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  Roca stared at her. “Why are you so angry?”

  “We’re leaving.” The captain pulled on the stick. “Now shut up and let me do my job.” The engines roared and—and the ship leapt off the tarmac into the pounding storm.

  Roca had traveled all her life, but she had never experienced such a takeoff. G-forces slammed her into the seat, which had minimal cushioning and no smart-sensors to protect her body. She could barely breathe. The pressure seemed to go on forever, until spots danced in her vision and she wondered if she would suffocate.

  The pressure stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Grateful, Roca gulped in air.

  “You all right?” the captain asked.

  Roca took a shuddering breath. “Yes. I am fine.”

  “Gods almighty.” The captain made an incredulous noise. “You sound arrogant even when you’re gasping.”

  “I don’t understand why you are angry.”

  The captain remained intent on her controls. After a long silence, Roca tried again. “Did the port clear us for takeoff?”

  The captain was reading a holoscreen above her head. “No.”

  Roca clenched the arms of her seat. “It’s illegal to take off without clearance.”

  “Well, isn’t that a shame.”

  The last thing Roca needed was to end up in legal custody. “You can’t just break the law.”

  The captain jerked around to her. “Listen, rich girl. You wanted out of that port. We left even though they couldn’t ensure our safety. That’s breaking the law, honey. You think they’re going to give us clearance and implicate themselves?”

  “Oh.” That made sense. “I see.”

  “Good for you. Now shut up.”

  Roca scowled. “Just think, if I hadn’t put you to such inconvenience, you could have stayed in that lovely port, no doubt for days.”

  To her surprise, the captain laughed. “Got some spunk in you, eh?”

  Roca was too annoyed to answer.

  They fell quiet after that, the other woman intent on her controls. For all its decrepitude, the ship worked amazingly well. Roca had to admit the captain knew what she was doing.

  “You’ve a good ship,” Roca finally said.

  “She goes.” The captain sat back in her seat. “Probably nothing like what you’re used to.”

  “It isn’t polish that makes a ship valuable.” Roca thought of her son’s Jag starfighter, what many had called the fastest, deadliest, most aggressive craft in the J-Force. “It’s the character it develops after years with the same pilot.”

  The captain considered her. “I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “You don’t seem the type to notice old drums like this.”

  An alarm blared, warning of a malfunction. The captain immediately turned her attention to jury-rigging a repair. Sitting back, Roca silently urged fate to let her survive this trip. She was uneasy enough to lower her mental barriers and let the captain’s mood wash over her. Normally Roca recoiled from opening her mind so much; it exposed her to mental injury and trespassed on the privacy of others. As much as she disliked it now, too much depended on the success of this mission for her to take chances in her judgment of the captain’s intentions.

  Her companion wasn’t a psion of any strength, so it was hard to pick up much, but a sense of her thoughts came through. She resented Roca but would honor her word. She believed the cover that Director Vammond had created to protect Roca’s identity. Roca flushed, already knowing the story; Vammond had described her as a runaway wife who had tired of her aging but wealthy husband and wanted to see her lover. It was a dismal tale, but if it helped her reach the Assembly in time, she could live with it.

  Roca thought of her first husband, Tokaba Ryestar, an explorer who had scouted new worlds. Her parents had arranged the marriage in her youth. Roca resisted it at first, but she and Tokaba had soon discovered they suited each other. Kurj’s birth overjoyed them. For the next six years they had lived a contented life.

  Then tragedy hit, when Tokaba’s ship crashed on a world he was exploring. Roca had never forgotten the devastating night they brought his body home. Nor had Kurj; at the age of six, a bewildered, heartbroken child had lost his beloved father to a violent death the boy couldn’t understand.

  It had taken a long time to recover, but eventually, several years later, Roca had remarried, this time choosing for herself. Darr Hammerjackson had been handsome and charming, everything a lonely widow could want. Roca swore to love him forever, certain she and Kurj had found an end to the loneliness.

