"… Glory to you, Empire Eternal.
Glory to the Homeworld and its Nations and its Martyrs.
Glory to the Warriors, dauntless and defiant.
In life, Service
In death, Sacrifice..."
- Terran litany
~~~~
Kainan sat in the pilot's seat of the small interceptor, stormcloud eyes staring out into the swirling sea of geometric patterns out beyond the viewscreen, drawing impossible fractals upon the border of the artificial bubble of three-dimensional space that the Razor's Edge resided in. Beyond that, separated only by a thin layer of tachyons and dark matter, lay Riftspace, that incomprehensible, multi-dimensional realm which existed beneath the surface of the normal universe. There, in Riftspace, the laws of geometry broke down and it was that property of this strange realm, which allowed ships to surpass the speed of light by simply diving into the Rift and shortening the travel distance. He knew, of course, that the fractals he was gazing at were not the true appearance of Riftspace, merely the way his mind interpreted a realm that was beyond mortal comprehension and no two individuals ever saw the same pattern. Right now, though, he didn't really care, he simply found the fractals beautiful, in a soothing, mesmerizing way.
He had dismissed the overworked pilot and the navigator from their posts, ordering them to get some much-needed rest while he kept watch over the interceptor's systems. While the ship was submerged into the Rift, its navigation systems did not require much input, so it was a monotonous and relatively simple task, which finally allowed him a few brief moments of respite. His thoughts raced, plotting, planning, calculating and categorizing deployment orders and supply lines, focused on the war to come, a war he knew would be on a scale not seen in more than twenty thousand years, when Houses Manticore and Kraken had fought over a resource-rich sector and the conflict escalated to involve all of their client species as well, leaving trillions dead and over a hundred worlds burned to ash. That he would be the architect of such devastation, weighed heavily upon his shoulders.
He felt her presence before he heard her speak. "Your people say such interesting things about you," came that voice he'd come to know all too well by now, like birdsong and windchimes. Valyra's voice. She sat into the copilot's seat, pulling her slender legs under her as her aquamarine eyes drifted to the viewscreen and the swirling patterns beyond. Her nimble fingers cradled a mug of dark, steaming beverage and the smell of coffee filled the cockpit. Kainan lifted an eyebrow. "And what do they say?" he asked.
"They say the warlord never sleeps. That he always finds something to work on," the princess responded, flashing him an impish smirk before lifting the mug to her lips, only for her features to then twist into a grimace as she tasted the bitter beverage. Kainan shrugged. "They like to exaggerate," he said, dismissively. "I'm just a man. A man with a plan, but at the end of the day, still just a man."
The princess looked at him, sweeping her gaze over his frame, noticing the subtle tension in his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw. It was subtle, so subtle that most would have missed it. But not Valyra. To her, such things as easily readable as the letters in a book. She was Alvari, after all, a species which had achieved unrivaled mastery over the body. More than that, she could sense his echo on the Veil, his psionic presence, still hidden and suppressed, but now unmistakable due to the bond they shared. "You are worried," she said and it wasn't a question, only a statement of fact.
He sighed, running a taloned hand over the rough stubble on his jaw. "I hold the lives of two hundred billion humans in my hands… not to mention all the other Pact species. I can't afford to make mistakes, Valyra. Any mistakes, no matter how small," he said, his stoic mask slipping to reveal just a hint of the tired man beneath, a man weighed down by a burden no individual should have to carry alone. It was a burden she, herself, knew all too well. "Shouldn't you be resting, princess?" he tried to steer the conversation away from that topic, or any other things that threatened to wear down the barriers they had to keep between them. "You're still recovering from your injuries."
Her lips curled up into a smile as she fixed him with her gaze. "You're one to talk, Kainan," she snickered, a sound like crystal windchimes in a summer storm. She took another small, measured sip from her coffee. "Why are you humans so fond of this beverage? I heard the ship's mechanic say he cannot function without it," quizzed Valyra, while giving the steaming mug in her hands a skeptical look. Kainan glanced at her, then at the cup of coffee in her hands. And then broke out into laughter, a rumbling, hearty laugh he couldn't hold back. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or the sheer absurdity of the situation. There she was, one of the most powerful women in the galaxy, an accomplished diplomat and politician whose reputation was notable even among her peers and she was talking to him about something as mundane as coffee.
