Across the room from the lounger, three Earther sol­diers hud­dled against the wall. They were the only at­tack­ers who didn’t re­quire hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. Cring­ing with fear, they watched Be­vau and Raxs­tad. The Nobeks stood over the Earth­ers, softly growl­ing and show­ing their fangs. Nei­ther had washed the blood off his hands. Dried, brown­ish flecks floated to the floor as they flexed their fists.

  Four Earth­ers slept in the Plasian hos­pi­tal, ren­dered sense­less by pain med­i­ca­tion. Seven sol­diers were in surgery, their in­juries life-threat­en­ing. Cla­jak wished his and Ko­rkla’s clan had killed them all out­right. The bas­tards didn’t de­serve to draw an­other sin­gle breath. The need to make the at­tack­ers suf­fer long, drawn out deaths had stayed their im­me­di­ate ex­e­cu­tions. Cla­jak now re­gret­ted the Kalquo­rian lust for proper jus­tice.

  If Is­rala hadn’t in­sisted on his peo­ple leav­ing the med­i­cal cen­ter, he might have stormed the op­er­at­ing rooms to mete out such jus­tice. Cer­tainly he and Be­vau should be there to await word on Jes­sica. She was also in surgery un­der the care of Pla­sius’ top doc­tor. Cla­jak com­forted him­self with the knowl­edge Egilka as­sisted in the op­er­a­tion. He hung onto his Imdiko’s as­sur­ance they would stop the swelling putting deadly pres­sure on her brain.

  Mean­while he vowed that if Jes­sica died or suf­fered per­ma­nent dam­age, no amount of Is­rala’s sen­si­ble ne­go­ti­a­tions would save the at­tack­ers. He’d kill ev­ery sin­gle one of them.

  Cla­jak’s will­ing­ness to com­mit mur­der for Jes­sica told him the depth of his feel­ings for her. No one out­side of his fa­thers and his own clan had ever elicited such strong re­ac­tions. He stared hard at the men crouched on the floor and thought how won­der­ful it would be to warm his hands in their blood.

  “They do not de­serve their lives,” Raxs­tad snarled. “By their own ad­mis­sion, they planned to mur­der Michaela and Jes­sica.”

  One Earther dared to speak, his words di­rected to Is­rala. “It would have been a le­gal ex­e­cu­tion in ac­cor­dance with Earth’s penal­ties against lewd­ness and ob­scen­ity. Those women are Earth cit­i­zens, bound by our laws.”

  That earned growls from all the Kalquo­ri­ans in the room. Is­rala held up one hand for si­lence. “You are not on Earth. Your laws have no bear­ing on Pla­sius.”

  Ko­rkla added, “What’s more, the women are now Kalquo­rian cit­i­zens. All ties with Earth are bro­ken.”

  Cla­jak re­mained fo­cused on his main ob­jec­tive. “Is­rala, Pla­sius is blessed with a peace­ful cit­i­zenry. What lit­tle jus­tice sys­tem you re­quire is not equipped to deal with such a heinous crime. You have no pris­ons to con­tain these crim­i­nals. What’s more, you can’t pass a sen­tence that will sat­isfy us. You must al­low me to ex­tra­dite the Earther sol­diers to Kalquor since their crimes are against Mataras Jes­sica and Michaela.”

  The sol­dier spoke again. “You know the Kalquo­ri­ans will kill us out­right, Saucin. More Earther blood will be on your hands. Earth al­ready block­ades your planet for the death of Gen­eral Croft. What do you think they’ll do for a dozen more men?”

  “Shut up be­fore I pull your tongue out and eat it in front of your eyes!” Be­vau shouted, spit­tle fly­ing. His beau­ti­ful face con­torted with rage, ren­der­ing him dread­ful. The sol­dier shut his eyes and cringed from the Nobek prince.

  “Please!” Is­rala begged, her hands cov­er­ing her face. Cla­jak felt a stab of pity for the Plasian leader. She was strong and ca­pa­ble, but vi­o­lence was some­thing she rarely had to cope with.

  “Ease down, Be­vau,” he or­dered.

  Still growl­ing like an an­i­mal, his clan­mate obeyed, though his fists clenched in an ef­fort to con­tain his anger.

  Is­rala low­ered her hands, re­veal­ing a face pinched with worry. She looked up at Cla­jak. “This is the Earth­ers’ fault, not yours. Yet you do un­der­stand the po­si­tion I am in is dan­ger­ous?”

  “I will ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­ity. You can say I forced you to give them up,” Cla­jak an­swered.

  She shook her head. “I can say that, and you could even make it true. How­ever, Earth may still hold Pla­sius re­spon­si­ble. They are not a rea­son­able peo­ple, as you see.” She nod­ded at the sol­diers.

