The Rogue Prince

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Most people are on the core worlds, so there’s not much lag. You have to be close to real time for the player-versus-player stuff, but with the quests, the game just catches you up when you’re in proximity to satellites, and you can always chat with those local to you.”

  Jelena rubbed her face, not caring about the game and not sure why she’d asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Erick said quietly. “I know he was a good friend when you were kids.”

  “He was your friend too.”

  Erick made a wavering motion with his hand, neither confirming nor denying. They had been competitors, always testing their talents against each other, but Jelena had thought they liked each other under all that, even if there was a four-year age gap.

  “And let’s not talk about him in past tense as if he’s dead,” she said. “He’s still our friend.”

  “We haven’t heard from him in years.”

  “So?”

  “If he’s behind the assassinations, the Alliance is going to catch up with him.”

  “Please, the Alliance couldn’t even catch up with him when he was ten. Now he’s—”

  “A murderer, apparently,” Erick said.

  “We don’t know that for sure. We should talk to him first, get his side of things.”

  “Didn’t your mother forbid that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Uh huh. Look, we don’t even know where he is.”

  “We know where he was doing his training. Leonidas kept in touch with Dr. Dominguez throughout the years and even assisted him a few times. He was out at some base in the middle of a wild forest on Halite Moon.”

  “But we’ve never been there,” Erick said. “You don’t know the location, do you?”

  “It might be in the files.” Jelena waved toward the navigation computer. “Mom transferred the flight history and all the business’s records from the Nomad when we first got the Snapper. Besides, if I got close to Thor, I think I could sense him. We used to have a pretty strong bond.”

  “I highly doubt he’s there now. Dominguez never would have endorsed assassinations. He takes his religion seriously, and the Xerikesh has rules about that.”

  “Why are you so sure Thor is doing it and isn’t being framed?”

  “Because he was a bitter, sullen kid, and people have been telling him about how he has to reform the empire for the last ten years. They’ve probably made everyone associated with the Alliance out to be a villain to him.”

  “He wasn’t bitter; he was sad. Look, even if Thor isn’t there, Dr. Dominguez may know where he went or how to get in touch with him. I just want to talk to him and warn him that the Alliance has people after him.” And make sure Dr. Horvald isn’t on his list, she added silently.

  “I don’t think Tomich gave me that information so you could pass it on to their target.”

  “Target? Erick, he’s a human being. And he’s one of us. You can’t truly want him to get killed.”

  “I don’t, but if he’s chosen this path of death and destruction, we can’t stop the inevitable. You would be better off concerning yourself with your own path. He’s not the only one who has repercussions to worry about here.”

  “Our situation is nothing compared to his,” Jelena said, not liking the direction the conversation was going. She didn’t want to think any repercussions were inevitable, either for Thor or for her.

  “Yeah, and what about Leonidas’s situation?” Erick arched his eyebrows.

  “Trust me, I’m thinking of him. I know you were joking when you said Dr. Horvald could be a target, but he could be, right? Going by the history Mom gave us on him and by who’s been targeted so far.”

  Erick frowned. “Even if he is on someone’s list, what are the odds of Thor—or whoever the assassin is—getting to him before he can operate on Leonidas?”

  “I have no idea, but having him killed after the operation wouldn’t be great, either. Oh, say, Leonidas, did you want to go see your doctor for a checkup? Too bad. Someone dragged a dagger across his throat last night.”

  Erick’s frown deepened.

  “Listen, Erick. I’m worried about Leonidas, and I definitely want to be there for him, but I think we can check up on Thor and still make it for the surgery. Mom said there would be tests first. And we don’t have the full story on Thor. He may be in trouble. If the Alliance is sending assassins after him, I don’t see how he couldn’t be. He may need help.”

  “Right, as if he’d need us. He was more powerful than I was when he was just a kid. After all the training he’s received, he’s probably as strong as your grandfather. Maybe stronger.”

