Ral’s voice was as calm as if he were explaining difficult concepts to a child. “It doesn’t matter what you want. The obligations and duties are the same.”
“I’m still a citizen of the Coalition!”
She wasn’t. At the Alpha’s request, the Coalition had revoked Seria’s citizenship. I didn’t even know that could be done.
I shoved the thought aside. I would take them to the remains of Dragonbelt at the edge of the known galaxy if that’s what it took to get back in my Starbolt.
Ral sat down next to her. “You’re blind if you think you can go back to San Chen, Seria.”
“Why can’t I? This is a Coalition ship heading for Coalition space.”
It was my cue to leave. I stood up.
She looked at me. “Isn’t it?”
Ral’s steady gaze trapped me. For a moment I felt frozen. But my training kicked in and I broke free with a forced smile.
I lightened my voice. “Of course. We’ll have you back where you belong in no time.”
Chapter Three
The orbital defenses around Ketu-7 were the most advanced weaponry money could buy. Thousands of silvery drone-spheres circled the planet, each one capable of frying our ship into micro-atoms in less time than it took to blink. The funding, the research, the calculations it took to create and deploy such systems on a wide scale was staggering.
And yet it was completely ridiculous.
I started laughing as I put in the appropriate calculations. It wasn’t just ridiculous, but completely absurd.
“What’s so funny?” asked the prince from behind, startling me.
I glanced at him and quickly looked back at the screen. “Any empire can buy an orbital defense system. But it takes real idiots to leave them set on the factory default algorithm.”
He somehow folded his massive bulk into the copilot chair next to me. Normally, non-Coalition citizens weren't allowed in here, but I figured it was better to keep him where I could see him. At least he was wearing a shirt this time, even if it was so tight on him it was like he didn’t have anything on at all.
“Which means…”
The cockpit was too small and he was too close. “You’re supposed to replace the algorithm with one of your own once you deploy them. The Tigrantines didn’t."
“You sure it’s not a trap?”
“It could be. But when you have a multi-level bureaucracy ruling planets across multiple systems, no. And military bureaucracies are the worst. All we have to do is wait and fly in when there’s an opening. Which should be coming…about…Now.”
I pulled back on the yoke and we picked up speed towards the planet.
The seat hummed as the Prince adjusted it to his size. “I need access to the stellarwebs. And a com line, as well.”
I granted him a floating screen. “Stellarweb access, I can do. But I’m under orders to notify you that all transmissions from this ship can and will be read by Coalition censors who will have the final say on what contents will be passed on to their destination.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. So, do all Unified Coalition pilots study the schematics of off-the-shelf orbital defenses? Or just Starbolt pilots?”
I had to reach past him to grab the screen floating on the other side of him. Was there a way I could do it and avoid physical contact? “It makes sense to know your enemy.”
His fingers drummed the armrest. “I think a dissertation is more than knowing your enemy.”
He actually looked through the old fashioned volumes on the little shelf in my quarters. In an act of sheer extravagance, my sister had given me an expensive printed and bound copy of my dissertation as a gift when I graduated. It was a nod to the physical books I had on board to read sometimes when I had to make the ship’s electronic signature dark.
His fingers kept drumming the armrest. I watched them, dangerously wondering what they would feel like against my skin.
“I found the footnotes quite interesting, especially your idea about doubling the coils on a pulsar ion drive and insulating it with frezane gas. Has the Coalition adopted this method?”
How did he know anything about starship engines? Another alert reminded me I needed that screen on the other side of him. I could ask him to pass me that screen, but then it would ask him if he should have access, and I would have to deny him access, which would probably lead to another argument. No choice but to initiate physical contact. I reached across him, brushing against his muscled arms. I hated how aware I was of exactly where his shirt and my skin touched. “No,” I said. “A steady supply of frezane gas—”
“Is too expensive.”
He watched me tap my screens quietly for several moments. I knew what I was doing but I hated that I felt so self-aware with him watching me. I knew what this was about—he thought he could seduce me into obeying his desires. That and the fact that he had broken out of prison meant he was intent on letting out some sexual frustration. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he wasn’t such a domineering jerk. And if this wasn’t a mission that my career rested on. I was not going to risk my Starbolt for anything, especially not with him.
He sat there watching me for several moments, with me ignoring him. I had almost succeeded in forgetting he was there but then he started talking again. “I studied everything I could on deep space engines up until a couple years ago, when Alpha told me I was needed with our ground forces.”
Was he trying to establish how much more he knew about this ship than I did? That was the wrong way to get into my exo-armor. I seized on politics, a topic designed to turn friends into enemies. “When are werewolves not at war with each other? Coalition troops have been on Alzar-4 for more than a decade now.”
There was a flare of something inhuman in his eyes. “It’s going to end soon. I'll make sure of that.”
I snorted. Did he really believe he could change the patterns of hundreds of years of clashes and conflicts? I looked over at him, his eyes intent at the screen. He looked every bit the warrior prince he was. But making peace required more than looking determined.
