Chapter 01: Small Beginnings.

2995 December 29, 09:30 P.M. Galactic Standard Time.

… culturally intriguing, or at least to this reviewer. The sheer amount of transient people that reside on the station has produced its own subculture. Yet that fact doesn’t change the mystique of the place: Watch Your Back. I mean it; even with Presidential Quarters up in the red carpet district, Security cannot afford to be every place at once (and they seldom do cover more than just the essential zones).

This is contradictory to the ground-side Mach Palace, or the secretive and rumored asteroid-based Camp Crest, where Security is so tight that not even a quad-fly gets in without being noticed. Why the difference? I believe the President is preparing for….

— McKinneman’s Galactic Travel Guide. Danzinay Orbital Station, page 423, ’Station Social-Political Culture’.

Jeff stepped off the shuttle and onto the cold, hard deck plating of the station’s hangar bay. Looking around, he saw perhaps thirty-odd workers within the facility going about their business.

The pilot had told him to wait by the view-port for a minute before checking in, and so he had done. He had tried momentarily seeing his home-world, the rust-colored cloudless marble that it should be, but it was obscured; a civilian passenger-liner connecting to an extended inflatable docking port next to the landing bay blocked the view into space.

’Oh, well; it’s not as if I am interested in seeing that ball-of-rock anytime soon….’

The pilot, a silver-backed Lurpet, finally peered out from the shuttle, whistled a shrill three-note attention-getter, waved two of his six limbs and nodded his permission to go. Jeff turned away from the viewport, and began walking toward the deck officer’s main console.

While silently walking, he pondered several things. Not the least of which, his current business of being on Danzinay Orbital Space Station. He was leaving Danzinay, perhaps and presumably forever, minus any return-time to visit his adoptive mother and friends. At least, for the next three years he would be at the Alliance Fleet’s Academy in Sector Three of Province Two, in orbit over planet Kenner.

It had been a dream of his for some time now, even before investigating who his parents were; he was grateful to the Academy for allowing him to sign up. That he’d had good grades in high school and had graduated third in his class had been a big plus to them; his personal objective was due to two factors: the current galactic war, and the loss of his best friend, Kaylee Cormorov, had wreaked havoc on his consciousness. The former, he felt helpless to influence if he were stuck on Danzinay; the latter, he felt guilty about, as if he could have done something to prevent it.

This current struggle, called the Great Space War, had begun almost a dozen years ago, after Jeff had turned seven years old. One man, Captain Lief Pietro, was so daring and vain that he had bragged publicly that he could start a war or end it with a few words. Onlookers had scoffed the idea; he had later made good on his promise by stirring up long-dormant hatreds and animosities among a few races. Brought to a boil with the aid of political mismanagement, and kept there by sheer will, problems exploded on Brahm, then stretched across multiple star systems. The few survivors of the Ground Zero Incident soon sought out and murdered Pietro; now, the Great Space War ran unchecked ― without Pietro to prove the latter part of his manifest creed.

The Great Space War still raged hot in most galactic sectors, while the rest of the galaxy struggled for containment of the galactic tyranny. Lately, that tyranny came, not from the hundreds of worlds that were fighting to restore peace, but from a more subversive source: the self-titled Emperor Timothy Beaumort of the Great Republic Imperium, and his Imperial Fleet, led by his prodigy, Lord Harold Wayne Byron.

The full story was hard to sort out, and probably known only to a few within Alliance HQ and Fleet Intelligence; mostly, the universe at large knew that Emperor Beaumort and Lord Byron had taken over the chaos that had been the Great Space War, and had pushed their imperialistic designs on the galaxy.

Formerly, Timothy Beaumort had himself been in the Academy as a young hot-headed but a brilliant cadet of a tactical major. Later, the Alliance Fleet Command’s judicial wing expelled him from their service on three counts of treason. Beaumort had been building a mercenary fleet, capitalizing on the trouble Captain Pietro had begun, and later destroyed Fleet Command’s headquarters. Then, self-titled High Admiral Beaumort and Lord Harold Wayne Byron conquered three planets and ruled like sometimes-benevolent tyrants. Beaumort had finally named himself Emperor, with Lord Byron as a close second in command. Yet, the two had remained quite elusive to being captured.

