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Seventeen Standard Days Ago

Garla System, near the planet Tersi

The Yarinska ’s cargo bay was a teeming mass of thick-limbed Sweepers and blaring sirens. Tyelu af Alna, former Queen’s Guard, heir to the kafh of Myunad Province, ducked behind a plasteen crate filled with the belongings of an entire Tersii family, fumbling with her blaster’s battery pack.

Kraden Sweepers. The journey from Abyw, her home planet, to her new next sister’s planet had been uneventful, peaceful even, a simple trade run. Drop off wood for reconstruction of the Sweeper-devastated towns, pick up refugees, especially much-needed women of child-bearing age, and go back home again.

Nothing was ever as easy as it should be.

Sweepers had ambushed them near a trading post built into the terrain of a quasi-habitable moon, or maybe they’d ambushed the Sweepers. Tyelu wasn’t clear on the details and she really didn’t care. Her adopted brother Ryn was on the other side of the cargo bay attempting to stem the tide of Sweepers flooding onto Yarinska , and here she, a trained warrior, sat fighting to get her best weapon in working order.

Thank Fryw Mother Jakuv couldn’t see her now.

Enel ab Awd, the second of three Pruxn? onboard Yarinska , stumbled over the cargo bay’s hatch and skidded across the floor toward her, and barely missed being fried by fire from a handheld laser cannon. He flopped down beside her and stuffed his blaster into her lap. “Here,” he said. “I’ll handle the battery packs if you’ll do the shooting.”

Tyelu slid a side-eyed glance at him. Every Pruxn? trained in the warrior arts to one degree or another, if for no other reason than to triumph at the Choosing when the time came to take a mate. She’d had special training, true, thanks to her mother’s heritage, and even spent time in the personal guard of Banam’s Queen during her time on Zinod, her mother’s home world.

But for a Pruxn? male to hand over a working weapon? It was nearly unthinkable.

Enel took the broken blaster from her without another word, and Tyelu let it go. They were in the middle of a crisis. She could rag him about the weapon later.

Ziri Mokuru, Ryn’s mate, appeared in the cargo bay’s open hatch, her slate blue eyes wide in her too pale face. “Ryn!” she screamed as she launched herself into the cargo bay.

Tyelu peeked over the top of the crate and muttered a curse under her breath. A Sweeper had pierced Ryn through his chest with a metal-plated tentacle and held her brother high off the ground. Ryn hung limply, his arms and legs dangling as blood dripped steadily out of the wound.

Without thinking, Tyelu aimed the fresh blaster and popped off a short burst. Red light streaked past Ziri’s head and thumped into the Sweeper, knocking it back a pace. Ziri flinched to the side, away from Ryn.

“Don’t stop!” Tyelu yelled. “Get Ryn out of the way. I’ll hold off these kraden Sweepers.”

Tyelu aimed more carefully after that, beginning with the Sweepers closest to her fallen brother and his mate, and steadily worked her way outward from there. Her battery pack sizzled out of charge after a dozen well-placed shots. Enel dutifully held up the other blaster, and she exchanged one weapon for the other and fired again.

A crackling voice came over the intercom, barely audible over the screams of Sweepers. “ Yarinska , cease fire and prepare to be boarded.”

Tyelu leaned her head back and whooped a war cry into the cacophony. “It’s about time.”

Enel muttered something beside her, but she was too relieved to care. Half a dozen humanoids popped into existence within the cargo bay, their matte gray armor rendering them nearly invisible in the chaos. Q mercenaries. Well, that was going to cost Ryn a pretty penny. Maybe some of the kafhs would cover it, considering the precious cargo Yarinska carried.

Marriage-minded female settlers, enough to mate fifty or more Pruxn?, willing women with strong backs and open hearts, some with daughters of their own. On a planet where female children were rarely conceived and even more rarely birthed, such a group would be a godsend.

The mercenaries made quick work of the Sweepers. As soon as the last alien had fallen, one of the mercenaries peeled off from the group and headed toward Ryn. Four others spread out and began prodding Sweepers.

The seventh clipped his weapon to his thigh, retracted his helmet, and ran a gloved hand over dark brown hair, ruffling it into spikes. He glanced around the cargo bay, then homed in on Tyelu, his gaze flat and even. “Jos Q’Mhel. We heard your distress call.”

Tyelu stood and skirted the container, ignoring Enel’s like movements. “Tyelu af Alna of Abyw. We appreciate your help, Q’Mhel.”

“Sweepers,” he said, as if that explained everything.

She shrugged. What did it matter how the mercenaries got there as long as they helped?

A moment later, she stood two ceg away from the Q’Mhel. He was tall, half a head taller than her at least, and she was no dainty maiden. His shoulders were broad under the fitted armor, his body finely honed, and his eyes bore into hers, steady and calm in the snowy complexion of his rectangular face.

Green eyes, murky like the River Mikto as it curled sluggishly around Elaria, the capital city of Banam.

Tyelu’s heart tightened in her chest and a nervous flutter settled in her stomach. She tamped down both reactions. The Q’Mhel was an attractive man, but he was a mercenary, a spacer through and through. She’d be a fool to let her heart fall to one such as him.

To cover her momentary lapse, she said, “These attacks are getting more frequent.”

