Star Empires

Book 1: Star Empires

by Jasper T. Scott

Genres: Space Exploration; Space Marines; Space Opera

Synopsis

FROM MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER JASPER T. SCOTT...
Born to royalty, raised by corsairs, and bound by vengeance.
His destiny waits to be reclaimed...

Corvus Centauri rises from the ashes of betrayal and loss to carve his destiny among the stars. Once a child of noble blood, now a battle-hardened warrior raised among corsairs, Corvus must navigate a galaxy rife with treachery, ambition, and the haunting echoes of his past.

As he pieces together the mysteries behind his family’s fall, Corvus discovers long-buried secrets that could tip the balance of power in Frontier Space.

But to reclaim his birthright, Corvus must wield more than a blaster or a plasma sword—he must become a wise and cunning leader like his father, one that knows not only how to fight, but who to fight, and when not to.

Star Empires is an epic tale of war, betrayal, and family ties cast against an interstellar backdrop in the distant future. This series is perfect for fans of space operas with high stakes, unforgettable characters, and worlds teetering on the edge of chaos. Will Corvus rise to greatness, or sink to villainy in his quest for revenge?

 

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Release date: December 20, 2024

Publisher: Anthem Press

Print pages: 573

Sample

Chapter 1
The Year 907 DE (Dominion Era)
Valin Orion crouched behind a giant blue and
orange spiral bush, holding a long stick like it was a
mighty energy blade. His heart pounded with
excitement as he peeked through the coiled leaves to
where Leona, a.k.a. “Princess Starlina” was standing
on a rock in the middle of a meadow of sparkling
green spongegrass. She had one hand on her hip,
and her other pressed to her forehead, scanning the
horizon for her champion to come and rescue her.
The sky above was a soft pinkish color, with fluffy
clouds that looked like marshmallows.
“Help, brave knight! Save me from the
voidwraiths!” Princess Starlina called out dramatically.
Her head twisted to one side, and she gasped with
fright and began jabbing a finger at the imaginary
monsters in the distance.
Valin leaped out from his hiding spot and ran
across the meadow with his stick held high. The
spongegrass added a spring to his step, spurring him
to run faster. He jumped over a cluster of luminous

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 7
white flowers that looked like little lanterns. A couple
of small bugs with six legs and wings that shone like
green glass in the sun scattered out of his way and
took flight, landing in the blossoms for safety.
“Stay away, voidwraiths! You can’t have Princess
Starlina!” Valin shouted in his loudest, fiercest voice
as he swung his stick through the air, stabbing and
slashing at the invisible monsters. The sunlight glinted
off his bright eyes, and his dark, messy hair bounced
as he rushed towards Leona. She giggled, then
turned serious again.
“Oh, thank you, brave Knight Valin! I thought for
sure I was done for,” she said, putting a hand to her
forehead like she was about to faint. He reached her
side and wrapped an arm around her waist, pointing
his stick warningly at any surviving monsters that
might be circling them.
“Back, foul beasts! You’ll have to get through me
to reach the princess!” Valin declared breathlessly. He
turned to look at Leona, her hair shining like gold in
the pinkish light of Tamaria’s sun. Her deep blue eyes
were wide with excitement as she played along. Valin
felt proud to be her hero, even if it was just a game.
Nearby, standing tall and silent beside a white
evermoss tree, was Kronos, the Orion Family’s
android guardian. His glowing blue eyes tracked
Valin’s every move. He didn’t say anything to interrupt
their game, but nothing escaped his ever-watchful
gaze, and Valin knew that if there were ever any real
danger, Kronos would dispatch it in an instant. He
would make sure that they were safe. No real
monsters or anything else scary could ever get past
him.
“You’ll have to run while I fight them off for you,
Princess,” Valin said, standing in front of Leona with

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 8
his stick held high.
Starlina smiled and nodded. “You’re the best tech
knight ever, Valin!” she said.
Valin’s cheeks warmed with her praise, and he
shrugged. “Just doing my duty, Princess.”
Before he could continue the game, a voice called
out from behind them. “Valin! It’s time to go!”
He turned and saw his parents walking down a
long path lined with evermoss trees. His father,
Emmerich Orion, was tall, with broad shoulders and
dark hair streaked with the first hints of gray. He wore
a crisp black uniform embellished with white trim and
the Orion Family crest—a chameleon skycat with all
four of its wings spread wide and a crown of stars
above its head.
His father’s expression was serious, all hard
edges, furrows, and lines, leaving Valin to wonder
what his and Leona’s parents had been talking about
inside the fortress, but his mother, Nasandra Orion,
was smiling as she walked toward them. She looked
like she had stepped out of a dream, or maybe a
holovid. Her long auburn hair flowed nearly all the
way down her back in long, elaborate braids, and her
turquoise eyes shone bright with the sun. Her perfect
alabaster complexion contrasted with dark red lips
and the make-up around her eyes. She wore a long
blue dress with many layers that seemed to float
about her as she moved.
“It’s time to say goodbye, Valin,” Nasandra said,
her voice as soft as the breeze that was making the
ball-like leaves of the evermoss trees around them
sway.
“Already?” Valin’s shoulders slumped, and he
looked at Leona, who pouted a little.
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s a long voyage back to

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 9
Cayleron, and we have a lot to do when we get back.”
His parents both stopped in the middle of the
spongegrass meadow. His mother held out a hand to
him across a gap of about five feet and fluttered her
fingers expectantly.
“Do you really have to go?” Leona asked, her
voice small and shrinking with disappointment.
Valin nodded and his stick sword dropped from en
garde to touch the ground. “I don’t want to...” Then he
turned back to his mom and squinted up at her in
salmon-colored light. “Can’t we stay just a little
longer?”
Emmerich’s eyes narrowed, and he drew in a
deep breath, getting ready to scold him, but Nasandra
placed a hand on his arm to cool his temper and then
crossed the meadow to kneel in front of him, heedless
of staining her dress with the grass. She brushed a
stray lock of hair out of his Valin’s face. “We have to
go, sweetheart. But we’ll come back soon. I promise.
You and Leona can have more adventures when we
return.” She smiled again, and Valin felt reassured.
“Okay.” He nodded and his mother stood. This
time, he dropped his stick and took his mother’s hand.
“Valin, come on,” Emmerich called from the path
between the trees. “The Outrider is warmed up and
waiting. If you hurry, I’ll let you ride up in the cockpit
with me. What do you think?” His father’s deep voice
carried a sense of urgency and tension that matched
his expression.
Valin wasn’t sure what the hurry was. He’d
thought that they were going to stay until after dark. At
least, that was what his mother had told him on the
way over from Cayleron. Valin saw his family’s
starship gleaming in the distance. The Outrider was
sleek and silver, with wings that seemed to stretch