Valyra's brows curled into a puzzled frown and she tilted her head, the gesture almost avian, or perhaps feline, evidently confused by his reaction. The warlord leaned back into his seat. "You're nothing like what I expected you to be, Valyra," he said to her, offering her a warm smile that reached his eyes, a rarity for the usually stoic human. "And what did you expect me to be like?" the princess quizzed, a playful glint in her aquamarine eyes. "Perhaps a haughty, entitled royal who thinks the rest of the universe is beneath her and can't string together two sentences that are not condescending?" She tilted her chin up, her features twisting into an expression of exaggerated imperiousness as she gave her best performance of exactly what she had described. "Cease polluting my vision with your obnoxious presence, peasant!"
"Well… that, yes," Kainan answered with a shrug. "But you have this… hunger for life, as if you're trying to find as much joy as you can in every little thing. Every time I see you, there's a smirk or a smile on your features. It makes you… approachable, far more than I thought you would be."
"Oh, I can be quite intimidating when I wish to be," Valyra scoffed, taking another sip from her coffee despite her earlier skepticism regarding the Terran beverage. "But not everything has to be a formal exchange constrained by rank and pageantry and I am not so petty and insecure as to demand that everyone constantly grovel before me. That tends to be my brother's preferred outlook, not mine…" she said, her shoulders slumping slightly as her thoughts drifted to her treacherous relative. Kainan did not press the issue, sensing the shift in her mood.
The princess drew in a deep breath, as if to banish the unpleasant topic from her thoughts. "You don't exactly fit the stereotype of the human politician, either, Kainan. You don't grovel or hide behind false platitudes and displays of deference. You are attuned to the Veil, yet you've managed to keep your abilities concealed even from me. You observe things others do not and don't make rushed, emotional decisions," she said as she measured him with a look. "You are a mystery wrapped in an enigma and you build so many walls around you, that I doubt even you know where they end."
The warlord sighed, shoulders tensing, his gaze drifting into the distance as for a moment there, the mask of the indomitable leader shattered and a weary darkness settled into his eyes, the kind that suggested scars which were not physical in nature, but wrought by a lifetime of hardship. "I have a few too many ghosts haunting me, princess…" he answered in a low voice, almost a ragged whisper. "Buried a lot of good people, men and women who didn't deserve the fate this galaxy wrought upon them." He was so damned tired of it all, of the shadows which followed him, even though he knew he could never shed them. His was the kind of road that wound through the darkness, after all.
Valyra's expression softened. She reached out across the distance between them and placed her hand over his wrist, the touch gentle and feather-light. "We all have to live with the price of the choices we make, Kainan. Believe me, I understand the burdens you carry," she said, her voice devoid of its usual light-hearted edge. She knew the enormity of the task he'd set himself to and just what it entailed. And through the bond they shared, she also knew there was more to his guarded outlook on life, than mere caution, though she refrained from touching upon that, opting instead to steer the conversation away from topics that were becoming a bit too sensitive and a bit too personal. "That emblem you wear, what does it mean?"
Some of the tension faded from the warlord's shoulders and he gave her a look of gratitude as he answered, lifting a taloned finger to the crimson-and-white pin on the collar of his shirt. "Duty. Discipline. Loyalty," he said as he pointed to each of the three inward-facing spears that bisected the flat sides of the triangle. Then, he pointed to the three corners, each forming a stylized arrowhead facing outwards from the center. "Resilience. Honor. Purpose. The first three, are the principles which hold the Terran Empire together. The latter, are the values which the Empire aims to manifest. Together, they embody the guiding philosophy of our nation and the greatest traits of our species. They come together to form a triangle, the strongest shape in geometry, representing our unwavering commitment to achieve a better future."
