Diplomacy Read online

  But that didn’t prove much, past the fact that he was a very, very good politician.

  Had he demanded something—anything—in exchange for the guarantee that her family wouldn’t be harmed, she might have believed him. As he hadn’t, she felt like he might just have wished to keep her there, ensnared in his trap. What if his people planned to kill all the Rexises to make a transition of power easier? Having her worry and attempt to flee just wouldn’t do, so he’d waved sweet little lies and told her to go to sleep.

  Yes, she was absolutely paranoiac. Her mind, usually so reliable, so sensible, couldn’t come up with any conclusive analysis. She just didn’t know if he’d been sincere. Could she risk it?

  In the end, Dara didn’t think, flying out of her room and striding confidently toward Kaur’s, on the other side of the family wing.

  There were two guards posted in front of the door. Of course.

  “My lady, no one is authorized to—”

  Dara’s right hand hovered over the exosuit on her left arm, and a small, slender tube came out of it. She caught it in flight, and pressed on it, extending it into a long, slender lance. Dara ducked, lifting her arm and twisting it, hard and fast, hitting both of them in the head with her weapon set on stun.

  They were on the floor, unconscious, before they’d thought to reach for their blasters.

  When she walked into the dimly lit room a little voice called out, “Who's there?”

  Her little brother typically sounded a lot more cheerful and upbeat; now, there was a tremor to his tone.

  Dara turned in the direction of the sound, left, to his ensuite bathroom.

  “Who do you think, Kauri-Bug?”

  A head peeked out the door, and then Kaur was running into her open arms. “Papa said we were safe, but I heard the guards in front of the door and they were saying that maybe they should leave before it was too late. They're scared, Dara. Are you scared?”

  Dara scoffed, and then laughed overly dramatically for her brother’s benefit. “Me, scared?” She brushed his hair back, behind his ear, and drew out the word, “never.”

  For a moment, she squeezed the boy in her arms, holding him very close.

  “Listen, Kauri-Bug, I think now's the perfect time for a little escape, what do you say? You, me, uncle's ship.”

  The boy's eyes widened in excitement. “Can we do that?” he asked in awe, all trace of fear gone from his tone and features.

  Dara shrugged.

  “Lonar's busy and no one's paying attention. Might as well go have fun while they're all away, right? It’s not like we’ll have another chance to get our hands on the Fusion.”

  Kaur nodded enthusiastically. Then he frowned. “But what if the bad mages win?” he asked. “What if we're needed here, to protect our people.”

  Kaur would have made a good king someday, in another time, in another era. Dara's fist clenched, but she did her utmost to hide her ire, smiling at her little brother.

  “Don’t worry about that. We can always come back for them, can't we?”

  The lie rolled off her tongue but it tasted bitter.

  Kaur nodded, easily convinced. He had no reason to mistrust his sister. “Okay, then. Let's go.”

  She didn't tell him to pack his favorite things. She couldn't grab valuables they would be able to trade at a later date; not without arousing his suspicions.

  Before they passed the threshold, Dara looked back into the overly large, luxurious room. It had everything a boy of his age could wish for, all the toys, the holograms, the trendy games. Then, she knelt in front of her brother, and gathered him in her arms as she used to do when he was a baby.

  Kaur laughed.

  “I’m not three, you know,” he commented, but no protest crossed his lips.

  Dara made an excuse, and rushed him out, distracting him with talk about their favorite show so he wouldn't notice the guards she'd knocked out on her way in.

  Dara had the sense to activate her communicator and send a clear, concise message to a few chosen individuals. Raff, of course, two other soldiers in her usual team, as well as the robot she'd programmed for her use the moment she'd joined the army. To her surprise, she added a quasi-stranger to her short list, looking for him through the database. She found Wilm after checking the current duty roster at the tower's dungeon.

  Her exosuit's golden armor, fitted around her arms and back, made the boy's weight entirely negligible, carrying most of it for her. Walking as fast as she could without running, Dara headed out to the main hangar, without being halted. There were benefits to being the king’s daughter, even the lesser daughter.

