D'Alken watches Corsair fall and it means nothing to him, this man who claims to be his father. His attack means less to him than the attack on D'Ken, the man who had been his father for the past fifteen years. Was he evil or a tyrant, it didn't matter. D'Alken was his, his chosen, his favorite. Someone had wanted him and taken care of him when everyone else had gone. There is an emptiness, a missing piece now that his master is dead. His life had been based on the Majestor.

He would avenge D'Ken's death. His Mastress had betrayed them both, but he would not give the Empire to Lilandra who spoke such treasons about the Majestor. Rage builds in him, that same burning pain in his hands that had made the world explode.

Explode...golden rings, golden rings of power in his hands and his eyes and his mind...where did they come from, when had they first destroyed...his life...

Raza's wrist prosthesis lights with his sword, and it is against D'Alken's throat. "Whatever you are doing, Slave, stop it." He growls, "Or I drop you like I dropped your daddy."

D'Alken, his eyes shimmering with that strange light, recoils. He looks feverishly down at Corsair. "I...he's not my father. I am the Chosen of the Majestor..."

"He used you, Alex, and he would keep using you to control your father. You are a pawn and nothing more than the key to a world that has obsessed him since it defeated him once." Lilandra pleads, putting her hand on Raza's arm, "No, leave him, Raza, don't hurt him.

The cyborg glares at the slave, "I saw what he did to Gladiator, My Lady. This human has powers. You don't understand."

"I do understand." Lilandra says, firmly, "Because I have seen his powers. He is the reason I was trapped on Earth for fifteen years."

Alex swings his feet, bored. He has been miserable for the past two weeks, spending time with Grandpa and Grandma. Their house is too hot and smelly and have no idea how to deal with a hyperactive seven-year-old with enough energy in him to power a small city it seemed. They were much more fond of Scotty, Alex's big brother. He's twelve and smarter and better. He doesn't run around and break things, he doesn't talk to loud, he doesn't cause havoc wherever he goes.

Scotty is everyone's favorite.

The little boy looks up at his brother, sitting in the co-pilot's seat of their dad's small private plane. Scott's face is tight and focused as he listens to his father's careful instructions.

"I'm bored!" Alex announces, just to break the peace.

"Hush, 'Lexxy." His mother urges, "Why don't you read your book?" She hands him his book, a colorful picture book about geology. Alex likes it, likes pictures of the rocks.

Alex drops it on the floor. "I don't want to read. I want to learn how to fly. If Scotty can, so can I."

Scott looks back at his little brother, his brown eyes filled with childish maliciousness. "You are too little." He proclaims, "You are just a little kid with rocks in your head."

"Scott!" Christopher Summers scolds, putting his hand on his oldest son's arm, "Pay attention. If you are more interested in teasing your brother, you can go back and join him."

"No, Dad." Scott says, quickly looking back at what he should be looking at. "Sorry, Sir."

Chris looks over his shoulder at little Alex and smiles, "Someday, 'Lexxy. You'll be big enough." He winks at the boy.

Alex smiles at his dad, brightly. Christopher is smart enough to give his attention fairly, He is a good father who knows how to deal with both his sons. The seven year old doesn't know any of the machinations that parenthood brings. He just knows his daddy loves him and that makes him happy. He comes over to the front of the plane and leans on his dad's seat arm, "Are we there yet?"

Chris ruffles his son's hair, blond like his mother, just like Scott was a brunette like his father. One child for each, "Not yet, Champ."

"Soon?" Alex asks, allowing the gentle man-handling with a child's tolerance for adult affection.

"Go sit down." Scott orders, his eyes narrowed, "Mom, tell the baby to leave us alone." He is trying very hard to concentrate on this, and he is not as sure about his ability to do it as he pretended. This is a lot of responsibility.

"Come on, 'Lexxy, and keep a lonely old lady company." Kathy says, holding out her arms for a hug.

