The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1)

by Richard Flunker

Kale’s life was always complicated.

  Kale was at times a delivery boy, messenger, off world trader, mercenary and if it came to it, a hit man. What he really considered himself to be was an entrepreneur with a spaceship. He had a good penchant for which jobs to take and considered himself well off. It was an amazing feat considering that just twenty years ago he was a slave for the Dominion. Life of slave, death of a slave, was the saying. He still bore many of the scars of that brutal regime on his body. He was short by most standards, just barely reaching six Earth feet. He had rough brown hair that did whatever it wanted and forced him to keep it short. He rarely shaved, but kept his facial hair short enough to not be considered a vagabond. He had a large scar just behind his left ear, barely noticeable to those who didn’t know it was there. It was his reminder of his past. But he was one of the lucky few that managed to break away from that system and even found himself luckier to have landed a ship of his own.

  He also landed in places like this quite often.

  Three weeks ago, he was on the corporate run planet of Ayethti outside of the Dominion and Earth Commonwealth, out in the independent planets and anarchies. Out there the large corporations ran the planets like businesses, mining and exploiting the resources of the systems and selling them to either the Dominion, the Commonwealth or wherever else they could sell them. Some of these planets held life and became the living homes for the workers, owners and the families of the corporations. Ayethti was run by the Iytentia Explorations Corporation, and Ayethti 4, also known as Mondla to those who lived there, had not had to terraform the planet to replicate Earth conditions because it was one of those jewels in space that already had life of its own when it was discovered. It became a hub for that section of the galaxy, a provider of food for many systems near to it as well as a source for many metals and chemicals needed by the more powerful core planets. It had one of the largest shipyards outside of Earth or Coran and was quickly turning into a center for the advancement of spacefaring technology.

  It was also marred by a particularly devastating civil war.

  And where there was a war weapons were always in demand.

  Upon hearing news of the civil war in such a populous planet, Kale spent most of his savings on a rather expensive stash of plasma rifles, the newest and latest of Earth’s technology, purchased from Olympus station on Mars. He could have purchased them cheaper somewhere else maybe, but just the fact that he could prove he purchased them on Mars would allow him to mark the price up considerably. He was right. His wealth nearly doubled over night once he found a buyer on Mondla’s largest city and still corporation run and controlled city, Antan. In fact, he uploaded the contents of his ship to the city wide extranet and had a buyer within three minutes offering him twenty percent on top of what he was asking. The guns were offloaded from his ship just a few hours later and he was really debating making another run back to Mars to get more weapons.

  Then again, Mars was almost a week and a half away.

  He visited the hottest and most expensive places on Antan, just to say he had, without spending too much of his new found money. He then spent a few days just doing some maintenance on his ship, using the local shipyard. After three days, he decided he would see if there was any local work and regretted that decision ever since.

  Kale had on many occasions run passenger service. If you got the right passenger, not only did you make the money on the trip, but you could make some good connections. Just three years ago he took on a passenger from the Alioth StarYards, the independent planet’s largest shipyard. He made the experience a good one and he was rewarded with a whole new salvo of sensor equipment for his ship at a fraction of the price. That combination of hardware and software saved his life many times. On another occasion a traveling diplomat from The Station in Alpha Centauri used his services to travel to Earth and he was rewarded with a beta, prototype, AI software for his ship. This was the same software that would threaten him with space vacuum if he didn’t wake up.

  When he saw the posting for a higher up in one of the branches of Iytentia Ex. Corp, he couldn’t resist the possible connection he could make with a powerful corporation. And all it involved was heading into an independent system to pick up a daughter that needed a ride home. The pay wasn’t half bad either.

  He made the quick jump out to the Odain system, a typical independent system with one Earth-like planet that was colonized by several factions. Most of these independent systems had no strategic or economic use to the big powers and were mostly left alone. They were run by all sorts of government types: dictatorships, monarchies, republics, and varieties of each. Most of the time they were just anarchic systems where people lived by whatever rules they were able to enforce.

  He found out that his simple pick up job was a lot more than that. As it turned out, the daughter was out here on Odain because she ran away from home. That would have been the easy part as Kale was no stranger to family kidnapping. He picked up many rich kid runaways. The problem was that the daughter wasn’t on Odain anymore, and had since eloped to a station in the Quator system.

  Quator was at the edge of Independent space and the so called Iron sector. It was an area of the galaxy that was a prime target for metals and chemicals needed for planetary industry. It was also very far away from the core and there were very few terraformed planets. The majority of the population came out to work the mines and asteroids and live on scattered space stations. The whole sector was avoided by either military or police forces of the Commonwealth or the Dominion and was a known haven for pirates and criminals. There were rumors of a theocracy of sorts being founded in the sector that was gaining movement. It was the wild west of space. Many went out there to try to get rich but most never came back. In five hundred years these systems could unite into a center of civilization, but at the moment, it was only the Port Royale of the 32nd century.

