Page 6 of The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement
Chapter 2
His Grace, Aelazar Amrazal Thorkonos, recently proclaimed Duke of Azthronos, Blood Champion of Zalar, Avatar of Azjor, God of Oaths—and at the moment slightly hung over and much aggrieved—adjusted his universal translator and sent the message again in the unfamiliar language called English for the benefit of the likely hostages inside the space station.
Raz had not intended to bepart of a rescue operation (not when he had a thousand-year-old bottle of ghost-mead to drink and a newly inherited dukedom to lord over) but his dreadnaught flagship, theGrandiloquence, had been tracing the outer boundaries of Azthronos territory when intergalactic authorities had pinpointed the location of the reprehensible Blackworm’s victims.
Discovering that Blackworm—reprehensible and,worse yet, a dishonored Thorkon nobleman—had insolently anchored his criminal station on the event horizon of a heretofore uncharted singularity right on the doorstep of Azthronos space didnotreflect well on His Recently Proclaimed Grace’s suitability for his new position.
The old Duke of Azthronos would’ve known that abducted citizens of an innocent closed world were hidden on the edge ofhis realm in unincorporated Thorkonos space.
Or so Raz had heard whispered in the long corridors of theGrandiloquence. Not that any of his watchful new crew would’ve said as much aloud in front of His Barely Remembered Grace. But he knew they were thinking it.
Or maybe that was the ghost-mead whispering to him.
Raz stood in the center of the bridge, imagining a divot in the deck where hisfather had once commanded, his weight and his consequence and his belovedness actually bending the heavy cerasteel plates. Or so it seemed. Without him there, the rebound might very well fling Raz into the abyss…
Ugh, he was getting morose. Larfing ghost-mead.
“No reply from the station on any channel,” the comm officer stated.
From engineering, the deck officer piped up. “Scans show only fivelifeforms of any appreciable size. Can’t get a clear molecular analysis due to interference from the singularity, but initial readings seem to correspond to the Earther specs we were given.”
The head of security looked up from her post. “The station’s weapons systems—guns and cannons, also defensive arrays—appear cold, possibly non-functional.” She slid a glance between Raz and theGrandy’s captainwho occupied the command chair. “Sir… Or, uh, sirs… Captain and Your Grace, I still recommend approaching with caution. Even though Blackworm was convicted on criminal charges related to the attacks against the crew of theSinner’s Prayerunder command of Sinclarion Fifth-Moon Jax and the attempted abduction of several companions in the Intergalactic Dating Agency alien bride program, he neverrevealed the location or fates of the dozen Earther females who went missing. If these are indeed those brides, they may be victims…but they may instead be Blackworm’s accomplices.”
“Suggestion and concerns noted,” the captain said, without waiting for Raz’s response, although technically Raz’s presence ranked higher than the other man. Rokal Nor irThorkonos had been made captain of theGrandiloquenceonly shortly before Raz had returned home. When he’d dined with the captain the first night of their tour and idly commented on the man’s relative youth to be given command of a dreadnaught, and the flagship at that, Nor had bristled.
“The dowager duchess granted me the post personally,” he’d said, pale eyes glittering. “Although rumor had it, filling the position was tricky considering thatmany younger sons were hesitant to buy a commission on a flagship with financing issues. Rather embarrassing to have one’s dreadnaught repossessed. But I work cheap, so…” He shrugged. “Then again, maybe it was just that I was conveniently here.”
And you were not. The unspoken words echoed in an empty space behind the blood champion insignia pinned to Raz’s chest. It was true. If he’d stayed inAzthronos, he would have moved up the chain of command much as this captain had and inherited the duchy as a known entity. Instead, he was all but a stranger. A stranger in charge of everyone here and another few billion souls.
Raz studied the singularity through narrowed eyes. In his years away from Azthronos, he’d had a professor—or so he recalled; ghost-mead had a deleterious effect on short-termmemory—who’d lectured on the many practical uses for singularities. Which of those uses had interested Blackworm?
Not that it mattered. This was a rescue operation.
Or rescue and salvage, as his dowager mother had briskly informed him when she’d relayed the message from intergalactic authorities.
“Dukedoms don’t come cheap,” she’d reminded him. “Neither do spare parts of space stations. Don’tlarf this up, my dear boy.”
She’d told him much the same thing—minus the elucidation on space station resale value—on the morning after his father’s return to the God of Eternity. Raz had still been space-lagged, having raced home across a hundred galaxies, hoping to make it back before…
But he hadn’t.
Now, he couldn’t imagine why Blackworm had chosen to linger on the verge of the menacingsingularity, but abandoned in unincorporated Thorkonos space, the station might be claimed by whomsoever was there first.
Maybe the God of Fortuity was smiling on him from eternity.
“I’ll lead the boarding party,” Raz informed theGrandybridge crew.
The security officer straightened with a snap. “Your Grace, respectfully, that isn’t—”
“Send your second and five others with the away team,”the captain told the sec-off. Then he cocked one eyebrow at Raz. “Will that be sufficient backup?”
Raz lifted an eyebrow back. “To recover a handful of hostages and plant a salvage flag? I think I can manage.”
After a moment, the captain inclined his head. “Take transport shuttle Gamma. Don’t worry. We’ll have our cannons locked on the station.”
To what? Blow up the station with His UnwantedGrace inside?
The sec-off followed Raz and the away team to the shuttle, prepping her second in command and insisting that Raz don ships fatigues.
“You said the weapons systems were offline,” he reminded her as he stripped down to pull on the thin but heavy armor-grade clothing.
Her gaze lingered on his bare chest as he shed the ducal seal, blood champion insignia, and avatar emblem. “Yes,sir. Uh, Your Grace. Still, you’ll want shielding from stray radiation to protect future Graces.” Her eyes snapped up to his. “Er, not that it seems like you’d need any help on that front.” She hustled forward to grab a blaster from the weapons locker. “You know how to use this?”
He gave her a slow smirk as he holstered the pistol at his thigh. “I have master-level qualifications on all the mostdesirable weapons.”
Was that a blush? Or was the sec-off just worried about the potential career ramifications of sending His Oh-So-Valuable Grace out onto a derelict space station hovering on the edge of a black hole?
Not that it mattered, not even as a pathetic balm to his ducal ego.
He’d board Blackworm Station, claim it as his own, save the Duchy of Azthronos and its eleven billion inhabitants,and maybe—just maybe—finally feel that he’d come home.