Page 12 of Stolen By Her Alien Mate

When the Empire fell to the Sovereignty, the tech behind the Pyruhonic Drive in this shuttle was in its infancy. Neither of the two prototype shuttles had been completely tested. And that was twenty years ago.

I give Aislynn a nod and a shrug at the same time. “You’re right. This could be a suicide mission. But for the past twenty years, we’ve used this shuttle on short runs back and forth from Perse and for hops over to the next palace dome. We haven’t pushed this shuttle because when Peia and the other princesses disappeared, everyone assumed the tech had failed and they’d all died.” I point a hand at the shuttle, which is parked on the lift that transports it up to the surface. “But now we know that’s not true. We know they made it. We know where they are. If they made it, then I can too.”

“But why did it take twenty years for us to get the message with their location? Have you thought about that? What if this is just a trap to lure you away from base? Even if it’s not, you have no way of knowing that this tech won’t fail the second you leave our system.”

I nearly chuckle at that statement. “Don’t you get it? That’s why it has to be me. And that’s why I should go alone. It’s too damn risky to send anyone else. It needs to be a solo mission.”

She shakes her head, but I can see that I am starting to convince her. “But it doesn’t have to be you.”

“Sure it does. Even if the girl Irick found wasn’t my mate, it would be me, because I’m the best pilot we have.”

“You’re right. You are the best pilot we have. That’s why we need you here, not chasing across the galaxy on some dangerous quest to find some woman who may not even be Persæn.”

Again, I don’t voice my absolute certainty. Instead, I put into words the frustration we’ve all felt for the past decade. “I’m tired of planning. I’m tired of waiting for the perfect moment. I’m ready to take the fight to the Sovereignty. I’m ready to take back our planet, and this girl is going to give me the power to do that.”

“I don’t think you should go alone.”

“I can protect myself.”

She rolls her eyes. “Radford is going to be pissed. You know what he’s like. He doesn’t like it when you go hunting in the forest the next palace over. He’s going to lose his shit over this, and I’m not covering for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” I grab her and pull her into my arms, giving her a tight embrace. “Are you going to tell him?”

“No. I’m not a snitch.”

I wait until she’s gone before climbing into the shuttle. I stow my bag in one of the two tiny rooms designated as crew quarters. Though the shuttle had been designed and built for interstellar travel, it has never been used for that. Since we’d started shuttling refugees off planet, the shuttle had been cleaned up and was in top condition. Besides the bridge and the crew quarters, there’s a head and a living space with a replicator

It will do. It would have to.

After dropping my bag in the quarters, I make my way to the bridge and sit behind the nav deck, before typing in the commands to boot up the system without turning on the Adjunct.

The Adjunct is like Cass, but even more paired down. It’s a tiny slice of a long dismantled Historian. Cass is a fully working, corporeal Historian. All that remains of the Adjunct is a chunk of disembodied code that eases interactions with the shuttle’s communication and nav system.

I don’t turn it on, not yet anyway.

The second I do, it will interact remotely with Cass, and C&C will know what I’m up to.

Which means I’ll have to navigate and steer the shuttle myself. At least until I make it off Nerida. I don’t mind a bit.

Aislynn was right about one thing. I am the best shuttle pilot the rebellion has, and I actually prefer to nav with my own hands.

The shuttle bay lift cranks into motion, slowly rising through the dense mountain behind the palace. Once the lift is clear of the mountain, I sit for a moment, staring at the screen at the view of the palace from the launch pad.

I never tired of this view.

Telmarine Palace trickles down the mountain side below me, a cascade of dusty white buildings, overgrown plants, and faded rooftops tumbling down to the purple lake at the base of the mountain. I’d seen vizzes of the palace from before the fall of the Empire. At the height of the Empire, the Telmarine Summer Palace had been a jewel, meticulously maintained by an army of servants, its stone walls polished, its roofs gleaming multiple hues of purple, its gardens manicured.

Now, its beauty is faded, the plant life overgrown, but it’s somehow even more beautiful.

As I type in the coordinates I’d gotten from Cass, I wonder briefly about my mate. What kind of palace does she live in?

When Peia, the companion Historian to Cass, had left with the Princesses, they had had the resources and technology to thrive wherever they ended up. Even though Earth is a sister planet, it’s relatively primitive. So I’m sure Peia has provided a life of privilege for my mate. It’s possible her current standard of living exceeds what Nerida can provide.

That won’t matter. My princess will have known from childhood that her destiny lay far from Earth. She’ll know what’s expected of her.

I take one last look at the Telmarine Summer Palace before phasing through the envirodome encircling the palace.

As I expect, piloting out of our solar system is the hardest part of the trip. It doesn’t help that I’m probably the first Persæn in twenty turns to be making the trip. As a teen, I’d been fascinated by all the tech from before the coup. The shuttles were designed for interstellar travel, but we’d barely had a chance to use them for that before the coup. Still, there were countless training sims designed to teach pilots. Draeden and I had both spent hours working through them, imagining a future in which we’d travel to the sister planets in search of the lost princesses. So I have experience with this flight, even if none of it has been in real life.