The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1)

by Richard Flunker

  Fangix just touched the button to send the request for Kale’s slave information when another set of data began flashing red. The Midnight Oil had just been tagged on Alioth’s outer navigation net, the collection of navigation satellites surrounding the planet itself that served as beacons for space pilots. He brought up a 3d image of the planet and found which nav sat had set off the alarm and found it clear on the other side of the planet. He looked up at the time and quickly logged into the dock controls and requested release. He stood up and walked back into the pilot’s cabin in time to see the response from the dockyard. He was seventeenth in line, so it would likely be ten more minutes. Adding on the twenty minutes it would take to cruise to the other side of the planet, it would be difficult to catch them in time. He hoped the ship would remain in orbit.

  He sat back into his chair and allowed the dockyard’s gravity tractor to pull him out into the exit lane from the large station. His main window lit up with a virtual representation of the tunnel he needed to follow out of the station. It was a method to control all the traffic. Once cleared, he programmed in two quick slings. He punched the button and a small gravity field formed in front of his ship, throwing him forward. It was a small sling, used mostly to shoot his ship along the planet’s orbit to the southern pole. As his ship sped towards the pole, Fangix began tapping into the local nav sats to see if he could follow the progress of the Midnight Oil. Just a few minutes into the swing down to the pole, it appeared that the ship he was tracking was still stationary in orbit around the same location it had initially been tracked at. As he reached the southern pole, another gravity field formed and brought his ship to a halt. He redirected the ship to point back up the other side of the planet, and was on his way. Just two minutes from the Midnight Oil, the nav sat lost tracking. None of the suborbital nav sats picked up the ship either, so it was leaving the system.

  Fangix’s ship came to a halt just over the western hemisphere of the planet. As he looked up in his cabin, the blue green waters of the ocean planet shimmered into the cabin. He logged out of Alioth’s orbital nav sats and began logging into the system nav sats. These navigational points and buoys were scattered throughout the whole Alioth solar system and were used as navigational points for pilots. The wealthier systems, like Earth, Coran, and certainly Alioth, had these scattered all over the system. Even in the event of a catastrophic failure, it was impossible to get lost in Alioth. All of these nav sats also communicated with the planet satellites and provided for communication between the planets and stations. For Fangix, he would use them to triangulate the direction the Midnight Oil was headed. Now he just waited.

  He updated his log and sent a few updates back to Coran. He was actually surprised at the fast rate this was escalating, and while he much preferred taking things slowly, he knew better than to let opportunities like this slip by. He left the ship in orbit there and started tracking the traffic that was coming and going from the planet on this side. He turned on one of his alias IDs on, one of a geological surveyor. He would raise no suspicions as it was common place for pilots to remain in orbit if they had to wait for anything as this was better than paying docking fees on a station or down planet side. He wasn’t sure what he might find from the traffic in this area, but his experience had told him that having any kind of information was critical. He would record all of the ship IDs that traversed in front of him until he got a nav sat reading on the Midnight Oil .

  An alarm snapped him out of a small nap he took. Fangix looked at the clock and saw that thirty five minutes had passed. It was the information he was looking for. A nav sat had picked up the Midnight Oil and the computer was already starting to track its destination. With only two nav sats showing its direction, it wasn’t much, but within a few seconds one main target was clear: in the path of the Midnight Oil’s course was Devil’s Den, Alioth’s other planet. He immediately plotted a sling and within three minutes was moving at full speed towards the small sunburnt planet. Once out of Alioth’s orbit though, there would be a delay in communication between his ships and the nav sats. Thankfully for him, he had a very fast ship. Even if Devil’s Den was not their final destination, he could eventually catch up with them if there were leaving the Alioth solar system completely.

  If, though, his target was headed to Devil’s Den, then it would prove beneficial. The small planet had very little security as the planet had no self-governance. It was instead a patchwork of different mines, factories, research labs and private residences for the uniquely bizarre. If he had to strike and take over the ship, there was no better place to do it.

  The small Dagger class ship came to a halt just over the small planet, and then adjusted its trajectory to float into a quick orbit around the planet. Fangix immediately hacked into the nav sats around the planet. He came in around the sunny side, and his cabin began to compensate for the heat buildup. The ship further adapted by beginning an orbit towards the darker side of the planet. His ship could easily take the heat, but it was just good management to reduce energy use.

  He began getting readings back from the nav sats and just as he suspected, a reading came back positive for the Midnight Oil. Fangix had made up time and had arrived at nearly the same time. The Midnight Oil was at the main landing station in orbit, likely going to use a tug to go down into the small planet. Fangix set the computer to fix trajectory one more time, and with a small boost of gravity, he was headed to the station.

