Before the Commonwealth existed, there was an expanding, multi-galaxy civilization. Due to the combined effects of a too-aggressive policy of expansion, civil unrest, the inequality and abuse of the classes, and the categorizing of augmented humans as a slave class, the Central Allied Worlds (CAW) disintegrated.

 

The period of darkness and barbarism that followed is referred to as the Downfall. Various groups of people fled the Central Allied Worlds (referred to by its descendants/survivors simply as “First Civ”) as they became endangered or more powerful people tried to have them classified as mutants or non-humans, and either sterilized or made them into slaves. Among them were the Khybors, the ancestors of the Leapers.

 

Some groups of people managed to get hold of ships and flee to distant galaxies.

 

Khybors flee to Norbra for a safe place to raise their children, far from enemies who want them declared non-Humans, or want to enslave or annihilate them entirely. Like the selfish, arrogant queen of legend for whom the planet is named, Norbra has a reputation for destroying all life. Elin and those who settle the planet believe no one else will want it. They hope their enemies will leave them in peace while they wait for Norbra to do the hard work of destroying their troublesome race.

However, Khybors are made to survive. They make Norbra their home and use the dangers of the planet for their own defense. Then. as the generations go on, they make a long-range plan for survival, aware that their enemies won’t give up. The only way for Khybors to survive as a race is to withdraw so far away that the Set’ri and other enemies will never find them, and in time, may even forget about them.

Rorin Pace comes to Norbra to win Elin’s heart, to follow his dream of piloting one of their ships, and to find a way to protect all Khybors. Kheeran, their daughter, reaches new dimensions as a pilot. Their son Banjer dives deeper within the computer world and discovers the vital element in the Khybors’ long-range plans of escape to the far reaches of space.

Zeph, a Wrinkleship pilot, allies with the Khybors in building their fleet and brings them a damaged ship called the Nova Vendetta, full of prisoners, pirates, and a growing artificial intelligence.

Errien, Kheeran’s daughter, leads the pilots who search for new gateways to other universes.

Meanwhile, their enemies grow stronger and come closer, and the countdown begins to the destruction of the Central Allied Worlds.

Genre: Science Fiction    ISBN: 978-1-925191-84-4    ISBN PRINT D2D: 9798227787736    ASIN: B0DJZ168DS    Word Count: 81, 108

Continue the series:

Age 1:

 

 

Chapter One

 

Rorin

The news of the massacre of the Khybor settlers on Norbra got through to the core of the Central Allied Worlds despite the best efforts of the government to keep the details hidden. Both the factions that valued the Khybor contributions to settlement and the factions who considered all changed or augmented humans to be abominations were responsible for leaking the news that the authorities didn’t want released. With general public opinion regarding Khybors on the upswing, the supportive factions didn’t want colonies panicking, afraid they would lose the valuable services of Khybor talents, while the detractors feared reprisals for the same reason.

No one could stop Wrinkleship pilots from talking to each other and sharing data. The constant attempts to legislate mind control over Wrinkleship pilots and other augmented folk failed every time the proposals appeared before the CAW Congress. Until another means of folding space and time, so the multiple galaxies controlled by the CAW could be crossed in lunars instead of sols and decades, necessity and convenience would allow the accused mutants and “threats to humanity” to move about in relative freedom. Until a scientific authority that wasn’t rabidly opposed to Wrinkleship pilots could provide proof of dangerous instability, the military would rely on Wrinkleships to get them the most accurate and recent information from across the space lanes and provide them rapid transport to trouble spots throughout the CAW.

That meant pilots like Rorin Pace, whether explorers or the defenders of planets and space lanes, were always on top of the most accurate and new information. Not just because they treated Wrinkleship pilots and other augmented folk with respect.

What many people either didn’t know, or chose to ignore, was the fact that the best pilots had just a little bit of khrystal in their blood and bones and brains. It made them faster, tougher, more sensitive. Some of them believed their sensitivity to energy pulses let them merge in a subconscious way with the navigational computers in their ships. It also made them sympathetic to the regular waves of oppression Khybors faced. When news of the massacre on Norbra reached them, lunars after the fact, the pilots and their support teams shared burning outrage and fury and anguish. Some wanted to rise up in rebellion, maybe even attack the government that had allowed extremists like the Set’ri to have a voice and even gain political and military power, so attacks on entire settlements could occur. Others advocated to pull away from the Central Allied Worlds altogether, deprive the military of the invaluable colonizing, military, defensive and medical services and advances provided by Khybors and the khrystal that they controlled and that made them what they were.

