Page 15 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

“Looks like they’re all more than a single light-cycle,” I said.

Cyan made a noise of agreement. “And the closest is not one that’s currently in regular use. In fact, I would suggest that whoever this firelord is, he’s trying to avoid being noticed.”

“Much as we are.”

“Indeed.”

“Have they seen us?”

“Not yet.” She paused—a few seconds to me, but with Cyan’s computing power, it was practically an eternity before she asked, “You don’t think anyone knows what you’re doing, do you?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. I hope not.”

“Do you want me to change course?”

I tapped my forefinger against my lips. “If we stay, how likely are they to see us?”

“There’s a less than ten percent chance they will detect us with their current technology.”

I swiped through several screens’ worth of imagery, examining the firelord’s ship. “Are we sure he doesn’t know we’re here?”

“As sure as I can be without getting inside his head.”

“Do you think we can track him without being spotted?”

“Of course.” Cyan gave an offended little sniff, and I had to fight back a snicker.

“Can we find out what they’re up to? Maybe intercept messages?”

Several seconds of silence suggested Cyan was playing out billions of permutations, possibilities for dealing with the firelord’s ship.

“I believe we can,” she said. “If we circle around on this elliptical plane”—she brought up a star-chart and traced the route to show me what she meant—“we ought to be able to avoidthe ship’s trackers picking up any of our trails—assuming, of course, they’re not actively scanning for us.”

“Good. Let’s do it.” I slouched back down in my seat as Cyan brought us about and set our course to move in behind the firelord’s ship.

“What’s the time estimate on being able to pick up any communications?”

Cyan made a contemplative noise, a habit she’d picked up early in our association, designed to let me know when she was thinking. “Do you want that in Trasqo time or Earth time?”

“Trasqo time will do.”

“Then it will be roughly five solar clicks.” She paused, and then added snarkily, “Or an hour, if you’ve forgotten how to calculate in your own time.”

“Thanks ever so much,” I said dryly. “But I haven’t forgotten what a quintclick is.”

Despite Cyan’s snark, I was glad for the delay. It gave me some time to consider what the firelords might be doing this far outside their territory—and outside anyone’s approved shipping lanes.

By the time that quintclick had passed, though, I still didn’t have an answer to that question.

If the firelords had any inkling of my plans, they would have been scanning for us already—but they weren’t, which meant they weren’t out here for me.

And yet, I couldn’t fathom anything else that would bring them out to this part of space.

Unless, of course, one of their scout ships had discovered something valuable in the area. But that didn’t seem very likely either, since this route had been mapped for generations—it was probably one of the earliest routes to Earth in existence.

“Ivrael?” Cyan’s voice startled me out of my contemplation, her tone carrying that particular lilt she used when she was about to be insufferable.

“Yes?”

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