Aly slid his chair toward the console and locked on the first try, but the pilot pulled up hard and shook them off.
“You’re losing your edge, Alyosha. Whatever it takes,” Vin said. His blue eyes were wide and clear, and Aly expected him to cock his eyebrow at the daisies like he always did when he was hamming it up. But he didn’t.
“Keep her still and I’ll take care of my end.” But they tried a dozen more times, and the ship outmaneuvered them every time. In the distance they saw the planet Fontis, known for its lushness, with the ocean that supposedly glowed at night. From where they were, the planet was swirls of blues and greens.
Vin cursed. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Pavel piped up. “Treaties dictate no military personnel—”
“We know the treaty, P,” Aly said. Everyone did. The Great War had started off as a beef between Kalu and Fontis thousands of years old, but eventually it engulfed all of their colonies and allies, including Wraeta. It had officially ended nine years ago when the late Emperor Ta’an had signed the Urnew Treaty, when Aly was eight or nine. Each side was supposed to play nice now, try not to invade each other, that sort of thing. Once that ship broke Fontis’s atmosphere, it would be essentially claiming sanctuary. And since they were in a military craft, they wouldn’t be allowed to follow.
“Aly, what are our odds?”
He eyed the daisies that hovered nearby. “We’d need to boost our velocity, so if I turned on the thrusters and we burned like hell ’til we closed in, we might be able to grav beam them back.”
“Do it, then.” Vin’s in-it-to-win-it vibe was convincing. Was he making a show for the daisies, or did he really want that vessel? Aly guessed it didn’t really matter either way. He tried not to argue with him in front of the cameras. People already thought Wraetans were loud and picked fights. He wasn’t going to add fuel to that fire.
“Roger that.” With the press of a button, the thrusters blazed, and they jumped forward. They were gaining on the beetle craft, but the beetle was gaining on the planet. Aly ran the calculations. They would lock on in five, four, three, two . . .
But the beetle surged forward, just out of their beam’s reach.
“What the hell?” Vin slammed a fist on the console.
Yeah—what the hell? Aly hadn’t expected that kind of power surge from a ship so small. His console recalculated. They’d lost it. “It’s gone, Vin.”
“It’s not gone.” Vin leaned into the throttle, gunning straight for it.
“Drop it, Vin. It’ll be in Fontis airspace by now.” Three daisies zoomed up close from different angles. He swept his arm out and ended up swatting one away. “Pavel! Redirect these damn cameras! Get ’em all out of here!”
“It’s hauling something important,” Vin said through gritted teeth.
“What are you talking about?” When the ship broke Fontis’s atmosphere, Vin didn’t deviate their course. Aly felt a flash of anger. He didn’t understand—whatever “important” thing the ship might be hauling couldn’t be worth a suspension. But Vin was like that. A golden boy. A high-society Kalusian. He did whatever he wanted because people had always let him.
“Priority transmission from headquarters,” Pavel said.
“Taejis,” Aly cursed. Why was the UniForce HQ calling? “Vin—stop. Pavel, hold the call.”
“Not possible,” Pavel said. “There’s a security override. Level five priority.”
“Level what?” But even as Aly said it, autopilot took over, and the Revolutionary pulled up abruptly. The tail of the ship skimmed the surface of the Fontisian atmosphere and burned up a pocket of air. Vin cursed. Aly realized his hands were still gripping the throttle. He’d never even heard of a security override, or level five priority.
“Transmitting,” Pavel said. From its chest, the droid projected a holo of Nero himself—the public face of the Crown Regent’s office. He wore a crisp black shirt with little silver badges lined across his collarbone like a row of sharp teeth. Behind him hung the Kalusian flag, with wide red and gold stripes and seven blue stars arranged in a semicircle, each representing one of Kalu’s continents.
“Brave soldiers of the UniForce, I regret to inform you that at approximately eighteen hundred hours today, in the Rellia Quadrant, there was an apparent assassination of Crown Princess Rhiannon Ta’an of Kalu.” Nero seemed to hesitate. Or perhaps it was just a lag in the holo feed. “Our sources have confirmed that she is dead.”
THREE
RHIANNON