Rorin tended more toward the “abandon the bannihackers and let them flounder” mindset, but he had grown up with the leading family of all Khybors, the bloodline that had started their acknowledged separate race. He knew the struggles they had endured, he knew their plans and reasoning and the guidelines they had established for keeping their people safe. Better to stay quiet and present a façade of being more civilized than the civilization that couldn’t decide if Khybors were saviors, a gift from Fi’in, a threat, or just a tool and resource to be used up and discarded as quickly as possible. Better to quietly, discretely build up their strength and resources, much as their avowed enemies, the Set’ri had done for generations now. Better to hide their strength until they could pick up and flee far enough away that the CAW would never find them. Or if the ordinary human race ever caught up with them, it would take so long they would forget why they feared Khybors.

For the next seven or eight lunars, he worked with other leaders and reasonable voices among the Khybors to calm the ones who panicked, the ones who wanted to lash out in retribution, and the pessimists who knew they would be gathered into extermination camps at any moment. He spoke with the leaders of the Khybors he had grown up with, and found the elder generations who had retired to solitude and isolated places. He gathered up all the information on the situation on Norbra, separating the official reports from the outrageous and pessimistic rumors.

Rorin wept when he received confirmation, after nearly ten lunars, that Elin Leto, his childhood friend, had survived. She had been out on an exploration trip, just her and her three bond beasts. He ached for her, when he read the reports of how Kitcairn Torrel, in charge of colony defensive systems, had been shot out of the sky, defending the settlements full of families. Not just because he knew Kick and respected and admired him, but because Elin had been planning to marry him. At least, that was what Kick told him, the last time they met, when Rorin had challenged his worthiness and the other pilot had beaten him in a fair but bruising fistfight.

That fight had taught Rorin something surprising. Not just that there was at least one man in the universe who was a better fighter than him, but how he really felt about Elin. They had always been best friends, co-conspirators in mischief. He always knew he loved her, and she loved him, but he hadn’t been aware of the depths and dimensions of that love until he knew another man had won her heart.

The lunars of waiting and working and reweaving the fragile truce between Khybors and non-augmented humans were good for Rorin. They gave him time to think, to settle his feelings, to get over the guilt that mixed with relief, knowing Kick didn’t stand in the way of spending the rest of his life with Elin. He made his plans, he pulled strings and convinced superiors to reassign him. He talked long and hard with the leadership of the Khybors, to convince them that Elin’s dream of a Khybor homeworld was not only possible, but now had to become a reality. They needed a place where Khybors would be safe, living totally separate from ordinary humans, ignored and someday totally forgotten by them. They needed it within the next ten sols, or they might never survive as a people, a culture, an acknowledged race, standing on level ground with those who considered themselves humans.

The first step was to get to Norbra, then assess where he stood with Elin. From there, the plan was little more than dreams and constant prayers that Fi’in would guide and guard them.

Other than trusting his ship and the ships of his squadron to the tending of Wrinkleships that relayed them, in cold sleep, from one sector of the galaxy-spanning civilization to the next, the most difficult step was applying for the post he wanted. Requesting a transfer to Norbra to help in the rebuilding of the settlement and improving the defensive system was one thing. Applying for the duty of commander of planetary and colonial security was something else. The rank and authority put him in the firing sights of those who worked to eliminate all friends and supporters of Khybors. The intensive investigation that followed his application opened his records and exposed his fringe Khybor status to anyone with the slightest degree of authority to know.

On the plus side, his actions prompted other hidden-status Khybor soldiers and fighter pilots and technicians to take the step and request transfer. Rorin was proud that so many took the risk of making their distant ties to Khybor bloodlines public. The current wave of sympathy for the settlers on Norbra might have made that a little easier for some of them. Still, no one with any common sense would expect the horror over what had happened, and the resulting sympathy and respect, to last more than another sol. History had shown that public feeling toward augmented folk and mutants and the genetically damaged swung in extremes. The damage occurred when the swings were so rapid that it was hard for either side in the battle for survival to predict where they stood from one day to the next–villains, martyrs, victims, heroes, reviled, admired, feared, pitied.

 

***

 

Rorin and his team woke up from the journey in cold sleep on the far side of the Norbra system in good physical shape. They spent the two quars of the journey in-system checking out their ships and the cargo bins full of equipment and updating themselves on the current situation on Norbra. Everything was in good shape and to Rorin’s satisfaction by the time the transport ship came into orbit around the planet and made contact.

