Chapter 8
Shar
I never saw Mark that night. Though I gathered the courage to go to his room, he wasn’t there.
From that day onward, he stayed resolutely by the Prince’s side.
It had to have something to do with what I’d overheard that day.
The Prince was determined to save somebody, to bring them aboard.
My ordinary missions continued as usual, and reluctantly I began to bond with some of the other soldiers. We were all in this together, though it didn’t take me long to realize I was unique amongst the other crew.
I was the first and only soldier Prince Xarin had ever drafted.
If you believed the other men, he preferred not to Shanghai people.
So why had he gone after me?
Despite the fact I did not see the Prince for several weeks, his effect on me didn’t change.
If anything, it grew more powerful.
I could no longer deny that what was happening to me wasn’t normal.
It wasn’t some virus, some blow to the head.
I’d discreetly asked the medical staff to check me after my run in on that jungle planet.
My physiology was normal.
Normal.
I couldn’t tell anyone about what was happening to me.
There was no one I could confide in.
Though, in a few of my giddier insane moments, I briefly thought about telling the Prince himself.
It was a new day, and I woke to continue my training.
Though, in many ways, I was starting to train the other soldiers. They’d begun to value my unique experience. While I wasn’t Arterian, I knew how to survive, and that was far more important.
As I walked to the armory, I saw several guards rush past. I caught one. “What’s going on?” I snapped.
“Royalty is arriving,” the man said before he rushed away.
My mind spun.
I was ordered to take up a general guard position within the secondary docking bay.
I assumed said royalty would arrive in the primary docking bay.
I was wrong.
Soon a ship arrived.
Just as impressive as this massive war cruiser, though on a much smaller scale.
It pushed through the interlocking shields at the door of the docking bay, then swept in to land.
I was one of only three guards on patrol.
Just when I thought it would only be the three of us, the doors opened, and in he walked.
This time he didn’t ignore me.
Despite the fact I was in full armor and he shouldn’t really be able to discern me from any other soldier, he locked his gaze on me, even twisting his head around as he stared at me.
He didn’t even bother to switch his gaze toward the ship as a hatch appeared in the side and a ramp grew out of it.
Several seconds later, out walked a princess.
There was no other way to describe her.
She wore a full-length purple robe, adorned with so much gold jewelry she sparkled.
Her long, vibrant red hair was encrusted with pearls and tapered down her neck.
Finally, the Prince tore his gaze off me and locked it on the woman. He placed one arm on his stomach, pushed the other palm against his leg, and bowed regally. “Princess Arteria, you grace us with your presence.”
I was right. She was a princess.
But there was one thing I hadn’t accounted for.
The way Xarin looked at her.
You’d have to be a fool not to see the adoration playing in his gaze.
Fair enough, the Princess was the picture of perfection. But seeing the way he looked at her….
I had to try extremely hard not to clutch a hand to my stomach and try to rip through my armor.
I settled for clenching my teeth so hard I felt as if I’d split my head in two.
Arteria returned the Prince’s greeting and his loving gaze.
Then she thrust forward, apparently done with tradition, and wrapped her arms around his middle.
Now I couldn’t control myself.
Now I twitched as if I’d been struck. And anger, hot white and bright like a pulse from a blaster, slammed through my gut.
I had never been a jealous person. For I’d never possessed anything worth being jealous over. But now as I watched her gaze linger on him as she finally pulled her arms away from his middle, I felt as though I wanted to ball my hand into a fist and thrust it into her face.
Needless to say, I didn’t get the opportunity, the Prince led Arteria forward and out of the room.
Mark had entered the room with the Prince, and now he turned sharply on his foot, the move distinct, almost ceremonial. His helmet was down, and before he could turn away completely, he locked his gaze on me.
….
I felt like he was trying to say something to me.
His gaze was so intense, so direct.
And yet it didn’t last as he followed the Prince and princess out of the room.
Without Mark to distract me, my mind went back to the fact Xarin had another.
It was a ridiculously foolish way to think about it, and I clenched my teeth as soon as that stupid thought flooded into my mind, but I couldn’t push it away.
It felt like Xarin had betrayed me somehow. Had broken a sacred promise.
I couldn’t calm my churning gut, no matter what I told it.
So I followed as I was instructed, shifting from the docking bay and taking up guard somewhere else.
