Rebel Princess

By Blair Bancroft

The Princess Royal of a pacifist planet, whose people have spent a thousand years developing their powers of the mind, stages a personal rebellion, joining the space academy of a planet that has spent a millennium developing its military might. This odd pairing goes well until her senior year when her new "friends" turn on her. Only the swift action of an honorable huntership captain saves her from rape and possible medical experimentation. As a very special prisoner of war, she spends four years in solitary confinement, where she dreams of her rescuer but has no idea she has inadvertently sparked a rebellion against the military planet's vast Empire.

When the princess-in-disguise is finally freed and tossed into the middle of the Rebellion, she discovers there is a stark contrast between her fantasy version of the man who rescued her and the flesh and blood starship captain leading the rebellion. She must also cope with his followers who fear her psychic powers, a fey younger brother who speaks only through illusions, royal parents with a strict belief in non-violence, and a fiancé who happens to be a sorcerer. It would appear the hope of toppling the Empire is a dim light at the end of a very long tunnel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blair Bancroft
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736799949

Blair Bancroft

Blair Bancroft recalls receiving odd looks from adults as she walked home from school at age seven, her lips moving as she told herself stories. And there was never a night she didn't entertain herself with her own bedtime stories. But it was only after a variety of other careers that she turned to serious writing. Blair has been a music teacher, professional singer, non-fiction editor, costume designer, and real estate agent. She has traveled from Bratsk, Siberia, to Machu Picchu, Peru, and made numerous visits to Europe, Britain, and Ireland. She is now attempting to incorporate all these varied experiences into her writing. Blair's first book, TARLETON'S WIFE, won RWA's Golden Heart and the Best Romance award from the Florida Writers' Association. Her romantic suspense novel, SHADOWED PARADISE, and her Young Adult Medieval, ROSES IN THE MIST, were finalists for an EPPIE, the "Oscar" of the e-book industry. Blair's Regency, THE INDIFFERENT EARL, was chosen as Best Regency by Romantic Times magazine and was a finalist for RWA's RITA award. Blair believes variety is the spice of life. Her recent books include Historical Romance, Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Thrillers, and Steampunk, all available at Smashwords. A long-time resident of Florida, Blair fondly recalls growing up in Connecticut, which still has a piece of her heart.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Captain’s on the bridge.

Talryn Rigel scanned his bridge crew as they shot to their feet, their dark gray uniforms contrasting sharply with the huntership Orion’s white walls and gleaming viewscreens. Today, every bridge station was double-staffed, one Orion crewman and one Academy cadet at Helm, Nav, Tactical, Engineering, Comm, and Watch. For the war game about to be launched, the cadets were in charge.

As you were. Officers and cadets resumed their battle positions. Status, Kiolani.

"Alpha and Beta squadrons in position, sir. Archer at Mark 10."

As Tal stalked toward Tactical, Cadet Kass Kiolani’s back stiffened to rigid. Even though her gaze remained fixed on the glowing tri-dimensional hologlobe in front of her, there was no doubt she knew he was there. Talryn Rigel, Captain, practically breathing down her neck.

He read the hologlobe’s icons at a glance—Orion in the center, the Tau-20 fighters, four in each squadron, doing lazy circles to port and starboard, and Orion’s scout ship, Archer, hovering near the edge of the globe, ten marks out. All in position, but he’d let Kiolani sweat a little. Too full of herself was the little Psyclid. So slight of body he could snap her neck with one hand, and with the face of a fairy princess out of some ancient legend. For the hundredth time since the cadets came aboard for hands-on training, Tal wondered how a Psyclid, a female Psyclid, made it into the Regulon Space Academy.

Most likely by sheer merit, he conceded grudgingly, answering his own question. Kass Kiolani was the most outstanding cadet he had ever seen. Her very first time on Tactical, her cadet squadron had trounced his battle-hardened crew. Disbelief deepened when she’d done it a second time. And now, two days before the cadets were due to leave Orion, he was giving her an opportunity to do it again. Bets were laid, cadet faces eager, Orion regulars grim. And, by Omni, this time Tal Rigel was going to figure out how she was doing it.

He took his seat in the captain’s chair, for a moment allowing himself the luxury of enjoying the star-sprinkled black void on the other side of Orion’s broad viewport. Playing war games with children had been a restful downtime for his crew, but the spice of moments like this one were few and far between. They all needed to get back into deep space and set Orion to doing what she did best—exploring the Nebulon Sector for new worlds to conquer.

