The orbital defenses around Ketu-7 were the most advanced weaponry money could buy. Thousands of silvery drone-spheres circled the planet, each one capable of frying our ship into micro-atoms in less time than it took to blink. The funding, the research, the calculations it took to create and deploy such systems on a wide scale was staggering.

And yet it was completely ridiculous.

I started laughing as I put in the appropriate calculations. It wasn’t just ridiculous, but completely absurd.

“What’s so funny?” asked the prince from behind, startling me.

I glanced at him and quickly looked back at the screen. “Any empire can buy an orbital defense system. But it takes real idiots to leave them set on the factory default algorithm.”

He somehow folded his massive bulk into the copilot chair next to me. Normally, non-Coalition citizens weren't allowed in here, but I figured it was better to keep him where I could see him. At least he was wearing a shirt this time, even if it was so tight on him it was like he didn’t have anything on at all.

“Which means…”

The cockpit was too small and he was too close. “You’re supposed to replace the algorithm with one of your own once you deploy them. The Tigrantines didn’t."

“You sure it’s not a trap?”

“It could be. But when you have a multi-level bureaucracy ruling planets across multiple systems, no. And military bureaucracies are the worst. All we have to do is wait and fly in when there’s an opening. Which should be coming…about…Now.”

I pulled back on the yoke and we picked up speed towards the planet.

The seat hummed as the Prince adjusted it to his size. “I need access to the stellarwebs. And a com line, as well.”

I granted him a floating screen. “Stellarweb access, I can do. But I’m under orders to notify you that all transmissions from this ship can and will be read by Coalition censors who will have the final say on what contents will be passed on to their destination.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. So, do all Unified Coalition pilots study the schematics of off-the-shelf orbital defenses? Or just Starbolt pilots?”

I had to reach past him to grab the screen floating on the other side of him. Was there a way I could do it and avoid physical contact? “It makes sense to know your enemy.”

His fingers drummed the armrest. “I think a dissertation is more than knowing your enemy.”

He actually looked through the old fashioned volumes on the little shelf in my quarters. In an act of sheer extravagance, my sister had given me an expensive printed and bound copy of my dissertation as a gift when I graduated. It was a nod to the physical books I had on board to read sometimes when I had to make the ship’s electronic signature dark.

His fingers kept drumming the armrest. I watched them, dangerously wondering what they would feel like against my skin.

“I found the footnotes quite interesting, especially your idea about doubling the coils on a pulsar ion drive and insulating it with frezane gas. Has the Coalition adopted this method?”

How did he know anything about starship engines? Another alert reminded me I needed that screen on the other side of him. I could ask him to pass me that screen, but then it would ask him if he should have access, and I would have to deny him access, which would probably lead to another argument. No choice but to initiate physical contact. I reached across him, brushing against his muscled arms. I hated how aware I was of exactly where his shirt and my skin touched. “No,” I said. “A steady supply of frezane gas—”

“Is too expensive.”

He watched me tap my screens quietly for several moments. I knew what I was doing but I hated that I felt so self-aware with him watching me. I knew what this was about—he thought he could seduce me into obeying his desires. That and the fact that he had broken out of prison meant he was intent on letting out some sexual frustration. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he wasn’t such a domineering jerk. And if this wasn’t a mission that my career rested on. I was not going to risk my Starbolt for anything, especially not with him.

He sat there watching me for several moments, with me ignoring him. I had almost succeeded in forgetting he was there but then he started talking again. “I studied everything I could on deep space engines up until a couple years ago, when Alpha told me I was needed with our ground forces.”

Was he trying to establish how much more he knew about this ship than I did? That was the wrong way to get into my exo-armor. I seized on politics, a topic designed to turn friends into enemies. “When are werewolves not at war with each other? Coalition troops have been on Alzar-4 for more than a decade now.”

There was a flare of something inhuman in his eyes. “It’s going to end soon. I'll make sure of that.”

I snorted. Did he really believe he could change the patterns of hundreds of years of clashes and conflicts? I looked over at him, his eyes intent at the screen. He looked every bit the warrior prince he was. But making peace required more than looking determined.

He exhaled. “The Houses that don’t believe in interstellar contact and trade are almost gone. We’re close to establishing a unified planet. And once that’s done, we’ll be better prepared to deal with future threats.”

The blood drained from my face. If he was saying the galactic peace wasn’t going to last, then the peace was almost definitely not going to last. “Like the Protectorate.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the tigers turn their full attention to us. Again. Despite our shared origins, I’m not going to sit back and let my planet be turned into a colony.”

