The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1)

by Richard Flunker

  One day later, they found a star, XVDR17r. They slung out to the edge of the system they were in, plotted a jump and left the Magyo behind, but had with them their precious cargo. Her value was up for debate in Kale’s mind.

  3124 – Alioth, a small bar at the edge of Quenca, an artificial island in the southern hemisphere.

  Alexander skimmed the items in the local news downloaded onto his tablet. He had a large drink next to him and a plate with some kind of marine animal cooked alongside several small orange like fruits that was sliced into small coins. The drink was fruity, but it was of a flavor he could not identify. His seat was at the edge of the bar, a small hovel at the very edge of the artificial island known as Quenca, a typical tourist haven in Alioth. That bar was nondescript; he couldn’t even remember the name. The humid warm wind blew at his loose shirt that covered the many scars he carried across his body. His close cut hair was mostly gray, but tinged with the red of his youth.

  The drink, food, clothes and the local news broadcasting on his tablet were meaningless. At the bottom of the screen, a small program was running. It was directly linked to a couple of listening devices that he placed around the bar a few days ago. He identified it as one of the favorite joints for a local group of researchers he was following. Two of them sat in a booth alongside the southern wall at that very same moment and Alexander was eavesdropping into their conversation. One of the men he hadn’t recognized; it was someone new. He was already taking pictures and having them uploaded to his database where they were being matched to any ID he could find. The other one, a gray haired man, he knew from the file. His name was Oganno Hetah, a researcher for GorpSpace Exploration and Logistics, a well-known cadre of scientists that pioneered jump technology as well as other deep space exploration mechanics. He was the adopted father of the man with whom Ayia Agusto was seen with, the same man that had in spectacular fashion rescued the girl he was now tasked to eliminating.

  He was on Alioth now for three weeks, looking for any hint of Ayia or the man that had saved her. He tracked the researchers to this bar and had now been recording all of their conversations for seven days for any hint of his mark’s whereabouts, but found nothing. Unsurprisingly or not, the scientists came to the bar to drink and complain about their wives. They were as human as everyone else. He began to think about tracking each researcher’s home and bugging them but wasn’t looking forward to the time consuming work it would entail. The work wasn’t the problem, it was the amount of time it would take to stake out each residence and find the right time to break in and plant the devices.

  Tonight though, his patience finally paid off. As the two men ate and drank at their table, another younger man, one that Alexander previously identified as an unpaid student working for them, came rushing in. He was looking around desperately and excitedly, clearly searching for someone. When he caught sight of the two older men, he rushed over to them.

  “Professor, sir, they’re back!”

  “Who?” Oganno asked before realization snuck into his face. The two older men looked at each other, smiled, and rushed out the door. The student, looked after them, looked back at the unpaid meal, dug into his pocket pulling out some money and tossed it on the table. He then rushed out after them.

  Alexander touched a button on his tablet and instantly paid for his meal and drinks. He was waiting for this moment. He certainly couldn’t know if this was the break he was looking for, but this was the first unordinary reaction any of the old boring scientists had had the entire time.

  Alexander had no problem tracking Oganno. He had previously placed trackers on all of their vehicles so that he wouldn’t have to follow them directly. He was actually surprised with how lax the security was with this specific group. Granted none of them worked for any militaries or for any large corporations, but in this day and age, technological stealing and sabotage was all too commonplace not to have some form of security.

  As he walked out of the bar, he watched on his tablet as a map popped up, showing the route the tracker was taking. It was predictably towards their main research center on the island. Alexander got into his small rented vehicle, a typical transport in Alioth. It was a two man vehicle, run by a small gravity reactor that powered a small engine. The vehicle ran on six wheels covered in a synthetic rubbery surface, flexible enough to form into wheels but stretch out into a flat cover if the vehicle needed to go into the water.

  He caught up with them after they had arrived at their small office and was there for just five minutes. He parked along a side road next to a large warehouse maybe three buildings down. The small office was right next to the water. It was prime location, and was owned by the lead researcher, Oganno. The whole southern side faced out to the water, with a small deck on the water side. That southern face of the building had a glass wall, ideally to let the morning sun come in. Alioth's sun rose in the south and a full day was nearly one hundred and seventeen Earth days. The planet went around its sun faster than it rotated on its own axis. Half of the planet spent a lot of time in the dark. For the artificial islands, this was not a problem, as they simply floated along with the natural currents that pulled the warmer waters from the sunny side towards the colder darker side. This research facility was in a prime spot always within direct sunlight. They were probably able to draw plenty of free fuel-less energy from the sun.

  The large glass windows served one other benefit for Alexander as glass reverberated sounds from within easily. He had set up a few monitors posted on nearby buildings that pointed straight at the windows and picked up the sound vibrations from the inside and translated them into audio he could listen to from his car. He had left the monitors recording, but just as at the bar and residences, there was nothing since he had first heard a mention of Kale and his ship a few weeks back. But that came to nothing because they only mentioned him briefly, something about his recent visit, and there was no mention beyond that.