Tal activated his own hologlobe, confirmed all the players were still in their proper places. In today’s exercise the armored scout ship Archer was designated the enemy, the much larger Orion allowed to use only weapons comparable to Archer’s. In addition to its missile array, each ship would be defended by four Tau fighters. Team Alpha, chosen from the squadron’s most skilled men, was assigned to Archer. Team Beta, cadets all, were set to defend the massive huntership.

Kiolani, Tal ordered, commence exercise.

Aye, Captain.

Her first time at Tac, the little Psyclid had taken out his four Tau-20s and the scout ship in twenty minutes. The second time, with the cadets assigned to Archer, Kiolani’s Beta Team had triumphed in eighteen minutes, thirty seconds. Today . . .?

A scant nine minutes later, Tal was already glad he’d refused to place a bet.

Got ’im! A cadet pilot’s triumphant shout echoed from Comm.

Beta One splashed Alpha Three, Captain, Kass Kiolani reported in carefully neutral tones. That’s two down for Alpha Squadron.

Tal sat steady in his chair as another red icon winked out. Mallik! She was doing it again. He had no difficulty detecting the smug satisfaction beneath the cadet’s oh-so-proper military façade. From his bridge crew, only gloom. Most of them had bet against her. Of course they had. She was Psyclid.

"Archer starting her run, aft, five-o’clock, Cadet Kiolani intoned. Aft battery, prepare to fire missiles Five and Six. On my mark, lock on. Betas, look sharp. Sting her before she gets to us."

Tal stifled a wince as the four cadet fighters easily eluded his two remaining pilots and zoomed in on Orion’s scout ship. Fortunately, the light beams raking Archer only looked like lethal lasers, the hits and misses instantly recorded by Tactical’s complex comp system.

Aft battery, lock on, Kiolani ordered. Wait for it . . . wait. Fire!

Pok! The girl had the confidence of an officer twice her age.

Incoming! At Tac Two, Orion’s First Officer, sitting shoulder to shoulder with a Psyclid cadet, didn’t bother to hide his glee as the Fleet regulars on Archer fired two missiles at point blank range.

Shields up! Kiolani’s command rang clear in the sudden tense quiet, Orion’s crew and cadets caught up in the illusion of imminent disaster.

The missile exchange was going to be close. Would Orion’s shields hold? Tal locked his gaze on the hologlobe and waited for the ship’s sensors to record the hit. Heads lifted from viewscreens . . . puzzled looks as nothing happened.

Except Archer’s icon on the hologlobe exploding in a shower of sparks.

Cadet Kass Kiolani—the only Psyclid in the Regulon Space Academy—let out a small yip of triumph.

Orion’s bridge crew groaned. The cadets cheered. Tal Rigel suppressed an audible sigh.

Captain, do you wish to continue the exercise?

Bring ’em in, Kiolani. Well done. But way too easy. Every time Kass Kiolani took a turn at Tactical, no matter what war game he chose, she made his crew look like they belonged to a merchant fleet on the outer rim. Cadet pilots and cadet gunners, some barely old enough to shave, outmaneuvered and outgunned his best men. Even today, when Archer fired two sure strikes, Orion continued to sail through space, miraculously untouched.

Shield strength, Kiolani?

One hundred percent, Captain.

His suspicions, however incredible, were justified. After repulsing two missiles at point-blank range, Orion’s shields should have registered as down by fifty percent or more. The scout ship missed. But it couldn’t have.

The hologlobe was still spinning at Tactical, showing Alpha and Beta fighters returning to the ship, closely followed by Archer. One last look, a tiny smile, and Cadet Kiolani shut down the holo and turned her attention to the exercise wrap-up on the flat viewscreen in front of her.

Tal Rigel lowered his voice, speaking to his personal comp unit. Copy hologlobe record to Ready Room. Add copies of previous exercises involving Cadet Kiolani at Tactical. The little cadet was good, but she wasn’t that good. No one was.

But she was Psyclid, and that’s what was wrong with this whole batani mess. Kiolani?

Sir?

Report to the Ready Room at nineteen-thirty. Maybe that would keep the cocky little Psyclid quaking in her boots for a few hours. Now all he had to do was figure out what skill she possessed that made her the scourge of Regulon’s fastest, most successful huntership.

