by Audrey Grey
Before Talia could respond to that bit of ridiculousness, a picture of her from the chest up appeared, and her heart free-fell into her belly. She looked radiant inside the midnight-black dress from her birthday, her eyes focused on something in the background. Not a hint of her unease from that day showed—she was good at hiding emotions, after all. They’d had the audacity to erase her crown from the image and doctor her title from Sovereign-in-Waiting Princess Talia Starchaser to nameless rebel.
At least the price on her head hinted at her real identity—500 billion credits.
“Holy stars,” Leo muttered, rubbing his jaw. “We’ll have the entire galaxy after us for that sum.”
Lux switched off the screen and took a seat at the console, punching buttons and flipping switches to prep the ship for takeoff. “That’s why we need to get going. Jane, can you start the departure sequence? Dorian, check the coils and thrusters and initiate regular maintenance. We need to ready the hyper-drive, and we might be off land for a while.”
Leo cast his attention to Jane, drawing Lux’s gaze that way as well. “And if she glitches mid-hyper?”
“She won’t.”
Leo snorted.
“But if she does, the princess over there’s a pilot. She can take over.”
They all looked at Talia, and for the first time ever she doubted her flying skills. “I can fly most fighter crafts, but my training never extended to large cargo vessels like the Odysseus.”
“Well, you better figure it out because you and glitch over there”—Lux flashed an apologetic half-grin at Jane—“are all we’ve got.”
Talia quirked an eyebrow. “What about Will?”
Lux sucked in her cheek as she crossed the bridge to stand before Talia. “We can’t do anything about him now.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s only four of us—unless you count my barely pubescent brother—then there’s five. Five. And the queen has an entire army. Even if they didn’t want to fight for her, you saw what she did in the courtyard with her hive mind tactics. She can make them destroy us.”
Talia planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I refuse to leave him.”
Lux blinked at Talia as if she’d spoken another language. “He was about to sell you to the queen. Have you forgotten about that?”
“But he didn’t, and now the queen is going to publicly murder him to get to me. I can’t just sit around and watch that happen.” She began to pace, her mind whirring. “What if we had help? Leo said there are members of the Alliance out there who’ll support me. There have to be some here. Let’s ask them for aid.”
Lux rolled her eyes, hard, and shot a sharp, narrow-eyed look at Leo. “Tell her she’s being crazy.”
Leo twisted one of his braids between his thumb and pointer finger. “What if she’s not?”
“Don’t, Leo. Don’t you give her any ideas. This is madness, and I’m not going to risk Dorian’s life, even for . . .”
“Will?” Leo answered when Lux couldn’t say the captain’s name. “You mean the man who spent his shares bribing those jailers to spring Dorian from jail after he got caught pickpocketing that commander on that back-world waystation? Who got me out of trouble time and again when they caught me with undocumented escorts? The captain who paid your fine for kneeing that bounty hunter in the balls?”
“That jerk deserved it,” she added, but her voice wavered.
“Not the point, Lux. Will proved his loyalty to us when we needed him most. Now it’s our turn . . .” He rubbed his chest, muttering under his breath, “Even if he did shoot me.”
“I could do a secret broadcast,” Talia offered, lifting on her toes with excitement as a plan began to take shape. “Announce who I am and tell citizens to join our side, that we want peace for mocks and humans. This was once my capital, after all. Surely people still remember me?”
“Your history’s been erased, but there are some who might appreciate a more peaceful way of life . . .” The lines between Lux’s dark brows smoothed out, though she still didn’t look entirely convinced. “Say you can gather more people to help, and miraculously we save Will and make it out alive. Then what? If we don’t leave in the next, say, half hour, the Odysseus will be splashed across every ship’s starscreen within five clicks of Calisto, and we won’t make it out of this airspace alive.”
Talia sighed, long and hard. Good point. “What about another ship?”
