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“A place at our table,” Josselyn said, her tone softer still, the will to live leaving her. Her heart called out to her ancestors, to her dead family, begging them to come and get her.

  “My table,” he corrected, stepping away. The general lifted a gun, pointing it at her head. She heard the telltale click of metal on metal. The weapon was not one found on the fifth moon. They fought with swords and axes, like the old medieval ways. Though technology was available, not using it was a point of honor. He must have brought the weapon from another moon. Perhaps the Victorians? The Elizabethans? It appeared to be too old to be from much later in time.

  “Do it, Jack.” She didn’t look at him as she waited for the final discharge of the gun, the loud bang before the end. When it didn’t come, she repeated, the words a mere mouthing of her lips, “Do it.”

  “Speed you to a quick end, Josselyn Craven,” Jack whispered. “You all brought this on yourselves.”

  Chapter 2

  The Conqueror, Deep Space, 103 years later

  “Ah-choo!”

  Evan Cormier glanced up from his hand-held electronic book toward the metal ceiling of the ship commons’ area. The lounge was equipped with a viewing screen, gaming tables, couches and chairs. The crew normally spent a lot of time in there, when they didn’t want to be alone in their quarters. Deep space travel could be boring and they often resorted to extreme measures to alleviate the restlessness. It was rare that Evan found himself without company, but he didn’t mind the others being around. Coming to the commons got him out of his room and afforded him time to read in his favorite chair.

  “Princess,” he acknowledged, nodding once at the metal ceiling, even though he couldn’t see the petite Lintianese woman hidden behind it. A loud scrape sounded over him and within seconds the royal lady jumped down from behind a displaced grate. She landed gracefully on the floor, crouched near the ground as she looked around the room. Seeing that Evan had been alone until her arrival, the woman’s dark eyes finally met his. He gave an amused half-smile and set his book aside as he studied the intruder. “What are you up to, Mei?”

  Seeing Princess Mei come down from the above ducts was nothing new. She had discovered the wire-filled crawlspace when she first came aboard the spacecraft. It ran along the entire length of their ship. Back then, she’d been trying to escape Captain Jarek. Evan gave a small laugh at the thought. Jarek did eventually catch her and later married her.

  If truth were known, she still jumped into the ducts to escape her husband and his all male crew. Since the rest of them couldn’t fit there, the ducts had become her private sanctuary. He couldn’t blame the princess. Being aboard a ship, floating in deep space with nothing but men, had to get tiring for a lady. Though, she diplomatically claimed she was fascinated with mapping out the dusty, overhead electronics graveyard of The Conqueror.

  “Moving like the wind,” Mei answered, giving a slight smile. Evan wasn’t exactly sure how much of what she said was the literal truth, for Mei did have an almost supernatural connection to the breeze. She claimed it whispered secrets to her.

  Mei sneezed and rubbed the tip of her nose. Dust streaked a cheek and she hardly looked like the genteel royal they’d first encountered. Before, she’d been in silken robes and had her long, dark hair plaited and pulled immaculately up on both sides of her head. Now her hair was pulled back to fall in a trail from the nape of her neck, hanging long down the line of her spine. She wore black, tight pants and a dark crimson shirt. Both hugged her like a second skin. Whenever they went onto a planet, she wore the low slinging gun belt Jarek had given her.

  Mei sneezed again, her eyes watery.

  “You should go spend some time in the medical unit.” Evan glanced back down to his book. “All that dust can’t be good for your lungs. Who knows what they used to store up there before the captain bought the ship?”

  Mei frowned, and he sensed a wave of irritation. It was a strong emotion, too strong to have come just from his suggestion. She was mad at her husband. Jarek did tend to be overprotective of her, but Evan knew it was only because he loved her so much. Besides, being of Var descent, Captain Jarek was taught that women were the more fragile of the sexes and had to be taken care of. The delicate little Mei hardly needed caring for. She’d been raised in the Imperial palace on her planet, born into not only the power of her family’s rule, but into actual power. She was like the wind, free-spirited and hearing its confidences. Acting on instinct, she could handle herself and had been training in the Virtual Reality rooms to prove it.