And the Nemesis of Captain Talryn Rigel.

Not possible. Tal had studied the three holos until his eyes crossed. They all said the same thing, and he fydding well didn’t believe it. Trajectories did not glitch. Trajectories did not zig, nor did they zag. Beams of light did not dash off into space like meteors streaking the sky. And in the last holo, those two missiles from Archer should have hit dead on. No way could they have missed. And yet they had.

Tal groaned. The little Psyclid was playing with his mind. But isn’t that what Psyclids did? That’s why they kept to their own planet and kept out of Regula Prime’s way. During the centuries while Regulons were developing their bodies and their weapons, Psyclids were developing their minds, many said to no good end. Some even muttered of witchcraft and sorcery. Tal had steadfastly ignored the rumors, but now . . .

A soft knock on the Ready Room door. Not so bold now, was she? Scared she was in for all the buts that would inevitably follow his earlier well done? Well, good. Sometimes he wondered if Kass Kiolani remembered he was captain.

Come.

Tal swallowed an inadvertent hiss of breath as the Psyclid cadet entered. Gone was the little warrior who had commanded Beta squadron to victory. Playing with his mind again, was she? Long hair hung black and straight well below her shoulders, appearing almost too heavy for her elfin face and slim body. So slim the smallest Regulon uniform was several sizes too large, effectively concealing the figure, or lack of it, beneath. But she’d made up for it with facial enhancements. Full bright lips, a hint of color in her cheeks, and eyes deeply ringed with shadows darker than her silver gray cadet uniform and emphasizing the sharply intelligent amber eyes of a feline predator.

Did those usually glowing eyes show a touch of wariness, as if this time she remembered who was boss? Probably his imagination, and yet her regal nose managed to appear custom-made for looking down at the rest of the world.

She saluted smartly. Captain.

Sit, Kiolani. He indicated a chair. I have something to show you.

She blinked, long black eyelashes brushing her cheeks. In that instant she knew she’d been caught. He could feel it. She sat.

Tal activated the holo record of the day’s training exercise. Let’s watch the whole thing, he told her, and then you can explain the anomalies.

Certainly, sir. With no further sign of tension at his implication that something was wrong, she focused her entire attention on the hologlobe. They watched in silence as the cadets, led by acting Tactical Officer Kiolani, put down Alpha Group’s attack in fourteen minutes, twenty seconds.

When the holo winked out, Cadet Kiolani’s gaze dropped to the hands clasped in her lap. A classic portrait of female subservience, waiting for her master’s voice. Little witch.

The anomalies, Cadet. Can you explain?

She looked up, eyes wide and limpid, deep pools of innocence. Surely a comp malfunction, Captain. We both know trajectories don’t do that.

Not without help.

Pardon?

Mallik, but she was good. "Someone else is bound to notice, Kiolani. Someone less flexible than I. You can’t be unaware that relations between Psyclid and Regula have deteriorated. If you were doing what I think you were doing today—though I haven’t the slightest idea how—then stop it. It could not only get you bounced out of the Academy, it could get you killed."

But, Captain . . . She paused, frowned, returned her gaze to her lap.

Speak your mind, Kiolani.

Her head came up, setting long shimmering black strands waving around her face, over her breasts . . .

Concentrate, Rigel. Psyclid. Cadet. Anomalies. Batani witch. She’d worn her hair down, added enhancements so she could charm—

Try to be objective, Captain. He could feel her willing him to understand. "If—and I emphasize if—I have any special gifts, they could be helpful to Fleet."

Tal tapped a button and the hologlobe disappeared, leaving him a clear view of Cadet Kiolani’s elfin face. Since the afternoon’s exercise, his goals had shifted. He was curious about her suspected powers, yes, but talk overheard in the last few hours had overridden the puzzle of malfunctioning trajectories. He had a decade more experience than this all-too-bright cadet, yet finding words to penetrate her self-confidence, her certainty—her oblivious certainty— that all was right in her world was more of a challenge than he’d anticipated.

Listen to me, Kiolani. People fear what they don’t understand. And the fear of Psyclid powers grows stronger every day. Logic has no part in it. Tal fisted his right hand, dropped it to within an inch of the tabletop. What I’m saying, Cadet, is that you need to watch your back. Not all the mutterings I heard after the exercise were from my own officers. There are cadets outside your own squad who are beginning to talk, maybe turn on you.