That left the story as unfinished at the present: Beaumort’s own Imperial headquarters remained private, but Jeff figured Alliance Fleet intelligence operatives were near finding it, even now. When they did find the location of Beaumort’s hideaway … well, may only the cold vacuum of Space have mercy on any Imperials stationed there….

Almost two decades ago, Jeff’s father had been a brilliant tactician just promoted to rear admiral; his one specialty was fighting against the Imperial tyranny. Indeed, with his own ingenuity he had managed to surround and capture Beaumort, Byron, and an enclave of Imperial officers and crew within a huge, hidden asteroid complex. These war criminals were seized in the name of the security of Alliance territory, and imprisoned to a penal-colony world.

Then Jeff’s mother, formerly a Kooshat princess and second cousin to Lord Byron, gave birth to Jeff; his father stepped away from Command for a personal leave. It was seemingly apparent that he had taken them all on vacation, from his home on T’chenga to some other place.

But, the base that Beaumort and company were captured in was neither their primary base nor contained the majority of their fleet; this much, the Alliance had to admit, after the following events took place.

According to galactic history, while Jeff was only a few days old, Beaumort and Byron had managed to escape from the formerly-inescapable penal colony world of Solos II ― to this day, still inescapable but for the unknown manner in which the deadly duo had managed it. It was assumed but unconfirmed that one or more of the main Imperial Fleet’s ships had managed to sneak into the system, drift into a planetary orbit, and stealth-drop what escape supplies they would need. They then followed his parents onto this forsaken planet, and murdered them ― this much Catherine Thornton had told him, just before he left. He had alternated between hatred of the Imperials and fear of their supremacy, until before his departure party ― his adoptive mother Catherine, her half-brother Thomas the civil engineer, and one of Kaylee’s elder siblings gave him a stern talking-to, that had forced him back to rationality.

Besides, Jeffery Theodore Thornton knew what failure to control that evil would mean for everyone. After learning about his parents and considering the consequences of one’s actions, he vowed to take part in fighting against this tyranny, so his determination to excel in the Academy had strengthened another notch. At present, he could see the Alliance Fleet Academy was the best-possible means for both building long-term career skills and fighting the Imperials. In some other possible near-future event, perhaps someone or some more-capable organization might come along to finish the war, but … not yet. He was joining the Alliance Fleet Academy. It was his destiny, he felt it so much within himself, and he welcomed it.

A group of Bizzic peddlers, speaking in deep, flattering voices, flocked around him suddenly ― nobody knew where they had originated ― trying to sell him cheap jewelry, trinkets, and a few mysterious items, most of which they claimed had possessed ’masa-bubu’. With the galactic war nearly over in this galactic province ― finally ― planetary commerce in local sectors was slowly on the rebound. Being an inhabitant of the capitalist planet below, nineteen-year-old Jeff Thornton was well aware of the many races of beings who traveled to and from the many civilized and not-so-civilized planets of the galaxy. Jeff ignored the waist-high burbling aliens, hoisted his pack of possessions up to his shoulder, clutched his other belongings closer to him, and continued onward.

*

’Not that it is their fault they cannot stay in one place,’ he thought. ’It is just that … do they have to be so darned disorganized about it?’

It wasn’t just the Bizz, really; at least thirty-seven known species were inhabiting either the planet or the space station, Humans and Camelopards being the most numerous. Of them, the wandering gypsies, rogues, and thieves brought a subtle but constant sense of danger to a resource-bankrupt rock-world, the citizens of which certainly did not need any more hostility. Jeff wondered if Hereditary President Drew Zinay would ever decide to have the undesirable elements cleaned out, or if he ever would want to. Then again, he probably wanted to keep Station Security on their toes. ’Yeah, sure ― and probably off his,’ Jeff thought wryly.

After another few seconds of thought, and a short glance behind, he realized two more things: he was less than ten meters from the hangar bay deck officer’s console, and the whole group of bartering Bizzic peddlers had stopped two meters behind him ― keeping care not to cross a white line on the otherwise bare metal deck plating. Four silent scorch-marks on the decking testified to warning shots fired recently from an energy weapon.

