Rebel Princess

by Bancroft, Blair

  As the door closed behind him, Kass propped her chin in her hands, gazing sightlessly at the thick blue carpet that covered the faustone floor. Tears came at last. She wept for her own stupidity, for Tal Rigel, for Psyclid. For all the might-have-beens.

  Finally, reason sneaked through, reminding her the Academy had trained her to kill, and no amount of tears would reverse time. She had killed Olin Lusk with a torrent of books. Tal Rigel was dead. Regulon boots trampled Psyclid soil.

  Kass raised her watery eyes to the tri-photo on the wall. Psyclid’s Blue Moon rising over the Azulian Sea. How could she have been so young and foolish, leaving the beauty of Psyclid behind? The even tenor of Psyclid days. The tolerance. The intellectual stimulation. The love of family and friends. Yet she’d turned her back on her country, yearning for something more.

  She’d found it. And watched her dreams turned to cosmic dust.

  Now she was about to be torn from her cozy nest and thrust under the frenzied gaze of scientists who would demand to know how she’d done it.

  Or would she be slated for execution? Sub rosa, of course. Mustn’t let anyone know the rumors about Psyclids were true. Mustn’t let anyone know a Psyclid had been hidden for four years in the Interplanetary Archives.

  If she had the choice of doing it over . . . she’d kill the son of an Altairian bottom-feeder all over again.

  By the official calendar of Regula Prime

  Eight days later

  Cort Baran’s round face and gray eyes remained gloomy as an army of workers came and went—too many to assume that word wouldn’t get out. Kass never left her room. Meals arrived only when workers weren’t present. She was losing weight. At least she had her portapad and could follow the public speculation. “Earthquake Hits Archives. Security Guard Killed.” But that was the best of the headlines. Rumors were rampant, including talk of Psyclid taking revenge by interfering with the laws of nature. A suggestion that met with sarcasm from many. After all, if Psyclids could disrupt the laws of nature, why choose the Interplanetary Archives?

  But was anyone going to believe this wise bit of common sense? Kass wondered. She could almost hear the countdown, her days tick-tocking into . . . oblivion? Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide the mess she’d made, but the massive, rock-solid edifice of the Regulon Interplanetary Archives was crumbling around her. The secrecy of her prison was compromised, her days here numbered.

  Maybe honor wasn’t all the legends and poets said it was. Maybe she should have thought of home and country and let Lusk have her. Olin Lusk in place of her phantom lover, Tal Rigel? Kass’s stomach heaved. No, she hadn’t fallen that far. Not yet. Not ever.

  Nor was it safe to think of such sickening topics while perched on top of a ladder three meters high. For the past two days, Cort had allowed her into the Archives to begin the enormous task of restoring order to the haphazard shelving done by workers intent only on getting the books back on the racks. Any rack, any shelf. Three black metal racks, four meters tall and five meters wide, had toppled onto the Archives’ faustone floor. And onto Olin Lusk. So for Kass, this was penance. Demanding work, half of it conducted perched at odd angles on a rolling ladder tall enough for Regulons to reach the upper shelves, but not a female Psyclid.

  She was on the top step, standing on tiptoe, clinging to a shelf with one hand and reaching for two works on twenty-second century astronomy, when she heard the whoosh of the fan-vault doors. Lunchtime already?

  “Kiolani.” Warning and distress in a single word. Kass looked down, her head whirled. She white-knuckled the ladder, stiffened her noodling legs. She would not let them see her cringe. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been expecting . . .

  No. Deep-down she’d thought Cort wrong. Her mystery guardian would smooth the ruffled waters, her routine soon settling back to normal. All would be well.

  But standing below her were two armed men. Not Fleet, but Imperial Marines, space-going enforcement officers. Both looked vaguely familiar—perhaps from the Perseus Club long ago. Marines caught the eye, after all, their red uniforms, piped in blue, standing out in a room crowded with Fleet gray.

  Slowly, Kass backed down the ladder. When her feet were flat on the floor, she ignored the marines, turning a questioning look on the one friend she had left. At least she thought Cort Baran a friend. Maybe not.