  Her robot was already standing in front of the sleek, red, top of the line ship their uncle had bought three seasons ago. The Fusion was the general’s pride and joy, and honestly, the very best ship in the whole of Zeru. Dara didn’t doubt that there would be trackers intended to locate it if it got stolen, but Alpha-Z39X could take care of those.

  If all went well and, by some sort of a miracle, the mages didn't defeat the Zeruvian army, they’d do just what she’d promised to Kaur, go for a spin and come right back in a few days. Dara wasn’t delusional. In her wildest dreams, she wouldn’t have been able to come up with odds that tilted in their favor. She knew this was it; they were leaving their system and never coming back.

  “Are we seriously taking this beast?”

  She turned to find that Raff had arrived first; Laeri, the muscle of their trio, was jogging toward them, and at the entrance of the hanger, Wilm had just appeared. Everyone was here, except Earl.

  Dara frowned. They couldn't afford to wait for long. Eventually, they’d attract the wrong kind of attention. But other than Alpha-Zee, Earl was the single most important part of any outsystem trip. Unlike the rest of them, he was actually worldly. Dara was born on Zeru, and she'd left exactly four times, each time for a quick trip to Vratis and back. They were most definitely not going to head for the capital planet of the Ratna Belt, for surely the mages would be attacking, and conquering, soon enough. Raff and Laeri hadn't traveled anywhere at all, and she doubted that, with the salary of an enforcer, Wilm had been able to afford a proper trip, either.

  Earl would know what to do, where to go, how to blend in.

  But she'd been clear in her message.

  “I’m getting out of this joint before the damn planet implodes. Come to the hangar in ten if you want in.”

  She hadn’t been sure that Raff would show. He was a stickler for rules, fond of the kingdom, optimistic about politics. But she hadn’t doubted Earl's presence until now.

  Earl had joined the army because he was bored and it had been the most entertaining job he'd thought of. He was heir to an important member of the merchant guild, Madam Maenna. The merchant guild was a fancy front for a band of ruthless pirates, mercenaries, and cut-throat bounty hunters, entirely outlawed by the imperials. They were tolerated in the Ratna Belt as long as they didn’t mind working for the warlord when he demanded it.

  Earl’s mother had set up her base on Zeru for tax purposes and he liked to live with her to save on rent. His sense of national duty wasn't what one would call exemplary. When called out on it, he reminded them that he was, in fact, not Zeruvian. A fair point.

  “Let's go in. Zee?”

  The robot, called out by her nickname, advanced toward the entrance of the ship, her black tool arm extended.

  It took three different kinds of identifications to get into a ship with the level of security of Lonar's; fingerprint, retinal, and voice checks. Zee bypassed them by directly communicating to the mainframe, and, no doubt, lying to it. The flamboyant door parted in the middle and slid into the ceiling and floor of the ship. Then, a white landing platform descended toward them.

  Wilm whistled at the robot, impressed. The white screen inside the machine's empty face displayed a smiling face for a second, before disappearing.

  The Z3 models were pretty dated tech, and no other model would have had the will or ability to
do what the three-foot-tall, slender, female-shaped robot did in under a minute. Lying wasn't a concept machinery usually understood. They couldn't bypass protocols. A few years back, Dara had fitted Zee with an Alpha interface, making the machine both intelligent and compassionate. Zee was a sentient creature of sorts, and her one desire was to help Dara.

  Typically, Dara kept the machine at work. Her modifications hadn't been authorized, and she didn't want anyone to deactivate her robot, so hiding her had seemed like a good idea.

  It mattered little now.

  “Alright, let's go,” Dara said, looking back behind her one last time.

  Still no Earl. She sighed and headed in, asking Kaur, “Where should we go first, then?”

  “An imperial system!” the boy shouted enthusiastically.