  The sun flooded into his cabin and he enjoyed the extra heat. He had grown up and done most of his training on the hot planet of Arissa. It was one of the first planets to turn its allegiance to the Dominion so many hundreds of years ago. It was a large planet, and enjoyed a massive sun on a very minor tilt in its axis. This kept most of the planet warm and humid, a habitat to a nearly planet wide jungle. The animals there were large and aggressive and the plant life even more so than the animals. The sun beating on his face brought back memories of training, memories that were snapped shut when the ship suddenly grew dark and the heat vanished. The ship rounded the horizon. Fangix opened his eyes and could see the small station that worked as a docking point for the tugs that came up and down from the planets gravity.

  He approached the station and immediately called in requesting the next tug and was directed to a tug that was already filling up on the far side of the station. He allowed the station to tractor his ship over to it, all the while scanning all the ships until he located the Midnight Oil. He was docked on the bottom left corner of the large flat tug and clamps came in to take hold of the ship. He authorized the tug to plug into his ship to use its Hausen reactor. The combined reactors on the ships would actually move the tug while the tug provided the hydrogen fuel. Fangix tapped the screen making payment to the tug and he got up to go back into the data room. He sent two messages back to Coran, and then began programming a small tracking mine. It would probably be a few hours before they even descended into the planet, but the moment they undocked, he would need to tag the Midnight Oil to be able to follow it. Then he could take the pilot and any crew out wherever they were and take the ship. He didn’t foresee any kind of security here and if this was where the captain of this ship lived, then it would be even easier.

  Fangix took a small pouch of food out from his stores and sat back in the pilot’s seat. The small cabin was perfectly suited to him. As he began digging into the dried fruits and eating them, washing them down with some water, a small red light began blinking on his side screen. It was the computer telling him one of his many flags had triggered. He pulled it up and began reading it. While he was over Alioth, he had tracked all the traffic in and out of the planet, scanning the IDs. Now, on this tug, one of those IDs came up.

  It was the ID for a Scythe Mark D class ship.

  Fangix began scanning its ID against his database, turning up nothing. That type of ship though, usually meant someone who meant business. When nothing turned up on his database for that ship, he sent a request back to Coran, hoping h
e would get something back in a day or two. A timeframe like that was too slow here, and it was probably just a coincidence, but Fangix knew well that in the spying business, if he knew about the Midnight Oil, then someone else might know about it too. He inputted some parameters into his computer and allowed the AI to begin searching any nav point history for this ship’s ID as well. Maybe he could see how long it was in Alioth and any other possible locations for the ship.

  A small message popped up on his screen from the tug. They would begin descent in three hours and had a two hour descent. It was a little slow for his taste, but it would do. It consumed the least amount of fuel and that is what the tug pilots worried about. Fangix kicked his feet back and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander to the girls at the harem, and allowing his hands to wander all over them. He became aroused and laughed at how easily it happened. He remembered why he was in such a state and grumbled. He hoped he could kill someone soon. He set the alarm on the dashboard to wake him up for any new warnings or for four hours from now. He pushed his chair back, put his arms behind his head, pulled out its leg extensions out, and dozed off within a few seconds.

  3124 – Devil’s Den, GorpSpace Exploration and Logistics research location beta.

  Kale woke up, drowsy, rubbing his eyes. He had desperately needed that sleep. They had arrived the previous day, in the morning Devil’s Den time. While he was ready to sleep, the scientists and researchers were all geared up and ready to take a look at the ship, run tests on him, ask a thousand questions of which “I don’t know” was the most common answer and then run more tests. A whole separate group of scientists were running even more tests with the girl, whom they named patient B. It wasn’t much of a name.

  Kale rubbed his arm where they stuck him at least ten times. He told them what little he knew, mostly the blacking out, waking up in vomit, and the same thing coming back. Their new hook worked well, maybe too well, but they certainly would need to come up with a way to overcome those reactions if they wanted to make it useful to more than just a simple drone.

  After standing up, he looked at himself in the mirror, tracing the large scar than ran across his body from the left shoulder down to his right thigh. As he traced it he remembered the details of how that scar got there. He had slept well, but went to sleep worried about the girl. To him she was a nuisance, a disappointment in the financial wallet, and maybe a bit of a mystery that fueled his paranoia. Although he respected Oganno and his group, he knew what she might become to them.

  He put on some pants and stepped out of his small room, out into one of the many large hangars where engineers were busy scanning every inch of his ship. He walked on the cold floor towards the mess hall and walked in to seven of the men sitting around the girl. She turned and caught his eye. She looked pleadingly at him.

  He walked up to them. She had some kind of bio reader wrapped around her right arm and they were bombarding her with questions he could only assume were mathematical. He assumed that mostly because he didn’t understand them. He grabbed an apple from a large basket on the table next to them, a fruit he hadn’t eaten in many years. He grabbed a second one and sat next to her. The other men looked at him disapprovingly.

  “You had breakfast yet?” he asked her.

  “That is the morning food?” she asked. Kale nodded. “No, I have not had food yet.”

  “No breakfast?” he asked specifically.

  “None. Not since we got here.”

  “Are you serious?” Kale raised his voice in mock anger, directing his ire at the men seated with her.

  One of them shrugged his shoulders. He appeared to be the one in charge. “She never hinted at needing food.”