  His round face seemed to have crumpled in on itself, aging five years in five minutes. “Kiolani, I have examined the papers these men have brought. All seems to be in order. You are being transferred to Fleet Medical—”

  Lab rat. She was going to be a lab rat. Endless experiments. And when the doctors were finished, having learned nothing, they would take her brain apart.

  I am L’ira Faelle Maedan Orlondami. I will survive.

  Right. Big name, little comfort.

  “I am sorry, Kiolani,” Cort was saying. Poor man, he looked as if he were about to cry.

  Once again, Kass called on the formal training, the noblesse oblige, taught from babyhood. “You have done your job well, Baran. I regret my actions have brought an end to our time here. I am grateful for your kindness. May Omnovah bless you and your family.” Stepping forward, she kissed him on the cheek.

  Kass turned toward the marines. “Am I allowed to pack?”

  “If you do it quickly,” said the one wearing the insignia of a lieutenant. The other, she noted, wore sergeant’s stripes.

  “Goodbye, Baran,” Kass murmured to the stricken guard ten minutes later as the men hustled her out the door, one in front and one behind. The glare struck hard as a physical blow, blinding her. Four years without sunlight had taken its toll. The lieutenant grabbed her arm and shoved her into some kind of vehicle. Kass’s vision began to clear as the shadow shape of the sergeant was climbing in next to the driver.

  “Go!” the lieutenant barked. “We’re seven minutes behind schedule. Didn’t think the old man would be so suspicious. Took half a day over those papers”

  Old man? Cort Baran? A tight schedule for a simple transfer? Suspicious about what?

  Kass gasped as the groundcar shot straight up. Not a groundcar. Hovercraft. Pok! She’d been too blinded by the sun to see the rotors. A genuine hovercraft. Very special treatment indeed. Kass had only a glimpse of the vast red-tiled roof of the Archives building before they were racing over rooftops, zipping around the tallest buildings, clearly headed out of town as rapidly as possible.

  In spite of the circumstances, Kass stared out the broad windows, fascinated by her view of the city of Titan from the air. Wondrous. Not the delicate beauty of buildings on Psyclid, but a panorama of power, the achievement of a planet bent on demonstrating its supremacy. Towers, arches, spires, fountains casting rainbows under the late afternoon sun. The scurry of groundcars on massive roadways, skimmers darting just overhead, rapid transvans barreling along on the next level up. Buildings of stark white moonstone and gleaming obsidian, red roofs, green parks, ornamental lakes . . .

  Except . . . something wasn’t right. It was afternoon, and the sun was in the wrong direction. Or the hovercraft was headed in the opposite direction from Fleet Med, which was only a few kilometers beyond Fleet HQ. Kass’s pulse soared. Goddess, blessed goddess . . . did she dare hope? Or was she headed toward worse than she’d allowed herself to imagine? She was in a military hovercraft with two unidentified men. Was she being taken to a new prison . . . or were they planning to drop her into the nearest lake?

  As the city buildings grew lower, smaller, and farther apart, Kass could see forest ahead, with a ribbon of road winding through it. The road to the mountains. So . . . was it to be a rustic cabin prison or drowning in an icy lake?

  No matter how cool she managed to look, her brain was close to overload.This simply wasn’t happening.

  She had not killed Olin Lusk.

  Tal Rigel did not die.

  She hadn’t spent four years in solitary confinement.

  Tal Rigel did not die.

  She was not bei
ng kidnapped by Imperial Marines.

  The sergeant in the front seat had his eyes on a viewscreen and was giving orders to the pilot. “We’ve made up the time, sir,” he called over his shoulder to the lieutenant. “Everything looks good below. Shall I signal, sir?”

  “Do it.”

  Murmured words into a comm unit, and the hovercraft made an abrupt descent into a modest-size clearing in the woods. Kass blinked as several men scrambled out of the trees and began an odd dance about fifty meters ahead. What . . . ?

  She craned her neck to see around the pilot. In the time it took the hovercraft to land, a shuttle had miraculously appeared. A shuttle like the one used to transport cadets from the Academy landing field to Orion, in orbit above. A shuttle now visible because the dancing men had actually been removing the heavy camouflage nets that had hidden it from view.

  “Move it!” the lieutenant ordered. “If Security decides to check us out, we’re in trouble.”

