“I don’t think so either,” I fret as I stare at the fake view of Paris. It’s a good fake, with no pixels that I can see. It follows the daytime here, so that the Eiffel Tower is now illuminated the way it is at night. I idly change it to display Mount Fuji at night, which is not illuminated, but just a dark cone against the evening sky. “I’m only the object of the plan. Just an item, just cargo. Powerless to affect it in any way.”
I keep restlessly walking around the apartment for a good while. I’m perfectly aware of why. Whenever I lie down to sleep, all these theoretical things will go up in smoke, and the only thing on my mind will be Mareliux.
My anger is gone, and only sadness is left. I really never wanted to leave. He wanted me to stay, and I wanted that too. Not just because of Earth and Space Force. But because ofhim.
“He showed me a new world,” I mumble. “He brought me into his incredible life and was much nicer to me than he had to be. Was it love? I mean, for me, it was. But was it for him, too?”
“Should I answer?”Vera asks carefully. “Or is this meant only for yourself?”
“Answer if you have somethingrealto say,” I tell her. “Don’t make things up to make me feel better.”
“For him, everything I’ve heard tells me it was love,” Vera tells me in her chipper voice. “But I’m not a mind reader, and Mareliuxisan alien. I may be wrong. Though it’s hard to imagine what he thought he could gain by acting as lovestruck as he has with you. In private, I mean.”
I twist the Syntrix ring on my finger. That strong connection I sometimes felt with him — it was real. I’m sure. Nobody can fake that. That was pure, raw emotion.
No, he did love me. Hedoes. And keeping me here, against my will… he thinks it’s the right thing to do. I’m sure of that.
But he’s wrong.
Exhausted after a long day, I finally lie down on the bed in the normal bedroom, not the pink canopy one. The window screens slowly go dark as the room senses me lying down.
“I’ll have to deal with this tomorrow,” I mutter. “I have to get out.”
I don’t know how much time has passed when Vera buzzes on my wrist. “Umbra!”
“What?” I ask, groggy with interrupted sleep.
“It’s probably me,” says a deep, suave voice.
I open my eyes. The room is very dark. “Mareliux?”
There’s a soft, deep chuckle. “Not quite.”
“Vera, light!” I command as I grab the knife gun Mareliux got me and bounce out of bed.
The AI lights up the room in bright white.
Prince Nerox is standing just inside the bedroom door with his hands up, palms outward, casting a sharp shadow in Vera’s light. “Don’t make noise! You’re in great danger.”
40
- Mareliux-
“Their behavior is strange, sir. They keep falling back, only rarely attacking.” My executive officer points to the strategic display.
I glance at the big main screen in the control room of theGladiux. “Pulling us deeper into space. Either to ambush us at some point or to just get us away. It’s well done, though. They mix retreating with small attacks so it doesn’t become too obvious. But they’re definitely dragging us away from Khav.”
“Into an ambush?” my second in command thinks out loud. “If their main force is waiting somewhere out there, we wouldn’t be able to spot them until we’re too close to get away.”
“That’s possible,” I agree. “But it’s too early to draw conclusions. We’ve barely started chasing them. We clearly have more and better warships than they do.”
The Vyrpy ships are too far away to spot, but the enhanced image shows only the glow from their engines as they retreat. As I watch, one of them turns around and comes at us.
“Another small attack,” I muse. “By a ship that can have no hope of even harming any of our ships. Yes, they are really eager that we follow them. Open fire.”
I try to get comfortable in the seat. I’m aware that I’m squirming in the made-to-measure chair. I just can’t seem to get into the battle focus that I usually fall into when we fight. My thoughts keep returning to Khav, to the one I left behind there. She’s safe, of course. The Calanians will watch over her, and anyone who wants to harm her will have to go through Caret’ax. No Emperor was ever safer in his citadel.
And yet I’m unsettled. The atmosphere in the whole palace city was so strange, so subdued. Umbra was so unsure about her own safety. What did she sense through the Syntrix?ShouldI have brought her with me?