  Kale reached over and tore off the arm band. The researcher that was reading the data off the bioreader began to protest but upon making eye contact with Kale, gave up. The one in charge motioned to the rest of them and they walked off, talking continuously, comparing notes on their tablets. Kale knew he wouldn’t have much time.

  “Come on,” he pointed at the other side of the mess hall.

  She followed, gladly and as they reached the long table where some food was laid out. Kale grabbed a plate, and showed her how to do the same, piling food on. She copied him, getting the exact same type of food. There were slabs of thinly cut meat on top of thin grain cakes and then covered with a hot steaming sugary liquid. As they sat down, he only had to show her once how to use the utensils, and as with everything else, she learned in an instant. When she put the first piece in her mouth, her eyes widened again.

  “What is this? This liquid. It is sweet!” she clamored.

  “It’s Cachoka syrup,” Kale began, “It’s taken from the Cachoka fish back on Alioth, that first planet we were over. When the fish is in its mating season, it builds up this liquid within its body for, well, mating purposes.”

  Kale waited for the usual look of disgust, until he realized the girl knew nothing of what he was saying.

  “Well, it’s very good,” she said, eating at a faster rate.

  “That it is,” he replied. They enjoyed a moment of silence as they ate. She finished far sooner than he did, and when she looked back over at the table with the food, Kale smiled.

  “Go get more.”

  She returned with the exact same food, but this time a set of hard boiled eggs. She held them up to him and he showed her how to crack the eggs. As he peeled off the hard shells, he looked across to her.

  “Do you know what is going on here?”

  “I am different, I know. Those are men who learn things. They get excited with things that are different,” she replied, a hint of sadness.

  “Yeah, you see it clearly then,” he added, “Do you know who you are yet?”

  She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly.

  “I should. Something within me knows who or what I am. Everything is new to me, this fork and this knife, as you call them. But once I know them, it is as if I have always known them. Every night I dream more, and there are many images, and I hear words, I think. Some are words I hear all of you say, and others, are new to me, but I learn them.”

  Kale took a bite.

  “Do you remember anything on that ship? While you were sleeping?”

  She nodded her head. “No, nothing. They all keep asking me.”

  Kale wasn’t going to insist. He wasn’t sure what would happen to her. He knew Oganno, but knew that even he might not have much say once word came out of a human being, and even that was in question, that was found at what was calculated as just over nine hundred light years from earth. Ayia, of course, would be devastated to know that the girl she had rescued might become a celebrity in the scientific circles, far removed from Ayia’s own world.

  “Where is Ayia? I thought she was going to stay with you?”

  “She fell asleep. I couldn’t bother to wake her up,” she replied.

  “Didn’t you get tired?” he asked.

  “I think I did, but those men, they kept asking me questions. I think they were tired too, but they kept drinking something they said would keep them awake.”

  There was no end to the stimulants available, especially for those who had the talent and knowledge to create them.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” she asked.

  Kale knew this question was coming and was trying to find an answer when it did come, but now found himself without one.

  “I don’t know. I think though, that you can become anything you want,” he said, “Once they are done with you at least.”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you doubt what I am. I can sense it in your words and the way your face twists when Ayia speaks of me to you.”

  “Do you know what you are?”

  She sighed. “I don’t even know what my name is, although I know I have one. That is why you doubt. Even I doubt.”

  Kale was always out of his element when trying to deal with everyone else’s emo
tions. He witnessed how far she came since she had emerged from the pod. He had swung on both ends of the pendulum, at times completely certain she was human and at times ready to be rid of her. But he had seen her cry in joy over music and the look on her face every time she tried a new food, it was childlike, a human child. He really didn’t have much to say, and he was debating what to say when he saw the way she was looking around.

  “What?” he asked, looking around.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” she held out her hands, turning them, “You can’t feel that?”

  Kale hadn’t felt a thing other than the fear of dealing with the issues at the table.

  “Feel what?”

  “Someone opened a door. There was a shift in pressure. There are more people here than before.”

  “You can feel that?” Kale started to ask when he was startled by a scream somewhere down a corridor. His hand instantly went to his side, where, of course, his side arm was not located at. Oganno had always insisted he leave it in the ship.

  “Dammit. I’ve learned to trust your instincts. Let’s go.” He took her by the arm, but found no resistance as she was getting up as well. “I need you to get back to the ship right away. Gheno is in there, sleeping or not, I don’t know, but you get in there and lock the thing up tight. He will know how to do it.”

  “I know how to,” she said.

  “Yeah, you would. I will get Ayia and meet you there.” He pointed out to the main hangar. The ship was out there with a series of cables and devices all over it. It would be fun trying to fly out now. He heard the surefire cracks of gunfire in the distance and realized that this was serious. This facility was a maze of hallways and rooms, so he didn’t know how much time he had, especially as there were no guards. He did know though, that Oganno had his own methods for security. He watched the girl running towards the ship, tapping on the side door and vanishing inside. Kale dashed over to Ayia’s room and began pounding on the door.