Stars of Blood and Glory Read online

  I’ve been kidnapped, she slowly realized. I’ve been taken hostage by … who? Criminals? Thugs? Sex-traffickers? Her heart skipped a beat as she imagined herself as a slave girl, performing lewd acts of carnal knowledge for the rest of her life. It would be a shame for the princess of Shinihon to end up in such a place—which raised the question, did her captors even know who she was?

  “Hello?” she called out in Gaian, looking around the room for any sign of another person. An open doorway behind her led through to what looked like a cockpit. It was hard to tell, though, since she didn’t have a good view from where she was tied.

  “Hello?” she called out again, “can anyone hear me?”

  “Shut up!” came a young voice from the other side of the doorway. He spoke Gaian with a heavy accent, but she understood his words well enough—which meant that he could understand her.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “Where am I?”

  “I said, shut up!”

  A low, aching throb began to grow between her legs. She realized that she had to pee.

  “Is there a bathroom?” she called out. “I have to go.”

  Her captor swore, but moments later she heard footsteps on the cold, hard floor. As he rounded the corner and came into view, she tensed a little, expecting—

  She frowned. “You’re just a boy?”

  The boy’s face reddened, and he leaned over and slapped her hard across the face. “I am a Hameji prince,” he snapped back. “You would do well to show more respect, planetborn wench.”

  Hikaru’s jaw dropped, and she gave him a sharp, angry look. “You slapped me!”

  “I’ll do worse, if you give me any more trouble. There’s no reason I need to keep you alive.”

  He was short, perhaps as much as half a head shorter than her, with dark cropped hair and a fair complexion that didn’t match his features. He wore a black flight suit with a pistol on his belt and a knife strapped to his chest, which looked a little ridiculous since the knife was almost as big as his forearm. He scowled at her, but with his round, boyish face and smooth cheeks, the effect was more comical than intimidating.

  “So why haven’t you killed me already?” she asked.

  “Because,” he said, letting the word hang in the air. He opened a wall compartment and pulled out a pan.

  “Here,” he said, tossing it with a clang to the floor beside her. “Use that.”

  “Use that? For what?”

  “For taking a pee, of course.”

  Hikaru’s jaw dropped, and her cheeks turned hot with rage. “For taking a pee? That’s disgusting! Don’t you have a decent bathroom on this ship?”

  “You’ll use the pan, or you won’t go at all.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Because I’m obviously not going to go in my skirt. That would make a mess and stink up the whole ship, now, wouldn’t it?”

  The boy paused, as if unsure what to do. He clenched his fists, and for a moment, Hikaru worried that she’d pushed him too far.

  “Look,” she said, “if you’re going to make me use the pan, at least free my hands so I can use them. I can’t rightly go like this.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He pulled out a keypin from his wrist console, but hesitated a moment before using it to unlock her cuffs. After thinking it through, he pulled out the pistol and held it in one hand while he undid the lock with the other.

  “There,” he said taking a step back. He pointed the gun at her. “Now pee.”

  Hikaru rubbed her wrists and checked herself over before doing anything else. She seemed all right—nothing broken, anyway. With her ankles still tied to the post, she turned herself around and rose up on her knees. She looked from the boy to the pan and back to the boy, who stood in the doorway with his gun still trained on her.

  She sighed. “Can you at least give me some privacy?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he said. “If I weren’t so nice, you’d be naked and in the airlock right now.”

  “Is that where the Hameji usually keep their prisoners?”

  “Just pee.”

  With a long groan to let him know just how annoyed she was, she slid the pan so that it was just in front of her. She tried to figure out the most discreet way to go about it, but eventually decided to hell with it. After hiking up her skirt enough to pull her panties beneath her knees, she slid the pan between her legs and just went. It made a loud dribbling sound, but she refused to be embarrassed.

  “Do you enjoy watching girls pee?” she asked sarcastically as the boy looked on. To her delight, he actually blushed.

  “Give me the pan when you’re finished,” he said.

  “Oh, I will,” she said, taking her time. “You got a name there, big boy?” His cheeks reddened even more.

  “I am Abaqa, son of Qasar,” he said, as if that was supposed to impress her. “You are Princess Hikaru of the star known as New Rigel. My brothers are going to crush your battle fleets and smash your planet.”

  “Ooh, I’m so-o-o scared,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And what are you going to do to me?”

  His eyes widened, and for a second, it looked as if he were going to hit her. When he scowled, though, his boyish look returned.

  “I’m going to take you as my first concubine,” he said. “It’s only fitting that I should start my harem with a planetborn queen.”

  His answer was so ludicrous that she couldn’t help but laugh at him. He frowned at her, and his gun hand began to shake.

  “You don’t think I will? Just you wait!”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, “but at least let me finish peeing first.” She carefully slid the pan out from under her, then pulled up her panties and smoothed out her skirt.