  “This wouldn’t take long, Erick,” she said earnestly. She was the pilot, and she could take them to Halite Moon whether he wished it or not, but it would be much easier to have his support. Or at least his acquiescence. If he commed Mom and told her about her latest antics . . . Jelena hated the idea of defying her mother, especially now. “From where we are now, Teravia isn’t that far out of the way,” she added, naming the planet that Halite Moon orbited.

  A quick stop, and they could be on their way again. They would make it to Arkadius in time, she was sure of it.

  Of course, if she was wrong, and if Mom had been underreporting how bad Leonidas was, Jelena could arrive too late. What if something happened to Leonidas during the tests or before he reached Arkadius? What if she never saw him alive again? Tears formed in her eyes, and she bit her lip.

  Erick lolled his head back, shaking it as he looked at the ceiling, and Jelena began to doubt her resolve. Maybe they should go to Arkadius first, see Leonidas and make sure he made it through all right, and then go look for Thor. But if there were assassins after Thor, experts who had been hand-selected and knew exactly how to deal with his powers—what if the Alliance had chosen a cyborg who had dealt with Starseers before, someone exactly like a young Leonidas?—and Thor didn’t have any warning, he would be in just as much danger of dying.

  “He would want you to check in on Thorian, wouldn’t he?” Erick asked.

  “Who?” Jelena blinked, surprised by the turnabout. “Leonidas?”

  “Leonidas.” Erick sighed.

  Jelena almost blurted a “Yes,” because it supported her own desires, but she paused to consider the question.

  Leonidas also had a relationship with Thor. Emperor Markus had ordered him to get Thor away from the hidden asteroid palace when it was being pulverized by Alliance ships, and he and Leonidas had spent a week cooped up in a tiny ship together, heading to a handoff point on Dustor.

  Jelena couldn’t know what had happened on that ship, but Thor had always seemed drawn to Leonidas after that, spending time with him in the weeks they had all been together after defeating Grandpa’s crazy brother. Jelena had heard from Mom that Thor had asked Leonidas to go off with him when he’d rejoined the imperial loyalists, to be his supporter and military advisor. Of course, Leonidas had fallen in love with Mom by then, and he had chosen to stay on the Nomad and marry her, but Jelena knew Leonidas had checked in on Thor numerous times over the years—that had probably been his main reason for keeping in touch with Dr. Dominguez. Back when they had first parted ways, she remembered Leonidas telling Thor that he would come help him if he ever needed it.

  “I think so,” Jelena said. “He’s known Thor longer than he’s known me or you, after all.”

  Erick’s lips twisted wryly. “You think he’s always considered Thor the Starseer engineer he wished he had?”

  Thor had also had a knack for manipulating mechanical things. Jelena remembered how he’d dragged his Zizblocks kit around everywhere they’d been taken when they were kids, and how he’d always been building spaceships or stations with them. He should have been an engineer rather than some prince destined to retake his empire—and certainly rather than an assassin.

  “Leonidas likes his current Starseer engineer just fine,” Jelena said, swatting him on the shoulder. “Though I’m not sure about the temporary engi
neer you found to take your place on the Nomad while we’re on our trial run here, especially since he’s not a Starseer and doesn’t have a university education.”

  “What Austin lacks in knowledge and experience, he makes up for in enthusiasm,” Erick said, naming his little brother. Seventeen-year-old Austin had cheerfully accepted the short-term job to help pay for his upcoming university costs. He did have a talent for building and fixing things, at least according to Erick.

  “I’m sure that’s why Mom and Leonidas were bandying around Mica’s name when we left, wondering if she was done designing mega space stations and wanted to come back.”

  “Yes, the prestige of working aboard an eighty-year-old freighter is far greater than that of building stations that rival planets in population and complexity.”

  “How much prestige does a person need in a lifetime? She already got that fancy award.”

  Erick waved to the navigation console. “Plug in Halite Moon. You’re right. It shouldn’t take long to comm Dominguez and ask where Thor is. We might not even have to go down to the surface.”

