by K. B. Wagers
There were fourteen other families on board, sacrificial lambs if one were to be honest. Colonization of other worlds was a brutal business in the early days. Long travel times from Earth coupled with unknown hazards meant the scout ships were on their own.
There was always a possibility that the first surveys and scouts missed something important after all, and Earth learned their lesson the hard way. Hundreds of thousands of people perished in the early days from a random strain of bacteria, oddly aggressive plant life, the air mixture shifting with the seasons. Any one thing or a combination of things could wipe out the settlers faster than they could call for help, and certainly faster than help could arrive.
The new system of sending down a small group of families was the easiest solution. If they were still alive when the other ships got there, it was assumed safe. If they weren’t, the planet was X-ed from the habitable planet list.
For many families—mine included—it was worth the risk. Being a front family meant you were given certain privileges. First pick of land, a seat on the ruling council, a bonus payment if you survived until the ships came.
Or a death bonus for your family if you didn’t.
My ancestor’s husband and several other men didn’t survive, succumbing to space madness; but their wives and children did, and my ancestor was savvy enough to keep her husband’s spot on the Earth-appointed council.
She and her descendants held on to that spot and what amounted to control of the colony all the way up to the break with Earth, and after the dust from that ruckus settled, the empire was born: an empire ruled by women, my ancestor at the head, backed by the women of the other original families.
Those fourteen women made up the Matriarch Council; their daughters and other selected female nobles made up the Ancillary. Even today, this system held in place.
I understood what they’d been working toward. The gender politics of certain areas of the Solarian Conglomerate at the time weren’t stellar, and colonization efforts tended to scrape from the more desperate levels of society. In the early days of colonization, women were treated more as breeding stock than explorers with equal rights. However, like so many great ideas, they took it too far.
I pressed my hands to the window as Pashati swelled until the blackness of space was lost to the dark blue of the night side of the planet. I was going back to everything I hated, and the thought of it was a fist around my heart.
“Highness, we should head for the cargo bay,” Emmory said.
“Of course. Captain, thank you for the use of your ship.”
“It’s an honor to serve, ma’am.” Captain Hafin saluted me.
“Lead the way, Tracker,” I replied with a wave of my hand, privately horrified at how easily commands came out of my mouth in that frozen royal tone.
Time, it seemed, didn’t change much at all.
I followed Emmory down the corridor, with Zin and the two ITS troops at my back and the familiar hum of a ship in spaceflight vibrating the floor under my feet. I felt it shift, the vibration growing darker, heralding our entrance into the planet’s atmosphere.
We hit a set of stairs leading downward, and I stumbled as the ship shook more violently than normal.
Zin grabbed me by the upper arm to steady me. “Careful, Highness,” he said.
“Thanks.” I mustered up a smile.
Zin released me with an answering smile that was genuine. The man apparently didn’t hold grudges. “Everything will be okay, Highness.”
I wished I could believe him, but my stomach was a mass of ugly knots and I’d survived for too damn long on my instincts to ignore them now. This whole thing was going to get far worse before it got better.
But I couldn’t tell him all that, so instead I followed Emmory the rest of the way down, through another corridor, and into a wide bay.
Five people were already there, waiting. Their laughter cut off abruptly when someone spotted us and all of them jerked to attention. I spotted Fasé’s red hair in the circle of ITS members.
“Your Imperial Highness.” The voice coming from the stout woman was familiar as she greeted me with a surprisingly elegant bow for someone her size. “Captain Ilyia Gill. Allow me to apologize for pointing our weapons at you earlier. We were not aware you would be on that ship.”
“Forgiven, Captain,” I replied with a dip of my head.
“Trackers.” She nodded sharply at Emmory and Zin.
“Captain,” Emmory said.
The ship shook again, and both Emmory and Gill reached out to steady me this time.
Welcome to your old life, Princess.
I had to swallow my snarl at the thought. The captain didn’t deserve it, and if I was going to be honest, Emmory didn’t really either. They were just doing their jobs—their duty.
I wanted to scream.
“Highness?” Zin said as Emmory shook a cloak out, the flat black material eating the light that touched it.
“I’m skulking into the palace, Tracker?”
Emmory handed it off to Zin. Their hands brushed and the pair shared a brief smile. An image of Portis smiling at me like that swept through me and the ache almost put me on my knees.
“For your protection, Highness,” Emmory answered, looking back at me. “Given the circumstances, we thought it prudent. We’ve tried to make your arrival as unobtrusive as possible, but word will get out. The press can’t get onto the landing pad, but they will probably be as close as possible.”
I felt a little trill of panic at his words. I hadn’t read nearly enough of those files from Cire. I was walking blind into what very well could be a trap.
Wouldn’t be the first time, Cressen.
I straightened my shoulders as Zin draped the cloak over them. He pulled the hood up, and must have spotted the expression on my face because his stone gaze softened. “All will be well, Highness. I promise you.”
“You keep saying that. I hope you’re right, Tracker.”
Zin fell back behind me, while Emmory stayed at my side, just slightly in front of me, and icy fingers walked up my spine.
He’d take a shot for me.
