Stars of Blood and Glory (22 page)

This ship is the last place
I’ll see before they send me back to the palace,
she thought to
herself, drawing in a deep breath.
It might be the last time I leave Shinihon
for the stars.

“
Ah, Princess,” said Danica,
standing up from her chair and turning around to face her. “Is
there something I can do for you?”

“
Yes,” said Hikaru. “Do you have
time to—well, to talk?”

“
Certainly. Please, have a
seat.”

Hikaru bowed politely and walked
over to the couch on the far side of the room, sitting gingerly on
the edge. Danica went to the back for a few brief moments and came
back with a tray of tea.
Why didn’t she have a servant bring that?
Hikaru
wondered.

“
Care for some tea?” she asked,
setting the tray on the table between them.

“
Yes, thank you,” said Hikaru.
She waited a moment for the captain to serve her, but when it
became apparent that that wasn’t the custom here, she did her best
to serve herself. Strange, these customs—unrefined, and yet in a
way refreshing.

“
I’m happy to report that we’ve
evaded the Hameji,” said Danica, mixing a bit of cream and stirring
it in thoroughly. “We should arrive at New Vela in just a matter of
hours.”

“
And New Rigel after
that?”

“
Of course.”

Hikaru sighed and listlessly stirred her tea.
Everything seemed to be happening so quickly, now—and soon after
she returned to the palace, it would be as if she’d never left.

“
Do we
have
to go back so soon?” she asked, her voice
barely more than a mumble. “Can’t we stay at New Vela for—for a
week or two?”

Danica took a sip from her teacup and lowered
it to her lap. “Probably not, Your Highness. Considering how the
war is going, that wouldn’t be very safe.”

I hate being safe.

“
The Hameji are advancing quickly
through the rift, and may attack New Vela in just a few hours,”
Danica continued. “We’ll be lucky to sneak past their forces along
the way.”

“
Then can we spend a little extra
time in the outer planets at New Rigel? Please?”

Hikaru cringed at how pathetic she sounded,
but she didn’t have any other choice—at least, not here in deep
space at least, with nowhere to run. But if she could convince the
captain to dock at a station somewhere, perhaps—

“
I’m afraid I can’t do that,
Princess. You’re needed on your homeworld, not here in this
war-zone. And frankly, I don’t think it’s fair of you to
ask.”

Hikaru frowned. “What are you saying?”

“
I’m not going to lie, Princess,”
said Danica, staring right through her with a cold, steely gaze.
“We’re all getting tired of putting our necks out for you. My first
and most important priority is to see to the welfare of my men. If
I’d known how dangerous this mission would be, I would have turned
it down, and you’d be a Hameji slave right now. What do you think
of that?”

Better a slave to the Hameji
than a prisoner of the palace,
Hikaru almost shot back. But then she thought of
her brother, somewhere out in space fighting to defend their home,
and realized that that wasn’t true. Certainly, his was a face she
had missed.

“
I just wanted to get out and see
the stars,” she said, clenching her fists. “What’s so wrong about
that?”

“
Everything, if it means
abandoning all your obligations and responsibilities to do it. When
people are depending on you, you shouldn’t up and run away like
that.”

Hikaru stared at her, but the captain met her
eyes and returned her gaze without flinching. She bit her lip and
drew in a sharp breath.

“
You don’t know what it’s like,”
she said, lifting her nose in disdain. “I can’t spend the rest of
my life in a cage.”

“
Then don’t.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

Danica finished her tea and set the cup and
saucer carefully down on the table. “You spend far too much time
feeling sorry for yourself, Princess. If you’d open your eyes,
you’d see that none of it is warranted. The palace guard won’t let
you travel off-world, but that’s to be expected when there’s a war
going on. Instead of focusing on all the things you can’t do, focus
on the things you can, and take advantage of them. I guarantee,
you’re not a prisoner—no matter how much you want to believe
otherwise.”

