Royal Rebellion

by Blair Bancroft

  Nonetheless, there were more than a few indrawn breaths, quickly muffled, when the Nav officer received his orders: “Mr. Melkan, set a course for Hercula.”

  Tal enjoyed the success of his surprise—he had, after all, planned it that way. He was also well aware that his crew was less than pleased by their destination. Extended interplanetary adventures, yes. But there was no doubt his crew would rather explore another Reg-held system, even search for a Reg ship to shoot at, rather than return to the capital city of the rebellion’s most important ally, Hercula.

  A reluctance perhaps easily explained. There was, after all, no ambiguity about the Reg military. They were the enemy. Hercula, however . . .

  Easier to trust Rand Kamal than a Herc.

  Princess L’ira Faelle Maedan Orlondami Rigel, ruler of Blue Moon, regarded the wrinkled, red-faced infant in her arms with something close to bewilderment. Her daughter, M’lissa, had been born beautiful, had seldom cried. An angel of a child—everyone said so—with her father’s golden blond hair and Reg blue eyes. But this one! His mouth had been open in a howl so much since his birth that Kass swore they weren’t even certain what he looked like. Except his hair was abnormally long for a newborn, and the deep black of a moonless night. Like his mother—except her eyes sparked with fury only on rare occasions, while the newest addition to the Psyclid royal family seemed to be lodging a permanent protest against his advent into the world.

  Five women hovered around the well-padded chaise longue Kass and baby occupied in the lavishly appointed suite that had once belonged to her parents. Four of the women wore time-honored “baby faces,” ooing and ahing over the three-day-old grandson of a king. The fifth, Alala, merely looked bored, with perhaps a dash of long-suffering. Certainly L’relia had never carried on in such a fashion!

  The ghost at this particular feast of adoration was conspicuous by her absence—the mother of yet another royal child. Talora Lassan. Queen Jalaine might tolerate being in the same room with K’kadi’s mother, particularly now that Anneli was married to Rand Kamal. But Alala, the Herculon warrior, sharing the same air as Talora Lassan was a horror to be avoided at all costs. Kass would invite Talora to a private viewing of her son’s new cousin.

  Reyla Rigel raised her voice above young Damon’s deafening roars. “He does not like being a baby,” she pronounced. “Tal was exactly the same—cried constantly until the day he learned to crawl.” Reyla paused, stifled a tiny sigh, and added, “Though he certainly doesn’t look like Tal as a baby.”

  “He looks like his mother,” Queen Jalaine put in proudly. “An Orlondami to the core.”

  “I’d say he looks like trouble,” M’lani declared. With both her children now past babyhood, she considered herself an expert. Well, perhaps not as much as her mother or Lady Rigel, but she could recognize a problem child when she saw one.

  “Genetics can play tricks,” Anneli offered softly. “Who knows that better than I?” Since Anneli, with the aid of Jalaine’s husband, King Ryal, had produced K’kadi Amund, this statement, though true, was best left unsaid. A rare faux pas for the woman known for her ability to pour oil on troubled waters.

  Alala, who had not let motherhood distract her from her purpose in life—being a warrior—said into the awkward silence that followed, “I have begun a training regime, Highness. You should join me. We must be ready or they will leave us behind.”

  No one questioned who “they” were. The men they’d married. With the exception of K’kadi, none of them royal, so what gave them the right . . . ?

  “The Gift of Destruction does not require me to be fit,” M’lani said with some satisfaction, “though I do need to practice my aim.”

  Jalaine turned an unqueenly snort into a cough. M’lani’s early efforts to control her gift had resulted in some spectacular consequences, from the loss of her favorite desk to the palace gardener’s horror at the devastation of his flower beds.

  “And B’aela stays fit, no matter what,” Kass said with no little envy. “Perhaps it’s the witch in her.”

  “Or the peasant,” Jalaine murmured just loud enough that everyone heard her over the baby’s wails that had finally turned to hiccups. Clearly, she was never going to accept her husband’s indulgence in the ancient practice of droit de seigneur.

  “I admit I am content to stay home and keep an eye on my grandchildren,” Reyla Rigel hastened to say. “Do you not agree, Anneli?”

