Returning Heroes Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  Returning Heroes

  ISBN: 978-1-64890-453-0

  © 2022 Harry F. Rey

  Cover Art © 2022 Natasha Snow

  Published in January, 2022 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at [email protected].

  CONTENT WARNING:

  This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers. Death of a prominent character and depictions of death, graphic violence, grief, genocide, infidelity/cheating.

  Returning Heroes

  Galactic Captains, Book Six

  Harry F. Rey

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Author's Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Dramatis personæ

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Omri, my Galactic Captain.

  Author’s Note

  Returning Heroes is the sixth book in The Galactic Captains series. It is strongly recommended to read these books in order, beginning with The Galactic Captains #1: Siege Weapons.

  Chapter One

  The sleek, spacious travel pod sliced through the swirling burnt-orange clouds of Bazman. Daeron edged forward on the puffed, pillowy chair that consistently failed to relax him. He tugged at the high collar of his pure-white Dalvian silk jacket—yet another gift from President Ezreal. He stared out the window at the spindly towers stretching in and out of the clouds above and below. The teeming city-world of Bazman, capital of the Confederation of the Seven Suns, supposedly the richest star-state in the Shakti Democria, was to Daeron no better than any of the thousands of worlds he’d been on. The rich lived above, flying around in these perfumed and carpeted pods, while the poor shuffled in and out of a noxious atmosphere far below.

  Daeron could go anywhere he wanted on Bazman; no store, restaurant, menagerie, or cultural complex was too exclusive for President Ezreal’s new favorite son. Six weeks ago, they’d barely escaped the Kyleri fleet which had blown up Aldegar’s megacollider. Daeron and the remaining crew of the Daring Huntress chased Turo and the double-crossing Ezi into the Shakti Nebula, only to end up invited to land here by Ezreal’s security forces. On Bazman, where he could go anywhere at all, just not leave.

  “What’s wrong now, Daeron?” Osvai said, relaxing in his similarly styled—but all black—Dalvian silk suit. The missing heir to the Kyleri Empire sipped on a Lactarian malt from a crystal glass while grinning at an entertainment package broadcast on the holoscreen in front of his seat. Lest His Imperial Majesty get bored in the half hour it takes to get from Bazman’s presidential palace to the restaurant opening. Daeron glanced over at the prince who was now biting his lip to keep from laughing at the holovid. Daeron watched for a moment. He’d never seen anything so stupid.

  “What’s so funny about people walking into things? It’s cruel.”

  Osvai wasn’t listening. He gasped in laughter as some poor unsuspecting holo-person had a pile of trash dumped on their head. Daeron flung himself against the seat, but it only absorbed the shock and began to massage his lower back. Daeron could huff all he wanted, but Osvai had stopped caring about what bothered Daeron. He stroked his thick black beard, forgetting it was still glistening in the fancy oils Osvai made him use. Daeron wiped his greasy hand on the plush arm of the chair and returned to staring out the window at the traffic lanes of pods gliding through the clouds and between the towers—with no end and no beginning.

  “Are Xenia and the rest of the crew coming tonight?” Daeron asked, breathing slowly through his nose, trying to let the fury of being stuck in a gilded prison subside. It wasn’t going anywhere. Just like him.

  “They left.”

  Daeron spun on the chair to face Osvai.

  “They…left?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” Osvai said, not looking up from the holovid. Daeron yanked at the silk collar constricting his neck, and it let out a satisfying rip.

  “No…you didn’t tell me. That was…my crew. My ship.” Daeron was doing everything in his power to stay calm, but he knew his string was about to snap. Maybe if Osvai understood that, they wouldn’t spend half their nights screaming at each other in their apartment in the presidential palace.

  “I guess they went to meet your mom.” Osvai drained his glass, then stretched and placed it inside an alcove grooved into the wall where a nozzle filled it back up. “Isn’t it her crew again now she’s back?”

  Daeron fell into a sulking silence at the mention of his mom. Maybe Osvai knew him better than he thought. Because the moment Captain Sanya was raised, Daeron shut down. It had been weeks since she and that Tevian girlfriend of hers, Sallah, had crossed back through the horizon point with her brat, Ales. Had they come to see him? No. Daeron had only learned their mission had been successful from the newscasts. The returning hero Captain Ales, who apparently had an Ingvarian fleet at his disposal now, as well as the entire Outer Verge, had been spotted at the Mayo resort in the Central Star States. After their collective trauma, Captain Sanya, Sallah, and Ales had decided to play happy families and treat themselves to a little vacation at one of the most expensive systems in the galaxy.

  It hurt Daeron hard. He’d still not seen her. Not even a holovid call. He stretched out his hand and opened his palm-tech to flick through the only messages his mom had sent since she’d returned.

  The megacollider is gone then?

  Yeah, as if a rebel Kyleri fleet blowing up an ancient sphere surrounding an entire sun had been his fault. Then, loving, motherly message number two.

  Why is Osvai not back on Jiwani? And you lost Turo? Can’t you do anything right?

