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I was relaxing, trying not to ruminate over Millie, when an LOP officer entered my cabin. “May I have a word with you?”
“By all means.” I gestured to a chair.
He remained standing. “I wish to inform you we have reversed course and are heading back to Aurelia.”
“Why?”
“We are not certain, but it appears Prince Lomax never arrived at the summit. Registration personnel have reported he did not check in.”
“What? Why not? What happened to him?” I leaped to my feet.
“Unknown at this time. His shuttle’s landing beacon activated, so we know the spacepod arrived safely, but he has vanished.” The beacon allowed a passenger to locate his craft again if he landed in unfamiliar territory. “We have pinged him several times, but he has not responded.”
“You left orbit before getting confirmation he’d gotten to the summit safely?”
“An unfortunate oversight.”
Unfortunate oversight? This was dereliction of duty. I held my temper in check, needing to acquire as much information as I could.
“We had no reason to assume he hadn’t arrived safely—until registration personnel contacted us. We tracked the beacon. The prince landed right outside Relia, the capital city and the site of the summit. All he had to do was walk into the city.”
“Why didn’t he land at a spaceport inside the city?”
“We don’t know.
They were pyots! Did they know anything? “Have you alerted the king of Araset?”
“We thought it premature to involve the king until we know something definitive. There could be any number of reasons why we lost contact.” He was right about that at least. Little could be gained from alarming the king or queen until we had the facts.
“The Aurelians have deployed a search party, and we intend to do the same. We will be in orbit shortly, and, once we are, we’ll send a recovery team to the surface.”
“I wish to be involved.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow that. In the unlikely event His Highness has been captured by rebels or traffickers, we dare not risk anyone else.”
Rebels? Had the LOP chosen as its summit site a planet involved in an insurrection? “I am the royal advisor to the court of Araset. If it is a choice between Prince Lomax’s life or mine, I will give my life for his.”
“Our goal is that no one loses his or her life. You will remain on the ship.”
Not acceptable. “What did you mean by rebels? Has there been a problem on Aurelia?”
“We are doing everything in our power to resolve this. I’ll keep you informed.” The LOP officer spun around and left.
In my experience, no answer was an answer. What had the prince been sent into?
As the officer had pointed out, there could be any number of innocuous reasons why Lomax had disappeared. It could be simple irresponsibility. This wouldn’t be the first time a royal son behaved thoughtlessly.
But kidnapping and assassination remained terrifying possibilities. The king and queen would be beside themselves with worry. Not only was their son’s life imperiled, but his disappearance or death would jeopardize the monarchy. Losing the heir to the throne would be too much to bear. The populace would question the stability of the monarchy and their ability to rule.
Hopefully, Lomax had arrived safely but failed to register. A young man with raging hormones, he might have become distracted by a female. It hadn’t taken much for the human to turn his head.
I couldn’t rely on the LOP to investigate. Ensuring the prince’s well-being was my responsibility. The league would do its best to find him, but I didn’t trust it would be good enough. They should have had a better handle on security. If the planet was dangerous, they never should have allowed the prince to go there. They should have called off the summit.
I would deal with this matter myself. Grabbing my handheld, I hurried from my cabin.
* * * *
That’s the entire search team? Two individuals? That’s all they’re sending? A couple of LOP officers boarded a spacepod in the launch bay. There were eleven other transport shuttles available. One docking station was empty—the one for the shuttle that had carried the prince.
The hatch closed on the LOP officers, and a klaxon sounded to clear the bay. I leaped into a shuttle, sealed the hatch then settled into the pilot’s seat and fired up the spacepod. When the LOP “search party” launched through the wide-open exterior door, I scooted out behind them.
I’d programmed a communique to be delivered to the LOP two hours after my departure to avoid raising undo alarm when they discovered I’d vanished and to avoid getting stranded on Aurelia. Given that the LOP ship had left before getting confirmation of the prince’s safe arrival, abandonment wasn’t unlikely.
The search team zoomed toward the planet’s surface, and I followed at a discreet distance. Unless their shuttle’s AI performed a rear scan—and it had no cause to do that—they wouldn’t notice me. No one from the big ship should be able to see us as we were heading in the opposite direction of their orbit.
Aurelia lay below me, its cities appearing as swaths of light filtering through the cloud cover. Some land masses were consumed by light, while uninhabited areas vanished into darkness.
The search “team” would home in on the landing beacon, leading them to Lomax’s last known location. My intention was to maintain visuals and follow them.
But what if I lost them in the clouds? And there was a good chance the prince had left the shuttle. Unless he’d been injured, it only made sense he’d leave the craft. And stars forbid, what if he’d been abducted?
I set my handheld to scan for a signal from the prince’s device. It immediately picked up a strong, but unfamiliar, signal. Not his. The device kept scanning and finally detected his signal, but it was very weak. There must be interference from cloud cover or something else on the planet’s surface.
Before I lost the signal, I inputted the coordinates into the spacepod and let the AI take over the piloting. I felt better not having to rely on visuals. Now two dots blinked on my device, Lomax’s weak one, and the unfamiliar one, the latter flashing so strongly, the device sending the signal could be resting in my lap.
As if it originated from this pod.
Like someone had left a handheld aboard—or did I have company?
I sprang out of my seat and eyed the tiny eliminating/cleansing capsule at the rear of the shuttle. It was the only place to hide. “I know you’re here. You may as well show yourself. Come out now!” I demanded.
Unbroken silence followed my command, and I let out a self-conscious chuckle. There was probably a forgotten handheld in a compartment.
Then the cleansing capsule slid open.