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 10
wide like the skycat in his family’s crest. It was the
fastest ship that Valin knew, and the thought of riding
up in the cockpit with his father was exciting, but… He
glanced at Leona, her expression sad and downcast.
He still didn’t want to leave.
“I guess this is goodbye, Princess Starlina,” Valin
said and gave Leona a small wave.
She perked up at the mention of her made-up
name. She sighed dramatically and then put her
hands on her hips.
“I shall eagerly await your return, Knight Valin, but
do not keep me waiting, or else the voidwraiths could
find me.”
Valin grinned and nodded. “Don’t worry, Princess.
I’ll always protect you,” he said, and then he turned
and went with his parents. Kronos peeled away from
his tree and trailed quietly behind them. A gust of
wind blew, but not even a strand of the android’s slick
black hair moved.
“Leona!” a woman called distantly from the
direction of the landing pad. “Where are you? It’s time
for your bath!”
“Coming, Mom!” Leona tore past them, her golden
hair fluttering in the wind as she raced down the path.
She flicked a mischievous grin over her shoulder and
stuck out her tongue at Valin. “Sluggo!”
He gaped at her. Somehow, in an instant, he’d
gone from a brave technocratic knight to a sluggo.
“Hey!” He let go of his mother’s hand and pounded
after Leona.
“I’m faster than you!” Leona taunted.
“No, you’re not!”
“I am! I am! Look, I’m winning!”
They burst out of the shadows of the path to the
sunlit landing pad beside Leona’s family fortress—a

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 11
big, square black steelcrete building with high walls.
Four towers rose from the corners, each of them
capped with missile batteries and laser cannons.
Valin chased Leona across the platform, but she
scurried behind her parents’ legs for safety, forcing
him to abandon the chase. He stood impotently
before Lord and Lady Solari, his brow furrowed and
his chest heaving with impotent fury at the injustice of
being beaten by a girl at a game he hadn’t even
known they were playing.
“You cheated!”
“Now that’s a weighty accusation,” Jorhan
intoned. He was a big man with a broad chest, almost
as tall as Valin’s own father, but with short, dark blond
hair to his father’s mid-length black, and glowing,
deep green eyes that revealed he was wearing
HoloLenses. Valin’s father preferred to project his
overlays, and his eyes were brown. “Is this true,
Leona?” Jorhan asked as he peered down at his
daughter.
She gripped one of each of her parents’ legs.
Smiling sweetly up at him, she shook her head
exaggeratedly. “No, Daddy. I would never cheat. You
know that.”
Jorhan looked back at Valin. “The princess says
that it was a fair contest. You lost. Better luck next
time, Valin.”
He gaped at Leona.
Her nose wrinkled, and she stuck out her tongue
again.
“Look! She stuck her tongue out at me! She’s
lying!”
“No more games, Valin,” his father admonished
as he and Nasandra emerged from the tree-lined
pathway. “Come. It’s time to go.”

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 12
With a grunt and a physical effort, Valin dragged
his gaze away from Leona and joined his parents on
their way to the Outrider. Valin could see his uncle
Magnus up in the cockpit, getting the ship ready for
launch.
He reached the foot of the landing ramp that had
been lowered from the front end of the ship and
walked up it beside his mother. Her hand found his,
and she regarded him with a fond smile. His father
strode swiftly ahead of them and faded into the
shadows within the ship. When Valin and his mother
got to the top of the ramp, Kronos shooed him into the
airlock, and Nasandra turned to face the Solari family.
She smiled and waved. “Goodbye—Jorhan, Giselda. I
hope our next meeting will be more agreeable.”
Jorhan inclined his head ever-so-slightly to her.
“Safe travels, Nasandra. Tamaria is always open to
the Orion Family,” Leona’s mother smiled politely, but
her gray eyes were veiled with curious shadows.
Valin peeked around the open door of the ship,
watching the exchange and wondering what it meant.
Leona’s parents looked mad. He thought his dad was
also mad, but his mother was acting like she’d done
something wrong.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Jorhan,”
Nasandra said. “I will speak with my husband.
Perhaps I can convince him to change his mind.”
“For all our sakes, Lady Orion, I hope you
succeed,” Jorhan said. “The corsairs are a threat to
us all, and with the clans uniting their fleets to plunder
entire worlds, our only defense is to strengthen ties
among the sovereign families. Together we stand, or
divided we fall.”
“Don’t give in to the fear. That’s what they would
want.”

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 13
Leona’s mother’s lips twisted, and she shook her
head. “Easy for an Orion to say!”
“I will speak with Emmerich,” Nasandra insisted.
Leona’s parents both nodded and turned to go.
“Goodbye!” Leona waved brightly, oblivious to the
seriousness of the conversation going on around her.
Valin waved back and watched her golden hair
bounce across her shoulders as she hurried after her
parents. Nasandra stepped inside the ship, and then
Kronos raised the ramp and shut the Outrider’s
airlock.
The ship’s engines roared to life, thrumming
through the deck and rattling Valin’s teeth. He darted
to the hatch and pressed his face against the big
circular viewport to watch as the lush, colorful scenery
of Tamaria dwindled into obscurity. He could still see
Leona and her parents walking to the gates of their
fortress, their guard bots trailing behind them. Valin
promised himself that next time they came he would
bring an even bigger stick to fight the voidwraiths.
He turned away from the viewport to see his
mother coming up a narrow stairwell beneath a
hinged rectangular deck plate that had been raised
and propped up at an angle to allow someone into the
hidden compartment below the airlock. That was the
entrance of the family vault. His parents had
explained to him that in case of an emergency, it
contained millions of credits, as well as important
information about all of his family’s operations in
Orion Space. If they ever needed to, they could flee
their home on Cayleron and still access everything
that was important to the running of their empire.
“What were you doing in the vault?” Valin asked.
His mother smiled and shook her head as she
lowered the deck plate to conceal the entrance of the

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 14
vault. “Nothing important. Just putting away a few
valuables.”
“Okay.” Valin looked back to the viewport to see if
he could still see Leona’s family fortress in the
distance below, but a thick carpet of tufted white
clouds concealed the ground. He frowned,
disappointed.
“Come on, sweetheart. We should join your father
and Uncle Magnus in the cockpit.”
“Okay...”

* * *

Valin lay awake in his bed, passing the time while
waiting for his parents to come and say goodnight by
using his AuraLink to trace the constellations through
the glass ceiling in his room. Glowing blue lines
connected stars in the shape of people and monsters,
some of them mythical, like the voidwraiths, others
real. As the waiting grew long, Valin grew bored with
the game, and sat up with a huff.
Meeka raised her furry head from the foot of the
bed, roused from the brink of sleep by the sudden
movement. Moments ago, she had been curled into a
ball against the growing chill of the night. Valin liked
his room to be cold when he went to bed, and the
heater had been off for hours. Meeka was wide
awake. Her big, rainbow-colored eyes were cloaked in
shadows as she slowly blinked at him, waiting for him
to explain the disruption to her slumber.
“I wonder what’s taking them so long?” Valin
asked.
Meeka yawned, revealing long, sharp white fangs
that slightly overlapped her lips. Her opalescent white
fur rippled, reflecting light in all the colors of the
rainbow from the stars and moon above as she
stretched out her forelegs and hind legs on the bed.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 15
She partially spread and folded both sets of her semi-
transparent, membrane-like wings.
Meeka was a chameleon skycat, native to
Cayleron IV. She was about the same size as a
regular house cat from Earth, but much lighter and
with a sleeker body than that of an actual cat. Her fur
contained chromatophores that allowed her to change
the color and pattern of her coat to blend seamlessly
with her surroundings. For the small woodland
creatures of Cayleron, Meeka was a deadly apex
predator, but to Valin she was a cherished childhood
companion, and his best friend.
Valin swung his legs out of bed and promptly
shivered as the covers fell away and the cool night air
kissed his back and shoulders. He didn’t like to wear
pajama tops, only the bottoms. Meeka sat up, and her
ear flaps spiraled open to form two shell-shaped cups
on either side of her narrow head. Valin slipped bare
feet into his slippers, which were embroidered with an
effigy of Meeka—or some other Skycat. The Orion
family crest decorated nearly everything in his
wardrobe. He crept to the door, cracked it open, and
peeked out into the dimly lit hallway. The sound of
raised voices drifted to his ears from down the hall.
He recognized them as belonging to his parents.
Were they fighting again? He hoped not.
Valin frowned and turned back to address Meeka.
He was about to tell her to stay here and wait for him,
but she had already jumped off the bed, and she was
sitting behind him, looking up at him with her big,
rainbow-colored eyes. Her big ears perked up,
listening for a command. Her tail restlessly swished
back and forth across the slate-gray sparkstone
floors.
“Fine, you can come, but you need to be quiet

