Their task was clear. Land on Sennett. Blow up the factory that processed parts for a large percentage of starships in this quarter of the galaxy. That would slow down the Empire’s ability to send out ship after ship of soldiers throughout the Empire. It was an advantage the Novantae needed.

Clo had never been to Sennett, but that wasn’t saying much. She’d barely been anywhere that wasn’t a complete silthole backwater planet. Yet there on Sennett, everything was clean, despite the crowds. The streets were tidy and swept.

Still too fluming hot.

Clo waded through people, the air so thick and stifling that she fought the urge to pant with every breath. Her baggy shirt and tall boots—both worn to cover the Mors tucked into the small of her back and a few knives and lockpicks at her ankles—only made the humidity worse.

More than half of Sennett was covered in dense rainforests. The amount of foliage meant lots of cover, yet also plenty of opportunities for others to creep up on them. At least the Tholosians, in their thirst for draining the bogging galaxy dry, had killed most of the large predators on the planet. Most. Clo loved how the air smelled, though. Loamy, dark, and dangerous.

Their target city was Alina. A large swathe of jungle had been flattened, the city built from black metal, studded with the bones of the large, catlike aliens that had been there before the Tholosian conquest. Tall buildings of black and white, with curling green vines like clasping fingers twined along the sides. The streets were narrow and high, blocking out the sunlight, almost purplish with the haze of the atmosphere. The city projected countless moving advertisements onto the sides of the buildings, the images dancing in the gloom. They praised Sennett’s famed fruits and vegetables as jewels taken from the black earth.

Peppered through those swirling colors were the reminders that the planet was loyal to the Tholosian Empire. The double scythes, the dark circle between them. The icons of the Emperor, his face smooth and serene, and of General Damocles, the new Heir Apparent. The memorials to the former Heir Apparent, Princess Discordia of Tholos. Sleek blond hair that fell to her ribs, pale skin, the same royal golden eyes she’d shared with her father and brother, narrowed in the certainty that the entire galaxy would someday be hers.

But Princess Discordia was dead and gone, and Prince Damocles would take the throne and her galaxy instead.

Good riddance.

One less member of the royal family. Though her brother was, if anything, worse. Heir Apparent Damocles was a slimy, useless muskeg lag, to use one of her favorite insults from her childhood. Unlike his sister, he hadn’t earned his place, the galaxy whispered. Damocles was not loved by the people, and he knew it.