Alex didn’t really understand. Maybe it was because his former commander was a woman, but he didn’t get why a woman couldn’t be empress. It sounded like the galaxy as a whole was backwards.
“So, your dad needs a male heir?” Alex asked.
“Yes. He needs a male heir, and since our moms aren’t producing anymore children, he decided to marry off his oldest child to get that heir.”
“Which is you,” Alex stated.
“Yes.”
Alex closed his eyes. He didn’t know how to feel. As someone who’s parents had died years ago, he believed that family should come before everything else. Gabrielle running away from her family was like spitting in his face. But, if she was running away because her father, who should have been caring for and supporting her, was trying to marry her off so that he could abdicate the throne…
“I think… I understand why you ran away,” Alex said softly. “While family is important, your family is also supposed to be the people who selflessly support you. They shouldn’t be trying to force you into marrying someone that you don’t love.”
Gabrielle’s smile was unlike her usual smiles. This one was soft and warm, gentle. He rather liked it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“So…” Alex expelled a breath. “Your old man wants to marry you off?”
“Mhm. The whole reason I ran away is because Papa kept arranging marriage ceremonies for me. When I wasn’t studying with my tutors, he was putting me in front of marriage candidates. I never got any time to myself, or to spend with my sisters after that. I eventually got sick of it and ran away.”
Yes. That made sense. If their positions had been reversed, and Alex was the one being married off, then he could easily see himself doing something like that.
“Okay!” Alex stood up and clapped his hands together. “I’ve decided to help you out!”
Gabrielle’s eyes glistened like twin stars. “Alex… thank you!”
“Woah!”
Completely overcome with emotion, Gabrielle lunged at Alex, bowling him over and landing on top of him, before squeezing him in a hug of Angelisian proportions.
“What the—! G-Gabrielle, get off me!”
“Hahaha! Thank you so much, Alex!”
“Mars above! I think I just felt my ribs crack!”
“I’m so glad I met you! You’re such an amazing person!”
“Urk… can’t breathe…”
And that was how Alex discovered that Angelisians were a thousand times stronger than humans.
6
Karen sat in the shuttle’s passenger seat, watching as buildings passed by underneath her.
While the airways in Mars City were normally congested, there was little traffic high above the city itself. There simply weren’t that many reasons for shuttles to travel this high—not unless they were performing maintenance on the dome, checking the barrier’s integrity…
… or traveling out of Mars City altogether.
Currently serving as her pilot—the person that she normally shuttled with was taking a leave of absence—was Darrick. She would have preferred traveling in her own shuttle, but protocol dictated that trips made to the penitentiary be done in specifically designed craft that couldn’t be stolen by the inmates.
Despite being the commander of all the police forces in Mars City, she wasn’t registered to fly such a craft. It was one of the safeguards to prevent her from becoming too powerful, she supposed.
The Mars Penitentiary was an underground fortress built several kliks outside of Mars City. People who committed infractions against the city and its populace were taken there, from minor crimes of indecency and drunken bar room brawling, to more serious crimes like manslaughter and grand theft auto.
The deepest levels contained those who had committed the most heinous of offenses, while those whose only crime was being a rowdy drunk stayed in the first basement cells for a single day before being released.
“Ma’am, I was wondering…”
“You can stop wondering, Darrick. I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not going on a date with you. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
Darrick’s face turned lobster red. Karen wondered if it was shame or anger he felt, but she honestly didn’t care. She knew that Darrick had done nothing wrong, but she was angry, pissed, and woe to the fool who dared speak with her while she was in such a foul mood.
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask…”
“Oh? Then what were you going to ask?”
“I just wanted to know why you asked me to be your pilot? Icarus is normally the one who does flights to the penitentiary.”
“Are you saying that you don’t want to fly me to the penitentiary?”
“T-that isn’t what I was saying!”
Karen, amused by Darrick’s stuttering, chuckled mildly. “Then what were you saying?”
“I just wanted to know why you asked me. Don’t you normally have Vice Commander Yumi shuttle you everywhere?”
“Vice Commander Yumi is currently away on a personal leave of absence, so I needed to find someone else. You were the first person I ran into while trying to find someone, which is why I didn’t ask Icarus.”
“Ah.”
Silence permeated the small shuttle. Mars City had become nothing but a tiny dot on the horizon as they reached one of six exit points that police shuttles used to leave the dome.