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 16
and stay out of sight, okay?”
Meeka chirped, and her coat shimmered until it
perfectly matched the gray stone floors, even down to
the silica pearls that trapped and reflected the
starlight like diamonds.
Valin turned back to the fore and eased out of his
room. He snuck swiftly down the plush, living blue
carpets that lined the corridor. Wall sconces flickered
with holographic fire—a decorative touch that Valin’s
mother had added to go with the rest of the fortress’s
medieval decor.
On reaching his parent’s room, he turned his
head and pressed his ear to the solid tannin wood
door to listen...
“Nas, we are spread thin enough as it is with so
many of our ships and titans on loan to the Dominion.
And our fleet is the strongest. That means we have
more to offer and less to gain from a defensive
alliance. If we agree to join a communal defense fleet
with the other dynasties, we would end up carrying
the defense of the entire sector single-handedly!”
“That’s an exaggeration, Emmerich. But even if
you’re right, the strong have a responsibility to defend
the weak.”
“But not at the expense of their own families.”
“Is that what you think I’m asking you to do? Do
you think so little of me, that I would sacrifice our
family? Our son?!”
Valin’s mother sounded angry. He resisted the
urge to run in and take her side.
“Well, no, but...”
“Our family is also at risk, Emmerich. The clans
are uniting, and not even we are strong enough to
repel a combined corsair armada. We would all
benefit by forming a defense fleet for the sector.”

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 17
“Let’s say that we agree to do it, and then the
clans decide to split their forces again and attack
several worlds at once. It would be impossible to
defend all nine of the dynasties at once, much less
patrol our trade lanes and guard our mining outposts.
Sacrifices will have to be made, but who will decide
which worlds to sacrifice and which ones to save? We
all pretend to be friends, but we’re also rivals, Nas.”
“I had no idea that my husband was such a
cynic.”
“I’m a realist.”
“You’re a selfish fool. People are dying,
Emmerich!”
“Better them than us.”
“Until it is us.”
Silence reigned for several long seconds. Valin
anxiously ground his teeth, wondering if now would be
a good time to scurry back to his room. Was the fight
over?
Valin stepped away from the door, and felt Meeka
nuzzle his leg, as if she had sensed his unease. Her
eyes had lost their rainbow sparkle and were now a
muted shade of indigo to match the carpets.
“Valin?” The hushed whisper made him flinch. He
turned toward the sound and found his Uncle Magnus
standing behind him in the shadows of his father’s
office. Magnus smiled tightly as he eased the door
shut. “What are you doing awake, boy? You’re not
eavesdropping on your parents, are you?” His sharp
features drooped, following the line of his beak-like
nose to amplify his disapproval, then he crossed his
arms over his chest and tilted his head to one side.
Valin took another step away from the door to his
parents’ room, and Meeka jumped up to his shoulder
and perched herself there. “I-I went to see why they

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 18
didn’t come say goodnight to me,” he whispered.
“Don’t tell them I was listening, pleeaase.”
“Hmmm. Well, I won’t tell if you don’t. Run along.
Back to bed.”
Valin’s gaze drifted to the door of his father’s
office. “What were you doing in there?”
“Oh, nothing important. Your father wanted me to
do some research for him, but it’s a bit late, so I think
I’ll do it tomorrow. And speaking of how late it is, off to
bed before your parents hear us.”
Valin nodded and tiptoed away, careful not to
make a sound. As he left, his mother’s words echoed
in his mind—“People are dying.”
That didn’t sound good. And to make matters
worse, his parents, who had always seemed
invincible to him, had both sounded scared. They
were worried about things that he didn’t understand,
but he understood death. He still remembered going
to his grandparents’ funeral. They’d been killed by
corsairs years ago, during a raid on a mining outpost.
And now his parents were afraid that they could
attack again, but here, on Cayleron?
Valin crept back into his room with Meeka clinging
to his shoulder, her wings tucked tightly against her
back. He gently closed the door and let out a long,
shuddering breath. Yet somehow his chest still felt
tight, like he was holding his breath.
Meeka hopped from his shoulder to the bed, her
coat rippling back to opalescent white now that she no
longer needed to hide.
Valin sat on the edge of his bed, but he didn’t
immediately lie back down. His mind was buzzing with
half-formed fears and hazy fragments of his parents’
conversation.
“What do you think they’ll do, Meeka?” he

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 19
whispered, more to himself than her.
Meeka slow-blinked at him, and her head tilted to
one side, as if trying to understand his words. She
understood plenty of commands, but this was beyond
her capacity. He wasn’t even sure how much of it he
understood. Corsairs had always been a threat, but
his dad never let them get close to Cayleron. Had that
somehow changed?
Meeka let out a soft chirp and nuzzled against his
side. He stroked her back and sighed. “You’re right.
Whatever happens, we’ll be okay,” he said, but the
tightness in his chest remained.
He glanced up at the stars through the glass
ceiling, tracing the constellations again. This time he
used his eyes, not his AuraLink. The stars had always
seemed a constant to him, the one thing in his life that
never changed. And yet somehow, they looked just a
little dimmer now than they had before.
Valin finally lay back down and wrapped the
covers around himself. Meeka settled in beside him,
and he rested a hand on her back. She purred softly,
and Valin closed his eyes, holding on to the warmth of
his best friend as exhaustion slowly overcame his
anxious thoughts.
At some point, he heard his door click open, and
footsteps come gliding across the floor. He cracked
an eye open to see his mother approaching, but he
pretended to be asleep. He felt her kiss his forehead,
and heard her whisper beside his ear, “Goodnight,
Valin. Sleep well, my little warrior. You are safe, and
you are loved—so very much.”
And just like that, the tightness in his chest eased,
and he drifted off into a peaceful slumber, wrapped in
Meeka’s embrace and his mother’s comforting words.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 20