  Kale would have avoided that sector most of the time, and he could have easily walked away from the contract with the Iytentia Ex Corp CEO without getting a hit to his reputation, but the distraught father offered him nearly ten times the initial offer. Plus there was always the value of a connection like that. So he accepted the new offer. He would need a new plan though. He returned to Antan and purchased some equipment, then made the seven day jump out to Quator.

  Tempura Station fit the typical station design, with a center sphere sitting inside of a spinning outer ring. Ships docked in the sphere and loaded and unloaded cargo while all living areas were on the outer rings. The station was run by a boss, a criminal lord who appeared to have recently converted to the new religion of the Iron sector. To add to his autocratic reign was a new set of rules based on their sense of morality.

  Kale managed to fit in easily. He used an old mercenary alias and was able to convince station docks that he was out there to help fight for the new theocracy. Most importantly, he had the money for the docking fees and when it was paid up front, there were no questions asked.

  It hadn’t taken Kale long to find out where the daughter was. Apparently, the man she eloped with was the son of the station boss and their impending wedding was all the news as was the party that was sure to ensue. It also meant that kidnapping her would be even harder than he could have imagined.

  On the second day at the station, Kale was running some ideas by his ships AI when the oddly violent program suggested he kill the woman and inform the father things were wrong. It wasn’t that the AI was psychotic, but just really efficient. After ignoring that idea, the AI actually came up with a workable idea. He monitored some messages that were sent between the daughter and her cousin. The encryption was too good for the AI to crack immediately, but the address was still there. Kale, with the help of the AI, forged a new message from the cousin, stating that she came to meet her on board Kale’s ship. It was a cheap trick, one he actually didn’t think would work, but that at least he hoped would get him some kind reply.

  He was even more surprised when she showed up
on his ship later that day with a fantastic story to share once Kale told her why he was there. Kale sat with her, Ayia, as she told her story to him. She had left Antan, had wanted to try something new and had even met the handsome son of the station boss. But marriage had never been a part of her plans and when she was about to move on, the young criminal kidnapped her and brought her out to the fringes of civilization.

  “Easy enough. I will get the ship started and we can be out of here before anyone realizes,” Kale jumped out of the chair.

  Ayia stood up and cried, “No, don’t, I can’t. They put a tracker in me. They know I'm here right now. If you start the ship out the dock they will fire on you.”

  There was no way he could get it removed from her without whoever was tracking her knowing what was going on.

  As usual, things kept getting complicated.

  “Then we have to find a way to leave with you on board where they know you are on board and are somehow ok with you being on the ship,” he mused.

  “How is that possible?”

  “We need to break the law,” he said, cracking a smile.

  When one wanted to break the law, there was no better place to come than a budding theocracy that used to be a criminal haven. This particular religion seemed to have an aversion to all things sex related and it didn’t take the AI a long time searching through the station logs to find out that the local religious figurehead was completely against pre-marital sex of any kind and was punishing those found out with the death penalty.

  “All we have to do is to have sex and let them find out,” it was a matter of the fact statement, but her shocked look made him reiterate.

  “Ok, no, sorry. We need to make them think we had sex…and let them find out,” he reassured.

  “Won’t they just kill us? I don’t want to marry this guy, but I don’t want to die either.”

  “FEI, run a search, see if this station uses the old captain’s death request,” Kale asked of the AI.

  “A what,” Ayia asked, raising her eyebrows.

  The old captain’s death request: if you were the owner of a ship and you were to be executed, you could state that you wanted to be killed in your ship. Usually, the ship would be floated out of the dock while the executor would blow him up with the station or other ships. It was the honorable thing to do, in what went for honor among space ship captains. In this far flung area of the galaxy, where so little law actually worked, this haven for criminals, pirates and mercenary captains attempted to keep his odd code of honor.

  “Captain, each request in the past seventeen years has been granted,” replied the AI.

  “That is what I wanted to hear,” said Kale.

  “What about me? Won’t they just kill me?” she was beginning to sound doubtful.

  “You need to sell it that you want to be with me,” Kale smiled.

  And she certainly had. They spent the night on the ship in the attempt to sell their little rendezvous. When she exited the craft the next morning they were confronted by the enraged fiancé and his entourage, demanding an answer. She jumped back to Kale’s side, crying an on the spur story about Kale being her true love and how the fiancé had just been her one last romp before she came back to Kale on Antan. Kale would have smiled at her ingenious story had the fist to his face allowed him to. He took a few more shots to the stomach and was quickly on the floor. Ayia continued to sell her part falling down next to him crying and yelling at the crazed boss’s son to stop. As she was dragged away, she cried out to Kale that she loved him. She had done her part.

  “Too bad for you,” started the young criminal, “we don’t take kindly here to men sleeping around.”

  “I'm counting on it,” Kale thought.

  Ayia joined Kale that night in their new cell. It was the nicest cell he had ever been in. There was a nice bed, bathroom and paintings on the wall. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought the station didn’t have any normal prison cells and this was their only solution.

  Ayia looked frazzled, but otherwise physically ok.

