insert blatant self insertion here by Love Gordon

She woke up at the same time she always did, before her mother, before her brother. The classes her mother taught didn’t start until two hours after her own – so her mother wouldn’t be up for an hour, at least, probably wouldn’t even know she was gone for an hour after that.

Long ago, she had learned the art of dressing in the dark – she walked across her room in the blackness relieved only by the faint neon glare of the number on her alarm clock to the chair where she’d laid out her clothes. First went on the silver body armor – old-fashioned, worn, but newly oiled – then her Invader Zim t-shirt and loose black pants. A quick fumbling about on the nightstand produced her glasses, which she neatly placed on her face. Her soft brown leather jacket, striped green scarf, and black Doc Martens completed the outfit. This way, if anyone saw her in the halls, they wouldn’t think to question a student merely going to one of her classes in the Academy.

Once in the bathroom, she hastily performed her morning ablutions, brushed her rather bushy brown hair (well, it had been brown, before she’d gotten it highlighted…) into a ponytail, and put her flamingo earrings in – one that had a small, almost invisible sensor on the back that, when pushed rapidly three times, would alert to her mother that she was in trouble. Not that she expected him to catch onto her. She was too quick for that.

On her way out the door, she grabbed some dried papaya and a roll for breakfast, stuck them both in a paper bag, and grabbed a bottle of water. Voila – breakfast.

Her brother met her at the door. She met his stare evenly.

“You’re not coming,” she informed him. “I don’t want to pull you into this with me.”

“But-”

“No.”

He made a show of whimpering and sticking out his lower lip. “Why do you always get to do the exciting things?”

“Because they’re dangerous,” she said serenely, before hugging her brother tightly. “Go back to bed. If Mom asks, I’ve just gone off to school, all right?”

Her brother nodded. “Be careful,” he told her.

She nodded as well, not trusting her voice, before stepping out of their rooms in the Staff section of the Academy.

~*~

She had been preparing for this day all week – ever since she’d found out what her father was planning. Her mother, she had decided early on, was probably best not dragged into this – especially since her own betrayal was likely to be the more unexpected.

The lapse of a week before her departure had been required by the state of the spaceplane. Fortunately, seven years of training for the Royal Navy at the Academy – she had known her vocation from the age of eight – had prepared her for such a task. The spaceplane – a Scimitar - was twenty years old, rather out of date in such a day and age, but still similar enough to the one she habitually attended to that it wasn’t to hard to repair it. Her mother had kept it in good repair.

The spaceplane had been new when her mother had left the Navy, after only five years of service – a strange, untreatable condition had caused her mother’s eyesight to deteriorate to the point where she could no longer fly a plane, though not enough to completely blind her. Twenty years ago, her mother had accepted her father’s offer of marriage – and settled down as the ruler of a small solar system to give birth to herself and her brother, doing little else.

It had been three years since her parents divorced, and her mother had come back to the Academy, to teach the novice flyers flying tactics from the ground. Her mother had returned to her true home, and the resting place of her spaceplane.

The spaceplane was not as shiny and new as it had been twenty years prior, but it still handled fairly well – she’d taken it out for a spin the previous day. She strapped herself into her seat in the cockpit and spoke the password to the computer.

“Morning, Max.”

“Good morning!” the computerized voice greeted her enthusiastically. “You currently have a full tank of fuel, fifty gold eagles in savings-”

“Chart a course to Minas Tares. The landing pad outside the Glitter Palace, if you can.”

Max was unfazed. “Your authorization code?”

“Twelve-eighty-nine-triple-x-gamma-sixteen.” Her mother would kill her when she found out about this. If her father didn’t first.

“Landing code authorized,” Max told her. “Confirm name?”

“Kamil Maigrey Olefsky.”

“Name authorized. Journey is approximately twenty-seven hours.”

Once they were off-planet and had made the Jump, Kamil Olefsky’s daughter settled down with a large cup of tea and a battered copy of Cyteen, and began to read.

~*~

When she exited the Scimitar twenty-seven hours later, her hair again in a ponytail, a dusting of lipstick on her lips, wearing only her silver body armor, she made no pretense about what she was. Three armed guards took one look at her and led her into a small room deep within the palace. A man with short black hair and wine-colored eyes was waiting for her.

No, not a man, she decided after a few moments – just a boy; she recognized him from the newsvids. The King and Queen’s youngest son, Platus Starfire. He wasn’t much older than she was.

“You are not Kamil Olefsky,” the prince said, sounding unsurprised.

“You are not Dion Starfire,” she replied, meeting his gaze steadily. “I sent a memo a few hours ago – where is he?”

“On holiday.”

“That’s rather inconvenient, you understand.”

“Who are you?”

She clasped her hands in front of her, looked out the window. “The daughter of Kamil Olefsky and the Count of the Zhyllian solar system.” After a moment, she returned her gaze to Prince Platus. “My father is planning to launch an attack on Minas Tares sometime in the next two weeks and attempt to gain control of the Empire. As I find such a thing rather distasteful, I decided to inform you.”

The prince blinked. “Oh?”

“Indeed. Oh, damn- sorry,” she apologized, “I’ve been trying to cut down on my usage of indeed. Improve my vocabulary.”

“Ha.”

“So are you going to get the Navy out there? Soon?”

The prince frowned at her. “Is this a personal vendetta?”

She shrugged. “Somewhat.”

To her utter dismay, the prince laughed at her.

“This is serious, Prince Platus,” she said sternly. Or as stern as she could get, being only a fifteen-year-old possessed of an attitude and fairly decent flying skills.

“My father isn’t really on holiday, you know – we have another informant in Zhyllia,” the prince explained. “He’s actually over there at the moment, taking your father into custody.”

She smiled. It was not a very pleasant smile. “Good. I think I’ll go home now, then. Will the same number give me clearance for the Jump?”

Prince Platus frowned at her, this time in a quizzical manner. “You’re from off-world?”

“Of course. I flew in from the Academy.”

“You flew here from the Academy?”

“Obviously. I’d actually better be getting back- my mother doesn’t, er, quite know where I am…”

“Ah,” said the prince. He extended his hand. “Have a good flight, then. And – what’s your name? I mean… I could put you in for a commendation…”

“Erin, and you really shouldn’t.” She shook the offered hand… and as she did, psychic tendrils spiraled over her…

Oh, shit, they both thought in unison.

They’d been mind-linked.

~*~

Far up above them, on the paths of darkness leading to the place of light, a man and a woman watched them, standing hand in hand upon the path.

“Do you think they’ll make it?” she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“We did, in the end,” he reminded her. She laughed, a silky laugh that was an echo of a dream…