by Randal Sloan
The two men quietly left the room. Krissy’s bug was smart enough, it knew the second they were gone and went back into safe mode. All her bugs were custom programmed and none of them had ever been detected. Even with the introduction of Galactic tech, she still had a huge lead over everyone else.
The girls sat looking at each other, scarcely able to believe what they’d just heard. It was much bigger than even Missy had been expecting, despite her “feelings” that it was important.
“What can we do? We have no contacts we can trust to deal with this,” Missy asked, not really expecting an answer. She had expected something important, but nothing like this. She was taken entirely by surprise when Krissy answered her.
“Easy!” she told her. “We go talk to the Galactic Marine.”
“What?” Sissy asked her, just as dumbfounded as her companion.
“The second greenie for the week,” Krissy pointed to a man well hidden in the back corner. Neither girl recognized him. A greenie by definition, since he was new to the block. “That one’s implants have been broadcasting since he got here. He obviously doesn’t realize it, but no one else in here but me would be able to pick up on it.”
“Guess we’d better go talk to him,” Missy agreed, standing and turning toward the door. More than a little nervous, she knew they had no choice. She’d heard Imperial Marines were rather scary and tended toward violence.
She smiled. Despite her fears, maybe that was just what they needed.
Corporal Jackson of the Galactic Imperial Marines was working undercover for the third time this week. He was more than a little frustrated, and he knew the Sarge was expecting answers this time. So far, he’d had no luck. This planet was unlike anything he’d ever seen. No one would talk to him. No matter how much cash or alcohol he plied them with, they all responded the same.
“We don’t deal with strangers, Greenie,” a couple at least offered in reply. Most simply shrugged and ignored him. It had been the same everywhere he went.
He’d been about to give up again for the night and face the music from the Sarge when something about this bar grabbed his attention. It didn’t make any sense; when he went inside, they all ignored him pretty much like the others, leaving him nursing his drink in a back corner alone. Then he looked up to see three girls coming toward him.
“We need to talk, Corporal Jackson,” the tallest one, a blond, said to him.
They all looked young enough to be his daughters, so he chose his words carefully. “Who are you? How do you know who I am?”
The blond laughed. She pointed toward the redhead. “This one spoofed you off your implants.”
“It’s not your fault, Jackson,” the redhead told him. “You have them in private mode, but even in private mode they still broadcast. You just need a high enough command level to read them.”
By this time, the Corporal was beginning to freak out. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. No one could “hear” implants in private mode, could they?
“Just who are you three?” he had to ask.
“I’m Missy, she’s Sissy, and you just heard from Krissy. She’s our computer expert. Together the three of us own the protection rights for this block, Block 85. We have a problem and we need your help.”
That’s how the three of them earned a ride out to the new resort the Imperials planned to use to sucker in the Galactics. Jackson was gentle and polite, something that Missy couldn’t understand with her predisposed ideas about Imperial Marines, but still they were all both a little nervous and excited at the same time.
It was an amazing sight to see, the three girls unable to keep from looking around at everything. It was a shame none of this had made it down to the people who actually lived in the city. Missy grew angry when she realized there was so much food here that some of it was going to waste and yet people were starving elsewhere in her city.
Then they met the Master Sergeant and she forgot all about the pretty scenery and the inequity of the resort. Quite an imposing man, nevertheless, he treated them with kindness and respect. He also was tight with some Princess, which he seemed to think would make a big difference.
Normally, Missy wouldn’t have considered someone important who called herself a Princess, surely all fluff and no real substance, but she quickly realized something. If this hardened Marine has such respect for this Princess, she must be something else. I can’t wait to meet her.
Chapter 3
Borjon
A single Imperial ship floated in space above a world somewhere in the Borjon galactic arm. The planet was the home world of the Borjon Order of the Most Vigilant, a group of aliens best described in Galactic Standard as monks. It was a historic occasion for the ship to be there, for that world had never been visited by a human ship before. Most of their own race didn’t even know about the planet, for the Order was rather secretive. Really they just wanted to be left alone, but over the millennia they’d grown rather paranoid about it. Since they had the might to enforce it, no one dared argue with them.
Nevertheless, the Master, through his student on board the Imperial ship, the Katarina, had not only shared that information, but had helped them find the fastest way to reach their destination. After all, the Katarina was a special ship, the home of the Golden One from the Prophecies the Order had been based on, and they had needed a guide to their destination because of their desperate need. Literally, it had been a matter of life and death for one of their crew.
They’d made an incredible dash across Borjon space just in time for the Master to save the one in need. It had taken his special skill as a Dream Master to pull it off and he still wasn’t sure himself just how he’d been able to do it. Sara, the team AI specialist and hacker, had been the one in trouble and she’d been so very deeply in a coma that not even the tremendous tech of the Galactic Empire could reach her.
Neither should the Master have been able to do so, but he had known he had to make the effort, for he’d come to care for these humans. Not just for their part in the Prophecies, but also for the group of special young people themselves. Somehow his efforts had worked beyond everyone’s expectations, for the situation had looked grave.
