“Attention! Boarding for flight One-One-Seven-Four, Grelau to Jutuneim is now…”

The East Zennikar interstellar spaceport was extremely crowded, which suited the young woman that was moving rapidly through it, being trailed by a small and mostly-inconspicuous entourage. She was dressed fashionably in a long coat and scarf, with dark glasses concealing her eyes. This, in and of itself, wouldn’t have aroused suspicion. It was, after all, a cold but sunny day outside.

However, the way she kept glancing over her shoulder nervously might have tripped a few alarms had anybody been paying attention.

“Move faster.” She snapped imperiously to the duo of tall young men who were shadowing her. “I need to be off the planet as soon as I possibly can be.”

“Yes, Lady Zakrov.” The man behind her left shoulder muttered.

“Shut up, you imbecile.” Vasha Zakrov snapped. “Why not just go over to the guard station and point me out to them!?”

“Sorry Lady… er, Ma’am.” The body guard mumbled sheepishly.

Vasha rolled her eyes and continued walking. She cursed under her breath the sudden direction her life had turned. She’d been forced to flee her home, her business, and all because of some rodent human had gotten ahold of her data.

It was probably the work of Syon Fand. The idea that her erstwhile partner might betray her wasn’t really surprising. Vasha herself had aims in that same direction after all. No, what had shocked Vasha was that she hadn’t figured on the older woman having the patience to train a human to infiltrate her home.

“Excuse me, Miss?” Vasha stopped dead at the sound of a voice behind her. “I’m afraid I’m going to need to speak with you for a moment.”

Vasha turned and saw a young man in the uniform of Spaceport security. She only saw him for a second before her two bodyguards interposed themselves between her and the guard. “That’s close enough.” One of the bodyguards growled.

“We don’t want any trouble.” The security guard claimed confidently. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to have a word with Lady Zakrov here. So, ma’am, if you’ll just-”

“Lady Zakrov?” Vasha let out a tinkling, disbelieving laugh. “Sir I’m extremely flattered, but I can assure you that I am not Lady Zakrov.”

“Well, if that’s indeed the case then this really won’t take long.” The security guard said gruffly. “However, I’m still going to need you to come with me.”

And that was when Lady Vasha Zakrov, abandoning all sense of poise and decorum, turned and fled as fast as she could.

She glanced over her shoulder and discovered that her interrogator was having a difficult time getting past her wall of hired muscle. She smiled, that was as it should be- she paid them enough for it!

Vasha chuckled to herself, confident that she was going to get away.

“Stop right there!”

The young aristocrat turned around just in time to take a swift, debilitating jab straight into her throat. With a startled gasp, she fell backwards onto the hard ground of the spaceport. Before she could recover from the sudden attack Vasha found herself grabbed roughly by a woman who was also wearing the security uniform.

Vasha tried to struggle and free herself, but the larger woman’s grip was like iron. She was pinned to the ground by the woman’s knee. Vasha let out a sound that was half growl of fury and half gasp of pain as her arms were wrenched behind her back and her wrists were tied with hard plastic restraining cuffs.

The pressure on her back was relieved as the security woman stood up. A second later, Vasha was hauled to her feet and marched into the security station, where her similarly bound and slightly bruised bodyguards were waiting.

“Inform Imperators,” Growled Vasha’s captor. “That we have the fugitive they were looking for in our custody.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

*.*.*

A beam of sunlight shot through the window and hit Daz right in the eyes, almost as if it had been targeted.

The young woman groaned and shifted her face away from the intruding shaft of light that that interrupted her pleasant dream, but it was too late. She was awake and sleep, (and that dream) were gone. Anyway, her arm was asleep. Rhionne shifted in her sleep and Daz was able to carefully extricate her limb out from underneath the princess.

Daz stared down at the sleeping woman next to her, and Pierce’s smaller form on the pillow beside them. It had been nice, what they’d had, while it had lasted. But Daz had a feeling in her gut that the Imperators would be closing in on her sister. Vasha’s crimes would be found out, and then… well, and then that would be the end of the pleasant dream that Daz had been living in the past couple of weeks.

Rhionne stirred again and her eyes opened with a yawn, which she quickly moved to cover with her hand.

“Good morning…” She sighed, sitting up slowly so as not to disturbed the slumbering human next to her head. “You have class this morning?”

“Yeah.” Daz mumbled. “I’ve got flight simulator training later today.”

