Rebel Princess

by Bancroft, Blair

  So she hadn’t gone mad from all those years of no one but Cort Baran to talk to. Eight years had truly passed since she last stood here. The ground beneath her feet was solid. Veranelle was real. The farms and crops. The forest, the small rocky streams, the wild pigs. The people, the g’zebo, her red-coated bodyguard. All real.

  Which meant Tal Rigel was real.

  Kass put out a hand, steadying herself against a tree trunk.

  “Dama?”

  “It’s all right, Bix. Just too many memories.” She would have to have her emotions under better control before she looked inside the g’zebo. With a palace full of young, hot-blooded Regulon rebels, there wasn’t much doubt her special space had been violated a thousand times over. If there were signs of midnight orgies inside, Kass didn’t want to see. She turned and led the way over an arched wooden bridge that spanned one of Blue Moon’s sparkling streams and trudged wearily back to the palace.

  When evening came, Anton Stagg once again accompanied Kass to the food line in Veranelle’s old ballroom. This time, she gritted her teeth and requested that they sit at one of the communal tables that seated ten.

  “Are you certain, dama?”

  “I have two days to prepare myself for life aboard ship. It’s time to begin, don’t you think? And, besides, it’s possible I may know some of them. Some are from Orion, are they not?”

  “I was on Orion, dama. Quint and Bix as well. You just did not have occasion to see the marines while on board. We had our own quarters on D Deck.”

  Kass almost dropped her tray. “I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. If I’d ever seen you, I’m certain I would have remembered.”

  “We all knew you though, dama. The captain’s little Psyclid. We all bet on you and won. Had a grand celebration when we got back to Titan.”

  They had paused behind one of the ballroom’s pillars, finding a moment of privacy in a room teeming with people. “The captain’s little Psyclid?” Kass questioned. “Why call me that?”

  The lieutenant grinned down at her. “Dama, everyone knew. Those who weren’t involved in the exercises heard it from those who were. “Of all the cadets, you were his favorite. And rightly so, because you were the best. He’d look at you and shake his head, like he couldn’t understand how you could possibly be as good as you were. And a lot of times he’d just look. That’s when Commander Dann first got her hate in gear. Omni, but she was pissed—beg pardon, dama. She figured it was more than the captain admiring your style.”

  Kass put her back to a pillar, gripped her tray, and stared at the wall. Impossible. Never by the slightest sign had Tal Rigel shown anything more than a determination to challenge her abilities and, when she succeeded, to figure out how she’d done it.

  He saved your life, stupid.

  Noblesse oblige.

  Yeah, right.

  Kass allowed a small sigh to escape her lips. Life held a great many pitfalls, and she suspected this was yet another. The goddess had granted her the favor of freedom. It was unlikely love was included among her perks.

  She straightened off the pillar. “Shall we find a table?” She led the way back to the central portion of the ballroom, where a sea of Regulons sat at round tables that had once been used for royal banquets. No smart gray uniforms here, just a multi-colored ragtag army of men and women who had given up their pasts for a cause. Or simply to follow Tal Rigel. She needed to remember that.

  Kass chose the first two seats available at one of the large tables. Fortunately, she recognized three of the faces, though the names escaped her. All officers or crew from Astarte, they greeted her with cautious smiles. Kass settled to her meal, hoping for the best, though the jibes and jests a newly made ensign could expect were notably absent. Goddess, but she was starving. Four years marked by nothing more than a few daily exercises, and she must have walked four or five kilometers today. But today’s jaunt had done her heart good in more ways than one.

  She was savoring a fruit tart truly worthy of a royal dining hall when shouts rose above the general hubbub of conversation. Chairs scraped back, diners bobbed to their feet. More shouts.

  Dear goddess, not another krall!

  No. It was a person, long white-blond hair flying out behind him—her?—charging the length of the ballroom, skidding around tables, dodging reaching hands, shoving people out of the way. One goal, never a doubt about it. Kass’s table. Kass.

