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Her legs were too wobbly to support her weight. The tall man steadied her with strong hands and pulled her to his side, almost knocking the breath from her. Her hand flattened atop an abdomen as unyielding as his utility belt, which ground into her ribs and hip. His hard thigh pressed against hers. Too close—all of him was. But if she could have stood on her own, she would have. Wooziness made her head spin all over again.

She must have blacked out. She woke to find herself sitting on a white molded bench seat. Blinking, she stared blankly at four black boots. Two were hers, she decided after a bit, familiar black-leather ankle boots. But the other pair . . .

Her gaze swung upward. Dark eyes. A hard-jawed face.

The tall man stood in front of her. With one hand he clutched a strap hanging from a curved ceiling that held rows of similar straps. And he was wearing the magic glasses.

So was she, she discovered, her fingers touching the smooth frames. He’d put them on her when she’d been out cold. It meant they could communicate. “Where is my crew?” she demanded. “Where are the passengers? I’ll do what you want. Don’t hurt them.” Desperate to find the
glimmer of compassion she’d glimpsed earlier, she searched his face. “Please.”

He recoiled at that. “I will not hurt them. Or you.”

She would have expected to find him gloating, having turned the tables on her so expertly. But the cold strength radiating from this brutally handsome man contrasted with the apparent genuineness of his concern, a poker-faced empathy that just as unexpectedly burrowed into her soul. Without knowing anything about him, she suddenly felt that this was the kind of guy who’d walk between you and puddles in the street, who’d open car doors and put his coat over your shoulders if he thought you were cold—

Holy crap
. What was she thinking? Squaring her shoulders, she wrenched her gaze away from his black, penetrating eyes.

She was delirious, she told herself. Doped up by the gas. She had to be. Why else would she be acting like Miss Wishful Thinking, putting Earth characteristics, chivalrous Earth characteristics, on a man who was a stranger in the truest sense of the word? He might appear concerned for her welfare, but the fact remained that he had captured her and her airplane.

Squinting upward, she tried in her disoriented state to make sense of him, of who—or what—he was. Impassive, he regarded her with equal scrutiny. Holding on to a ceiling strap, he swayed slightly, as if the molded white tube that enclosed them was moving.

Her attention swung outside. A blur of color and light whizzed past the small, circular windows. The tube
was
moving! It was a shuttle of some kind, reminding her of the monorail at Disney World. Were they flying or speeding along on a track? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. “Where are we? Where are you taking me?”

“You are safe now. You and your people.” His eyes asked her to believe him. But she mustn’t forget that the people
he worked with had rendered them unconscious. And yet . . . the last thing she’d heard before passing out was his command of inaction. Maybe he did intend to help.

Or maybe it was only a trick. She didn’t know what to think.

He pulled a small device from his utility belt. A tiny but very clear screen showed passengers and crew being laid down on beds in what looked to be a clean and spacious bunk area. “See? They are safe. We want to help you.”

She read the caption in his lenses. “Help us? Why? You make it sound like something bad has happened.”

He began to answer, stopped himself. She had the feeling that he wasn’t going to explain until they got to wherever they were going.

They lapsed into awkward silence, and she sagged back in her seat. Oh, to be lost in drugged sleep with everyone else, while some other poor slob bore the responsibility of negotiating for food, water, and freedom. A fresh spurt of adrenaline made her hands shake. Was she up to the task of negotiating for her life and those of the passengers and crew?

In the corner of her vision, she caught the man studying her. When he realized she’d noticed, he averted his eyes, his jaw flexing. Strange that he was curious about her yet so uncomfortable in her presence. Was it because of his plans for her? She forced away the thought.
Stay positive
.

She grasped for normalcy, for civility. “Jordan is my name. Jordan Cady.” She poked one finger to her chest.

His expression softened. Well, maybe
softened
wasn’t the right word, but he regarded her with a certain leniency. She found herself wondering how he’d look when he smiled.
If
he
ever
smiled. She remembered the symbols branded on his neck. It was doubtful that a man with marks like that had much to smile about.

“Jor-dahn,” he repeated.