“
And what does a mercenary like
you know about palace life?”

Danica grinned. “I wasn’t always a mercenary,
you know. My father was an admiral in the Tajji Revolutionary
Guard. I know what it’s like to grow up with strict social
obligations.”

“
Oh, sure,” said Hikaru, rolling
her eyes.

“
It’s true. When my father went
to war, he made me promise to stay behind, even though I wanted to
join him. When he was captured, I broke that promise—and never saw
my family again.”

Just get the lecture over
with,
Hikaru
thought to herself, eyes glazing over.

Danica paused for a moment, then rose to her
feet. “We arrive at New Vela in just a few hours. We’ll make a
quick stop to take on fuel and supplies, then head straight for New
Rigel. In the meantime, I urge you to think carefully about what
you’re asking. As much as you want to feel sorry for yourself,
we’re not sending you back to a prison.”

That’s what you think,
Hikaru thought to
herself. Instead, she gave the captain a curt bow and walked out
the door.

* * * * *

“
Stand by,” said Yuri.
“Initiating jump in three, two, one—”

Roman took a deep breath and shut down his
external senses once again. As he floated in the soundless white
space, his thoughts drifted to the princess. She seemed so vibrant
and full of life—such a contrast to the man he had become over the
long, hard years. Of course he was too old for her, but that was
precisely why he found her company so refreshing. It almost made
him wish he had something to live for—but no, he was much too old
for that. Better to have something to die for.

He opened his eyes and returned to physical
consciousness, just in time to hear Yuri swear. Outside the forward
window, the giant orb of New Vela II filled their view—only instead
of the lush blue-green world it was before, dark clouds of black
and gray shrouded the entire surface. He leaned forward and
frowned, narrowing his eyes, as the soft silent flashes of distant
explosions echoed in the distance.

“
Lieutenant Avanadze, what is the
situation?” Danica asked, her voice as hard as steel.

“
It—it’s the second planet
alright,” said Yuri, his cheeks turning pale, “but the whole sector
is swarming with—”

“
Hameji,” said Roman, clenching
his fists.

Danica fixed her eyes out the window and
slowly rose to her feet. Outside, dozens of cannon-like ships
pointed downward at the planet, shooting enormous chunks of space
rock directly at the surface below. Roman’s arm tensed, and blood
rose to his natural cheek as unexpected rage clouded his vision. He
knew exactly what he was seeing—knew all too well.

“
Two capital ships are bearing
down on us,” said Rina, her voice cracking ever so subtly. “They
appear to be moving in for an attack—we don’t have much
time.”

“
Avanadze, get us the hell out of
here,” said Danica.

“
On the secondary drive,
Captain?”

“
Yes, Lieutenant.”

“
Very well. Stand by—”

Roman clenched his fists as he stared out the
window at the scene of destruction below. Debris from the battle
streaked across the upper atmosphere, plunging to the shrouded
surface of the dying world. Not far from their position, a mass
accelerator shot a chunk of space rock directly into the water,
kicking up a giant plume of white and brown spray that made the
ocean boil. He stared in rapt fascination, his rage building at the
scope of it all. It was like watching an old holo, or a newsreel
from the Hameji conquest of Tajjur V—except that this time, he was
witnessing it in person.

It’s just like home,
Rina transmitted to
him through her datalink.
I can’t watch, I’m sorry. I’m going to be
sick.

Lieutenant?
he answered, glancing over his
shoulder. Her hands were clasped over her mouth, and her cheeks
turned a sickly pale green.

“
Get down to medical at once,
Lieutenant,” he told her aloud.

She nodded gratefully and hurried off the
bridge. Danica shot her a brief inquisitive look, but soon returned
her attention to command.

“
The ships are launching
fighters, Captain,” said Zura, glancing over the scanners.
“Estimated time to attack: ten seconds.”