Everyone had rejoiced when Sara had opened her eyes, the Master as much as the rest, but they’d all been wrung out by the whole ordeal. The results of their mission had been incredible, but he could tell that they were all mentally and emotionally exhausted by the mission. In the end, they’d had to fight against the Aerstone First Sentinel, an evil AI construct bent on the destruction of all biological life in the galaxy. In order to escape his evil clutches, their team with Sara as the spearhead had attempted to hack their way past him as their only option for escape.
In the middle of that struggle, they’d discovered that the First Sentinel was the ultimate evil behind the Aerstone plan to destroy the biological life of the galaxy, but they’d also learned he was much more powerful than they could have possibly dreamed. Corrupted by a Forerunner device, he should have been impossible to defeat. They’d won, barely, but it had taken the help of everyone on board and all the allies they had gathered, and it had come at very nearly a great cost when it left Sara in such a deep coma.
So Katarina remained there in orbit, the whole crew recovering from that mission. Sara was still in sick bay on order of her friend and leader. After all, it had only been a of couple days earlier that she’d awakened from that coma and she was still in a rather fragile state. She too knew how close she’d come to never awakening. She also knew she had received special assistance that had made the real difference in enabling her to come out of that coma, but she hadn’t yet been able to explain any of that to her friends.
No one had needed the break more than their ship’s commander, Lieutenant Jarra Carsean. Jarra had been so concerned for her friend that it had taken her most of the last two days to recover her own equilibrium. She was not used to that; she was so driven to do her duty to serve the Empire that she normally didn’t wo
rry about the danger to herself. But when it had been her friend that had very nearly paid the ultimate price, it had almost broken her to see her friend that way.
For all those reasons and more, Katarina and her small crew had been loitering in orbit around the Borjon monk world and they had just started preparations to head for home. It wasn’t like they had a reason to be in a hurry, as far as anyone knew.
Jarra smiled at Lieutenant Commander Jason Cauldwell as he took his place beside her on the bridge. It would have been extremely odd to see a Lieutenant Commander reporting to a mere Lieutenant on any other Imperial ship, but Jarra was a lot more than that. As a Crown Princess of the Realm, Jarra outranked all but a tiny handful of people in the Empire. One of those, her father, had removed himself from the succession in order to assume the role of Ambassador to Borjon, so he no longer technically outranked her.
For a time Jarra and her father had been at odds with each other. Although each had a strong sense of duty to serve the Empire, Jarra’s father had seen that “duty” to be in the Imperial Ambassadorial ranks while Jarra had seen it to be in the Rim Patrol. He’d been expecting his daughter to follow in his footsteps, but she’d absolutely refused to do so, determined instead to make her own way where she felt she could do the most good. Fortunately, they’d recently reconciled, mostly because as Ambassador her father had seen just how important his daughter’s actions had been to the survival of the Empire. In fact, his greatest success as an ambassador to Borjon had been largely due to the Borjon Prophecies about her.
Despite all his efforts to reach the Borjon, they’d been almost impossible to get to even talk. The Borjon people lived a long time and they just didn’t get in a hurry to do anything. That had been mind-boggling and frustrating to the Ambassador and his staff, who were trying to negotiate an alliance.
But that all changed when the Borjon people heard about the exploits of Jarra and her small team; they called her the Golden One and went on to explain that her actions matched perfectly with the words of their Prophecies. They’d caught him entirely by surprise when suddenly they came to him with a proposal to join the Empire, not as an equal ally but as a wholly subservient vassal.
They’d been quick to explain their reasoning to him. That was when they’d explained about the Golden One. With her brilliant blond hair, Jarra was described perfectly by their Prophecies of the Golden One, despite the fact the Prophecies had been penned millennia in the past before the human race had even been in existence. With his awareness changed, her father had realized his daughter had been right all along.
In fact, three times now, Princess Jarra and her small team of special talented people had been the difference in the conflict that threatened the survival of the Empire. That survival still wasn’t guaranteed, but at least they had a chance now. Yes, her father had completely changed his mind. All because of his daughter and her team who refused to accept anything as impossible.
Having spent the last two days to unwind, Jarra was ready to get back to her duty, or at least as ready as she could be. “About ready to head home, Jase?” she asked with a smile. “We do have a rather important announcement to make.”
She couldn’t resist giving him that smile because, of course, she was referring to the announcement of their intended engagement. It wasn’t like she didn’t already know what his response would be.
“I’ve been ready,” he told her, returning her smile. They were much of one mind about that, their relationship very much determined. Both knew they had a special connection to each other. Physically, emotionally, psychically, all phases of the relationship were involved.
Nevertheless, he went on, “Still, I think we all needed this little break. Our last mission took a lot out of us. Plus, Kaeden even got a chance to visit his brothers down below.”
