Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach

really did. It was the reason I’d stuck with him as long as I had. But for all that, I didn’t love him, and now I was sure I never could. Any man who thought I wanted protection or that I had nothing I valued more than my life didn’t understand me at all.
    “I’m sorry, Anthony,” I said, pulling my hand away. “I can’t.”
    Anthony shut his eyes, his fingers slowly closing over the empty space where mine had been. “Can you at least tell me why?”
    “No,” I said. “But I can tell you I’m not being forced, and I’m not doing any of this for Rupert. Whatever you might think, we’re not here because we ran away together. We’re only stuck on this planet by accident, and now that we’ve got a ship, we’re getting back to work. I can’t tell you what we’re doing, but believe me when I say it’s important, and that I’m doing it of my own choice.”
    Anthony opened his eyes to glare at me. “And I suppose
he
helped you make that choice?”
    “Yes, he did,” I said. “But if you think there’s a man anywhere who can make me do anything I don’t want to do, you haven’t been paying attention.”
    Anthony didn’t say anything after that. He just stood there, fists clenched tight. Since there was apparently nothing left to discuss, I turned and started back to the house. I’d made it two steps when I heard his voice behind me.
    “You turn your back on me,” he said softly. “You walk away now, Deviana Morris, and we are through. I risked more than you can know to come save you today, but if you throw that back in my face, I will leave you to your damn monster.”
    “You don’t leave me anywhere,” I said, turning to face him again. “I got this far on my own. I’ll finish the same way.” And though I knew it was petty, after that display, I couldn’t help adding, “Besides, considering we’ve got your ship, I’d say you’re the one getting left.” I turned, waving over my shoulder. “Enjoy your stay in the soypen, Captain Pierce.”
    “Devi!” he shouted, but if I looked back, I’d punch him, so I didn’t. I marched into the house, grabbed my armor and my guns, and kept going, blowing past Anthony’s guards on the porch. Neither of them tried to stop me as I stomped out over the crushed soypen stalks toward the ship.
    As a captain in the Home Guard, Anthony had access to a wide variety of top-line hardware, and the cruiser he’d flown here was no exception. The five-man ship was new and shiny, though, being Paradoxian, it was three times the size of a similarly outfitted Terran model with less than half the features. I’m as loyal a servant to the king as you’ll ever find, but even I could admit the Terrans had us stomped on shipbuilding. Still, it was nice for a Paradoxian rig, and there was something nostalgic about the absurdly thick armor plating that was stuck everywhere.
    Unfortunately, there were phantoms, too. I hadn’t seen any of the little buggers other than the one that had been waiting for me when I’d woken up, but for some reason, Anthony’s ship was full of them. My best guess was that the bright light outside had made them harder to see, which meant I just noticed more in the shady ship. I didn’t know if that was actually the case, but it was far preferable to my first paranoid impulse, which was that they were following me. That was stupid, of course, and I made a great point of ignoring the phantoms as I lugged my armor case down the ship’s narrow hall toward the bridge.
    Spoiled as I’d gotten during my years working in the Republic, once thing I had missed about flying Paradoxian was the armor-ready rack located at the back of every ship’s bridge. As expected, Anthony’s was fully outfitted with top-end hookups and chem tanks full of everything a suit of powered armor could need. My suit was still sitting pretty from my stay at the Montblanc embassy, but I wasn’t about to miss a chance to top off, especially since my adventures on