Chapter 1

chapter

one

Kael

Nerida, primary moon of Perse, Atik System

Rebel base located in abandoned remains of the Telmarine Palace

Even wounded and bleeding, I'm the best pilot the rebellion has, so I'm the one who flies the shuttle full of rescued children from the surface of the planet to the rebel moon base on Nerida.

The surface of Nerida is a vast desert, except for the seven bright green circles that dot the surface. Each green dot of life represents one of the seven ancient clans of Perse.

During the Empire, each clan had a holding on Nerida where a shielded dome protected the palace within from the harsh lunar climate. The palaces were usually occupied by the clans during the summer months. Most were abandoned during the bloody coup that overthrew the seven clans and allowed the Sovereignty to rise to power.

Only one palace is still occupied. Secretly occupied.

I steer the shuttle around the dark side of Nerida, coming low and close to the surface, banking only at the last minute to skim along the dome before stalling out at the top of it. Even if someone was watching with a telescope, the shuttle would be visible from the surface of Perse for only the brief moment before the shields phase open, and I let the shuttle drop straight down. By the time the series of shields open and close, I've steadied the shuttle. It's a tricky bit of flying, but it minimizes the risk of someone realizing this summer palace is still in use.

The adrenaline is running high for all of us. It helps to keep the pain at bay so I barely wince when the shuttle lurches during the drop–as it always does. The wound in my side doesn't really start to hurt until I've landed the shuttle and am helping unload the kids we rescued.

Draeden, who was with me on this mission, hoists a child into each of his arms while giving me the side-eye. "I should have flown."

I pick up one of the toddlers, not to be outdone by Draeden, even though he's not wounded, nearly a fist taller than me, and the strongest fighter we have. "You're a shit pilot."

"And you're bleeding all over the place. And your blood is scaring the kids."

I look around at the faces of the thirteen kids we saved. They range from toddler to about six-turns-old. And, yeah, he's right. The ones old enough to know what blood is are all crying.

That's not the worst part though. The worst part is that their tears are silent. Not a one of them has so much as whimpered since we got them onto the shuttle. Some look like stoic little warriors with tight lips and tears streaming down their cheeks. Others have their fists shoved into their mouths to quiet their tears. This is what happens to kids when they have to live in hiding. They learn to be quiet or they die trying.

Before I can think of anything to say, the shuttle door opens, the stairs automatically extending. Jopin, who has taken over running the nursery, is there waiting with a dozen helpers to take the kids and help get them settled.

Jopin gives me a critical look as I hand her the child I just carried down the stairs. "How did it go?"

"We got out thirteen kids," I tell her.

I see the question in her eyes. I don't want to tell her that our contact on the ground–who was a friend of hers before the coup–didn't make it. At least not in front of the kids. The man who died cared for these kids for nearly a moon before he was able to get us word. The last thing any of these kids needs is to relive what happened on the surface today.

I meet Jopin's gaze, giving her the tiniest shake of my head, my way of letting her know I'll talk about it later.

She gives a stiff nod, but smiles to the child she's just taken from me. To the child she says, "You look like you could use a hot bath and some pudding."

The promise of pudding doesn't erase the day, but it helps.

I move to head back into the shuttle to get another kid, but Jopin grabs my arm.

"Leave this for the Beta Guard," she says.

"Don't bother telling me to go to Med Bay. It's just a scratch."

"Not Med Bay. C&C. Radford wants to see you." She looks at Draeden who just handed his cargo over to one of the guys in Beta Guard. "He wants to see both of you. We got some kind of message."

Draeden and I head for the tram door that leads from the landing pad down to Command and Control. Jopin falls into step beside us.

"What kind of message?" Draeden asks. "Another ally on the ground? Tides know we could use more."

"No, this is something else. He wouldn't give me any details. I think Cass is still translating it."

When we reach the tram doors, Draeden and I enter the tram alone, and Jopin goes back to helping with the shuttle.

"You really should go to Med Bay," Draeden says dryly.

"No." I barely hide my wince. "It's barely a scratch."

"So you keep saying. Personally, I'm less worried about the scratch than I am about all the blood you've lost. If you faint, I don't want to have to haul your dead weight around."