Lux scoffed and closed her eyes, as if she were dealing with an idiot. “Another ship? They giving those away somewhere I don’t know about?”
“The Athena.” Everyone turned to Jane, who hadn’t yet uttered a peep. “Give Will his ship back. That would be a nice escape death present, right?”
As farfetched as the idea was, it somehow made sense. With Will behind the controls of the Athena, they could easily hyper-drive all the way to the Alliance. Once Jane planted the idea, the others, including Lux, went along with it and worked through formulating a plan. At first stealing a weaponized military A-class Darkstar didn’t sound remotely plausible, but once they factored in Dorian’s penchant for thievery and Jane’s gambling habits, plus some sleeping pills for mocks—made to allow mocks to dream—it went from a suicidal idea to a feasible plan . . . if all the stars aligned perfectly and the crew of the Athena were thirsty tonight.
Everything counted on that thirst.
But before the crew could even start on that crazy endeavor, they had to put together a half-credible strategy for breaking Will out before his execution in the morning. Lucky for Talia, she knew how the queen thought.
“She’ll hold the execution inside the great hall where my coronation took place,” Talia said as they pored over any images they could conjure up of this new palace.
Lux frowned. “How do you know it’s still there? She razed the old palace to the ground—”
“She left it, believe me.” Talia squinted at the jutting spires of metal, sunlight running down their craggy length, and stabbed a finger at the holo-image. “It’ll be somewhere in here.”
“How do we get inside?” Leo asked, lines etching between his brows as he pored over the image of the castle. “More importantly, how do we get a crowd inside?”
The rebels—assuming any showed. “If I know the queen, she’ll keep the doors closed and have it publicly broadcasted. We need something to take out the gate and one of the hall’s walls.”
Leo chuckled and threw Lux a knowing look. “That’d be your department, darling. You’re the best explosives expert in the Seven.”
For the first time since meeting the cocky navigator, Lux blushed, her dusky cheeks tinged with fire. “I haven’t blown anything up since the Academy.”
“Lux was part of an elite unit that hunted Alliance forces for two years,” Leo explained to Talia.
“Why’d you quit?” she asked.
A shadow passed over Lux’s face, and she glanced at Dorian before answering. “Got tired of blowing people up.”
No doubt because of what happened to their parents.
“We have the ship,” Leo said, breaking a thick silence that had suddenly fallen over the crew. “We have the manpower—hopefully—and a way inside. But how will we prevent them from executing Will the moment the explosives go off?”
Jane smiled, the corner of her mouth twitching at Talia, as if the previous Odysseus captain knew Talia had already worked this part out. “We need someone inside beforehand.”
Talia nodded slowly, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Me.”
She’d have to work that part out before tomorrow, but she had time. Now she needed to record a speech for the Alliance rebels, even though she had no idea what to say as Leo set up the outside com and carefully punched in the secret rebel frequency. Then he directed the pinhole microphone and camera at her.
All the air inside Talia’s lungs seemed to shrivel, her heartbeat drowning out sounds. Who was she to speak to millions? She was a scared girl without a clue how to rul
e. How could she inspire others to risk their lives for her when she couldn’t even save her friend all those years ago?
But then Leo nodded, his face laced with tentative hope, and she realized that like it or not, she was her people’s only hope. Humanity’s only chance at survival. So she cleared her throat and began, the words tumbling from her lips.
“I don’t know if anyone’s out there, or if this message is going to be lost to the emptiness of space. But I have a story to tell. One hundred years ago, I was a princess with a family who loved me and a best friend I adored. War was on the verge of breaking out between human and mock kinds, but I thought my perfect life was safe, until one mistake, one act of cowardice on my part destroyed everything . . .” Her words trailed away, but Leo nodded for her to continue. “War came, and three generations of Starchasers, the very people who discovered the Seven and gave mocks life, were gone in an instant. Murdered. Except for me. My family surrendered their lives so that I could escape. Now, a century later, I’ve woken up to a terrifying new reality. To a dark, hopeless time where humans are enslaved and an imposter queen rules through force, taking over mocks at her will. A world where freedom has been stripped from us.”
