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. 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. Tal 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. His 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! Tal swore silently. 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 the 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'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 her face glowed with added color she never wore while serving on the bridge. Full bright lips, a hint of rose on 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.