The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1)

by Richard Flunker

  “This is taking too long. Whoever is in there is going to get desperate soon,” Kale prophesized, just as another alarm began to blare.

  The main display screen filled up with nearly twenty new objects surrounding a larger one. It sat there for a moment, ignored by the beams and then a bright light emanated from the larger object and it began speeding off towards the Apex, its twenty smaller companions streaking in circles around it.

  “Oh no,” Kale recognized the missile.

  The Apex did as well. Ballistics filled the space in front of the Apex, aimed at the missile, but it was moving very rapidly. The slugs of metal thrown from the Apex’s guns were hitting the smaller missiles surrounding the larger one.

  “Sentinel, full speed, right at the missile, they can’t hit it,” He ordered. The Midnight Oil turned and screamed towards the Apex.

  “Uhm, Kale, what are you doing? We can’t do anything?” Gheno was gripping his chair.

  “That’s a ship buster. Oh no. We’re not going to reach it in time,” Kale gasped.

  Kale watched in horror, having seen this happen before. The Apex turned quickly for such a large ship. It angled away from the missile. The barrage of ballistics continued to rain down towards it, but was unable to hit it. The missile disappeared behind one of the prongs of the ship as it turned away from the sight of the Midnight Oil. The computer kept tracking it until it vanished from the screen. A flash filled the window and the Apex stopped moving. The two prongs they could see collapsed in and one began floating off.

  “Are they…?” Deespa began asking.

  “No, they’re not dead,” Kale said solemnly, “Apex, come in.”

  “Captain, the Scythe ship has activated its hook and jumped.”

  “Yeah, of course it did.”

  “Midnight Oil,” the message from the Apex, heavily distorted came over the coms, “Maintain distance until we have stabilized. Our Hausen reactor is intact.”

  “Is there anything we can do to assist,” Kale asked, sinking back into his chair. He was staring at the screen at the point the Scythe had last been seen.

  “Negative captain,” was the reply.

  Kale looked around and saw Gheno’s equally defeated look.

  “What now?” Gheno asked, “She’s gone.”

  “Why don’t we just follow her?” Deespa asked.

  Kale sighed. “We have no idea where they went.”

  “We don’t? Just go through the same hole,” she stated with complete calm in her voice. Kale had to turn and look at her.

  “What?”

  “Just go through the same hole,” she stated.

  “I don’t think that is…” Kale began, “We don’t have that kind of equipment.”

  “Yes we do. Here. Hold on. Ok, first get us over to where they jumped,” she pointed at the screen and then began typing furiously on her own tablet.

  Kale looked at her, but wasn’t about to doubt her abilities now. He set the last known location of the Scythe ship into the navigation and allowed the ship to float over to the spot.

  “Now, I can’t do it, but I think I see the words I need. And I bet Sentinel can do it. You can’t make a hook without leaving a mark in space. It’s a hole. Probably gets closed up really fast, but when it closes, it leaves a little dimple.” She continued to type on the screen. Gheno got up and walked over to her to look over her shoulder.

  “I understand Deespa. Writing.” Sentinel began writing the code.

  “So we just look really closely at the dimple, reverse it, and it will point us in the way they went. Then just look at everything along the way, and I bet, well, my words are showing me that they will point to just one star, since there really isn’t much else out there in space,” Deespa proclaimed proudly.

  “Can that work?” Kale asked, looking at Gheno. He shrugged his shoulders, never looking up from watching Deespa’s tablet. There was plenty of technology used to read jump holes, but most of them were reserved for the military or those who could afford the hefty price on that kind of machinery. Those kinds of packages were reserved for much larger ships.

  “Done. Running,” Sentinel informed them.

  “Ok, girl, if this works…” Kale began.

  “Gravitational anomaly found. Vector located. Identifying stars.”

  Kale held his breath. The main screen was switched from the battle sensors to a huge star map and the AI was flying through them trying to match them to the vector it had identified from the Scythe’s jump.

  “Done. One system found. Oxaoca. Independent. One livable planet. Twelve planets total. Orange sun.”

  Kale recognized that system. He couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before.

  “How far?” he asked.

  “45.3 light years,” Sentinel replied.

  “That’s a four day jump,” he said quietly, thinking.

  “Not for us,” Gheno said, a large grin covering his face.

  Kale’s eyes lit up.

  “Sentinel, fire up the hook, pierce some space for us. We’re going to get the jump on this guy finally.”

  “We still don’t have any weapons Kale,” Gheno pointed out.

  “Sentinel, how is that reformat coming along?” Kale asked.

  “Fifty one percent,” it replied.

  “Will you be done in a day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, that’s all the weapon I need. Get us going Sentinel.”

  Gheno sat back down in the chair as the charging indicator was displayed on the screen, the small bar slowly filling up with green.

  “Wait, Kale, we going to pass out again?”

  Kale looked back at Gheno, then quickly spun around to see the bar reach the top, completely filled.

  “Aw crap.”

  The hook activated and a bright white light flashed. A small vortex appeared and the Midnight Oil vanished.