’Smart deck officer,’ he thought wryly, and smiled. The officer stood waiting silently but with a hawk-like glare reserved for the peddlers, as Jeff stepped forward and dropped his duffel bag. He handed his data chip across the console to the man’s waiting hand, and offered a polite nod. "Hello, sir."

The deck officer, an aging man of fifty name-tagged Staff Sergeant Heathman, looked both disinterested and unaffected. With only a grunt of basic acknowledgment, he snatched up the data chip, inserted it into his terminal, and began inspecting its contents on his monitor. He wondered, not at this man’s rudeness, but at the unspecified years of hard work that had left his career dead-ended in this solitary position.

’He sure must have vexed someone high enough in his chain of command to be stuck here….’

Jeff considered the rumors about the tomboyish belligerent princess, almost chuckled at the thought, but he managed to stop himself before the sergeant noticed anything amiss.

In a moment, Sergeant Heathman signaled an all-clear, and returned the wafer to him. "Everything here is in order, except your shuttle ride to the Academy is more than ten hours behind schedule. During your wait, we will give you temporary quarters to rest and refresh yourself, at no charge to you. I just need your thumb print. Alliance Fleet Operations requires it, for our reimbursement." The sergeant held up a thin data pad for Jeff to see.

The message on the pad stated, in short, that his thumb print would allow the person checking him in to assign him temporary quarters, that he would accept whatever quarters were assigned, and that the identification thumb print could be used to request reimbursement from his destination. Jeff nodded in silent acquiescence, then lifted his hand to comply. He readjusted his wristbands and forced his thumb to make contact; he was yet unused to them.

The wristbands were but one of the locked-box contents his adoptive mother had given him. They had belonged to his father; where his father had obtained them, and under what conditions, remained a mystery. Indecipherable, too, were the many runic characters around its wide circumference. It felt both strange and comfortable on him ― apart from the occasional bump to his wrists, to remind him of their presence.

Another item was a tooled-leather utility belt, inlaid with gold threading; he reconfirmed its presence by hooking a finger behind it and tugging on it slightly. It creaked with a groan of aged, well-crafted leather.

Meanwhile, Heathman checked his console, typed in a few sequences, and then grimaced. "That can’t be right," the sergeant muttered. "No, wait, let me try this…." His frantic keystrokes failed to produce the intended results, and he finally gave up trying. "Oh, well, hang it all to heck and back. Somehow, the computer has given you quarters in the Administrative Section. That’s way up on Deck Thirteen, Quadrant J, Room Twelve-Eighteen. Enjoy it while you can, kid, because you won’t get the same at the Academy."

Curious for the twist of fate that gave him the quarters he received, but so eager to arrive at the Academy, Jeff tried to salute but managed only a lopsided wave of his hand. Hoping the sergeant wouldn’t take offense, he added a quickly-mumbled ’thank you, sir’, then picked up his duffel and scurried back through the waiting crowd of Bizzic peddlers, and angled toward a turbo-shaft.

*

After an hour of waiting in the spacious suite, Jeff felt restless ― an adventurous feeling had settled within him. Not exactly tired nor hyperactive, he just wanted something to do. Having consulted the room’s terminal, he found the nearest entertainment sector to be down four decks, over three quadrants and across two corridors. Within fifteen seconds, he was walking out of the room, headed for a gamer’s paradise named The Ancient’s Arcade.

The Ancient’s Arcade here on the orbital station was smaller than the planet-side one that preceded it, but Jeff figured that the layout plans were of a similar design. Many two-dimensional game monitors and trimensional holosuite galleries were packed more closely together, and the gallery had some game consoles that the other one did not have, but still Jeff intuitively knew his way around. The game he preferred, Quanta, was currently in use, and its three players showed no signs of letting up; so he continued strolling through the aisles looking for another open game.

At the stroke of midnight, a less popular strategy game, Tactical Space Chess 3D, became available, so he slid into one of the four players’ chairs. Pushing the table’s lit reset button caused the air and space in front of him to shimmer and glow brightly. As the light faded, a girl somewhat younger than he slid into the seat directly across from him. She tilted her head and asked coyly, "Care for a game?"