  Anneli, at an unusual loss for words, looked down, as if fascinated by the delicate hands folded primly in her lap. “I would have no choice,” she said into a room gone quiet as Damon’s nurse whisked him away. Suddenly, Anneli had everyone’s attention, but she was silent, studying the toe of the pale blue slipper peeking out from under her long, flowing gown.

  “Anneli?” Kass prodded.

  “It’s . . . embarrassing,” K’kadi’s mother said so softly they had to strain to hear her.

  “Come now,” Jalaine said, with a hint of impatience. Like her attitude toward Morgana, B’aela’s mother, Jalaine was never going to be friends with Anneli.

  Anneli Kamal’s head jerked up. She was, after all, the mother of one of the rebellion’s most remarkable warriors and, no matter what one thought of Darroch, being married to his nephew and one-time Heir Apparent made her a Woman of Significance. One even the queen of Psyclid could not mock.

  “It is perhaps ironic,” Anneli stated, head high, “but about the time of the invasion of Regula Prime, Rand and I will adding to the Kamal-von Baalen line.”

  “Fizzet!” Kass breathed.

  “But that is wonderful!” Reyla cried.

  M’lani shook her head. “Do you see it?” she asked. “We’re becoming a tangled knot of bloodlines. Kass and Tal, K’kadi and Alala, Rand and Anneli—”

  “Kelan and Yuliya,” Anneli intoned. “I do not think that is a passing infatuation.”

  “Anton and L’rissa,” Kass added. “Giving us a tangle of Psy gifts, shapeshifting, Reg hard-headedness, and a Herculon warrior.”

  “It would appear,” Jalaine proclaimed, “that we need to train for dealing with the next generation as much as with the Empire.”

  Kass leaned back against the pile of pillows at her back and closed her eyes. Where were they, their rebel warriors on board Astarte? Had Tal’s intentions gone as planned? Or had he, in typical S’sorrokan style, thrown a few quirks into their supposedly well laid plans?

  Had enough Psyclid magic touched him that he knew his son was born? Perhaps K’kadi sensed it—sometimes her little brother seemed well on his way to becoming omnipotent.

  And maybe not. Deimos and Eridan were a long, convoluted path from home.

  Tal, where are you? Look across the light years. Meet your son.

  Silence.

  Kass opened her eyes. Her guests were gone.

  Chapter 21

  “I am a prisoner,” Rand Kamal stated flatly. Avoiding his host’s eyes, he glared at the bottle of the Emperor’s best vintage Tal was pouring into crystos glasses sturdy enough to survive life on a warship. It was the fourth bottle the two had shared since they began their private late-night conversations.

  “Picture it,” Tal returned evenly. “The last time you were at Nekator’s court you’d just been beaten half to death by Drakos’s thugs. K’kadi didn’t step into an unwanted marriage solely for his relatives and his lover. He was making an alliance that saved your life as well as the rebellion. We need the Hercs. Waving Darroch’s nephew in front of them again is not productive.” Tal handed a glass of wine to Rand, the dark red liquid glowing warmly under the cabin’s lights.

  “Fyddit, Tal, I haven’t been off this ship since Tat.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “But you’re going to the Herc court, risking yourself, risking K’kadi—”

  “Stop!” Tal snapped. “The Hercs are our allies.”

  “They’re a prime planet with a military as aggressive as the Regs—if fallen on hard times over the past half cen
tury. Rebel technology and training has supposedly brought them back to fighting fitness, but we both know you can’t trust them not to stab you in the back.”

  “After we invade Reg Prime,” Tal returned calmly. “Not before. They need us even more than we need them.”

  “What about K’kadi?” Rand pressed, tacitly conceding Tal’s point. “Drakos may not have objected to a Psy sorcerer stealing his fiancée, but I hear he didn’t attend the wedding. Long term, I have a bad feeling about that.”

  Tal sat silent, sipping his wine. “I wouldn’t take K’kadi,” he admitted, “except I need him to gauge the feelings at court. And get us out of there if anything goes wrong.”

  “Sorry,” Rand murmured. “It’s not my job to tell you how to do what you have to do.” He’d learned a remarkable amount about humility since the day he’d ordered all Reg troops to evacuate Psyclid. Even more when he lost Andromeda.