The princess nodded approvingly, measuring his words with the same degree of attentiveness she awarded everything else she deemed of importance. "Your ideals are as lofty as your ambitions," she said with a warm smile, then gave his wrist another squeeze, drawing his gaze down to the point of contact. Seeing her smile like that, he broke into a grin. He didn't know why, didn't understand it, but he couldn't help himself. There was something contagious about her smile, something that made him feel things he hadn't felt in a long time. Those simple joys he only knew briefly, before they were snatched away from him by fate's cruel hand. He found himself taking in every little detail, the way her eyes lit up, how she could say a thousand things with just a glance, her melodious voice which reminded him of windchimes, her full lips…
… The feeling of her soft skin against his as her lithe, nimble fingers closed around his calloused hand. It was all so… incredibly intoxicating, distracting in a way that was dangerous. Her touch lingered, far beyond the point it should have and he had not found the will to withdraw, either. The tension between them was almost palpable and he wasn't sure at which point the line had been crossed from political alliance to whatever this was, but he felt drawn to her in a way far more than he should and he knew, through the psionic bond they shared, that she felt the same. Worse yet, she could tell exactly what thoughts were warring in his mind and he had no way of concealing them. The bond worked both ways, after all. At some point, this matter would have to be addressed, before they found themselves blindly crossing another, even more serious line, one they both knew there would be no coming back from. But that would have to come later, when they could both think with more clarity than the aftermath of their flight from the station afforded them. For now, though… they would allow each other this one, small indulgence.
~~~~
A sudden metallic groan and a shudder tore the warlord from his restless, dreamless slumber. Aboard the small interceptor, an angry alarm blared and the lighting in the cockpit changed from neutral white, to the angry dark red of combat condition and the viewport lit up with a series of alerts indicating the collapse of the hyperdimensional field around the vessel and its subsequent unceremonious ejection back into realspace. The Razor's Edge had been yanked out of Riftspace by something and the reason was displayed in angry red letters upon the viewscreen: an interdiction field.
The jarring sound of glassware shattering upon the deck plates drew his gaze to the left, only to notice that Valyra had bolted upright, accidentally knocking her half-finished coffee mug off of the armrest. It seemed both he and the princess had dozed off in their seats, but the unfolding situation banished their slumber and instincts born from a lifetime of combat training and experience, had replaced any hint of drowsiness with the cold alertness of warriors on the verge of battle.
"Sir? What's the situation?" came another voice from behind them, lieutenant Asami Ishida's voice, the commanding officer of the small interceptor, a no-nonsense woman of short stature, with black hair tied back into a simple ponytail. "Interdiction field," Kainan said as he stood up from the pilot's seat to let her take his place at the helm, for while he might have been a decent pilot, that was not his area of expertise and he wasn't arrogant enough to stand in the way of the professionals. "Gorgon frigate, by the looks of it," he said grimly. Gorgons were one of the other civilizations subjugated by the Dra'var'th, a species of stocky, hairless creatures with a flat face, pointy ears and bone-white, leathery features dominated by a single eye. Unlike most of the species under the whip of the Dragon House, however, the Gorgons had taken to their new role surprisingly well, their natural inclinations towards obedience, greed and brutality making them the perfect mercenaries to do the demons' dirty work.
He stepped back and grabbed an overhead handrail as the rest of the crew filed in, the Alvari princess somehow appearing at his side, holding on to his other arm for support. Hands flying over the controls, the Lieutenant let out a string of what Kainan assumed to be profanities in Japanese, the language of her long-dead homeland, back on Earth-That-Was, a language that was now increasingly rare, just like Terran English and a lot of other once-prominent homeworld tongues. Had Kainan been able to afford the time to contemplate such matters, he would have lamented the gradual fading of the old cultures and traditions of the homeworld, but alas, there was a battle to consider.
It was evident what had happened. The Dra'var'th had evidently been preparing for the purge of Utopia Station for some time and they'd had their dogs lie in wait to ambush any potential survivors that managed to escape. That they knew the route the Razor's Edge had taken, meant an intelligence leak he'd have to address later, if they survived the current situation, for a single deep space interceptor, while nimble and heavily armed in its own right, was no match for a frigate. "Can you get us clear of the interdiction field and translate back to Riftspace?" he asked the lieutenant as she banked hard to the left to dodge out of the way of a salvo of plasma bolts from the enemy vessel. "Negative, sir. They're five million kilometers out and that field extends nearly double that distance. We'll never clear it before their fighters get within combat range."