“Yes.” She decided that she liked the way he said her name, the J soft, more like “zh” or “sh.”

He spread his hand over his chest. “Kào. It is my given name.”

“Kay-oh.” He had a mother. A father. Someone had named him. For some reason the idea reassured her.

The shuttle—subway—whatever it was—glided to a halt. Doors opened with a hiss. As she followed Kào outside, she heard an airflow noise just below the level of her hearing, but the air itself was still, devoid of any scents. Like the bay that housed the 747, the walls and floor here were molded and white, and all the inscriptions were foreign to her. It was like when she’d traveled in mainland China; she’d found it impossible to orient herself when there were no recognizable words or letters. Then she looked to the right, and her breath caught.

The hallway swept up and away from her, and seemed to have no end. She jerked her gaze to the left. It wasn’t an illusion—the walkway did bow very distinctly upward. She followed it with her eyes to where it disappeared on a somewhat hazy horizon high above. A few people, mere specks, moved along the path near the “ceiling.” They were on a ship—one that dwarfed anything she’d ever seen.

The sight threw off her already shaky equilibrium. Her hands shot out, searching for balance, clawing for something to hold on to. Kào’s sleeve. In that protective, masculine way of his, he steadied her. But she couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t breathe. That kid on the 747 was right: Kào
was
Darth Vader. An alien. And she was on his spacecraft.

A huge spacecraft. The truth hit her with the raw violence of a fist in the gut.
Oh, God
. But she was going to find a way home; she swore it. She had a daughter waiting there, a little girl who needed her, and a family who loved them both.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she’d be damned if she’d
break down. She had to be tough, to perform a role she never dreamed of playing, in a place she never imagined being. Strength would get her home. And get there she would.

Kào led Jordan into Commodore Moray’s meeting room. Moray and his staff had not arrived yet. At one end of the gathering table, Kào pulled out a chair and offered Jordan a seat.

Her gaze dropped to his wrist where his sleeves didn’t completely cover the thin dermal regeneration strip placed over a laceration there. “From when you tied me up,” he said dryly. “Have I done the same to you? Why, no, of course. It seems I’m a far better host than you were a hostess.”

Her lips compressed. Over the glasses, he saw her wide blue eyes flick to his. He’d baited her, and wasn’t sure exactly why. He wasn’t the teasing sort. Was it an attempt to ease her apprehension before his father’s briefing? The bad news she was about to receive would be a blow.

“If you find gas preferable to handcuffs,” she returned drolly after a moment. He felt oddly rewarded that her expression
had eased somewhat; she’d recognized his banter for what it was.

Sitting in the chair, she clutched its armrests as if she feared she’d fall. The chair bobbed only a few standard feet off the floor, but likely she hadn’t possessed the technology for floating furniture on her primitive world. Buoyant engineering was only a few hundred standard years old. Of course, since its inception the technology had brought improvements to almost every aspect of Alliance life, making it hard to imagine life before its discovery.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Kào.” His father strode into the room trailed by his staff and a bevy of aides. The
Savior
’s crew was small but every other person seemed to be either an aide or a staff member. His father had not needed such a large contingent in the past. Now everywhere he went, his assistants went, too. Among them, trying hard to evade Kào’s glare, was Trist, clutching an armload of computer equipment to her chest.

Moray dismissed all but the linguist, then indicated that the two of them plus Kào and Jordan should sit around the table. He then donned a pair of conversion-glasses. Trist followed suit.

“Ah,” Moray said. One broad hand over his chest, thick fingers spread, he nodded warmly. “I am Commodore-elite Ilya Moray.”

Jordan offered what appeared to be a wary, reserved greeting in her language. “Jordan Cady, captain of United Fifty-eight.”

“Ah. Captain Cady. Is that the correct title? Welcome.”

Jordan nodded, then frowned at her floating chair, taking great pains to steady it. Posture erect, she sat with her fists knotted in her lap. Her uniform needed cleaning, but she’d freshened up considerably when Kào had offered her the chance just before arriving here. She’d dampened her hair and combed it, but loose strands around her forehead had
already re-formed into tight ringlets. He’d never seen hair like hers before, curly but pale Talagarian blond. As if she sensed his gaze, Jordan locked eyes with him. Kào cleared his throat and forcibly diverted his attention from her.