  Dimi! If they were avoiding Regula Prime Security, who had snatched her this time? Imperial Marines operating without sanction were more than scary. Maybe gang rape and degradation had caught up with her at last. Kass looked longingly at the woods, but knew she’d never make it. For a fragile Psyclid who’d spent four sedentary years in a library outrunning marines in prime condition was sheer fantasy.

  The lieutenant hauled her up the shuttle’s ramp and shoved her into a seat. He dropped into the seat beside her, the sergeant across the aisle. The outer door clanged shut. They strapped in just in time. The shuttle shot up so quickly they were several kilometers above Regula Prime before Kass caught her breath.

  “Fyd!” a voice roared from the cockpit. “They’ve scrambled Tau-15s. Two of them. Kiolani, get up here. We need malfunctioning trajectories.”

  Chapter 5

  Tal Rigel, sitting in the pilot’s seat, turned his head and peered through the opening into the compartment behind him. Anton Stagg was prying Kass’s frozen fingers off her shoulder harness, hauling her to her feet, propelling her forward. Fyd! He’d shocked her catatonic. Not the way he’d planned it at all. But guilt would have to wait. The shuttle’s two M-100s were designed to frighten hostile alien animals. Against Tau-15s they were toys. He needed the little Psyclid. Now!

  Beside him, Mical Turco set the shuttle on auto and headed toward the rear, freeing the copilot’s seat. He murmured a greeting to Kiolani as they slid past each other in the narrow aisle. She never looked up.

  Stagg exchanged a dubious glance with Tal as he helped Kass into the vacant copilot’s seat and fastened her harness. He shrugged and shook his head before returning to the rear. The only clue that Kass Kiolani wasn’t totally paralyzed by shock was the fierce clarity of her amber eyes fixed on the flatscreen display set into the instrument panel.

  “Sorry, Kiolani. I didn’t intend to throw you into it like this.” He’d planned it all out, his explanation, his excuses . . .

  No response.

  “Two Tau-15s, Kiolani. Security must have caught a glimpse of us on the way in, been patrolling the area since we landed. Probably nothing to get too excited about. They’re atmos fighters. Another ten minutes and they won’t be able to catch us.”

  She knew that. Of course she knew that. Telling her was an insult. Implying she was a typical Psyclid, ignorant of warcraft. Pok!

  “But just in case . . . can you handle it? Or have you forgotten how?”

  “Four years is a long time.” Ice. Blue and brittle as the outer rings of old Saturn.

  “We’ll talk later, I promise, but the Taus are twelve marks out and closing fast.”

  “I can see that, Captain.” The venom in captain shriveled his balls. Definitely not the reunion he’d planned.

  Tal spoke into his comm unit. “Turco, you and Stagg take the lasers. Fire on my command only.” He switched off the comm and concentrated on coaxing the shuttle’s speed up another notch. He’d swear the engines laughed at him. Max plus ten was all they had. He turned to Kiolani. “Are they coming in hot or just for a look-see?”

  “Look-see. This is a Fleet shuttle, after all. Who knows, maybe we’ve an admiral or two on board.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. The rebellion’s sparked a lot of itchy trigger fingers. And there they are! Shields up.” Tal glanced to his right, ready to show Kiolani the correct control, but she was there ahead of him, fingers poised.

  For the first time she looked at him. “If we raise shields, they’ll know we’re not really Fleet.”

  Pok, but the girl thought fast. “Abort shields, but if they light us up—”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  “Fleet channel, Kiolani. See if they want to talk. That’ll buy us some more time.”

  “Identify. Shuttle, identify.” No surprise there.

  “This is Archer’s shuttle, isn’t it?” Kass said. “Can’t they tell that?”

  “We reconfigured the ident. For all our ships. Archer’s the Gemma now.”

  “But she’s up there somewhere?”

  “Cloaked and waiting. We just have to climb out of the 15s’ range before—”

  “Shuttle, identify or land immediately.”

  “Tau-15s hot,” Kass intoned. “Engaging shields.”

  “This is where you earn four years of free meals.”

  “If they don’t kill you, I will.”

  The Hierarchy—blast their short-sighted souls!—had told him he was crazy to attempt this mission, and maybe they were right.