"When have I ever fainted?"

"Training simulation four-eighty-two."

"That doesn't count. I was twelve."

"Sure. That was it."

We both know I'm not going to ignore a command from Radford and go to Med Bay and that Draeden is just giving me shit to distract me. Which, frankly, I appreciate. Tides know I don't want to fracking faint in C&C.

Right before the tram arrives at our destination, Draeden slants me a look. "Joking aside, if you need to go to Med Bay, I'll handle Radford."

"It's fine." I hope.

"No matter how much you might wish otherwise, you don't have your mother's gift for healing."

I bite down my automatic gag reflex at the mention of my mother and force myself to flash him a grin. "Too bad, right?"

My mother could heal anyone, including herself. It's a power that's been in my family for so many generations we stopped keeping track. And today, I sure as hell could've used it.

Not just today either. Every time we go on a mission to the surface of Perse. We rescue kids, we gather supplies, we gather Intel – all things the rebellion can't survive without.

But none of it is without a price. The Sovereign Police are brutal and growing in number seemingly every day. Every time we strike, they strike back, harder. Too many people in the rebellion have died. It about kills me that I should be able to heal them and can't.

Draeden doesn't say anything else, probably because he knows he brought up a sore topic. When the doors slide open to reveal C&C, we step out of the tram, only to stop in our tracks.

Normally, the C&C room bustles with energy and movement, not today.

Today, it's silent.

I look around, taking in the cluster of men standing around the lone figure of Cass standing beside a wall, one hand stretched out to press against the control panel of the palace's main computer.

Cass looks like–almost–like a Pers?n male, but there are subtle differences. Not imperfections—just differences in posture, skin tone, and movement. Visual cues to let even the most casual observer know that he's not an organic life form. He's one of the few remaining Historians—relics from the height of the Pers?n Empire, inorganic creatures designed to interface with the Empire's vast web of computers.

If I've ever seen another working Historian, I don't remember it. Historians were designed to work in pairs. Their physical bodies were designed as a safeguard to limit their reach. The computer network within any given palace is vast and complicated. And accessible only via a Historian. Without Cass, all of our systems simply stop working. Unfortunately, right now, it looks like he's offline.

He can't be, because without him, the shield wouldn't have even opened. But I've never seen him do this.

"What the frack is wrong with Cass?" I ask.

"Is he glitching?" Draeden asks

Waleam glances over his shoulder and hushes us.

I raise my eyebrows.

Waleam—one of the newest recruits to the rebellion, a kid barely out of the school room—just hushed me?

Maedoc gives the boy a light slap on the back of his head. Waleam frowns, glances again at us, then straightens, turning and offering a brief salute.

"Pardon, sirs. I meant no disrespect. I mean—" He cleared his throat, scuffing his feet against the floor.

Draeden is still scowling, but with effort, I soften my glare. The kid is new to the rebellion. New to the life of a warrior. New to structure of any kind. Until a few months ago, he'd been a school boy, living in one of the many group homes for orphans from the war.

Watching the interaction, Maedoc steps away from the group to fill us in. "Cass isn't offline. He's processing an encrypted file that just came in."

"Came in from where? New Calendeum?"

"No." Maedoc pulls Draeden and I away from the group clustered around Cass. He taps on a blank swath of screen and pulls up a view of a deep space satellite array in orbit out by the Dark Moon.

The Dark Moon is the furthest moon from Perse. Rumor has it it was once the location of a prison, but contact with the prison was lost a few years after the coup.

Once upon a time, Perse had a deep space program and plans to contact sister planets, but the Soveriegnty's isolationist platform ended all that.

The last time anyone from Perse even considered deep space travel was during the coup. When the Sovereignty seized control of the clans' last stronghold, a castle in the far north where the very youngest of the clans were living in hiding, half of the children ended up here, on Nerida. The other half escaped Perse in one of a few deep space shuttles. The last we heard from them was a message that came through this very satellite array saying they were seeking sanctuary on one of the sister planets and would message us they arrived.

That was nearly twenty turns ago.

Now, Maedoc points to a spot on the screen. "See that?"

I shrug. "Yeah, it's one of the satellites."