Alex obediently snuggles up to her, "You aren't an old lady. You're Mom." He says, lovingly.

"When we get home though I'll take care of Mom's loneliness." Christopher calls back, cheekily. They have spent two weeks in Alaska with his parents. They haven't had much alone time. They were going to try to give the boys a sister. They had been planning this for some time. It would be good for the boys, especially Alex.

Kathy smiles, "Behave, Major Summers."

"Yes, Ma'am." Christopher salutes.

Alex frees himself from his mother's grip, disgusted by the mush talk. He wanders over to his chair and picks up a toy abandoned at the bottom of the plane. A robot that Scott had built from broken toys. He had rewired a remote control car and made something pretty cool. One of Scott's many talents.

His little brother climbs up in his seat and looks at the robot. He can't do stuff like this. He can't do stuff like this. He can't do any of the stuff Scott can do. He's just plain better. Alex just wants something to make him special.

He has something in him that wants to come out. He wants to be the favorite, just once.

The plane suddenly bounces and Alex drops the robot. "Hey." He protests.

Christopher turns to Scott to correct something, but his eyes widen as they skim past the windshield. "Kathy." He calls, in a purposely bland voice, "Come up here, please. Scotty, Kiddo, go back and sit with your brother. Make sure you are both buckled up."

Scott is going to protest, but something in his dad's voice prevents it. "Yes, sir." He says, slipping out of the chair and letting his mom take his place. He sits next to Alex. "Buckle up." He orders.

"You aren't my boss." Alex says.

"Alex, buckle up." Kathy says, firmly.

Scott leans over and buckles his brother's belt. "Quit being a brat." He scolds, "Something is up."

Christopher is looking out of the window, anxiously, "What was that? Look!" he points, "Do you see that?"

Kathy cranes her neck to see the silver shape sliding smoothly above them. "What is that? Is that a military craft?"

Chris shakes his head, "Not our military." He says, and he would, of course, know. He has tested military craft for nearly twenty years and that was like nothing he had ever seen. He flips on his radio, "Attention, this is...Damn. Hello? Hello?" He flips the switch several times, ", the radio is dead."

"Chris, change course." Kathy says, quietly. "Land or something. I don't like this."

Alex leans forward to see better. "What is it? Can you see it?"

"'Lexxy, shhhh." Scott urges and there is something in his face that shuts the smaller boy up.

Christopher continues to try and get the radio working "I'm going to try and...

Light suddenly blasts into the plane, blinding Chris and Kathy. They throw their arms over their eyes, crying out. The plane starts to shudder.

Scott and Alex yell out, in fear, and their sibling rivalry forgotten for the moment, the older boy wraps his arms around his little brother to protect him.

Alex stares at the yellow light and he feels it building in him, that something painful burning in his bones. His arms fly out as if to embrace the strange alien light. Scott looks into his brother's face, horrified. As if reflecting the light back at their attacker, Alex's eyes are glowing yellow. The little boy pushes and the light thrusts itself harmlessly through his brother and slams in rings across the short length of the fuselage, blowing out the windscreen.

Chris and Kathy are hurled against the instrument panel by the force of whatever it is Alex has unleashed, and are held their by the vacuum. There is an explosion outside the plane their attacker, hit by the energy released by the mutant child. The yellow light stutters, splashing over the four terrified samples like it is playing some strange game of chance.

It slams into the consciousnesses of the oldest and the youngest of the group and, with the last vestiges of intensity, yanks at their psyches and their souls, ripping them violently from their dimension.

Christopher Summers, struggling mightily against the abduction manages to hold on long enough to feel the strange power from his son cut off like a switch had been flipped. Moving as if in a dream, unable to respond to his wife's urgent cries, he focuses all his attention on making his hands do what he needed to do to land the damaged plane. Smoke is filling the cabin now, as the engines catch fire from whatever the alien craft had fired at them. The man doesn't feel the tightness in his lungs, or the convulsing of the ship. He is only able to see the controls, to land the plane, land the plane, land the plane...