Once or twice I felt that ethereal hand, felt it push against my neck, tug at me.
It wanted me to follow Xarin.
This time I fought against it.
There was no goddamn way I would follow that man ever again.
…
Prince Xarin
My beloved was aboard. Not my betrothed, but the one I’d chosen.
I had always hated the betrothal tradition.
Not just for the stress it brought me, but for the fact it took choice out of love and companionship.
So shouldn’t I be thrilled? Thrilled that my beloved had come to me.
I wouldn’t have been able to see Arteria until the war was over. Now she was here with me, right by my side.
There was no longer anything stopping us….
And yet, it felt like there was something stopping my heart. It felt as if a rope had wound around it and had anchored to some other point.
I kept feeling as if my hands were trying to drag me in the opposite direction.
It was a maddening, truly confusing sensation.
I couldn’t push it away, no matter how hard I tried to wipe my hands on my armor.
I felt restless, for some reason, as if I were mere moments from losing something critically important.
To top it all off, Mark was acting strangely.
He’d been acting strangely for weeks.
Perhaps it was just the prospect of keeping Arteria safe.
Perhaps it was something more.
I didn’t have time to consider the myriad possibilities.
As soon as I made it back to my own quarters – for Arteria was staying on my deck – I heard a warning alarm blare from the computer.
I stiffened, knowing what the exact pitch meant.
A Zorv attack.
…
Shar
When I reached my quarters after my short shift, I hit the wall, literally. As soon as the door hissed closed behind me, I balled my hand into a fist and struck it into the metal. A scream split from my lips, reverberating around the room.
“You bastard,” I screamed, voice pitching so high it was like I was trying to shatter glass. “You bastard.”
This anger – it was like an explosion going off in the center of my heart. I’d never felt anything more violent. Something so destructive. It felt that if I didn’t find some way to calm down, I would implode.
I kept curling my hand into a fist and striking it against the wall
until my knuckles were nothing more than bloody pulp. Pain snaked down into my wrist, pushing higher into my arm and shoulder.
“Stop, stop, you idiot,” I begged myself through clenched teeth.
Finally, I managed to stem the anger just long enough to turn, push my shoulders into the blood-splattered wall, and walk myself down to a seated position. Instantly, I collapsed my arms around my knees, tucking my head in low until my two beaded plaits trailed over my shoulders.
I began to cry.
I was a woman of few tears. But now they flowed. From some unknown place.
Though I wanted to stay there, pressed up against the wall in a pathetic ball until these feelings went away, I didn’t get that opportunity.
For at that exact moment a yellow alert blared through the ship.
I was starting to get used to them. The exact pitch and tone. And somehow – though it sounded truly insane – I always felt them just a few seconds before they occurred.
I was connected to this ship somehow. Knew where to go even without being directed, and whenever anything went wrong, I was always the first there.
So I snapped to my feet quickly, bringing up two trembling hands and thumbing away the tears.
Realizing it wouldn’t be enough, I snatched my pillow off my bed and dried my face in one quick move.
Then I ran for the door.
I was still in my armor, or at least my chest plate and my leg pieces. As I exited my room, I grabbed my gauntlets and helmet from just outside the door where I’d dropped them in disgust. I crammed them on then thrust forward with all the speed I could manage.
It was just a yellow alert, and most of the other security personnel barracked in my corridor didn’t move particularly fast.
The Illuminate went to yellow alert every other day. Even if Zorv were detected several sectors away, a klaxon would always blare through the ship.
To them, it wasn’t a big deal.
To me… I couldn’t push away the thought something terrible was about to occur.
I sped through the corridors, pounding along the floor so hard it was a surprise my armor didn’t crack the metal plating.
…
Arterian Assassin
She was aboard his ship. Finally.
She’d come aboard with Princess Arteria as one of her personal assistants.
She could feel the destroyer – taste her presence like dried up blood along her tongue.
She licked her lips as she pushed forward through the abandoned corridor.
Technically she shouldn’t be here. This was the Prince’s private deck. No ordinary crew were permitted to enter it.
She was not ordinary. As a full Arterian Royal assassin, there was nothing in this galaxy that could stop her.
She walked forward, heels clicking along the floor, her long dark hair trailing over her shoulders.
She finally reached Arteria’s door.