“Hm, well…” Rhionne purred as she leaned in closer to Daz. “I don’t have class for a couple hours yet…”

Daz shut her eyes and turned away.

“Daz? Is something wrong?”

In lieu of answering, Daz threw back the covers and climbed out of the bed. She crossed the room to her desk and picked up her data pad from where it had been lying next to Rhionne’s own. She tapped the screen and brought up her newsfeed, which she’d set to notify her if any particular keywords appeared in an article or news clip.

And sure enough, her newsfeed was overrun with stories on one particular topic.

Daz could feel her throat closing, so instead of trying to explain to Rhionne what was happening, she just handed her data pad over to the confused Princess.

Rhionne took the pad and looked at the article that was featured prominently on the screen.

Vasha Zakrov Arrested.

Rhionne’s eyes widened and she continued to read. Eventually she got to the end of the article and looked up.

“High treason?” Rhionne muttered. “Cruelty to class two sentients?”

“Rhionne…I-”

“How… How could you not tell me about any of this?” Rhionne’s voice was rising and her hands were visibly shaking. After a moment, she threw the data pad down on the foot of the bed and turned back to Daz, her eyes blazing with anger. “Your sister is being accused of torturing humans and all this time you didn’t do a thing about it!”

“Huh?” Pierce muttered, having been woken up by the sudden shouting. “What’s going on?”

“Rhionne… please listen to me… I didn’t…” Daz stammered desperately.

“I can’t believe this!” The princess wasn’t interested in listening. “I thought… I thought you were different than she was, I thought you understood… I thought maybe… maybe…”

“Rhi…stop… please.”

“Daz. Don’t.” Rhionne shook her head and carefully scooped the very confused Pierce into her hand. “I…I can’t right now. I need… I can’t believe…”

“Wait…” Daz spoke weakly, even as Rhionne pushed past her. Daz made a small attempt to stop her, but it wasn’t enough. A second later the door slammed shut behind them.

Daz collapsed onto her bed.

*.*.*.*

“What’s been going on here while we’ve been gone?” Myona asked Aezhay. The two of them were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, both with a plate of spakkal in front of them. Shaar was upstairs in Myona’s room, sleeping, but the two Titans were preparing for their classes later that morning.

“I don’t know, exactly.” Aezhay muttered around a bite of food. “Some combination of Daz, Rhionne and Pierce are fighting with each other. It’s been going on for days now. Tylum wasn’t terribly heavy on the details but it has something to do with the mess that Daz’s sister is in, you know, the legal trouble?”

Myona nodded. It was all over the news, that Vasha Zakrov and Syon Fand had been arrested. “Did Daz have something to do with what her sister was into?” Myona asked in a hushed voice.

“She won’t talk to anybody, and Rhionne seems too mad to say anything either.” Aezhay shrugged. “But, I know Daz. She might have been willing to not turn on her sister, but she’d never be involved in anything illegal herself. If for no other reason than it might jeopardize her piloting career.”

“That’s true.” Myona muttered. “But she hasn’t talked to anybody?”

“She goes to class, and then she locks herself in her room. Rhionne practically does the same.” Aezhay shook her head. “I talked to Pierce earlier, when Rhionne was at school. He’s been trying to figure out what’s going on but Daz won’t talk to him. He says she’s ashamed of something, but he hasn’t been able to figure out what, exactly.”

“Well someone needs to do something.” Myona muttered determinedly.

“I just told you, she ain’t talking to anyone.” Aezhay said, as she took another bite of her breakfast.

“That’s never stopped me before.” Myona shrugged cheerfully. “Better people than her have tried to keep me from talking.”

The redheaded Titan pushed herself up from her seat and stepped determinedly from the kitchen.

“Better you than me.” Aezhay muttered as she watched Myona leave the kitchen.

*.*.*

Daz looked up at the sound of a knock on her door. She looked up to find a face surrounded by bushy red hair peeking in at her through a partially open door.

“Myona.” Daz acknowledged emotionlessly.

The petite woman cleared her throat nervously and, despite the lack of clear invitation, shouldered her way through the door.

“Hi Daz.” Myona mumbled quietly. “I thought… I thought maybe you might want some company.”

Daz snorted mirthlessly, but as she didn’t tell Myona to leave directly, Myona took that to be an assent. She padded into the room and sat on the bed across from where Daz was perched in her desk chair.

The two of them passed several seconds in awkward silence.

“Look, Myona…” Daz muttered finally, without looking up. “I appreciate the gesture, but you really don’t have to. If you want to avoid me like everyone else in the house, feel free.”