  As Abaqa retrieved the pan and went through a nearby door to empty it, she searched the room for anything that could help her escape. The wall compartments were too high for her to reach with her feet still tied, and the bunk consisted of little more than a smelly blanket. Still, with her hands free, she could use it to strangle him or tie him up—the only problem was how to free her legs. She didn’t think she could subdue him while she was bound. Even if he was smaller than her, he still had a gun and a knife. Her best bet was to get him to untie her himself—and she had a pretty good idea how to do that.

  “So I’m supposed to be your first concubine,” she said as he stepped back into the cabin. “Does that mean you’re going to rape me?”

  “I’ll do whatever I want with you,” he said, still pointing his gun at her. “Put your hands back together.”

  “You’re not going to rape me now? What are you, shy?”

  He blushed again, this time even deeper than before. “Your hands,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Here, I’ll make it easier for you.” She undid her apron and pulled the blouse over her head, so that she wore nothing but her skirt, bra, and panties. After dropping her clothes on the floor, she sprawled out and arched her back, hands over her head as if she were helpless. “Oh no, save me!”

  Before she could react, the boy grabbed her hand and slapped a cuff on it, then pulled her up and secured it to one of the handholds above her. Her eyes widened and she tried to resist, but he did the same with her other hand, tying it to another handhold on his right.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if we did it on the bed?”

  “I have other things to do before I can enjoy you,” he said, smiling to himself as he holstered his pistol. “Don’t worry, though—I’m sure there will be time later.”

  “What? You pervert! Let me go!”

  He folded his arms and laughed while she tried to pull herself free. With her hands and feet tied down, however, it was no use.

  “Jerk! These floors are cold. At least give me something for that—if you don’t, I’m going to scream!”

  “That reminds me,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief. He stepped over her and pulled it over
her face, forcing her mouth open when she resisted. After a brief struggle, he tied it back so that it effectively gagged her, the pressure tight against her cheeks.

  “Mmm-mm-mmm!” she screamed, trying in vain to make anything but a loud mumble. He smiled at her, and she shot him a poisonous look.

  “There,” he said. “That’s much better.”

  * * * * *

  “All battle-stations, report,” said Katsuichi, gripping the armrests of the command chair on board the Divine Wind. He looked upward out the wide dome windows as the officers sounded off.

  “Piloting and astrogation are go, sir.”

  “Engineering is go.”

  “Gunnery go, sir.”

  “Fighter wings, go.”

  “Countermeasures are a go.”

  “Communications, go.”

  The white dwarf of Eyn-Gatta stood out amid the starfield like a pearl on a band of silver. Katsuichi grinned as a thrill of anticipation passed through him.

  “Colonel Webb?”

  “All good, sir,” came the Colonel’s voice over the radio. “We’re ready when you are.”

  “On my mark, then. Begin the official fleet countdown.”

  “Beginning countdown, sir,” said the pilot. “Initiating jump in ten seconds.”

  “All cruisers have confirmed order,” said a dark-haired girl at communications.

  “Charge weapons,” said Katsuichi. “Let’s go in with our guns blazing.”

  “Copy, sir. Jump in three, two, one—”

  He gasped as his stomach fell out from under him. He felt as if he were falling, though whether he was falling up or down, he couldn’t say. He forced his eyes to stay open, but the universe itself seemed to blink—and then he was staring out at a much dimmer starfield, with the white light of a much closer star drowning out all but the brightest stars.

  “Stabilizing thermal deflectors,” said the chief engineer, a gruff old corporal. “Stand by.” The bridge lights dimmed for a second, then slowly returned to normal.

  “Exterior temperature places us at point-oh-three to point-oh-six AU from the solar surface,” said the pilot. “Fleet jumping in … spread is within acceptable parameters.”

  “What about the Hameji?” Katsuichi asked.

  “We’re having difficulty picking them up on our sensors—they must be too close to the star.”

  “How they can stand such a close orbital, I don’t know,” muttered the engineer.

  Kenta gave the man a sharp glance, as if to scold him for his lack of discipline. Katsuichi waved his finger to stop him. Propriety or not, they couldn’t afford anything to break their focus right now.

  “What about the satellites?” he asked. “Are you picking them up?”

  “Yes, sir, all eight of them. Exactly as our intelligence indicated.”

  “Good. Move the fleet into attack formation and have the Musashi and Yamato knock them out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Katsuichi toggled the holographic projector at the center of the room to display a three dimensional image of the battle as it unfolded. A marble-sized sphere at the center of the projection represented Eyn-Gatta, while the Rigelan ships were points of blue. Colonel Webb’s ships showed up a moment later in a lighter shade of blue, while the Hameji ships, in red, blinked on and off much closer to the star.

  “The Hameji ships are beginning the attack,” said the officer at countermeasures, concern in his voice. “Five of our jump beacons just went off-line.”

  “Spend twenty percent of the reserves to get new beacons up,” said Katsuichi, “and have the rest of the fleet do the same.” The jump beacons would draw away any warheads the Hameji tried to launch through jumpspace, provided they were placed far enough away. It took a significant portion of the ship’s energy reserves to place them, but the combined fleet could sustain a large enough screen to counter anything the Hameji could throw at them. Unless, of course, the Hameji spent all of their own reserves on the attack—but by then, the fifth and sixth fleets would already be at their rear. Casualties would be high, but the Hameji would not escape.