He exhaled. “The Houses that don’t believe in interstellar contact and trade are almost gone. We’re close to establishing a unified planet. And once that’s done, we’ll be better prepared to deal with future threats.”
The blood drained from my face. If he was saying the galactic peace wasn’t going to last, then the peace was almost definitely not going to last. “Like the Protectorate.”
“It’s only a matter of time before the tigers turn their full attention to us. Again. Despite our shared origins, I’m not going to sit back and let my planet be turned into a colony.”
And now, just like that, the Two Hundred Year Peace was going to end.
I gripped the yoke a little more tightly. “Is that what the war on Alzar-4 is about?”
“I have to make sure our people are protected. From all threats.”
“And of course, taking your unwilling sister back to your father is part of it.”
“It’s the price of being a princess of Nightclaw. There is no freedom for anyone if we are slaves to the tigers.”
It was too high a price if you asked me, but then, I was just another pilot.
He didn’t respond. Then in a voice almost too low for me to hear, “I helped her escape.”
I kept my gaze focused ahead. “I was told you were tracking her down.”
He opened a small view screen in front of him, one that tracked our ship’s progress across the system. “I was trying to give her time to escape, to escort her somewhere she would have the freedom to be safe.”
A screen showed a group of asteroids coming within range. I opened another screen and began calculating course adjustments. “I thought defying an Alpha was punished rather severely.”
He tapped on the screen examining the list of floating cities, habitable planets and other nearby way stations. “My father will forgive my mistakes.”
The rule of flying in deep space was
to occasionally update yourself on where you were, in the event of an emergency evacuation. It was always important to know the location of the nearest habited space. I tapped another display and made sure the list would appear in the princess’s quarters. “Must be nice to be the favored son.”
“I’ll still be punished when we return. He won’t help me get my people out of there. I have to go back.”
I shouldn’t ask. “How many did you leave behind?”
There was no reaction, no movement, no change in expression, and yet something tensed between us all the same. “Three,” he said finally in a grim voice.
Weight was a serious consideration on deep space vessels that non-pilots often thought was a non-issue. I sighed. “I can recommend pilots that might be able to help you once we arrive at Chaandrayan Station.”
He leaned on my armrest, invading my space with that alpha trick again. “What will it take for you to help me?”
His mouth was too close to my ear, his voice too intimate. But I couldn’t move away from him; it would show too much weakness. “You know unusual things about space engines. So I’m guessing you at least know how to fly deep space.”
He grabbed my other armrest, spun me to face him, his eyes with an interested gleam. “I can do deep.”
I put my feet on the ground and moved my chair back. “The Starbolt is like nothing you’ve ever flown before. It’s a fighter pilot’s dream. Fast, deadly and responsive as a mind-reading lover. When you fly a Starbolt it’s like you could take on everyone in the universe on your own, you’re unstoppable. I’ve fought my whole life to be the pilot of a Starbolt. Once this mission is complete, I’ll get mine back. Short of the next generation of Starbolt-class fighter, there’s nothing you can offer.”
He was quiet for a moment. “We’ll see.”
Hours later, I watched on screen as the planet grew closer.
With blue skies, salty oceans, and vast rainforests at the equator, Ketu-7 looked more like First Earth than other more inhabited planets. Why had this planet not been settled? I ran a quick search on Ketu-7 but the Coalition didn’t have much. It had never been contested, and had always been pretty firmly claimed by the Tigrantines.
Ral returned to the cockpit. Where he had gone earlier, I didn’t know and frankly, didn’t care.
Or so I kept telling myself.
“We have to avoid the Tigrantine bases, which shouldn’t be too hard to do.”
“There are four of them. Do you have an idea of how many tigers are usually stationed on a base?”
I had to think about it. This was a question that ground troopers would know in their sleep. “About 5,000.”
He nodded. “20,000 soldiers is a lot to send to an uninhabited planet. It’s not just the soldiers, it’s the support, the infrastructure, the expense. That’s not something you do for any rock in space. They’re up to something.”
I let out a sigh. “Let me guess. You want to divert course to investigate.”
“If the Princess were not on this ship, yes. But we can’t risk her safety. When you leave the ship to complete your repairs I will come with you. You need protection.”
“If I were a man, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”
He made some wolf-like growl. “You’re not a shifter.”
I didn’t know if species-ism was worse than sexism. “I guarantee you I can take care of myself.”
“Nonetheless, I am coming with you.”
Clearly saving his life didn’t mean a damn. “Don’t you have an injured sister to take care of?”
“I am taking care of her. Our best chance of getting to safety is to make sure our pilot is not attacked or eaten by strange alien beasts. As long as my sister remains on the ship, she will be safe.”
The only danger I was in was of hurting this idiot and causing an international galactic incident that would almost certainly lead to a court martial. If Ral got attacked, it would be on my record. Although after watching him take on six tigers alone, I was fairly certain he would be able to handle himself.
I looked at him, taking in his once again shirtless form. It was a matter of math. He was eye-catching because his musculature was so deliciously symmetrical.
Fucking math.
