Is­rala had pro­vided the code that al­lowed them to move freely in the sta­sis field. They drifted in a seem­ingly hap­haz­ardous course, re­sem­bling de­bris. The pods and suits were out­fit­ted with boost­ers, not to be used un­less the group was de­tected. To avoid at­ten­tion, they steered with small blasts of air. As long as none of the Earth ships pointed a life scan­ner in their di­rec­tion, they would never be the wiser any­one had passed through the block­ade.

  Raxs­tad’s voice came in over the ra­dio. “Leav­ing sta­sis belt in twenty sec­onds.”

  Jes­sica swal­lowed. She leaned close to the win­dow to peer around. She caught her breath when she saw the mas­sive space­ship over­head, just out­side of the belt.

  “That is one huge bat­tle­cruiser,” she told Egilka.

  He craned his neck to look. “It’s only one. The Earth­ers aren’t too wor­ried about guard­ing this sec­tion. We’re above the ocean, nowhere near a land­ing spot.”

  “Is this how you came in?”

  “Yes.” Egilka smiled en­cour­age­ment at Jes­sica and his arm tight­ened around her. “Even if the bat­tle­cruiser de­tects us, it will take three min­utes to launch its fight­ers. If it be­comes nec­es­sary, we hope we can ei­ther make it to our ship or re­treat back to the sta­sis field in that amount of time.”

  Jes­sica swal­lowed. Three min­utes be­tween life and death seemed like an aw­fully small win­dow. “Who told you how long it takes to launch the fight­ers?”

  “Is­rala’s Earther boyfriends have been most forth­com­ing when she asks them for tac­ti­cal data. They don’t wish to be taken home.”

  Jes­sica thought of all those young men ea­gerly avail­ing them­selves of the car­nal plea­sures on Pla­sius. “Mutiny and trea­son will be the least of their crimes.”

  Three quick clicks sounded over their ra­dio. “We’re there,” Egilka whis­pered.

  Jes­sica bit her lip. The seem­ingly in­nocu­ous click­ing had been Raxs­tad or Be­vau cross­ing into open space. They would now travel in com­mu­ni­ca­tion si­lence to avoid alert­ing the bat­tle­cruiser of their pres­ence.

  Egilka craned his neck, look­ing over Jes­sica’s shoul­der to keep the suited men ahead of them in his sights. He jet­ted air from time to time to ad­just their course. In do­ing so, the ter­ri­ble view of the bat­tle­cruiser drifted into their win­dow.

  The ship’s for­ward sec­tion was a long tube. Two laser can­non ar­rays jut­ted from it like wheel spokes. The spokes were seg­mented, al­low­ing the can­non bar­rels to aim at mul­ti­ple tar­gets. The con­fig­u­ra­tion gave it the ca­pa­bil­ity to at­tack in an al­most 360 de­gree ra­dius.

  At the end of cylin­dri­cal bat­tle sec­tion, the ship flared into a fat­ter, squat­ter cylin­der. This sec­tion con­tained crew liv­ing quar­ters and dock­ing bays. The aft sec­tion was a large rec­tan­gu­lar cube, hous­ing the rock­ets that pro­pelled the cruiser through space. The over­all ef­fect was as awk­ward look­ing as a pubescent boy, but Jes­sica knew the bat­tle­cruiser for what it was: a fright­en­ingly ef­fec­tive death ma­chine.

  They drifted closer un­til the cruiser filled the pod’s win­dow. Egilka ad­justed their course so that they floated par­al­lel to the me­chan­i­cal beast’s un­der­side.

  Miles of fea­ture­less metal pan­els passed by. Jes­sica had never been claus­tro­pho­bic be­fore. How­ever, af­ter five end­less min­utes of stark metal­lic gray fill­ing the win­dow she could barely draw breath. The pod seemed to close in tight around her. She gasped for air, and her heart drummed wildly. The ir­ra­tional thought filled her mind: If I could just open the hatch door, I could get some air. I’m go­ing to smother in this cof­fin if I don’t open the hatch!

