Captives of the Kratzen (Hearts in Orbit)

by S. C. Mitchell

  Kathryn placed a calming hand over Tina’s. “We’ll need to assault House la Cross. It’s the closest House. To avoid civil war, you must take back your throne. Only for a few minutes, but it has to be you. I am too tainted.”

  She shouldn’t have been. Damn Pavel.

  Across the table, Tanis ban Orman nodded. “There’s usually a space vessel or two on the House landing pad, Princess. We will make securing that our first objective. You could take a ship after we secure the palace, while we organize things for your return. One way or another, you need to return after, to rule House la Cross, or civil war is sure to break out.”

  Tina swallowed down the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Did Carter have that much time?

  But there was no other way.

  “I will. I promise. Thank you.”

  Tanis turned and exited the room, leaving Tina alone with Kathryn.

  Kathryn squeezed Tina’s hand. “He’ll do everything in his power to rush this along. We can only trust to the galactic gods we will be fast enough.”

  “He’s a good man. You’re lucky to have found him.”

  “Ha. He found me. And if he hadn’t, I’d have been dead.” Kathryn’s eyes darkened. “You know you weren’t supposed to be taken as a slave that day, right? Fenrus’s deal with the pirates was that we were all to be executed so he could gain control of the House free and clear of an heir. What the pirates had planned for me . . . what they almost did . . .”

  She closed her eyes. Shook her head.

  Kathryn had been sixteen, when the pirates sacked House la Cross. Because of Tina’s time spent with the pirates, she had no trouble visualizing what they would have done to Kathryn before they killed her. It would have been brutal.

  Pulling her up from her seat, Tina wrapped her arms around her cousin. Her gut steeled. “Today we take our vengeance.”

  She’d take the throne, then fly to Carter.

  Please, Carter, please still be alive.

  ~ ~ ~

  Carter lay on the beach, dragging his toes through the warm red sands. It should have been relaxing. But the long weeks without Tina had agitation niggling at the back of his neck. And now, a new setback.

  “Another week,” the doctors had told him.

  Another whole fracking week at least.

  New aches and pains wracked his body. Something insidious. Something the doctors couldn’t get a handle on.

  He should have been better by now. Why wasn’t his body healing?

  He drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly, as his therapist had recommended. It didn’t help.

  “Another beer, sir?” Anders stood beside him, a chilled bottle sparkling in the sunlight as condensation caused droplets of moisture to run down its length.

  Alcohol wouldn’t help either, though he’d certainly given it a good try.

  Then again, it wouldn’t hurt either . . . until the next day at least.

  “Thanks, Anders. Your timing is perfect.”

  The Quenderian had arrived a week ago. A gift from Tina. Someone to look after his every need.

  Not a bad sort, but he really didn’t need a servant. He was no longer so bad that he couldn’t get up and get his own beer. Well, he hadn’t been at the time. This new relapse, infection, whatever had him flat on his back again.

  He picked up the beer. Running the cold bottle around his sweat-drenched face, he relished the cool sensation. “Ahh.”

  “Carter. Don’t drink that.” Kirtl’s shout was filled with concern.

  What was his little friend doing here? Last he’d heard, Kirtl had gone back to his home planet of Blarm for a little vacation time of his own.

  A blaster shot rang out and Anders dropped to the sands.

  What the frack?

  Rolling to the side, Carter dropped from his lounger into the sand. His gaze raked the coastline for enemies only to find Kirtl standing alone, a smoking blaster in his hands. “What are you doing?”

  Kirtl harrumphed. “Saving your ass?”

  He must have picked up some new human colloquialisms. Saving your ass wasn’t something he’d ever heard Kirtl say before.

  It wasn’t surprising, considering he’d been to Blarm. Blarmlings had a shared brain. Any Blarmling returning home picks up any knowledge they missed from the world mind. With so many Blarmlings traveling to all corners of the galaxy, their shared knowledge was expanding exponentially. How they managed to process that much information was anybody’s guess.

  Blarmlings were amazing creatures.

  This particular Blarmling, on the other hand, was starting to annoy Carter. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Kirtl trundled over and offered him a hand up, which really didn’t help much considering the Blarmling was only about a meter tall, but Carter did appreciate the gesture.

  “Anders wasn’t sent by Tina, as he told you. He was sent by a Pavel Fenrus to kill you. He’s been slowly re-poisoning you to make it appear like you’ve been having a relapse. He recently received orders to finish you quickly. That bottle of beer contained a killing dose of whatever poison he’s been feeding you.”

  The bottle lay spilling into the sands. “Waste of good beer. What else do you know? Is Tina okay?”

  “I don’t know. As soon as we go get the antidote for the poison he’s already put in you, I suspect we need to go and find out.”

  “How did you know?” Kirtl couldn’t read Anders thoughts all the way from Blarm.

  Dumping the bottle over to completely drain the beer into the sand, Kirtle shrugged. “The local Blarmling judge made a trip back home this morning. I decided to check in with her about how you were doing and noted a strange thought from Anders in her mind she hadn’t had the time to interpret. I knew I had to get to you fast.”