  Alexander had tried to setup motion and infrared monitors to see inside of the building, but all of their work on Hausen reactors heavily distorted his readings. It didn’t matter to him. As he parked his vehicle, he popped open a small case and a few small screens unfolded. As they powered up, data started to stream in and he put an earpiece in his ear to hear the talk. There was a lot of commotion as many people were talking, so he calibrated the device to pick up on Oganno's voice and feed that one directly to his piece. If his mark was mentioned, whatever he said would be the most important information.

  "Is there a feed?" That was the old man's voice.

  There was apparently a gap between what he said and the others were saying.

  "What kind of damage?"

  "Did it work?"

  "Let me see that."

  "Where?"

  "THE Magyo? Did he say that right?"

  "Who?"

  At this point, Alexander tried to narrow down who he was talking to because he was missing out on too much information.

  "No, have Kale stay in orbit. Tell them to go to Devil’s Den, we can meet them there. Pack everything up."

  Alexander didn’t need to hear anymore. His mark was in orbit and was about to be redirected to Devil’s Den. He had a small window in which to hit his target between the two planets where there would be minimal monitoring and he could possibly rig it to look like an accident. But it would take him ten minutes to reach the small star port where his ship was and by the time he was powered up and into orbit, it would be one and a half to two hours from this point. They could easily be on their way. His best option would be to tag the researcher’s ship and follow them. Devil’s Den was a scattered mess of factories, mines and research labs dotted across its scorched landscape. Far less known were the smaller pirate and smuggling stations that existed there as well, many that he had connections with. Once he knew where their research lab was, it was just a matter of time. From what he saw here on Alioth, security would be lax and he didn’t foresee any issues with taking out a bunch of old men. He alre
ady knew of the perfect cover for his actions. Very few would suspect murder when it would appear the station had depressurized. He had plenty of experience with that as he had fought countless battles on planets with hostile atmospheres.

  As his ship took off into Alioth’s orbit, he allowed the computer to pilot his ship. It was a simple Scythe Mark D fighter ship, a relic of old wars that became a standard one man ship throughout the galaxy once they were modified to be able to make system jumps with a Hausen reactor. They had very short jump ranges, but were very tough ships that were also almost always armed with serious space armament. They also were able to sling within systems very quickly, and Alex would use this advantage to get to Devil’s Den quickly.

  He watched as the gravity field form in front of his ship, distorting the light of the stars in the background, and then the stars themselves streaked as the ship sped towards Devil’s Den.

  3124 – Alioth, Orbital trade yards and space dock, Jersey Station, Ring twenty seven.

  “That’s the one.”

  Fangix sat across from one of the foulest men he had ever been with that he had then not immediately killed or sent to slavery. The man was the captain of a trade cargo ship, essentially a large container with a Hausen reactor, the Mermaid. There was nothing at all in the gigantic rectangular ship that evoked anything with the beauty or mystery of the mythical sea creature, other than the large decal of a mermaid with exaggeratedly large breasts on the side of the container.

  The captain was missing an eye and had what appeared to be a very cheap artificial replacement that which looked the furthest from being realistic. Instead the bulbous mechanical eye protruded from the head too far and oozed mucus from its sides. He also had half a beard, patchy at best and wore a hat that may have been someone’s pants at some point in its history. His ship was a complete mess on the inside and the crew looked like his inbred children. Fangix had a difficult time figuring out which ones were men or women.

  Fangix had jumped to Alioth nearly immediately after being assigned his mission but had arrived far too late to trace any remnants of the jump hole that had brought back the decades old message. It hadn’t taken long though to begin hearing rumors of the pirate attack and vortex weapon that had made a ship disappear. He was slowly interviewing all of the pilots and captains of the ships that may have seen the event until he found the foul creature that had actual footage of the event.

  Fangix had reviewed the video carefully. He saw the attack by the pirate ship and its scout vessels on the smaller ship, a ViP type passenger ship. He had seen the missiles and dumb fires. He had to hide his reaction to the swirling vortex that had formed and he recognized the smaller ship vanishing into it. That was the jump. He needed to get a copy of that video to ID that ship and to get all the sensor readings the container ship had. It was time for a negotiation.

  The captain served some drinks and Fangix took a small pill out and put it into his drink. He made sure the captain saw what he had done. His grotesque eye swiveled to focus. The pill vanished into the drink, fizzling violently, creating foam over the drink. Behind the captain, some of the men gathered around observing to see what he would do. Fangix dropped a pill into the captain’s drink with the same effect. He took his own cup, held it up to the captain, and took a deep drink. He then settled back into his chair.

  “I will need a copy of that video, plus I need to get a copy of all your sensor readings,” Fangix said, swirling his drink.

  The captain didn’t pick up his drink.

  “I know who you are. You make your offer.”

  Fangix expected this. “Would ten thousand Rayid, with full Dominion backing, be sufficient?”

  “Try ten million,” the captain scoffed to the approval of the men behind him, “Dominion don’t just send men like you if this aint important.”

  Fangix was already ahead of this man. “You also know that men like me can usually get what we want right? I would suggest you take my offer. It’s probably more than you’ve made in a while.”