  The Tau-15s’ first shots were the age-old warning across the bow. Evidently, a Fleet shuttle, even an unmarked one, still had some power of intimidation. Or, more likely, they were waiting for orders from Central Command.

  Beside him, Kass drew a deep breath, her gaze never wavering from the flatscreen tactical display. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. The fighters loomed large and lethal on their tail. “Locked on,” Kass murmured. “Firing lasers.”

  Tal flipped on his comm. “Fire!” The shuttle’s lasers zinged toward the fighters just seconds before the shuttle shuddered, taking a hit.

  “Shields down ten percent.”

  Interesting. He heard chagrin, but not even on Orion had Kiolani managed to deflect every beam. “Almost there,” he encouraged. “If they just play with us another couple of minutes we’ll leave them flat on their RP asses.”

  “Four more 15s, twenty marks out,” Kass announced.

  “Fyd! No time to play dodge’em, even if the shuttle didn’t move like an overweight platidon. We have to scratch these two and outrun the others. Can you do it?”

  “Only if they fire missiles, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to do that.”

  Tal muttered a few choice words. If the 15s didn’t kill him, Kass would. And if Kass didn’t, the Hierarchy would. They’d tried to tell him he was risking too much for one little female Psyclid, and he’d told them to take their fydding advice and shove it.

  “Are you sure, Kiolani? Maybe something you haven’t tried before?”

  “Taus arming missiles!”

  “Go for it.” Tal shut up and let her concentrate. Ever since he’d seen those zigzag trajectories on the hologlobe, he’d known she was for real. Her powers extraordinary. Scary. And oh-so-valuable. Kass Kiolani, his secret weapon.

  There was something surreal about watching two missiles streak across a viewscreen, headed straight at you, Tal thought, particularly when you knew the shuttle’s shields were nowhere near as strong as Archer’s, let alone Orion’s. Sitting there, stoic as a Spartan, knowing that unless Kiolani performed a miracle, they were dead.

  Incoming . . . incoming . . . turning . . . turning. One missile zigged harmlessly off into space. One continued to turn . . . doubling back in a gradual U-shape, heading toward its source.

  All the action was behind them, but the viewscreen was brilliantly clear, and, by Omni, if he weren’t seeing it, he wouldn’t believe it. Not even for the war games on Orion had she managed this. Go, baby, go! Almost . . . there . . . />
  One of the Tau-15s disintegrated. A wing spiraled off . . . stopped spinning, as if caught by an invisible hand. It steadied, then headed straight as an arrow toward the second fighter, sending debris from both ships tumbling toward Regula Prime far below. Kass was slumped in her seat, head down. The slight noise he heard might have been an echo of the yip he’d once heard on Orion, or nothing more than a whimper of relief.

  Tal checked the four blips on the viewscreen. Too far away. In ninety seconds they’d be above the 15s’ flying range. They’d made it.

  The hangar bay doors weren’t fully closed behind them when Tal gave the order to break orbit and head for the closest wormhole at flank speed. They might have lost the atmos fighters, but after what had just happened, Fleet was going to launch the nearest huntership and a whole swarm of Tau-20s. The race to the jumpgate was on.

  And no help from his little Psyclid this time. Whatever she’d done back there had taken its toll. Tal ordered Stagg to find quarters for the drooping little figure, then raced for the bridge. Kass Kiolani was a problem he’d have to face later.

  Fleet forces were still ten marks out when the scout ship slipped through the gate and into the protective tunnel of warped time and space. Knowing he could safely leave Archer, now named Gemma, to its bridge crew, Tal stepped into a lift that took him down one level to officers’ quarters. No trouble finding Kiolani. Hers was the room with the sergeant wearing the brilliant red of an Imperial Marine standing outside.

  Sergeant Joss Quint saluted, stepped aside. Tal knocked. No response. He knocked again. No response. Unsure whether he should be concerned or angry, he raised his hand and waved it in front of the auto-pulse. The door slid open.

  At least she hadn’t locked it.

  Tal stepped inside, the door sliding closed behind him. The lights were set on dim, and he could barely see her, lying on her side on a single bed that was big enough for two of her. Her back was to him, and somehow he got the impression she’d assumed that position after hearing his knock. Pok! Nothing about this reunion was going the way he’d planned.