  Thank the galactic gods, he’d arrived in time.

  Kirtl’s eyes narrowed. “You can say that again.”

  Rolling his eyes, Carter patted the top of Kirtl’s head. “I didn’t say it the first time.”

  “In any case, we need to get you to the doctor. I know what he used to poison you. There’s an antidote.” Kirtle tugged at Carter’s arm.

  With his toe, Carter nudged Anders where he lay unconscious. “What about him?”

  “I’ll take care of him.” A Galactic Marshal rushed toward them, blaster drawn. “Is everything okay here, Mr. Kirtl?”

  “Thank you, yes.” Kirtl pulled Carter toward the doctors’ offices.

  Carter forced aching joints to move.

  “Mr. Kirtl?” There had been a lot of respect in that officer’s tone.

  Kirtl chuckled. “An ambassador’s kid gets all the perks. I radioed the local Marshal on my way in.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The poison antidote put Carter well on the way to recovery. He felt much better within hours. Closer to his old self than he’d felt since coming out of cryo.

  Once Anders recovered, Kirtl was able to do a deeper probe of the man’s thoughts and knowledge to discover more information. Anders didn’t know Fenrus’s entire plan, but he did know that Fenrus needed Tina alive, and that he was trying to use and control her.

  Not going to happen, if I know Tina.

  She’d be safe enough until they could reach her.

  That helped Carter’s frustration at having to wait another day for the last of the poison to work its way through his system.

  A checkup, a boost of pain killers, and release from medical care . . . at last. “Let’s go.”

  An ancient P-86 starcruiser hissed gandasol fumes as the vessel hummed on the landing pad in the Caprica starport. It looked to be in top condition.

  Carter ran his hand along the side fin as he and Kirtl made their way toward the hatch. “Nicely restored. Is this really—”
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  “The one and only Blarmlings’ Hope. Dad let me borrow her for this run.”

  The actual ship.

  Amazing.

  Kirtl’s father, Ambassador Rigel Antares, was already the subject of numerous holovid documentaries, and a big-budget multiplex immersive 4-D Holodrama, entitled The Blarmling Dilemma, was set to hit the holographic theatres in a few months. And this ship was at the center of the whole story.

  Kirtl grunted. “Don’t go all starry-eyed on me. It’s just a ship.”

  Bounding up the steps, Carter scanned the flight deck. The area that once hosted the prisoner cell had been converted to comfortable seating, but otherwise the ship was as it would have been when Ambassador Antares was a down-on-his-luck spacer bounty hunter.

  Okay, one other slight difference. The pilot’s chair now sported a booster seat.

  “I have to be able to reach the controls, you know.” Kirtl hopped up into the command chair and closed the hatch, readying the ship for takeoff.

  Carter plopped down into the copilot position, checking the controls.

  An older configuration, but one he was familiar with from simulations at the Fleet Academy.

  “Course laid in for Quendor.” He’d been memorizing the coordinates as a way of killing time over the past day. It was the first place he planned to go once he got released.

  Kirtl launched and they were soon rocketing through space toward their first jump point.

  Easing back, Carter drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Waiting was going to be the hardest part of the trip to Quendor. Even knowing Fenrus needed her alive, didn’t stop the niggling feeling that she was far from safe.

  He needed a distraction. “Did you know she was a Quendorian princess?”

  Had the thought ever passed through Tina’s mind in range of Kirtl?

  The first jump position approached, and Kirtl’s hand hovered over the hyper drive control. “I knew about it almost from the first moment I met her. She thinks almost as loudly as you do.”

  Carter was thinking it, so he might as well say it. Kirtl would answer him anyway. “And you never thought, maybe, to share that with me? I thought we were friends.”

  The Blarmling hit the button to throw the ship into hyperspace, accelerating past the speed of light toward their destination. “I am Tina’s friend also, and hey, I know how to keep my friend’s secrets. Would you like me to tell her about that time you—?”

  “No.” Carter wasn’t sure which incident Kirtl was even talking about. It didn’t matter. He got the point.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tina motioned her team forward. “Blasters on stun. Remember, these are fellow Quendorians, no matter what their allegiance.”

  She would vent her anger only on Pavel.

  Ahead, two starcraft sat on the landing pad. The gaudy Palmarian ZP-47 star cruiser and a Blatmor Currier cargo freighter. She’d take the ZP-47 when she left to find Carter.

  Kathryn and Tanis led the bulk of their troops under cover of darkness, toward the palace. But they’d left Tina more than adequate troops to secure the landing pad before she joined them. She suspected this to be the safer mission. They needed her protected during the initial assault, but she’d refused to stay behind and let others fight and possibly die for her.

  “My blood is the same as anyone’s,” she’d argued.

  Kathryn had countered. “Right now, your blood is everything.”

  Five guards walked the landing pad. Any one of them could take her life with a correctly placed blaster shot. Her entire team was just as vulnerable.

  Jarvin Lentz, a distinguished, older gentleman, confronted her. “Princess Christina, please grant me the privilege of leading these troops into battle.”