  Ah, goddess, no! The slight figure might have eluded earlier pursuers, but it didn’t stand a chance against Anton Stagg, who took the runner to the floor in a single easy block. “Take your hands off him!” Kass cried, pulling ineffectually at the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Now. This minute, let him up!”

  Stagg gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look and kept his position pinning his captive to the floor. Well, too bad if he expected her to tell him what a good boy he was. “Lieutenant, if he was an enemy, I’d be grateful. But he’s a friend of mine. Let him up.”

  Anton Stagg sprang to his feet, drawing the Psyclid up with him, seemingly without effort. Holding the slight hermaphrodite figure by the back neck of his shirt, he turned him toward Kass. “Here it is, Kiolani. All yours.” He dropped the Psyclid’s collar, and two feet, booted in gold leather, hit the floor.

  Eyes shining with nothing but joy, the childlike figure fell to his knees, hugging Kass’s legs. Shoulders heaving, he cried, tears rolling silently down his cheeks. Kass slid out of her chair, joining him on the floor, her arms hugging him tight. Their cheeks touched, her tears mingling with his.

  “Kiolani, perhaps you would care to explain this tender moment?”

  Dimi. She knew that voice. Kass straightened her shoulders, looked up, far up, to Tal Rigel. Turning back to the slight figure on the floor, she smiled. “Come. It’s all right. The captain is a friend. Stand up now, and I’ll introduce you.”

  A wiry child, as he’d already proved by running the obstacle course of Regulon warriors and round tables, the Psyclid stood, taking Kass with him with surprising ease. Not so small or childlike after all, Kass noted. Eight years was a long time. He topped her by a full head.

  “Captain, may I present K’kadi Amund. K’kadi, this is Captain Rigel. He is boss here, you understand. A friend. You must be nice.”

  B’ram Biryani, breathless and looking as if he were strangling, skidded to a halt just behind the captain. Kass flicked him a glance before continuing, her voice taking on a more wry note with each word. “K’kadi is highly intelligent, Captain, but I fear his communication skills are somewhat erratic. He is—let me see—nineteen now, yet he does not talk, and he listens only when it suits him. Sometimes it is difficult to know if one is getting through or not.” She saw Biryani heave a sigh behind the captain’s back. “But perhaps he can show you what he feels.

  “K’kadi, are you listening?” Solemnly, he nodded. Dear goddess, but she’d swear he was even more beautiful than he’d been the last time she saw him. Like a diminutive angel from ancient lore, so different from herself it was almost impossible to believe they were related. Shoulder length silver blond hair surrounded a heart-shaped face, marked by brilliant blue-green eyes with an exotic tilt at the outer corners. His nose was perfectly proportioned above generous lips that always seemed on the verge of a smile. Except perhaps now, when apprehension warred with the delight of his reunion with Kass.

  K’kadi Amund was, quite simply, exquisite. No wonder an entire roomful of people crowded around, trying to get a good look at this startling newcomer.

  “K’kadi,” Kass said, “I would like you to show the lieutenant you are sorry you made him think you were a bad person.”

  A small dark cloud suddenly formed over their heads, lightning flashed, rain poured down. Some of those present would always claim they heard thunder. Others would swear they were soaked to the skin.

  Kass struggled to hide a smile at the sight of Tal Rigel with his jaw hanging open. Yet for her own mental feats, he hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle. The others? Too stu
nned to react, they were frozen in place.

  “K’kadi, you may show the captain how you feel about seeing me again.”

  Gasps of shock, fear, and awe as fireworks streaked above their heads. Bursts of red, blue, gold and silver, playing across the coffered ceiling, dancing around the pillars. Swirling kaleidoscopes of color reflecting on upturned faces.

  As the incredible display faded, Tal Rigel spoke at last. Kass was pleased to see it took him two tries before he got the words out. “Does he do anything else?”

  “K’kadi, disappear B’ram Biryani.”

  The majordomo was gone. No longer standing behind the captain, he had simply vanished. The crowd found its voice in one great gasp of shock.

  “Captain, it’s illusion, not a force field. You may touch Biryani. Try it.”