Behind him, Scott cradles his equally unresponsive brother, whispering his name through choking tears. Alex stares straight ahead, his eyes no longer seeing anything in this world.

As the father of the stolen boy brings the plane to a bone shattering, screaming crash landing on a blessedly lightly trafficked stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, he gives himself up to the pull of the dimensional rupture and joins his son...elsewhere.

The last thing he sees of this world is a damaged silver craft spiraling out of sight.

Alex sees none of this, opening his eyes and finding himself in a tube made of glass. He cries out and pounds on it, and in his fear tries to summon whatever power is was that had exploded within him, but he doesn't know how. He collapse to his knees and leaves bloodied hand prints on the glass.

A face is thrust against the glass, oddly marked, with hair like feathers. It sings a bird song from what looks like normal lips and seems puzzled when Alex wails in fear. Another face joins it and switches a machine on, light bores into the boy's head and the birdsong suddenly becomes words.

"What did you do to my sister's ship?" the man says.

Alex sobs, "I want my daddy."

The light pulsates and the pain in his skull drives him to his knees.

"What did you do to my sister's ship?" the man demands.

Alex can't answer. He cowers before the man and sobs into his hands, frightened.

The man stares at the child and says, "You are just a hatchling, aren't you? Somehow she sent me an infant. Raise the tube."

"Lord D'Ken..." the other alien says, warningly.

"Do as I command." The one called D'Ken says, in a cold tone. The tube is raised. Alex doesn't move. He is curled in a ball on the floor, weeping. D'Ken crouches beside him, "Little Hatchling." He croons, "What are you doing in my sample? You are useless to me, useless."

Alex risks a peek at him, calmed by the soft song, "Where is my daddy?"

"Lord, the other tube..." the other alien says. He his head and Alex sees his father collapsed in another tube. He scrambles to his feet.

"Daddy!"

D'Ken clamps a hand on the boy's arm, "No, hatchling, your father owes me. He did something to my sister and he will pay for it."

Christopher Summers opens his eyes, and sees his boy in the hands of someone who is not human. "What is happening?" The light scans his brain, like it had his son's and he can understand D'Ken's words.

"I ask the questions, Earther." The alien says, "I am Lord D'Ken of the Shi'ar Empire, and you are my prisoner."

"Release my son." Chris says.

D'Ken strokes the hatchling's head. "Or what? You will pound on the glass at me?"

A blast of pain courses through Christopher and he cries out.

"No!" Alex says, "No! Don't hurt my daddy!"

D'Ken tightens his grip, "Earther, you and your boy are mine, and you will do what I say or you will both die."

"Just don't hurt, Alex. Don't hurt him and I will do what you say." Christopher says.

D'Ken looks down at the little boy, "And, you, Hatchling, what will you give me to protect your father?"

"I don't know." Alex says, quietly.

D'Ken smiles. "You don't have to answer, yet. I will find a use for you." He turns to the other alien, "Find out from the Earther what happened to my sister's ship and continue the search. Contact Chandilar, notify the Majestor what has happened. He will want to know about Lilandra." He takes the boy's hand, "Come with me, Hatchling."

The boy is lead away and the questioning of his father begins.

It is a week before they are called back to Chandilar, the throne world. News of his favorite child's death has killed the Majestor. D'Ken must assume his father's throne.

The Earther who has had his name removed and has been dubbed Corsair for the brightly colored tattoo on his shoulder, can reveal nothing. He claims to not know why Lilandra's ship had blown up. And truth be told, he didn't know. He had been blinded by the light of the dimensional rupture and had not seen his son unleash his powers.

Alex, now called D'Alken, has begun to forget what he had done. The fear and the guilt has begun to overwhelm him and by the time they reach his master's home world, he has almost no memory of Earth at all.

He is only seven.

He didn't know how else to survive.

He doesn't realize he is just a pawn in D'Ken's game.