“
Coordinates set,” said Yuri.
“Jumping in three, two, one—”

This time, Roman didn’t have
time to switch off his physical sensory inputs. A tingling
sensation spread across his prosthetics, like static electricity
building up for a tremendous release. He tensed and closed his
eyes, and his stomach dropped out as the walls began to close in
all around him. For a brief moment, he felt as if he had been
turned inside out, or as if the prosthetics were controlling him
instead of the other way around—but then, the feeling passed, the
tingling stopped, and he was back on the bridge of the
Tajji Flame,
staring at the
scanners.

“
Jump complete,” said Yuri.
“We’re out.”

“
Scanners are blank, Captain,”
said Roman, quickly checking over Rina’s display. “It appears we
are alone in this sector. Your orders?”

Danica let out a long, heavy breath,
deflating ever so slightly before regaining her iron composure. All
around the bridge, anxious eyes turned on her, desperate for her
guidance.

“
We can’t push on to New Rigel,”
she said. “No doubt the whole sector is crawling with
interdictors—the last thing we need is to jump into the middle of a
Hameji battle fleet.”

“
Then perhaps we should stay
here,” Yuri suggested. “We’re about a thousand light-hours from New
Rigel—if we shut down all but our most vital systems, we might be
able to wait it out.”

“
That won’t work” said Mikhail.
“We’ve been out for so long, we need to resupply. I’d give us 72
hours before we start to face some critical shortages.”

“
What, we can’t fabricate what we
need?”

“
It’s not the ship that’s in
danger,” he replied. “It’s us. We’re running out of foodstuffs, and
the synthesizers don’t have enough proteins to keep running for
very long. If the situation doesn’t change soon—”

“
That’s enough,” said Danica,
cutting them both off. “Let’s stay focused on the situation at
hand. We can’t stay long at our current position, and we can’t move
forward. Since we’re carrying a high level prisoner, we have to
assume that the Hameji are in pursuit.”

“
Then we’re lost,” said Yuri.
“There’s nothing we can do. Is there?”

Danica took a deep breath, her
face a mask.
She doesn’t know what to do,
Roman realized.

“
How much time before the jump
drives recharge?” she asked.

Yuri checked his screen. “A few hours.”

“
Then there’s nothing we can do
until then anyway. Roman, take command—I’ve got some thinking to
do.”

With that, she rose to her feet and left the
bridge. The door hissed shut behind her, leaving them all in
stunned silence.

“
I don’t know how we’re going to
get out of this one,” Mikhail muttered.

“
But we will, Corporal,” Roman
snapped at him.
Even if some of us must die.

Chapter 13

Abaqa stirred as the sound of groaning metal
announced a visitor. He yawned and sat up, rubbing his back where
the hard metal cot had made him sore.

“
Avanadze? What are you doing
here?”

“
You’re relieved,
Private.”

“
But Lieutenant—”

The men fell into a harsh, throaty dialect
that Abaqa couldn’t understand. From the tone of their voices,
though, something was definitely wrong.

At length, footsteps sounded in the hallway,
and the door to the brig hissed shut. The newcomer stepped up to
the metal grating of his cell. Abaqa frowned—whoever was there, he
hadn’t switched on the lights for his visit. Instead, he punched in
the combination and swung the door open into the darkness.

“
Who’s there?” Abaqa asked,
trying to sound as nonchalant as he could.

The man hesitated for a moment in the
doorway, like a cat making ready to pounce. Abaqa rose to his feet,
but before he could react, the man grabbed his throat and shoved
him against the opposite wall.

“
You Hameji bastard,” he hissed,
his face only inches from Abaqa’s. “Give me one good reason why I
shouldn’t wipe the floor with your face.”

“
Wh-what are you t-talking
about?” Abaqa stuttered. He tried to free himself, but the man’s
grip tightened, choking him off.

“
You think there’s nothing wrong
with murdering billions of people? With turning entire worlds into
slag heaps? That just because you were born on some shithole of a
starship, that makes you better than the rest of us?”