And now, just like that, the Two Hundred Year Peace was going to end.

I gripped the yoke a little more tightly. “Is that what the war on Alzar-4 is about?”

“I have to make sure our people are protected. From all threats.”

“And of course, taking your unwilling sister back to your father is part of it.”

“It’s the price of being a princess of Nightclaw. There is no freedom for anyone if we are slaves to the tigers.”

It was too high a price if you asked me, but then, I was just another pilot.

He didn’t respond. Then in a voice almost too low for me to hear, “I helped her escape.”

I kept my gaze focused ahead. “I was told you were tracking her down.”

He opened a small view screen in front of him, one that tracked our ship’s progress across the system. “I was trying to give her time to escape, to escort her somewhere she would have the freedom to be safe.”

A screen showed a group of asteroids coming within range. I opened another screen and began calculating course adjustments. “I thought defying an Alpha was punished rather severely.”

He tapped on the screen examining the list of floating cities, habitable planets and other nearby way stations. “My father will forgive my mistakes.”

The rule of flying in deep space was to occasionally update yourself on where you were, in the event of an emergency evacuation. It was always important to know the location of the nearest habited space. I tapped another display and made sure the list would appear in the princess’s quarters. “Must be nice to be the favored son.”

“I’ll still be punished when we return. He won’t help me get my people out of there. I have to go back.”

I shouldn’t ask. “How many did you leave behind?”

There was no reaction, no movement, no change in expression, and yet something tensed between us all the same. “Three,” he said finally in a grim voice.

Weight was a serious consideration on deep space vessels that non-pilots often thought was a non-issue. I sighed. “I can recommend pilots that might be able to help you once we arrive at Chaandrayan Station.”

He leaned on my armrest, invading my space with that alpha trick again. “What will it take for you to help me?”

His mouth was too close to my ear, his voice too intimate. But I couldn’t move away from him; it would show too much weakness. “You know unusual things about space engines. So I’m guessing you at least know how to fly deep space.”

He grabbed my other armrest, spun me to face him, his eyes with an interested gleam. “I can do deep.”

I put my feet on the ground and moved my chair back. “The Starbolt is like nothing you’ve ever flown before. It’s a fighter pilot’s dream. Fast, deadly and responsive as a mind-reading lover. When you fly a Starbolt it’s like you could take on everyone in the universe on your own, you’re unstoppable. I’ve fought my whole life to be the pilot of a Starbolt. Once this mission is complete, I’ll get mine back. Short of the next generation of Starbolt-class fighter, there’s nothing you can offer.”

He was quiet for a moment. “We’ll see.”

* * *

Hours later, I watched on screen as the planet grew closer.

With blue skies, salty oceans, and vast rainforests at the equator, Ketu-7 looked more like First Earth than other more inhabited planets. Why had this planet not been settled? I ran a quick search on Ketu-7 but the Coalition didn’t have much. It had never been contested, and had always been pretty firmly claimed by the Tigrantines.

Ral returned to the cockpit. Where he had gone earlier, I didn’t know and frankly, didn’t care.

Or so I kept telling myself.

“We have to avoid the Tigrantine bases, which shouldn’t be too hard to do.”

“There are four of them. Do you have an idea of how many tigers are usually stationed on a base?”

I had to think about it. This was a question that ground troopers would know in their sleep. “About 5,000.”

He nodded. “20,000 soldiers is a lot to send to an uninhabited planet. It’s not just the soldiers, it’s the support, the infrastructure, the expense. That’s not something you do for any rock in space. They’re up to something.”

I let out a sigh. “Let me guess. You want to divert course to investigate.”

“If the Princess were not on this ship, yes. But we can’t risk her safety. When you leave the ship to complete your repairs I will come with you. You need protection.”

“If I were a man, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”

He made some wolf-like growl. “You’re not a shifter.”

I didn’t know if species-ism was worse than sexism. “I guarantee you I can take care of myself.”

“Nonetheless, I am coming with you.”

Clearly saving his life didn’t mean a damn. “Don’t you have an injured sister to take care of?”

“I am taking care of her. Our best chance of getting to safety is to make sure our pilot is not attacked or eaten by strange alien beasts. As long as my sister remains on the ship, she will be safe.”

The only danger I was in was of hurting this idiot and causing an international galactic incident that would almost certainly lead to a court martial. If Ral got attacked, it would be on my record. Although after watching him take on six tigers alone, I was fairly certain he would be able to handle himself.