  “Actually . . . it is.” Tal waited until the Reg admiral’s intrigued gaze met his own. “Very few have the guts to argue with me. And, as my wife points out with great consistency, no one should be above being told he could be wrong.” A remark that pulled a rueful smile from the Reg Rear Admiral.

  “You will have an opportunity to go off-ship,” Tal added. “I promise. We need to inspect all the refurbished Herc ships now in spacedock. But we’ll leave that to last—after I’ve made my obligatory visit to court and hopefully said all the right things.” Tal caught and held Rand’s cynical gaze. “Believe me, if I thought Drakos wouldn’t be there, I could use your diplomatic skills. But”—Tal shrugged—“no sense waving a red flag in front of a bull. Patience, my—Admiral . . . just a little bit longer.” Fyddit, he’d nearly called Rand Kamal friend. Bad enough they’d begun to use each other’s first names.

  Rand, who still suspected Tal Rigel considered him with only a degree less wariness than the Hercs, heard what had not been said. Even more astonishing, he would like to think friendship between them was possible. But Tal Rigel was S’sorrokan, leading candidate to replace Darroch on the Empire’s throne, while Rand Kamal—despite being the man who had handed Psyclid back to the Psys and crashed Reg Prime’s newest, state-of-the-art battlecruiser into the Herculon Sea—was his greatest rival, the man with the most legitimate claim to rule Regula Prime.

  So, no matter what Tal said, Rand knew he was a prisoner. Too dangerous to leave on Psyclid., too dangerous to be allowed off-ship. And all because his mother was a von Baalen. Rand winced. Certainly not because of a distinguished career in Fleet.

  He tossed off the last of his wine—even as he acknowledged the heresy of gulping this particular vintage. He stood. “How many bottles do you need for Nekator?”

  “Three,” Tal returned promptly. “Nekator, Drakos, and one for Andreadis, if the old boy is still alive.”

  “A fine man,” Rand agreed. “Too bad he’s past leading the Hercs. If he were, I would not have so many qualms.”

  “Agreed.” A pause while Tal visibly swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue. “Good-night.”

  “Good-night.” Rand paused just short of the door. “May I suggest two bottles for Nekator? He is the king, after all.”

  “Of course.” Rand Kamal, ever the diplomat. The admiral’s exit, as always, left Tal thoughtful. And then he recalled his near disclosure of a closely guarded secret. And all because, for a brief moment, he empathized with Kamal’s awkward situation.

  His blue eyes sparkling with anticipation of the surprise to come, Tal grinned.

  In the final days before Astarte docked at the space station high above Athena, Herculon’s capital city, Tal spent a considerable amount of time with those who would attend King Nekator’s court, relaying intel and speculating about the problems they might face. The rebellion had many feet on the ground in Hercula—all the technical experts who were helping the Hercs return their space fleet to battle-readiness and train merchant crews, whose only taste of battle had been with the hastily assembled fleet at the Battle of Hercula. The battle four years earlier when Andromeda had gone down with all hands.

  Tal’s greatest concern, however, was expressed in private—more times than K’kadi might have wished—the final time in Tal’s ready room as the docking clamps were snapping into place. “Look at me, K’kadi. Do not forget what I told you. Drakos may have seemed to accept your marriage, but everything I’ve heard since indicates that was a false front. He tolerates you as vital to the cause, but never trust him. Never turn your back on him. Be prepared for anything. Love can do strange things to a man. If Drakos has talked himself into a jealous rage, he may be capable of forgetting duty, training, responsibility—”

  Why want her now? Not object before?

  Tal shrugged. “Maybe he, like you, was making a sacrifice for his country. If we’re to defeat Darroch, we need each other.”

  Perhaps Alala want go back?

  “And L’relia?” Tal asked. “Do you want your daughter raised on Hercula?

  L’relia stay.

  “No one separates a baby from its mother, K’kadi. That would make us the monsters.”

  K’kadi hung his head, his white-blond hair flopping over his exquisitely handsome face. Go down, see truth.

  Tal, as he had so many times in the past, gave his brother-in-law a long look while slowly shaking his head. “I wouldn’t let you anywhere near the surface if I didn’t need your ability to read the atmosphere down there. In court and on the street. Are the Hercs allies or not? Have we wasted four years of tech assistance and enough credits to buy a whole star system, only to discover we’ve armed a new set of enemies?”