  Egilka’s arm around her waist pressed her tight. She looked up at him, know­ing her eyes were wide with fear. With panic on the rise, his calm face seemed ab­surd.

  “You’re all right, my love. I swear it,” he whis­pered and pressed his lips briefly against her cheek.

  Jes­sica shud­dered, and the Imdiko opened his mouth. His fangs de­scended. He looked at her ques­tion­ingly.

  Egilka’s of­fer sparked anger, but not at him. He only wanted to help her, and Jes­sica loved him for it. Her ire was for her­self. Damn it, I’m no shrink­ing vi­o­let. I’ve faced worse than this, much worse.

  She took a deep breath, forc­ing her­self to stop hy­per­ven­ti­lat­ing. Her shak­ing eased. She gave Egilka a brave smile and shook her head. He grinned back, and his fangs curved back to the roof of his mouth. “Not bad for a piece of Earther fluff,” he teased.

  Mo­ments later they cleared the bat­tle­cruiser. Black space em­bed­ded with the di­a­mond points of stars filled the win­dow. Jes­sica felt Egilka’s body re­lax, let­ting her know how on edge he had been too. Shame for pan­ick­ing and adding to the Imdiko’s ten­sion filled her.

  For sev­eral min­utes they floated along, leav­ing the bat­tle­cruiser be­hind. Jes­sica’s heart felt lighter and lighter as the lit­tle group went deeper into the void. Soon she would be on her way to Kalquor to live bet­ter than a story-book princess: hap­pily ever af­ter with three Prince Charm­ings.

  Some­thing in­side the pod pinged, and Egilka snarled a sin­gle word in Kalquo­rian. The ra­dio came alive with Be­vau’s voice.

  “We’ve been de­tected. Fire boost­ers and com­mence eva­sive ma­neu­vers.”

  “Time to make a run for it,” Egilka said, flip­ping two switches and punch­ing a but­ton. The pod around them vi­brated as the boost­ers came to life. Jes­sica watched Govi and Michaela’s pod surge ahead, ac­cel­er­at­ing quickly.

  The stars they’d been drift­ing past be­gan to move faster. The other pod stopped pulling away as Jes­sica’s matched speed. Egilka grabbed the steer­ing lever and barked some­thing in Kalquo­rian. A me­chan­i­cal voice an­swered and a free-float­ing dig­i­tal nav­i­ga­tion chart ap­peared be­fore Jes­sica’s star­tled eyes.

  Be­yond the green-tinged chart, she watched the other pod reach and pass the space-suited Dramoks. Mo­ments later, it raced past the Nobeks.

  Jes­sica and Egilka’s pod caught up to Cla­jak and Ko­rkla. As it did, a bright streak of light cut through the sky over their heads. It kept go­ing to­wards Govi and Michaela’s craft. Jes­sica screamed.

  “They’re fir­ing the laser can­nons,” Be­vau shouted. “Govi, are you all right?”

  Jes­sica wept with re­lief to hear the Imdiko psy­chol­o­gist’s voice over Michaela’s curs­ing. “We’re fine, just a lit­tle singed I think. Pod op­er­a­tions show nor­mal.”

  Jes­sica’s pod passed the Nobeks as more lasers streamed around them. Raxs­tad said, “The Earth­ers al­most got lucky. Those can­nons aren’t meant for tar­gets as small as us.”

  “I don’t want them get­ting any luck­ier,” Be­vau an­swered. “Cla­jak, Raxs­tad, Ko­rkla, bunch up with me. We’ll keep our­selves be­tween the bat­tle­cruiser and the pods. Hope­fully we’ll be a bet­ter tar­get to draw fire away from our Mataras.”

  Hear­ing half her clan putting them­selves in dan­ger sent Jes­sica’s heart into over­drive. “Please be care­ful,” she begged.