“We’re not avoiding you, Daz.” Myona sighed. “You just never leave your room except to go to class.”

“Rhionne is avoiding me.”

Myona nodded. “Rhionne…” She sighed and shook her head. She knew there was no way to end that sentence that would be helpful, so she chose not to.

“Listen, Daz…” She said, instead. “I just wanted to let you know that I understand why you did it, why you chose to hide your family from us.” Myona took a deep breath. “Because I… I’ve been doing the same thing.”

For a moment, Daz didn’t move. Of all the ways Daz figured this conversation to go that certainly wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t entirely certain she heard right.

“So, you’re secretly a disenfranchised rich girl too?” Daz snorted.

“No…” Myona muttered. “I was the opposite really. My family isn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. My dad drives a street cleaner for a living.”

“So what’s wrong with that? That sort of thing is good honest work.”

“It is.” Myona nodded. “That’s not the embarrassing part. The streets he cleans are in Krogh Fazala.”

And suddenly, Daz understood. Krogh Fazala was one of the largest cities on the colony planet of Senedj XXII, which in turn was one of the most populous planets of the Federation Province.

“You don’t have an accent.” Daz observed.

Myona chuckled and shook her head. “You know, you can’t always trust what they put in the movies, Daz. The ‘federation accent’ isn’t nearly as pronounced as it’s depicted, unless you go into more rural areas. And, well, let’s be honest, once I crossed out of the province, it was really in my best interest to lose it the accent that I had, wasn’t it?”

“Good point. But, you know, lots of people are from the Federation. Good people.” Daz muttered. “It’s not a crime.”

“No.” Myona agreed. “In and of itself it isn’t. But, Daz, you don’t understand… my parents… I grew up hearing all about how Titans were superior to every other species. I was told that it wasn’t bigotry, to think that way, it was simply a fact. That it wasn’t the aliens fault they were weaker, or less intelligent, or whatever, it was just ‘how things were.’ And that’s why it was the job of Titans to look out for them, because we could.”

Myona laughed bitterly. “And as a kid, that made total sense, because it was my parents that said so. Do you know what finally made the first crack, what got me to think that maybe my parents weren’t right?”

Daz shook her head.

“It was a computer game, of all things.” Myona shook her head. “Knights of Selene to be exact. I made a friend on one of their player servers and we played together for over a year before I exchanged contact information with her. And, much to my surprise, she was an Avartle.”

“But she was smart, Daz, much smarter than my parents and my neighbors told me she should have been. That was when I was twelve. I started getting curious about what life was like outside my atmosphere, and as I got older I tried to think of a way to convince my parents to let me go to college off world.

“It was when I was sixteen and I accidentally discovered my mom’s black robe that I decided I didn’t need their permission.”

“Your parents were Blockers?

“They were. Maybe still are, I don’t know.” Myona shrugged. “I know my uncle is a lower-level member of one of their cells and he’s already grooming my twelve year old cousins to take after him.”

Daz shook her head. “Well, I can’t really judge. I wouldn’t be surprised if some members of my family supported the Black Block, if only philosophically.”

Myona sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I guess my point is that it doesn’t really matter what your family does, you are only responsible for you. Rhionne might be upset right now, but eventually she’ll see that. And if she doesn’t she’s an idiot.”

Daz snorted a small smile appearing on her face.

“But, you know, you’re not doing yourself any favors by hiding out in here like… well, like a criminal.” Myona pointed out, placing her hand on Daz’s shoulder.

“I’m not a criminal!” Daz responded defensively.

“That’s my point!” Myona sighed exasperatedly. “You, Daz, are innocent. If you weren’t I’m sure your sister would have turned on you and the Imperators would have showed up already. So, since you are innocent, maybe it’s time you started acting like it.”

Daz blinked, she never would have expected to get a pep talk from Myona of all people, and yet, here they were.

“Rhionne is wrong.” Myona pointed out. “She’s not treating you fairly. From everything I’ve heard she hasn’t given you the chance to explain what’s going on.”

“And Pierce?”

Myona shrugged. “Pierce has been trying to talk to you for days now, Daz. You have been avoiding him.”

Daz looked up, her mouth agape as she struggled to say something. Finally, with a desperate groan, she lowered her face into her hands.

“I’m an idiot.” Daz muttered.

Despite the situation, Myona giggled. “Yeah, you kind of are. But it’s okay. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”