Naturally, after the bureaucratic process of contacting Central, transmitting his orders, waiting to have them verified, then being greeted by Dr. Teller and granted permission to come dirtside, Elin wasn’t there to greet him. She was out on a training exercise. That meant she didn’t get word that he had arrived. Ambushing her like they used to do to each other as children would be a good beginning, take them back to where they were comfortable with each other. Then he would set about winning her heart.

“How is she doing? How hard it is on her, being the only Khybor?” he asked Dr. Teller, when the two of them were finally alone in the administrator’s office.

Dr. Benjin Teller was a distant relative, both to him and to Elin, though Teller was closer to the bloodline of the leaders of the Khybors than Rorin. Khybors were careful of bloodlines and relationships, paying careful attention to each adjustment and change in the way khrystal reacted to and interfaced with each succeeding generation. Khrystal itself had changed as the generations since Kerin Leto progressed, so there was more control over how it was used in medicine. Sometimes Rorin thought that finding out how to program khrystal so it in essence turned off and did not penetrate to the genetic level, once it had healed the drastically, hopelessly injured, hadn’t been a totally positive development.

The positive was that many more people took khrystal treatment to regain the use of their limbs and repair damage to their brains and nervous systems. The negative was that there was a much stronger demand for khrystal for medical purposes, sometimes higher than the supply of medically programmed khrystal. It had to be excreted by medically trained Khybors at the time of the infusion into the patient’s system. The growing gap between supply and demand provided opportunity for those who spoke against Khybors to accuse them of holding dying and critically injured patients hostage, for profit. While the knowledge that no patients treated with khrystal would produce Khybor children had decreased the general fear of Khybors, it had also pushed public opinion in a new direction.

Those who worked against accepting Khybors as full humans, with all rights, including the right to reproduce and pass on their gifts, now insisted that no more Khybors should be allowed to be born. Even in the face of the demand for medical khrystal, which could only come from living Khybors and not generated in a laboratory, they insisted no more future generations of Khybors were necessary. They whispered and insinuated, and when public opinion was on their side, they shouted that Khybors had always been able to turn off khrystal and keep it from passing on to future generations. The only reason they allowed their children to be born with khrystal was to perpetuate the false belief that they were a special breed, a superior breed, and to fulfill their long-range plan to destroy the human race.

“The only Khybor?” Dr. Teller frowned as he settled into his desk. Then he shook his head and a weary chuckle escaped him. “Is that what they’re telling all of you back in the core worlds?”

“Well, all the adults were slaughtered and the children were so badly damaged they needed life-support tubes and had to be shipped off-planet to better equipped medical facilities. There were all sorts of stories of equipment problems and sabotage and needing to do a purge of the staff here, because the Set’ri had infiltrated to prepare for the attack.” Rorin thought for a moment, while the administrator just watched him, that hint of a smile waiting to emerge. “What is idle speculation, what is hopeful theorizing from our enemies, and what is self-defensive lies?”

“Granted, we did do all we could to hide the numbers of the children who survived the massacre and what condition they were in. Yes, all of them required life-support tubes. And yes, we did consider shipping them off-planet for more sophisticated care than we could offer them. However…we’re a long way from Vidan. It wasn’t just the communication lags that slowed down our decisions and asking for assistance.”

“The higher-level facilities were reluctant to help, reluctant to take the children? Public sentiment was entirely in our favor for a while.” Rorin sighed. “For a while.”

“Exactly. We couldn’t guarantee that the hangers-on of the attackers weren’t still in the area. All we needed to do to complete the massacre was let the children out of our custody, put them on a ship, under the control of one person with Set’ri tendencies. All their ethical guidelines and healer vows wouldn’t matter, like wet paper in a tornado, compared to Set’ri dogma. We chose to take our chances with the equipment we had, with people here who valued the children and supported Khybor survival. Then…” That hint of a smile returned. “Then it didn’t matter anymore.”

“How many children did you lose? The stories that filtered back to us said there were major equipment problems, all sorts of strange things going on. No one could be sure if it was the planet itself, the supposed curse of Norbra from the ancient myths, refusing to let any children live on this planet, or something worse was happening.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting. I know the first generation or two that tried to settle here did reinforce the stories of the ancient queen and the punishment of the higher powers, but… Yes, that much is true. We did have equipment problems, but it was related to khrystal interfacing with the equipment.”

“Interfacing?” He sat up straight, alerted to the implications that didn’t quite solidify right away in his thoughts. Rorin always loved that churning of theories and possibilities, and waiting for a brainstorm to hit.