He’d just met me, and even though we knew I hadn’t killed his brother, he clearly didn’t like me. Yet here we were. He’d give his life for me without hesitation. Either of them would. Buggered loyal fools. Those icy fingers wrapped around my spine and pulled.
Portis and I, we’d saved each other’s lives more times than I could count. Because we knew each other, because we’d cared for each other—or so I thought.
This kind of blind devotion had been one of the many reasons I’d stayed away. I didn’t want meaningless pleasantries to my face while someone stabbed me in the back. I wanted people who actually cared for me.
But I’d learned a long time ago that what I wanted and what the universe wanted rarely matched up.
Captain Gill’s squad formed up around us. I couldn’t stop the insane whirling of my mind as we disembarked the Para Sahi and crossed the tarmac at a speed just short of a run.
5
A wind as sharp as daggers drove through the fabric of cloak and clothing. It was winter in the northern hemisphere of Pashati. I was blinded by the lights of the landing pad, helplessly herded through the driving snow by the soldiers around me. Their shouted orders and the calls from the media just outside the fence filled my ears. Then we were inside, and a blessed silence descended.
“Keep it up,” Emmory hissed when I moved to push my hood back. We marched forward, past the gawking onlookers, and into a side corridor barred with a heavy metal door. The two BodyGuards in battle armor didn’t salute as we approached, and I heard the all-too-familiar whine of weaponry being powered up.
Emmory pulled down my hood and stepped forward.
“Scanning.” The hollow voice came from one of the Guards, indistinguishable as female or male, though the former was more likely. “Confirmed, Tracker Emmorlien Haris Tresk, Level Eight.”
Level eight? I nearly swal
lowed my tongue. Tracker levels were determined upon their entry to the program through a series of tests. It was less a rank and more a way to track the innate skill people like Emmory and Zin were born with.
Emmory was a damned expert tracker, the highest rank they had. Even if Portis hadn’t ratted me out, Emmory and Zin would have found me eventually.
“Confirmed, Tracker Starzin Hafin, Level Five. Visual scan commencing. Cressen Stone, identified. Gunrunner wanted on seventy-eight counts of arms trafficking and three counts of petty theft by the Solarian Conglomerate, forty-three counts of assault with a deadly weapon by the Galactic Security Board in addition to another one hundred and six counts of—”
“We’ll be here all night if you try to list everything,” I said, holding my hand up to the Guard. “Get on with it.”
“DNA scan commencing.” The woman slid up her faceplate and pressed her gloved hand to mine. “Cressen Stone, identified.”
The tension ratcheted up a notch. I examined my nails with a poorly concealed smile. Apparently, that mod was even better than I could have hoped for if it was fooling a palace Guard.
“I have record of a confirmed scan,” Emmory said.
“Your scan cannot be counted as verified, Tracker. Commencing with deep scan.” The Guard closed her hand around my wrist. The heat was immediate and intense and pretty much burned away any hope that had sprung to life about dodging this mess.
“Confirmed, Her Imperial Highness Hailimi Mercedes Jaya Bristol. Second daughter of Empress Mercedes Aadita Constance Bristol, and Heir to the Throne of Indrana.”
“Gods damn, that’s a mouthful,” I muttered. Someone behind me choked on a laugh. The soldier frowned at me.
“You are cleared to enter the palace,” she said. “Not the Squad,” she continued when we all stepped forward.
“The ITS should have been cleared,” Emmory protested.
“They are not. Proceed alone.”
I dared a glance behind me, and caught Fasé’s tentative smile. There was no time for one of my own as Emmory took me by the arm and propelled me through the now opened door. It slammed shut behind the three of us.
That frozen hand of unease was still wrapped around my spine. The booming sound of the door made it tighten further, and I felt my knees go weak.
“I don’t like this.”
“I’m in agreement with you, Highness.”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud until Emmory answered me. He released my arm and we continued in tense silence down the hallway, the rough-cut rock walls giving way to smooth-polished obsidian then white marble with bluish veins as we turned left, right, and then left again.
I’d taken this passage twice before in my life; the first time at the age of four after the state funeral for my grandmother. My father had carried me. Cire walked next to him, and Mother carried Pace until we reached the ornate double doors at the end of the tunnel.
She’d stopped just inside them and knelt on the ground, still holding Pace. Father set me down as Mother gestured us closer.
“I love you all,” she said with a reassuring smile, still our mother even though she looked so regal in the heavy brocade of her coronation sari. “Remember that, and nothing’s going to change.”
God, how she’d lied. Everything changed when we walked through those doors. Everything.
The second time I’d walked this corridor had been for my father’s funeral. A casket, my weeping sisters, and my granite-faced empress-mother, who had no time for softness in the face of a war.
I balked when we reached the ornate doors, bumping into Zin’s solid chest. He closed big hands on my shoulders with a murmured apology.
These doors looked like pretty things, decorated with a painting of Indrana’s break from the Conglomerate in the sixth century of Gaia Diaspora. But I knew from my long-ago studies that they were five feet thick, bonded metal, and virtually impenetrable.
“Highness?”