I looked at him, taking in his once again shirtless form. It was a matter of math. He was eye-catching because his musculature was so deliciously symmetrical.

Fucking math.

I sighed. “Fine, come along. Make sure you’re actually wearing clothing.”

I could hear the grin in his voice. “Does my lack of clothing make you nervous?”

“No. Just don’t want to have to explain how your precious royalness died from alien plant poisoning because he was too stupid to wear a shirt.”

* * *

My faceplate shielded my eyes, but I still needed to adjust the dimming function to the overly bright sun of Ketu-7. It had been a while since I had been on any habitable planet that actually had plants let alone an actual unharvested forest; most of my work was based out of the artificial floating space cities or on free standing military space stations.

Something fell on my arm and I nearly jumped halfway to one of the two moons. I looked again. A leaf. It had fallen. Yup, this was foreign territory for me.

Ketu-7 may have looked like First Earth, but the higher level gravity was a force to contend with. Without my exo-armor, I would feel twice as heavy as I actually was, which would make me feel like I was swimming and breathing quantarian exhaust. In my exo-armor, it wasn’t an issue. I could run kilometers, lift aircars and punch a hole through starsteel walls.

Ral practically gamboled out of the ship after me, wearing nothing but an ordinary military gray jumpsuit, adjusting to the high gravity without a problem. Then again, Alzar-4 -- the home of the werewolves – was also a high gravity planet.

He went past me, jogging around the clearing, taking in the scent and shape of the alien world. It was ridiculous how he even managed to make that awful military gray jumpsuit look not only good, but dangerous. The man could probably wear nothing but a loincloth and still be threatening.

Goosebumps sprang up all over my skin at that thought. I hastily buried that rather distracting image deep in my mind.

He came to stand next to me. I turned to face the ship. It towered over me, as tall as a three-level building. For the most part, Star Serpents were typically functional and sturdy spaceships, but they always looked like they’d flown through a dump with a magnet. I looked up, trying to figure out a good place to work beyond the various protrusions and dents and spotted a large flat area to the rear. Yes, that would do.

I paused and my old fear of heights punched me in the chest once more. Yeah, yeah, I had heard all the jokes in the Academy, a pilot being afraid of heights. But flying in the vastness of space was different than teetering over the edge of some flimsy structure so far from the ground.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.” I’d have been better if he hadn’t been standing next to me. I took a breath, and jumped.

I looked up again noticing an access ledge midway between the ground and Gigi’s topside. I could grab that if I fell.

I caught the topside edge and scrambled on top of the ship, something that would have been impossible without my exo-armor.

I lay back on the roof, looking up at the sky for several moments.

He stood above me. He must have jumped up almost exactly as I had. Only without exo-armor. Probably more gracefully.

He grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights, Captain.”

I made myself get up, or rather, ordered my exo-armor to move me upwards. Focus on the task at hand. “We have a job to do.” I picked a pry bar out of my kit and walked towards the tail end, then jammed it into a seam on the starboard side. “Shouldn’t you be keeping watch, making sure nothing is going to come attacking out of the bushes?”

“Your ship has better senses than I do, and will alert you faster than I could.”

“Congratulations for finally realizing that. What is the point of you being out here?”

He gave me a smirk that had no right to be so sexy. I didn’t know it was possible for me to want to fuck and hit someone at the same time. “I wanted to see what you are doing.”

Yes, an audience was what I needed, because it helped me fix things so nicely last time. Clearly his secret motive was to annoy the hell out of me. Did he take management lessons at the University of You-Must-Obey-Or-Else-I-Will-Harass-You-to-Death? “Why do you care?”

“Why do you think I don’t?”

Still not going to look at him. “Because you’re an arrogant handsome son-of-a-bitch who expects your every desire fulfilled immediately.” Oh no. Did I really tell him he was handsome? Well it wasn’t something he didn’t already know. I could see him smiling out of the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him.

“I’m not used to having my requests denied.”

Spoiled prince. “There's a first time for everything.”

His words echoed in my head. And then I realized it wasn’t the words that were echoing.

Everything else in the forest had gone completely silent.

My exo-armor crackled with electricity, a defensive response to my sudden wariness.

And then something massive, white, furry and full of sharp teeth rushed us.

