Chapter 3
Serna
I never tired of the beauty of space.
Even traveling at speeds that reduced most of the universe to streaks of light and color, there was something profound about it.
The endless dark punctuated by distant stars, the way nebulae bloomed like flowers in the void.
Through the viewport of the light ship, I watched the cosmos blur past us, a reminder of how vast the universe truly was and how small we were within it.
The ship itself was a marvel of Ardesian engineering—sleek, compact, built for speed rather than comfort.
Every surface gleamed with polished metal, and the hum of the hyperdrive was a constant presence, thrumming through the deck plates beneath my feet.
Kalipuk sat at the helm, his six-fingered hands moving across the controls with practiced ease.
He was my favored pilot for good reason: his skill was unmatched, his loyalty absolute.
I sat at the small table in the passenger compartment, intelligence reports from Asad spread before me.
The data streams flickered across the holographic display, detailing movements along the outer territories, whispers of unrest, the usual political maneuvering that never ceased even in times of mourning.
I should have been analyzing threat assessments, tracking the hundred small crises that demanded my attention. Instead, I was acutely aware of every breath Cullen took across from me.
Centuries of duty had carved away the parts of me that desired personal happiness.
I'd learned early that being Prime meant sacrifice—watching my mate love someone else, burying my youngest son and continuing to lead as if my heart hadn't shattered, standing at Chavon's funeral feeling nothing but guilt that I couldn't grieve properly.
I'd forgotten what it felt like to want something for myself.
Or perhaps I'd never allowed myself to remember.
And now this human—this impossibly strong, impossibly kind human—was making me want to break every rule I'd ever set for myself.
The pull toward him bypassed logic, bypassed protocol, bypassed every carefully constructed wall I'd built over a century.
When he looked at me, I felt seen in a way that made me want to surrender everything—my position, my duty, my carefully maintained control.
But that was exactly why I couldn't. The Alliance needed a Prime who was untouchable, uncompromised, above personal entanglement.
Any hint of favoritism toward an Earth human would destabilize my position, give ammunition to those who already questioned human integration.
And I would be asking him to sacrifice too—to be the mate of a female who could never truly be his, who would always choose duty first.
So I would maintain this distance. I would be professional, respectful, the leader the universe needed me to be.
It would cost me. I could feel that already, like a weight settling into my bones. But it was the only honorable choice.
I turned my eyes back to the reports and forced myself not to feel the way my heart reached toward him anyway.
The compartment was small. Too small. The table between us felt like both a barrier and a mockery of one.
Cullen sat across from me, reviewing his own data.
The way he frowned slightly when he concentrated.
The strength in his hands as he swiped through reports.
The faint scar along his left temple—a souvenir from his military days.
The warmth that seemed to radiate from him even in the recycled air of the ship.
He looked up suddenly, catching me mid-stare.
For a moment, neither of us moved. His gray-green eyes held mine, and I felt the familiar heat rise in my chest—that dangerous pull I'd been fighting since the funeral. Since before the funeral, if I was honest with myself.
"Serna," he said quietly, and my name in his voice sounded like a question. Like an invitation.
I looked back at my reports, but the words blurred together. "The outer territories are showing increased activity. We should review the patrol patterns."
"Right. Yes." He cleared his throat and returned to his own data, but I caught the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his hand moved more deliberately across the display.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything unsaid. Hours remained until we reached Calpa. Hours of this proximity, this awareness, this constant battle between what I wanted and what duty demanded.
The ship jerked violently.
My reports scattered as I grabbed the edge of the table, my warrior instincts flaring to life. "Kalipuk, report!"
"Massive frigate just emerged from hyperspace!" His voice was tight with controlled urgency. "They're targeting us—weapons hot!"
The ship lurched again, harder this time, and I heard the sickening sound of energy weapons impacting our shields. The lights flickered. Cullen was already on his feet, moving toward the cockpit with the fluid grace of a trained soldier.
"Evasive maneuvers," I commanded, following him. "Get us out of firing range."