  She could al­most see Cla­jak’s com­fort­ing smile when he an­swered. “Stay calm, my sweet. We’re al­most there.”

  The bar­rage of laser fire ended as sud­denly as it be­gan. There was no time for re­lief how­ever.

  “The fight­ers are com­ing,” Be­vau an­nounced.

  Raxs­tad added, “They’ll be in fir­ing range in ten sec­onds.”

  Jes­sica gasped. “Ten sec­onds?”

  Egilka chuck­led as a sleek ob­long space­ship sud­denly swam into be­ing be­fore them. An un­fa­mil­iar voice speak­ing Kalquo­rian trans­mit­ted over the com.

  The Imdiko an­swered in Plasian. “It’s nice to see you too, Cap­tain.”

  “Were they there all along?” Jes­sica de­manded.

  “Fight­ers are veer­ing off,” Be­vau an­nounced. “The cruiser is com­ing about. I think they want to ar­gue with us some more.”

  Egilka told Jes­sica, “Our trans­port waited out of fir­ing range. It can pro­tect us from the fight­ers, but it doesn’t have the weapons for de­fense against a bat­tle­cruiser.” Egilka pi­loted the pod to­wards an open­ing shaft on the Kalquo­rian ves­sel.

  The Kalquo­rian cap­tain’s voice came back on, his Plasian halt­ing. “We ready leav­ing for you ar­rive.”

  Michaela and Govi’s pod en­tered the open­ing in the Kalquo­rian ship, dis­ap­pear­ing from sight.

  Egilka tight­ened his grip on Jes­sica. “Get ready for grav­ity. It’ll hit as soon as we en­ter the dock­ing bay.”

  “Pod One has docked,” an­nounced Govi.

  “Are we go­ing to es­cape?” Jes­sica asked.

  Egilka didn’t an­swer as he worked to pi­lot with one hand. Their pod swept into the dock­ing bay. Sud­den weight bore down on Jes­sica, and she grunted at the heav­i­ness. She shut her eyes against the ship’s well-lit in­te­rior, daz­zling af­ter the dark­ness of space.

  “Our trans­port is faster than the bat­tle­cruiser. The trick is get­ting out of here be­fore the cruiser can get close enough to at­tack it.” Egilka said.

  Jes­sica peeked be­tween slit­ted eye­lids to watch his fin­gers fly over switches and but­tons. The pod thumped to the ground.

  “Pod Two has docked,” Egilka an­nounced.

  He set her on her feet on the pod’s floor and bus­ied him­self with the straps hold­ing him in place. Jes­sica stood on her tip­toes, try­ing to see through the win­dow. Where was the rest of their group?

  “All per­son­nel are on board,” Be­vau said. “Bay doors are closed.”

  Egilka un­buck­led the last strap as a me­chan­i­cal voice boomed out­side the pod.

  “What’s it say­ing?” Jes­sica said.

  “Stand by for at­mos­phere restora­tion,” Egilka trans­lated. “We have to stay in the pod un­til life-sup­port­ing oxy­gen lev­els are reached.”

  “I need to learn your lan­guage,” Jes­sica grum­bled. “How can I be the Crown Prince Clan’s Matara and not speak Kalquo­rian?”

  “Tu­tor­ing will be ar­ranged as soon as we get home. Mean­while, I’ll teach you a few sim­ple phrases that will help you get by.”

  The me­chan­i­cal voice boomed again, and Egilka re­leased the latches on the pod’s door. He swung it open. “It’s safe to get out now.”

  Jes­sica stepped out of the mini-pod, sur­prised her shak­ing legs held her up.

  She looked around the cav­ernous space. Hun­dreds of pods filled half the room, sit­ting in rows of mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion. It looked like the big­gest, most ob­ses­sive-com­pul­sive chicken in the uni­verse roosted there. Jes­sica had the feel­ing if she mea­sured the dis­tance be­tween each and ev­ery pod, they’d all be the same to the small­est frac­tion of an inch.

