“T his should be fun,” I muttered as I looked at Jordan .

“What the hell have you done?” he hissed .

Rizor smiled, carefully pushing me behind him in the process. “You have nowhere to run. Your little plan has failed so you might as well surrender now and hope that the royal family is feeling merciful .”

“You think that this was it?” said Jordan, his tone slightly psychotic. “This is so much bigger than one ship .”

“Oh,” said Rizor confidently. “I know all about your plan so who do you think is going to get here first? Your men, or mine? Because I know my fellow princes, they are going to fly straight here to protect me .”

“Prince?” he stammered. “You are no prince, I saw you shift on the screens the other day. You are an Infernian pig .”

“Wrong again, my heritage means nothing to them. My father was a king of Dragselian, what was yours ?”

Jordan shifted and shook his head. “You are Infernian, you understand about Vaxvian’s and the scum that they are. They take in traitors and don’t care about anyone, but themselves. The Federation would be a friend to Infernians .”

“Then the Federation is just as bad as them,” Rizor shot back. “Face it, you can’t defeat us .”

Jordan held up the detonator for the bomb and grinned. I looked around, noting that it was nowhere to be seen. Rizor squeezed my hand, assuring me that there was nothing to worry about and I knew that he was right. Wherever the bomb was at, it was out of our hands and my crew was going to be safe. Rizor jerked his head at the missing escape pod .

“I don’t think you want to detonate that .”

“Oh yeah?” Jordan said nervously. “I think you are bluffing .”

Rizor shrugged. “Then go ahead and find out, are you willing to die for the Federation ?”

“Yes,” he replied right away .

“Is the Federation willing to die for you ?”

I held my breath as I watched his finger hover over the trigger. The crazed look in his eye told me everything that I needed to know. He was a rat trapped in a corner. He would blow the ship if he had too, it was easier than being taken in by Rizor, back to Vaxvia, that he was so sure was going to get blown to bits by the Federation. The split second before he detonated the bomb, a loud siren started to blare and we all looked up to the ship’s control center .

Jordan turned around and ran ahead of us, Rizor and myself close behind. He flipped on the screen and I let out a sigh of relief as I saw Adams on the screen. It was short lived though as I saw Jordan’s same look of relief. My blood started to boil as I connected the dots. Rizor let go of my hand, his skin starting to turn slightly red in the process. There was nothing more that we could do. I could hear the Federation ship as it locked onto ours and we were sitting ducks in its tracking beam .

“You son of a bitch,” I hissed at Adams .

He licked his lips when he saw me. “It’s a shame I couldn’t get you to confess. I would have taken you as a personal prisoner and made sure you lived, at least a little longer .”

Rizor took a step forward and I didn’t stop him as he lunged at Jordan. He knocked the gun out of the man’s hand and wrapped one foreboding arm around his neck. Jordan flailed, but it was no use. I had felt Rizor’s strength, he would never get away from him unless Rizor allowed it .

“Sir! I don’t know what they’ve done with the bomb. You have to get me out of here before you destroy the ship !”

Adams shook his head. “I don’t think so, Jordan. You knew the risks when you took this mission. This is your failure, not mine or the Federation .”

“But sir,” he gasped. “I did everything that you wanted me too! I didn’t know they had an Infernian working for them! They are going to kill me !”

“No, son,” said Adams. “We are the ones who are going to kill you, and everyone else on Vaxvia. Your sacrifice will be noted though .”

“You know,” I hissed, “I expected this from Jordan, but not from you. You are a human, you grew up on Vaxvia. How are you so willing to kill those that you grew up with? Don’t your parents still live there too ?”

He shrugged and my heart sank. “I gave them the opportunity to join me, but they made their decision. They will die along with the rest of the traitors to the Federation. I should thank you though, Clara. You really did make my job a lot more interesting. I just wish I could take you with me. I don’t think your boyfriend can save you both in space .”

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation,” hissed Rizor. “You have the entire Dragselian fleet coming to bring you down .”

“Oh, we know, but it will be too late. We already have ships en-route to Dragselian. Before long there will be nothing left of any of you. As we speak, the Federation’s militia is loading up every loyalist we have onto our ships to come and wipeout all of you .”

Rizor laughed. “Are you telling me that all of your forces are on your Federation star? The one that houses everything ?”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions. This call was just a curtesy to let Jordan know that we were going ahead with the plan. Without him, none of this would have been possible .”

“Well,” said Rizor, “You have one thing right. Jordan really is the one to thank for all of this .”