Unnerved that someone would interrupt what he had hoped would be a solo game, he calmly cleared his throat, but gave in to her simple request. ’She will pay for the interruption, though,’ thought Jeff daringly. He quickly punched the buttons for the most advanced gaming options available, then touched the acceptance button. However, it surprised him to see her do similarly; he had never played at this difficulty level, but thought she would have left at the counter-challenge of a more aggressive game. ’Oh, I think I just met my match….’

*

Jeff and the girl whiled away the next four hours, playing through the game three times, and this diversion was actually more enjoyable for Jeff than he originally thought. Neither of them needed to speak, except in necessity of the game. She easily won the first game, and then he forced a draw on the second one. He tried even harder the third time, and managed to win. She returned a very surprised look. Victory was almost hers again, until the last five plays. "Aw, no fair," she moaned. "You must have cheated."

Jeff tensed immediately. In many places on the planet below (and on this station, Jeff assumed) implying that someone had cheated was equal to calling them out in a fight of honor; some races would demand a literal fight to the death for satisfaction of their honor. Jeff could only hope that this girl ― she seemed all too familiar, somehow ― had no intentions of starting a fight. As he began to reply, he tried to force himself to remain as neutral as possible.

"The ’Enemy Drops a Level’ and ’Capture Enemy’ cards are both legal plays." He swallowed back a bit of nervousness, in late consideration of his phrasing. ’Uh, that still seems a little defensive….’

Her posture remained neutral, so she must not have taken offense or meant harm, or possibly even have guessed he thought that. Her closed-off demeanor changed to a more talkative one, and she offered apologetically, "Sorry; it’s a force of habit. Daddy and I play every weekend, though we like to tease each other about cheating, it’s never the case. Sometimes when I play against others, I often slip into familiar-speaking terms. Please pardon the expression." She brushed fiery-red hair away from her eyes, then Jeff saw the most sparkling-green eyes he had ever seen, framed in an absolutely beautiful ― though youngish, perhaps mid-teenage ― face. After a moment, he regained his composure. "However, I see you are a quick study. Care for another game, then?"

Jeff gulped nervously. "Oh, uh … all right. Let’s make it the best of four games, then." She surprised him with a wide smile, and a generous nod. And his stomach chose this opportunity to make a little noise.

"After a short break, though; I have not had any dinner yet this evening, and I am starving. Care to join me?"

She thought this over a moment – maybe a few seconds longer than it would have taken Jeff to answer, were the situation reversed – glanced about furtively, then simply nodded. "Have you ever eaten at a Quizzle’s Restaurant? They use automation, but it is still nearly the best."

"No, I haven’t. Not exactly the same, but … planet-side, the capital city has three chains of one-off replicas that each claim to be the originals. Yet I’ve heard others say that Quizzle’s is great." He led the way out of the arcade, and continued talking to her. "Have you ever been to Gaerrig’s, in Hilliard City?"

Glaring, she looked as if he had just asked the dumbest question in the universe, while her sparkling green eyes seemed to pierce right through him. "Of course I have. What did you think, that my father kept me up here all my life?"

While the seconds ticked past, and Jeff’s puzzled look did not cease, her temper seemed to cool rapidly.

When she replied, she was apologetic again. "Sorry. I guess you could just say that I have traveled too much … what with having to follow my father and his assistants around. Actually, I have been to every city, every major location planet-side ― except two polar power domes, four science labs, and one orbital station that even daddy doesn’t go near…."

Something about this conversation tugged on his brain, but he could not quite make the necessary connection. ’Okay, so her father is probably wealthy, very possibly a highly-placed official. So, what is he into; Manufacturing? Investment? Telecommunications?’

Instead of asking, he decided to change the subject. A cautious smile tugged at his lips. "You haven’t told me yet, who wins more games: you, or your father."

"Generally, we are quite even … though on a particularly demanding day, he starts losing, and vice-versa. Usually, though, we can tell each other’s moods, and adjust our strategy accordingly." She went silent, as if having realized she had said too much. Quietly, she began to comb her slender fingers through her fiery-red hair, attempting to straighten some unseen knot.