  Good point. Why was Osvai not back on Jiwani?

  “Don’t you care at all?” Daeron snapped, spitting his frustrations at Osvai. The prince finally looked up from the holovid, staring back with those thin eyes and sunset skin that Daeron couldn’t deny filled him with lust. Even if he was perpetually pissed off at him.

  “Care about what, Daeron?”

  “Your fucking empire.” Daeron stood up, kicking the chair hard so it spun like a ship out of control. Osvai drained his glass again and, with an overly audible sigh, came over to Daeron and slid his small arms as far around Daeron as they could go. But Daeron wriggled out of his half hug and slunk to the back of the pod, watching the dusty clouds spinning like a vortex as they flew.

  “What do you want me to do, Daeron? Fight Viscamon for my throne with what army, exactly?”

  “My mom said to take you home.”

  “Oh, your mom said. It’s always the same story with you, Daeron. Your mom says you have
to stay on Jiwani with a father you never knew, and you stayed. Your mom says look after me until I’m back on Jiwani, and you blame me for staying in the one place in the galaxy no one’s trying to kill me!”

  Here we go. Another screaming match.

  “Can we not do this now?” Daeron said, arms folded and his back to Osvai. “The president invited us to this restaurant opening, and since he’s the one keeping you safe and letting us stay for free, we don’t need you getting drunk and making a scene.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, more drunk.”

  Osvai sucked in a short breath. If they’d learned one thing about each other since escaping Jiwani together on the night of Osvai’s father, Emperor Kantori’s, assassination, it was how to push each other’s buttons.

  “When was the last time you saw Xenia?” Osvai asked, lathered in bitterness. “Or Tal, or Bindi? Or even Voros? When was it? Kaj’s memorial service?”

  “Shut up, Osvai.”

  “You haven’t asked about them in weeks. So don’t pretend you didn’t know they’d leave. You didn’t want to know.”

  “I said shut up!”

  “You can say I’m afraid all you want. And yes, I am afraid of going back to Jiwani when Viscamon is imprisoning nobles until he’s blackmailed enough to crown himself emperor. That’s a normal thing to be scared of. But you—”

  “Osvai, I’m fucking warning you.” Daeron spun around to see him sauntering around the pod with a look of victory splashed across his face.

  “You might look like a big scary man, Daeron, but you’re just a little boy. Afraid of what his mommy will say.”

  Daeron had already exploded. Fury prickled his body; sweat soaked the suit. He’d throw Osvai out of this pod if he could. His fists clamped together, ready to test just how much of a punch this glass could take.

  “You have arrived at your destination,” the pod’s soft female voice said with a ding. “Have a pleasant evening.”

  ★

  They rode the elevator up two thousand floors in silence. The dusty orange clouds swirling behind the glass tube turned to a deep maroon, then a regal purple, before bursting into a universe of black space sprinkled with glittering stars and the dramatic blue-greens of the Nebula above.

  “We look like a couple of board-game pieces,” Daeron said, staring at their reflections. Black and white. Little and large. Osvai ignored the comment, but took his hand—a bit too forcefully—as the elevator doors swished open.

  “Welcome to the Outer Verge Experience,” said the hostess: a woman wearing only body silk and an antigravity hairstyle that made her appear taller than Daeron.

  “That’s what you’re calling this restaurant?” Daeron asked dismissively, trying to catch sight of the inside through clouded glass doors.

  “We’re a revolt against the oppressive fine dining regime,” the hostess continued like she was regurgitating memorized lines. “A rebellion fighting for a new order in culinary excellence, here in the stratosphere above Bazman. We fuse the exotic cuisines of the Outer Verge—”

  “They have cuisine?” Osvai said quietly to Daeron.

  “—to create a taste revolution.”

  Daeron had stopped listening. Above the glass doors which, hopefully, would open at some point after the speech and bring them one step closer to eating, a holopic of none other than Captain Ales stared at them. It looked like a captured still from his speech to the Union troops on the ice world of Jansen. The speech that had inspired a galactic revolution, the newscasts never tired of saying. Although Daeron didn’t really think one rebel Ingvarian fleet made a galactic revolution.

  “Why do you have a holopic of Captain Ales?” Daeron asked. The image had been stylized in chromatic colors to emphasize his dark skin against the frozen tundra of Jansen and gave him the appearance of a figure to be worshiped, idolized.

  “Our executive palette artists—”

  “You mean cooks,” Daeron said. The hostess gave nothing away.

  “—have been inspired by Captain Ales’s heroic struggle against oppression in the Outer Verge and have created this culinary experience—”

  “Restaurant.”

  “—to pay homage to a galactic revolutionary.”

  “You know he’s like a commander of the Union of the Outer Verge now, right?” Daeron said, getting annoyed all over again.

  “Daeron, leave it,” Osvai said, squeezing his hands.

