The Kingdom of the Seven Stars: Chaturanga

Chapter 13

The journey back to the Pleiades was miserable.

The recovery project's matter transmitter was able to take them all back to the space station in one go. After they'd assured Lieutenant Anderson that the explosion the station's systems had detected in Chaturanga was not anything he needed to worry about, there had been nothing left to do except get into the royal yacht and start the trip home. The Sirians had departed in their own ship, swearing revenge on Lord Blackstar, but otherwise looking almost as depressed as Alex felt. Even Lord Blackstar, whose high powered ship was easily going to get back to Magenta ahead of them, was not looking pleased or triumphant when he left. He was the only one of them who had actually managed to do what he had come to Earth for. But Alex could tell that the Lord Chancellor felt he had paid more than he wanted to for it.

They hardly talked for most of the eighteen hours it took to get home. Captain Zachary, who was too dejected to be angry when Alice revealed that the password she had locked the yacht's controls with was his first name, left the auto-pilot off and flew them back to the Pleiades himself. Ellen spent most of the trip in the yacht's gym, practising with her sword until she broke the point on the fencing robot. Alice spent it reading The Four-Limbed Game from cover to cover and occasionally studying the scrap of paper with the only sentence left from the notebook on it. Alex took turns piloting with Captain Zachary, just to have something to do. Anything was better than sitting around and thinking about how badly he had failed.

They had been so close. The notebook had literally been in his hands. Alex cursed himself over and over again for everything he had not thought of; like looking straight through it at all the pictures to see if King Stephen had drawn anything similar to Lord Blackstar's checkmate, or simply photographing every page with his personal communicator so they would have a full copy. Then it would not have mattered if they had lost the original. Their only hope had been shot to pieces by Darla. They still had King Stephen's favourite chess pieces, which they could donate to the museum when they got home, but that was not going to help them save Mum and Uncle Max. There was nothing they could do except go home and wait for Lord Blackstar to win King Stephen's Last Game. Alex had never known it was possible to feel as miserable as he did by the time they re-entered Magenta's orbit.

* * * * * * *

"Your highnesses! Where in the names of all seven of the Sisters have you been?" said the royal steward. "Don't waste your breath making excuses, Captain. You can save them for the court martial."

"I tried to get them back as fast as I could," said Captain Zachary.

"He did. It wasn't his fault. You can't blame him," said Ellen. "And it was all for nothing anyway."

"Well. It was interesting," said Alice.

"I'm sure," said the steward. "But – as I shouldn't have to remind you, Princess Alice – we are in the middle of a crisis. It's only gotten worse while you've been gone. And the three of you disappearing really did not help."

"The professors couldn't solve it?" said Alex, just as the door opened behind the steward.

"Alex. Alice. Ellen," said Jessamine, coming in with Captain Zachary's deputy, Lieutenant Cornwell.

The royal steward immediately stepped aside. Alex and his sisters hurried across the room to hug their mother. Alex let Alice and Ellen go first.

"I'm sorry, Mum," said Ellen.

"Don't worry. We can talk about it later. I'm just glad you're safe," said Jessamine.

"I'm sorry too," said Alex, as Alice let go and he hugged Jessamine, the hilt of his sword knocking against hers...