Page 1 of Star Prince

Chapter One

“He’s not drunk,Captain. He’s dead.”

“Yeah, yeah. We found him like this last week—andthe week before. He’s no more dead now than he was then.” Ian Hamilton pushed past his mechanic and the stragglers milling around the bar. His pilot—his only pilot, and the third he had hired since taking command of theSun Devil—was slumped forward. Not surprisingly, Carn still occupied the perch he had chosen the night before, when Ian had joined him and the rest of the crew for what was—for Ian—a rare drink. Now blotches of early-morning sunlight spread over the pilot’s uniform and the gritty floor, heating the already muggy air.

Ian dragged his arm across his forehead as he pushed toward the bar. The unrelenting tropical weather was another reason, in a long list of, why Donavan’s Blunder, although a bustling crossroads,was arguably the sorriest stopover in the frontier. No worthless lump of space scum was going to keep him here an extra day.

“Move back,” he growled irritably at the onlookers pressing in on him from all sides. His eyes must have indicated how close he was to the edge of wringing someone’s neck, because no one could stumble backward fast enough.

Ian grabbed Carn’s thick shoulders and gave the man a hard shake. “You’ve overstayed your shore leave, Mr. Carn. Get up.” But the pilot’s forehead remained on the greasy table, his motionless fingers clamped around an empty shot glass. “Move your sorry butt—now—or you’re relieved of duty.”

Judging by the grumbling of the crowd, firing the drunk was a worthy threat, one expected of a star-ship captain. “Any of you happen to know how to fly?” he asked. A chorus of apologetic murmurs gave him the answer he expected. Starpilots were scarce in the frontier.

Ian exchanged glances with Quin, the stocky young mechanic who had dragged him off theSun Devil.Quin gave him an I-knew-this-would-happen frown. Their original pilot had drunk himself into oblivion as soon as they arrived in the frontier, the farthest and barely civilized reaches of the galaxy. Ian had sent him home. Unfortunately, the next pilot he hired turned out to be an alcoholic too. Now pilot number three was following in the others’ wobbly footsteps.

But, unreliable or not, he needed Carn. There wasn’t time to hunt for another pilot. When the king of the galaxy sent you, an Earth guy, on a mission, the outcome of which was possibly critical to the future of the galaxy, you kept on schedule and finished the job. Especially when that king was your stepfather—a concept Ian doubted he would ever take for granted.

Rom B’kah was a king of kings, the hero ruler of the conservative, staunchly pacifisticVash Nadah,and not even his tradition defying seven-year-old marriage to Ian’s mother, Jas, had diminished him in his people’s eyes.

Ian suspected that the driving reason behind theVashacceptance of the marriage was the fact that their beloved king was sterile. The most advanced medical intervention hadn’t been able to reverse the effects of radiation poisoning that Rom had suffered during space combat many years ago, so there was no need to worry about potentially unsuitable heirs produced with anon-Vashwife. Or so theVashhad thought.

Rom had broken tradition again, however. He chose Ian as heir—over several eager, genetically qualified young princes in line for the throne—and the decision had left more than a few galactic royals unhappy. “By blood and ability, no Earth-dweller has the right being crown prince,” some whispered in the halls of the Great Council. All they would need for proof was word that Ian had gotten himself stuckon Donavan’s Blunder, marooned by a sloshed, judgment-challenged boozer.

“Sober him up,” he ordered Quin. “Nothing short of a gallon of tockpoured down his throat is going to get him back to the ship.”

“It’ll take more than that, sir.” Quin grabbed a fistful of Carn’s blond hair and tipped his head back.

Ian winced. The pilot’s face was puffy and tinged a decidedly unhealthy blue. His brownish gold eyes were glazed and unseeing, and spittle leaked from the corner of his mouth, which was still curled into the idiotic grin he wore when Ian left him and the rest of the crew last night.

Ian drove the fingers of both hands through his hair. “Beautiful, just beautiful.” His starpilot had drunk himself to death.

He tossed two credits to the bartender. “Call someone about the body. And you might as well put the word out; theSun Devilneeds a pilot, a qualified one.”

It dismayed him how quickly frustration blunted his pity for Carn, but now wasn’t the time for soul searching. After only one Earth month in the frontier, he had experienced a year’s worth of setbacks, ship malfunctions, and pilot problems.They weren’t accidents.His neck tingled. His years spent submerged in theVashculture had taught him to trust his senses, and that instinct now warned him that someone wanted to thwart his mission.

“Tie up the loose ends and return to the ship,”he told Quin before shoving outside, past the canvas flap that served as a door.

Steamy heat throbbed up from the pavement in the still-deserted marketplace. A poor excuse for a breeze stirred up the odors of stale liquor and urine. Action started late on this disreputable planet and went on all night. Now, most of the inhabitants were either sleeping in their bunks aboard hundreds of trader vessels docked near the outskirts of the city. Or they were in the bed of a pleasure server—a woman specially trained and authorized to sell her body for sex.

Ian hoped everyone was enjoying themselves, because his life lately made the average monk look like a party animal. He had become the consummate prince; his behavior was impeccable, his adherence toVashways beyond reproach. It was the only way to earn the honor his stepfather had bestowed upon him.

He had studied galactic history, cultural norms, and religion until he could quote passages from the Treatise of Trade as confidently as most members of the Great Council. Slowly, he was gaining the respect and trust of the tradition-lovingVash;although the recent troubles at home could very well drag him back to square one.

Since first contact, public opinion polls on Earth had consistently showed high approval ratings for theVash.Earth liked being part of an intergalactic Trade Federation. But not anymore, apparently,thanks to U.S. Senator Charlie Randall’s “Earth First” crusade. The campaign’s central theme that Earth was better off as a sovereign planet was attracting followers like a magnet dragged through iron shavings.

“TheVashFederation is woven like an ancient quilt,” Rom had once told Ian, “a tight center and tattered edges. If the fringe unravels, we will fall apart.”

Ian truly believed in his stepfather’s conviction that peace depended on a strong, benevolent galaxy-wide government. If Earth pulled out of the Federation, the move might entice other frontier worlds to do the same, setting off a dangerous chain reaction and undermining the stability of the entire galaxy. Yet, that view was, and would always be, tempered by loyalty to his home planet. He wanted what was best for Earth. He wanted to continue his stepfather’s legacy and keep the galaxy at peace. Somehow, he had to bridge his two worlds without sacrificing the needs of either.

Which is why, when Rom asked him to go to the frontier and see if the unrest had spread, he had grabbed hold of the chance. In exchange for the answers he promised to bring back, Rom had given him theSun Devil,a crew of loyal, experienced, merchant-class spacefarers, and his valued bodyguard. But the mission was more to Ian than a covert scouting foray, more than a way to prove himself to the skepticalVash;this was his chance todemonstrate his worth to Rom, a man he had come to admire—and love, in many ways—more than his own father.

Only, so far, things were not going well.

Ian put on his Ray Bans, brushed his hand over the weapon in his holster, and started back to theSun Devilto mull over his latest fiasco.

“Captain!” Halfway across the plaza Rom’s bodyguard intercepted him, an incongruously named, six-foot-eight hulk of rippling muscle. “Muffin is an old-fashioned name,” the big man always explained patiently, if a little defensively, to English speakers like Ian, insisting that “Muffin” personified the essence of rugged masculinity on his homeworld, not a sugary breakfast treat.

“I guess you heard about Carn,” Ian said.

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