Through the viewport, I caught a glimpse of our attacker—a massive warship, easily ten times our size, bristling with weapons arrays. Its hull was dark, unmarked. No Alliance insignia. No identifying markers at all.
Pirates? Mercenaries? Or something worse?
Kalipuk's hands flew across the controls, and the ship banked hard to starboard. The inertial dampeners struggled to compensate, and I felt the g-forces press against my chest. Another impact rocked us, and warning klaxons began to wail.
"Shields at sixty percent," Kalipuk reported. "They're faster than they should be for a ship that size."
"Can we outrun them?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Not in open space. But if I can get us into that asteroid field—" He gestured toward the viewport, where a dense cluster of tumbling rocks loomed ahead. "—I might be able to lose them."
"Do it."
The ship dove toward the asteroid field, and suddenly we were threading through a maze of spinning rock and ice.
Kalipuk's piloting was extraordinary—he anticipated every trajectory, every collision, weaving through gaps that seemed impossibly narrow.
The frigate followed, its weapons fire lighting up the asteroids around us in brilliant explosions of superheated debris.
"Damn, he's good," Cullen muttered, gripping the back of Kalipuk's seat as the ship rolled to avoid a particularly large asteroid. "Reminds me of Navy dogfighters back on Earth."
I glanced at him. "Dogfighters?"
"Old term—goes back to atmospheric combat with fighter jets. Pilots who could outmaneuver anything, turn on a dime, make their aircraft dance." He watched Kalipuk with obvious respect. "Takes nerves of steel and reflexes most people don't have."
Another impact, this one harder. The ship shuddered, and I heard something crack deep in the hull. Sparks erupted from a control panel, and Kalipuk cursed in his native tongue.
"Shields down to thirty percent. Hull breach in the aft compartment—sealed, but we're losing atmosphere. They're still on us. I can't shake them."
I made the decision in an instant. "Hyperjump. Now."
Kalipuk's head whipped around, his large eyes wide. "We haven't calculated a safe trajectory—"
"I don't care. Jump us out of here before they tear us apart."
"It could put us anywhere. Far from Calpa. Far from any Alliance outpost."
"Better lost than dead. Do it."
"Seats. Now. Strap in." Kalipuk bellowed.
Cullen and I scrambled back from the cockpit, our boots sliding on the deck as the ship lurched again. Another explosion bloomed against our shields, close enough that I could feel the heat through the hull plating.
"Move!" Cullen grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the nearest crash seats as the ship pitched violently to starboard.
I threw myself into the seat, my fingers fumbling with the harness straps.
The five-point restraint system was designed for Andorian physiology—broader shoulders, different torso proportions—and I struggled to adjust it.
Cullen dropped into the seat beside me, his hands already working his own straps with practiced efficiency.
"Here," he said, reaching over to help me with the chest strap. His fingers brushed mine as he clicked it into place, then tightened the shoulder restraints. "Pull it tighter—this is going to get rough."
I yanked the straps until they bit into my shoulders, then did the same with the lap belt. My heart hammered against my ribs. I'd done hyperjumps before, but never blind, never without proper calculations. The risks were—
Another impact. The ship screamed.
"Strapped in?" Kalipuk called back, not taking his eyes from the controls.
"Yes," I answered, gripping the armrests.
Cullen's hand found mine between our seats, his fingers lacing through mine and squeezing once. I squeezed back, grateful for the anchor.
"Hold on," Kalipuk said.
He turned back to the controls, his fingers dancing across the navigation array. "Coordinates locked. Jumping in three... two... one—"
The universe twisted.
Reality bent around us, colors bleeding into one another, time stretching and compressing simultaneously.
My stomach lurched. My vision blurred. But it was more than that—the temperature plummeted, then spiked, then dropped again, my skin alternating between burning and freezing in the span of a heartbeat.
Sound became elastic, stretching into a low groan that vibrated through my bones, then snapping into a high-pitched whine that made my teeth ache.
I felt my body trying to exist in multiple places at once, pulled in directions that had no names, no coordinates.
For a moment that felt like an eternity and an instant all at once, we existed nowhere and everywhere, suspended in the space between spaces where physics forgot its own rules.
