into a pasty pancake. Who would eat that? she wondered. Quin, maybe.

“From firing range to kitchen, eh?” Gredda sauntered into the galley. She picked up one of the berries Tee’ah had glazed with a sticky sweetener before piling them into miniature conical mountains. “Fresh lalla-berries,” she murmured as she popped it into her mouth. With a smile of amused approval, she inspected the fruit and vegetables Tee’ah had arranged on whatever trays and platters she had found.

Seeing Gredda reminded Tee’ah how fast she had come to view the crew as a substitute family. But tonight she felt more like an outsider than ever .

Likely everyone knew who the captain was except for her. Obviously, despite what had happened between them, Ian didn’t trust her yet.

Gredda sniffed, as if testing the air. Then she frowned. “Where is the meat?”

Tee’ah’s concerns swung back to a more immediate problem. She spread her sticky hands on the counter. “We’re eating a vegetarian meal tonight.”

“Vegetarian? Bah. We women need our protein.”

Tee’ah stopped short of admitting that she would be happy to oblige, if only she knew how long to cook the fowl, beef, or the savory sea serpent bundled in the giant chiller in the rear of the galley.

Gredda studied her, her eyes sympathetic as if she had guessed the real reason for their meatless meal. But she didn’t embarrass Tee’ah by saying so. “I know it is your night to cook, and I do not wish to intrude upon your preparation, but I’d be most pleased if you’d let me make Tromjha beef according to the Valkarian recipe—from my homeworld. These off-world men, they prefer their stew with their suitable-for-babies, cut-up bits of beef. But I say it’s high time they learned to eat meat the way it was meant to be consumed. Are you with me, Tee?” she asked with a wink.

Tee’ah lifted her hands in surrender. “Show me what to do.”

As evening fell, the crew gathered around the dining table. Ian inhaled deeply. “Something smells good. ”

“You will like it,” Gredda said, her muscles flexing as she spread a napkin over her lap.

“Tee gave you an advance tasting?” Muffin asked sulkily. “She wouldn’t let me in the galley.”

“Me, either,” Push said.

Tee emerged from the galley, a tray held proudly in her hands. As she walked to the table, her expression was pleasant, but infinitely unreadable. When Ian tried to make eye contact, she avoided looking at him. His mouth twisted in exasperation.

She hurried back to the galley for another tray, making several return visits until three heaping platters of what could only be called vegetable and fruit sculptures sat on the table. They were crooked and misshapen—one even crumbled as they watched it— but the effort that had gone into building each was obvious. No one quite knew what to say.

Finally, an awed Push tapped a hill of berries with his utensil. “Plain old stew would have been fine with us.”

“Wait,” Tee said. “There’s more.” She and Gredda shared a private glance. This time, when Tee disappeared into the galley, she returned with a heavy tray of meat.

“Valkarian steer,” she announced breathlessly and plunked the tray onto the table. Juices ran from fork holes punched in the unevenly hacked-away flesh, filling the tray with a delicious-smelling gravy.

Quin gaped at the steaming hunk of meat. “The paw…it’s still attached. ”

“The hoof,” Gredda corrected, her eyes shining with a voracious glint. “The full leg always tastes best. Why you off-worlders mince up perfectly good hunks of meat, I don’t know. On Valkar we rip the flesh from the bone with our teeth. Go on, eat your fill, mechanic.” The hungry twinkle in her eyes turned suggestive. “A real man needs real meat.”

Understanding suffused Quin’s face. As the two crewmates considered each other in what appeared to be a new light, Tee’ah took her usual place next to Ian.

“Great dinner,” he said in her ear, trying hard to forget it was the same sweet little lobe he nibbled before he almost devoured the rest of her.

She kept her attention trained on her empty dish. “Thank you.” She pushed one of the fruit trays in his direction. “Eat, please.”

“After you. You had quite a morning,” he added playfully in hopes of coaxing her out of her obvious sudden shyness.

She blushed. Finally, he thought. A reaction.

“Some…carrot-flowers,” he offered.

“P’wulla-squash florets,” she corrected. “Just one, please.” Again she fell silent.

He sighed. “We’re going to talk about this later,” he whispered.

“That’s not necessary.”

“I beg to differ.” He hated to lose their spirited rapport all because they had made out in a meadow. Yet when his mind fast-forwarded to his future, to the enormous responsibilities he had undertaken and the promises he had made, he knew it was the best thing for them both.

Yeah, he thought. And lima beans are supposed to be good for you too.

After dinner, Tee’ah loaded dirty dishes into the sterilizer and wiped the counter clean of seeds, bark and vegetable scrapings. Next she prepared a tray of tock and coffee.