*

Then, they were there; the arched golden entrance loomed massively wide and tall. The eatery’s robotic servers waited eerily silent ― that is, until Jeff and the girl stepped across the threshold. Only then did they surge to life, stepping efficiently up to them and directing them to the best seats in the house.

Jeff realized he still had not asked her name. Even after telling her his own name, he did not have the nerve to ask for hers; he figured that if she wanted to tell him, she would. Besides, he was about to leave for the Academy in less than twelve hours, anyway.

They ordered, and their dinners came in short order; they talked and laughed at a comfortable rate, about both interesting and mundane things. Though it was extremely early for local morning, the robot servers still provided a bit of improvised dinner theater, making Jeff’s first taste of firsthand slapstick comedy an interesting event. Jeff realized it had been quite some time before this that he had felt this good, since he’d had this much fun. It felt good to take it easy; the Academy would soon be taking most of his time, and effort.

As the entertainment ended, moods shifted as he told her as much. She sat, quietly thoughtful, when he explained about being accepted into the Academy. With a growing apprehension, he wondered if she were against either the Alliance, or the Fleet. ’Something about her is familiar … where have I seen her before?’ However, as much as he tried to make a connection, nothing came to him.

They dropped into silence for several minutes, until the server brought both their tickets. "Master Jeffery, your ticket. Mistress Sela, your ticket. Thank you both for your patronage," the service bot intoned.

’Ah … at last I know her name. It’s Sela, like the President’s … uh, daughter…. What the hey … ?’

The pure shock of double-realization finally hit him hard. He sat stiffly, with eyes wide open, watching her dig through her wallet. She didn’t even notice, but still he could not snap out of it.

As she finally pulled out her credit chip, he wondered about her. ’So. She is the daughter of Hereditary President Drew Zinay. But why would someone of such a high position bother with a commoner like me?’

Still watching her, he saw her hand both the ticket and her credit chip to the server, then picked at the sprig of parsley on her plate.

’Unless … she is doing this to disobey her father, or his Security teams….’

Suddenly wide-eyed, he imagined tall, muscular deputies clamping their hands upon his shoulders, lifting him forcefully from the chair, and carrying him forcefully from the area to Space-knew-where … to undergo an excruciating interrogation….

Thinking of their conversations to date, he began theorizing about her. He saw no use losing his cool friendliness, now; this was a predicament of his own making.

His lungs began burning with held breath. Jeff forced himself to break the stare by dropping his gaze to the table, where the meal ticket still lay before him, and exhaling carefully.

She heard his sudden exhalation, looked up to follow his gaze, and mistook its reason. "Oh, no; it is not that expensive a meal, Jeff Thornton. Here ― let me pay for it." She reached across the table to his ticket before he could even think to protest, and thrust it toward the server. "No use having an expense account and not being able to use it …" she added, with a cynical twist on the words.

With the forceful way she spoke, the answer to his previous thought came to him: ’Oh. I see. It must be so lonely, that close to the top of a chain of power,’ he theorized, ’that she feels a need to sneak out at night ― just to be around normal teenagers.’ His stomach gurgled noisily, and he stifled a sudden gastric burp. ’Still, would it really be so bad if I just tried to be her friend? Isn’t she also just a person, looking for attention?’

*

After the meal, they strolled through deserted corridors on the Administrative deck, while talking about current news, even in and around the arboretum, and finally back toward the arcade.

She managed to compliment him, though in an odd way. "You know, most people who might have had the opportunity to spend as much time with me, would waste it trying to get something from me or through me to my father. Yet, you … you intrigue me, Jeff Thornton. Thank you, for letting me know the difference."

He smiled, then responded with a phony accent, slightly mimicking one of the more pacifist transient races on the planet below: "Aw, shucks, ma’am, it warn’t nuthin’; I’s just bein’ m’self."

She laughed, punched him lightly on the shoulder, and then they strolled onward.

Before reaching the Ancient’s Arcade, she looked at her chronometer and gasped, "Oh-my-gosh! I am going to be so late this morning!"

Jeff smiled wryly; he could not resist this opening: "Need time to sneak back in, eh?" he winked.

She speared him with an unkind look, and turned to leave. In mid-step, she changed her mind, turned toward him and hugged him aggressively. "Thank you for being so decent a person, Jeff Thornton; you are an original gentleman." She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and her lips brushed dangerously close to his. Finally, she turned away, and hurriedly slipped down the corridor.