  Muted light emit­ted from the metal­lic walls and ceil­ing, the color match­ing the steel high­lights of Cla­jak’s hair. It gave her skin a strange gray pal­lor. She glanced at Egilka as he emerged from their pod. He also had a metal­lic cast to his dark skin, and his cat’s pupils re­flected sil­ver.

  “Stupid ass­hole Earth­ers,” Michaela com­plained, her voice echo­ing in the space. Jes­sica turned to look at her friend. She and Govi stared at the top of their pod. The peak of the gray metal egg was black with burn marks. Jes­sica whis­tled. It had in­deed been a close call. She walked over, Egilka fol­low­ing.

  “Why do you get to have all the fun?” she teased with hu­mor she didn’t feel.

  Michaela’s eyes were wide. “Just lucky I guess. Let’s not do that again, okay?”

  Govi hugged her. Jes­sica thought his body trem­bled. In a shaken voice, he said, “Never, my beauty.”

  Over the ship’s com sys­tem, the voice of the Kalquo­rian cap­tain echoed in the room. He spoke briefly.

  Egilka trans­lated for Jes­sica. “We’re away and clear with no shots fired.”

  The last of her ten­sion bled away. She grinned to see Be­vau and Cla­jak ap­proach­ing, their heads bared of the hel­mets. In the strange light of the bay, Cla­jak’s hair shone pure sil­ver. Af­ter their har­row­ing es­cape, Jes­sica thought the men had never been more hand­some.

  Be­vau reached her first and cov­ered her face with kisses. She wrapped her arms around the stun­ning Kalquo­rian’s mas­sive shoul­ders. His space suit crin­kled like tis­sue pa­per. Jes­sica shiv­ered, think­ing how in­sub­stan­tial the pro­tec­tive fab­ric felt for space travel, es­pe­cially with hos­tile ships fir­ing at him.

  Not far away, Ko­rkla and Raxs­tad em­braced Michaela, kiss­ing and mur­mur­ing as they re­united with their Matara. They touched her all over as if re­as­sur­ing them­selves of her well-be­ing. She in turn clutched at them.

  Be­vau let Jes­sica go so Cla­jak could scoop her up and swing her around. “You sure know how to show a girl a wild time,” she laughed, ec­static to see him alive in one piece.

  “We can’t let you get bored, can we?” the Dramok said and kissed her thor­oughly. She molded her­self against him, re­as­sur­ing her­self with his solid­ness that they had in­deed sur­vived the dread­ful jour­ney.

  Cla­jak broke the kiss to hug her close. Over his shoul­der, Jes­sica saw a door open silently and three men walk in. They were older Kalquo­ri­ans, their faces lined. They wore flow­ing robes of dif­fer­ent col­ors; green, blue, and red.

  The blue-robed man in the mid­dle of the group moved with care­ful, un­cer­tain steps. His body twisted slightly to one side. Gray strands streaked his black hair. A leg­less chair fol­lowed him seem­ingly of its own vo­li­tion, hov­er­ing at knee level above the ground. De­spite his bent frame, Jes­sica saw strength in his face.

  To his right, the Kalquo­rian in green robes switched his gaze back and forth be­tween the bent man and Cla­jak’s clan. He was tall, even for a Kalquo­rian. His bear­ing was as straight as his com­pan­ion’s was hunched. His long beard matched his snowy white hair. Jes­sica liked his warm ex­pres­sion right away.

  The third man wore red robes. His eyes were sharp and his face un­smil­ing. He made Jes­sica think of a watch­ful hawk wait­ing for a tasty meal to cross his path. The steel-tinge of his dark hair caught her at­ten­tion. She pat­ted Cla­jak’s shoul­der to alert him to the ar­rivals.

  “Is that who I think it is?”