Kainan nodded. "Where do you need me, Lieutenant," he asked, years of combat experience taking over. "Ramirez didn't make it off the station, so I'm a gunner short," the lieutenant answered. "Need someone to man the secondaries, job's yours if you can handle the turret controls."
The warlord nodded. "Valyra, I need you to get back to the medbay and keep everyone calm," he said as he strapped himself into the gunnery seat and locked the harness around himself. "Make sure to find a cot or a crash seat and fasten yourself down, this is going to get bumpy." Valyra nodded and strode out of the cockpit with her typical effortless grace. Through the bond, he could sense her frustration and her desire to help, but while the princess might be a very competent warrior and tactician herself, she had no experience with human ship systems and their controls and she was not the kind of woman whose pride would keep her from acknowledging that.
As the princess left, the cockpit descended into a scene of organized chaos. Alarms blared indicating a missile lock and screens flashed with alerts and sensor readouts. "Hostile strike craft inbound, two million kilometers out, bearing two-two-three by seven-niner!" called the copilot, a grizzled old veteran with a face that looked like it had been chewed up by a mining rig. "Incoming antimatter missile!"
That was all Kainan needed to hear. His hands flew over the controls of the gunnery station, his genetically-engineered brain running the necessary calculations as he input the results. The interceptor banked right, then corkscrewed into a dive, giving the warlord a mere fraction of a second to react. It was all he needed. He input the final command and the small vessel's twin autocannon turrets popped out from beneath their hatches, firing three short bursts. The first one went wide, but the second burst clipped the missile, sending it veering off-course and a third burst caused it to bloom into a blinding white nova. "Brace for sensor overload!" he called out, with seconds to spare before the EMP blast reached them. "Adjust for interference and compensate for gamma ray burst!"
"Switching to manual!" lieutenant Ishida shouted as she flicked a control switch on her console while the enemy fighters closed in. The Razor's Edge switched from the automated inertial control system to old-school chemical reaction control, thrusters firing in rapid sequence as the experienced pilot maneuvered the interceptor to weave around a burst of plasma bolts, then drift sideways past the first two enemy fighters. The interceptor's main battery, a twin-barreled 90mm railgun housed in the overhead turret located behind the cockpit, swiveled and fired, the loud thud echoing across the Edge as its hull shuddered from the recoil. Tungsten darts raced across the void and impacted, turning the first enemy strike craft into a cloud of rapidly-expanding microscopic particles as the force of the projectiles simply shattered it. A long burst from Kainan's autocannons shredded the second fighter, but not before it managed to spew out a volley of plasma bolts which slammed into the Edge's shields.
"Shields at sixty! Diverting power from non-essential systems!" the ship's engineer announced as the lieutenant executed another turn so sharp that the inertial dampeners couldn't fully compensate for. Kainan hoped everyone was strapped in safely, because the sudden acceleration was definitely powerful enough to throw someone against a bulkhead with enough force to break bones. The twin-barreled railgun fired again in rapid succession, cycling each round, causing another enemy indicator to disappear from the sensors, while his wingmate veered sharply to evade, Kainan's autocannons laying down a curtain of suppressive fire that forced it to break formation and slam into a piece of debris from one of the other fighters, rupturing a fuel line and briefly transforming into a blazing torch that spun uncontrollably away.
Another salvo of high-powered plasma bolts from the frigate sizzled past the interceptor with a mere dozen meters to spare. Ishida responded by flipping the interceptor a hundred and eighty degrees and firing the axial, the hundred and fifty millimeter dart forcing the enemy capital ship to change its position in order to evade. The situation did not look good. At a distance of four million kilometers, the Gorgon frigate was safely out of the effective range of the interceptor's railguns, having enough distance to accelerate away before the projectiles speared its unshielded hull. If they could get close enough, they might stand a chance at disabling it, for while the Gorgons possessed plasma weaponry that was centuries ahead of anything fielded by humanity, their defenses were vastly more primitive, lacking even the most basic shielding capabilities. A frigate such as the one they were facing, was a glass cannon, one which even a patrol group of Terran corvettes would have no problems dispatching, but between its plasma batteries and its strike craft complement, it was more than a match for the single interceptor, even with lieutenant Ishida's exceptional piloting skills.
