Enemies Abound (The Intergalactic Union #4)

Prologue

Una

Laughter rang out through the small dining room, a thin bandage to cover our worries but a balm all the same.

I scanned the faces around my table, enjoying how my family’s eyes lit up with their mirth.

Tuca yipped from somewhere beneath the table, rushing around our feet as he begged for scraps of food and attention.

When he pawed at my leg I snuck a piece of meat to him when my husband wasn’t looking, then gently nudged him away with my toes.

It was a brief reprieve from the oppressive atmosphere of change, of the silent tension preceding the inevitability of war.

For a tiny moment in time, we could pretend everything was normal and that we wouldn’t have to fear for our lives.

We were lucky, here on Gerinium.

We were far enough on the outskirts of the Intergalactic Union that we were able to continue to remain unnoticed.

They had yet to attempt to threaten us to keep them under their thumbs, our backwoods planet still irrelevant to those in power, just as it had always been.

Before, our abandonment had felt like a curse, our poverty a burden. Now, we were one of the only remaining planets with any true freedom. Of course, we were still beholden to our own governing body. We were practically independent at this point. We had our own rules, our own currency, are own laws, though we were just barely under the ‘protection’ of the Intergalactic Union. A system that had been corrupted too deeply to recover.

They thought we didn’t know.

Too insignificant to be a threat, they continued to ignore us, but we would be fools to believe we would get away unscathed.

The room suddenly became sombre, the quiet so loud that it drew me from my thoughts.

‘Has anyone heard from him?’ Dami, my youngest son, asked the question that was on all our minds.

It had been over a solar since we had heard from my boy.

None of us had wanted him to enlist, but he was adamant he was going to make something of himself and drag us all out of this dump of a planet.

Now, he was in the eye of the storm, and there was no way to know if he was dead or alive.

I had to believe he was still alive.

I would have felt it if my son were no longer of this realm.

I could still feel him residing there within my soul.

‘No,’ we all took turns admitting, the single word like a hammer slamming down on our heads and hearts each time it was uttered.

As if summoned, an insistent banging on the front door cut through the stillness and jolted us out of our grim stupor.

I shared a wide-eyed glance with my husband, and then we were both shooting from our seats and storming towards the front door.

Rett got there first and the door swung open to reveal Tassie, our neighbourhood gossip.

She was panting, the whites of her eyes stark against her darker skin tone while they darted about as if she were preparing for someone to jump out at her from behind the small building.

‘Tassie? What’s wrong?’ I asked as I peered around Rett’s larger frame.

Tuca yipped excitedly at the visitor, followed quickly by Dola’s delicate voice shushing him.

The rest of my family had joined us.

‘Come quick.

It’s Dori.

He’s on the news,’ Tassie blurted breathlessly, waving for us to follow while she was already halfway down the crumbling path.

We didn’t hesitate, rushing after her as she led us through the dusty streets to where the village’s singular holo-screen was projecting in our small marketplace.

Our entire community had crawled out of their crumbling homes to gawk at what was being displayed, and I pushed past them with a little more force than necessary as I fought my way to the front.

I froze when I saw the images flashing by.

Large depictions of men and women of various races, a Union-wide warning of the dangers they posed.

And there he was, his face enlarged upon the holo-screen for everyone to see.

Dorian looked smart in his cadet uniform, a white band around his arm with a single star depicting his rank as a leader among his class.

His expression was relaxed, but his familiar red eyes were fierce as they gazed ahead, seeing something the rest of us couldn’t see.

My heart clenched painfully at the sight, and not just because it was the first time I had seen my boy in over a solar, but because he had somehow gotten caught up right in the epicentre of whatever mess the leaders of the Intergalactic Union had gotten us into.

And now his picture was being broadcast far and wide, his status no longer a respected cadet from the most esteemed military academy throughout the IU, but a wanted man.

A criminal.

Fury rose up inside me like a slowly building wave, a simmering rage singing inside my veins.

How dare they use my boy as a scapegoat? How dare they label him a troublemaker, a danger to the Intergalactic Union, to our families? He had worked far too hard for it all to come tumbling down at the hands of corruption.

But that thought made me pause.

I was looking at the evidence that he was a threat to that very corruption.

Those wanted posters were proof that he had stood his ground and maintained his morals in the face of adversity, becoming their enemy as he fought for what was right.

He had chosen his side, and he hadn’t taken the easy way out.

Pride replaced the fury as I met Rett’s bright red eyes, so similar to our son’s.

He grinned and pointed at Dorian’s handsome face, enlarged to fit the holo-screen.

‘That’s our boy.’