Page 2 of Star Prince

“If you can’t die a warrior, you might as well die happy.”

Ian managed a smile. “True.” He appreciated Muffin’s tactful attempt to lift his spirits. Although Carn had been a pain in the rear, he had been a member of their small crew, and they would all feel his passing. “Did he have a family?”

“None that he mentioned. I don’t think anyone will miss the guy.”

Except me,Ian thought wryly. A rookie space captain marooned on a remote frontier outpost with a cantankerous crew, one of the finest ships in the galaxy—and no one to fly her.

A backdropof stars whirled slowly behind a wheel of ruby, emerald, and platinum. Distance made the bejeweled disk appear as tiny as a child’s toy, but the structure was as large and populous as a city.

“Rotation synchronized,” Tee’ah Dar stated when the spin of the cargo freighter she piloted matched that of the space station ahead.

As expected, Mistraal Control issued final approach instructions via the comm. “Cleared to dock,Prosper.Bay Alpha-eight.”

“Copy. Alpha-eight.” Tee’ah’s hands tightened around the control yoke.You were born for this,her thoughts sang out.

If she were truly the pious princess she was raised to be, the dutiful daughter her parents thought she was, she would be in bed, sleeping. But with her hands wrapped around the controls of a cargo freighter, she wasn’t the king’s sweet and sheltered daughter; she was six hundred million standard tons of lightspeed-strong trillidium, screaming toward a docking bay that looked too small to hold her. In her imagination, her breaths hissed with hydraulics, her heartbeat with mechanical whirs and clicks. Shewasthe gargantuan starship she piloted, her nearly impenetrable trillidium skin shielding a crew of thirty, ten of whom looked on with experience-forged scrutiny as she decelerated theProsper,gliding it into its assigned bay.

There was a gentle rumbling of metal sliding over cushioned guards, and a muffled, soul-satisfyingthunk as the great ship settled into place. Soundlessly the bay’s external hatches closed, sealing and pressurizing the compartment where the ship now rested from the vacuum of space.Yes.

The crew applauded, and for once she allowed the warmth of pride to flood her. Docking the ship on her own was an achievement symbolizing the culmination of a year’s worth of clandestine visits to theProsper,a ship used to haul goods between the moon-based mining stations and her home planet, Mistraal, one of the eightVash Nadahhomeworlds. Sure, Captain Aras had greeted her request for flying lessons with polite incredulity, particularly after she had beseeched him to keep her identity a secret—she was a royal woman, after all, and the Dars’ only daughter. But once she proved she had the talent to be an intersystem cargo pilot, hard work earned her a coveted pair of pilot wings and a crew’s respect, a regard infinitely more satisfying than that given to a cloisteredVash Nadahprincess.

“Well done.” Aras extended his arm across what would be an unbridgeable distance at the palace and clasped her hand in a congratulatory squeeze.

She responded with the self-deprecating retort expected of a space jockey when complimented. “It’s a testament to your teaching abilities that no one’s now wiping us off the walls of the spaceport.”

An outer hatch whooshed open. She expected to see the usual cargo handler or two, there to confirm the load of goods. Instead, four uniformed royalguards strode into the cockpit, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man with coppery dark blond hair. The exact same shade as hers.

“Father.” The blood drained from her head. She gripped the armrests on her chair to steady herself.

Captain Aras snapped to attention. “Behold, the king! Welcome to theProsper,Your Majesty,” he said, and fell to one knee. The rest of the crew reacted with similarly respectful, albeit shocked, shows of respect. The cargo crew was civilian, not military, and kings rarely, if ever, boarded mining freighters. But Joren Dar gave the men little more than a cursory wave. His blue travel cape slapped at his boots as he climbed the gangway to where Tee’ah sat.

Her hands fumbled with her harnesses. Finally, free of her seat, she stood, facing him. “Greetings, Father.”

He spoke in a low, ominous tone, so that no one else would hear. “I would not have thought that you, Tee’ah, would have deceived me in such a”—he waved his hand around the cockpit— “blatant manner.”

His golden eyes chilled her with his disappointment and disapproval. Tee’ah fought a watery feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I know it means little now,” she replied in an equally hushed tone, “but I intended to tell you everything.” She squeezed her clasped hands together until her pulse throbbed in her fingertips. “But I thought you would take the news better once I’d officially earned my wings.”

His eyes flicked to the silver intersystem cargo pilot wings she wore over her left breast. Embroidered in metallic thread onto her rich indigo-hued flight suit, the emblem was a replica of the genuine pair she kept in a box in her bedchamber and treasured above all else. “I’ve had the wings only a month,” she whispered, hoping her achievement would prove to her father how much she desired personal freedom.

Or were you merely longing to spark in him a bit of pride in your accomplishments?

His frown deepened. She cursed herself for thinking that such a tradition-defying feat would win her father’s praise. She should have told him sooner where she disappeared to three nights a week. She should have informed him before he figured it out on his own or, worse, learned of her exploits from someone else.

Joren Dar turned his attention to Captain Aras, who waited uneasily for further instructions. He had risked his career by teaching her to pilot his ship, all because he understood what she meant when she confessed that her yearning to fly, to be free, flared so hot it burned. He mustn’t take the blame that was hers alone.

“Why was I not informed that my daughter was spending her nights flying your ship?”

“I asked him not to,” Tee’ah said before Aras had the chance to answer her father.

The captaincompressed his lips and made a small sound in the back of his throat.

“He did not understand that what I requested of him was against your wishes,” she went on.

“Your Majesty—” Aras attempted. “I—”

“Well, perhaps he did, Father, but know this— I sought out theProsperbecause of Captain Aras. He’s the best in the fleet. He’s professional, knowledgeable. He’s ensured my protection from my first day aboard this ship. The only place I’d have been safer was in my bed.”

Aras’s mouth quirked and he stared hard at the alloy flooring, clearly fighting a smile. Evidently he had given up the struggle to get a word in edgewise.

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