“Have you met Ensign Pren?” Moray asked Jordan.

“She did,” Kào interjected. “Indirectly.”

Jordan’s uneasy gaze settled on the ensign, specifically on the almost-clear support strip gracing the bridge of the woman’s nose. Both women’s faces reflected what appeared to be forced neutrality.

Kào contemplated his folded hands as Moray began to describe the
Savior
and its mission. “We are a military warship tasked with providing protection for vessels traversing the border between the settled areas and uncharted space. Secondary to that is exploration and the charting of undiscovered worlds, such as your Earth.”

Jordan regarded him stonily. “State your reason for detaining my ship.”

Moray seemed caught off balance; no one spoke to him in that tone. Kào winced even as he found himself secretly admiring Jordan’s grit.

“Shall I explain?” Kào offered when Moray didn’t immediately reply.

Moray held up one hand. “I’m afraid I have bad news,” he said at last.

Jordan sat as still as a statue as she read the translation: “Earth, as you knew it, is gone.”

Seconds ticked by. Then she recoiled, as though struck.

Kào’s jaw knotted. He’d always been a fan of bluntness, of not mincing words. Humans and computers, he dealt with them the same way: in a straightforward and consistent manner. Yet, this time, he felt an overwhelming urge to soften the blow dealt by his father.

“What . . . happened?” Jordan’s voice was hoarse but steady.

“At times, and thankfully not often, an inhabited planet will cross paths with a comet or asteroid. That is what happened to your home.”

“It’s a mistake,” Jordan protested. “The astronomers always watch the sky. We would have seen it coming. We would have had warnings.”

The commodore hefted his large frame off of his chair and walked to the window, where there wasn’t much to view other than a distorted starscape. “That is not always the case with what is known as a comet shower,” he argued. Behind him, Jordan looked lonely and lost in her small chair at the enormous conference table. “They are less dense than asteroids, made of dust and ice as opposed to rock and iron. If they fragment before coming into viewing range, there would be no warning at all, unless your civilization utilized long-range space buoys for early detection, which you did not. It was just such a comet shower that struck your Earth.” Sorrow deepened the creases between Kào’s father’s bushy brows. “I wish I could have saved more of you.”

Excruciating minutes ticked past while Jordan deciphered all Moray had told her. After experiencing the conversion-glasses, Kào knew that not all of what was said translated properly. But enough would be displayed as captions for Jordan to discern Kào’s father’s meaning. “But there’ll be survivors,” she insisted. “There always are.”

The futile hope that infused her voice made Kào’s chest ache.

“There are so many places to hide,” she maintained. “Underground shelters, buildings—”

“No, Captain. These relatively small and less-dense objects, the remains of a comet, are actually the most dangerous of the hazards from space. They break up into pieces that explode just above the ground, a mile or so, no more.”

The optimum altitude for maximum devastation, Kào knew from his years as a weapons officer for the Alliance.

“There were nine major impacts, Captain Cady, and hundreds of smaller ones. They left behind a wasteland of flattened, charred buildings and blackened corpses. The oceans vaporized, infernos raged. Within a short time, what was left of the atmosphere was so thickly laden with particles that sunlight couldn’t reach the surface. And it won’t, I’m afraid, for centuries.”

Jordan absorbed Moray’s bleak assessment. Kào’s watch chimed the third-hour, a cheerful sound at odds with the miserable mood in the room.

The Earth leader’s mouth trembled. Then she lifted her glasses to swipe her knuckles across her cheek.

Moray appeared to be at a loss for words, as well. Even Trist acted uncomfortable.

Enough
. Kào may have handed over the reins of this meeting to his father, but Jordan’s suffering compelled him to take them back. She’d learned of her home world’s fate; why prolong the misery? “I think we have accomplished most of what we set out to do, Commodore,” he said tactfully. “Now it is time for me to return Captain Cady to her people.”

But Moray held up his hand, stopping Kào. “How many people were on your vessel, Captain Cady?”