  Yeah, that wasn't happening. Leaving the Ratna Belt was out of the question if they could help it. Imperials hated Ratnarians for not acknowledging their government, for not paying their taxes, and a million other reasons. There was a lot of paperwork and identifications to undergo after entering the imperial territories with a foreign ship. If the imperials found out who they were, and suspected that they might make a profit selling them out, they would.

  Dara bit her lip, realizing that there was probably no one in the entire galaxy who wouldn’t sell them out. They couldn’t ask for aid. They couldn’t let their names be known. They had to well and truly disappear.

  What now? How would they manage that without guidance? She wasn’t trained for it; her experience wouldn’t help.

  They’d all made it to the end of the platform, and Zee moved to the console on the right side of the entrance to close the door, when a shout came from behind.

  “Wait!”

  Her eyes widened and she smiled at the half-dressed, long haired, disheveled male running toward them. He held his trousers up with his left hand and awkwardly balanced a backpack on his right shoulder.

  Never had Dara been happier to see her lazy, self-centered, jackass of a subordinate.

  “Go set up for launch,” she told the rest of the team, pausing as her eyes fell on Wilm, but the male didn’t seem to find the command confusing. He followed Raff and Laeri, volunteering to check the auxiliary power shifters.

  Good; she hadn’t invited dead weight at least.

  Earl got in, panting, and holding his sides.

  “Damn, female. You couldn't have worse timing, you know. Just when I'd convinced the sexiest chick in the whole of Zeru to go wild before the world comes to an end, you call and ruin our fun.”

  Dara rolled her eyes, and pointed to her brother, who seemed way too interested.

  “Kaur doesn't need to hear your filth, Earl. Move your ass, we need to close the hold.”

  The soldier was standing right above the door latch. He stepped aside and Zee closed the door before rolling forward, beeping as she went.

  ”Is she going to the command platform?” Kaur asked, eying the robot. “I want to see it!”

  Dara waved him along. “On your way, then! But I'd better not see your butt on the control chair, mister.”

  “Okay!” he yelled, running in the corridors.

  Her smile dissolved the moment the boy disappeared at the next corner.

  “Gotta say, even for me, that's a bold move, Rexis,” Earl said, his tone now devoid of amusement. “You sure you're ready to kidnap the heir to the throne and leave the planet during an attack? They’ll call it treason and what not.”

  There was no accusation in his tone, just curiosity and concern. He was being a good friend, bidding her to think before she could do something she might come to regret.

  For a few seconds, Dara truly did consider his words. Then, she shrugged.

  “If everything goes well, we'll be back. If our army loses, there's nothing we can do. Kaur may just be a kid, but he's heir to the throne here. The mages might kill him just for that. I’m not taking that risk.”

  Of course, the stranger in the dungeon had promised they wouldn't, but what was his word worth?

  Never trust a mage.

  Earl nodded. “You're the boss, princess.”

  He liked to tease her that way but the appellation felt wrong tonight.

  “Don't call me that.” She'd never been much of a princess. “Not now. A princess would have stayed and shared the fate of her people. That's obviously not me.”

  The male tilted his head and smiled. “Aye,” he agreed, to her surprise. “I reckon that's not you. You've proven yourself to be something else altogether. Stealing a ship, leaving like this. Why, you might just make a decent mercenary, Rexis.”

  From him, it was most definitely a compliment.

  “Rex,” she said, correcting her name. “From now on, it might be safer if I go by Rex.”

  “Got it. Totally incognito. Can’t even see the resemblance at all.”

  Dara rolled her eyes. “No, but that’s a name I might actually answer to. If someone isn’t actively searching for me, it might not tip them off. So, Rex it is.”

  Six

  The Twins

  Star was known as the beauty of Ithel. A gently bred, elegant female who, at age sixteen, could hold a conversation with politicians and celebrities alike, she was the lady every male of the academy desired. Every male, except Hart, who happened to be her twin.

  Star had her faults, however. For example, it wasn’t the first time that Hart found her quite disheveled, clothes undone, hair all over the place, sweating and yelling as she repetitively punched another student. A male, this time.