“Give me a moment, please?” I hated to beg on principle, and doing it to the men responsible for landing me in this mess seemed even more humiliating. But I needed a gods-damned minute before I walked through those doors and into the throne room. Even if all I could use it for was to lament the life I was leaving behind.
It’s all gone, Hail. I heard my father’s voice again, a long forgotten memory shooting to the surface. You can weep about it or get on with things. I can’t make the choice for you, but for my part, I never much cared for crying over spilled milk.
I threw my shoulders back, tipped my chin up, and let the royal mask slip into place. “All right,” I snarled. “Let’s get this fucking production over with.” I took a deep breath and pushed the doors open.
The massive chamber was packed to the gills—even at 2 a.m.—with nobility and anyone else who could wrangle an invitation to my homecoming. Nothing like this had happened in the history of Indrana, and more than a thousand pairs of eyes stared at me in breathless anticipation.
The stillness in the throne room couldn’t have been more absolute if someone had dropped a silencer-nuke.
However, the whispers started before I reached the halfway point, growing like a rolling wave on the Lakshitani Sea.
I kept my eyes fixed on the golden rays protruding from the top of the throne rather than looking at my mother as I walked over the slick white marble floor.
We hit the line of jagged black stone, the obsidian jutting up in sharp spikes from the smooth floor. No one, not even family, crossed the line without the empress’s permission.
I dropped to my knees. Nearly twenty years of habit had me almost keeping my eyes up. A necessary requirement in Po-Sin’s company, it would have really started things off on a sour note with Mother—the kind of sour notes that ended up with someone bleeding. So instead I lowered my eyes and bowed until my face was just a hairsbreadth from the sharp edges of the rock. Emmory and Zin flanked me, echoing the motion.
“Mother,” I said, without looking up. “I am come home.” My voice echoed throughout the room, silencing the whispers.
“Two deep scans confirmed and still we are reluctant to believe it.” Mother’s voice didn’t sound any different, that same biting derision and weary annoyance I’d suffered for years. “Child, what have you done to your hair?”
There was more murmuring in the crowd, and I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood. Answering that question would be a bad idea.
“Your Imperial Majesty—” a smooth voice started to speak.
“Yes, we know,” Mother said under her breath. She raised her rich voice so it rang through the room. “You’ve seen her, vultures. Now get out and let us talk to our heir in peace.”
I flinched at the word. Heir. I was the gods-damned Heir to the Throne.
My Trackers didn’t move from my side, remaining still with their palms pressed to the white marble just in front of the barrier. I stayed on my knees, listening to my joints protest and trying not to drip sweat onto the jagged rock about to kiss my face while the royal court filed out, taking their sweet-assed time.
“Get up.” The command was somewhat strained, and I rocked back on my heels, rising easily to my feet. Emmory rose with equal grace, while Zin pushed to one knee and then stood. I filed away the idea that his left leg might not support his weight. It could come in handy later.
Then I looked up, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to gasp. This wasn’t the loving mother I remembered from my childhood. It wasn’t even the iron-cold bitch of an empress I’d come to despise.
Mother looked old, far older than she should have. There was silver woven through her black curls, and her dark skin was aged and creased with lines.
“Hailimi.” Mother’s cool greeting shook me from my shock.
“Namasté, Mother.” I folded my hands together, pressing them both to my forehead as I gave the traditional greeting. It was an old ritual my ancestors had brought from Earth, resurrected here in our new home among the stars. “It is a g
reat pleasure to see you well.”
Ven wasn’t in his spot. I longed to ask what had happened to Mother’s Ekam. But I’d learned a long time ago that interrupting my mother fell in the category of Extremely Bad Ideas.
The new BodyGuard at her side was unfamiliar. His angular golden face looked like it had been fashioned by a lazy god with a razor. He raked unusual light blue eyes over me, and they were filled with disdain he couldn’t quite hide.
“Since we are not well, we are also not surprised to hear you say that.” Mother snorted, smoothing a hand over the skirt of her crimson dress, and flicked her black eyes to Emmory and Zin. “You’ve done us a great service, Trackers. How can we repay you?”
“We need no payment, Your Majesty. It was our duty,” Emmory replied. “One we were happy to provide for the good of the empire.”
I choked down the laugh at that cowshit. Always for the good of the empire. No one gave a shit about the good of Hail.
Mother’s Ekam watched the exchange between my mother and Emmory with detached interest. A woman stood next to him. She was about my age, and stood at attention in a dress uniform of shimmering black and crimson. She was too damn pretty for her own good, with black dreadlocks pulled back into a short ponytail.
“Nevertheless.” Mother smiled at Emmory, and I recognized the sly look as it slipped across her face.
Brace yourselves, everyone.
“You’ve already shown excellent judgment where our wayward daughter is concerned. We think we’ll continue along that path. Bial, we will have Emmorlien take over BodyGuard duties for the princess. He shall be Ekam.”
Oh, bugger me.
Emmory’s head whipped up and he very nearly made the fatal mistake of arguing with my mother. I reached out, digging my fingers into his forearm, and cut off his protest.
Cire had said keep him close, and even though Mother probably meant it to be an insult, I’d take it. He couldn’t get much closer than my damn primary BodyGuard.