The other end of the com crackled as Talia paused. Once she said the words and asked for help, she would condemn many of the people listening to death. The device wavered inside her palm. How easy flipping the com off and leaving this hellhole would be, blazing a path to the Alliance where she was safe and wanted. All her current worries would melt away. She could deal with the rest later.
Except she did that once, with Ailat, and it practically ruined the world. Sometimes the right path was the hardest—and the most likely to get her killed.
“I watched my parents and brother die for me to live,” she continued, her voice less shaky. “And now I’m asking you to take that same risk for the chance of a world where mocks and humans have equal rights, where the world, our world, is better and full of hope. My name is Talia Starchaser, the last living descendant of the Starchaser Dynasty and rightful Sovereign of the Seven, and I’m asking you to fight with me tomorrow against oppression and tyranny. Against a queen who may have once been good but is now a ruthless oppressor. Tomorrow is the day we stand up and fight back.”
Silence fell over the ship as she switched off the broadcast and released a sharp breath. Even though they desperately needed more people involved to make this plan work, a part of her hoped there was something wrong with the com and no one heard her call to arms. She wasn’t sure if her conscience could reconcile the deaths of so many.
But this wasn’t just for Talia, rescuing Will and defeating the queen was for all of them. Mocks and humans alike. Ailat might have once been good and honorable, but what happened on that stage with Prince Cassius had twisted her into something dark and malevolent, and Talia felt responsible for putting Ailat’s reign of terror and oppression to an end. So Talia shoved that part down deep and prepared herself for the coming battle, just like she imagined her father had done all those years ago during the beginning of the mock rebellion.
This was war, after all.
And things were about to get bloody on both sides.
Chapter 31
Will
Storm clouds crashed across the skies of Palesia, darkening the dusk-orange-and-pink palette to a murky yellowish green and bringing cool winds sweeping across the palace terrace. The breeze ruffled Will’s jacket and stole the heat from his body. To his left stood the queen, a full foot taller than him, her towering form throwing a faint shadow across the railing. She wore the same armor as the day before, now adorned with a purple cape held together by a jeweled brooch.
The diamonds on the pin crackled as bits of morning sunlight broke through the clouds. As soon as he realized the brooch was a swan made into the Starchaser crest, an ominous shadow fell over him that he couldn’t quite shake. Pinned to the queen’s neck, the symbol that first started it all looked wrong.
He took a step toward the ledge, and one of the queen’s guards jerked up his blaster, the biggest Will had ever seen. He held up his good arm in surrender and scowled at the droid, a type of hunter Will didn’t recognize. This model was the same steel-gray color of the storm clouds rolling in, and lither than its predecessors. But the lack of bulk meant the machines were faster and more agile, their movements rapid and intelligent.
“Easy, dummy,” Will called, slowly retreating to show he wasn’t a threat to the queen. “What are you looking for?”
His voice was muffled by the wind, but he knew the queen heard because she tilted her head slightly in Will’s direction, keeping her gaze trained on the ground hundreds of feet below. Just like him, her eyesight could be adjusted to see long distances, and not for the first time this morning, he wondered what they were doing up here.
Watching to see how many showed for his execution? If that was her intention, why was she waiting? Thousands of mocks thronged the bridges leading to the palace, and thousands more had spilled into the courtyard below. Hell, the streets were so crowded with onlookers wanting to see him die, he’d already seen two people knocked into the dark waters surrounding the palace.
The air traffic was just as bad. A swarm of vessels clogged the skies, blocking the light and reminding Will of a nest of hornets right after it’d been disturbed.
He and the queen had stood here for over an hour. Will wasn’t bound, but he might as well have been with ten guards weighted down with blasters watching his every move. He’d been wracking his brain for a way out since the moment they stepped foot up here, but his odds weren’t good.
