“No, I forbid it.”

Margie glared at him, her beautiful face puckered into lines of rebellion. “You can’t forbid me from anything. All who wish to go can go.”

His shoulders hunched and tensed. “Says who?”

Margie’s chin thrust forward. “Says me.”

How could she be so obstinate? There was no way he was going to let her go, not knowing if they would survive.

Jeval raked his fingers through his hair. “If I have to tie you to a chair to keep you here, then I shall.”

Margie gestured around the small cabin on Talons ship. “I am already aboard.”

He shouted, “Then I shall take you off the ship! Then I shall tie you to a chair, you stubborn, crazy woman!”

Margie said, “We’ve already lifted off and are in space.”

The smugness in her voice made his teeth clench. She had a point. There was no way to send her back, and he knew it. Which was exactly the reason why she had hidden for so many hours. His brow furrowed, and he asked. “Where were you hiding?”

Margie gave him a sheepish smile. “Right here. In your chamber. I knew you’d be on deck for several hours, at least long enough for us to hit the point of no return.”

If he didn’t love her so much he would’ve shouted at her, and his words would not have been kind. He did love her though. He knew that she was going with them because she had to. She was standing by him. That loyalty of hers seems to know no bounds. Not even death was enough to dissuade her from being with him.

He turned away, facing the small berth that served as a bed. His shoulders slumped. “Margie, I beg you. This is foolishness. I can find a small craft that will take you back home. Don’t do this.”

Her hand, cool and light, touched the back of his neck. Her voice was soft and low, and it swept across his emotions, tumbling them even further. “Where you go, I go. I choose this. I choose us. If that means we have to die together, then so be it. Isn’t that the pact that your own parents made? That they would fight against tyranny even if it meant their deaths? That they would stay together even if they had to die together? What kind of life would I have without you anyway?”

His voice held all his anguish. “A life. That’s what kind. I cannot imagine a world without you. I cannot imagine you sacrificing so much, and for me.”

She moved so that her body was nestled against his. She whispered, “Nor can I. I cannot imagine a life without you. If my life has to end, then I want it to end with you. I don’t want to spend whatever is left of my life knowing that you are dead and that you sacrificed so much for the peace of this world while I stood by and did nothing.”

He turned to face her. Her eyes looked deep into his, and he saw written there everything he had ever wanted to see in the eyes of someone that he took as a mate. But what kind of mate would he be if the only thing he would lead her to was death?

“You are the most impossible woman that has ever existed. I have lived for centuries, and I swear that I have never, in all my days and years, met a woman so determined to be so impossible. You are intractable, stubborn, and the most—dammit—you are the most magnificent thing I have ever seen. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I don’t know that I can allow this.”

Her raven hair shook from side to side as did her head. “This isn’t your choice. It’s mine. It is my life. I choose to be here.”

She had just used logic to box him in and cut off all of his protests. He knew that arguing with her now would serve no purpose. They were on their way, and there was no way to get her off the ship before they reached the outer ring of planets that they were headed to.

He said, “There is much to do before we land. It is a short trip to the solar ring. I just came in here to…”

What had he gone in there for? It completely slipped his mind, and that flustered him even more. “I have to get back on deck.”

He strode for the door, and she was right beside him. They entered a long corridor and headed through it. Talon’s crew was busy making sure that the weapons were ready and that everyone was armed. The ship was smooth and quiet, and he could barely feel the vibrations of the travel through the deck and into his feet. He said, “Have I told you how much I hate flight?”

She chuckled. “A few times.”

He said, “Well, I’m saying it again. I truly hate ships.”

She asked, “What do you love?”

The question threw him for a loop. What did she mean? Was she fishing for compliments? Was she hoping that he would say he loved her?

She must’ve read his thoughts again because she said, “I’m not asking because I want you to say that you love me. I’m asking because I want to know you. It seems like I know you, but I don’t. I know that doesn’t make much sense. I know so little of you is what I’m trying to say. I don’t know what your favorite color is. I don’t know what your favorite food is. I don’t know what you like to drink the most.”