  Tina sighed. What he was asking was to stand in front of her and take any blaster bolts that might come her way.

  Kathryn had cautioned her that her troops would do this out of love and respect for her title and bloodline, but it still took her by surprise. Quendor had many things that needed changing, but there was also honor here. And good people.

  Considering she wouldn’t do Carter any good if she were stunned or killed, she acquiesced. “May the galactic gods watch over you, Jarvin Lentz.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Maybe the galactic gods were watching over Jarvin Lentz, because he emerged from the battle unscathed. A short exchange of blaster shots prompted the surrender of the landing pad guards. When they learned it was their princess, one they’d been told had left the planet, the guards knelt and begged forgiveness of her.

  This royalty thing could easily go to her head, but at that moment she only had thoughts for Carter.

  She pointed toward the ZP-47. “Prepare that ship for takeoff. I’ll return for it soon.”

  The air above hummed suddenly with a rumble of an ion drive engine. All eyes scanned upward toward a different ship. One that rocketed toward them out of the clouds.

  The P-86 Starcruiser hovered overhead, and from its external speakers came a familiar, deep, resonant voice. “Tina? Kirtl tells me you’re down there somewhere. Don’t bother. We’re here.”

  Carter.

  Chapter 25

  The ship couldn’t land fast enough for Tina. She needed to see him. Hold him. Know that he was alive.

  Then the hatch opened, the ramp extended, and he was there.

  Carter, gods, alive and well at last.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in close. The bold scent of Tranzian Cedar filled her senses. “I’ve missed you.”

  He hugged her tight. “Tina, my Tina.”

  She wanted to stay right here in his arms forever.

  But she couldn’t. Events kept rolling. Her troops stood behind her waiting for orders.

  “We need to help Kathryn and Tanis take the Palace.” She reluctantly released him.

  His features sobered. “If that means I get a chance to punch Pavel Fenrus in the face, count me in.”

  Clenching her fist, she nodded. “You may have to stand in line.”

  She pulled away from him and swiveled toward her assault team. “Let’s go help Princess Kathryn take back our House.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Bodies lay strewn around the back entrance to the palace. Pavel’s House guard had put up a real fight here. Most appeared to be breathing and would recover but there had been casualties.

  “Damn it.” Tina gritted her teeth. Was the throne worth this?

  Carter put a hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”

  His support meant everything.

  She pointed to two of her team members, a young man and woman barely into their teens. Too young for this. “Stay here and take care of these people as best you can.”

  Motioning the rest of the team forward, she led them into the palace. With Carter at her side she felt emboldened, and no longer let any of her team draw fire away from her. If it was the will of the galactic gods that she sit on the throne of House la Cross, then they could protect her. If not, then it didn’t matter anyway.

  Blaster fire echoed down the hallway to the left and she quickened her pace, coming up on Kathryn, Tanis, and the rest of their force.

  Kathryn’s eyes shone brightly. “You’re just in time. They’ve barricaded themselves in the throne room, but they must know they’ve lost the day. We have all the exits covered. They won’t escape. Word spreads throughout the palace of your return.”

  Tina shifted her gaze to Kirtl. “What’s he thinking?”

  Kirtl’s eyes glazed. “Anger. Confusion. He can’t understand how his plan went so wrong. Looking for a way out.”

  Tina raised her voice. “Pavel, give it up. No one else has to die today.”

  “Others in the room confused. They hear your voice. H
e told them you had given up your right to the throne and returned to space.”

  Oh, the advantages of having a Blarmling on your side.

  “Hear me, my guardsmen. This is Princess Christina, your true monarch. Captain Fenrus has betrayed House la Cross. It is my order you take him into custody, but do not harm him.”

  A blaster shot rang out in the room beyond, followed shortly by another, then scuffling as something heavy was dragged away from the door.

  The door opened, and Tina straightened her back and strode through the doorway, trying to at least look the part.

  The grand throne room of House la Cross opened before her in all its glory. Even stripped of the rich tapestries and golden filigree that had once decorated it, the room had a majestic air. Pavel’s body lay on the floor behind the throne, but Tina noted his chest rising and falling.

  It may be that the man richly deserved death, but she wanted to know what had prompted his betrayal sixteen years ago, and what had driven him to keep up such a facade all these years.

  Kirtl would help there, once Pavel woke.

  The guardsmen in the room all fell to their knees. “Forgive us.”

  They had been as betrayed as she.

  “Stand up and rejoice with us. This is a day of unification. The day House la Cross is reestablished and Quendor takes its first steps toward democracy for all.”

  The guards stood as others entered the throne room.

  Was this what she really wanted? Did she even have a choice?

  This was the legacy of her father and her family. She was the heir. At least for now, she needed to keep of the facade of royalty.

  The crown of House la Cross lay on a pedestal, encased in glass. Tina shattered the glass and placed the crown on her head. No ceremony, no pomp. There wasn’t time, and she didn’t care anyway. Trying to show more confidence than she was actually feeling, she strode up the dais and sat on her father’s throne.