  Michaela un­folded her­self from Govi’s lap to stand. With the Imdiko hov­er­ing pro­tec­tively over her, she ap­proached Is­rala on shak­ing legs. “May I speak? I might have a tem­po­rary so­lu­tion.”

  “Of course, dear­est,” Is­rala said. She pat­ted the lounger be­tween her­self and Ko­rkla, and the dancer set­tled be­tween them. Govi went back to his cush­ion and sat back down, his gaze still watch­ful over his lovely Matara.

  Is­rala took one of Michaela’s hands. “You know of course I meant no of­fense to you when I re­ferred to your peo­ple as un­rea­son­able?”

  Michaela waved the apol­ogy away. “No harm. I’ve been called much worse tonight.” Her gaze flicked to the pris­on­ers.

  “What is your idea, sweet­ness?” Ko­rkla prod­ded, wrap­ping his arm around her shoul­ders and pulling her tight to him­self.

  She snug­gled against him. “Jes­sica told me that when Amelia Ryan was cap­tured, the doc­tor on board the trans­port planned to put her in a coma un­til she was re­turned to Earth. Maybe that’s what you could do to them,” Michaela nod­ded at the sol­diers, “if Is­rala won’t let them leave Pla­sius. At least they won’t be able to hurt any­one else un­til the sit­u­a­tion gets fig­ured out.”

  Cla­jak fought the im­pulse to protest. He wanted ev­ery one of the sol­diers to face real jus­tice, in the Kalquo­rian man­ner. At the same time he ap­pre­ci­ated the ter­ri­ble po­si­tion Is­rala was in. He watched her con­sider Michaela’s idea and knew by the small smile of hope that she liked the op­tion.

  “We can keep them frozen in med­i­cal cryo cham­bers,” she said, her re­lief ob­vi­ous. “They will be per­fectly safe, al­low­ing no com­plaint from Earth. Once Pla­sius, Kalquor, and Earth can come to an agree­ment on how to pro­ceed, we will give them to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties.”

  Raxs­tad punched the wall, his fist leav­ing a dent. “With the hos­til­i­ties, it could be decades be­fore we come to terms!”

  Cla­jak man­aged to keep his own frus­tra­tion out of his voice, but he was adamant. “The only agree­ment I will ac­cept is jus­tice for the griev­ous in­jury done to my Matara.”

  Si­lence de­scended over the room. Ex­cept for the shud­der­ing Earth­ers, all eyes turned to Cla­jak. With the ex­cep­tion of the ap­prov­ing smile from Is­rala, ev­ery face reg­is­tered shock.

  Cla­jak met his stunned Nobek’s stare. “I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, Be­vau. I meant to tell you and Egilka of my in­ten­tions first. It slipped out in the heat of the mo­ment.” He laughed self-con­sciously. “If Jes­sica will even have us af­ter ev­ery­thing we’ve put her through, I’d like us to clan her.”

  “Hell yeah she will,” Michaela said in her own lan­guage, a huge grin spread­ing across her face. “She’s crazy about you guys.”

  It took a mo­ment for Cla­jak to trans­late Michaela’s slang. He stared at her in dis­be­lief. “Re­ally? She would have us as her clan?”

  Michaela an­swered him in Plasian, care­fully enun­ci­at­ing as if to make sure there would be no mis­un­der­stand­ing. “Jes­sica loves you, all three of you. The idea of be­ing with an­other clan has been tor­ture for her.”

  Cla­jak ex­changed a look with Be­vau. He felt a mir­ror im­age of the Nobek’s de­lighted grin spread­ing across his face. Jes­sica was theirs!

  Egilka en­tered the room, and Cla­jak’s eu­pho­ria dipped as he re­mem­bered the in­juries suf­fered by his in­tended. He stood, try­ing to read the in­fu­ri­at­ingly bland ex­pres­sion on his Imdiko’s face.

  “She’s go­ing to be fine,” Egilka an­nounced. “Give her a few days’ rest, and she’ll be in­sult­ing us again as if noth­ing ever hap­pened.”

  Ten­sion drained from Cla­jak’s body. Be­vau’s eyes closed with re­lief, and Michaela qui­etly sobbed against Ko­rkla’s chest. Egilka of­fered them his own tired smile.

  “My clan looked ab­so­lutely en­thralled when I walked in. May I as­sume we’ll be ex­e­cut­ing these worth­less crea­tures soon?” he asked, mo­tion­ing to the silent sol­diers.

  “Not yet,” Cla­jak said. “I have good news just the same. Michaela says Jes­sica loves us.”

  Egilka stared at him. His mus­tache twitched, and white teeth peeked out in one of the few real smiles Cla­jak had seen him dis­play lately. “She loves us?”

  “I want to make her our Matara.”