She placed a hand on the security panel beside it and let her Illuminate implants hack right through the security codes.
The door opened, and in she walked.
The Princess looked startled. The assassin pressed a smile over her lips as she walked forward and the doors closed behind her.
She strode right into the center of the room, the Princess having to take several sharp steps back.
It was strange for the assassin to be without her cloak.
On all her operations to-date, it had always hidden her identity.
From this point on, it wouldn’t matter.
The destroyer was on this ship, Xarin too.
Within a matter of mere minutes, this would all be over.
Perhaps the fervor swelled in her eyes, because the Princess let out a stuttering gasp. “Why… why do you look like that?”
“As I told you many times if you follow my exact words, you and your family will not be harmed. It’s time to action the plan.”
Arteria brought a hand up and clutched it to her chest, transferring slicked lines of sweat along her previously perfect, unrumpled robe. “The plan?”
The assassin inclined her head. “Don’t pretend to be innocent now. You knew exactly what would happen the second you came onboard.” The assassin took several resounding steps forward, her heels clicking against the floor. “It’s too late to back out now.” She pushed her face close up to Arteria’s until she could see how startled those green shimmering eyes were.
“… You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” the Princess asked, voice teetering annoyingly high with such a pathetic innocent note.
The assassin tilted her head to the side, brought a hand out, and latched it on Arteria’s collar. She neatened it, thumbing away the lines of sweat Arteria had transferred from her shaking hands.
Once the assassin was done, she clutched both the Princess’ shoulders, then nodded.
“Please, don’t kill him. There must be some other way—”
“You know what he’s done. If we want to ensure peace and prosperity for the Empire, then he must be destroyed.”
The Princess closed her eyes sharply, but first, she hesitated.
… The assassin was incredibly skilled in picking up people’s true intentions. She had been trained since birth.
She could guess if somebody was lying with nothing more than a single glance.
But as the Princess strangely hesitated once more, the assassin put that momentary pause down to nothing more than fear.
“I’ll do what you need me to do,” the Princess finally agreed, dropping her gaze, a few tears shimmering in her crystalline green eyes.
The assassin nodded low, smiling, curling her lips into her perfect hard white teeth. “Then follow me.”
…
Prince Xarin
There were no Zorv, or at least not that I could tell.
The war cruiser’s proximity alarms were blaring, and as I stood on the central platform in the operations room, I stared at the primary viewscreens with a narrowed, almost terrified gaze. “How long until you reset the sensors?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Our best technicians are working on it. This anomaly will be fixed within the hour,” the Captain said in a strong, punching, confident tone.
I knew that confidence was misplaced.
I had no evidence to support that suspicion, no evidence other than the fear climbing my back.
The yellow alert had been blaring for almost 10 minutes now.
It wasn’t an unusual sound aboard this ship.
Whenever Zorv were detected, regardless of whether they were close at hand, the ship’s dedicated scanners would warn the crew. It was then up to me to decide whether we would alter course to intercept.
This ship did not possess ordinary scanners. They were some of the best Illuminate scanners the Royal Arterian family possessed.
And they had been primed to pick up the Zorv, no matter the distance.
Though ordinary scanning technology in the modern galaxy was severely limited, Illuminate scanners could detect Zorv activity with great accuracy light years away.
I didn’t understand the technology itself, but I didn’t need to. I was simply a puppet the Arterian Royal Family were using to win their war, and puppets don’t need knowledge.
“It would help if our technicians know more about this scanning technology—” the Captain began.
I shook my head curtly.
My teeth clenched, and no matter how hard I tried to open my mouth, I couldn’t. So I spoke around a locked jaw, “You know I can’t tell you, so don’t ask me. Just find some way to reset them. And do it now. Without the scanners working properly, we won’t be able to detect a real Zorv attack until it’s too late.”
With that, I swept out of the operations room, cape billowing behind me as I strode toward the superfast lift.
Before I reached them, I made brief eye contact with Mark.
… It wasn’t my imagination, there was something strange going on with my personal guard, with my best and only
friend.
Perhaps it was personal. Perhaps I should offer my shoulder to Mark, just as he offered his own shoulder to me all the time.
I didn’t have time.
When the doors to the lift sliced closed behind me, I pushed a hand out and locked it against the wall.
Arterians had some of the strongest physiologies in the Milky Way.
