Free The Worker Prince by Bryan Thomas Schmidt Page B

found himself pulled in two directions but managed to grab Davi’s collar and jerk him roughly off his feet.
    As the Captain pulled Davi closer and closer, the girl bit the Captain, who yelled and flinched, letting her go. Davi tried to use the moment to pull himself free, but the Captain pulled Davi’s uniform collar tighter, causing Davi to slip and fall away from him and into wooden double doors which cracked loudly as they splintered from the force.
    Seeing the girl slipping away, the Captain chased after her, turning his back on Davi.
    Davi needed some kind of weapon. He thought for a moment of his blaster, but the Alliance had laws and he could think of none which would justify shooting a soldier, especially not to save a worker. Besides, the Captain had a blaster hanging on his hip.
    As he climbed to his feet and stepped away from the door, part of it slipped back inside the house behind him. He looked at the splintered wood and began pulling free a section he could use as a club. Wood creaked and snapped as he pulled.
    “Why are you doing this to me?” the girl screamed, as she continued dodging the Captain.
    “Because you’re a worker,” the Captain said, grunting with satisfaction as he grabbed her again and looked around for something to tie her with.
    Davi ran up behind him with the board. Seeing him out of the corner of his eye, the Captain turned, raising an arm, as Davi swung the board down hard atop his head.
    The Captain’s arm deflected the board, sending it hard against the side of his head. Sharp pain filled Davi’s fingers and hands at the force of it, as he struggled to hang on. The Captain froze and emitted a loud gurgling sound, releasing the girl and falling to his knees as blood poured from his ears.
    Davi pulled the board away and saw that a large spike had entered the man’s head at the temple. The Captain fell over face down and lay still as the salty smell of warm blood rose into the air from a widening pool around his head. Oh my gods! I killed him!
    “Is he dead?” the girl asked, petrified.
    Davi knelt beside his opponent, feeling for breath. The strengthened stench almost made him gag but he swallowed hard. “I think so. I don’t know.” The Captain’s chest wasn’t moving.
    The girl gasped. Davi saw her pointing at his chest where his ripped uniform revealed his own necklace—an exact duplicate of the one she wore around her neck.
    “Where’d you get it?” the girl asked.
    “I’ve had it since I was a baby,” Davi responded.
    The girl’s eyes widened as she turned and ran back up the corridor.
    “Wait! Come back here a moment!” Davi stood, desperate to ask her more.
    But her footsteps faded into the night.
    Davi glimpsed faces peering at him from nearby windows and heard footsteps behind him.
    A worker stood in the splintered doorway as it finally sunk in—he’d killed an Alliance soldier. Davi tensed again, his heartbeat matching the pace of his breaths. Then he turned and raced off into the night.
    Davi took dark side corridors all the way back to his quarters, ducking into alleyways every time anyone approached. Gasping for breath until his lungs were about to explode, he ran as fast as his feet would take him, his soaked clothes sticking to his skin. I hope no one got a good look at my face. How am I going to explain this?

Chapter Three
    When Aron had informed her that the courier craft malfunctioned, Lura thought she’d never find breath again. She’d collapsed on the floor of her home as visions of every worst-case scenario clouded her head. Perhaps it had burned more fuel than Sol and Aron’s calculations anticipated, running out and leaving her only son to die in orbit or forever drift in space. Could it have been struck by an asteroid and disabled, or worse, exploded? Maybe the life support had failed and Davi had died inside. They had no way to know if it had landed, because its tracking device failed to maintain contact with the computer at the