Chapter 2
THREE DAYS LATER...
Valin awoke to the sound of terrified screams and
the cracking thunder of gunfire and explosions. He sat
bolt upright, his heart pounding. Meeka was on the
floor, pacing in front of the door and yipping
disconsolately. The walls of his room trembled with
each blast. His mind clouded with panic. The stars
and moon that had been shining through the glass
ceiling had now vanished, replaced by opaque, black
duranium blast shields. Shadows danced in the
pulsing red lights of the emergency alert system. The
distant thunder of explosions was growing louder and
closer, the chaos closing in.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Valin’s mother,
Nasandra, rushed in, her face pale and taut with grim
determination. Kronos, the family’s android guardian,
followed close behind. His glowing blue eyes flicked
quickly around the room along with the barrel of the
repeating plasma cycler that he held.
“Valin! Get dressed quickly,” his mother ordered,

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 21
her voice sharp and cracking with fear. “We have to
run. The fortress is under attack.”
Valin felt his stomach turn to ice. “Is it corsairs?”
he asked, remembering his parents’ argument from
last night.
“Yes,” his mother simply said.
Valin swallowed thickly. He had heard the stories
and seen glimpses of holo footage of their raids on
the news feeds. Corsairs were ruthless. They killed
people for fun and stole children from their parents to
be sold for credits. He scrambled out of bed and ran
into his closet to get dressed. His hands trembled as
he fastened his belt. He did his best to stay calm and
keep his breathing steady, but the cacophony of
explosions and gunfire outside combined with the
droning buzz of the emergency alert system to
provoke a reciprocal frenzy from his nerves.
“Here! Put this on!” His mother tossed him a long,
dark coat.
He caught it and saw that it was a simple black
jacket like the one he’d seen Mr. Naval’s son wear
when he came to the fortress on weekends to help his
father take care of the grounds.
“I want my coat,” Valin complained, reaching for
the better-fitting, more stylish garment, but his mother
swept in and slapped his hand away. “It’s too
conspicuous! They cannot know who we are.”
It was then that Valin noticed his mother was
wearing a matching black coat, one with no hint of the
family crest embroidered on it. He put on the coat his
mother had given him without further comment.
“Let’s go!” his mother urged as soon as he was
done. She grabbed his hand and dragged him toward
the door. “We don’t have much time.”
“Wait.” Valin slipped his hand free of his mother’s

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 22
and darted back into the walk-in closet. He grabbed a
small backpack and turned to Meeka, who was still
pacing the floor and chirping to herself. He zipped the
bag open and dropped to his haunches, holding it out
to her. “Meeka!” he whispered. “Get in!”
The skycat abruptly stopped pacing, her rainbow
eyes sharpened, and she sprinted across the room
and leaped inside the bag. Valin zipped her up inside,
and she quickly spun around inside the pet carrier
and popped her head through the peekaboo flap on
the top. Her fur and eyes shimmered, turning as black
as an oil slick to match the shadows inside the bag.
“Stay quiet, Meeka,” Valin whispered as he
shouldered the bag.
Nasandra took Valin’s hand again, her grip strong
and insistent, and they strode quickly to the door.
Kronos stopped them with an upraised hand.
“Lady Orion, I will go out first to make sure that
the way is clear for you and master Valin.”
Nasandra nodded stiffly.
Kronos opened the door and scanned both sides
of the hall. The sensors built into his head whirred
briefly with penetrating radar and wireless imaging
that allowed him to see through the walls and floor.
“This level is clear, but there are enemies
converging on the fortress from outside. We must
hurry.” He stepped out of the room, his mechanical
movements smooth and whisper-quiet. Valin held his
breath, half expecting to see the android cut down by
a withering barrage of lasers and plasma bolts.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Kronos signaled
for them to join him in the hall, and from there, they
hurried to the stairwell and down to the grand entry
hall below. The hall and stairs were both lined with the
same living carpets and evolving tapestries of the

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 23
Orion family history, hung between the flickering,
holographic flames projected by the wall sconces. Yet
now all the decor was draped in a gloomy crimson
haze from the pulsing emergency lights. It took a
moment for Valin to realize that the haze was smoke.
The smell of it was sharp and acrid, and it tickled his
nostrils, tempting him to sneeze.
They reached the bottom of the curving stairs. A
matching staircase on the other side of the entry hall
spiraled down from the other side of a mezzanine that
overlooked the entryway. They stole across the foyer
to the massive duranium front gates—arched at the
top and fully two stories high. Those gates led directly
outside the fortress, and as a result, they had been
heavily reinforced. Something slammed into the gates
and exploded. Kronos quickly spun around and curled
his body protectively around them, forcing Valin and
his mother to the floor. A fiery hole opened in one of
the gates, and a hot, molten shard of shrapnel
gouged Valin’s cheek. He cried out in pain and
slapped a hand to his cheek, feeling it hot and sticky
with blood.
His mother cursed and grabbed his chin to turn
his head for a look. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”
“Take cover on the stairs,” Kronos ordered even
as he yanked them to their feet and ushered them
back to the stairwell. “Our titans are busy clearing the
gates.”
Valin crouched on the stairs with his mother.
Kronos shouldered his cycler rifle and grabbed a big
wooden table from the foyer. He hefted it easily and
carried it to the stairs, laying it down in front of them
as a barricade and a shield. Then Kronos came and
crouched behind the barrier with them. Valin saw that
flaps of synthetic skin hung from his face where

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 24
shrapnel had gouged him, and thick white blood was
oozing from a puncture wound in his right arm.
“Are you okay, Kronos?” Valin whispered.
“I am not capable of feeling pain, young master
Valin.”
Valin nodded and peeked around Kronos and the
table to peer through the ragged, molten hole in the
front gates. He heard lasers buzzing and missiles
exploding. Golden lines of autocannon fire flickered,
and the telltale thunder of heavy footsteps shivered
through the ground.
“Are those our titans?” Valin whispered.
Nasandra nodded quickly, but hesitated and
looked to Kronos for the answer.
“Not only ours,” Kronos said. “The corsairs have
greater numbers, and our defenses are failing quickly.
Lord Emmerich has ordered the bulk of the defense to
be concentrated around the front gates to give us a
chance to reach the Outrider.”
“But what about Emmerich? Where is he?”
Nasandra asked.
“He is conducting a rearguard action with the
guard to buy as much time as possible for Cayleron
City to evacuate. He will go with the guard to their
extraction point and regroup with us at Starfall Base.”
“I don’t know where that is, Kronos!”
“I do, my lady. I will take us there.”
Nasandra grimaced and reached inside her
jacket. Valin watched her produce a small, gleaming
plasma pistol. He stared at the weapon with wide
eyes. His mother hated guns. What was she doing
holding one? That thought ricocheted around in
Valin’s brain as they crouched behind the table at the
bottom of the stairs with Kronos sitting in front of
them, his arms outstretched to form an extra layer of