You aren’t . . . you can’t possibly be saying I should leave the Academy. The little Psyclid looked horrified. I’ve wanted to go into space my whole life. In ten months I’ll be an ensign.

And I’m saying that even if you graduate, it’s doubtful they’ll assign you to the fleet. Maybe a desk job, researcher or something like that. A ridiculous waste of talent.

No-o!

Or it could be worse.

How worse?

She seemed genuinely puzzled. Foolish girl, she truly didn’t understand. Must be all that Psyclid nonsense about peace and love and the Psyclidian way. He’d just have to spell it out. It could come to war.

She laughed out loud, right in his face. War is a joke. You can’t make war on a planet that owns nothing more than a few armed escort ships to guard our merchant fleet. We have no battlecruisers, no hunterships. We are boringly peaceful. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to attend the Academy. I thought it was time at least one of us learned how to fight.

How could someone so bright be so unaware? The concept of personal enmity seemed beyond her grasp. Your bravery isn’t in question, Kiolani. Nor your brilliance as a cadet. But you’ve stepped on toes, made a lot of people angry. Psyclids aren’t supposed to beat a warrior race at its own game. I want you to be aware trouble is coming. I’m almost certain of it.

Pallor leeched color from skin the shade of the honey produced on his uncle’s farm on Regula Prime. Genocide? she murmured.

I hope it won’t come to that, but I don’t like some of the things I’ve heard. Particularly in the last few hours since she’d made fools of them all. Again.

Huge amber eyes looked straight into his soul. Pok! Tal was nearly as angry with her as his crew was, and yet he’d swear she’d just branded him. Made him hers. No matter what happened to the stubborn little Psyclid, those eyes were going to haunt him for the rest of his days.

I refuse to believe it, she told him, head high. I can’t give up now, sir. I can’t.

Then watch your back, Kiolani. Watch your back.

Yes, sir. It hurts, but I’ll remember.

Tal watched her stiff shoulders as she walked out, wishing the uniform fit her better, wishing it revealed a bit more . . .

Now there was a sure way to find himself captain of a supply ship on the run to the outer rim. A Psyclid. He might as well lust after a Nyx.

Nonetheless . . . Captains had privileges. Perhaps when Kiolani graduated, he would have her posted to Orion, where he could keep an eye on her and . . .

No. Tal frowned as scraps of high-level intelligence briefings played through his head. Odds were, Kass Kiolani wasn’t going to make it to graduation.

Chapter 2

By the official calendar of Regula Prime

Five months, one week and four days later

Kass Kiolani scowled at the viewscreen of her portapad, which was set on a regulation black metal table in her quarters at the Regulon Space Academy. Why, oh why, were they required to study the physiology of every last species in the Sector? Psychology, yes, but aliens’ insides, and what they ate? Ugh! But she’d ace this exam, just like all the others, because that’s why she was here. She was going to explore the galaxy and prove that a Psyclid could best a Regulon anywhere, anytime.

Kass closed her eyes, pressed her fingers to her temples. A noble goal, but Captain Rigel’s words kept ringing through her head. People fear what they don’t understand. Watch your back, Kiolani. She’d refused to let his words scare her, but ever since the cadets had returned from maneuvers on Orion, things had been skidding downhill faster than a skier plunging down the slopes of Mount Tycho. Whispers, sidelong glances in class, at meals. Fewer people speaking to her, friendly nods turned cool. Maybe she should have listened to the captain and taken the next transport home.

Never! She only had to hang on for a few more months and she’d be an ensign in the Regulon fleet. Maybe she’d even be assigned to Orion . . .

The door to her room flew open so hard it crashed against the wall, toppling a vase with flowers she’d bought that afternoon from a street vendor. The vase shattered, sending shards of glass skittering across the faustone floor. Water splashed onto Kass’s regulation jumpsuit. She made no effort to run, not even a dash for the weapons stashed under her bed. She was too well trained not to know an impossible situation when she saw it. Her unexpected visitors were three men, all in black, pull-over masks concealing their faces. Each carried a P-11 laser rifle and wore a Steg-9 on his belt.

One of them tossed a carry-all onto the portapad’s keyboard. Pack, he barked. No uniforms.

They were letting her pack for prison? Internment? Whatever the Regulons wanted to call it when they declared war on Psyclid. Poor Psyclid, which wouldn’t last a week against Regulon legions. Kass swore softly as she threw clothes into the bag. She didn’t care what Tal Rigel said, it wasn’t supposed to come to this. She was supposed to graduate, become something no Psyclid had ever been before. An explorer and a warrior.