  At her words, Cla­jak’s and Ko­rkla’s clans turned. With the ex­cep­tion of Cla­jak, Jes­sica and Michaela, ev­ery­one bowed so deeply they al­most bent dou­ble. Af­ter a mo­ment’s hes­i­ta­tion, Michaela fol­lowed suit. She peeked at the new­com­ers through the curls that fell over her face.

  Cla­jak set Jes­sica down, and they echoed ev­ery­one else’s gen­u­flect­ing. The Dramok prince con­firmed her sus­pi­cions as he greeted the el­der Kalquo­ri­ans.

  “We are hon­ored to be in your pres­ence my fa­thers, Em­per­ors of Kalquor.”

  * * * *

  Cla­jak swal­lowed, his mind rac­ing. What was the Im­pe­rial Clan do­ing way out here, away from the Em­pire?

  “I hope our be­ing here is a happy sur­prise,” Em­peror Zarl said.

  Cla­jak straight­ened, notic­ing the oth­ers did the same. Jes­sica and Michaela, un­fa­mil­iar with Kalquo­rian cus­tom, had not been re­quired to bow at all. Mataras were re­spected above all oth­ers, even the Im­pe­rial Clan.

  He looked at the men be­fore him, es­pe­cially the one who had spo­ken. His ini­tial shock gave way to moved af­fec­tion. He knew how tor­tur­ous it was for Zarl to move about on his feet and how space travel taxed his Dramok fa­ther’s dam­aged frame. That the man had made the jour­ney all the way from Kalquor just to see him brought a mael­strom of emo­tion. Cla­jak swal­lowed the thick­ness in his throat and hur­ried to the bent Kalquo­rian. The Dramok prince touched the back of his hand to Zarl’s lined cheek.

  “Such an honor can only bring joy, my fa­ther.” His voice caught.

  Zarl smiled and re­turned the tra­di­tional greet­ing be­tween fa­ther and son. His hand was warm on Cla­jak’s face. “It is good to see you, my son.”

  Cla­jak turned to ex­change touch with his Imdiko fa­ther Tidro. De­spite the white hair and beard, Tidro still looked vig­or­ous and strong. Cla­jak couldn’t keep the con­cern out of his voice, though he man­aged not to look in Zarl’s di­rec­tion when he asked, “Why have you come? Is all well?”

  Tidro pat­ted Cla­jak’s cheek. “Ev­ery­thing is fine. We are sen­ti­men­tal in our old age and miss our son. You stay away too long.”

  Cla­jak nod­ded, drop­ping his eyes. He turned and stepped away to greet Yuder. The sharp-eyed Nobek em­peror al­lowed a slight smile to lift the cor­ners of his mouth as he too touched Cla­jak’s face. “I see you brought Kalquor two Mataras. Well done.”

  Cla­jak’s face warmed in mo­men­tary em­bar­rass­ment, know­ing they’d caught him pas­sion­ately em­brac­ing Jes­sica. As glad as he was to see them, he didn’t rel­ish the com­ing rev­e­la­tion that he’d taken her as his own. “Al­low me to in­tro­duce the Earth­ers. They speak ex­cel­lent Plasian.”

  Zarl smiled at the women. Tak­ing Cla­jak’s hint, he spoke so they un­der­stood him. “I trust these lovelies will not take of­fense if an old man greets them from a seated po­si­tion?”

  Snort­ing, Tidro took Zarl’s arm and helped to guide him to the hover chair. “Old man? What does that make me, an­cient?”

  Cla­jak mo­tioned Michaela and Jes­sica for­ward. As soon as the Dramok em­peror was set­tled, Michaela ex­e­cuted a grace­ful curt­sey, dip­ping her head in re­spect. Jes­sica copied the mo­tion.

  Michaela ad­dressed them. “We are hon­ored to meet your Im­pe­rial Majesties in any fash­ion you deem wor­thy. We are grate­ful for your kind­ness in al­low­ing us to join your peo­ple.”

 

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