  Even the dis­gusted looks the Earther sol­diers dared to ex­change couldn’t dim Cla­jak’s hap­pi­ness. He’d get his hands on them later, with or with­out Is­rala’s bless­ing.

  Egilka’s eyes were bright. “Then the other news I have is even bet­ter. Guess what the medics found?”

  He told them, and Cla­jak’s heart leapt. Even Pwal­dur’s anger might have lit­tle bear­ing on their clan­ning Jes­sica. It was go­ing to be all right.

  * * * *

  Jes­sica re­turned to con­scious­ness slowly. A warm breeze wafted over her face, bring­ing the sea salt scent of the ocean with it. She heard the muted rum­ble of waves rolling onto the shore. No scent of ba­con and cof­fee edged the air, so Mom and Dad were still asleep. Lind­sey hadn’t be­gun to snore softly yet in her bed across the room from Jes­sica’s, al­ways the pre­cur­sor to her older sis­ter wak­ing. It must still be early.

  Sum­mer­time in Flor­ida was the best. No school and no re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ex­cept to put on her full-bod­ied bathing suit and frolic in the surf all day, bro­ken only by sand­wiches, potato chips, and soda for lunch. The day would end with Dad cook­ing burg­ers on the grill, then a movie or a round of Mo­nop­oly at the din­ing ta­ble.

  Jes­sica sighed hap­pily. The only thing keep­ing her from a per­fect morn­ing was the slight headache puls­ing be­hind her fore­head.

  A man’s deep voice in­truded, his stac­cato speech gar­bled. Jes­sica’s eyes flew open to meet Cla­jak’s in­tense stare.

  “Yes, she is awake. Hello, stub­born beast.” He smiled and stroked her cheek.

  “Hi, spoiled brat,” she said, won­der­ing at the whis­pery thin­ness of her voice. Sud­den home­sick­ness warred with the swelling joy to see the Dramok prince next to her.

  Jes­sica shifted and no­ticed her left arm was en­cased in wraps and a sling. The mem­ory of the sol­diers’ at­tack re­turned, and sud­denly the idea of Earth didn’t seem so good. “Is Michaela okay?”

  “She’s fine. We made her leave a few hours ago for some much needed rest. She’ll be back soon.”

  Jes­sica peered around, not rec­og­niz­ing the room she and the clan were in. She smiled at Be­vau and Egilka as they joined Cla­jak next to her bed. The bed was com­fort­able but util­i­tar­ian. The sheets held the soft­ness of many wash­ings. The rest of the room was sooth­ingly bland, much like the nicer ho­tel rooms on Earth. On her right was a ta­ble with a small vid screen. A pair of sage green loungers flanked a wall of win­dows. The two suns lit a pow­der blue sky. To her left, a wheeled tray ta­ble, tall enough for her to reach com­fort­ably, waited with a pitcher of wa­ter and a cup. Strange ma­chines she didn’t rec­og­nize but seemed fa­mil­iar lined the far wall.

  “I’m in the med­i­cal cen­ter?” Jes­sica guessed.

  They nod­ded. Egilka said, “You’re do­ing very well and should be able to leave to­mor­row morn­ing.”

  The sound of the far-off ocean and the scent of sea breeze per­sisted de­spite Jes­sica be­ing fully awake. “It smells and sounds like home back on Earth.”

  Cla­jak con­tin­ued to ca­ress her cheek. His smile was softer than she re­mem­bered. “Michaela told the Plasian medics what at­mos­phere to pro­vide. They be­lieve fa­mil­iar sur­round­ings with pos­i­tive con­no­ta­tions help the heal­ing process.”

  Jes­sica swal­lowed the lump in her throat. She won­dered what her par­ents and sis­ter were do­ing now. She hadn’t been able to com­mu­ni­cate with them since com­ing to Pla­sius. “It’s nice.”

  Be­vau in­haled, his ex­pres­sion ap­pre­cia­tive. “It smells a lit­tle like your new home on Kalquor. You’ll be near the ocean there too.”

  Jes­sica frowned. “How can you be sure of that? I haven’t cho­sen a clan yet.”

  The three men ex­changed grins. Cla­jak said, “Michaela says you have.”

  Jes­sica’s thoughts were a mire of con­fu­sion. What was he talk­ing about?

  The Dramok straight­ened and took her hand in both of his. In a for­mal tone he asked, “Jes­sica McIn­ness will you be my clan’s Matara?”

  She stared at him. She looked at the de­lighted faces of Be­vau and Egilka. She looked at Cla­jak again. Her heart screamed Yes! Yes! Yes! Her mind didn’t be­lieve it. “What about Nar­pok?” was what her mouth said.

  Be­vau shrugged and an­swered for all of them. “We don’t want her. We want you.”