  The captain reached out, his fingers closing around what looked like empty space but clearly outlining an arm. “Fyd,” Tal breathed. “I feel him, he’s still there.”

  “Thank you, K’kadi. You may bring Biryani back.” The young Psyclid brought the majordomo back so fast the old man’s smile of satisfaction was clearly visible. Take that, Regulons, and that and that and that.

  “Remarkable,” Tal said, putting considerable feeling into that one word. “I leave you to your reunion, Kiolani, but be in my office at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. Goodnight.”

  Dear goddess, he wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .

  Oh yes, he would. Kass suspected that when Astarte left dock, she’d be carrying not one, but two new crew members.

  Chapter 11

  “Sit, Kiolani.” Tal waved his hand toward a chair set in front of the expansive antique desk that had once belonged to Psyclid’s King Ryal. She was wearing her rare subservient face this morning—hair pulled severely back into a knot, slacks and pullover knit shirt of such dubious quality and design she appeared dressed for scrubbing floors or carting out trash. They were clean, however, and fit better than her old Regulon uniform, revealing enticing curves he’d only imagined until—

  Pok! Straying thoughts he didn’t need.

  Tal caught a flare of some unidentified emotion in Kass’s amber eyes as she did a quick survey of the large, sunny room before her inner shutter came down and she clasped her hands in her lap, staring at him with the limpid gaze of an innocent with no secrets. The perfect portrait of an officer on the lowest rung of the ladder waiting with some trepidation for her captain’s orders.

  “You trained at Nav as well as Tac, Kiolani. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” A hint of animation crossed her piquant face. “Navigation is my primary interest, Captain. I spent a great deal of my time in the Archives perfecting my knowledge, not only of this sector but of our whole quadrant. I memorized coordinates for jumpgates that aren’t on Fleet maps, the location of dangerous meteor fields, black holes—” Kass broke off midsentence. “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean to babble.”

  Tal nodded, thinking fast. A mind like Kass Kiolani’s with four years intense study of navigation on top of almost four years of Academy training could add up to an even more formidable asset than he’d anticipated. What a treasure was the little Psyclid, even if at the moment she looked like a scullery maid.

  “Are you willing to do double-duty, Kiolani, because I have to keep you at Tac. In a fight you’re our secret weapon.”

  Her lips moved, but no words came out. She hung her head.

  “Kiolani?”

  She looked left toward the impressive royal coat of arms hanging above the green marble fireplace. “I always wanted to be a warrior,” she said softly, as if thinking out loud. “And what a fight I had to make it happen.” She turned back, speaking directly to him, her face as forlorn as he’d ever seen it. “You must know the Psyclid culture is devoted to peace. A Psyclid attend the Regulon Space Academy? Impossible! But in the end I managed it. I actually reveled in the war games on Orion. I kept up my studies in the Archives. And, naive young fool that I was, in spite of being a prisoner, the wars, the treachery, the blood were always far away—tales from the past, not the present. Only the loss of Orion got through to me,” she added on a whisper. “That was tragedy.”

  Tal could only hope this monologue wasn’t going where he thought it was. “Continue,” he instructed.

  “I suffered from your—from the death of Orion and her crew, but I never really understood what it means to kill someone. When those books showered down on Olin Lusk and I knew I’d killed a man, I was truly shocked to discover myself capable of violence. And then, at long last, I realized that’s what warriors do. They kill people.”

  “Your point?” Shut up, Rigel! Let her meander on and she’ll fight her way out of this. Prod her, and she could walk. Like her duel with the krall, pride and hot temper wouldn’t let Kass Kiolani do anything else.

  She shot him an annihilating glare, before she snapped back. “And then you told me to splash the Tau-15s and I did. That’s when I knew being rescued meant I was no longer safely tucked up in the Archives. I was out in the real world, a dangerous place where I had to kill or be killed.” Kass paused, tapping her thumb against her mouth before adding, “When those fighters went down, it wasn’t a triumphant moment for me, so perhaps—

  “Sorry, Captain,” she continued suddenly switching from conscience-stricken to professional and looking him straight in the eye. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s been a struggle. I was raised for peace, not war. But I’ve made the adjustment. I look forward to serving on Astarte. And to serving at both Nav and Tac.”