“Never mind that. You were asking about Elin. Don’t expect her back for three, four days. This training expedition is too important.”

“Training who?”

“The children. All the children who survived. She’s the only mother they have now, and the way they cling to her…it’s a little frightening, if you take enough time to sit back and really think about it.” He settled back further in his chair and clasped his hands on the cluttered surface of his desk.

“What’s frightening about it? Elin’s always been especially protective of children. That’s her whole dream, inherited down through the family line. Finding a place where the children can be safe. You’d think a poisonous place like Norbra, our enemies would leave us alone and hope the world would kill us off, so they don’t have to expend time and resources.” Rorin grunted and fought off a shudder of pure disgust. “That hope certainly didn’t pan out.”

“Definitely not, and they’re going to regret…” He sighed. “It didn’t occur to me until now, the way you’re talking, you’ve taken the big step, haven’t you? No turning back.”

“If you mean that I’ve made it impossible for my superiors to ignore that I’ve got Khybor blood and Khybor sympathies, absolutely. I’m committed.” He grinned. “So…how is Elin doing with instant motherhood?”

“It’s been an interesting experience. She’s ready to die for those children, and they know it, and they also know she won’t tolerate even one second of rebellion. It’s life-and-death, even inside the walls here. I might be the administrator, and officially I’m the final authority, but the truth is that Elin is queen of Norbra. We’re all here to support her vision, her plans.”

“That makes more sense than anything I’ve heard in a long time. So, how do I find her majesty and pay my respects?”

Dr. Teller tipped his head back and laughed.

The tour of the facilities could wait. Doing anything more than dropping his gear in his new living quarters could wait. Rorin’s priority was to get hold of his access and security clearance, and for the entire system to acknowledge his presence and his status as coordinator of defense for Central, for the colony, and in the quadrant of space surrounding Norbra. Then he was free to order his fightercraft checked and refueled, snag the coordinates of the path Elin and her survival students were supposed to follow, calculate where they should be, and head out. He did need to acquaint himself with Norbra’s atmospheric peculiarities and the landscape, after all.

As he flew out to find her, he ran through all the scenarios of what Elin’s reactions would be when he climbed out of the cockpit, the things he would say to her, whether she would be glad, angry, stunned, relieved to see him. He didn’t think of one important detail until his instruments picked up the faint presence of warm-blooded lifeforms in large enough quantities to be Elin and the children. He stretched out his khrystal-enhanced awareness as far as it would go, to verify what his sensors told him. Rorin grinned, muffling a chuckle, knowing that the people in the tower back at Central, monitoring his first flight, could hear him. The sensation of many full-strength Khybors gathered in one place was exhilarating. He had been out of the company of full Khybors for so long, he forgot what it was like to plunge into the collective pool of energy that came from many life forces augmented by khrystal, in close proximity. Part of the strength, the rawness and something close to discord that made the sensation more noticeable, was that it came from children. They hadn’t matured into their khrystal-enhanced abilities. Their hormones and the demands of their developing bodies interfered with and enhanced the khrystal resonance in ways that were sometimes unpredictable, even this many generations after the birth of the first Khybor. As the children matured and learned discipline, the overflow of khrystal energy would be tamed, controlled, and fall into harmony.

For now, he welcomed the wash of khrystal resonance that flared up at him–for about half a second.

Then Rorin realized what he hadn’t taken into consideration.

He was in a fightercraft. Elin and the children were down there on foot, with minimal communication with Central just because they were out on survival training. Even if he had asked Central to alert them that he was coming, the message wouldn’t have reached them until evening, when Elin checked in.

What if the roles were reversed and he was the lone adult Khybor in charge of a gang of children who had survived the destruction of their homes and the slaughter of their parents? Rorin knew what his first reaction would be to the sight of a fightercraft in the air, when no warning had come from Central. His presence couldn’t even be explained away as a flyover of planetary security, because his craft was a different design, a good three generations newer than anything that had been relegated to colonization use.

Elin and her children had to be terrified–which explained the uneven waves of khrystal resonance coming after him.

“Please, Fi’in, help me fix this fast,” he whispered as he scanned for a good landing spot. The faster he landed and got out of his craft and made contact–and took whatever punishment Elin inflicted on him for scaring her–the faster she would forgive him.

The children were her priority. The survival of all Khybors was embodied in these children in her care.