They had lifespans of over 1000 years, and their bodies could take a massive amount of stress without showing it.
So why did I feel so undermined? Why did I feel as if I were about to fall to my knees?
Before I could return to my quarters, I punched out a hand and altered the coordinates.
The lifts beeped to register the new setting, and I felt a shudder as the lifts shifted forward on a new track.
It took me too long to look down and see what my fingers had typed in.
I was heading to one of the habitation decks.
Though I had ample minutes before the lift arrived, and could alter my heading, I didn’t.
Instead, I remained there, one sweaty hand locked beside the navigational panel, my desperate eyes staring at the coordinates.
Finally, the lift arrived, and the doors opened with a hiss.
I didn’t stride out but bolted out.
Soldiers were shifting about, slowly, despite the blaring yellow alert.
By now news had spread that there was no threat at hand. That didn’t stop the anger from curdling in my stomach at their nonchalance.
I went to snap at the nearest soldier but controlled myself just in time.
I hid behind my helmet, glad no one could see the sweat pouring down my brow.
Before I knew where my feet were carrying me, I ended up in front of a door.
It was a plain door, and it would lead into an equally plain room, without windows and without much in the way of decoration. This room belonged to a soldier, not an officer.
A mere grunt.
I had no idea who was stationed here. Or at least, I shouldn’t.
But I pushed a slightly shaking hand out and entered my senior over-ride command codes into the panel. The door opened and realization sliced into my gut.
Shar.
It was her quarters.
I pushed in, glad that there were no soldiers behind to see what I was doing.
The doors sliced closed behind me.
There was nothing in the room that could confirm these quarters were hers.
Apart from the general, overwhelming sense that filled the place like blood flowing into a beating heart.
I could feel her. Smell her. Hear her echoing voice.
Every sensation vibrated with the knowledge that she’d been here recently.
Again I felt my hands shift as if they were being controlled by some external force.
Sparks of energy tingled through them, chasing up my wrists and plunging high into my elbows and shoulders.
“What the….”
I jerked my hands up, commanding my armor to recede to my wrists. The plating flicked back in a smooth move like petals unfurling from a flower head.
… I stared at my hands.
They were normal. There was no external sign of what I was going through.
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand shifted to the side, I dropped down to my knees, and I moved toward the wall.
… There were faint specks of blood on it as if someone had struck it repeatedly with their fist.
I began methodically tracing my fingers down those dried-up specks.
And as I did, I got the strangest sensation – the strangest image filled my mind.
It was so precise, so detailed, it seemed like a vision smeared over reality.
Her outline, the strange beaded plaits that ran above her ears folded over her shaking shoulders. Her head locked against her knees. Her bloodied hands pressed against her shins….
I jerked back until my legs banged into her metal bed.
I shifted over my shoulder and saw her pillow had been abandoned on the floor.
I crouched down and plucked it up.
… And swore I saw a vision of her drying her eyes on it.
I shivered. So fast. So violent. So all encompassing.
“What… what’s happening to me?” I managed.
Before I knew what I was doing, I jolted up, led by my tingling hands.
They guided me out of the door and into the corridor.
The pitch of the yellow alert hadn’t changed.
There was no reason to suspect anything was wrong, and yet right now, my heart virtually exploded in pure panic.
I jolted forward.
Just in time.
Just in time.
…
Shar
I could feel it all around me. That ghostly, ethereal presence. It felt like a man – a male presence, with an arm locked around my back and one hand gently resting on my shoulder.
If I let him, he would guide me forward.
But I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Anger at seeing Xarin with the Princess still flooded through me. Anger the likes of which I’d never previously experienced.
Though I’d had to kill many times to survive, and had a brutal personality to match, I’d never felt an emotion this volatile, this violent.
No amount of reasoning pushed it away.
I felt betrayed.
Which was ridiculous. Who was Xarin to me that he would have betrayed me?
The arrogant prince had the right to do whatever he pleased.
Despite how angry I felt, I was still terrified at the yellow alert.
Though I’d met up with a duty officer who’d confirmed the yellow alert was nothing more than a mistake, I didn’t believe him.
I simply couldn’t be reasoned with.
So I fought against the ethereal arms that still guided me until I reached one of the lower decks of the ship.
I had no goddamn idea what I was doing….