Page 5 of Star Prince

The starspeeder was small, built for a crew of four. But its oversize engines and sleek fuselage made it fast. She would need that speed to putdistance between her and the soldiers her father would inevitably set on her trail—by tomorrow, she figured. She did a quick mental calculation— the stored food and water on the ship, a week’s worth for each of its four pilots, would keep her alive during the journey to the frontier.

She eased her hand into her right pocket. Her fingertips brushed the cool, impersonal cylinder of her borrowed plasma pistol as she stepped inside the ship’s darkened interior. By the heavens, someone was sitting in the cockpit—at the controls.

She almost groaned aloud. The last thing she had anticipated was leaving behind a witness. Raising her pistol, she moved out of the shadows. “Get up,” she said, her voice calm, in fact miraculously so.

The pilot spun around in his chair. His throat bobbed when he saw her weapon, but his hand slid toward the flashing red light that was a direct link to Mistraal’s planetary security.

“Touch the comm and you’re space dust.”

A flush rose in his face and his hand retreated. Nonetheless, she aimed at his head, praying he didn’t call her bluff and make her use the thing. She had never shot at anything, certainly not a live person. Even if she did, she would no doubt miss and rip a hole in the hull and heaven knew what else, blowing her chance to take the ship.

“Stand up…slowly.” Her heart thumped harder in her chest, but somehow she kept her hands steady. “Set your pistol on the comm panel and back away.”

The young lieutenant bristled. “Why would I need a pistol doing postflight checklists in the cockpit of an empty intersystem merchant vessel—adockedempty merchant vessel?”

“I saidmove it.”She advanced on him.

He shot to his feet. “Lady Tee’ah!”

Sweet heaven.She hadn’t recognized him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize her; there were a lot fewer princesses on Mistraal than cargo pilots.

“Honored lady—” From where he stood, he peered under her cap and grimaced. “What happened?”

She forced a scowl. “Bad hair day.” He blinked in confusion. “Go,” she snapped before he had the chance to respond.

He backed up, hands raised. “You’ll need a pilot to fly her.”

“I’mflying her.”

That threw him. But he recovered swiftly. “Without departure codes you’ll never get clearance out of here.”

Tee’ah admired his clever efforts to stay aboard to keep the speeder from being stolen. Men like him had made the Dars one of the most respected of the eight royal families. “I have the codes,” she said quietly. “And you, Lieutenant, have one standard-minute to clear the bay. Then I’m firing the thrusters.”

Exhaling, he climbed down the gangway from the cockpit to the cabin. The muzzle of her pistol matched his progress along the bulkhead leading to the exit hatch. He looked positively forlorn. She gentled her tone. “I left a note of explanation. You won’t be blamed.”

The pilot shrugged dejectedly. She thought of Captain Aras and prayed that her father’s famed benevolence extended to both him and this young lieutenant.

She clutched the pistol in her sweaty hands, waiting for the pilot’s measured steps to take him farther into the empty, cavernous docking bay. The instant he was safely away from the ship, she smacked her palm onto the door panel. The starspeeder’s hatch snapped shut with a hiss of air. From the viewscreen, she snatched one last glimpse of the displaced pilot staring at her from the safety of the spaceport before he dashed away to find help.

She jumped into the pilot’s chair, buckled in, and flipped on the thrusters. The starspeeder shuddered as she turned the craft within the confines of the docking bay. Clearing the hangar, she aimed the ship’s nose at the sky and pulled the control stick to her chest, shoving the thrusters forward with her other hand. Acceleration slammed her into her seat as she soared skyward.

The storm had intensified more swiftly than she had anticipated. Bone-shaking turbulence dislodged her cap, and roiling clouds of dust scoured the forwardviewscreen. The airborne particles made the engines whine. Her pulse skipped erratically as her deep fear of theTjhu’namithreatened to overwhelm her. But as the pale orange sky dimmed into indigo and then the black of space, and stars took the place of the setting sun, the rough air eased. Only then did she tip her head back against the headrest and allow herself a single soft, triumphant laugh. She was free.

“Talk about droppingoff the face of the Earth!”

Bleary-eyed from a string of restless nights, Ian slouched in his command chair on theSun Devil,waiting for his twin sister to finish berating him from the viewscreen attached to his right armrest. His boots propped on a box of produce destined for the ship’s galley, he pondered the benefits of ancient technology that allowed theVashto communicate with minimal lag times over vast interstellar distances. Then he weighed those benefits against the grinding reality of being light years from Earth and pestered by his sister, real time.

“Ian, do you have any idea how hard it’s been trying to get hold of you? Mom said you were in the frontier, but didn’t know where. This issonot like you, Mr. Goody-two-shoes.”

“Hey, I called, didn’t I?”

She snorted. “Mentally, I’d already tossed your ashes into the wind.”

“I’m undercover, Ilana. No one can reach me. Remember?”

“Was I supposed to?” She appeared unconvincingly apologetic as she smoothed her bangs away from her forehead. On anyone else, the tangled bleached-blond hair would look like a mop. On her, it looked good, and probably fit her life as a young, single filmmaker living in Santa Monica, California.

“I needed to ask you a few questions,” he said, “but it sounds like you have something for me.” Ilana had once said that his eagerness to devote his life to the greater good was as pointless and boring as her dating only one guy at a time. But her love for Rom B’kah was one thing they had in common, and she acted as Ian’s eyes and ears on Earth, keeping him updated on public opinion regarding the Federation.

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