  “But you said there could be civil war, that her fa­ther—”

  Cla­jak in­ter­rupted her. “We may have ex­ag­ger­ated a lit­tle. Even if we didn’t, let us worry about that. Just say yes.”

  Jes­sica wanted to, but one other con­cern kept her from say­ing the word she so des­per­ately wanted to yell from the rooftop. She looked at the Imdiko prince. “Egilka?”

  He laughed, a deep rolling sound that filled her with warmth. “I badly un­der­es­ti­mated the power a bit of Earther fluff could have over me.” The Imdiko took the hand Cla­jak wasn’t hold­ing, care­ful not to dis­turb the po­si­tion the sling kept it in. “My heart is yours, my love.”

  Tears over­flowed Jes­sica’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “And mine yours. If I was sure I wouldn’t be the cause of trou­ble on Kalquor, I would say yes with­out reser­va­tion.”

  “Then say yes with reser­va­tion,” Cla­jak urged. “I’ll take it. I have no doubt you will win over my peo­ple as you have my clan.”

  Egilka added, “Be­sides, we have bar­gain­ing power no one an­tic­i­pated. Some­thing has hap­pened that will knock the pro­tes­tors on their asses.”

  “What?” Jes­sica asked, hardly dar­ing to hope.

  “You’re preg­nant with our child.”

  Jes­sica for­got to breathe for sev­eral sec­onds. When she re­cov­ered she gasped, “I’m hav­ing a baby?”

  Cla­jak’s smile shone brighter than Pla­sius’ two suns. “The royal heir. You carry the fu­ture Em­peror or Em­press of Kalquor.”

  Jes­sica laughed and cried all at once. She could join Cla­jak’s clan. She could join Cla­jak’s clan! Plus, she was go­ing to be a mother. She hadn’t planned on that, but it would be all right. It had to be, es­pe­cially if it meant be­ing with the men she loved.

  They joined Jes­sica in laugh­ter, all three Kalquo­ri­ans hug­ging her gin­gerly to avoid hurt­ing her. They sep­a­rated, and Jes­sica knew she grinned as id­i­ot­i­cally as the men. She wiped the tears away and stuck her tongue out at Cla­jak.

  “A baby, huh? You re­ally have re­spon­si­bil­i­ties now,” she teased him.

  Cla­jak’s eyes widened in pre­tend hor­ror be­fore join­ing in on their re­newed laugh­ter.

  Chap­ter 12

  With a soft blast of air, the mini-pod car­ry­ing Jes­sica and Egilka drifted right, car­ry­ing it away from an Earther bat­tle drone. The un­manned craft, ca­pa­ble of blow­ing up en­tire cities, was an im­po­tent hunk of metal in the sta­sis belt sur­round­ing Pla­sius. Jes­sica breathed eas­ier as it fell be­hind them.

  They’d come across many such drones as they nav­i­gated the sta­sis belt. Earth’s mur­der­ous in­tent sick­ened Jes­sica. She’d al­ways con­sid­ered her gov­ern­ment heavy handed and the Church mon­strous in its zealotry. See­ing the fa­nat­i­cal de­ter­mi­na­tion to de­stroy peace­ful Pla­sius in­fu­ri­ated her more than ever. How could they jus­tify threat­en­ing an en­tire pop­u­la­tion for the mur­der of one man?

  An hour had passed since Cla­jak and Ko­rkla’s clans be­gan the treach­er­ous pas­sage from Pla­sius to the cloaked Kalquo­rian trans­port. The space­ship waited for them be­yond the block­ade of Earther de­stroy­ers and bat­tle­cruis­ers. The two clans that had ar­rived on Pla­sius with Cla­jak and Ko­rkla’s group would be picked up at a later time.

  Next to the flat-bot­tomed egg-shaped pod that car­ried Jes­sica and Egilka was an­other in which Michaela and Govi rode. Sev­eral yards in front of them, Cla­jak and Ko­rkla nav­i­gated the sta­sis belt. They did so in the Kalquo­rian ver­sion of per­sonal space trans­port suits, or PSTS’s as they were re­ferred to on Earth. Be­vau and Raxs­tad led the group. See­ing them trav­el­ing in the hel­meted suits with no other pro­tec­tive shell ap­palled Jes­sica. They looked vul­ner­a­ble in the vast black­ness of space.

  An­other bat­tle drone ap­peared in the group’s path, and Egilka set off an air blast to clear it. The pod was built for one Kalquo­rian, but there was enough room for Jes­sica too. The Imdiko was se­curely strapped in so he could man the con­trols with ease. He held Jes­sica with one arm around her waist, keep­ing her from bounc­ing around in the zero-G con­fines of the pod. She floated sev­eral inches off the floor.