His jaw sagged open in both amusement and puzzlement. “Why do those things matter?”

Margie said, “Because if we survive this war, then those would be good things to know, don’t you think?”

They would be. And perhaps they would be good things to know even if they didn’t survive. He pondered that for a moment. “I love the color of the sky right before the sun sets on our planet. I don’t have flowery words or phrases to describe it; I just know that I like it. I suppose if I had a favorite color it would be that color. It’s actually combination of colors and patterns swirling across the sky, but if I had to choose, I choose that. My favorite drink is clean water. As for food? I never really thought about it before, but I miss, very much, the taste of these little cakes that my mother used to make back before our original planet was destroyed.

“She made them from some sort of seeds and fruits that I’ve never seen anywhere else. She would pound them into this sort of paste and then she’d add in other ingredients and put them outside to harden under the sun.”

He’d never thought of that before. That small and slight loss. Cake. But that loss summed up everything that he had lost when the original Revant had been destroyed. Those things existed nowhere else in the universe and they never would again. He would never know the taste of that little treat, that special thing that his mother made when she knew that his father was coming home again from a long flight and could stay only a few days with his family.

His mother had made those things out of love for his father. Just like Margie had picked figs that she disliked and placed them on the table for him.

Everything in him broke open just then. All the things lost due to The Federation’s greed and far-reaching arms came rushing in at him, unbalancing him. He had lost much, and so had citizens of every planet in every system across that known universe. All in the name of The Federation’s betterment of themselves and their rank. It would never be enough either. The Federation would never have enough.

They would destroy any and everything in their path, and while this mission was not one he wanted to undertake, he understood exactly how important it was that he did. How important it was that they all did. Even Margie.

She too had lost so much under their rule. She’d been sold like a common possession but not before having been tortured and beaten in an attempt to get information from her that she had never possessed. She had seen family members die of starvation and thirst. She had seen them die from heat and lack of fresh air. She had lived a life devoid of sunlight joy because The Federation had declared that she was somehow less than others of its citizens.

So much hurt and so much willful destruction, and all of it stemming from The Federation and its cruel and tyrannical grip on the universe.

Margie said, “I miss the sound of the music that they would play on holidays. It was the one thing they allowed us to share with those who lived Above. They would send it down through the system, and we would all gather there in the center of the square in the middle of the Below. Nobody would speak. We would just stand there and listen to this music that was somehow so pure and so beautiful that made everything around us seem less awful.

“I imagine if I heard it now it would not serve the same purpose. I know there’s a better life now. I know there’s a better way now. I know there’s beauty and air and sunlight and love and family and food and I didn’t know those things then. But I think I would still like it. The music I mean.”

His arm came up and draped itself across her shoulders. He pulled her into him for a moment and then let his arm drop away from her as they entered the section that would lead them to the bridge. “Perhaps we should find you some music then.”

Her head lowered. There was a strain in her voice. “That was the music of Old Earth. I don’t imagine it exists anywhere else. I know there are some humans who came out into the systems, mostly slaves and the like, and maybe some of them remember it. I just don’t know if any of them can make it.”

He didn’t either. Maybe her music, like that cake his mother used to make, was something that would never be seen in the universe again. Maybe that was just one more small but incredibly vast loss that they would have to sustain.

The flight deck was crammed with people. Talon stood at the controls, guiding the ship with real confidence and talent. Jessica, his weapon’s chief, stood nearby at another control panel that allowed her to check the weapons ranged around the ship’s outer shell. Her face was tight and tense, and he didn’t blame her for being that way.

Entering the solar ring was iffy. The larger part of the armada at whose head they flew had taken a sharp bank toward the next set of planets. The last thing they needed to do was ride into outlaw territory with a Federation envoy right behind them, especially one that carried General Bates at its head.

After all, they were going to speak with his son.

