She silently thanked the old man as Tark nodded in turn. He picked up his weapons from the table behind him. Then he turned back to Rina. For a moment he simply looked at her, as if to commit her to memory.
The reality that she could indeed lose him so soon after finding him again struck her anew. Ignoring the others, she stretched up and kissed him. And this time there was no hesitation in him as he kissed her back, fiercely. Claim, declaration, and maybe good-bye were all tangled in that single kiss, and it left her shaken when at last he ended it.
His good eye closed for a moment. She saw him draw in a deep breath.
He turned to the boy.
“Rayden, lead on.”
The boy whirled and ran.
“And we,” Crim said with a grimace as he picked up his own long gun, “shall endeavor to keep up.”
Tark grinned at the man, and suddenly it was as if it were all those years ago. He looked to her in that moment as young and daring—and foolhardy—as he had then, and the eye patch merely underscored the demeanor.
The hero of Galatin was back.
DAX LET OUT a string of curses he hadn’t uttered in an age.
He paced the bridge of the Evening Star, every muscle tense. They had been enjoying being in flight again when word had come that Tark’s guesses had been all too accurate, and the Coalition attack had begun. Even ever-cool Califa had let out a curse worthy of her past days.
And somewhere on Arellia were three of the people they loved most. Including the daughter Dax was terrified he would lose before they had the chance to mend the breach between them.
“She will be fine.”
His mate’s soft, husky voice came from behind him, as her hand came to rest on his shoulder. Her touch, her very presence soothed him like nothing else, but this was the worst thing they had faced since the tribunal when they had first made it back to Trios.
“You are so calm,” he said.
“Because worrying will not get us there any faster.”
“Well, something should,” he muttered. He crossed to the control console and slapped at the intercom link.
“Larc!”
“I’m trying, Captain. If I divert power from any more systems, it will take time to get them back on line.”
“Then we’ll do without them.”
“Er . . . life support?”
“Narrow it to the bridge and you. Everybody’s at those stations already anyway.”
“What about weapons? They’ll have to charge back up—”
“Then we’ll fight with hand weapons. None of it will matter if we don’t get there before the Coalition wipes them out.” Frustrated rage had made his voice sharp, almost vicious. “Sorry, Larc.”
“We love them too, Dax,” the engineer said, forgoing the rank.
“I know.”
“Comm coming in!” Rox called out.
Dax turned to look at his first mate. “Arellia?”
The grizzled veteran shook his head. “The king, Captain.”
Dax nodded. Rox hit a switch, and Dare’s voice echoed across the bridge.
“We’re airborne with a full squadron. The second is fueling now, and the third assembling. What we have left will remain here, on alert, in case the Coalition is planning a second attack on Trios.”
“Good.” He opened his mouth to ask if there was any news from Arellia, but stopped himself, realizing Dare would tell him if there were.
“We’re getting bits and pieces. Latest credible information on the Coalition forces is on its way in a burst file. It looks bad, but not insurmountable.”
“If we can damned well get there,” Dax muttered.
“Dax?”
The queen’s voice came through then, and Dax braced himself. “Here.”
“We got a hand keyed-in burst message from Rina. She found them.”
“Then they’re together?”
“They were. It’s from some time ago. She was still on the mountain, so it had to be relayed.”
Something in Shaylah’s voice warned him. “And?”
“They were heading back to the city. Quickly.”
It hit him like a blow. “Because the attack had begun.”
“Yes. They should be there now.”
He swore, a particularly pungent oath. Then collected himself. “Sorry. That wasn’t aimed at you.”
“I assumed,” Shaylah said.
For a queen, she was a damned good sport, he thought, not for the first time.
As a mother, she had to be as worried as he was.
“We’re locking down to emergency systems only,” he said. “Diverting all power to the engines. We’ll be out of touch.”
“Understood.” It was Dare again this time. “Tark is holding Galatin. And he will hold until you get there. He must.”
“He will,” Dax said, meaning it. If it was possible, Tark would do it. “We’ll be there before dawn. Somehow.”
“If anyone can, you and the Evening Star can. Dax?”
“Here.”
There was a pause before Dare said, in a voice Dax had not heard in a long time, “Never mind. You know.”
Dax swallowed tightly. “Yes. I do.”
For a long moment after they signed off, Dax stood, staring out the viewport into the vastness outside. For years he lived in this world, on this ship’s forerunner, living the crazed life of a skypirate, taking wild chances, risking everything with the slimmest chance of victory, sometimes an even slimmer chance of survival. He’d grown more cautious since. Being responsible for the protection of Trios—and becoming a parent—had accomplished what nothing else had.
But there was no such thing as caution now. Everything he held dear was at stake, and there would be no holding back.
Chapter 45
RINA PACED THE floor. Her internal clock told her they had been gone less than an hour, but still she was restless.