  Evan grimaced as he realized he was picking up on Mei’s emotions again. For the most part, he tried not to use his ‘gift’ to read into the other crewmembers’ personal feelings, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

  “Your husband is exasperating you again, isn’t he?” Evan asked, resigning himself to the interruption.

  Mei nodded.

  “Still fighting over what you named the baby?” he continued.

  Again, she nodded.

  “I know that’s not what’s really bothering you.” Evan gave her a meaningful look. He picked up on several things from her lately, but most predominate was the need for privacy and space on certain issues.

  Mei shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

  “He loves you. He will listen.”

  “I know, but I must first discover what it is I wish to say. There is no air here. I cannot listen to my own thoughts blowing through me.”

  “He’s coming this way.” Evan glanced meaningfully toward the door.

  “Help me?” Mei asked, her tone soft and still burred with the accent of her birth. There was just something about the tiny woman that begged to be taken care of, and each and every member of the crew felt it. She was like their little sister.

  Evan sighed and stood. Threading his hands together, he held them like a step. Mei placed her foot in his palms and lifted up, jumping to catch the end of the grate. She moved with incredible agility, especially for a woman who’d just had a baby six months ago.

  Poking her head over the side, she whispered, “You didn’t see me.”

  “Mei!” Jarek yelled, sliding to a stop at the doorway. Long, waist-length dark hair flew about his shoulders from where it was bound at the nape of his tattooed neck. It was clear he’d been running around the ship, chasing his wife. His eyes glowed, threatening with the tiger he could shift into at will. “Sacred Cats, woman, get down here and talk to me!”

  “There is nothing to talk about, ten nai,” Mei yelled just as loudly. “We are not calling our son Parker anymore.”

  “But that’s his name,” Jarek protested, his tone giving away how exasperated he was. “Besides, you liked it when we were at your parents’ house. Your father even announced it as the baby’s name before he was born. What else are we to call him?”

  “Well, it annoys me now. If you keep saying it to him, he’ll think it is his name for real.” Mei’s voice was muffled, and they could hear her crawling away from them.

  “Well,” Jarek paused, sending a wave of frustration over Evan. “It is his name for real. Read the birth announcements.”

  “You put those out before I could agree to it, before he was even born.” Her voice had gotten faint and Evan knew she was already quite a long ways down the duct.

  “Irritating fea,” Jarek mumbled. “I cannot help it if I was excited. He was halfway born when I sent the transmission to my family.”

  Evan laughed, taking his seat once more. “I thought you’d decided on Parker before the birth.”

  “We did,” Jarek grumbled. “Emperor Zhang is pressuring her for a family name to be added to Parker. I told her we could name him after my twin brother, Reid. Sacred Cats, any of my brothers for that matter, but she wants a Lintianese royal name. I’m sorry, but I’m not calling my son Jin. I knew a Je’en once and she was three hundred pounds of slime. I’m not calling my son that. His Var cousins will beat him up for it.”

  “It’s only a second name,” Evan reasoned,
knowing that Jarek’s nieces and nephews would do no such thing—at least not in earnest. Var family ties were too strong. Evan often felt jealousy when Jarek was near his family, not jealousy on the captain’s part, but his own. Aside from his friends, Evan had no true family. It wasn’t so much that his friends weren’t good enough, as they were family in a way, but only being around Jarek and his brothers made him miss the family he’d lost.

  “I know. I’ll probably give in, but the woman keeps running away from me whenever I try to discuss it.” Jarek sighed. “I want to know what this is really about first before I start agreeing to changing my son’s name or adding to it, or whatever other crazy idea she has in mind. I know Parker’s name really isn’t what’s troubling her, but she won’t talk to me.”

  Evan didn’t answer. He knew better than to get into the middle of people’s affairs, especially when the heart was involved. Jarek looked at him, hopeful. His voice flat, he said, “I’m not reading your wife, so don’t ask.”

