Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three) by P.S. Power

so
he waved to her and explained quickly what he was doing and broke the line,
which just left her standing there, looking more than a little put out.
    He was being rude, he knew, but...
    Sighing he tapped the sigil for his grandfather, wondering
if he was on board the orange vessel or not. Oddly enough it wasn't the man
himself who answered, but a deep sounding voice that took a few seconds to
place. Kolb. The weapons master from the Lairdgren school. Also Immortal and
related to him in that same vague fashion that all the others claimed. It
wasn't biological, but they were still as much family as most of them had.
    "Timon?" He sounded steely, which was a thing the
man was very good at, over all. It was close to the only way that Tim had ever
seen him at least, but they weren't exactly close.
    "Here. What do you know about Remy Seventeen?"
    There was a silence for a moment from the device, and then a
single low word. It was echoed several times from the other space.
    "Fuck."
    At least one of those had come from Count Lairdgren himself,
which wasn't like that man at all. He normally spoke in bland tones, without a
lot of emphasis. It made sense that he'd know that kind of thing, being
thousands of years old, but hearing it caused Tim to wince. If he was being
pushed to atypical behavior like that, then the situation was probably worse
than he'd thought.
    It was Kolb that answered though, his voice darker than it
had been by about fifty percent.
    "You saw a Remy? Did they... have a message for
us?"
    "Not exactly. It pretty much just tried to kill me,
then we discussed the fact that it might have been around for a while, watching
me. It turned into Aunt Connie, made some threats and left. A black craft took
off several minutes later. I can't swear it was on board. The golem also turned
into the man that tried to destroy my pattern a few weeks back, which I took as a confession. That might be a bit presumptuous, but hey, if you don't
want to be thought ill of, you probably shouldn't go around making yourself
look like would be killers." Timon wiped at his forehead and looked at
Countess Printer, who was standing with her arms crossed, clearly not loving
the part where she was being kept out of the loop, information wise. That was
just timing though, not him really trying to freeze her out.
    The bald giant with the deep voice cleared his throat over
the device.
    "I see. I think. How did you survive?"
    "Magic. I was in a rage, after being goaded... I can go
over that later, but I realized I wasn't winning a fist fight with it, and hid
in my craft."
    "Good. Why did you stay in place? You could have fled,
and probably should have."
    Timon sighed and wanted to shake his head, but realized that
Holly might just take it the wrong way if he did.
    "If I'd done that, he might have just killed people
here. The Countess and her people, out of spite. I stayed ready to run though,
just in case. I... haven't come out yet. Just because a craft left, that
doesn't mean Remy was on it. I should probably leave, but..."
    That got a new voice to speak. His Aunt Alice. Now she was a
worrying sort of person altogether. In the main he tried to avoid her,
personally. She ran the new space fleet, which was interesting enough, but she
was also both very tough and hard, and very pretty. That combined with
her being called "aunt" was enough to make her too complicated for
him by far. Not that she was really related, he reminded himself.
    "Should you leave? If you stay there, Remy will know
where to find you, but you can set your traps and ready yourself. If you run,
you'll never know when you're about to be hit. That puts you at a disadvantage.
Not that you'll live, of course. The Remy's... They're very good at removing
people that they don't like. I'm impressed that you survived so far. Very much
so."
    That made him feel better. At least he was impressing
his aunt, the crazy fighter. Tim smiled though, and rolled his eyes, while
Count Lairdgren spoke, his