The three men stood silent, rifles at the ready, and watched while she packed. Did they enjoy their view of the lacy and nearly transparent undies she chose to wear beneath her austerely gray cadet uniforms? Were they were smirking beneath those masks? The little Psyclid squadron leader in sexy frills. Ha!

Kass gasped as the large hand of the tallest of the three men reached into the breast pocket of her jumpsuit and grabbed her hand-held comm unit. He threw it on the floor and stamped on it, his heavy boots crushing it with ease. No! she cried as the same man picked up her portapad and threw it on top of the remains of her hand-held. His rifle butt crashed down. Again, and once again. Kass felt the blows in her heart. Her whole life was in that comp unit, everything she had learned at the Academy, every paper she’d ever written, every grade received, every meticulously coded comm she’d written home, and every carefully composed reply. Her life on the planet Regula Prime, now in nearly as many pieces as the crystal vase, her future suddenly as short as the already drooping flowers lying in a pool of water.

No further words from her captors as they motioned her out of the room and down the hall. Obviously, news of the midnight invasion had spread. Cadets stood in every doorway, some shocked and gaping, some cheering, some . . .

All hail Regula! Got the little witch at last.

That’ll teach the Psyclid bitch. Give her a good one for us!

Hey, no fair. We had our own plans for her.

Kass could swear she still heard the jeers as the elevator doors slammed closed. Dear Goddess, these were her friends. Head bowed, her spirit as crushed as her portapad, she let the three men lead her where they would.

Kass was in the back seat of a groundcar driving toward the city when she realized she’d picked up a scent in the elevator. A spicy blend she recognized from the times Dorn Jorkan, Orion’s First Officer, sat next to her at Tactical. Or maybe her growing awareness of her captors was due to the leader’s arrogant king-of-the-galaxy stance, the flash of hard blue eyes through the holes in his mask. Or maybe it was because all three had taken care to say as little as possible. She knew these men. And they weren’t cadets.

They’d told her to pack . . . was it possible they were sending her home, putting her on the next transport out before war was declared?

No. Kass stifled a sigh. The Titan InterSystem Spaceport was in the opposite direction, the Fleet’s main base as well. She was not being deported, not going home to Psyclid.

The great lighted towers of Titan, the Regulon Empire’s capital city, grew taller and brighter, glowing in shades of white, gold, brilliant red, and royal blue. A city of oversized imposing buildings by day, Titan turned into beauty worthy of Psyclid at night. As much as Kass admired the Regulons’ dynamic approach to life, she could never understand their concept of bigger is better, their devotion to rules and regs, their lack of interest in anything but conquest.

No, that wasn’t true. Regulons based their culture on the great civilizations of old Earth. Philosophy and Spartan military discipline from the Greeks, lessons in conquest from the Romans, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Karlmann, Napoleon, and Hitler. But they had little interest in music, art, and architecture. Most particularly, they abhorred the acrobatics of the mind practiced by Psyclids.

People fear what they don’t understand.

Yet she’d flaunted her special skills in their faces. Oh, she’d thought she was being subtle, that only the captain had caught her playing games. But maybe not.

The Regulon Psyclidphobia was generic. No matter they shared the same Earth ancestors, Psyclids were weird. A good enough reason to obliterate them.

What a meshug she was to believe she could fit in.

So where were they taking her? Interrogation? But by whom? An internment camp in the city seemed unlikely, Fleet HQ was behind them, and Kass could think of no reason why she’d be turned over to the Titan City Police.

The man sitting beside her shifted in his seat, drew a deep breath, and spoke at last. There are some things you need to know, said a voice she’d know even if they’d been transported to the farthest corner of the galaxy. At the moment we’re improvising. I hadn’t expected things to go bad quite so soon, and we’re scrambling to put some very tentative plans in place on the instant. But we had no choice. Last night Mica— Ah, there was talk at the Perseus Club. The minute war is declared—a matter of days—some of the pilots you pissed off were planning gang rape.

She couldn’t have heard right. Regulon officers would never—

Followed by spreadeagling you, naked, on the nymph statue in the fountain.

The images that flashed through her head were so cruel, Kass couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Bile rose in her throat. No-o-o! She’d loved Orion, was so proud to serve those six weeks. Proud to serve with Captain Talryn Rigel.