  The captain snarled. “Yeah, I know you're type. I don’t think you see that you are far outnumbered.”

  Fangix set his drink down; he had emptied it. He motioned for the captain to drink his.

  “No chance.”

  “No? It’s better that way,” Fangix explained, “See, that pill contained a very potent virus of Dominion design. The liquid brought it back to life and all that foam you see is the virus dispersing into the air. It’s already in you.”

  The captain looked panicked. His mechanical eye began swirling and focusing on Fangix’s empty cup.

  “This?” Fangix took the cup, “I'm immune. Superior Dominion genetics.”

  “You're bluffing,” the captain said.

  “You're already dead, as is your crew,” Fangix stood up. The captain tried to stand up, but found that his legs were responding. “Right now the virus is eating at your brain, targeting motor skill nerves, making movement really difficult. You’ll find you just can’t move. Even your men behind you, standing or not, are frozen.”

  Behind him, the men were panicking, breathing rapidly, but not moving. Some tried to turn to look at each other but fell to the ground.

  “After the motor skills, it starts attacking all those pesky automatic nerves in your body, your digestive system, your lungs, and your heart. Sometimes the virus acts quickly, sometimes it doesn’t.”

  The captain coughed, blood spurting out of his mouth and over his beard. He tried to move his hand, but found them not responding as well.

  Fangix stepped past the captain, heading towards the cabin. “Then, you will all be dead. The genius is that the virus then dies off as well and there is essentially no trace of it in your body. Whenever they come to impound your ship in a few weeks due to non-payment on the docking fees, they will find rotting corpses and blame many things.”

  “You were always going to kill us,” the captain sputtered, gasping for air.

  “You were never going to take my offer,” Fangix countered. He stepped over one of the crew’s body, and glanced down just in time to see his eyes follow him in terror.

  In the crude cabin, it took Fangix some time to find the data port, and after cleaning the horrendous mess on the main dashboard, he plugged in his tablet and started to download all sensor and video data the ship had stored. He looked around and was appalled at the filth.

  “These rats are better off dead,” he spat.

  Back on his ship, Fangix sat in a small room just adjacent to the pilot’s cabin. His small ship, a DGX interceptor ship, was a standard three man attack vessel commonly used by the Dominion as a bomber ship in their large carrier cruisers back in the wars against Earth. Now they were common throughout the galaxy. This one though, was heavily modified for solo flight, and the bomber’s cabin was converted into his data center. Several crystal drive computers were installed with a strong hacking AI to run the system. He used these super computers to spy and link into networks on the planets and corporations he usually dealt with.

  He uploaded all the information from the merchant ship. He kept an eye out for the warning signs of someone finding the dead bodies on the trader’s ship, but he figured he would be long gone by then. The sensor information he immediately uploaded to a secret thread that would be transmitted and carried back to Coran for analysis. Once that was done, he began scanning Alioth’s net for any IDs on the two ships in the video. If nothing was found there, he would begin dipping into other nets, Earth and Coran first, to see what he could pick up.

  The larger ship was a standard Panther class explorer ship. These were more common in the fringes and frontier planets than anywhere else due to their age. That this ship was likely a pirate ship was an easy guess, but why they were attacking the smaller ship was unknown, other than just pure piracy. What was odd was that such an attack would occur in Alioth, a very well policed system. Every Panther ship was exactly the same, so he had his AI begin scanning the video for any kind of ID mark, Domini
on codes or Commonwealth registration numbers, anything he could use to instantly identify the ship should he cross paths with it. The other ship of course, was his target. The smaller ship was a Stiletto luxury passenger ship, usually used by high class chairmen, CEOs and presidents of corporations. It was an Alioth built ship. It didn’t take long for him to find a Commonwealth registration number from the video and he began what would be the long process of scanning it against his database. It actually surprised him when the computer came up with the registration information within ten minutes. What that usually meant was that the ship was scanned recently in the system.

  Fangix began scanning the information. The ship was called the Midnight Oil and belonged to a Kale Urt.3xc. Fangix laughed. It was a Dominion slave, or more importantly, a former slave. Very few existed, and even fewer less the audacity to keep their slave designation. The history of the ship showed a salvage claim by the former slave and before that, a brief military record with the independent systems. He swiped the screen, scrolling the data recording all the nav points that scanned the ship. This ship was to various systems all over the three powers, rarely stopping anywhere for more than a few days, with routine stops in Alioth.

  “Must be his home planet.”

  The ship had the history of a trader, although it wasn’t a large scale or even a medium scale trading ship. He would begin scanning the background of any possible contracts this Kale took. Fangix would use this data to build a profile of this man. He hoped to find enough information to explain why a trader had a technology not seen before. He also sent a request back to Coran for any data on the former slave. He knew that would take nearly a week to return back to him, if not more. The Mastery of Servants was a whole separate entity from the Dominion Navy, and the insufferable red tape that would be needed to get information transferred between the two separate groups would take time. It might be irrelevant in the long run, but he needed to take the ship and that meant interacting with the pilot.