"Hostiles converging from multiple vectors!" called the copilot. It was a multi-pronged attack, a fairly standard tactic among most species' space forces, basic, yet extremely effective. Lieutenant Ishida wasted no time, she flicked a switch and opened one of the interceptor's missile ports. "Nuke away!" she called out as the rocket darted towards a pair of enemy fighters that were further away, while she sent the Razor's Edge into an uncontrolled spin to try to shake off the enemy target locks. Plasma bolts seared the void around the interceptor, several of them bursting through the shields to clip one of its wings. "Hull breach! We have a fire in engineering and we've lost artificial gravity!" called the engineer as he unstrapped himself from his seat and maneuvered back towards the rear of the ship. The power surge from the failure of the shields and the impact of the plasma bolts must have caused a cascading failure in several of the interceptor's systems.
"Warlord, I need you to get yourself and the princess to the escape pod!" Ishida barked out. "Belay that!" answered Kainan. "You have wounded personnel, medics and civilians aboard this ship, they should be the ones getting into that escape pod with Valyra!"
"Don't argue with me, sir!" Ishida retorted without glancing back at him. "Without you, this whole war is lost before it even begins!" The warlord gritted his teeth and hissed in frustration, his fists clenching so hard that the artificial claws implanted into the tips of his fingers, pierced the calloused, scarred flesh of his palms. As much as he hated to admit it, the lieutenant was right. The Empire needed its leader, not a martyr.
With a growl of pure frustration, he unstrapped himself from his seat and pushed himself out of the cockpit just as another jolt slammed him into one of the bulkheads. Kainan felt his ribs crack and blood seeped out of a cut on his temple, the small crimson globs drifting around in the lack of gravity. He gritted his teeth through the pain and pulled himself along by the handrails, sparing only a single glance back towards the cockpit. "Lieutenant, if you survive this, I'm giving you a promotion and a battlecarrier," he called out. "Which battlecarrier?" Ishida barked back, a feral grin on her normally severe features. "The newest one. The Agamemnon," said Kainan. "So make sure to make it out of here alive. That's an order, captain!"
He didn't wait to hear her answer, making his way through the interceptor's corridors and finding the princess already unstrapping herself from the crash seat she'd seated herself on in the small mess hall, as if she had already sensed his intentions. She probably had, given the bond they now shared and her expression was as grim as his own. Wordlessly, he took her hand and guided her to the escape pod, helping her fasten herself into the safety harness before turning back to look for more passengers, only to find the hatch sliding shut in his face, locking him in. Ishida must have overridden it from the cockpit. Knowing there was nothing else he could do, he let out a frustrated growl and strapped himself in with moments to spare, as the escape pod shot out of the dying interceptor with a sickening lurch. The staccato hissing of maneuvering thrusters reverberated across the hull as the pod aligned itself towards the nearest asteroid belt, which lay roughly seventy million kilometers from their current position, then he and the princess were pressed into their seats as the main engine fired and the pod accelerated towards its destination.
~~~~
The interior of the capsule that was their only shelter against the void and the enemies which lurked in it, was bathed in an eerie, crimson light that was barely bright enough to allow its occupants to navigate around without bumping their heads against something. For the warlord and the princess, however, this did not pose much of a problem, for they both possessed enhanced vision in low-light environments, Valyra's species having naturally developed this ability on their dim, heavily forested homeworld, while Kainan's was the product of the genetic engineering that had produced his race.