  “Give me a status report on those satellites,” said Katsuichi, shifting nervously in his seat. Not much time before the other fleets were due to move into position.

  “Three down, five to go,” came the report.

  “Order the Musashi and Yamato to empty their reserves; I want those satellites knocked out before the Hameji can get their countermeasures up.”

  “Acknowledged, Sir.”

  “With their reserves spent, those ships won’t be able to jump out if we order a retreat,” Kenta said softly in his ear. “Are you sure this is a good idea, young master?”

  “We won’t win this battle unless we commit to it,” he answered. “You said before that my men were ready to charge into Hell itself.”

  “Forgive me, Your Imperial Highness,” said Kenta, bowing deeply. He gripped his sword and eyed the holographic displays with a face devoid of any emotion.

  “Hameji forces are beginning to climb the gravity well,” said the pilot, the stress in his voice noticeably heightened. “They’re moving to make a frontal assault.”

  “Have our ships fan out to absorb their attack. Watch for any breaks in their formation and keep me updated.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Katsuichi leaned forward with his hands close together. On the holographic display, three clusters of Hameji forces began to crawl away from the star and toward the waiting blue ships. This was it—the moment of truth.

  “Sir,” said the gunnery officer, “we’re in a perfect position to make an artillery barrage—that gravity well is going to make our shots shred right through them!”

  “Wait until they’ve committed,” Katsuichi said softly, “then assign the targets as you see fit.”

  “Sir.”

  The blue dots slowly spread out as the red ones approached. Some of the Hameji ships spread out a little, but several tight clusters remained, as if they had forgotten to take a defensive stance in their race to attack the Federation forces first.

  “How are those satellites?” he asked.

  “Gone, sir,” said the officer. “All eight satellites have been destroyed.”

  “Then let’s hope the fifth and sixth fleets pull through.”

  “Sir,” said the gunnery officer, “we have a clear shot on the first wave. Shall we engage?”

  Katsuichi nodded. “Have the fleet maintain formation and begin projectile bombardment.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “The Hameji are launching fighter swarms,” said the pilot, his voice more nervous than ever. “They’re converging on our position—what should we do?”

  “Launch fighter drones and move to intercept. Keep the Divine Wind far enough back to draw them to our laser stars.”

  “Copy, Sir.”

  The Hameji ships drew closer, climbing out of the star’s gravity well as fast as their engines could take them.

  “First volley away,” said the gunnery officer. “Shall we follow with a second?”

  “Fire away,” said Katsuichi. On the holographic projection, a few Hameji ships broke away to avoid the projectiles, while others tried desperately to shield themselves with a screen of plasma fire.

  “Firing,” said the gunnery officer, his eyes glued to his display screen. “Stand by for impact … now!”

  Several clusters broke up on the display, while many of the ships began to blink. As Katsuichi watched from the edge of his seat, three of them broke apart into a thin red mist and disappeared.

  “We’ve taken out two gunboats and a small cruiser,” said the gunnery officer, his grin irrepressible. “I told you we’d shred them!”

  Overhead, the starfield flashed with silent plasma bursts as the Rigelan fleets tried to shoot down the incoming Hameji projectiles. Several of the blue dots on the projection began to blink, including a few of Colonel Webb’s forces which began to pull back.

  “Hold formation,” Ka
tsuichi ordered.

  As if in reply, the room flashed bright pink, blinding him for a moment and sending a few of his officers to the floor. They recovered quickly, resuming their stations with pale faces and shaking hands.

  “Hameji are firing tactical nukes,” shouted the pilot. “They’ve disabled the Hirohito and knocked out several hundred of our fighters. The other Federation ships are starting to pull back.”

  “Launch nuclear warheads and order all ships to accelerate at full power,” said Katsuichi, rising to his feet. “Prepare to engage at point blank range.”

  “But Your Highness—”

  “Do it! It’s the only way to keep them from decimating us with a nuclear fusillade.”

  His officers looked at him with tense, frightened faces, but they obeyed like the disciplined soldiers they were. A loud rumble sounded beneath his feet as the engines engaged.

  Now would be a very good time for those fleets to show up.

  On the holographic projection, the dark blue ships moved forward toward the increasingly chaotic mass of red Hameji ships. Around the edges of the star, little blue projections flickered in and out of view, until several small diamond formations shot around from the far side, hurtling at incredible speed toward the battle.

  “It’s the fifth and sixth fleets!” said the pilot, his voice ecstatic. “They’re moving to attack the Hameji rear!”

  “Keep us far enough up the well to stay away from their projectile fire,” said Katsuichi, “but continue to accelerate toward the outermost ships.”

  The starfield overhead was full of flashing lights and glittering battleships now. As the first wave of Hameji fighter drones approached the fleet, the laser stars on the wings of the Divine Wind lit up like an Orianan worship rave.

  “Our nuclear attack has disabled five ships and destroyed two more,” said the gunnery officer. “Engaging at point blank range.”