  “What, you don’t want to see the salt mines and lumber mills?” Jelena vaguely remembered picking up cargo there once five or six years ago. As she recalled, there wasn’t much in the way of civilization. Just lots of loggers and miners living in caves or temporary huts and eating ration bars.

  “I don’t want to see you explain to the cyborg why we’re still not able to let her go.”

  “Ah.” Jelena had forgotten about working the woman into her equations. “I did promise that we’d drop her off at Starfall Station, and I did imply that would be our next stop. I’ll think of something to tell her.”

  “Maybe she’d like to switch jobs and locations. She’s burly enough to shove over some trees with her bare arms.”

  “I hadn’t realized you’d seen her bare arms.”

  “Just a little wrist when she was taking off her spacesuit in sickbay.”

  “I’d forgotten you were peeping at her then.”

  “I was monitoring her to make sure she didn’t run down to engineering to blow up the ship.”

  “Uh huh, and how was that wrist?” Jelena asked. “Shapely and appealing?”

  “Burly. She’ll make an excellent logger if you can convince her to change careers.”

  Jelena wished she had the charisma to do that, but even a Starseer with above average telepathy and mental manipulation skills couldn’t change someone’s long-term desires. She supposed it was uncharitable to fantasize about leaving the woman on Halite in a spot without off-moon communications so she couldn’t report back to her employers.

  “I’ll think of something,” she repeated sturdily.

  Chapter 7

  “No answer yet?” Erick asked, walking in and joining Jelena in NavCom.

  He was in his socks and pajamas, but since he was two hours early for his shift, Jelena couldn’t fault him for a lack of professional dress. Usually, they let the autopilot keep an eye on things while they slept on the same shift, but with their surly guest skulking around the ship, they’d decided that one of them should be awake all the time.

  “No answer,” she confirmed, closing the comm. She’d been trying to reach Dominguez for most of the trip, at first leaving messages and then, as they’d drawn closer, hoping to catch him for a live discussion. Now, the verdant green moon was on the view screen, and they would be close enough to land in the next hour. “We’ll have to go down and take a look. I have the coordinates for the base.”

  She’d been glad to find them in the system-wide locations database Mom had copied to the Snapper, because she wouldn’t have otherwise had specifics. She might have had to comm Mom, which would have then involved explaining why she was disobeying orders. Or requests. Mom hadn’t specifically ordered her to avoid Thor, after all. She’d simply been pleased that he hadn’t contacted her.

  “Go down?” Erick frowned. “I’d been imagining us having a quick chat while we simply flew past on our way to Arkadius.”

  “The chatting opportunities have been meager thus far. None of the loggers have even sent a welcome vid.”

  “No? You’d think they’d be quick to proposition visiting women for breeding.”

  Jelena rolled her eyes at him. “I’m regretting that I shared that with you. And used that word.”

  His eyes glinted. “Good. I shouldn’t be the only one full of regrets around here.”

  “There’s a nice tropical rainforest zone around the equator of the moon. If we go down, and the predators aren’t too crazy, we could drop off the monkeys. From the contact I’ve had with them, I think they were originally wild rather than being bred for labs.”

  “Oh.” Erick perked up. “That would quiet down the cargo hold significantly. Are there bananas down there?”

  “I’d have to look it up. Halite wasn’t terraformed. It came all tree-covered with breathable air. But I’m sure we humans introduced some of our favorite crops.”

  Jelena set a course toward the base’s coordinates, a middle-latitude spot nestled under a mountain range and, as far as she could tell from the sky, deep within the wilderness. The coasts had been logged, but dense greenery carpeted their destination, and she wondered where she would be able to land. The base was supposed to be small, with only twenty or thirty inhabitants, but surely supplies had to be delivered now and then.

  “That doesn’t look like Starfall Station,” came a cool voice from behind them.

  Erick didn’t seem surprised by the cyborg’s arrival. He merely glanced over and gave Jelena an I-told-you-so look.