His sensors and the map of the landscape in his navigational computer showed a flat valley opening out of the landscape full of crevices and ravines and gullies. Rorin swept his craft over the group of warm life-forms and aimed for that valley to land quickly and hopefully keep them from running away before he could make vocal contact.

The wobbling khrystal resonance faded, though his sense of it painted an image in his mind of streaks heading out into the passages and ravines in the shattered landscape below him. There were thin gorges and crevices spreading out in elongated branches. He grinned as he realized what the children were doing–scattering. He muffled curses as he sped through the process of landing. The last switch to push cut off contact with Central. Now he could speak his mind without worrying which people he would impress or worry or disgust. He tugged off his helmet and waited for the all-clear to pop the canopy. The jets dropped to soft screams as the engines powered down, surrounded by a faint haze of dust kicked up into the dry morning air.

He pressed the release button half a second before the all-clear light. The cockpit canopy popped open with a hiss of atmosphere. Something shivered in the khrystal resonance surrounding him, there and gone, moving like a slow tide. Was something about it familiar, or just his imagination? Did he hear the faint scratch of sand under a boot?

“Where are you, brat?” His voice caught in his throat, twisting between laughter and scolding. Wasn’t she the more sensitive one? Couldn’t she sense his presence? Didn’t the fact that he landed his fightercraft instead of just strafing the landscape with explosives tell her he was friendly? “I know you’re out there!”

More scratching, sliding sounds. Sand on rock, definitely, but if it was more than just the breeze causing movement, he couldn’t tell. Rorin grinned, knowing Elin would scold him for his dulled senses. She would repeat the taunting from their childhood, that his passion for flight, for machines, got in the way of refining the sensitivity that khrystal would have granted him. She would scold him for frightening her and the children.

That was the major concern, the central reason for why she hesitated, even if she did recognize his resonance and now his voice. He had definitely made a mess of their reunion, frightening the children in her care. How far away had they moved? Was she gathering them up even now as he sat there in the cockpit, waiting? He made a mental note to insist that she take him out into the wilderness, teach him to make friends with Norbra, or at least negotiate a truce. He had to come to know and love this planet, feel it in his blood and bones just like she did. He had to become proficient enough Elin would trust him with her children.

“Elin Leto,” he called after a few more moments of waiting and listening, “don’t make me come after you!”

Echoes of their childhood, when they had called the same teasing threat to each other, in imitation of their parents and teachers, rippled through his memory. Would she remember? Would she understand all the things he was feeling, wanting, and promising right in this moment?

He felt another ripple in the resonance, heard a little more scraping of sand against stone. That wasn’t the wind that time. Grinning, he stood up and climbed out of the cockpit. He stood a moment, turning to get a good view of the landscape. The extremes of the mineral impressed him, streaks of scarlet and black against bone-white, with here and there a shade of purple close to dried blood. This landscape suited Elin, her toughness and determination. He took slow, deep breaths of the dusty air. This was a different kind of sterile compared to the disinfectant-laden, purified-but-never-clean air of spacecraft and stations and transports. He had caught a whiff of the air, the scent and breath of Norbra inside Central. Now, the planet was seeping into his blood.

The last interference from the crystal components of his craft vanished, as the residue of power dissipated. He took two more steps out along the wing of his craft, stretching his senses to find the children. Had they stopped running and moved closer, waiting, wondering? Had they received some signal from Elin that he hadn’t caught? Or had he been imagining what he sensed up until now? For all he knew, the crystal components had augmented his khrystal sensitivity. He put that consideration aside for later. There were things Dr. Teller had hinted at, hadn’t wanted to discuss right away–they hadn’t had time to discuss them–but Rorin knew his Khybor history. The attack and battle for survival had likely brought about another change in the symbiosis between Khybors and khrystal. He thought about proposing to Elin that they try to guide this next phase of khrystal augmentation. If Khybor healers could program khrystal to deal with specific areas of the body, specific kinds of tissue and specific types of damage, couldn’t they program their own khrystal to specific functions within their own bodies?

That was something to discuss later, when the almost legendary winter storms of Norbra confined them indoors and all they could do was talk and plan.

Turning to look around the surrounding landscape one more time, Rorin walked to the end of his wing and jumped down, with a heavy thud of his space boots hitting the dusty ground. Was it his imagination, or did he feel Elin’s presence, even just the residue of her presence, down that shadowy passageway through the rock face, to his left? He grinned as his eyes adjusted from the stark light of late morning to the shadows, and he saw what definitely had to be prints–specifically, the shuffling, dragging prints of her bear, Chow, and the wolf, Trouble. Rorin said a silent prayer of thanks that through all her troubles and struggles, she had her three bond beasts to protect and keep her company. He hadn’t been able to spend much time getting to know bird, bear and wolf in the few times he had met up with Elin since she was assigned the bond beasts, but he had the impression they approved of him. That should help–he hoped.