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 25
shielding between them and the battle raging outside.
The battle sounded like it was getting farther from the
gates. Maybe the titans had finished clearing a path to
the Outrider? Valin’s body tensed and his pulse sped
up in anticipation of being told to run again.
Suddenly, the sound of armored feet hammering
stone floors erupted on the far side of the fortress,
followed by the confused babble of too many men
shouting all at once. Gunfire roared and glass
shattered.
“What’s going on?” Nasandra asked.
The buzzing crackle of plasma swords igniting
was the last spark in the reactor. Valin had to see
what was happening. He jumped up from the stairs to
peek over the curved railing to the far end of the entry
hall.
“Valin, get down!” his mother hissed as she
yanked him back to the stairs, but he could still see
through the spindles in the railing.
“It is Lord Emmerich and the Guard,” Kronos
explained, the sensors in his head whirring once
more. He could see far more than their eyes ever
could. “They must have been forced to abandon their
titans.”
Valin watched a group of soldiers in armored
exosuits form a knitted wall of shadows at the end of
the corridor, just in front of the moonlit glass walls of
the sunroom. Their plasma swords glowed a bright,
fiery blue—the Orion family’s royal color—and the
soldiers raised them high above their shoulders,
ready to strike, while their other hands held repeating
plasma cyclers, tucked tight to their shoulders.
Beyond the sunroom, Valin saw the vast, shadowy
grounds behind the fortress. Enemy soldiers had
shattered several panes of glass and were busy

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 26
clambering in.
Valin’s eyes widened at the sight of
them—corsairs in jagged black and crimson armor
with skull-shaped helmets. Their movements were
precise and swift, their shields repelling plasma fire
from the guardsmen. They outnumbered the family
guard—of whom Valin counted only eleven—by at
least two to one.
The invaders took fire from the guard, bolts of
white-hot plasma eliciting fading blue flickers from
their shields, but Valin knew that hand weapons
would never be strong enough to drain those shields
before the corsairs closed to melee range. The
corsairs ignored the plasma fire and ignited swords of
their own—theirs glowing crimson—and then they
shouted a booming battle cry in unison—Vrak To’rak!
The sound of which was so deep and throaty that it
seemed like it had come from an otherworldly
creature and not a human.
“Hold the line!” Emmerich shouted back.
The two groups crashed together in the moonlit
shadows of the corridor. Blades crossed, stabbed,
and parried with crackling bursts of light from both
their shields and the blades themselves. Men cried
out on both sides as they fell.
Outside, a massive, two-legged titan came
stomping into view and laid into the invaders from
behind with a stuttering crimson stream of pulse
lasers. The invading corsairs fell in heaps, their
shields overloaded in an instant due to the heavier
firepower of the titan.
But then the war machine took multiple booming
hits in the torso from high caliber autocannon shells.
Enemy fire staggered the massive war machine and
sent it rocking back on its heels. The titan pivoted its

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 27
torso to face the new threat and fired a burst of
tracking missiles from the launchers on its shoulders.
Then it followed up that assault with a pair of fat green
lasers from the cannons in its arms.
The unseen enemy fired back with thinner,
weaker crimson pulse lasers that riddled the titan’s
torso and elicited fading blue pock marks from its
shields. Then came several electric-blue streaks of
railgun rounds. They exploded with a cracking boom,
overloading the titan’s shields and setting its
duranium armor on fire as super-heated hydraulic
fluid spurted from the joints in its arms and knees.
The pilot of the giant, mechanized war machine
initiated a lurching sprint, crossing the grounds with
long strides and booming footfalls to make itself a
moving target. It fired off another volley of missiles. A
massive explosion shook the fortress and sent fiery
debris lancing through the sunroom to shatter yet
more panes of glass. Further off in the background,
tall, mechanized shadows came crashing through the
trees. Thick green lasers converged from two enemy
titans on the defending unit, followed by streaking
volleys of missiles that arced high into the air like
stars falling in reverse—only to come crashing back
down on the friendly titan from above. Multiple
explosions flashed and boomed, dazzling Valin’s
eyes. The cockpit exploded, and the war machine
collapsed and fell over in a flaming ruin that was its
own funeral pyre.
Shouts of dismay erupted from the royal guard,
even as booming, amplified cheers went up from the
attacking corsairs—“Vrak aka’to!”—and echoed off
the vaulted ceilings.
“Fall back to the front gates!” someone cried. It
sounded like Valin’s father.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 28
The flashing blue and red light of the plasma
blades cast distorted shadows against the walls as
the family guard retreated. As they neared the front of
the hall, Valin saw his father, Emmerich, more clearly
in his distinctive suit of shielded battle armor, painted
a dark, royal blue with silver trim. He was right there
in the thick of it, fighting alongside members of the
family guard. Each of them wore the Orion Family
crest, glowing brightly on the shoulders of their battle
suits. Their energy shields flared brightly under the
relentless assault of enemy blades.
Emmerich’s plasma sword flashed as he parried
strike after strike and deflected the ones that made it
through on the small, circular duranium shield that
he’d deployed from his suit’s left gauntlet.
Corsairs fell in heaps to his father’s spinning
blade, and a spark of hope sputtered in Corvus’s
chest. Maybe they could beat the odds.
But that hope was crushed in an instant.
Emmerich’s shield overloaded with a burst of light,
and a corsair snuck past his guard with a lunging jab
that plunged straight through his side.
Emmerich cried out as he fell to his knees. The
surrounding guardsmen rallied to his defense,
exposing themselves to the enemy’s attacks in order
to get to him.
“Emmerich!” Nasandra cried.
Valin’s breath caught in his throat. He watched his
father jerked to his feet by a guardsman. Emmerich
stumbled as he backed away frantically with his men,
parrying a flurry of strikes from the advancing
corsairs. One by one, the guards around him fell,
overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies.
Emmerich executed a broad, clumsy slash with his
sword to force them back, but the momentum of the

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 29
attack left him overextended with his flank exposed.
Two corsairs rushed in and ran him through with their
blades. Emmerich collapsed with his armor flickering
as his energy shield sputtered. 

Chapter 3
“No!” Valin tried to leap over the railing to get to
his father, but Nasandra held him back, her eyes
glistening with unshed tears.
Meeka mewled piteously.
Kronos jumped to his feet and fired surgical
bursts from his cycler rifle.
Just then, the front gates burst open and more of
the family guards came streaming into the entry hall,
fanning out and sighting down the scopes of cycler
rifles to fire charged, precision bursts of plasma at the
invading corsairs.
“Now is our chance, Lady Orion!” Kronos shouted.
“Lead the way!” She yanked Valin to his feet, and
they flashed out through the gates and ran down a
tree-lined street between empty landing pads.
Outside the fortress, the chaos was palpable. The
fortress grounds were ablaze, trees and bushes
reduced to burning husks. The acrid stench of smoke
filled his lungs. Armored bodies of Orion guards and
corsairs lay scattered all down the street.
Titans—massive battle mechs painted blue and white
in the colors of House Orion—stood their ground,

