CHAPTER ONE
There are love stories and then there are star-crossed love stories.
Mine is the second variety.
When I met Princess Corla we were sixteen years old. I was still living in Akeela System. Still the son of the Wayward Station governor. Still had a future in politics.
She was the seventh daughter of the Cygnian king, destined to be his queen the day she turned twenty-three. So innocent.
But all that disappeared the moment she told me she was pregnant and convinced us to help her escape.
Twenty Years Ago
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I yell at Jimmy as I brace my hands on the two cockpit seats and lean over his shoulder.
The ALCOR gate is half a million klicks in front of us. Warnings are blaring on the comms system, telling us to turn back immediately or we will be annihilated into dust by more than a dozen SEAR cannons armed and locked on this piddly little piece-of-shit ship as we coast towards them on leftover velocity.
“Back the fuck off,” Jimmy growls. “I said I got this and when I say I got this, I fucking got this. OK?”
“Akeelians are closing in,” Valor says in the seat next to Jimmy, his voice squeaking a little. Then he yells, “They’ve locked on! Firing sequence imminent!”
“I’m sending the code to the ALCOR gate now,” Tray says. “Hold for transmission.”
“I’m arming the cannons, ready to fire back,” Luck says behind me.
“A lot of fucking good that’ll do,” I mumble. “This piece-of-shit defense system won’t save us.”
“He’s just working with what we have, asshole,” Valor mumbles back, taking Luck’s side.
Draden bumps into me, laughing and yelling as Serpint comes at him with a toy light sword.
“Got you!” Serpint yells. “You’re dead! I got you!”
“You did not!” Draden screams back, grabbing on to my legs and hiding behind me.
“You’re dead!” Serpint growls. “You died! I killed you! Go to regeneration for five minutes!”
“Would you two shut the fuck up!” I yell.
The whole ship goes silent. Well, as silent as a ship can when it’s blaring emergency warnings at you. Draden looks up at me with those wide violet eyes of his and mumbles, “Sorry, Crux,” as he and Serpint slink away.
“They’re just fucking kids,” Jimmy says, starting reverse thrusters to slow us down and give us a few more precious seconds to convince the ALCOR gate that we’ve got legitimate business.
“In case you didn’t notice,” I growl back, right in Jimmy’s ear, “we’re all fucking kids.”
“Transmission sent,” Tray says, his voice calm and steady.
“Cannons locked on the lead ship,” Luck says, his voice the opposite of calm. “They fired! Firing back!”
We thrust forward towards the gate when the cannons fire, and Jimmy says, “Fucking hell! I’m trying to slow down, asshole! You know, trying to look like we’re not gonna crash the ALCOR gate!”
“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Luck yells back. “They fired! I have to fire back, right, Crux?”
“Keep firing,” I say, trying to remain calm. Maybe Tray should be in charge? He’s the only one who isn’t shitting his pants right now.
But the reason he’s calm is because he’s… not right. There’s something not right about him. They did something to him last week. I’m not sure what. I’m not even sure I want to know.
“Ha!” Luck yells. “I did it!” Then he laughs. A manic, maniacal laugh. “They don’t fucking call me Luck for nothing!”
The ship shudders and even more alarms start blaring.
“Oh, fuck!” Valor says. “We’re hit!”
“What’d they get?” I ask, taking a deep breath.
“Cargo bay,” Valor reports. “But it’s mostly contained.”
“Incoming transmission,” Tray yells over the new, louder alarms. “Hold for screens.”
“What part of it is not contained?” I yell, leaning down into Valor’s shoulder so he can hear me.
“Life support,” he yells back.
The screens come to life and a digital face appears. I’ve heard of this ALCOR thing. Some remnant, rogue AI left over from who the fuck knows when. And the reason I’ve heard of him is because he’s been monopolizing the two gates leading in and out of his system for thousands of years.
Anyone who gets close is just… vaporized. Totally annihilated by the SEAR cannon weapon systems around the gates on both sides.
But Corla gave me a code. She pushed it into my hand just before I tucked her inside a cryopod and launched her into the Akeelian spin node, trying to get her away from her father before he took her back to Cygnus System to do terrible things with her.
And our baby, I remind myself.
“Where did you get this code?” the digital face on the screen asks us. The face is humanoid, but made up of numbers, symbols, and letters in the shape of a face. They fall down the screen like water.
“You’re on,” Tray says. I look up at the screen, the red light blinking to let me know the digital face can see me.