The council had retreated, apparently content once more with sitting back and letting Tark do their fighting. Some she forgave, they were old, tired. Others she knew had fought the last time to save their city, and she gave them some leeway as well. But the others, the younger, strong ones who seemed either bewildered or afraid or simply unwilling, she had little patience for and had thrown out of the room.
Rayden, who had come back as Tark had ordered, although clearly reluctantly, she asked to stay.
“You’re the only sensible and brave one among them,” she told him after the room had cleared.
The boy straightened proudly. “What shall I do?”
“First, report. Was there any trouble?”
He shook his head, an expression of wonder coming over his face. “Nobody heard a thing, even when they moved the rubble. Tark can move like a whisperbird.”
“He can,” she agreed.
“And after I showed them the steps up into the house, he lifted me back up out of the cellar like I was no heavier than a perla.”
“And a perla you are, Rayden. Amid snailstones.”
The boy grinned. “They’re going to do it. I know they are.”
“If it can be done, Tark will do it.”
The boy studied her for a moment. “Is it true you flew with Dax? When he was a skypirate?”
“I did.”
That earned her widened eyes and an awed expression.
“And you fought with him, and with Tark here, before I was even born?”
“That too,” she agreed with a smile at his innocent wonderment. She doubted there would be much innocence left on Arellia when this was over. But she was silently thankful to this boy’s parents—or perhaps his grandfather—for teaching him what so many others here chose to ignore.
“No wonder Tark picked you.”
>
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re both heroes. You should be together.”
She studied the boy in turn. “Did he . . . say something to you?”
Rayden drew himself up proudly. “That he was trusting me. That I would be guarding the most important thing in his life. The only person he loves.”
Had there been a chair handy she would have collapsed into it. Instead she had to lean on the table when her knees suddenly seemed reluctant to hold.
Leave it to Tark, she thought. Only he could manage to deliver a declaration of love, and the first one at that, in the middle of a war and through a child.
She would make him pay for that one. She buried all thought of the danger he was in, refused to even acknowledge any longer that he might not return from this foray. Instead she focused on just how she would make him pay.
And how she would wring that declaration from him face-to-face.
When it came, the explosion rocked the Council Building even though the mayor’s home was at least two blocks away.
She heard shouts—some laced with fear, others triumph—coming from the chamber outside, where those who sheltered here were gathered. She wondered if any of them would find the courage to fight now. Perhaps. If she had learned nothing else from her skypirate days with Dax, it was that there was a vast array of types spread across the galaxy, from coward to hero. It did seem, she thought rather sourly, that there were many more of the former than the latter.
But Kateri was with them, and speaking. Rallying them in her own way, so perhaps they would hold. They all knew now she had been right all along, and it gave her credence with them. Or should.
Rina resumed her pacing as the minutes ticked past. And then it began. The communicator crackled nonstop with reports from districts all over the city.
“They’re retreating!”
“They just stopped!”
“They scattered, going all directions!”
“It’s as if they don’t know what to do.”
Rina looked at Rayden. The boy looked back at her. He was quick to realize.
“They did it!” he yelped. “It’s like Tark said, they’re lost without someone thinking for them.”
She winked at him. “Indeed, Lieutenant.”
He whooped, and ran around the room in high spirits he couldn’t contain.
“And,” Rina added, grinning as she watched, “let’s not forget your part in this. They couldn’t have done it without you.”
That brought on another noisy circuit. She wouldn’t be completely happy until Tark was back, safe, but this was very, very sweet.
The noise outside was increasing. Kateri had a communicator out there, so they had heard as well.
The door to the tactical room crept open.
“Is it true?” the mayor squeaked. “They’ve done it? It worked?”
“It did. The Coalition troops are panicking, running scared. You know something about that, don’t you, Bratus?”
The man flushed. “I am a man of peace now, not war.”
She looked at him. Her mouth twisted into a sour half smile. She wondered how he had managed to get to this position after Tark’s survival and return had shown him for what he was, a coward who would abandon those he was responsible for. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if he was not responsible for a lot of the ill-treatment Tark had borne.
“You’re not a friend of the senior Tarksons, by chance, are you?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” she said.
“My home,” he began.
The whining in his voice grated, and Rina whirled on him. “I hope it’s a pile of rubble.”
“Come, you skalworm,” Kateri said from behind the man. She glanced at Rina and winked as she pushed the man back into the other room.
“Tell them all to stay in place,” Rina said to her. “This retreat will only be temporary, until they regroup and are assigned another commander.”
Kateri withdrew. Rina resumed her pacing. That the mission had been successful she couldn’t doubt, the results were still spitting out of the speakers. What she did not know yet was at what cost.
The retreat would be, as she’d told Kateri, temporary. She had to hope Lyon and Shaina truly had a way to entrap those reinforcements.