The Q’Mhel rolled one armored shoulder and his gaze slid to the fallen Sweepers scattered throughout the cargo bay. “We’re working on it.”

Enel stepped up beside Tyelu and gently grasped her elbow. “The Tersii.”

Tyelu arched an eyebrow at the Q’Mhel. “We have civilians on board, refugees bound to Abyw from Tersi.”

The Q’Mhel’s gaze swung back to hers, and something flickered briefly in his beautiful eyes. “It’s safe enough now, if they’re willing to help with cleanup.”

Enel nodded. “I’ll see to it.”

As soon as he turned and left, the Q’Mhel said, “Your mate?”

Tyelu snorted out a laugh. “Hardly. He’s a friend, here chasing after a mate of his own.”

A slow smile tilted his mouth, barely touching his oddly colored eyes. “Not you?”

“No, not me.”

“Good,” he said, then the smile abruptly slid from his face and his gaze went distant. He touched the fingertips of one hand to his ear, nodded once, and said, “Excuse me.”

He swiveled away from her without another word and strode through the dead Sweepers littering the cargo bay’s floor. One by one, his team members fell in behind him. They reached the far side of the cargo bay and stopped in a spot free from debris and the dead. The Q’Mhel turned and faced her, slipped his helmet on, and then the six mercenaries winked out of sight.

Tyelu shook her head as she crossed the cargo bay, heading toward her fallen brother. Just before Q’Mhel’s helmet covered his face, she could’ve sworn he winked at her. No matter. That was the last she’d see of him, and good riddance. She wanted a mate, but not so desperately she had to settle for a space drunk Q-merc with more arrogance than sense.

That settled, Tyelu knelt beside her brother and picked up where the mercenary-medic had left off, and shoved Jos Q’Mhel and his intriguing green eyes right out of her head.

The Present

Forro, on the planet Domor, Salah System

Jos Q’Mhel stood at attention just inside the doorway of the massive conference room. A long, elliptical table perched squarely in the middle, surrounded by twenty delegates representing a like number of planets in this sector. All had been attacked recently by the Sweepers and all were equally concerned about the escalation and timing of those attacks.

He’d burned every favor owed him to have his dal assigned to this duty.

His implant buzzed gently. Jos touched two fingers to a point just in front of his ear, activating it, and was completely unsurprised when his First spoke.

“Clear skies,” Magda Bur-D’ga said, her rough voice harsh. “What are we doing on this backwater planet again?”

Jos tongued his sub-vocal speaker. “Guarding Q’s delegate to these talks.”

“Any griyet dal could do that. What’re we doing here?”

“Chasing atmosphere,” Gav D’ga, another member of the dal, chimed in. “The Q’Mhel’s got a hard-on for a lubber.”

“Cut it,” Jos said. “We’re on duty.”

“Duty being eyes on a certain blonde,” Gav said, evoking muted laughter from the other d’gas.

After a moment, Magda broke through. “You heard the Q’Mhel. Cut it, spacers.”

The laughter died away as Jos glanced across the room at her and nodded so slightly, no one else would notice. Magda was small in stature, square of shoulder, and large in fight. She wore her nearly orange hair spiked high in front and cropped close to her scalp around the sides, displaying the intricate scars ritually burned into her skin by the cult her parents had sold her to when she was a youngling, barely old enough to walk. It had taken her a long time to escape the cult, and when she had, she’d run straight and true to the Q.

Or as straight and true as a stowaway could run.

Jos had met her three seasons after his own training began. She’d somehow figured out who was in charge of letting off-worlders train with the Q and had camped out on that person’s stoop waiting for a chance to beg an interview. Jos had found her instead, and they’d been friends ever since.

No, not friends. Friendship could fade away. What stretched between him and Magda, the loyalty and devotion, the dedication to each other and to their duty, that could never be broken.

Across the room, beyond the table of diplomats and rulers, Tyelu af Alna stood behind Abyw’s tyrl, next to a glowering man of similar coloring. Jos’s heart skipped a beat, and his implant’s medsensor beeped a warning.

Jos ignored it. Gav was right: Jos had angled for this detail specifically so he could meet the lovely Pruxn? woman again. He’d never used his rank within Q’s ruling class to snag an assignment before, and never would again.

But this woman…

Jos glanced at her, taking in the white-blonde hair tightly coiled into a knot at her nape, the haughty set of her chin and shoulders, the eyes raking the room, and his heart skipped another beat. This woman was worth the risk.

His comm buzzed.

“Careful there, Q’Mhel,” Magda said. “Next thing, you’ll be planting your boots in dirt permanent like. Ain’t no way for a spacer to live.”

Jos chose not to react to the gentle teasing. Instead, he said, “Eyes up and open, Mags.”

She made a rude noise and closed the line.

Jos nearly smiled, maybe would’ve if his helmet were up, guarding his expression.

He clicked his implant and queried the members of his dal for a sound off. They were scattered over the grounds, with him and Magda standing guard in the meeting and the others stationed at various strategic points, watching for trouble.

He didn’t expect any, but considering that the planetary delegates were here to discuss the Sweeper problem, trouble could arise when they least expected it.

Across the way, Tyelu’s gaze slipped by. Had her eyes paused a tick too long as they swept across him?

No matter. She’d be in his bed by the end of the negotiations. Of that he had no doubt.