  Jarek gave him a funny look and said dryly, “Enough about me. What you reading now?”

  Evan passed his hand-held reader over to Jarek so the captain could see the screen.

  “The Practical Impact of Lintianese Elements on Everyday Life—a translation from the original text,” Jarek read, shaking his head. “You’re still dwelling on that prediction, aren’t you?”

  “Just trying to make sense out of what Zhang An said.” Evan sighed, taking the hand-held from Jarek.

  Zhang An was the ancestral spirit of Mei’s Imperial family. Rick Hayes, their pilot, had angered the spirit and, as a punishment for his insults, she had partially predicted some of the crews’ futures. The punishment part wasn’t the reading, but the cryptic way in which it was done. Truth was, Evan didn’t think there was any way to translate the ominous divination. He’d come to the conclusion that An had only said what she did to mess with them. It was working. He could think of little else since.

  Closing his eyes, Evan leaned back in his cushioned seat as he remembered the day An had predicted their futures. The ability to remember things with crystal clarity was one of his gifts—or so he was told. There were some memories he wished would fade with time, some things he’d rather not see again, and it was hard to consider those vivid memories a gift.

  A wave passed over the darkness under his lids and a blurry vision of what had once been came to him. The image of the past cleared, and he could see things just as he’d seen them when they happened.

  Jarek had just brought Mei home to her parents. The two had been in love, but didn’t think they could be together. Mei was a Lintianese princess and Jarek was a Var prince who, for all intents and purposes, didn’t use his title. Instead, he went by captain and kept to the high skies as a borderline pirate balancing on the edge between law and outlaw. Jarek was still loyal to his family, but the prince knew he had to live his own life. It took Mei awhile to learn the same, but here she was with all of them, wandering the universes in search of whatever it was they all sought.

  Evan took a deep breath, listening to the past for clues and knowing it would bring none.

  ‘Whoa, easy there, ghostly sweetness,’ a remembered voice whispered in his head. It had been Rick speaking, insulting the ancestral spirit. He was the ship’s pilot and a talented one at that. For all his devil-may-care attitude and rakish demeanor, Rick really was a good man. He’d give his life for anyone of his friends, just as they would give their life for him. But caring for the man like a brother didn’t change the fact that he was downright infuriating at times. Evan knew Rick only said what he did to the old spirit to draw attention away from the captain at a tense moment, but the spirit hadn’t taken kindly to the insolent tone.

  Evan kept his eyes closed, trying to remember each detail of what had happened. It wasn’t hard. He thought about it every day.

  ‘I will teach you respect, little man. You will bow in the presence of my greatness... Do not make me curse you.’ An’s spectral figure had glistened with light as her anger grew. Long, dark hair streaked with white flowed around her shoulders. Her sleeves swept over the ground as she drifted slightly over them. The delicate silk of her gown was made even more so by the fact that it traveled on air. Every movement was silent, like the breeze.

  Evan had tried to get Rick to be quiet, but it didn’t work. The man always pushed things a little too far, going on to perversely comment about the woman’s gown getting twisted or some such nonsense. Since Rick had a thing for twenty-first century Earth memorabilia and sayings, they couldn’t always figure out what some of his expressions meant. The old spirit might have just let him go with a small personal curse, but Rick then made some comment about her powers or lack thereof. Instead of just bringing her curse upon himself, Rick caused her wrath to turn to the other members of Jarek’s crew—at least those unfortunate enough to be present at the time. Evan, Lochlann, Jackson, and Dev still didn’t fully forgive Rick for what had happened next.

  An’s eyes had turned white, as she foretold just a tiny piece of their future, ‘Together you travel and together you’ll remain. Tied and joined like the five elements of our people. The road to happiness is very rocky for all of you.’ When her eyes had cleared, indicating she’d come out of her vision, she’d smiled vindictively at them. ‘You will find your love hidden within the mystery of the five elements. One element for each of you. The corresponding element will hold the secret to your future happiness. But fate is not clear. If you do not recognize it, you will lose it and be forever alone.’