He reached the mouth of the passageway and stepped into the shadows. A sense of movement stopped him and he moved back half a step. Something was about to happen. His sharp instincts had made him a top-flight fighter pilot. Surviving dozens of dangerous missions had refined those instincts. Now, the question was where Elin hid and just what she was planning to do to him. She had to have recognized his voice by now, so her continued silence meant she was either in a foul mood, or a mischievous one. Either way, a wise man protected his back.

Stones scraped. He paused, listening. More stones. Standing where he was in the passageway, he couldn’t feel the wind, though he could hear it. Was it growing stronger? Strong enough to move pebbles and larger stones?

Or was that Elin?

More scraping and sliding. He caught movement on the left. Falling bits of stone. Falling from where? How high? Rorin backed out of the passageway and looked around. A larger fragment of stone hit his shoulder. He flinched and looked up. The angle of the rock face as it rose over his head made it impossible to see, but he had a clear image in his mind of Elin, most likely stretched out on her stomach, near enough to the edge to shove stones at him and yet stay out of sight.

Fine. Two could play this game. Or better yet, stop playing altogether. With a grin cast upward, he turned and walked away, heading back to his ship.

“Don’t make me come looking for you, brat!”

More, larger fragments rained down, pattering against the back of his flightsuit before bouncing off and hitting the ground. They hit hard enough to feel through the padding of his suit, and hit too precisely–shoulders, then the middle of his spine, then his buttocks–to be accidental.

Muffling curses, Rorin spun around, took two steps back toward the passageway and looked up. Elin was up on her knees, silhouetted against the sky, one arm drawn back. He stood still, mouth open, and Elin flung her last piece of stone so it hit him square in the chest. He laughed, the sound echoing back to him from all the sheer rock faces.

Rorin was still laughing when she darted out of the passageway to meet him. He ran to her, wrapped his arms tight around her and spun her around three times. He started to yank on her hair, but the wolf appeared from the shadows and growled, and her hawk joined in with a warning screech. He released her with a start.

“Still the brat,” he said, and stepped back to look her over, head to foot.

“Still the sense-dead space jockey,” Elin retorted. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. And your traveling orphanage.” He nodded back down the passage, guessing most of the children were hiding in that direction. “They’re good. You’re a good teacher. They told me back at homebase what you’re doing.”

The next few hours passed much as he expected. Elin grudgingly, slowly brought the children out of hiding, introduced him to them, and them to him. She was all snarl and sarcasm, hiding her emotions just like he did with humor.

Several of the older children immediately demanded to know if the craft he had flown there was a fightercraft, rather than just for exploration. When he admitted yes, it was, and he had brought it to augment colony and planetary security, several yelped in excitement and wanted to examine it immediately. Another glance at Elin, a slight nod from her, and he gestured for the children to go look. It wasn’t like they could get in any trouble just walking around the craft, or even if the taller ones climbed up on the wings. He told Elin so, but her concern didn’t seem mollified.

“They’ve been through enough already, without strapping on blasters and thrusters and courting violence, flying through the air,” Elin said, as the children ran to surround his craft.

“We might as well start now, training them. They’ll have to learn to fight among the stars, to keep the Set’ri from getting close enough to wipe out entire families again,” he said, when the children had reached the fighter and gathered around it. He and Elin followed at a much slower pace.

He thought, hoped, she was pleased to learn he was in charge of defending the planet, and he had brought Khybors with him, along with more up-to-date equipment. He worked on impressing the children, always ready with a teasing remark about childhood memories and events, to convince them he was a friend of their mother and guardian. That would be his plan: win over the children, and by then Elin would be relaxed around him, and he could convince her that they could be, should be, more than best friends.

The roar of his fightercraft’s engines bursting into life sent Rorin running, cursing, to leap up onto the wing and drop into the cockpit. The very empty cockpit. He felt dizzy enough that the fightercraft seemed to wobble underneath him as he tried to grasp what had happened. None of the children sat in the seat, none of them had been able to get past the physical locks on the controls, much less the voice and print locks. Without someone sitting in the seat, to activate the thermal and pressure sensors, there was no way his ship’s engines could have activated. Yet they did.