As fast as a bolt of lightning, Rizor grabbed ahold of the detonator and pressed the button, it beeped three times before confirming the target had been hit. Jordan winced, preparing himself to be blown to bits, but nothing happened. Rizor took his gun and tossed him to the side, walking back to where I was at and wrapping an arm around me. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that I was safe, Rizor would never let anything happen to me .

“So, the bomb isn’t on the ship, what do I care?” asked Adams .

We heard the alarm from where we were at and a man calling for Adams off screen. He glared at us and disappeared briefly before answering the call in front of us. No doubt he was expecting his superiors to be calling and letting him know that Vaxvia had been destroyed. That’s what they were all waiting on, the final phase of the mission. I could almost see the blood draining out of his face as he started to pale. He glared at Rizor and spoke a few more words .

“What the hell have you done?” he whispered to Rizor as he hung up the phone .

Rizor grinned. “Just doing what any Infernian would, destroying anyone who stands in my way and unfortunately for you, you and the Federation had the audacity to mess with the woman that I love .”

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two men .

“Do you want to tell them, or should I?” asked Rizor. When Adams said nothing, Rizor turned back to me, keeping one eye partially on Jordan. “The bomb was reprogrammed and the escape pod was giving out a royal’s signal, mine to be exact. Of course, the Federation knows about me. They must have thought that I defected from the Dragselian and was there to join their foolish fight .”

“You destroyed our star. You killed all of those men .”

“Those men who were loading up to destroy my home and the home of my mate. I have no remorse for my actions. Unlike you, I picked a planet, or star in this case, that wasn’t full of innocent lives .”

“The bomb, you sent it to the Federation’s base?” I asked .

Rizor nodded. “They may have a hundred ships in the airspace right now, but that’s nothing against the Dragselian fleets. That should be coming any second now .”

Rage filled Adams’ face. “It doesn’t matter now, you are still going to pay for this. The guns are loaded. In three minutes, Vaxvia and all of its people will be nothing more than bloody debris floating through empty space .”

Rizor shrugged. “Sure, that might be true, but you don’t know about the others .”

“Others?” he hissed. “You are bluffing .”

Rizor laughed. “That’s what your little pet here thought too, and that mistake cost him your entire fleet almost. Are you sure that you want to make the same mistake ?”

“I know the Dragselian militia. They don’t have the manpower to assemble in such a short time, even if you did get word out to them that we were here. You are nothing but Infernian scum. Who would be stupid enough to believe anything that comes out of your mouth? Hell, your father killed millions, didn’t he? You are just following in his footsteps .”

Rizor raised his head. “I am not my father’s son, I am the son of a Dragselian Queen and the nephew of a king. You will not bring me down so easily. Call off your attack and my uncles might still show you some mercy .”

“Mercy is for the weak,” Adams hissed .

“Then the decision is yours and the fate of your Federation is the fault of its weakest link, which is you in this case .”

A distant alarm sounded and I knew that things were about to change. Adams could watch the outside of his ship, but what he didn’t account for was the skill of my crew. The tracking beacon that he had on my freighter was disarmed, putting both of our ships on the same level for the first time. He might have been a fighter with a military ship, but we were the underdog and we had more to fight for than he did. The intercom came back online and the screen went dark as Jen appeared .

“We are back online, boss, what do you want us to do ?”

“We’ve taken the control center,” I said quickly, pulling away from Rizor and assuming my place as the captain. “Get everyone to their guns and get up here. We need to get away from Adams and the Federation fleet. We can’t take them all .”

“What do you want us to do then? Just dodge the bullets and hope the Calvary comes in time ?”

I shook my head. “We can go down, I don’t care about that, but we need to save Vaxvia. The shield needs to be brought back up online. Buy us as much time as you can and try to stop any of the Federation ships from getting to Vaxvia. Once they start to shoot, the death toll will climb rapidly and I do not want every death to be on our conscious .”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said quickly before the screen went dark again .

I turned to Rizor and smiled. “Don’t worry, we are going to save them all, but I don’t know who all is listening .”

“Well,” he said with a grin, “what do you want me to do, boss ?”

I laughed at him and turned back to Jordan. “We need to get the shield back up on Vaxvia and I have a feeling Jordan is going to help us do that, with a little persuasion from you, of course .”

The look of fear in Jordan’s eyes was just what I was waiting for. He was no fighter and as I’d assumed before, he was nothing more than a coward as he scrambled away from Rizor .