Free Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future by Barbara Bartholomew Page A

meant things were going from worse to much worse.
    Kevin was bound to clog up the whole process.
    The fancy black car that Kevin had selected from the vehicles stored by the elders after the community had been virtually wiped out pulled to a stop behind Jamie’s crew. Town constables, wearing side arms that would have been totally ineffective in fighting off invaders, leaped out and waited while Kevin, wearing a dark blue robe over his pajamas climbed out. His hair mussed and his face pale, he looked like he’d just gotten out of bed.
    He stared open-mouthed at the cruiser and at the Aremians, still holding their hands aloft, and then began to apologize, “So sorry, your lordship,” he groveled. “Please know that you are our honored guests and that this, all of this,” he nodded at Jamie and company, “is just a terrible mistake.”
    He strode forward, addressing himself angrily to Jamie. “In the name of all that’s holy, Ward, put those weapons down! You trying to start a war.”
    At the order, most of those with shoulder rockets lowered their weapons. Jamie and Mack and Karen’s boys were the only ones who did not comply.
    “Blast it all, Ward, these are the emperor’s men, put your weapon away.”
    “Kevin,” the cruiser captain said as if in sudden discovery. “The empress says she can remember when you were a small time bully.”
    Jamie thought as he watched Kevin’s face turn red and then purple that he was going to choke.

NINE
    How had Jamie let this happen?   Claire’s memories of those first hours on Sanctuary before she was kidnapped remained vivid and Kevin had been one of the kids she’d really disliked.
    A bully and a blowhard, he and his followers had held power only briefly. Karen was on that list too, though she knew from the regular updates Mathiah had received over the years that she had joined forces with Jamie, Isaiah and Mack and eventually married Mack.
    “What was Jamie thinking to step down?” she asked her daughters in the darkness of the cave on Capron. “He should be giving the orders, not that Kevin person.”
    “Is that a message you want sent?” Adaeze queried, “or simply a comment.”
    “A comment,” Claire snapped, her attention diverted as she heard the sound of voices outside the cave and the boulder that covered the doorway began to move. “We’ll have to leave things on Sanctuary to Jamie for now and see what we can do for ourselves.”
    “I’m ready to get out of this place,” Lillianne announced with some bitterness and Claire suspected that somewhere, beyond her hearing, her gentle younger daughter was speaking words that her father would not have approved.
    Claire grinned. It seemed like only yesterday that she’d been a rebellious teen herself, but when these two girls of hers revolted, worlds would shake.
    She supposed she should be worried, but all she could think was that after years of repression, she was going to enjoy this a whole lot.
    “Adaeze, Lillianne,” she said, picking up one of the large rocks that lay on the ground. “It’s time to give them hell.”
    When the first man stepped through the opening, she crowned him with a mighty blow to the skull. Even as he fell her daughters struck the next two that entered.
    And then suddenly, rough and dirty barbarians were rushing toward them from all directions.
    “Don’t be afraid, Mom,” Adaeze told her. “These are on our side.”
    Lillianne smiled in satisfaction as the cluster of people at the entrance of the cave moved back to allow them to exit , their heads bent in submission as the empress and the two princesses walked out into open air.
    “How did you do that?” Claire whispered to Adaeze.
    “These are not brain blind like the others,” Adaeze said  in a normal tone as though not at all troubled by being overheard. “We sent them word of their obligation to the late emperor.”
    “Obligation? Most likely he sent them to this terrible place.”
    “Obligation,” Adaeze