Thus, leaving Jeff quietly confused. ’What just happened? How did I rate that?’

Silence was his only answer. Silence, and the vacant, non-memorable gaze of the corridor’s only other patron, an indistinguishable man wearing a gray cloak.

And then, even the man turned, to hasten down the corridor in the direction Sela had gone. Jeff was now alone.

*

Emperor Beaumort stepped forward from his decorated Imperial Throne, onto the one-meter diameter glowing disc in the floor; a matching disc in the ceiling bathed him in pure white light, giving him the effect of being a saintly image. His white ceremonial robe, fitted just for this occasion, looked like nothing so much as the ancient Rhomun toga from which he had borrowed the design.

Beaumort looked softly at the members of this party. His intended effect was to give them the impression he was a strong but merciful father-figure, with just a touch of awe-inspiring love and attention. However, he had too much running through his mind to actually be feeling that toward his subjugates. Then again, not all present viewers might always believe he was feeling that of them, either….

His protege, Lord Harold Wayne Byron, stood directly in front of him, only a couple arm-length’s reach from the platform; a few meters behind Byron, arrayed in a semicircle, stood his six Chief Imperial Councilors, four Imperial Fleet Admirals, and eight key ImpSec commanders. To each side of the long room, though, were a dozen of the Emperor’s Elite, all eagle-eyed security deputies, all trained marksmen ― should their presence be necessary. A double-epsilon pattern on their shoulder patches both above and below golden chevrons left no doubt as to their purpose here.

"To commemorate your recent planetary conquests beyond our original eight-solar-system empire, I now present you with a commendation of honor, and guarantee your position as my Imperial Heir. Kneel, Lord Byron."

He saw his heir kneel obediently, and his head nodded forward slowly.

From Beaumort’s left side, a young servant proffered a stylish wooden box, inlaid in gold with the Great Republic’s Imperial logo. The servant held the box with one hand underneath; the other hand slowly tilted back the lid to reveal a golden medallion resting on a bed of plush purple fabric.

The emperor lifted the shiny medallion above Byron’s head, momentarily allowing his other followers to see it glowing in the illumination. It was almost eight centimeters in diameter, one centimeter thick, and hung from a golden twisted-link necklace.

But the affectation wasn’t just for effect, it was also a visual reminder to all who would serve under him that Lord Byron is fully entitled as the Emperor’s Voice of Command.

’And, just a little bit more than that, too.’ What Beaumort knew nobody else was aware was that, deep within the medallion, a stealth transmitter had been implanted. With it, he could keep tabs on his most important representative….

Or at least he hoped that nobody, including Byron, would find out.

"With this gold medallion I, Emperor Timothy Edward Beaumort, do honor and bestow upon you, Lord Harold Wayne Byron, the superlative entitlement Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet. Wear it always, so that all may see my favor on you." He softly lowered the necklace over his newly-confirmed heir’s head, to let it settle around his neck. "Rise, my friend; join in the festivities."

Byron stood slowly, and turned to the fleet admirals and assorted Imperial councilors. He held the medallion in his hand, showing it to them all. As they clapped their appreciation, a couple of them more stiffly and mechanically than the others, the emperor whispered, "Report to me later, Harold."

"As you wish, m’lord," Byron replied.

’Yes, I wish it,’ the aging emperor thought wistfully. ’Watch out, Alliance; I am setting Lord Byron loose on you….’

*

Satisfied that he was now far enough down the corridor, the man dropped the cloak from his shoulders and sped up his pace toward the target. Lifting his wrist to his mouth, he whispered into the miniature transceiver planted there. "Eight, to One."

"Go, Eight."

"Subject heading back to the barn. Repeat, subject returning."

The respondent paused, perhaps calculating something unseen. Finally, the voice returned. "Eight, word is go, for Foxtrot-Ultra-Delta. Repeat, word is go. Evac on stand-by. One, out."

That was all the formerly-hooded warrior needed; picking up speed, he pulled a weapon out of a hidden pocket, then hurried faster toward the figure walking cautiously down the hallway….