  “Come here,” he said, asking her close.

  He hugged her closely and whispered in her ear, “we don’t have to do anything, but I guarantee they are watching.”

  She fell asleep on his lap and he sat in his bed, slumbering off a few times until the alarm clock rang off on the cell wall.

  “It’s time to go.”

  Kale took a moment to finally notice the woman he was paid to kidnap and now rescue. She had long black hair, a color that matched her eyes. Whether genetically enhanced or the result of the changes humanity underwent living on new worlds, her eyes were a rare pure black. They made her eyes look permanently dilated, were it not for a slight silver ring around the black iris. The hair was not perfectly straight or smooth either. She was beautiful in the way of someone who was taken care of her entire life, a good smile, smooth skin. She was tying her hair up in a ponytail when she noticed him looking at her, smiled back to him then turned away quickly.

  “I'm sorry I got you into this,” she said, facing away.

  He would have liked to see her face as she said that. He might have been able to see if she meant it or not.

  “Apologize when it’s over,” he said. He hoped the hint that they shouldn’t say much would stick. If it did, he didn’t know, but she didn’t say anything after that.

  There was a sound at the door, and then it slid open. In the doorway was the now forlorn ex fiancé. There were dirty streaks on his face and Kale was surprised by the look.

  “Ayia, please, maybe I can convince the Theor to give you a whipping instead,” he pleaded.

  Kale whipped around to see her facial expressions, but saw none. He had no idea if she was as trusting in his plan as he was.

  “Am I as trusting my own plan?” he quickly thought.

  Another larger figured pushed the young man aside and stepped into the room. He had long unkempt hair and a massive unruly beard. The look immediately betrayed him as the religious figurehead, the one to condemn them. Behind him was another man sporting a very large stomach. Kale could only guess him to be the station boss.

  “When the creator aligned the planets, he put them in an order for them to remain in the cosmos. And when he put the creatures upon the planets, he gave them male and female, to populate the worlds in order. When he created man and woman, the created a special order for their union in marriage. A union outside of this order is the greatest affront to our creator, a blemish upon his holy light…” preached the bearded man.

  “This is your worst sin?” Kale groaned.

  The Theor, the title for this religious man, continued on his sermon. After nearly twenty minutes, even Kale was hoping they would hurry up and execute him.

  Finally the time came.

  “In the tradition of captains throughout the centuries, this unfortunate soul has requested to be executed by captain’s request. He and his whore will be led in shame to his ship and will be sent to his death.”

  Kale and Ayia were led out of the cell down several passages. The jilted ex fiancé followed behind them and continued to make his plea, both to Ayia and the Theor. She never said anything. When the hallway opened up a bit wider, she stepped up next to Kale and together they walked out into dock. It was packed with what appeared to be the entire population of the station.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about this part,” Kale uttered under his breath.

  The sphere of the station served as the dock and worked as an artificial valet. Ships were docked automatically against the inner wall of the sphere. When one needed their ship or shuttle, it would be moved to the horseshoe shaped pier that floated out into the middle of the sphere. Anything too large to dock inside the station would orbit the station outside of it and would use a shuttle to go between the ship and station. At this point, all the ships that would be involved in the execution would already be outside waiting for them. Inside, along the docking pier, the people who turned out waited for those w
ho were about to be executed.

  It hadn’t taken long for the entire station to find out about the scandal involving the son’s boss. The chance to see the man and woman that had broken the young man’s heart, as well as the reaction the stations boss would have with them was one no one could pass up. They lined up alongside a small path that was carved through the station’s population leading to Kale’s ship. The Midnight Oil was waiting for them at one end of the horseshoe, on the left.

  As they began walking out and down the gauntlet, the echoing sounds of jeers filled the dock.

  “Stay close, it’s going to get ugly,” Kale pointed at the crowd.

  Ayia was terrified and ran up right behind him.

  They began walking towards his ship and objects started raining at them. Kale would never know what kind of things were being thrown at them, but most of them were soft and smelled horribly. Some though were hard and hurt a lot. Not even ten feet in, after being hit a few times, they both broke into a run, covering their heads as they ran. Someone stuck their leg out to try to trip them, but Kale kicked the individual as hard as he could. The man, caught by the unexpected force of the kick, spun around and nearly fell into Ayia’s path. They reached the ship and quickly ducked into the hatch, running inside.

  Ayia was leaning against the bulkhead; Kale could hear her breathing heavily. She looked up and he saw a gush of blood along the side of her face. He took a deep breath, reached below a small compartment near the now raising plank, and pulled out a towel.

  “We’re almost out,” he comforted.

  He indicated towards the pilot’s cabin and began walking.

  “FEI, you there?” he called out to the AI.

  “I am sir,” was the reply over the ship speakers.

  Kale walked down a small entrance into the cabin, and gestured for Ayia to sit in a chair behind his.

  “Please tell me they found nothing.”

  “Nothing sir, they removed the two forward guns as we expected, but that is all, everything else remains. They did not detect me,” reported the AI.