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 31
firing relentlessly at enemy titans, and arching their
backs to track the buzzing specks of enemy
starfighters. The sky was thick with smoke, flashes of
green and red lasers and missiles cut through the
haze.
Valin watched in horror as one of the Orion titans
crumpled to the ground, collapsing under the
combined fire of three smaller corsair mechs. The
earth shook as the titan fell, drawing a plume of dust
and smoke into the already swirling air.
Valin glanced back over his shoulder as they ran.
He saw all twelve of the fortress’s towers blazing with
thick green lasers and broken golden lines of
autocannon fire. Enemy missiles and fighters were
being intercepted by the dozen, but still others were
getting through. As he watched, two missiles
converged and one of the towers exploded and
cracked apart in giant steelcrete chunks.
“Kronos, where is the Outrider?” Nasandra asked
between gasping breaths that fogged the cool night
air with steam.
“In hangar three, Lady,” Kronos said, pointing
through the trees to a row of large buildings—hangars
and titan bays that surrounded the Orion Family
Fortress. “It was taken in for servicing soon after we
arrived from Tamaria.”
“Then why are we running out here in the open?
We should have taken the access tunnels!”
“They were compromised, Lady. The enemy tried
to use them to sneak into the fortress, and the guard
was forced to collapse the tunnels.”
A booming explosion caused Valin to flinch, and
his mother to duck. Moments later, a flaming
starfighter came spinning out of the sky, passing low
overhead before exploding in a burst of fiery orange

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 32
light behind the hangars.
Valin stumbled, his legs feeling weak beneath
him, but his mother pulled him forward, her fingers
like iron claws around his hand. Valin’s eyes stung
with tears as he remembered his father’s fate, but his
mother kept running, pulling him inexorably along the
road and forcing him to keep all of his attention
riveted on his feet and legs in order to keep up and
not to trip.
The trees fell away and they burst out onto the
tarmac around the hangars. Nasandra pulled him
along, leading him to the hangar which was now dead
ahead. The massive doors were cracked open, just
wide enough for pedestrians to enter the hangar bay.
Valin saw blurry snatches of movement inside, and
wondered if it was his family’s ground technicians,
working frantically to make the Outrider ready for
take-off.
Valin could hear Kronos behind them, his
mechanical feet pounding steadily against the
pavement as he covered their retreat, a welcome
reminder that they weren’t alone.
“Almost there, Lady,” Kronos said. He pulled
ahead of them. “Allow me to go first. I am detecting
movement inside, and I cannot ascertain whether they
are our people or corsairs.”
Just as he said that, the hangar doors opened
wider. Valin’s breath hitched in his chest, afraid that
he would see the red and black armor of corsairs.
But then he saw men in blue and white Orion
family uniforms. Two of them came out and waved
them onward, urging them to hurry.
“Oh, thank God!” Nasandra breathed. She poured
on a sudden burst of speed, and Valin nearly tripped
again as he struggled to keep up with his mother’s

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 33
longer strides. His legs and lungs were burning, and
his vision crowded with dark spots, but he forced
himself to press on. They were almost there.
A sharp whistling sound preceded a cluster of
gleaming silver streaks that fell like stars from the sky.
The hangar’s shields flared brightly and multiple
explosions boomed in rapid succession.
“Get down!” Kronos warned. Valin’s mother
yanked him to the pavement. He hit his chin and
tasted blood. Kronos curved his body over them, as a
roaring wall of flames rushed by, silhouetting his body
and tearing flaming holes in his uniform. This time
Valin didn’t feel the sharp bite of shrapnel, but the
heat of the blast was so intense that it made him cry
out in pain. It only lasted an instant before an icy wind
snatched the heat away. His mother stumbled to her
feet and yanked Valin up with her. She and Kronos
were both saying something, but Valin couldn’t hear
them through the ringing in his ears. He felt Meeka
moving around in his pack, which was both reassuring
and worrying. What if she had been hurt? He began
to shrug out of his pack to check on her, but his
mother grabbed his hand and yanked him away from
the hangar. It was ablaze, the roof a sunken ruin, and
the Outrider within was snarled with debris. The men
who had been waving to them were lying face down,
motionless. Another one came racing out of the
inferno, his whole body on fire. He dropped and hit
the pavement, then lay still.
Valin struggled to process everything that was
happening. They ran to a parking lot around the side
of the hangar and jumped into a hover car. Kronos
powered it up and punched in a destination while he
and his mother sat in the back. The car took off with a
lurching start and veered around quickly to the road

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 34
leading down from the fortress to the city below.
Valin’s mother hugged him tightly as she buckled
his safety belt and then her own. As the ringing in
Valin’s ears cleared, he heard his mother saying
repeatedly that everything was going to be okay. Valin
nodded but said nothing. He didn’t agree. Nothing
was going to be okay.
He took off his pack and finally checked on
Meeka. Her furry white head darted out of the
peekaboo flap. Her ears were coiled tightly shut, and
clear blue lines of blood had trickled out of them to
stain her fur. His mother said something about it, and
then she pointed to her own ear, where blood had
also trickled out. Valin nodded mutely once more.
Meeka licked his cheek and began mewling piteously
and scratching at the walls of the bag, begging to be
let out. He was tempted, but he decided not to
because she might run away and get lost. Instead, he
kissed the top of her head and repeated his mother’s
assurances, whispering over and over that everything
was going to be okay.
As their car raced down the hill, Valin caught sight
of Aspera City. Fires raged among the buildings, and
the corsairs’ sleek black titans were moving like
shadows down the streets, belching bright red pulse
lasers as they went. Here and there, a larger Orion
mech stood blocking a particular avenue and firing
steadily back.
Valin’s heart pounded as their car entered the
outskirts of the city. Buildings were on fire. People ran
screaming down the streets. Cars were on fire. Others
racing away into the darkness that surrounded the
city. Corsairs stalked among the shadows, dragging
or carrying unconscious citizens to be taken away and
sold as slaves.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 35
Kronos took manual control of the vehicle, veering
down side streets and alleys to get around the chaos
as much as he could.
“How much further is it?” Nasandra asked.
“We are almost to the extraction point, Lady.”
They burst from an alley and made a sharp turn
onto the adjoining street. Dead ahead, Valin saw two
Orion titans standing guard in front of a large black
troop transport with the landing ramp down and a
trickling stream of civilians rushing up it. Scattered
members of the guard crouched behind cars and
debris, watching for signs of trouble.
They came to an intersection and Kronos drove
straight through—
Just as a big black blur tore out of the shadows of
the cross street.
“Look out!” Nasandra cried.
Kronos veered sharply away, but he was too
slow. Valin stared in horror at an enemy titan barreling
down on them, moving too fast to stop. It slammed
into their car, a massive metal foot hooked under the
vehicle, and flipped it up, sending them rolling end
over end down the street. Valin and his mother both
screamed as the world around them spun dizzily.
Kronos fired the braking thrusters with a roar, but it
was too late.
They slammed head-on into the back of a hover
car that was parked on the other side of the street.
Valin’s screams cut off as his head snapped forward
and he slammed into his restraints. His head
slammed into something hard, and he blacked out.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 36