  Tal hid a sigh of relief, offering a curt nod of acceptance. His little Psyclid was a big problem. He could only hope the nay-sayers were mistaken when they told him he was thinking with the wrong head. If Kass had any idea she’d sparked a rebellion, would she be pleased? Or horrified?

  Idly, Tal straightened some papers on his desk, before his head came up, changing the subject smoothly, “Now tell me about your young friend.”

  She took her time, obviously composing her thoughts. Making up a good story?

  “K’kadi has always been different,” Kass said at last. “Most of us don’t come into full use of our skills until puberty. K’kadi was showing talent when he was in the cradle. No one knows why he can only communicate through pictures, that’s just the way it is. And believe me, he’s been studied by the best doctors we have.”

  “Do you know the full range of his skills?”

  Kass frowned. “He was only eleven when I saw him last, so it’s entirely possible he can do things I know nothing about.”

  “His intelligence?”

  “High.” Kass shrugged. “He’s simply . . . different.”

  “Can he write?”

  “No. At least not when I knew him. No one could tell if he was physically unable to comprehend or if he simply refuses to try.”

  Tal allowed a spark of speculation to light his face. “Do you think he could make a shuttle disappear?”

  Kass responded as he’d hoped, with a smile and eyes filled with pride. “I would guess that K’kadi could make Gemma disappear, perhaps even Astarte.”

  Tal blew out a breath. “You know I have to take him with us? You understand that?”

  Kass’s smile disappeared. She tucked her chin into her fisted hands, looking down, shoulders slumped. “Yes, I realized that last night. But you must remember that K’kadi is volatile. He doesn’t always listen to instructions.”

  “Which would account for the fact that he is the only Psyclid on Blue Moon who recognized you.”

  A long silence so profound Tal heard the click of gardening shears outside the open window. “I guess this is my morning for being philosophical,” Kass said at last, returning her hands to her lap. “Let me put it this way. Even though you are a rebel, you are Regulon, born a son of the Empire. Born to put your feet on the neck of lesser worlds, like Psyclid. Even now, when you are S’sorrokan, feared rebel leader—”

  “Kass!” Tal jerked a hand in protest.


  “Hear me out!” Her glare pinned him to his chair. “All we Psyclids have left is our dignity . . . and perhaps a secret or two. If I tell you these secrets do not affect your revolution in any way, can you please allow us to keep them? Yes, of course, there are others on Blue Moon who knew me when I was younger, but they also knew I had put this world behind me, reaching out, perhaps unwisely, for yours instead. Every day they look at Psyclid looming large in the sky and know that it is occupied by Regulons. Is it any wonder they decided to play it safe and follow my lead? I beg you not to ask me why. I am Kass Kiolani, a Psyclid who is joining Astarte’s crew, continuing my training at Nav and Tac. I vow to give my all to the rebel cause. That must be enough.”

  Kass’s humble act hadn’t lasted long, but Tal hadn’t expected it to. She was Kass Kiolani, who could look S’sorrokan in the eye and tell him what to do. Which was all part of what made his little Psyclid so formidable.

  He could accept that. But . . .

  “Who is captain of Astarte, Kiolani?”

  Limpid pools of amber, treacherously deep and oh-so-innocent stared up at him. “You, sir.”

  “Do you think you can remember that? At least when we’re not in private?” That registered, if not quite the way he’d planned. He could almost see “in private” hanging in the air between them. The captain of Astarte had just implied there would be private moments between him and his most junior officer. Fyd! Where Kiolani was concerned, he was even more of an idiot than he’d thought.

  Not that he hadn’t planned on private moments, but if they were still in Fleet, his thoughts alone would be enough to get him posted to a desk job on the outer rim.

  No, that wasn’t the way his world worked. It was Kass, the junior Fleet officer, who would have been banished to some planet like Hell Nine.