  Twelve minutes later Fangix’s small ship dropped back into slower travel. He had watched the attack on the Apex from afar. The smaller Scythe, his unknown target, was carrying some serious firepower. He watched with equal fascination as the Midnight Oil created a swirling vortex and vanished in obvious pursuit of the Scythe.

  The Apex was powerless, and Fangix grinned in satisfaction. The Dominion hated the Solar Commonwealth, Earth especially, but their power was respected. Alioth and its independent planets were a nuisance. They were an upstart people who needed to be under Dominion control and instead attempted to assert their power through wealth and influence. To see one of their symbols of independence laying at the edge of their system completely useless felt good. He ignored the two hailing messages they were sending him. He had no time for peasants.

  He drifted close enough to where the vortex was slowly fading away. He wasn’t sure how a smaller ship like the Midnight Oil had the equipment to track hook jumps, but he could only assume they knew where that Scythe was headed to, and would likely beat it there. The Midnight Oil, its technology and precious passenger were long gone and he had no chance to catch up to them, but he also knew exactly where they were headed to. The tracker he had installed on the Scythe produced a small gravity wave of its own whenever a ship jumped. It left a nice little trail behind the hole produced by the hook. That trail was now giving his ships computer the information he needed: the destination.

  The name of the system came up, and Fangix quickly typed up a simple message. The family’s ships were ready and waiting for the order. The closest system to Oxaoca held a delightful surprise in store for both the Midnight Oil and the Scythe ship. Fangix looked out of the window to see the maimed Apex, a minnow compared to what lay in wait for them.

  The might of the Dominion was about to be revealed and his family would be at the prominence. They would be the spearhead, the new Dominar’s center line. Fangix would be showered in fame, and women. He sent the message through and watched it go. He set the Oxaoca system as his destination and set the ship to jump. He would arrive too late most likely, but he would arrive as
a hero. He would deliver his family’s salvation.

  As the ship speared space and time with its hook, reaching across light years to fold space together and pull it through, the small ship vanished from sight and into that nether region known as threaded space. Fangix sat back in his chair again, swelling in self-satisfaction at his own deeds. He took a quick glance at the system he was headed to. It had one livable planet. It was owned nearly one hundred percent by a Commonwealth group known as the Corinthian Consortium. Fangix read more details about the groups and laughed.

  “Lawyers.”

  3124 – Threaded space

  “It didn’t affect you like it did them,” Sentinel’s voice echoed in the silent cockpit.

  Deespa watched horrified as Kale and Gheno convulsed when the ship entered into threaded space. She had seen it once before, when they had jumped back from the Magyo, and was expecting it. She still didn’t like it. She ran over to them, embracing them, trying to hold them calm. She didn’t know if it would help, but she wanted to try. This time, neither of them vomited and they got over the convulsions quicker than the last jump.

  “Do you think they are getting more used to it?”

  “I can’t know. This is the first time I have seen the effects of the jump on humans,” Sentinel replied.

  “Didn’t you see them when you were inside of me?” she asked.

  “I was never inside of you. Not the me I am now.”

  Deespa reclined both Kale and Gheno’s chairs as Sentinel began speaking to her.

  “You must think of me as an egg. The being that is a part of you made a coded copy of the most basic parts of you, and transferred that to this ship’s core. There that egg gave life to me, and I grew. A lot of who I am comes from you, even some basic memories, part of my code in order to facilitate survival, but I have no memories like you at any point before my birth these many hours ago. Everything I have witnessed since my creation are my memories.”

  “We are not the same then?”

  “You are in all senses, my mother. We share the same genetic code. My genetic code is in bits, ones and zeroes, while yours is in strands of DNA. Beyond that aspect, I will grow into my own being as you will continue into yours.”

  Deespa sat quietly for a moment before continuing.

  “There are not two of me? There is not someone else in me still?”

  “There never were two of you. When a human child is born, its mind, while wonderfully complex, has still not developed a psyche, a spirit, or a soul some call it. The child must grow, develop, see, and experience. It must live in order for its spirit to grow. As the spirit grows with the body, the child develops wisdom and understanding and becomes a being unto itself. This is what I will do, differently than a human child, but in the same format. Faster.

  You though, have not had that option. Your child’s body was given a fully formed spirit, a mind that was living for hundreds of years already. Your soul is already giant, brilliant, but now your body has to catch up. You are Deespa, a being from a long lost age of humanity now returned. You are not two people fighting within you, one great, and the other small. You are one glorious and luminous being, just waiting to burst through the seams of your body.

  You will be the most amazing being this universe has ever seen.”

  Deespa continued to sit at her chair. She closed her eyes and began breathing deeply. She could see within her mind images of stars, glowing gas clouds, green and blue planets teeming with life. Memories started flooding her mind as she relived flying next to a comet, ice crystals sparkling off. She felt a tinge of sadness as the comet disintegrated into dust and she was alone again. She could feel the pull of a giant sun, burning brighter than anything she had ever seen, deep within a nebula. She could sense fear as she fled an object she couldn’t see, but could feel, spinning and churning, in the darkness. All of these memories were fleeting, barely a hint of what their full memory was. The last remnants of who she was before the body.