Kainan tore the survival kit off of the pod's bulkhead and strapped it down into one of the empty crash seats, using the harness to fasten it securely in place. Earlier, he had taken manual control of the pod and guided it into a crevice that bisected one of the larger asteroids, firing the anchoring cables into the regolith to prevent it from getting tumbled around, then killed the power to all non-essential systems to minimize their chances of being spotted by the Gorgon search parties that would, undoubtedly, be hunting for them, as it was almost certain they'd have detected the launch of the escape pod.
"You're hurt," a voice like windchimes called out to him, accompanied by the soft touch of the princess' hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her, stiffening slightly as his stormcloud silver gaze met her iridescent aquamarine eyes, a breath caught in his throat. "It's nothing," he said, surprising himself with how much effort it took to tear his gaze away. He handed her a ration bar, along with a thermal blanket he'd pulled from the survival kit. "Put this on, its about to get very cold in here and we need to preserve body heat."
Valyra ignored his attempt at deflection and reached up to gently wipe a smear of crimson blood from his forehead. "It's not nothing. Let me look," she said, her voice soft, but firm. Through their bond, she could sense the pain of his cracked ribs and the throbbing in his head. Without waiting for his answer, she took the first aid kit and started cleaning the gash on his temple with an antiseptic pad. "This is going to leave a scar…" she muttered. "Add it to the collection," Kainan scoffed, but didn't push her away. "What about you?" he asked. "You're still healing from that injury, are the stitches fine?"
She nodded as she finished dressing his cut with an adhesive medipolymer patch. "There. It will stop the bleeding at least, though there's nothing I can do about your ribs or that concussion," she said and what she did next, caused him to freeze. She drifted closer, ethereally graceful in the weightlessness of zero-G, wrapping the thermal blanket around both of them and before he could react, curled herself against his chest, her elegant hands clutching at his bloodied shirt as she leaned her head against his shoulder. "You said it yourself, we need to preserve body heat," she whispered, though they both knew that wasn't all there was to it. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her and he felt her release a breath he hadn't even noticed she'd been holding. His heart was pounding against his ribs and it wasn't because of the adrenaline.
Before he could stop himself, the warlord tilted his head down, his lips brushing against her silken, raven locks, the contact sending an electric shiver running down his spine. "We shouldn't be doing this…" he whispered, a tremor in his voice. The princess nodded, but didn't pull away. "This is just the bond," she answered, an obvious lie that neither of them believed. She looked up at him, their lips inches apart, so close he could almost taste her breath, peppermint and something exotic from her homeworld, whose name he didn't know and the tension in the escape pod grew so thick it was almost palpable, charged with an unspoken, yet undeniable gravity that was drawing them together despite the myriad of things meant to be keeping them apart. And their psionic bond only made it more difficult to deny the truth, for neither of them could hide the pull they felt towards one another, a forced, intimate familiarity that was at once unsettling and comforting.
She knew as well as he, just how dangerous this was. That it could ruin them both, destroy all their plans and ambitions if word ever got out to her brother that she was cuddling in the arms of a human, a primitive, as the galaxy thought of his species, regardless of all the things she knew to the contrary. The other dynasties of the Dominion would be horrified if they found out. It was, by her species' account, an abomination, a tainting of the royal bloodline that would see her support evaporate along with all her credibility. And even if they kept it secret, she knew that this would only lead to heartbreak, to complications neither of them deserved to be forced to live with for the rest of their lives, having to watch each other carry on apart, separated by the harsh demands of their duties and the expectations the galaxy had ruthlessly enforced upon them.
But she was also a woman who had just lost everything. Her birthright, the advisors who were the closest thing she'd ever had to friends and even her family, such as it was. All her life, she'd been a woman who had never been allowed to want anything for herself beyond what was expected of her station, the perfect princess, the accomplished diplomat, the clever strategist and flawless warrior. She had done what was expected of her, buried all hopes and dreams of something more than the gilded cage that was the throne, only to lose everything and everyone except this human, this scarred warlord who took a bullet for her, who fought for her when her sworn protectors turned against her, who tied his fate and that of his people, to hers. This man who looked at her and saw not just the princess, the throne, the power, but the woman, something he'd never allowed himself to show, though she could feel it through their bond.