I sighed. “Fine, come along. Make sure you’re actually wearing clothing.”
I could hear the grin in his voice. “Does my lack of clothing make you nervous?”
“No. Just don’t want to have to explain how your precious royalness died from alien plant poisoning because he was too stupid to wear a shirt.”
My faceplate shielded my eyes, but I still needed to adjust the dimming function to the overly bright sun of Ketu-7. It had been a while since I had been on any habitable planet that actually had plants let alone an actual unharvested forest; most of my work was based out of the artificial floating space cities or on free standing military space stations.
Something fell on my arm and I nearly jumped halfway to one of the two moons. I looked again. A leaf. It had fallen. Yup, this was foreign territory for me.
Ketu-7 may have looked like First Earth, but the higher level gravity was a force to contend with. Without my exo-armor, I would feel twice as heavy as I actually was, which would make me feel like I was swimming and breathing quantarian exhaust. In my exo-armor, it wasn’t an issue. I could run kilometers, lift aircars and punch a hole through starsteel walls.
Ral practically gamboled out of the ship after me, wearing nothing but an ordinary military gray jumpsuit, adjusting to the high gravity without a problem. Then again, Alzar-4 -- the home of the werewolves – was also a high gravity planet.
He went past me, jogging around the clearing, taking in the scent and shape of the alien world. It was ridiculous how he even managed to make that awful military gray jumpsuit look not only good, but dangerous. The man could probably wear nothing but a loincloth and still be threatening.
Goosebumps sprang up all over my skin at that thought. I hastily buried that rather distracting image deep in my mind.
He came to stand next to me. I turned to face the ship. It towered over me, as tall as a three-level building. For the most part, Star Serpents were typically functional and sturdy spaceships, but they always looked like they’d flown through a dump with a magnet. I looked up, trying to figure out a good place to work beyond the various protrusions and dents and spotted a large flat area to the rear. Yes, that would do.
I paused and my old fear of heights punched me in the chest once more. Yeah, yeah, I had heard all the jokes in the Academy, a pilot being afraid of heights. But flying in the vastness of space was different than teetering over the edge of some flimsy structure so far from the ground.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” I’d have been better if he hadn’t been standing next to me. I took a breath, and jumped.
I looked up again noticing an access ledge midway between the ground and Gigi’s topside. I could grab that if I fell.
I caught the topside edge and scrambled on top of the ship, something that would have been impossible without my exo-armor.
I lay back on the roof, looking up at the sky for several moments.
He stood above me. He must have jumped up almost exactly as I had. Only without exo-armor. Probably more gracefully.
He grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights, Captain.”
I made myself get up, or rather, ordered my exo-armor to move me upwards. Focus on the task at hand. “We have a job to do.” I picked a pry bar out of my kit and walked towards the tail end, then jammed it into a seam on the starboard side. “Shouldn’t you be keeping watch, making sure nothing is going to come attacking out of the bushes?”
“Your ship has better senses than I do, and will alert you faster than I could.”
“Congratulations for finally realizing that. What is the point of you being out here?”
He gave me a smirk that had no right to be so sexy. I didn’t know it was possible for me to want
to fuck and hit someone at the same time. “I wanted to see what you are doing.”
Yes, an audience was what I needed, because it helped me fix things so nicely last time. Clearly his secret motive was to annoy the hell out of me. Did he take management lessons at the University of You-Must-Obey-Or-Else-I-Will-Harass-You-to-Death? “Why do you care?”
“Why do you think I don’t?”
Still not going to look at him. “Because you’re an arrogant handsome son-of-a-bitch who expects your every desire fulfilled immediately.” Oh no. Did I really tell him he was handsome? Well it wasn’t something he didn’t already know. I could see him smiling out of the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
“I’m not used to having my requests denied.”
Spoiled prince. “There's a first time for everything.”
His words echoed in my head. And then I realized it wasn’t the words that were echoing.
Everything else in the forest had gone completely silent.
My exo-armor crackled with electricity, a defensive response to my sudden wariness.
And then something massive, white, furry and full of sharp teeth rushed us.
Ral shoved himself in front of me, and leaped for the monster. The two fell off the roof of the ship. I scrambled to the edge and saw a massive white wolf circling the thing. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was a tiger shifter. It was certainly as big, fast, and strong as a tiger shifter, but its movements were oddly hitched.
It circled Ral’s white wolf form silently, even as Ral growled at the thing.
And it had no heat signature. No wonder the damn ship didn’t sense it.
“Computers, new targets have no heat signature, track based on motion and speed.”
Multiple targets bubbled into existence in my vision. Two more leapt from the trees. I fired. It exploded in a burst of light, but the second one dodged. With a single paw swipe, it knocked me off the roof. I fell, hitting the ground hard. I tried to get up, but the thing leapt on top of me. Teeth the length of my forearms crunched around my face, darkening my vision. The visor held, but the alerts beeped as the bar showing my suit’s protective level shrank.
Wanted By The Werewolf Prince: a paranormal space adventure fantasy romance (Space Shifters Chronicles Book 1) Page 3