Jarra shook her head. “I think it was more the Master wanted to debrief him, so I’m not sure he’s been having fun. Still, it’s probably been good for him to be among his own for a little while.”
Even as she said that, Jarra didn’t really believe it. In many ways, Kaeden was now one of them. She had been surprised how well he had integrated himself into her team, despite a rather rough start when he’d unintentionally withheld important information from her. Even then, she’d known it was a Borjon thing with their slow, un-rushed approach to everything, but still, it hadn’t been something she could tolerate. He’d made up for it more than once since then.
“Anyway, he’s supposed to be back aboard in a couple of hours,” Jason said. “By that time, we should all be ready to be underway.”
Jarra had a thought in the back of her head, but she kept it to herself. She just had a feeling, a feeling that they were going to be leaving a lot sooner than that. She had no idea where that feeling came from, but she had learned to pay attention to her premonitions. Something told her this one was going to be a doozy.
Young Master Kaeden of the Borjon Order of the Most Vigilant was most definitely not enjoying his time back among his brethren. No, he was here for his duty, but that didn’t mean it was enjoyable for quite a number of reasons.
For starters, he didn’t get the same satisfaction from serving amongst the Order as just another one of them like he used to. That had been his situation before joining with the crew of the human ship Katarina. It didn’t help that the reception from the others had been quite cool. In the first place, many of his fellow monks had resented that he had been chosen as the one to go with the humans instead of them. Even the ones that managed to remain above their petty resentments looked down on him as being much too young. After all, he was only a few decades old, one of the youngest among them.
But even that wasn’t the real problem. Kaeden realized that it wasn’t his fellow monks and their attitudes that bothered him. It was that he had changed. He was no longer the same youngster he had been. Somehow, after living with the humans, he had grown far beyond his tender few decades. He now understood duty like he never had before and what it meant to serve that duty. He now understood what serving the Prophecies really meant.
He knew it went much deeper than even that. Yes, the Order served the Prophecies, the words left behind for them by the Forerunners that described the possible futures. The Forerunners, the race that had lived in the galaxy many millennia ago, were gone now, but they left the Prophecies to help those that would come after them. The Order had dedicated themselves to that service.
Kaeden had thought he had believed the Prophecies and that he’d dedicated his life to serving them, but now they were much more real. A lot of that had to do with meeting the One, the golden-haired human who was deemed to be the most important part of the Prophecy for the times they now faced. Somehow during their last mission, Kaeden had realized he was following the One, not because of what the Prophecies told him about her, but because his heart said it was the right thing to do.
Kaeden’s meditation in the grove at the center of the Order’s compound was interrupted when the Master approached him. Master Hadassah, as the head of their Order, had been chosen not just for his ability to lead them but also because of his strong second sight. The Master had been the first to recognize the Golden One and he had been quick to support her. He had also been the one to choose Kaeden for his special assignment. At times, Kaeden wondered just how much he’d seen.
“Just the one I need to speak with, Young Master Kaeden. I have seen another vision that I believe will affect you greatly and I need to warn you about it. It is essential that you reach beyond the last of your prejudices against the ones we have believed are our enemy, especially now that we have learned the First Sentinel was really the one opposing us.
“In fact, I have seen that you must find a way to become friends with one of them!”
The Master smiled at the shock he saw in his young prodigy’s eyes. “It’s not your fault, Young Master, for we have taught you for your few decades with us to hate the ones we thought were the enemy. But a time will come in the next few days
when you must decide within yourself the path you will follow.”
He waved his fore appendages, what the humans would have called hands, to forestall the questions young Kaeden would have asked. “I don’t know any more than you do, Young Master, so it’s pointless to debate it. When the time comes, I believe you will make the right choice.”
Another Borjon monk entered the grove, bowing before the Master. The Master returned the bow with just the proper amount of return deference. The monk did not need to speak, for the Master knew his purpose at interrupting them.
“Your shuttle is ready,” he told Kaeden. “It is time for you to join your shipmates; a new voyage awaits.”
He laughed. “It will soon become rather urgent. You probably should make haste. You wouldn’t want your commander to leave you.”
With more questions than answers flashing through his head, nevertheless Kaeden did as he was bade. Who would have thought a Borjon could learn to do anything quickly? But still he wondered, Just what does the Master mean? Become friends with my enemy? He knew he would have to wait until things revealed themselves to understand just where the Master’s words would lead.
He wouldn’t say that the extreme shuttle flight that followed was exactly fun, but it certainly was interesting. Apparently, the Master had not been exaggerating about the need for haste, for the pilot took him up in the fastest ground-to-orbit flight Kaeden had ever experienced. Luckily, he was nearly as good a pilot as Kaeden was himself, for the flight went off without a hitch, even if he did itch to get ahold of the controls a time or two.
In the sick bay aboard the Katarina, Sara stared at the blank wall in front of her. She knew she needed to find the strength to move on, but she still struggled within herself. The battle with the First Sentinel had been that bad and she had come so very close to losing herself.