  Hart sighed, then stepped out of the academy building and joined her in the beautiful water garden.

  “Could this conflict possibly be resolved in a peaceful manner, sister?” he asked casually, pulling a ripe apple out of his satchel and taking a healthy bite.

  He only had half an hour until his next lesson started, so he'd taken to bringing his lunch with him. Black bread, brown broth. Nothing exciting. He could afford better meals, but Hart wasn't one to squander his family's money on trivialities. His one perk was a fruit per day.

  “No,” said Star, between punches.

  Hart simply lifted a brow. His sister was staring at her live punching bag but she never failed to feel his gaze.

  Her fist still firmly holding the boy by the collar, she turned to him. “He called mom an imperial slut.”

  Hart tilted his head and hesitated for one second. It truly was a good apple, and it did cost a whole golden mark: as much as ten portions of black bread and brown broth.

  Even for those who had the coin, finding the perfect fruit, both sweet and crispy, wasn’t as easy as it sounded on Ithel, the fire planet.

  But there was one simple truth he'd always lived by. Family came first.

  Regretfully, he threw it at the nearest trash can, before walking to his sister.

  “I can take care of him myself,” she growled.

  “Visibly. Let me just hold him for you. You’ll be more effective with two fists. Then we can catch lunch from the kiosk across the street before astrology. My treat.”

  She seemed to cheer up at the thought of a nice lunch. She always spent all of her allowance the very day she got it, so it was rare that she could afford to eat anything outside of the standard allocated meals.

  One of the few things the Alvar twins had in common: they loved their food.

  After the twelfth punch, the boy’s nose started to bleed. Fierce as she was, Star didn’t have a lot of upper body strength, thankfully for the fool.

  “All right, I think he’s had enough, now.”

  Star glanced up at her brother and sighed. “Fine.” Then, to the boy who was perhaps two or three years older than them, she said, her voice a low roar, “Our mother, Caraleth Alvar, has the blood of kings and emperors running in her veins, and the strength of a thousand varlash.” Maybe not a thousand, but Hart didn't feel that now was the right time to correct his twin. “She was born to rule entire planets but she walked away to devote her life t
o helping pieces of trash like you. Another word against her—just one? I’ll kill you.”

  The concerning thing was, she probably wasn’t joking. Thankfully, no one had ever tried their luck after the first warning.

  Hart had read that their family dated back to the beginning, to the dragon riders of old. When he watched his sister’s wrath, he knew the tales to be true.

  She turned on her heels, heading out of the gardens, toward their favorite food truck, Dulo's Kitchen. They sold the most delicious wraps, filled with a mixture of foreign plants and local meats. Students generally couldn't afford it, but their Academy was nestled between the royal bank, the imperial consulate, and the seat of the senate. The truck sold to the personnel working there.

  Hart slapped the boy’s back and laughed. “Here’s a simpler rule for you. Don’t be a dick. And never be a dick to a lady.”

  Words he’d also try to live by.

  Hart followed his sister’s steps, enjoying the breeze of fresh air on his skin.

  Winters and falls were unbearably hot on Ithel, and during the spring and summer, their planet was so close to the sun, nothing on the surface could survive. Their cities were mounted on platforms that were covered by energy walls; when the temperature was unbearable, they sunk them in the deepest depths of their seas.

  The natural breeze was such a pleasure after a long summer.

  Hart was a bit of a hedonist, enjoying simple things in life. To him, this very moment couldn’t have been any more perfect. A beautiful kaleidoscopic sky, some fresh air, Star's company, and the prospect of some good food.

  And then, all of a sudden, without warning, it was over.

  He felt it before anything happened: an inherent apprehension seized his entrails, warning him that something was going to be very wrong. Within an instant, Star stopped moving, her body started to tremble and then to shake uncontrollably.

  Hart felt her pain as though it was his. He rushed to his twin's side and caught her in his arms as she fell, her limbs failing her.