"Nope." He flicks to a picture nearly identical to the first. Nearly. "This was the array, this morning." With a tap of his finger, he pulls up a succession of the images of the array. "Hell, yesterday. The day before that. Every day for decades."

Draedan crosses his arms over his chest. "Okay."

"Do you see it?" Maedoc asks.

"Go back to the first one," I tell him.

When he does, a new … something … blips on to the screen. A single bright dot, smaller than one of the satellites and definitely not in any of the images from before this morning.

Draeden rocks back on his heels and then widens his stance. "What the frack is that and where did it come from?"

"We don't know where it came from or how it got here. As for what it is, before Cass started working on the translation, he said it was an encoded message from Irick."

Draeden and I exchange a look and then ask the same question. "Who the hell is Irick?"

Radford peels off from the group around Cass and comes over to answer our question. "He was one of the operatives on the ground in the early stages of the rebellion. He was a double agent for a while, ostensibly working with Sorvin, while smuggling information and supplies to us. He was caught, branded a traitor and sentenced to life on the Dark Moon, Gr?pus. He disappeared from there with everyone else when comms from the prison went silent a decade ago."

Draeden and I exchange a look, as if we're jockeying for who gets to ask the first question. Before either of us do, Cass drops his hand from the computer panel and turns around.

He blinks his eyes open and they flash as he switches from one mode to another.

His icy gray eyes seek Radford's.

"I apologize for the de-de-delay in processing your most recent request, sir. I will adjust the environmental controls in the room immediately."

"Frack the enviro controls. What the hell was in that message?"

Cass blinks again, seeming to notice for the first time how crowded and how silent the room is. If I didn't know he's incapable of surprise, I'd say the Historian was taken aback to see C&C full of bystanders, eager to hear this mysterious message.

But even at the height of the Empire, Historians were incapable of emotion.

Still, Cass cocks his head just slightly as he explains, "The message is indeed from Irick. He claims to have been kidnapped by a species of space-faring slave traders over a decade ago. They crash-landed on a planet known by locals as Earth."

Cass's explanation sends a ripple of energy through the group as several of the workers in C&C exchange nervous glances. None of us know what this means for the rebellion. If it means anything at all.

Cass, who is never great at reading the mood of a room, continues in the same monotone. "Earth is rumored to be one of the six mythical sister planets seeded by the Sullec Prophets millennia ago during The Great Drift. As the closest, it was the most likely destination for the lost shuttle of Pers?n princesses. And indeed Irick's be'lahshuk, a woman named Cressida of Austin, has sent details about a woman she believes is one of the princesses."

And just like that, the room goes still, as if all the oxygen was sucked from the room.

There is a beat of silence and then Radford, with his steady, quiet authority, asks, "What?"

Cass looks at Radford before touching his palm once more to the wall. "The message from Cressida of Austin was quite detailed and contained much information that is likely irrelevant. However, she included this picture of Princess Joey Kincaid of the HatCreek Clan."

One right after another, a series of pictures pop up on the viz screen. Several are squares and include multiple people and a variety of locations. One is round and a closeup of a single woman. Her hair is a mass of copper curls, her mouth full and smiling, her eyes a warm amber.

Her neck is bare in only one of the pictures, one that seems to be a candid shot of her and another woman. In the picture she looks quite young. Her hair is pulled back and hidden beneath some kind of covering. With her neck bare, three seed marks are clearly visible.

"As you can see," Cass continues. "She does indeed appear to be Pers?n. In fact, based on the progression of her seed marks, she seems to have already been matched with a mate."

Even though he's talking, his words feel like they're swimming at me through a flood. My vision is tunneling, my heart racing as I step closer to the viz screen on the wall.

I don't stop until I am even closer to her image than Cass.

I have to swallow before I speak, but I don't know if I'm swallowing my disbelief or my hope.

"I know her." I clear my throat and look from her image, back to Radford. "Whatever she calls herself now, she is Jaylerena Kinsaera of the Kinsaera Clan."

"You're sure?" Radford asks.

"Yeah." She's older than when I saw her last, but her face has haunted my dreams since I was nine turns old. "She's my be'lahshuk ."