Chapter One
Astrid
It was all my fault.
There was no one who would argue with that—not even my sister—and she loved to argue with me about almost anything.
Of course, it had been an accident. I hadn’t intended to let our ship drift into Vandar territory. No one in their right mind would purposely enter Vandar space. Not when the raiders patrolled so intently, seeking the slightest excuse to go after a ship and strip it for everything—supplies, weapons, crew.
“How far are we from the neutral zone?” my sister screamed over the sirens wailing on the bridge.
I stared down at my fingers on the console, frozen above the blinking lights indicating our position. Even though I was looking at the coordinates, I couldn’t focus on what they meant. The warning lights that made the skin on my hands glow red had caused my brain to short-circuit.
“Astrid!”
Her sharp voice jolted me out of my daze, and I spun around at the navigational controls to face my sister. Her hands gripped the armrests of the captain’s chair, her knuckles white. “What?”
With her red hair pulled up into a wild bun on top of her head and mine ash blonde and painfully straight, we looked as about different as sisters could. And while she was tall and lean, I was most definitely not. The only thing we shared were sea-green eyes, and right now, hers were flashing with fury. “How much longer do we have to outfly these asshole raiders?”
“Right.” I pivoted back around and took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart and the thoughts ping-ponging through my brain. Did our old freighter stand a chance against a Vandar warbird? What would happen if they caught us? Were the rumors true?
I gave a hard shake of my head. Now was not the time to let my mind go down a rabbit hole.
Focus, Astrid. You can do this.
Even though I couldn’t even hear it over the sirens, I hummed to myself as I moved my hands across the console. The vibrations in my throat calmed me, as they always had, even if the readouts were less than comforting.
I turned back around to face my sister. “We’re still .3 astronomical units away from the neutral zone.”
“Fuck!” Tara jumped out of her chair and took long steps over to my station, dropping her head close to mine. “How did this happen?”
I flinched at the implied rebuke, even though it wasn’t the worst I’d gotten. The truth was, I was a crapola navigator, and everyone on board knew it. The only reason I had the job at all was because this was my big sister’s ship, and she’d put me where she thought I could do the least amount of damage. So much for that.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t meet her eyes, because I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in them. “I might have calculated wrong.”
“Or you might not have been paying attention again.”
I cut my eyes to the pilot at the console next to mine. Even though his eyes were locked on the front view screen, his jaw was tight, and I knew he could hear us.
“I’m really sorry, Tar—“
“Save it.” She stood. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, I need you focused.”
I tried to ignore the burning behind my eyes as she strode back to her chair. I could only imagine how our talk later would go. Probably a lot like the others where she lectured me on responsibility and how lucky we were.
I glanced around the dingy, gray bridge of the battered freighter. Sure, it may be a big deal for a woman to captain her own freighter—especially a woman as young as my sister—but transporting other people’s junk around the galaxy in a ship that had seen better days was not my idea of a good time—or a good life. Not that I could ever say that to my sister. Or ever would.
Despite hating that she still treated me like a child and was bossy as hell, Tara was all I had. It had been just the two of us since we were teenagers, and I knew that as much as she threatened, she would never actually drop me off at an alien outpost.
“Brace,” the first officer cried, seconds before the entire ship shuddered, rocking to one side and almost sending me flying off my seat.
“Report!” Tara yelled.
“A direct hit on our starboard. Hull breach in one of our cargo bays.”
I swiveled to look at Tara. Our cargo bays held all the merchandise and weapons we were transporting from one outpost of the Zagrath Empire to another.
An expression I didn’t recognize flashed across her face, but then she narrowed her eyes and looked straight ahead. “If they think that’s going to slow us down, they don’t know us very well.”
Another hit jolted me so hard my teeth rattled. I clutched the edges of the console to keep myself steady, peering down at the navigational route and the flashing, blue dot that indicated our ship moving slowly across the curved, green line toward the neutral zone where we would be safe. Of course, the reality was that the Vandar raiders didn’t observe the borders of the neutral zone any more than they observed the rules of war. I knew, just like every person on board, that reaching our destination did not guarantee our safety. Nothing could do that in the face of one of the brutal warlords who led their menacing hordes of black warbirds that were said to materialize out of thin air.
More red photon fire exploded across our bow.
“Get us out of here, Mose,” my sister said, over the sound of more weapons firing.
“I’m trying, Captain. But propulsion systems are failing.”
Despite the sirens and the explosions, the bridge seemed to go quiet for a moment. We all turned to face Tara. Tendrils fell out of her bun and curled around her face, blending with the red splotches of color on her cheeks.
She pressed her lips together. “They’ll tear us apart if we keep going, and we’re not going to be able to outrun them.” Her eyes flicked to her first officer, standing slightly behind her at a console. “Power down, and tell the Vandar we surrender. Maybe they’ll take our remaining cargo in exchange for our safe passage out of the sector.”
Bile rose in my throat, and I put a hand over my mouth to keep it down, turning away so no one could see my weakness. Not even Tara believed what she was saying. The Vandar would never let us go. We’d all heard the stories. The Vandar were not known for their mercy, or for negotiating.
I couldn’t bear to look back at my sister. She knew this as well as any of us, but her voice did not tremble with fear like mine would have. She would be brave to the end.
My stomach churned. My sister was going to lose everything, and all because I’d been too distracted to do my job.
Our ship slowed, and the engines ceased rumbling. Soon after, the weapons fire also stopped, and several black-hulled ships appeared off our front bow, almost melting into the darkness of space behind them.
My pulse skittered, and I heard the sharp inhalation of breath around me. The enemy ships looked like massive birds in mid-flight, with arched wings stretching out iron claws from a round belly. I almost expected them to have red eyes that glowed.
Another hard jolt told me the Vandar raiders had locked onto our ship.
“They’re boarding us,” Mose said, his voice toneless.
I finally turned to look at my sister. I needed to talk to her before they came. I needed to tell her how sorry I was.