The laughter and conversation of her cheery, well-fed crewmates rolled through the hatch from the dining room. If circumstances forced her to leave the ship, she would miss them terribly. Worse yet, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ian. His quiet concern at her silence had only endeared him to her further, but the only way she would hold on to her new life was to avoid her old one. There was no escaping that.

She threw her cloth into the sterilizer, grabbed the tray and mugs—among them her favorites— the round-eared rodent Ian called “Mickey Mouse,” and another emblazoned with an impossible starship and the Earth runes BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY ! —and walked through the hatch.

Over the tock and coffee, Ian set out the evening’s plans. “Since we haven’t made much headway with our daytime watch for Randall’s comings and goings, I thought we’d head into town tonight and see if we can find him at one of those restaurants. ”

“We’ll go back to that bar,” Gredda proposed. “And you can sing us a song, Captain.”

“We can go to that bar”—Ian grimaced behind his mug of coffee— “but don’t expect me to provide the entertainment.”

Muffin asked, “Whose turn is it for watch?”

Tee’ah almost raised her hand. The idea of watching Ian sing, albeit badly, was more than she could bear right now.

“Mine again,” Push spoke up glumly. “I guess you’ll have to have fun without me.” The cargo handler’s shoulders drooped.

Tee’ah found herself thinking how unfair it was. Why should he be forced to stand watch when the very last thing she felt like doing was merrymaking? “No, Push. I’ll stay.”

Everyone glanced her way.

“I feel sick.” At least that was the truth, she thought. Besides, no one should care which crew-member stayed aboard the Sun Devil as long as one did.

Ian appeared more than worried; he looked downright guilty. Had he figured her out? “How sick?” he asked.

“Just…sick.” She managed a wan smile.

“All right,” he said resignedly. “Push goes. You stay.”

Rising Gredda mumbled something affectionate about Tee’ah needing more meat in her diet. One by one, the rest of the crew stood. They wished Tee a speedy recovery, then followed the brawny woman into the corridor to don coats for the walk into town.

Ian remained behind.

Moving his chair closer, he leaned toward Tee’ah. “Now we can talk.” He radiated heat, the fragrance of soap, and his own unique scent, making her again acutely aware of the hard, fit body he hid beneath his clothing. “What happened between us today bothered you, didn’t it?”

No. The secrets between us do.

“You have every right to be upset,” he continued. “I took things too far. I apologize.”

His acute self-consciousness surprised and charmed her. “You’re forgetting that I started it all!” she said.

“You may have started it, but I sure didn’t fight too hard.”

“No”—she smiled— “you didn’t.”

He frowned. “It was unprofessional. It won’t happen again.”

Despite her worries about his identity, despite her fears of losing her freedom, Tee’ah’s disappointment rushed to the surface before she could stop it. Or analyze it. And the gleam in his eyes told her that he had seen. Heat flooded her face. She masked her embarrassment with a blasé and—she hoped—worldly explanation. “Even if it does, don’t be concerned. Casual, uncomplicated liaisons are what I prefer. No need to make more of that kiss than what it was.”

A mixture of astonishment, disappointment, and relief flickered across his expressive face. “Well,” he said slowly. “I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

“Captain,” Muffin’s voice rumbled from down the corridor. “We’re ready.”

Ian pushed his chair backward. All business again, he told her, “Activate the security locks on the hatches. Then you won’t have to stand watch if you don’t feel well. Let the computer do the babysitting.”

She snorted. “Like when I flew through the asteroids? No thanks.”

“Quin says the computer checks out fine. I believe him, or I wouldn’t leave you here alone.” He stood. “Get some sleep.”

She doubted she would.

Quietly, she walked with him to the cockpit. From there, she watched him depart with the rest of the crew. Even after all five of their shadows vanished into the ink-black woods, she continued staring out into the night, listening to the sound of her breathing in the silent, empty ship.

“Computer—play ‘Melody of Cyrrian Flutes,’” she said, settling into the pilot’s chair. Soft music filled the ship. She propped her boots on the navigation console and tried to keep her mind off who Ian was—or who he was not .

As long as he doesn’t know who you are, you’re safe.

Yes. Surely she was safer now than ever before. The crown prince’s ship was the last place anyone would expect to find her.

A brisk scrabbling noise from outside invaded her thoughts. She dropped her feet and sat up, cocking her head. Grüma was home to a variety of wild creatures, but like the traders who frequented the local bars, they were mostly harmless. Mainly they participated in long, active nights of foraging and caterwauling. Likely the lingering scent from their dinner of roasted meat had brought a few of the animals closer than usual.

She fetched her pistol from the storage drawer at her station and turned up the ship’s exterior lights. Two muffled thumps emanated from the hull, as if the sudden illumination had startled whatever was out there. Her heartbeat picked up. If it was a marauding, carnivorous beast, it was a large one.