The kiss was hesitant and gentle, as if the whole world might shatter around them at any moment. Then it was as if a dam had broken and the lifelong loneliness, the longing, that all too fundamental need for companionship and comfort flooded in, overpowering the rational, calculating parts of themselves with their overwhelming need for each other. "Valyra…" the warlord whispered her name against her lips, a ragged breath escaping him as her hands came up around his neck, her slender fingers tangling themselves in his metallic silver hair. She kissed him back, fiercely, their lips parting as they lost themselves in that shared moment, their worries and the rest of the galaxy forgotten, banished to the furthest reaches of their shared awareness.
Her skin flared with bright, azure bioluminescent patterns that matched the silver glow in Kainan's eyes as their very souls reached out for one another through their psionic bond, a touch more profound and intimate than any physical contact could ever hope to be. She pulled back slightly, her eyes wide, a tear gently rolling down her cheek as she felt the weight of that connection. He reached up, a taloned thumb tenderly wiping it away and she leaned instinctively against his touch, seeking more of it and the comfort it offered. She kissed his palm, then took his hand and pressed her lips against the old surgical scars on his fingers, where his alloy claws had been implanted, those sharp and deadly weapons that could rend flesh effortlessly, yet touched her with such reverent tenderness. He kissed the crown of her head, breathing in her scent as if to sear it permanently into his memory, causing her to shudder and press herself even tighter against him, her long legs locking together around him as her hands slid down to the collar of his shirt, nimble fingers tugging frantically at the buttons.
A tinny, electronic chirping shattered the dreamlike spell of passion with the brutal violence of a sledgehammer. They froze, staring at each other for a moment, still locked in that embrace, like a pair of teenagers caught in the act of sneaking around behind the house. Then they scrambled off each other, Valyra clutching the thermal blanket to her chest while her other hand drifted up to press against her lips, where she still felt the lingering echo of that kiss. Kainan pulled himself along the handrails and powered on the main display of the escape pod's terminal, his breathing still ragged and labored, fingers trembling not from cold as he typed commands into the keyboard. The alarm was a signal, a hail from a source the IFF transponder identified as friendly. He pulled it up onto the screen.
Valyra drifted closer, leaning against him as she gazed over his shoulder at the screen. Her elegant brows curled into a frown as she looked at the IFF tag on the display and she didn't need to read the Terran alphabet to know something wasn't right, for the tag was simply too short, just a serial number, lacking any identifiers for class, unit, or even name. "It's a Riftspace sub," Kainan said as he worked to decode the signal and lock onto the transmission, sensing her concern. "A phase ship. Classified. I'll explain later."
Valyra let out a small gasp, her arms involuntarily tightening around him as she processed the revelation. A phase ship… Normally, just as things in realspace could not travel faster than the speed of light, in Riftspace nothing could move slower than a photon. But something like a phase ship was supposed to be able to circumvent this limitation and be able to slow down, or even grind to a halt, while still submerged. It could linger there, undetected by sensors and unaffected by anything other than interdiction fields, only emerging when and where it chose to strike. The tactical applications of such a ship were nearly limitless, for it provided a significant advantage over any cloaking tech employed by any species, its capabilities going far beyond mere stealth. It was also supposed to be impossible, something that nearly every Great House had at multiple points attempted to build, only to eventually conclude that it couldn't be done. Somehow, the humans and their allies, this coalition of Lesser Species led by a civilization that hadn't even been spacefaring for a thousand years, had figured out how to achieve something that the brightest scientific minds and the accumulated knowledge of the Great Houses had believed to go against the very laws of physics.
Valyra was beginning to realize just how much these humans had prepared for war against the Great Houses, but before she could ask just how many surprises Kainan still had in store for her, the communications array locked onto the signal and the face of a tired Terran captain filled the screen. "This is the U-404 hailing all available frequencies. Escape pod alpha-thirty-niner, do you read us?"
"Loud and clear, captain Vance," answered Kainan, his fingers clicking against the mechanical keyboard as he fought to clear the interference as much as possible. "Oh, thank God, warlord, we thought we lost you there for a second. Is the princess safe? We can't get a visual from you."