Then we snapped back into normal space with a violence that threw me against the bulkhead. Cullen caught me, his arms steadying me as the ship groaned and shuddered around us. Alarms screamed. The lights flickered and died, replaced by the dim red glow of emergency lighting.
"Status," I gasped, pulling away from Cullen, pulling of the safety harness and moving to the cockpit.
Kalipuk's hands moved across the controls, his expression grim.
"We're at the edge of Alliance space. Barely inside the border.
The jump damaged the hyperdrive—we won't be making another one.
And..." He paused, checking readouts. "Life support is hemorrhaging.
We've got maybe six hours of breathable air, less if we can't patch the leaks. "
"Can we repair it?"
"Not without landing. We need parts, tools, time." He brought up a scan of the surrounding space. "There's a planet nearby. Class M, breathable atmosphere, water. It's... uncharted, I think. Or at least not in the main databases."
I leaned over his shoulder, studying the scan. The planet hung in the viewport ahead of us, a jewel of blue and green against the black. It reminded me of Earth, but smaller, more verdant. Dense vegetation covered most of the landmass, and I could see the glint of rivers and lakes.
"Can we make it?" I asked.
"Yes. But it won't be a gentle landing. Not with the damage we've taken."
"What about the distress beacon?"
Kalipuk tried the communications array, his expression darkening. "Negative. The beacon's offline. Whatever hit us in that last barrage took out our long-range communications. We're on our own, Prime."
I straightened, forcing myself to think clearly despite the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. We were stranded at the edge of Alliance space, on a damaged ship with failing life support, no way to call for help, and an unknown planet as our only option.
"Prep for emergency landing," I said. "Get us down in one piece, Kalipuk. That's all I ask."
"I'll do my best, Prime."
Cullen and I returned to the passenger compartment and strapped ourselves into the crash seats. The ship began its descent, shaking violently as we hit the planet's atmosphere. Through the viewport, I watched the green landscape rush up to meet us, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
"How did they find us?" Cullen's voice cut through the roar of atmospheric entry.
I glanced at him, his profile illuminated by the red emergency lighting. "What?"
"That frigate. How did they know where we'd be? Your travel routes are classified, aren't they?"
"Highly classified. Only a handful of people knew I was traveling to Calpa, and even fewer knew my departure schedule."
"So they were waiting for us." His jaw was tight, his hands gripping the armrests. "That wasn't random positioning. They emerged from hyperspace exactly where we'd be, weapons already hot, firing solutions already locked."
The ship bucked violently, and I grabbed the armrest as we plunged deeper into the atmosphere. My mind raced, analyzing. The frigate's position. The timing. The fact that they'd opened fire immediately—no hails, no warnings, no demands.
"Someone intercepted our travel coordinates," I said slowly. "Or someone in my inner circle betrayed us."
"Persico's warning," Cullen said. "Your greatest enemy is still out there. What if this wasn't pirates? What if someone deliberately targeted you?"
"That's paranoid." But my voice lacked conviction.
"Is it?" He leaned forward as much as the restraints would allow. "Think tactically. Perfect positioning. No identification markers. And Persico doesn't make warnings like that lightly—you said so yourself."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was seeing conspiracies where there were none. But I couldn't. Because he was right.
The attack had been coordinated. The frigate had been waiting. And someone had known exactly where to find us.
"If someone wanted me dead, there are easier ways."
"Maybe they don't want you dead." Cullen's expression was grim. "Maybe they want you isolated. Stranded. Cut off from the Alliance and any help."
The ship shuddered, and through the viewport I saw treetops rushing up to meet us. We were seconds from impact. But all I could think about was Cullen's words, the terrible logic of them.
"Who?" The word came out barely above a whisper.
"I don't know." Cullen's hand found mine between the seats, his grip strong and steady. "But we're going to find out. And we're going to survive this."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to draw strength from his certainty. But beneath my carefully maintained composure, dread coiled in my chest like a living thing.
Because if Cullen was right—if this wasn't random, if someone had orchestrated this—then we weren't just stranded.
We were exactly where someone wanted us to be.