  They are . . . friend and enemy, K’kadi ventured. Can feel that from here.

  K’kadi sprang to his feet when his commanding officer stood. Tal patted him on the back. “Tomorrow we find out. Stay alert, keep us out of traps, and a prayer or two wouldn’t hurt.”

  K’kadi summoned a smile. We all go home, I promise.

  Tal never took his eyes off his brother-in-law as he walked out. What had happened to the odd boy who had flung himself at his sister’s feet so long ago? When had the undisciplined teen, whose scattered thoughts seemed incapable of organization, become so powerful? When Kass spent hours training him? When Tal sent him to boot camp? When he’d landed an engineless Pegasus on Reg Prime? Had fatherhood helped?

  K’kadi was now the most spectacular weapon in the rebel arsenal. And Tal Rigel was putting him at risk at the court of the Herculon king. Which is what leaders had to do. They risked their best and brightest, which included T’kal, B’aela, and Kelan, because they had to. Because it was the only way to the ultimate goal—the end of the Regulon Empire.

  Grim-faced, Tal returned to studying the latest progress report from the rebel technicians on Hercula.

  B’aela knew why she was once again standing before King Nekator, offering the slight bow deemed appropriate for one royal to another. To the king of Hercula she was the king of Psyclid’s eldest child, not his elder bastard. Tal Rigel might be a powerful leader, but it was B’aela Flammia Killiri who was providing the high-level diplomatic touch needed for this occasion.

  B’aela turned her attention to the elegant woman seated beside the king, offering a bow just slightly less than the one she’d given King Nekator. Hypatia Kalliste Eliades, First Concubine, was a person of importance, as intelligent as she was beautiful. Today, her long black hair was worn loose, tumbling over a chiton of a turquoise fabric so shiny it seemed to light up the space around her. A heavy array of jewels peeked out from between the jet black strands of hair flowing over her bosom; rings winked from every finger. Hypatia Kalliste was among the very few in Nekator’s court who had enjoyed K’kadi’s sorcerer tricks rather than feared his power.

  B’aela considered Hypatia Kalliste a woman of reason. Not a friend, but certainly less of a potential enemy than Nekator or Drakos. Then again, perhaps her analysis was nothing more than one high-class courtesan recognizing another.

  With Tal an
d T’kal standing a respectful two paces behind her, B’aela skipped over the strikingly heroic features of General Nikomedes Drakos, focusing instead on a frail and extremely elderly man in a wheeled chair. She stepped forward, bending down to clasp his gnarled hands with her own. “Admiral Andreadis, it is a pleasure to see you again.”

  The old man, proudly wearing his Herculon Fleet uniform with five stars on each shoulder, returned her grip with surprising strength. “And a delight to see you again, Princess. You brighten our court. Though I deeply regret that I will be unable to participate in the final moments of the Empire.” Admiral Andreadis, having survived at court since the time of King Nekator’s father, added with a hint of wry amusement only B’aela could see, “I assure you, Captain Rigel can count on our forces under General Drakos and Admiral Golias to do everything that is needed to bring down the Empire. After that . . .” he added on a whisper, a warning in his eyes. He shrugged.

  Tal stepped forward to shake the old man’s hand, expressing his pleasure at once again seeing Herculon’s Admiral of the Fleet and his appreciation for Hercula’s support, while exchanging a private look that said, Message received. Then, with a display of bonhomie Tal was capable of putting on for the devil himself, he turned to General Nikomedes Drakos, hand outstretched. Comrades in arms, delighted to be reunited.

  Fizzet,” B’aela muttered to herself, as she realized her spontaneous greeting of Admiral Andreadis had inadvertently ignored Alala’s former fiancé and come close to creating a diplomatic incident. Which Tal was attempting to remedy.

  You not raised at court.

  B’aela had to force herself not to give her little brother a dirty look. Head up, shoulders back, she turned her most charming smile on General Nikomedes Drakos, Commander-in-Chief of Hercula’s military forces. “General, please forgive my rush to greet Admiral Andreadis.” Who has been such a friend to us.

  At K’kadi’s silent snort, she came close to losing her composure, particularly when Drakos’s bow was so stiff she could swear she heard his bones creak.