The door burst open this time, unlike Bratus’s timid approach. Rina’s heart jumped as Tark strode into the room. She had a brief moment of concern when she saw his left arm was bloodied, but it vanished in the moment he swept her up in a strong embrace.
“They’re running like scalded slimehogs, and sounding about the same,” he said.
“I heard,” she said. “Every quarter of the city is reporting it.”
He kissed her then, so fiercely she wished they were alone back in his cave. So fiercely she thought her knees would not hold her. And then they didn’t, and she was sagging against him even as she kissed him back.
“You’re hurt,” she said, trying to think through the haze of heat and pleasure he so easily stirred in her. “Bleeding.”
“Not mine,” he said, and kissed her again. But at last he seemed to realize they had an audience. A young one.
He turned to the boy.
“Rayden,” he said. “It is your grandfather who needs tending.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“It is but a scratch,” Tark said quickly. “He got it taking down a guard who tried to stop us. You should be very proud.”
The boy’s face lit up, and he scampered out into the chamber in search of his grandfather.
“However proud he is, it is nothing next to how proud I am,” Rina said.
Tark turned back to her. And she saw in his expression the truth of what Rayden had told her.
“Rina,” he said, and stopped, as if he couldn’t find the words. He even looked a little pale. She nearly smiled at the thought that this warrior who faced death again and again without quailing was shaken now. “I can make you no promise. This is war.”
“You are free from that need until this is over,” she told him.
He reached for her then, and for this moment she let herself settle into his arms as if they had all the time in the world.
“You’ve held Galatin once again, Bright Tarkson.”
He grimaced at the name, but said only, “For now.”
“And you will hold as long as necessary.”
“I will,” he said. “But I hope Dax gets here soon anyway.”
“He will. And the king will not be far behind.”
“Then we have a chance.”
She hugged him, ignoring the battle for the moment, thinking only that finally those words applied to them as well.
Chapter 46
“THEY HELD,” ROX exclaimed as the report over the slightly hissing connection ended. “The Coalition Ground Commander and half his staff are done for. The rest are scrambling madly.”
“Tark,” Dax said simply, but inwardly he was grinning.
“That boy is a fighter,” Hurcon said, a smile curving his heavy, Omegan face.
“Indeed he is,” Califa said, her voice oddly soft.
“I’m guessing his name is right alongside yours on the Coalition nightmare list,” Larcos said with a grin.
“Leave it to Tark to blow up their commander within hours of the first attack,” Rox said. He looked at Dax then. “There will be a lull, while they regroup.”
“Yes.” He saw in Rox’s eyes that the man knew what was coming. His first mate knew him well, after all these years.
“Once we were within range, I knew you wouldn’t be able to wait,” Rox said.
Dax turned to Larcos.
“It’s ready,” the engineer said before he even had to ask. “Armed, f
ueled, Galatin coordinates locked.”
“Am I so predictable?”
“Predictably reckless and insane, yes,” Larc said easily.
“She’s the fastest, most maneuverable thing we’ve ever built, Larc. And with the screening, she’s practically invisible.”
“Uh-huh. And it’s still the Coalition.”
“For now,” Dax said with a grin.
He looked at Califa. He saw the worry in her eyes, but also the steadiness of her gaze. “You must do what you must,” she said simply.
He kissed her then, fervently, thankfully. She had never asked him to be anything other than what he was, and he loved her all the more for that.
He turned to head back to the fighter bay. Nelcar, their medical officer, who had so far remained silent, spoke quietly as he passed.
“Bring them back safely, Dax.”
Dax felt his throat tighten. Many years had passed since they had flown together as the most feared skypirates in the system. But these men would ever back him, and they loved Rina and Shaina as if they were their own.
“I will,” he swore. He looked back over his shoulder at Rox. “Let Tark know I’m coming, or he’ll likely blast me out of the sky.”
“Copy that,” Rox said with a laugh that all of them echoed.
At last, Dax thought as he raced down the gangway to where the sleek, wedge-shaped fighter sat ready and waiting. He was finally doing something. Even if Shaina still hated him, she would be alive. He didn’t care just now if she threw stones at him, as long as she was there to do it.
“WHERE DO YOU suppose he went?” Shaina looked around warily for any sign of Mordred.
“No idea.” Lyon scanned the meadow. And found himself glad he saw nothing; he did not want the image of Mordred here etched into his mind. Not here, where they had first discovered that acceding to your destiny could be the most glorious thing on any world.
“I half expected to find him toasted, from throwing himself at the screen.”
“He did not rise to his position by being a fool,” Lyon said, his tongue instinctively testing the sore spot on his lip; it was better, but still tender enough to be a reminder. “But I do wonder how he escaped. If he did.”
Rebel Prince Page 32