  “Yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Jelena said, turning in her seat now that the course was set. “But you’ve been scarce, not showing up for meals or to help feed the animals.”

  “Why would I feed the animals you stole from my employer?”

  “Because they like it, and they’re appreciative.” Jelena pointed to where Alfie, as she’d decided to call her new furry friend, was curled up in her now-usual spot under the console. Jelena had folded up a blanket down there for her. “It’s not something your employer did often.”

  The woman’s brow wrinkled, and Jelena had the feeling she hadn’t known much about the animals, perhaps not even that they had been in the facility.

  “As you can see,” Jelena said, “we’ve been forced to make another detour.”

  “Forced,” the woman said flatly.

  “Indeed, and I would happily let you off here if you wish, but I have an alternative proposition.”

  “This should prove interesting,” Erick said, resting his elbow on the console and his chin on his fist as he gazed over at her.

  The woman looked toward the view screen for a long moment. Considering whether she could find a way home from here if she took Jelena up on her first offer?

  “What proposition?” she finally asked.

  “We’d like to hire you,” Jelena said.

  Erick’s eyebrows shot up. The woman’s eyebrows arched almost as high.

  What are you doing? Erick asked telepathically.

  Trying to suborn her to our side, she replied silently, all the while smiling at the cyborg.

  You need money to hire people.

  I have my allowance.

  A substantial amount, I’m sure. You balked at buying me a pack of cards.

  No, I balked at buying you a cape. We’ll get the cards as soon as we’re back on a civilized planet or station.

  She’s going to expect more than a pack of cards for a salary.

  Mom pays you. Maybe you can loan me some money to pay her with.

  Oh, wouldn’t that be fun for me?

  I should think so.

  Anyway, I’m sure Mom would approve of taking her on as an employee. She’s a cyborg. Mom loves cyborgs.

  I thought she just loved the one.

  Leonidas is a fabulous representative of his kind.

  The woman’s eyes closed to slits, and she looked back and for
th between Jelena and Erick. Had they been exchanging some knowing eye contact? Surely, she couldn’t have a clue about the telepathy. Unless she’d figured out what their staffs meant. Since Erick had been roaming the ship in sweatpants and pajamas instead of his Starseer robe, Jelena didn’t think that any other clues had been given yet.

  “I’d find you two suspicious and shifty even if you hadn’t stolen right in front of my eyes,” she said.

  “Me?” Erick splayed his fingers across his chest, then nodded toward Jelena. “That’s the mastermind over there.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I’m not sure if I should feel smug or alarmed about that,” Jelena said. “And I told you already, we didn’t steal, we liberated. Look how much better Alfie is looking after just a few days. Her sores have healed, and her fur is shiny. I’ve been giving the dogs and cats sardines.”

  “Aren’t those our emergency rations?” Erick asked.

  “Yes, but I think we’d both rather just starve if the emergency was ever so dire that we had to dip into the canned sardines. I’m pretty sure Leonidas got those from one of the original colony ships.”

  The woman rubbed her temples with the thumb and fingers of one hand. “I’m not looking for a new job unless my employer comms me and says I’m fired for failing to catch his thieves.” She lowered her hand, regarding Jelena through slitted eyes again. “I don’t suppose you’d like to let me comm him and find out.”

  “Not at this time, no.” Jelena was surprised the woman hadn’t tried to attack one of them when they’d been alone so she could use the comm. It wasn’t as if Jelena had managed to extract a parole from her. Maybe she had figured out they were Starseers and was biding her time. “But I have no problem with you moonlighting on the side.”

  “How generous of you.”

  “My family has always offered fair and fine work conditions. Just ask Erick.”

  “I really stayed more for the educational opportunities,” Erick said dryly.

  Jelena kicked him under the console. He bared his teeth at her.

  The woman muttered something under her breath. Idiots, perhaps. She looked around NavCom, as if contemplating her options.