Chapter 4
Some time later Valin came to, upside down, with
a splitting headache and long lines of bloody saliva
dribbling from his mouth.
“Master Valin, come, we must hurry,” Kronos said
in a gritty voice as he reached into the car from the
side.
Valin turned his head to see the android
silhouetted by the fires that were blazing through the
building on the other side of the street. Fully half of his
face was missing and hanging from his neck in a big
rubbery flap, exposing the bare metal and delicate
synthetic muscles below. There was no sign of either
Meeka or his mother.
“Wahr oorr ehy?” he tried to ask.
“Your mother is unconscious, but alive. Meeka is
with me.” Kronos turned his torso to reveal that he
was wearing the backpack, and Meeka’s eyes were
just visible, glinting from a deep nest of shadows
inside the bag. Valin nodded and fumbled to release
his safety belt. He depressed the button and fell out
into Kronos’s arms. The android pulled him out of the
car and sat him beside the ruined hover car.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 37
“Valin, are you able to run? I cannot carry both
you and your mother at the same time.”
“What about the transport?”
“It is gone.”
Valin struggled to his feet, his eyes wide and
staring as he took in the flaming ruins of the
evacuation ship and both of the Orion family titans
that had been guarding it. How long had he been
unconscious?
“What happened?”
“An orbital strike. Our only hope now is to hide
until your Uncle Magnus arrives from Tamaria with the
Sector Defense Fleet. Can you run?”
Valin managed a jerky nod. His foot hurt and his
left knee felt bruised, but otherwise, he was okay.
“Good.” Kronos spun away to lift his mother from
the pavement and drape her over his arms. Valin
noted that the android’s cycler rifle was missing. Had
it been thrown clear of the car? But it hardly mattered.
Kronos couldn’t carry his mother and shoot at the
same time. But that meant that they were
defenseless.
“This way.” As Kronos turned to leave, Valin
caught a glimpse of his mother’s plasma pistol
peeking out from the inside pocket of her jacket. It
was about to fall. Valin’s hand darted out, and he
grabbed it and tucked it into his own jacket.
Not so defenseless anymore, Valin thought as his
fingers curled around the cold, textured metal grip of
the weapon.
“Stay close,” Kronos whispered, and then he ran
to the mouth of a nearby alley and ducked into the
shadows. Valin followed, and they raced quickly
between two brick walls that were radiating heat from
the fires still ravaging those buildings from within.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 38
The sounds of gunfire and explosions mingled
with people’s screams in the distance. Flashes of
laser light strobed through the narrow slice of sky
above.
They reached the end of the alley, and Kronos put
up a hand, signaling for him to wait. “There is an
emergency shelter on the other side of the street,” he
explained as he laid Valin’s mother down and
propped her up against a recessed section of the wall.
“Wait here, Master Valin. I will make sure the shelter
has not been compromised.”
Valin nodded. “Okay.”
Kronos slung the pack with Meeka in it from his
shoulders and said, “Keep her quiet. She is in
distress, and we do not want her cries to give away
your location to the enemy.”
“I’ll try.”
Kronos fixed him with his bright blue eyes,
seeming to want to say more, but he kept quiet and
looked away. “Stay here. I will not be long.”
Valin crouched in the shadows between his
mother and Meeka, watching as Kronos darted across
the street. Meeka let out a low, anxious whimper.
Valin shushed her, and then she began digging
furiously inside her bag, but it was made of a slick
nanofiber material that was impervious to her claws.
Getting frustrated, she took a break, panting loudly.
And then went at it again.
“Shhh! Be quiet, Meeka.”
Her head popped out the flap, and this time she
yowled—a sharp piercing cry that skycats used in the
wild to call to each other.
“Be quiet!” Valin said, and then he pushed her
head back down into the bag. She growled at him and
returned to digging.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 39
Valin’s eyes darted nervously to the opening of
the alley, but there was no sign of any corsairs. He let
out a ragged breath. His mother sighed and mumbled
something, her head lolling to one side before coming
back up. She cracked her eyes open, and her lips
moved feebly, but no sound came out.
“Mom?” he whispered.
She tried again. This time, her hand came up,
fumbling inside her jacket for her gun.
“I have it,” Valin said as he reached for the
weapon.
“Good.” Nasandra nodded and her hand fell away
from her pocket as she subsided against the wall. She
looked too weak to speak, let alone fire a weapon.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Where is Kronos?”
“He went to check the shelter. He said we need to
hide and wait for Uncle Magnus.”
Nasandra swallowed thickly, and Valin peered
around the corner, searching for Kronos. He drew the
gun from his jacket and checked to see if the safety
was off. It wasn’t, so he flicked the switch, and then
held the weapon in both hands and aimed it out into
the street.
“I can’t move my legs,” his mother said in a
matter-of-fact voice, as if she was just talking about
the weather.
“What do you mean? You can’t walk?”
“No. If Kronos doesn’t come back. You’ll have to
go on without me.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You can’t stay here. They’ll find you.”
Valin shook his head. “No.”
“Valin—” His mother’s voice sharpened in the way
it did when he was in trouble.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 40
But she didn’t get a chance to finish whatever
she’d been about to say. The sound of hurried
footfalls drew Valin’s attention to the opening of the
alley. Kronos was running back across the street.
Valin hoped he had good news about the shelter. But
then he noticed Kronos wasn’t headed for the alley,
and he saw two corsairs in their bulky black and red
armor running after him. Valin remembered that he
was unarmed. Defenseless.
“Let’s just shoot him!” one corsair shouted, and
then he stopped running and raised a rifle to his
shoulder.
“Wait!” the other cried.
A burst of electric-blue disruptor bolts leaped from
the barrel of the first one’s rifle. Valin’s guts clenched
up in dismay as the disruptor fire slammed into
Kronos, overloading his shields and temporarily
scrambling his circuits. He stumbled and fell and
rolled to a stop about ten feet away. Valin shrank
back into the shadows beside his mother as the
corsairs crossed over to Kronos. One of them kicked
him, but Kronos didn’t react. Maybe the disruptors
had done more than just temporary damage. He
remembered learning from his father that disruptors
overloaded shields and electronic systems. They
were ideal for disabling bots like Kronos.
“Grak!” one corsair cursed. “I wanted him in one
piece. You know what a bot like that is worth?”
“We can still sell him for parts,” the other said.
Before the first one could say anything to that,
Kronos’s arms and legs began jerking and twitching.
He struggled to his feet.
“It lives!” the first one roared triumphantly.
Kronos took a swipe at his leg in an attempt to
yank him off his feet, but nothing happened.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 41
“The bot’s got spiruk!”
Kronos sprang to his feet and lunged for the
man’s rifle. The corsair ducked back out of reach and
thrust out his foot, tripping Kronos once more. The
android stumbled and fell. Booming laughter erupted
from the two corsairs.
“Look at him floppin’ around like a pica fish! That
disruptor must have fried his processor. Now I really
will have to sell him for scrap!”
Valin’s grip tightened on the plasma pistol, and he
began edging out of cover for a clear shot.
“Valin, don’t,” his mother warned, her hand batting
weakly at his shoulder.
He hesitated.
Kronos scrambled to his feet once more, but this
time, he waited to make his move. Both corsairs had
their rifles raised and aimed squarely at his chest.
Another two disruptor bolts really would fry his circuits
for good. A parade of memories flickered before
Valin’s eyes: of playing hide and seek with Kronos in
the fortress and the surrounding forests, of the
android coming to his room in the middle of the night
when he had a nightmare, and staying all night in his
room to keep the monsters away; of Kronos taking
him to the park in Aspera City to play with the other
kids. Kronos had also served him his meals, and
when he was younger, he’d helped him to shower and
get dressed, and taught him his lessons each day so
that he would know how to be a good ruler like his
father someday. A painful lump rose in Valin’s throat.
He had a gun. He could shoot both brutes and kill
them before they hurt Kronos.
“Any last words, bot?”
Kronos kept silent.
“Nothing? Really? All right. Enjoy the scrap pile,