"Yes, I am alright, captain, thank you." answered Valyra, finally unwrapping her arms from Kainan's frame, although reluctantly, her regal demeanor returning. "What about the Razor's Edge, its crew and passengers?" asked Kainan.
"Safely aboard, warlord. We've been shadowing that Gorgon frigate for a few days, trying to figure out what it was up to, but it took us a few hours to get into engagement range once it attacked you. Had we known you were aboard the interceptor, we'd have hailed you earlier, but our orders were to maintain comms silence," the captain reported and Kainan let out a heavy sigh of relief. He typed in the last command and beamed their coordinates to the Riftspace sub and settled in to wait for it to pick them up.
~~~~
The U-404 was a strange ship by all accounts, with a narrow, roughly cylindrical profile that was so unlike the typical, dagger-like design of Terran warships. Massive beams extended diagonally backwards from its rear section, in a cruciform configuration around the vessel's engine cluster. The hull was painted a matte black which blended against the background, aside from a few red markings and the glowing shine of optical sensors, giving the ship an ominous, predatory appearance.
The sub's single hangar bay was cramped, with only enough room for roughly two dozen strike craft, as the majority of the vessel's volume was taken up by row upon row of vertically-mounted launch tubes for the long range cruise missiles the Terrans favored so much. The battered hull of the Razor's Edge was clamped down to the deck nearby, the small interceptor having taken a serious beating that sheared off one of its wings and left most of its hull scorched and pockmarked by plasma burns. That it had managed to survive at all, was a testament to lieutenant Ishida's truly remarkable skills as a pilot and commanding officer, her impending promotion hard-earned and well-deserved.
Captain Vance greeted Valyra and the warlord as they emerged from the escape pod, snapping to attention and saluting sharply. He was a grizzled man, perhaps in his late fifties, dark-skinned and severe. His raspy voice echoed with the drawling accent typical of Arcadia, one of the larger industrial colonies of the Empire, a hub of manufacturing for everything from nuts and bolts, to entire fleets of warships.
The warlord returned the salute and gestured for him to lead. "I've already had quarters prepared for you and the princess," the captain explained as he turned sharply and guided them towards the elevator. "We'll have the medical team tend to your injuries, then you can rest for the rest of the journey. Lieutenant Ishida already informed us of the situation and we've already plotted a course for Kalidan."
"You run your ship very efficiently, captain," Valyra complimented him. The captain bowed stiffly, though his features lit up with an expression of gratitude at her praise. "We, in the Terran Expeditionary Forces, pride ourselves on professionalism and tight discipline, your highness," responded Vance. "I have to apologize in advance, the quarters are rather cramped and bereft of the comforts your station warrants. The U-404 is a warship and was not designed for esteemed guests, I'm afraid."
Valyra nodded graciously. "No need to apologize, captain. I understand very well what the situation is and I am grateful for your assistance," she said, much to the captain's very visible relief, who then spent the remainder of the trip to the medbay discussing technical and logistics matters with the warlord. Valyra walked with them in silence, hovering gracefully at Kainan's side, a little closer than was proper, which the captain either didn't notice, or chose not to comment on. And though his attention was outwardly focused on Vance's report about the Riftspace sub's brief battle with the Gorgon frigate, the princess could sense just how much his thoughts drifted to her, could see it in the brief, furtive glances he cast in her direction every time the captain's attention diverted to the datapad in his hands, could sense that reassuring warmth radiating from him in her direction, as well as the worry gnawing at his heart. They had crossed the point of no return and that brief moment of passion aboard the cold escape pod had irrevocably changed things for them in a way that went far beyond what either of them had planned, or deemed safe and proper. They were in uncharted territory, now and Valyra dreaded thinking about what the future lay in store.
Yet, at the same time, she just couldn't bring herself to regret it. And through their bond, she could tell that neither did Kainan, despite his weariness, his calculations and the thousand walls he'd built around himself. The small, faint ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips, a rare smile of genuine contentment and she allowed herself this brief moment of peace, despite the storm that was looming just over the horizon. There would be plenty of time to worry soon enough.