  The first time Darr had hit her, she hadn’t believed he meant it. She learned the hard way how wrong she had been. Roca flinched at the memory, the flash of his hand, his incomprehensible fury. The impact of his rage on her mind had been even more debilitating than the blows. But Ruby Dynasty heirs didn’t divorce. No public disgraces were allowed; they kept their private hells out of sight. In private, she had done everything she could to stop the violence, and when nothing worked, she had tried for over a year to accommodate the nightmare.

  Then he had beaten Kurj.

  That night, Roca had taken her nine-year-old son and left Darr. Nothing swayed her: no excuses, no promises, no threats. No one—no one—hit her son. She began legal proceedings the next day. In the years after, as she had recovered her sense of self-worth, she came to realize she should have protected herself with the same ferocity she protected her child, regardless of what five millennia of tradition dictated about the behavior of Ruby heirs.

  Kurj had never revealed what Darr said to him that day, when the two of them fought. But it had changed her son. And that was only the beginning. As a Jag pilot, he had lived far too many horrors in the constant, undeclared shadow war between the Skolian Imperialate and the Eubian Traders. Over the years it had turned him into a hardened stranger. Now he was a phenomenon, the towering warrior prince respected by his officers, admired by women, and feared by many. But beneath his square-jawed, golden exterior, his rage festered, threatening to explode. In that, he had become like Darr, with an outward self-possession that hid his seething anger.

  Roca exhaled. Dwelling on the past would help nothing. This looming threat of all-out war was insanity. Kurj was wrong if he believed they could win. He knew what they risked—and he welcomed that specter. If her son couldn’t defeat his inner demons, he would expend his fury leading two empires into a star-spanning conflict that would tear them apart.

  2

  The Dalvador Bard

  Roca slept, ate, and spent her waking hours in the copilot’s seat. There was nowhere else to go except for the minuscule head. She had little room to exercise, only enough to flex and stretch her cramped muscles.

  Neither she nor the captain talked much. The woman grunted when Roca asked her name. It didn’t surprise Roca; the less all of them involved with this illegal takeoff knew about one another, the less likely anyone could implicate anyone else.

  Eventually Roca said, “Director Vammond said you were the only pilot willing to take off during the storm. I thank you for your courage.”

  “My courage?” The captain laughed. “Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

  “Like what?”

  She copied Roca’s accent. “So disdainfully sophisticated.” In her normal voice, she added, “Maybe sophisticated is the wrong word. You don’t sound like the rich twitches on Capsize.”

  Roca stiffened. “I don’t know Capsize.”

  “That port.” The captain gave an irreverent grin. “You’d have to capsize before you’d be willing to put in there.”

  “It does seem antiquated.”

  “Antiquated. Gods. You talk like a dictionary.”

  Roca’s voice cooled. “Do you always ridicule your passengers?”

  “Aren’t we touchy?” The other woman shook her head. “You have it all: wealth, privilege, status, family. But it’s not enough, is it? No, you need a lover on the side. It sicke
ns me.” She slanted Roca a look. “How much did that body cost you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, come on. No normal person has tits that big or a waist that small.”

  Roca didn’t know whether to be shocked or awed. No one ever talked to her this way. It was a singularly unique, albeit equally unpleasant, experience. “It cost me nothing.”

  “Right. You just exercise a lot.”

  That was, in fact, what she did, even now when she rarely performed. But for all that she bridled at the implication, she knew what the captain meant. Many entertainers bodysculpted themselves. Although she had never changed her face or figure, she had undergone operations to improve her skeleton for ballet. One procedure altered the way her leg bones fit her hip sockets, giving her what dancers called perfect turnout. Doctors had redesigned the arches of her feet and removed a bone spur on her elbow. A computer node in her spine controlled augmentations to her skeleton and muscles, making it easier for her to adapt to variations in gravity, so she could dance on different worlds or habitats. As for her mammary glands, the only operation she had ever contemplated in that department was making them smaller, so she would be less top-heavy in a leotard.