  Since Evan was unable to psychically read spirits, he didn’t know if she was lying or not. Part of him hoped she was, but in truth it didn’t matter. Her words served their purpose. They tormented with just a glimpse of the unknown and no real guidance as to what it could mean. That was the true curse, not knowing the rest or what could be done about it.

  Zhang An obviously had great powers. She could have told them more, could have said which element was assigned to each man, could have said when, where, more of the how. No, all they got was the ominous, ‘If you do not recognize it, you will lose it and be forever alone.’ Now, the secret to their future happiness rested in the mystery of the five Lintianese elements.

  “Mei says it will come to you as soon as you stop dwelling on it,” Jarek offered, drawing Evan from his thoughts, back into the present. “She also said that the words are not literal, but figurative. It could be a nuance of the intended’s personality or she could love water or fire. Sacred Cats, the wood element could merely mean the woman was born at the same time a tree was felled outside her birth room door. It is impossible to tell. You should take your mind from it and live as you have. Nothing has changed.”

  Nothing? Evan wanted to laugh and scream at the same time.

  “How? There is nothing to do on this ship and seeing you happily married doesn’t help matters.” Evan shut off the reader and set it aside. He had read book after book and they all said the same thing. Five Elements—fire, earth, wood, water, and metal. Simple and complex. Infinite possibilities. Ultimate insanity.

  But how could Evan stop looking? Zhang An’s words threatened the very thing he wanted most—to once again have a family. He wanted a family of his own so badly that the idea of missing his chance, of walking by the woman he should be looking for, tore at him.

  Jarek laughed dryly as he looked to where his wife had disappeared. “Yeah, right. Happy.”

  “Love her. That is all you can do.” Evan relented a little as he said just enough to ease Jarek’s overbearing worry for his wife. “I think we all need a diversion, even Mei.”

  “Such as?”

  “We need to find some mischief to occupy our time.” Evan gave a sly grin. “Want to go kidnap your brother again? That was entertaining.”

  “Again?” Jarek shook his head. “No, you are not laying that deed upon my head. That was under Samantha’s command. She was your captain on that fated mission.”

  “At least it was fated t
o end well.” Evan chuckled. “Samantha and Falke did marry.”

  “This will end well, too.” Jarek motioned toward the book Evan had turned off. “You’re too good for the gods not to bless you.”

  Evan wished he had such blind certainty. The Var never seemed to struggle when it came to faith in a higher power. To them it just was, as real as the green-tinted sky stretching over their planet of Qurilixen.

  Evan watched the captain leave, knowing Jarek was going to try and track his wayward wife down.

  ‘If you do not recognize it, you will lose it and be forever alone.’

  That statement haunted his dreams. Five elements for the five single crewmen who had stood before her. Unluckily, Evan was one of the five. If Rick hadn’t saved his life so many times in the past, he would’ve thrown him off the spaceship thousands of miles away from any planet. The others were in the exact same situation as he was. Rick had saved them all more times than they could count, and that wasn’t including the numerous times he’d flown them out of a dangerous chase. Well, admittedly, the number was significantly lower for the crewmen Lochlann and Jackson. The two men were originally part of Captain Jarek’s crew.

  Evan, Rick, Dev and the two brothers, Lucien and Viktor, were all originally part of Captain Samantha Dorsey’s crew. When Sam married the kidnapped Prince Falke and chose to stay with him on his home planet, they were left without a ship or a captain. Prince Jarek, Falke’s brother, needed a crew and they needed a captain. It worked out perfectly for all.

  Evan’s stomach tightened, as his thoughts turned to Sam in perfect detail. She had saved his life long ago. It was an old, painful wound and a memory he didn’t like to visit. In that memory, he’d lost everything—his family, wealth, legacy. Sam had been his bright spot, his reason for living. She’d nearly died to save him, and in turn, he’d nursed her back to health. Out of all the things he had, she was the most important. Though she was happily married and well taken care of, living like a princess, Evan missed her. Even so, he wouldn’t change her fate. Never would he take a friend’s happiness for his own.