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 42
drakol.”
Valin sighted down the barrel of his gun to the
man who was speaking.
“Valin!” his mother hissed.
“Did you hear something?” the other corsair
asked, his aim faltering as his attention drifted to the
alley. “Hey, there’s a kid over there!”
Valin squeezed the trigger, and a blinding white
bolt of plasma slammed into his target. The man’s
shields absorbed the shot, but Valin squeezed the
trigger twice more, as fast as he could, and the third
shot left a scorch mark on the man’s armor, just
above his leg. The man cursed and dove for the
ground, rolling and coming up in a crouch to face
Valin across a distance of about five feet with his rifle
squarely aimed.
The other corsair charged the alley. Valin’s aim
shifted, and Kronos attempted to intervene, but the
raider smoothly drew his sword and ignited it in a
crimson flash that severed both of Kronos’ legs and
sent him pitching over to the ground. Valin tried to
shoot the second corsair, but this time he missed. The
man reached him and smacked the gun out of his
hand with an armored fist. Valin’s hand exploded with
pain, and he screamed. He lunged for the corsair’s
sword, which was once again clipped to his hip, but
the man grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his
feet and pinning him to the wall.
“Well, well, well, look who it is.”
Valin struggled to free himself, batting at the arm
that held him and kicking impotently against the man’s
armor. But his movements were sloppy and growing
weaker by the second. Dark spots crowded around
the edges of his vision. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs
burned for air and his pulse pounded erratically inside

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 43
his head.
“Who is it?” the other corsair asked as he
crowded into the mouth of the alley.
“It’s Valin Orion, the son of Emmerich and
Nasandra Orion.”
“Put him down. If it’s credits you want, I can pay,”
his mother said. Valin’s heart sank. She should have
kept quiet. They hadn’t spotted her yet! What was she
doing?
Both men slowly turned to look at her. The one
holding Valin allowed him to slide to the ground, but
kept a firm grip on him by a fistful of his hair.
“Looks like we have two sovereigns for the price
of one,” the corsair holding Valin said.
“Zavren, we need to call this in,” the other man
whispered.
“Call it in? What’s the point? We have our orders.”
Zavren shook his rifle in Nasandra’s direction, and
she glared balefully back.
Valin eyed the man’s sword. It was just out of
reach, but if he jerked his head hard enough, maybe
he could break free and grab it.
“And what are your orders?” Nasandra asked.
“To kill you.”
Valin’s blood ran cold. His mother’s eyes
widened, and her face grew pale.
“We are worth more to you alive.”
“Oh, trust me, Lady, I agree.”
“Zav... it’s not worth it! We’d be executed for
treason if the warlord found out.”
Zavren turned to face his squad mate, bringing
Valin precious inches closer to the sword on his hip.
He judged his moment and jerked his head as hard as
he could. A chunk of hair tore free of his scalp, but
Valin ignored the pain and seized the cold metal hilt of

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 44
the weapon, plucking it free. He flicked the activation
switch, and a razor-thin duranium blade extended
from the handle and simultaneously blazed to life with
a sheath of crimson plasma.
Both corsairs cursed. The one whose blade he’d
stolen attempted to seize his wrist, but Valin ducked
and backpedaled frantically out of reach.
“Kavos! Stun him!”
The other corsair flicked a selector switch on his
rifle and took aim, but Valin dove and thrust his blade
out like a spear. It was the same soldier he’d shot
earlier, and his shields were already overloaded, so
the blade slid straight through his armor like a knife
through butter. The man coughed wetly into his
helmet and sank to his knees, clutching a smoking
hole in his gut. Valin stumbled away, gaping in horror
at what he’d done.
The man he’d impaled fell over and lay still.
“Kavos!” Zavren cried. Then he rounded on Valin
with an unintelligible roar. “You killed my brother!”
“Valin, run!” Nasandra cried.
“Move a muscle, and your mother dies, boy!” The
corsair shifted his aim to Nasandra. “Drop the sword.”
Valin hesitated. He saw his mother’s face, pale
and drawn with fear.
“Run!” she murmured again, her words barely a
whisper, but Valin couldn’t move. He was rooted to
the spot with fear and dread. He was too far away to
reach the corsair with the plasma sword before he
shot his mother. There was nothing he could do.
A stuttering voice erupted behind Valin. “L-listen
to your m-mother.” He glanced over his shoulder to
see Kronos dragging himself across the pavement to
reach them, but without his legs and no weapons,
Kronos couldn’t help them either.

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 45
“Look at me, boy.”
Valin did, and the corsair’s gleaming red visor
scrolled up to reveal glowing, ice-blue eyes. He had a
rugged face with a long scar running from his left
eyebrow, across his nose where it had chiseled out a
dent, and down his right cheek. A thick black beard
covered his jaw, and permashadow highlighted his
eyes.
“Now, you will watch as I take someone that you
care about.”
Valin’s lips trembled and tears sprang to his eyes.
“You already did! We’re even!”
“Oh? How is that?” The corsair’s head tilted
curiously to one side.
“You killed my father!”
The man cracked an ugly smile. “Good.”
And with that, Valin lost all control. He rushed at
the corsair, swinging wildly with his sword. The raider
deployed a duranium shield from his right gauntlet
and caught one blow across his forearm. Then he
swept Valin’s legs out from under him and stepped on
his hand and wrist, forcing him to release the blade. It
was the second time his hand had been injured, and
he cried out in agony as his bones ground together
beneath the man’s boot.
“Now, watch.” The raider’s rifle drifted into line
with his mother once more.
“Valin, I love you. Never forg—” The flickering
burst of a pulse laser cut her off in mid-syllable, and
Nasandra’s head slumped to her chest.
“Mom!” Valin screamed.
But she gave no reply.
There were three smoking black holes in her
torso.
Valin couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think. Rage

Jasper T. Scott / STAR EMPIRES / 46
consumed him, and he screamed like an animal,
bucking and kicking and clawing at the boot on top of
his hand. He felt something snap inside his wrist, but
he kept going until the pain made him want to throw
up.
The corsair stared bemusedly at him, and his rifle
slowly drifted into line with Valin’s chest. “Any final
words, rotling?”
Valin found a plasma dagger sheathed halfway up
the corsair’s boot. He ripped it out, activated the
blade, and plunged it into the corsair’s knee. The
man’s shields flared bright blue with the attack, and
the blade slid right off. Valin tried again, again,
hacking away at the man’s armor, but each time with
the same result. Valin could tell that the corsair’s
shields were weakening, because the blue flares of
light were growing weaker and dimmer with each
attack. But then the corsair kicked the blade out of his
hand, and it skittered down the alley. Valin screamed
again, more from outrage than the pain.
“You are a tenacious little vikat. It’d be a shame to
waste that spiruk by sending you to the void.” He
flicked a switch on the side of his rifle and then shot
Valin straight in the face with a blazing white stun bolt.
A brief spark of pain coursed through every inch of his
being, and then came a warm, spreading numbness.
His last thoughts were of Meeka and Kronos—the
only family he had left—and then darkness closed
around him like a giant fist. ...