  She said only, “Think what you want.”

  The captain leaned back and crossed her arms. “Don’t you ever wonder how it would be to live like the rest of us, the ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine percent of humanity without your advantages?”

  “What do you want me to say?” Roca asked. “That I don’t deserve my life?”

  “No.” She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “You resent that I’ve had privileges.” Roca thought of her frantic attempts to reach the Assembly. “Some might say they are small compensation for the demands of duty.”

  The woman’s gaze narrowed. “What duties?”

  Damn. She had let the captain goad her into saying too much. “I support many charities.”

  “You know, I don’t believe you’re a Capsize twitch.”

  Sweat beaded on Roca’s palms. “Why not?”

  “You don’t talk like them. They sure as hell don’t care about duty.” She studied Roca. “And you don’t flash your flush. Capsize types, they compete to see who can put on a bigger show. Gaudy, cheap, overdone. You’re the opposite, so refined, like you don’t even breathe the same air as the rest of us. I’ll bet you have so much, you don’t even know you’re rich.”

  Roca didn’t know how to answer. She never thought about her wealth. She certainly had no intention of revealing anything about her private life.

  “I’ll tell you what else.” The captain leaned toward her. “You’re a load more arrogant than a Capsize twitch. I don’t mean the arrogance people use to hide insecurity, but the kind where you’re so sure of yourself you don’t even realize it. Capsize types are always compensating, knowing they aren’t the real thing. I’ll wager you’ve never compensated in your life.”

  Roca blinked. “You think I’m arrogant?”

  “Oozing it, honey.”

  Dryly Roca said, “Whereas you are humility personified.”

  The captain laughed. “Point to you.”

  “I’m glad I get one.”

  The captain’s smile faded. “You don’t need any more.”

  After that they fell silent. Roca didn’t know what else she could say.

  Soon they would reach Skyfall.

  Sunlight poured over Roca as she and the captain crossed the tarmac of the Skyfall port. Roca felt heavy. The gravity was noticeably stronger than the human norm, and she walked carefully, relearning how to time her steps. The air was rich and fresh, exhilarating in its purity. She breathed deeply, savoring it. No smog. No irritants. No impurities.

  Actually, that last wasn’t true. Clouds puffed the lavender sky. Blue clouds. They were lovely, but strange. It meant the water here had impurities that made it blue. She hoped they wouldn’t make her sick or turn any part of her blue.

  The suns were dim enough to glance at. Two suns. Another oddity. The double star system surely destabilized the planet’s orbit. The suns were beautiful, though, a rich gold. The big one hung like a great coin in the sky, half eclipsing its smaller, darker companion. Although both seemed darker than the star type considered ideal for human life, their combined output wasn’t noticeably dim. Golden light suffused the landscape.

  Roca doubted this system had developed naturally. The world had probably been moved here long ago and terraformed for human life. Her distant ancestors, the people of the Ruby Empire, had possessed a remarkable technology, managing feats of astrophysical engineering impossible today. That knowledge had vanished after the fall of the Ruby Empire five millennia ago.

  “Pretty,” the captain grumbled, as if offended that she had to admit such a thing.

  Roca smiled. Skyfall captivated her. They left the tarmac and walked through the safety zone around it, out into the plains. Silver-green reeds as high as her hips rippled in every direction, each topped by an iridescent bubble the width of her thumbnail. Leaning over, she touched a bubble. It floated into the air and popped, showering her with glitter. Roca laughed with delight.

  “Careful,” the captain growled. “We don’t know what this flora can do to a person.” She looked around, shading her eyes with her hand. “Where is everyone?”

  “Good question.” Roca surveyed the port. It consisted of little more than the tarmac and a round, whitewashed house whose turreted roof resembled a bluebell turned upside down. Sparkling bubbles floated in the air along the path she and the captain had taken through the reeds. The only other motion was a small droid on the tarmac refueling the freighter. Although the Capsize port had notified no one of their travel plans, the captain had been in contact with the computers here. Surely someone human knew they were coming.

