Page 82 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

I walk through the empty castle now, until I get to the hangar bay. No one’s allowed in this part of the castle, not when I am taking my daily stroll.

Ra’al still hasn’t said when. I know it’s coming. I can feel it, black clouds charged with electricity and ready to strike. Soon they’ll have to go through the rift again. They’ll blink out of my mind, and when they come back, they’ll be fighting on the streets.

I walk around bay two. I’ve walked it every day. Tools are dropped hurriedly on the ground, the bay cleared for my afternoon walk. They must hate me. The aloof, bitchy queen who interrupts their important work just to stroll. The bay has a view of the mountains through the open side where ships fly in and out, and I stand and look out for a few minutes a day, but I’m not seeing the mountains. The only thing I can see is the blue ship in the corner.

No one works on it. It’s got a blue whale painted on the side, the logo of a transport company owned by one of the three families, the logo that used to be a familiar sight in the skies. I’ve always kept my distance from the ship, but every day, I get a little closer, testing my heart rate and breathing, making sure I can get close without spiking any emotion in my aura.

I put my hand against the side of the ship. The doors slide open smoothly. I don’t let a thread of excitement pulse through the Bond. I don’t know why, but I was expecting the ship to stay dormant, expecting that I waited too long and Kat killed the escape plan. I don’t know whether I was hoping for it to work or not.

I do know who I am.

The conversation Kat mentioned has gotten clearer and clearer in my mind. Kat, Summer, and me, long before Lola got to the planet, when Paulus was still Paul, and he was living in a small manor that was demolished to make way for the gaudy estate when he gained the extra syllable. It feels so long ago, and I get a pang of regret knowing that one day that moment will have been a thousand years ago, that one day, time will change me so deeply that it will be like looking back at a stranger’s memories.

We were talking about what we would do when our contracts were up. I yearned to be free. To go anywhere I wanted. To get a good job in the Royal City, maybe working a few years for the palace itself, using the end-of-contract bonus to take a flight to another planet if I had the whim. It wasn’t important where I went. I just wanted that feeling, that no one could tell me my future. That no one could tell me who to be or what to do.

Now there’s nowhere to go.

There’s nowhere safe, except deep, deep in the Human Federated territories, where Scorp can’t reach, where Aurelians will be too busy killing each other to bother, where cowardly Toad slavers cannot prey on weakness, and war seems like a far-off nightmare for other people.

I slip into the ship. Just because the bay is empty doesn’t mean someone could pop in and see their Queen suspiciously opening the door of a cargo ship that was marked as derelict. I step inside, and I’m instantly greeted by pictures of holo-vid singers in lusty poses, pinned up by the workers to greet them every time they went back to work.

Holo-vid singers. They seem more alien that the Aurelians now, people who have never tasted true fear. I walk up the hallway towards the bridge, trailing my fingertips against the metal of the walls. There is no luxury or beauty in this ship. It is made for utility, not for transporting a Queen.

A Queen. I smile to myself. It always gave me an out-of-body experience to be up on a throne.

I’ll have many trials in the future. I’ll have to keep hidden. Ra’al, Kriz and Orr will stop at nothing to find me. I’ll have to hide that I don’t age the same way humans do, and every decade or so, I’ll have to hop from planet to planet. Maybe I’ll form friendships, but I doubt it. How could I be friends with people who will wither away while I stay young?

I’m damning myself to a hard road, but I have to take it.

I didn’t work myself to the bone to be a captive queen. I didn’t spend the last nine years toiling as a servant to be the woman curled up in a ball in a pleasure room, screaming soundlessly into the void while she feels every blow through the Bond.

I love them. That’s what hurts the most. I love them, and I can’t feel that incredible tension, knowing each moment they could be turned to dust by a stray missile. Last time it was four days, non-stop. The next it could be a week. A month. A year. Aurelians don’t age like humans, and I don’t know how much I could take before my mind snaps.

I walk into the bridge. It’s a small ship, with wires and tubes haphazardly placed, but it’s meticulously clean. There’s room only for a captain and co-pilot. There’s a coffee mug perched near the steering console, with the logo of some glitzy station casino on it. There’s another pin-up of a holo-vid star on the side, and I get a pang of guilt, remembering her. Trilana. She was Lola’s favorite star, and she went on and on about some scandal with the singer that I always tuned out, just smiling and nodding.

I’m leaving that poor young woman. My triad sent drones out and hordes of men, searching through forests and mountains, but the world is huge, and Krazak could have taken her anywhere.

I hope she’s okay, but there’s nothing I can do for her. I know it was Krazak, and I convinced my triad he was the culprit. They won’t stop looking, even if I’m gone.

I put my arms on the back of the seat. It’s worn leather, and it looks comfortable enough. This ship is a freight ship, made for intersector trips hauling long lines of cargo behind it that stretch out into zero gravity. It’s made to punch through the atmosphere, dock at a station, and tow. Sometimes these ships go a decade without ever setting down on a planet, just traveling from space station to station with goods and supplies.

It's sturdy. It’s got an armored hull, a drone system that protects the cargo, and a mining beam at the front in case the pilot gets lucky enough to find a rich asteroid on his flights—a mining beam that can deter against Toad slavers or cut through a Scorp ship.

I open the glove box. There’s a black ring, and a piece of paper. The air is cold. I pick up the ring, holding it to the light. It’s black and dull, strangely cold, and I suppress a chill. I put it down a little too quickly and read the paper. It’s scrawled on messily.

“Don’t worry about me, kid. Once I hear the alarm bells, I’m out of this place. Safe travels. – Kat. PS,we’re even.”

“AI, plot a course to the nearest human sector.” The ships consoles blink to light. I sit down in the leather captain’s chair as the ship hums to life.

“Calculating. Journey is standard time seven months, four days.” The AI has an accent I can’t place, probably built on some space station far away where the people roll their R’s and jam together words.

“Accept plotting.”

The ship starts to rumble. This is no silent Orb-Drive. The ship is nuclear and solar powered, made for long flights, and the journey plotting will go by suns that will recharge me as I coast. The ship lifts off, and moves forward towards the view of the mountain.

I reach out and touch them, because I don’t know if I’ll feel them again.

They’re in the fields, barking orders at troops. I can just tell. I’ve gotten good at reading their auras. Orr is always happiest when he’s outside in the sun, and Kriz gets a calculative property in his mind when he’s watching troops, judging each triad individually. Ra’al has the mantle of leadership resting on him always. As the leader, his decision is final, and when he watches troops, he knows he will be responsible for how many of them come back home alive.

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