Queen Celene Herakles, Location Unknown

      I wasn't fooled. Not by the feast laid out on the long table before me, nor the false smile on the face of the man stuffing his mouth with food as if he hadn't a care in the world. I knew the truth, and the warm clothing and slippers he'd provided a few hours before I'd been escorted to this dining room did not make me want to talk. Not to him. Not to anyone on this doomed space cruiser. They’d given me a ReGen wand and access to a bathing tube. I felt well… for now.

      This was a test of patience, a test of wills. Who would endure? A test of faith. Trust. Patience, for it had been twenty-seven years since I’d been home, to Alera. I’d escaped their machinations all those years ago, but they’d finally found me.

      I had no regrets. Back on Earth, I had no doubt that my beloved Adam was worried. But he knew me, knew our daughters. He had chosen to love me despite who I was and the future that we both knew would come for us.

      I imagined him back on Earth, impatient. Trusting in his daughters. It wouldn’t be easy, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he came for all of us. He was a Marine who’d gone to college, then law school. He’d earned the respect of his peers and became a judge. He was rock solid. My anchor and my love. When he arrived, he would fight for our daughters with every ounce of his being – the soldier and the judge. These idiot kidnappers wouldn’t have figured him into their equation. And they hadn’t expected Trinity, Faith and Destiny. They doubted