Rebel Princess(2)

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 Prime 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. Pysclid. 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,  pullover 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, it  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 handheld 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 handheld. 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.