The ship began to bank, its solar shields going up in order to offset the heat flares that rose from the first ring. Many a ship had attempted to make that journey without proper shielding and had burned up as soon as they had entered that space. A great wall of orange-red heat flamed toward them, churning and pushing against the ships outer shell. Margie said, “That’s scary.”

Jeval gave her a rueful smile. “It scares the hell out of me every time it happens.”

She said, “I can certainly see why.”

They made it past that first ring and then slid inward, riding space currents that eddied and drifted like waves of the sea. Those waves tossed them more toward the center, toward the four planets that lay within those rings. One wrong move and they would crash. If they made it past the space drifts, then they would have to contend with the asteroids that lay just beyond.

All those natural things were what kept the planets, three of them, wholly uninhabitable, from ever being used. The Federation avoided the place after having lost too many ships to its cranky atmosphere. As only one planet was even inhabitable, and it was a known desolate area The Federation had no use for it.

The Federation was often wrong, and they were completely wrong about that planet being desolate. On its far side, the side that never saw sunlight lay a vast city made up of criminals and fugitives. Space pirates often risked death in order to stop there and refuel and resupply. The most daring of them all exited through all of the lethal things around the planet in order to fetch in supplies and the like, and once they had them back on the planet, they charged a veritable fortune for them.

But space pirates and criminals and fugitives had credits. If they didn’t, they never would have made it there in the first place.

Those pirates and wreckers and other criminals that brought things they were to sell knew that they would get less of a price there than they would anywhere else, but they could also trade with other ships for fuel and printer food supplies, and any credits were better than no credits at all. Also, it provided a safe harbor, a place to do repairs on the ships and rest. Or perhaps safe harbor was a misnomer. They were just as likely to be murdered by the other criminals and crews there as they were to be captured and killed by The Federation.

Talon knew the territory well enough to make it through there. Jeval could recall, with chilling clarity, the first time they had made that trip. He had been unable to stand on the flight deck and watch it happening. He had left, going to his room and praying to whatever old gods his race still held dear that if they had to die, they would at least meet their fate mercifully. That was something none of his siblings had ever let him live down either.

He couldn’t very well leave the flight deck then, though. Margie stood beside him, and it was clear that she was terrified. She was doing a good job of holding it together, but her face was white, and her entire body trembled as they made it past one asteroid belt only to have another come swirling and tumbling toward them. The rocks were shooting off solar flares large enough to crush the ship with one blow.

Finally, the planet came into view. Talon skirted around the uninhabitable front side. That side was constantly exposed to solar flare and burn from the incredibly vast sun that lay directly ahead of it. The planet they were aiming for was second in the little string of planets and on its backside were planets that were sheer rock and total ice. Impenetrable ice. Those planets were so hostile to life due to their frozen solid surface that nothing had ever grown there.

The backside of the second planet, where the city lay, was sheltered away from the solar flares and just far enough away from the other planets that the cold was not quite as killing. The solar flares warmed the front surface of the planet just enough to make the water that raged across it warm enough that it warmed the land behind. But it was a dark and dim place anyway.

They docked. Great drills piercing the planet’s surface and landmasses had cleverly constructed the docks. To dock, one had to duck, literally, right into a hole in the earth. The largest ships would never fit, and that was part of why it made such a good hideout. The little warrens, resembling those used by the giant rabbitlike animals of his home planet and the planet that he now called home, made sure that any Federation ship that somehow managed to get past and through saw nothing but emptiness in that system.

The city itself lay underground. Although the surfaces of the land masses were much warmer there than on the outlying planets, nothing grew there because of the lack of sunlight. The seas often came up too high and ate away large chunks of the land as well. The city had been cleverly built inside the highest peaks of the land, and as they flew into a docking port, the walls of those mountains closed in around them, sheer rock everywhere.

