“You don’t believe that, Sa-sa. Surely. The one man who could have stopped Barnabas has just been handed a brutal death sentence—by his own uncle’s hand. How long do you think it’ll be before Barnabas silences all of us, too? He knows we know the truth. And worse, he knows the truth.” She paused as she saw her sister leaving the courtroom with Barnabas and his son.
Disgusted at the sight, she met her father’s gaze. “By standing at Alura’s side through this, you’ve just put a snake on the throne and handed victory to our enemies. Barnabas killed his own and framed his noble nephew for their deaths. Do you really think he’s going to stand beside a bargain he made to a pleb? And if you do, I have swampland to sell.”
“You’ve gone too far!” he snapped.
Tears filled her eyes as she choked on bile and gall. “No, Sa-sa. I didn’t go far enough. I should have told Bastien the truth when I had the chance.” More than that, she should have pulled out Alura’s hair and cut her throat when she found out her sister was carrying Bastien’s baby. Ember’s failure to fight for him then had caused all this now. And never had her future, or that of her loved ones, been more tenuous. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to pack and evacuate, because I have no delusions on how this is going to end for us.” She jerked her chin toward the direction where Alura had vanished. “Your beloved daughter just signed her name to all our death warrants. And unlike you, I intend to protect my own. All of them.”
CHAPTER 4
ONE YEAR. TEN MONTHS. THREE WEEKS. SIX DAYS.
“And now you know how I’ve lasted longer than any Ravin in League history.” Bastien shot the corpse at his feet in the head one more time before he searched the assassin’s body for supplies.
He probably shouldn’t have wasted that last charge so cavalierly, but there was something to be said for satisfaction. Even meager outlets, given how rare a commodity it’d become in his life.
“Damn wanker. Couldn’t you have a sweet vice? Alcohol? Something?”
He shot him again for being such a stellar, upstanding soldier.
Minsid League dogs. They were wretchedly sober. And this one had feet the size of his sister’s. Bastien grimaced as he tossed the boots aside and pulled his worn-out, threadbare pair back on. At least he’d gotten a good coat out of this one. Some fresh ammo and batteries.
Not enough food, though. And they were MREs, which Bastien had been sick of when he was in Gyron Force.
Oh well. He picked the bastard up and carried him to his stripped-out ship, making sure to delete and fry any trace that could lead a search party back here. Then he set the self-destruct sequence and launched it.
Hopefully it wouldn’t detonate until it was in the upper atmosphere and it’d burn up completely without raining down debris or leaving anything in space The League might find that they could use to trace him.
You should have buried the body.
But that came with its own risk, in that if someone found a body, they’d start looking for the killer. First lesson he’d learned out here. Launch the bodies into space. Keep the assassins, both alive and dead, as far away from his position as he could.
The only good thing about being stuck here in the Oksanan desert was that it played havoc with all electronic equipment. And while that kept him isolated from the other worlds, it also allowed him to remain breathing.
Bastien picked up the pack of salvaged goods and slung it over his back before he headed toward his burned-out home that had been the former base of one Aksel Bredeh. Scumbag Kn?ttr based on the debris Bastien had cleaned out on his arrival.
He didn’t know who or what Bredeh had crossed, but someone had taken offense to the man and his troops. There were still bloodstains and blaster marks Bastien couldn’t get rid of. Which was probably good since it helped with the illusion that the base remained abandoned should anyone happen upon it.
Not that anyone ever did. Probably why Bredeh had chosen it.
Three hundred years ago, this little rock known as Oksana had been a major player in the politics of the Nine Worlds and had been the home of one of the richest, most revered and prestigious ruling families. In fact, interstellar travel and war had both begun here.
Until the Oksanans had decided to go up against The League and overthrow the one military power that governed them all. The result had been that the once lush, green planet was reduced to the desert hole Bastien now called home.
Probably why the electronics were wonky. No doubt there was enough residual radiation left behind from those bombings even after three hundred years that Bastien would either be sterile or father children with eight legs some day.
He laughed at the thought as he looked up at the bleak, blinding sky. “Least you could do, God … make me glow in the dark so I’d save on battery life.”
That at least would be helpful.
“Look on the bright side. You only have thirteen and a half more years of this.”
Bastien stopped dead in his tracks as that reality hit him harder than a physical blow.
I can’t do it.