  The captain scowled. “This is bizarre. Even an automated port should have someone in charge. A full-sized robot, for flaming sakes.”

  Roca motioned toward the south. “Look.” About a kilometer away, a cluster of white houses with blue or purple roofs showed above the reeds. The towers of a picturesque castle rose up beyond them, topped by spires, with pennants snapping in the wind.

  “It’s a village,” she said.

  The captain squinted. “Or the set for some absurd holovid about our ‘charming’ past, as if it were romantic to have no central heat or garbage removal.”

  Roca could see what she meant. Idealists nostalgic for an old-fashioned life might have established the village. However, it could also be the real thing, descended from a colony of the Ruby Empire. Many of the lost colonies had survived the five millennia of dark ages that followed the collapse of the empire. Now that Roca’s people had regained star travel and formed the Imperialate, they were gradually re-discovering the Ruby colonies.

  Although Roca recalled no briefings about this world, news of rediscovered colonies usually went through Planetary Development or Domestic Affairs. As the Foreign Affairs Councilor, she dealt with two other interstellar civilizations—the Eubian Concord and the Allied Worlds of Earth—that shared the stars with her people of the Imperialate. However, the line between the Foreign and Domestic offices tended to blur when they were reestablishing relations with an ancient colony.

  “It wouldn’t take long to reach the village,” Roca said.

  The captain glanced at her. “You know people there?”

  “No, I don’t. But I doubt Imperial Space Command would have established a post like this if the natives were hostile.” She waved at the pretty house that constituted the port. “This hardly looks like a defense installation.”

  The captain crossed her brawny arms. “Then why didn’t anyone meet us, eh?”

  “Maybe no one human received your messages.”

  The captain glared. “So the natives cooked them all and had a feast.”

  Roca gave a startled laugh. “I hope not.”

  “I’d just as soon be leaving.”

  The
reminder that she would soon be on her own disquieted Roca. “You’re certain the supply ship sets in here the day after tomorrow?”

  “It’s supposed to.” The captain shrugged. “I fulfilled my part of the agreement. You’re here. I can’t hover around until your next flight comes.”

  “What if no ship shows up?”

  “Not my problem.”

  Looking past her, Roca saw the droid was done refueling the freighter. The other automated functions of the port also seemed to have finished their maintenance. Well, she had agreed to this. She could hardly expect the captain to stay. Trying for a cheerful tone, she said, “Gods’ speed on your trip. I hope you haggle the blazes out of your buyers.”

  The captain grinned. “You can be sure of that.” Her features softened a micron. “Hope the, uh, marriage thing works out.”

  “Thank you.” Roca thought of Darr all those decades ago, and of her son Kurj, who had suffered several broken bones from the beating Darr gave him. She had never married again. Right now the Assembly was pressuring her to wed a prince from one of the noble lines, the House of Majda. Roca dreaded the union, but its political advantages were too important to ignore.

  She said only, “I’m sure it will.”

  “Well, so.” The other woman set off for her freighter, easily pushing her way through the reeds, then walking solidly across the tarmac. At her ship, she looked back and lifted her hand in farewell.

  Roca waved. The freighter took off in a blast of flame and exhaust, and soon disappeared in the great expanse of the sky.

  The port house was as charming inside as out. It struck Roca as more like a home than anything else, with a living room, rustic bar, and doors to inner rooms. An emerald-green material paneled the room, neither glass nor wood, but something in between. She christened it “glasswood.” Real paintings hung on the walls, rather than holoart, scenes of craggy mountains capped with blue snow.

  Roca stood in the center of the room, uncertain what to do. She didn’t want to trespass, but now that the captain had left, she had nowhere else to go except the village. The supply ship was due the day after tomorrow, but she didn’t have a good sense of what “tomorrow” meant here.