Ral shoved himself in front of me, and leaped for the monster. The two fell off the roof of the ship. I scrambled to the edge and saw a massive white wolf circling the thing. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was a tiger shifter. It was certainly as big, fast, and strong as a tiger shifter, but its movements were oddly hitched.

It circled Ral’s white wolf form silently, even as Ral growled at the thing.

And it had no heat signature. No wonder the damn ship didn’t sense it.

“Computers, new targets have no heat signature, track based on motion and speed.”

Multiple targets bubbled into existence in my vision. Two more leapt from the trees. I fired. It exploded in a burst of light, but the second one dodged. With a single paw swipe, it knocked me off the roof. I fell, hitting the ground hard. I tried to get up, but the thing leapt on top of me. Teeth the length of my forearms crunched around my face, darkening my vision. The visor held, but the alerts beeped as the bar showing my suit’s protective level shrank.

I struggled, but even the exo-armor’s added strength couldn’t combat the speed with which the tiger was shaking me, its jaws clenched on my helmet, flinging me around, trying to dislodge my head from my body. Rationally, I knew the exo-armor had been through far worse but sometimes mind-shrieking fear is the only logical response. With great effort, I jammed my fingers in the thing’s eye. Power crackled through the outer layers of my armor, blasting the tiger off of me. Relief rocked me as I fought off the edge of adrenaline-based queasiness.

My helmet signaled more incoming. No time to be sick. I looked around, and jumped back up to the roof of the ship to get a better vantage point. I scrambled over to the opposite edge of the ship. The prince was still circling the tiger. I could barely catch my breath to yell at him. “Hey Highness, are you done flirting yet?” Another target appeared in my screen. I fired into the trees. Something massive fell to the ground.

The tiger circled. The wolf dodged, twisted and clamped his jaws on the tiger’s neck and bit down. A crack echoed through the forest.

He sprung up and leapt back onto the roof of the ship.

I turned to fire at another target up in the tree canopy. “What the hell are these things?”

The Prince had shifted when my back was turned. “Don’t know. But they sure as hell don’t smell like tigers. They stink of the dead.”

“They’re not movin’ like they’re dead.”

“Captain,” came Red’s voice over our comlink. “Something has short circuited the local artillery. We can’t fire on the tigers without compromising the shield. Check the starboard weapons regrader.”

“Can they get in?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay in the ship with the Princess.”

Ral had picked up my soldering iron and was holding it out like a sword. “See now? Aren’t you glad I’m out here?”

“Zombie tiger shifters, a broken down starship, and a prince who doesn’t know he’s not in charge. What more could a girl want?”

His reply was muffled when another tiger knocked him off the ship.

I started soldering as fast as I could. “Mute all sounds save for immediate threats and requests for assistance.” The noise of battle faded away and I concentrated on manipulating the wires and the screws.

When I had finished, I saw Ral on the ground, stalking back toward the ship. Naked. Shifting had torn his clothing to shreds, and yes, he was big all over. He was filthy, dirty and had no right to be that sexy after a fight.

He said something and I realized I still had him on mute. Maybe I should keep the suit on all the time. “Restore sound.”

“ — going to go investigate.”

He leapt off the ship and disappeared into the forest.

What?

“Replay conversation,” I said out loud.

The helmet played back his voice. “The wind shifted. There’s a strange smell to this place. I’m going to go investigate.”

The fuck was he doing? “Red, is everything working now?”

The sound of Red’s voice crackled momentarily. “Yes. Everything is working. Where did the Prince go?”

“I have no idea.”

Red snickered. “Maybe you should put a tracking collar on him, Captain.”

I scanned the direction he disappeared in. There was something weird about the plant life that screwed with my sensors so I had no idea where he was or how far he was.

With my luck it was probably sentient flesh-eating flowers, the kind that actually moved. Or worse, flying sentient flesh-eating flowers.

A breeze rustled the vine-like tubes, which rubbed against each other in odd haunting whistles.

I watched the horizon. Starshit in a noodledick I could have flied and died in two dogfights by now. Where was he?

I walked to the edge of the roof, looked down at the ground where the bodies of the not-tiger-shifter things laid.

Should I go looking for him? But then if I got eaten, that left Red to get the Princess home.

Red was a good pilot but she was freshmeat, just out of flight school. She got assigned to me to learn the ropes.

Something cracked and I spun, charging up my rifle.

Ral cradled a body much too small to be covered in that much blood. The look on his face was fury incarnate.

“The tiger-shifters are experimenting on their own children.”