She scanned the exterior of the ship using an infrared, heat-seeking enhancement that displayed objects according to temperature. The scanner showed a few small life-forms in the darkness beyond the fringe of light ringing the Sun Devil. Several animals foraged closer to the ship—rodents, or something similar. She kept searching.

Grüma was filled to the brim with people of all backgrounds. She had heard Quin and Gredda talk about some of the more unsavory merchants whom they said preyed on empty ships, stealing parts for sale on the black market. But someone might want to do harm to the Sun Devil for other, far darker reasons, someone who didn’t want them following the Earth-Senator Randall—a target who took on an entirely new and fascinating significance now that she suspected the crown prince himself was spying on him.

She cursed her habit of concocting elaborate schemes of intrigue, a consequence of growing up among Vash royalty. She had no reason to believe that anyone was plotting anything. Nonetheless, if Ian was who she thought he was, his position made him a natural target for assassination—especially given his non- Vash heritage. And while she doubted anyone would make an open attempt on his life in the central part of the galaxy, making his death look like an accident in the frontier might be feasible. Even those who loved Rom B’kah might not investigate too thoroughly the mistaken death of his improper heir. Then a “proper” prince could assume the throne—a prince like Ché Vedla, the man she would have married.

Foreboding chilled her. No wonder Ian was keeping a low profile.

Another thump jolted her attention to the ship’s engine-status display. A green rectangle representing the main access panel to the number-one engine thruster went from green, to blinking amber, to steady red, telling her the panel was now ajar. Had she not seen the undeniable evidence displayed on the schematic, she wouldn’t have believed it—or the equally shocking image on the infrared scanner. A human-sized shape crouched near the thruster. Someone was trying to damage the ship!

She reached for the main comm at the same instant the interior of the ship went dark. False lights sparked in her eyes with each thud of her heart, which sounded like it was about to explode. “Captain, this is the Sun Devil; do you read?”

There was no answer.

She tried again. “Return to the Sun Devil — immediately.”

The comm was dead. All power to the ship must have been cut off, the security locks included, she realized with a disconcerting sense of vulnerability. Luckily the hatches locked mechanically upon total power loss and couldn’t be opened from the outside without dismantling the hatch itself. But if the trespasser wanted to, he certainly could force his way inside given enough time.

He wasn’t going to have that time; she would make sure of it.

She grabbed her pistol and an auxiliary flashlight. Then she released the manual door lock to the main entry hatch. It lifted with an overly loud hiss. Frigid air hit her like a slap in the face. The temperature outside was far colder than she had expected. As she stepped out, a twig snapped beneath her boots. She winced. Then, shivering without her jacket, she inched forward, peering around the fuselage to the aft part of the ship.

She aimed the flashlight and her weapon into the darkness, bracing herself. “Who goes there? Identify yourself,” she called. The beam of her light illuminated a cloaked intruder—and the pistol he aimed at her head.

A blazing streak of light whizzed past. She dove toward the ship, seeking cover. The air crackled. The ground nearby exploded and burned where her opponent’s shots grazed the dirt. Heavens, she was in a gun battle! Unless people made easier targets than produce boxes, she was in deep trouble.

There were more shots. Her ears were ringing. She peeked around the fuselage and tried to see her attacker. He fired and almost hit her. She retaliated blindly, fearing that if she stopped firing, his next volley would kill her. But her shots went wild. There was an answering burst of light inches from her shoulder, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Then the intruder bolted into the woods.

She chose a tree and fired above his head, thinking she could stop him by dropping a tree limb on his head. A crisp beam of green-tinged red streamed out from her pistol. With an ear-splitting crack, the smoldering branch crashed to the ground, barely missing her fleeing assailant.

Full of adrenaline, she jumped after him. Startled birds, woken from their slumber, took to the sky as her attacker crashed through the trees. Then, just before he disappeared, he cast a glance over his shoulder. Her heart stopped, and so did she. She knew those eyes, so like her own. And that face; it was imprinted in her memory.

“Klark!” she screamed after him. She reeled with fury. A primitive, bloodthirsty urge to finish the kill urged her to again give chase, but common sense held her back. Gulping air, she lowered her pistol and sagged with spent terror against the Sun Devil’s fuselage. The acrid odor of hot metal and charred wood stung her nostrils.

She hoped she had seen the last of Klark, that he had satisfied his need for vengeance by humiliating her in the arcade. But he was back and he had almost killed her. What did he want—her very life for spurning his brother? That was insane.

When her legs stopped quivering, she jogged around to the thruster. She found the cowling hanging open and the torn-apart innards of the engine exposed. Clutching the fabric of her flightsuit to her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut. In the arcade Klark had said this wasn’t about her, but she hadn’t believed him. Now she understood.

He wanted to destroy Ian.