But of course every word he said was true. She was the fool, seeing only what she wanted to see. Training, Kass, training. Suck it up. Deal with it. I should have listened to you.

Yes.

And now . . ?

Technically, you are a prisoner of war. You will be guarded around the clock Conditions will be stark at first, but they will improve. You will be alone, perhaps for a very long time. No one can tell when, or ever, it will be safe for a Psyclid to walk our streets again. But you will be alive.

And forever a virgin. Perhaps she should have thrown herself at Tal Rigel when she’d had the chance. As all the other females on Orion had done. Or attempted to do. Girl-talk said he rarely succumbed to passion. Only Liona Dann, Orion’s psych doc, had been able to boast she could guarantee the captain wasn’t celibate. Kass couldn’t stand the woman—what Tal Rigel saw in that tall, cool, absolute bitch she could not begin to imagine.

Not that it mattered. The captain had not come for her because he had any interest in her as a woman. He was Talryn Rigel, son of one of Regula Prime’s great families, brought up on honor, integrity, and all the old Earth legends Regulons so much admired, from Greek Gods to knights rescuing fair maidens. It wasn’t Kass Kiolani he was saving but a damsel in distress, following a code far more ancient than the Regulon Empire.

And yet one day soon, he would join—no, likely spearhead—the Fleet as it made war on the defenseless planet of Psyclid. Psyclid was Regula’s nearest neighbor, a planet which had been ignored as the Empire expanded, considered worthless, beneath contempt. Everyone knew Psyclids were a backward, bucolic race whose thought patterns didn’t fit with the rest of the galaxy. Just plain crazy, the lot of them. How many times had Kass heard an incipient argument broken up with the Regulon expression, Hey, don’t go Psyclid on me?

So what had changed?

Show-off, show-off, show-off! You hit them where it hurt. Twisted the knife. Not just last summer, but every day of every academic year.

You betrayed your people.

Couldn’t be. Kass refused to listen to that nasty jeering voice deep inside. The Regulon High Command had simply noticed the inexplicably independent blip on their holoview of the Nebulon Sector and decided it was time to do something about it. The recent hate campaign must have been part of their plan. It had nothing to do with her personally. Really.

Kass lifted her head and responded with the strict formality drummed into her since childhood, a formality designed to cover even the most challenging situations. I am most sincerely sorry for causing so much trouble. You and your friends have put yourselves at risk for me, and I thank you. The fate you describe is beyond my imagination. I had not thought it possible.

She thought she heard him murmur, Nor did I.

The groundcar turned hard left into an alley behind an imposing building Kass didn’t recognize. One weak security light illuminated a small door, dwarfed by the size of the loading platform next to it. Dear Goddess, maybe these men weren’t the friends, or at least sympathizers, she’d begun to think they were.

Their leader—surely the captain, her captain—took Kass firmly by the arm, steering her through the unlocked door, down a corridor, and into what appeared to be a large storage room. Plasticrates were stacked to the ceiling along one wall and what looked like haphazard stacks of metal shelving along another. A uniformed guard, armed with a P-11 as nasty-looking as the one held by her captors, stepped out of the shadows.

See that she stays here, the leader told him. Further orders later.

Yes, sir.

The leader turned back to Kass. Leave here and you’re dead. Is that clear?

She almost snapped out, Aye, Captain, but settled for a simple yes.

To her astonishment the three men spun around and marched out, leaving her alone with the middle-aged guard who looked as uncertain about what was going on as Kass was.

That was it? They’d done their job, parked her in a warehouse, and simply abandoned her? Going off to what? Frightening her peaceful, unarmed planet into submission?

Cot in the corner, the guard told her, jerking his head toward the room’s left corner. Next to the sani-closet.

Still stunned by the abrupt departure of her kidnappers—rescuers?—Kass wandered in the direction the guard had indicated. Cot indeed. Nothing more than a thin mattress on legs and a blanket. With her carry-all set neatly on top. The sani-closet was exactly that, a closet barely big enough to turn around in. Never in her life, not even on board the confined space of Orion, had she been expected to live in such . . . such . . .

Leave here and you’re dead.

As prisons went, she should thank the Goddess. She would endure.

Two mornings later, Kass’s vow of endurance was already listing badly as she faced the reality of living in isolation day after day, week after week, year after year. She was sitting on the