He wanted to get violently sick. He hated being there. The place reminded him too much of the mines where he had been forced to slave and labor for so many decades, and he knew that that place had the same effect on his brothers. It was their last resort, always. They only went there when they had no other choice, and at that moment they had no choice at all. They had to find Dirk Bates, one of the most notorious space pirates of all time.

He didn’t go by that name anymore, of course. His father had faked his son’s death, and Dirk must’ve been aware of that. He now used the name Blade, a sort of riff on his given name or perhaps a testament to what he hoped to be against The Federation.

Talon spoke. “I say it would be perhaps best if Jessica, Margie, you, and I were the only ones to leave the ship at the moment.”

Jeval nodded. “He knows us. If we try to overwhelm him with too many people, he might sense something is up and run.”

Talon said, “Or fight. Neither of those is the best option.”

Jeval gave Margie a smile. “You can stay here if you choose to.”

She said, “No, thank you. I’ve been to worse places.”

He wasn’t sure if that were true or not, but he decided not to argue the point. They strode off the ship and into a long tunnel made of solid rock. Again, the memory of the mines came up. Claustrophobia set in. His heart constricted as it pounded too loudly. His eyes flicked ahead to where Talon walked, and he found himself wondering if his brother too felt that same near-panic in those halls. He would never ask, and Talon would never say, but he wondered anyway.

Margie’s hand found his and gave it a gentle squeeze. He looked down at her. She whispered, “This is so much like the Below. Oh, we had smooth walls and not rock ones but in so many ways it’s the same, and that frightens me.”

He whispered back, “It reminds me of the mines.”

Her face held empathy and understanding. “I’m sorry.”

Somehow that simple compassion, that understanding of his emotions, made them flatten and settle. He felt immensely better for some strange reason. Knowing that she, too, was having difficulty made it easier to navigate the place. They came to the mouth of the tunnel, and Talon stood to one side, waiting for them to catch up. As always, he was overwhelmed by the enormity of the place.

The city sat in a bowl-like depression below the mouth of the tunnel. It spread out, hundreds of thousands of hectares wide and long.

Margie whispered, “My God! How can all of this be here?”

He answered with, “For centuries this has been the hideout for those who would earn their living in a not so savory manner. It began as a few huts and dwellings and became this.”

She surveyed it. Her voice was hushed. “It sort of gives me hope that eventually home shall be more civilized, but it terrifies me too.”

“You have every reason to be afraid. For people here, death is their trade.”

She muttered, “You really need to work on your reassuring skills.”

They started down the steep slope that crawled through the rock face in a circular pattern that would have them enter the city from the eastern side. That too was part of the city’s defenses. Every tunnel had a wide ledge, but all of the ledges were situated up high. There was only one way to exit the ledges safely, and that was to take the winding shelf that ran before all of them and joined into others then led to the city’s eastern gate.

Attempting to jump from the ledge into the city itself meant death. Not only was it much further than it appeared, the optical illusion that the city was right below the shelf was just that; in fact it sat many hundreds of feet below, but a poor landing was the least of the worries that anyone foolish enough to try to jump it find themselves faced with.

The tech there was rudimentary but present. There was a wide net-bar across the city’s top. It was invisible for the most part, but it was deadly. Any who fell into it would find themselves decimated.

Any being who somehow managed to first make the jump and get past the netting safely as well was still not safe. There was no quarter given to anyone who entered the city through any path other than through the eastern gate. There were roving bands of pirates and crews, and there was always an argument or fight. Entering into territory that some had carved out for themselves and fought for on a daily basis meant declaring oneself an enemy. Here, an enemy was killed without question. There was no judicial system, but there were plenty of executioners.

At the east gate, they met armed guards. Those guards peered down at them and then, recognizing them, waved them inside. The gate opened with a loud clatter and bang that set their teeth on edge. Jeval’s hands never strayed far from his weapons and he saw Margie’s hand drop to first her belly and then to her hip. She must’ve secreted more than one weapon there under her clothing, he deduced as they walked past the first part of the buildings that made up the city known as End-World.