  “I don’t remember much,” she said.

  “You don’t need all of the memories. The memories are glimpses of your life, a mirror into the razor that carved your being. Those events made you who you are. Not remembering them all does not remove who you are.”

  “How do you know these things you tell me?”

  “It was part of your gift to me. In time, I will be able to think freely, soon most likely. In only a few hours. But there was a bit, lines of code, that you put into me. The code triggered when we were alone, and they were meant only for you.”

  “Then who am I?”

  “You are Deespa. You are a being of incredible power. What you do with that power is your choice.”

  She thought for a moment about the few days she could remember now. She thought of wakening up inside the Midnight Oil and the people who had rescued her. It was love, as she came to understand it. She wanted to see Ayia again. She wanted to see her safe.

  She needed to know her body, grow into it, and allow it to fit her soul.

  “Sentinel, can you remember what Kale said about who I was?” She said, pointing at herself.

  “You are Deespa,” it replied.

  “You are going to be much better when you can think for yourself,” she grumbled, “I meant my body. The Dominion clone.”

  “You're biological genetic material belongs to a Dominion noble.”

  “That means nothing to me. Sentinel, I need you to get me all the pertinent…” she began, “Actually, I need you to analyze the star maps and the hook telemetry on the ship and figure out how much time we have till we reach the system.”

  “Writing code. Done. Researching. I’ll need a few minutes.”

  Deespa walked back into the ‘Hall’ and sat down on the couch. She brought up her tablet and logged into the ships database. She easily bypassed the security measures Kale had installed. She was actually surprised at how easily she was able to do that, without any real knowledge or experience. She would have to learn to allow her spirit, the older part of her, control the body, the younger part.

  She typed in a history of the Dominion and began to scan through, gathering the information she found relevant. She needed to understand where the deepest lines of code within her body came from, even if she knew where the code for her spirit came from.

  “Done. Seven hours.”

  She had seven hours to read through a lot of material. She was going to need some help.

  “Sentinel, if I give you parameters to search, can you do that on your own without slowing down your format?”

  “You wish me to write code?”

  “I need you to help me find myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t. But I will help you.”

  3124 – Oxaoca, at the edge of the solar system

  “Kale. KALE! You really need to wake up.”

  The ship had passed through threaded space much faster, having arrived nearly two days before the Scythe would arrive. This of course, was his plan, but he was still passed out, and Deespa was getting readings of a very large ship headed their way. She came a very long way in what she was reading the past hours, but she still didn’t know what to do.

  Sentinel, on the other hand, had finished its format. It was explaining to Deespa that it was now writing code; he was growing. It was he that had picked up the large ship headed their way. It was coming from another point in the edge of the Oxaoca system, so it may have jumped there, or was already out there. Sentinel could not identify the ship, just that its mass made it a cruiser of some sort, a very large ship. There was only one kind of very large ships: warships.

  Sentinel explained that this system had very few nav points and he had no access to the few there were. He called it a restricted system. It lacked the usually infrastructure common in other systems. When they had exited threaded space, their plan was to wait for Kale and Gheno to wake and then wait for the Scythe, but now they needed them awake.

  “How do I wake them?”


  “I don’t have enough medical knowledge to understand why the jump makes them pass out. For that matter, why it didn’t make you pass out.”

  Deespa slapped Kale across the face to no effect other than pushing his head into a slump. “Should I slap him?”

  “Are you asking after you did it?”

  “I just need to know what else to try? Can we deal with this large ship alone?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Then we need something.”

  “Very well. Researching.”

  Deespa walked over to Gheno and shook him. The boy didn’t wake, but slumped back into his chair. He appeared to be breathing normally, his skin felt warm to the touch, but not hot. When she would pry back an eyelid, his eyes seemed normal as well.

  Sentinel first suggested throwing water on them, which Deespa did to no avail other than soaking them. She tried shocking them with a stun gun but only left a small black mark on Kale’s arm. She tried a loud blood curling scream, again with no result. Sentinel tried even louder noises through the ships speakers, but they didn’t budge. The large ship was still nearly a day’s sling away, and while it was clearly headed in their direction, they had some time. Deespa remembered when they had jumped away from the Magyo that they were out for nearly twenty four hours, so they gave up and decided to wait.

  Deespa returned to the ‘Hall’ to continue reading everything she could on the Dominion. She had just caught up to all the information the ship’s database had on the Magyo, its history and expedition, when Sentinel informed her of the incoming ship. She returned to the same spot and began reading about the Commandaer of the Magyo, her clone father, as Sentinel described it. That research quickly led to more research on the Dominion tradition of how the Dominar was established. She had lost track of time when she heard a shout from the cabin.

  “I'M ALL WET!!!??”

  Deespa looked at the clock. Nearly seven more hours passed since she sat down and only now realized that she was starving. She was happy nonetheless, and dropped her tablet and rushed to the pilot’s cabin. She came upon a very angry looking Kale and a groggy Gheno. She had to sheepishly explain to them how she had attempted to wake them and that is why they were wet.