No weapon. Check.
No allies. Check.
No knowledge of the terrain. Check.
No arm. Double check.
Will cringed. That last one was the hardest to accept. Every few minutes something as normal as opening a door or reaching out to lean on a ledge would remind him of his loss. The pain wasn’t bad, just a mild throbbing and the occasional phantom sensation, as if his arm was still there. But it wasn’t—and that pissed him off more than anything.
All at once the queen stiffened, her gaze tracking something below. Sharp buzzing filled the air as the six drones attached to her medusa-like tentacles dispatched from their tethers and shot toward the crowd.
Hand clenched into a fist, Will walked to the edge of the iron railing, careful to remain far enough away from the queen to keep the super-hunters happy. He toyed with the idea of using the queen’s distraction to try and throw her over the side—one-armed or not—when something caught his attention.
Or someone, more like it. His enhanced vision zoomed in until the person drawing his gaze came into focus, her long auburn hair mostly hidden beneath the same hideous blanket as yesterday. All the air left him, and he leaned on the railing with his one hand, the iron cool beneath his palm.
What the hell was Talia doing?
Her head snapped up as one of the drones paused to hover near her face. Two more followed. Run, idiot. Beside him, the queen leaned as far over the terrace as possible, her long fingers wrapped around the ledge.
“Stupid girl.” A smile warped the queen’s face.
Suddenly Talia smashed a fist into the drone and took off through the crowd, but three of the queen’s enhanced super-hunters materialized from the crowd, looming over Talia. She stole a look behind as two more appeared. Then, probably realizing she was trapped, she yanked a blaster from somewhere beneath the heavy folds of her cloak and began shooting.
The crowd parted around her, surging toward the edges of the bridge. Waves of civilians crashed into the water, pushed by the swarms of mocks escaping the blasts, the sounds of screaming stirring the air.
For a heartbeat, he thought Talia might have a chance, her hair whipping in the wind as she fought the dark hunters, her blaster painting the air around them electric blue. Atta girl. He held his breath, willing her to escape.
Then the hunters surged together in a coordinated attack, burying t
he princess beneath a tangle of onyx metal. No way could she escape that.
He shoved back from the ledge and kicked the railing, causing the two closest guards to lift their blasters.
“Screw you, metal-heads!” he yelled, taunting them with an inappropriate gesture.
At this point, he didn’t care if they shot him to hell. Nausea churned his stomach as he imagined Talia down there, hurt and afraid. Although afraid might be a stretch. If he knew the princess, she was probably hurtling obscenities at the hunters even now, pinned beneath them.
Stars, if they hurt her . . .
“She was always blind when it came to her friends,” the queen said, her tone nonchalant despite the way her eyes kept flicking back to the scene, a predator unable to resist watching its prey. She waved the hunters back with a lazy flip of her hand. Finally, she tore her gaze off Talia below and met Will’s eyes. “What do you say, Captain. Care for company at your execution?”
Lifting his one good arm, he charged the bitch. Surprisingly, he made it within a foot of her before a hunter bashed the butt of his blaster over Will’s head and he hit the pavement, lights out.
Chapter 32
Talia
So far, everything was going according to plan. Though recognizing that with both arms trapped firmly inside a hunter’s grasp, one on each side, was a bit difficult. At least the queen needed two muscled-up droids to hold Talia.
“Stop grinning and pretend to be scared,” Lux hissed into the tiny earpiece hidden just inside Talia’s ear.
“I don’t have to pretend,” she muttered, ignoring the curious glance of the hunter on her right.
She wasn’t bound yet—unless the hunters holding her counted—as they marched her through the angry crowds. Curses flew at her from brainwashed civilian mocks, but luckily the crowd’s fear of the hunters trumped their hatred of her, and the tightly packed sea of citizens parted once again. Hopefully some of those angry faces belonged to Leo’s Alliance friends.
