Smoothing her black uniform with a grey jacket and blue shirt underneath, she picked up her tablet from the desk in her quarters. Swiping her communicator from the edge of her nightstand and affixed to her jacket. As she was adjusting it, it chirped. "First Commander to Captain.""Captain here," Christine responded."Christine, I can't make it to the briefing at 0800. There was a coolant leak in the engineering department," he said."When can you make it?" she asked. "You are crucial to this mission. You have to be at the briefing.""I don't know. Two hours? I have to oversee repairs," he said. "Once I get through with that, I should be able to make it. I'm exhausted, though. Zero sleep over the past thirty-six hours. We need an administrator or one of those holographic AIs that the Fleet is constantly trying to install.""I thought you were against the holo people," Christine snickered."You try staying up for nearly two days and see how yo

The door chimed. The Empress walked to open it. She was greeted by a human female. "Greetings, Empress," Christine said gruffly. "I’ll be checking on you over the next few days. I have another officer who can take my place. I hope it doesn’t bother you.”Christine offered a polite smile. She was talking to an Empress after all."I'm fine, Captain.” The Empress smiled. "The accommodations are quite luxurious. I've never seen such a ship with rooms like these." She gestured for Christine to enter and she looked around the space with appraising eyes. "Is everything alright?""Sorry, Empress. It's in my nature to constantly look for a threat. We received explicit instructions that you are not to be harmed," Christine said, smiling sheepishly. "Empress? Are you okay? You look a little flushed."The Empress nodded. “It’s just a new space,” she said.“Empress…” Christine began.“You

"Holy fucking hell," said Cristine. She groaned and hunched over the toilet again. "Gonna murder that man, I swear to God."“I will pop over to the government building to see if Isabella has any drink on hand to keep your food down,” Ellis soothed. She patted Cristine’s back to help the girl out. If it was like her morning sickness, Cristine was going to want to slaughter Leo for making her pregnant.Leo stood out in the hallway, wringing his tail. He rushed over to Ellis, his eyebrows scrunched together in worry. "Is Crissy all right?"Crissy. They had somehow fallen in love. It had mainly been Leo pursuing Cristine and helping her get revenge on the First Commander and her people to get her heart to open up. The first year on Zothea, she had focused on getting revenge. From the second, she got more used to life on Zothea, even taking up time to go back into space expeditions to help the Emperor and Empress with diplomatic affairs.Cris

Isabella, the princess of the empire, sat on the edge of her nest and wished that she could cry.The doctor had just left. She had called him to confirm what she had already suspected, though the hope had lingered that she was wrong. She was grateful that she didn't have to worry about the doctor telling anyone; part of a physician's vows was to keep their patients' secrets. Her sister Athena, though, was a different story.Athena already knew something was amiss. How could she not? She was her twin, after all, and she knew Izzy better than anyone. She'd never been able to hide anything from her, and she didn't expect to be able to now. Athena had told her yesterday that her scent had changed, her head tilted in puzzlement. And what Athena knew, Elizabeth knew as well because she wouldn't even entertain the idea of keeping something from her.Very soon, the two of them would convince one another that they needed to tell Logan and Ellis, out of concern for her, o

Logan put out an announcement that tonight would be a state dinner and so the temple dining room was packed with people, all of them speculating as to the cause. He and the empress rarely had them and when they did it was usually for a special announcement. The last had been to announce the empress was expecting Prince Edward and the one before that, to announce that Nessie was being appointed to the emperor's Council.Izzy ate mechanically. She wasn't hungry, but Aunt Cristine was right: she had to make sure the baby got what it needed. Drake was alight with excitement and impatient for the meal to end. The entire extended family was seated around the table, all of them wearing their finery. Her mother wore the glow stone tunic she'd worn to her own mating ceremony and Aunt Laurel was dressed in a purple tunic so bright that it hurt the eyes to look at it. Leo kept flirtatiously tickling Cristine's neck with his tail and then looking away innocently whenever she looked up fr