  “If anything,” Daeron continued, “he’s the one doing the oppressing.” The hostess’s emotionless veneer started to crack under exasperation. “The Union overthrew the Trades Council. They’re basically a galinium-mining dictatorship—”

  “We’re delighted to be here,” Osvai said to the hostess who smiled back weakly. At least she opened the doors. Quickly, Osvai dragged Daeron into the cavernous restaurant: a multilevel, multicolored mass of fluorescent bars and floating dining booths under the glowing blue-green light of the nebula.

  “Forget the Kandian rock art exhibition,” Daeron said, batting away the floating holobots buzzing around them and snapping multidegree video thanks to their newly imposed celebrity status. If anything, that was more of a prison than any cage. “This is the most pretentious place on Bazman.”

  “President Ezreal invested in it; why don’t you take it up with him?”

  Osvai kept his otherwise delicate hand firmly wrapped around Daeron’s as he pulled him deeper into the restaurant. Another host, this one dressed in an imitation of the blue-gray uniform of the Union of the Outer Verge, greeted them warmly, shooing away the holobots. Daeron retreated into himself, ignoring the looks from patrons floating above and the waves from people by the bar dressed in what passed for high fashion in the star-state. Osvai lapped it all up though. Of course he is. Phony status is all he needs to be happy.

  The host led them around the smooth edge of the restaurant, up various rounds of floating steps to a platform high above everyone else. Close enough to almost touch the bubble separating them from space. Daeron gazed longingly at the ship-studded constellation of moons and manmade stations in orbit around the capital world. He would happily captain a salvage ship from here to a black-hole dump if it meant getting back into space. The weightlessness of freedom. Having no one tell him what to do, or where to go.

  “Your table awaits, Your Imperial Majesty,” the host said, pointing them toward a square of long, low couches. Holobots whirred around, bringing steaming drinks served in twisted crystal to the exclusive party.

  As Daeron’s stomach dropped down to Bazman’s unseen surface, Osvai dragged him toward the group laughing like rulers who had the galaxy at their feet. The center of attention, at least until Osvai got to the couches, was President Ezreal’s newest husband, Arlan, a preened and pampered champion of some sport that required him to be perpetually pumped full of artificial muscle. When they’d met recently at a state dinner at the presidential palace, Arlan had insisted on challenging Daeron to a weightlifting contest, right there in front of the Thrangan dignitaries. Worse, Osvai had hissed at him between every round to let Arlan win.

  “Osvai!” Arlan shouted like he was at a racetrack. “Daeron, my man. Haven’t seen you in the weight rooms at the palace. Wanted to give you some pointers.”

  Daeron puffed out his barrel chest and pushed right past Arlan; rudely, Osvai would’ve said if he wasn’t so busy hugging and kissing half a dozen people he didn’t know, and who only cared that he was something exotic.

  “I think you mean surgery room, Arlan. A body like yours doesn’t come naturally.”

  “Huh?”

  Daeron didn’t waste his breath. He collapsed on the farthest couch, leaned his head back and watched a convoy of cargo ships get smaller and smaller as they headed toward one of Bazman’s supply-colony moons.

  “Would you like a drink, sir?” the AI voice of a holobot asked, buzzing annoyingly close to his head. “We have an exclusive range of unique cocktails. How about a Tevian twister—”


  “Beer,” Daeron growled.

  “Certainly, sir. We have an exclusive range of specially brewed—”

  “I don’t care if it’s brewed in a space-trucker’s toilet. Just get me a beer.”

  Daeron waved his palm-tech close enough to the holobot to pay, then it buzzed away without another word. At least the AI could pick up on tone, even if Osvai couldn’t. After doing his round of overblown introductions, Osvai sat next to Daeron.

  “Can you try not to look so bored?” Osvai said, lifting a glass of Lactarian malt from a holobot.

  “Can you try not to be so boring?”

  “Hey, Daeron,” Arlan said, injecting himself onto their couch and reaching lecherously over Osvai. “Wanted you to meet Shorla.”

  “Who?”

  A young man appeared next to them. He hadn’t been sitting on the couches when they’d arrived. More importantly, he was holding a beer…in a bottle.

  “Hi,” the smooth-cheeked, light-haired Shorla said, offering a hand to shake instead of one to kiss. “Daeron, right?”

  “Yeah. Where did you get that beer?”

  “There’s a whole barrel of them downstairs. Easier to get it myself. The holobots fizz it up when they bring it. I think they’re programmed to do that.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right. Snobby AI.”

  He could say it plainly because Arlan had dragged Osvai away. Or, more accurately, distracted Daeron with an introduction in order to drag Osvai away. The prince was explaining the finer points of the Kyleri binding system to a rapt and giggling group. Daeron’s holobot appeared with a bottle like Shorla’s, cap off.

  “Here, drink this,” Shorla said, passing Daeron his beer and taking the one from the holobot. Daeron watched as Shorla whacked the bottom of the bottle onto the holobot. Foam fizzed out and dripped all down the sides of the machine, leaving it to spark angrily and swerve away, crashing into the curved wall several times. “That’ll teach it,” Shorla said with a grin, clinking his bottle against Daeron’s.

  “Sure will. So, you’re from Bazman?”