* * *

Ral ended up bringing a total of five children to the ship. According to the med-bot scans, their ages ranged from six to eleven. They were filthy, emaciated and covered with scars. Neither Red nor I had any fluency in Tigerese beyond asking for the bathroom, so it was up to Ral and Seria, who both spoke it fluently. With Ral, the kids were almost mute but for some reason they opened up to Seria.

After speaking with them at length, Seria drew herself up, anger and tears in her eyes. “There were more. But they’re dead. These five were left behind to survive on their own.”

Red shook her head. “That makes no sense.”

“They’re trying to breed super-soldiers,” said Ral. Despite their emaciated status, the children’s bones and muscles were three times as dense as any ordinary shifter, which meant that despite looking like skin and bones, each one weighed as much as a fully grown human. Ral shook his head. “We had some intel that the tigers were disappearing dissident families and families with crossbloods.”

Fuck. The Star Serpent had been modified to carry five adult passengers, including me and Red. I rubbed my forehead. Any more weight would compromise flight integrity. That could mean the difference between capture and escape or life and death if the tigers got our scent again.

Red, cradling a kid in tiger form, knew what I was about to ask. “Could we take the kids, yes. Would we be able to jump, no.”

Without hyperjump capability, we’d have to rely on access to wyrmholes in heavily guarded spaces. Not the best option to say the least.

“There’s got to be something we can dump. We can’t leave them here.”

Ral raised an eyebrow. “Not enough to make a difference for the kids.”

I took a deep breath and stared at the ship above me. What could we sacrifice in order to get this thing off the ground? I looked at Ral, still shirtless as ever, but thankfully wearing pants. He was devastating when he was naked.

“Red, how much weight could we take if we removed the outer hull shielding?”

There was silence. “Captain. You can’t be serious. That’s…that’s — “

“That’s like walking naked into a tiger pit,” said Ral.

This was my decision. Red would follow orders. I wasn’t so sure about Ral or his sister. I faced him. “You, Your Highness, would be fine walking naked into a tiger pit.”

He gave me a very confident grin. “Your point is, Captain?”

“You’ve seen what I can do. I can get us out of here without the tigers even knowing we exist. I haven’t taken a direct hit on my hull since flight school. We’ll still have the electroshield generator to protect us from long range attacks.”

Red pressed forward. “Captain, stripping the ship of its primary armor is going to put us all at risk of radiation poisoning. We’d have to stop somewhere and either switch ships or somehow get another hull well before we get to Coalition space.”

Without a hull we couldn’t enter any planet’s atmosphere. We’d have to make a stop at either a space station or, more likely, one of the independent floating cities, each of which were filled with space pirates who would sell us out at hyperspeed.

“We wouldn’t have to take off all of the shielding,” I said.

“No, but you’d have to take off most of it,” replied Red.

“Why not leave me behind? I can stay. I would survive,” said Ral.

His words surprised me. I didn’t know of very many who would risk their lives for their enemies, even if they were only children. The wolves and the tigers had been at war and not-quite-war ever since humanity discovered their kin among the stars.

“I don’t know what they did to these kids. Red’s a junior pilot with no experience in dealing with children, let alone ones that transform into super-powered killing machines. Your sister can’t handle them alone. I need you to help keep everyone safe in the close confines of the ship.”

He was silent.

“I’m the captain of this ship -“

“So I’ve heard.”

“This decision is mine.” I matched his gaze. “But I need to know you’re on board.”

“Are you giving me a choice?”

“I can save you and your sister. I can save the children. But you need to trust me.”

Something odd flickered in his eyes.

I was expecting him to argue with me. To my surprise, he said, “I’d walk into a tiger pit naked with you.”

There was something else underneath those words, trust and other things I didn’t have time to unpack. I nodded at him.

He saluted me.

He fucking saluted me. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“Red, start powering down the outer hull. Redirect that power to the engines.”

“But, Captain — ”

“Do it, Red.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ral grabbed my hand. “Your name, Captain.”

“You already know it. You’re living in my quarters.”

He moved closer to me, so close I could see a tiny hidden braid tied back in his white hair. “I want you to tell me yourself.”

“Skye.” My name tumbled out. “Skye Daring.” No, I had to remember who I really was. “Captain Skye Daring of the United Coalition Forces.” I was a soldier. A pilot. And not someone who had any right to even want a werewolf prince.

He released my arm. “Skye,” he said, somehow looking as if his tongue was licking my name. “How fitting.”

I turned my back to him and walked away. “It’s still Captain to you.”