“Exit Control 116, this is Commander Karen of the Galactic Police Force, traveling to the Mars Penitentiary. Please respond, over,” Karen said after opening a communication line via the small console on the dashboard.
Static came over the shuttle’s speakers, but it quickly cleared up. “Copy that, Commander Karen. This is Exit Control 116. We have received your request and you have been granted permission to exit the dome. We’re opening the portal now. Over.”
The dome consisted of two layers. The first layer was a sixteen-meter-thick glasteel dome. The second was an energy field called a lightwave barrier. While the dome protected Mars City from Mars’ thin and poisonous atmosphere, the lightwave barrier protected the dome from debris. Anything that touched the lightwave barrier, regardless of the material’s mass or composition, was vaporized instantly.
“First exit point is opening, Commander. You’re clear to travel through. Over.”
“Thanks for that. We’re traveling through now. Over and out.”
Darrick flew the shuttle through a small gap that had opened in the dome. They entered a tunnel, brightly lit by several power lines that ran parallel through it. Behind them, the exit point closed, sealing them off from Mars City. The shuttle stopped when it reached the next exit point, the one that would take them into the planet’s atmosphere.
“Exit Control 226, this Commander Karen. We have arrived at the second exit point. Over.”
“Roger that, Commander. We have you on our visuals. Please stand by. Over.”
As the comlink shut off, loud hissing was emitted all around them. Karen knew that the people working the dome’s controls were depressurizing the tunnel to match the atmosphere of Mars. It was an important process as, even though she and James were in a shuttle, not adjusting the pressure could cause undue duress to the barrier itself by subjecting it to intense atmospheric shifting. It could create fractures in the dome if they didn’t take these necessary precautions.
“All pressure gauges check out. No signs of cracking. Back entrance is sealed tightly. Lightwave barrier is open. Commander, you’re free to leave. Over.”
“Thank you.”
The exit hatch before them opened, two thick durasteel plates peeled apart to create a gap several meters wide. Darrick pushed on the accelerator and the ship flew out of the tunnel and into Mars’ atmosphere. A glance out of the rear camera revealed that the small gap in the lightwave barrier was quickly closing, as the emitters that powered the barrier turned back on.
Because Mars had a very thin atmosphere, space was a lot more visible than on Earth. The blue sky
line generated by the Rayleigh effect did not exist here. It was just a massive black void with a single spot of light, the sun, which blocked out their view of the stars.
Karen looked at the pockmarked ground below as they traveled several klicks above the planet’s surface at mach five speed. It didn’t take long before they reached the Mars Penitentiary, which had been built into a large crater that scientists theorized had been an ocean at one point.
As they hovered above the crater, Karen opened another communication line.
“Mars Penitentiary control, this is Commander Karen of the Interstellar Police Force, requesting permission to enter. Over.”
“Roger that, Commander Karen. We’ve been expecting you. We’re opening the docking bay now. Over.”
Like the mouth of a giant, subterranean worm, the doors to the penitentiary docking bay slid apart, revealing a cavernous hangar. Several ships already sat in the hanger’s docking bays. Most of them were transport shuttles that ferried civilians who were arrested back to Mars City. Karen had never been in one, but she’d heard they were not pleasant to ride.
“Take us down.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Darrick eased up on the thrusters keeping them aloft. The shuttle lurched as it descended past the docking bay doors, which resealed with a resounding clang! that echoed with ominous finality.
“Airlocks engaged. Atmospheric pressurization… complete. Gravitational calibration… complete. All systems check out.”
The shuttle set down and Darrick began the cooldown process, shutting off the turbines and propulsion systems. Karen peered out the window. Several dockworkers were running around the shuttle, connecting fuel lines and power cables to the hull. The whine of the turbines soon drizzled off.
“All systems have been shut down,” Darrick announced, “We can now leave the shuttle, ma’am.”
The doors opened and the two stepped out. Karen studied the young man as he pressed a button on the pilot’s side and both doors sealed shut. She smirked.
“You didn’t ask me out on a date once during the entire trip here. I’m almost surprised.”
Darrick shuddered. “After what you did to me the last time, I felt it was prudent to refrain from making further attempts.”
Karen chuckled condescendingly. “That’s right. If I recall correctly, the last time you asked me on a date, I knocked you unconscious and tied you to a pole in the middle of the city’s most popular gay bar, didn’t I?”
Darrick shuddered again, clearly remembering that traumatizing experience. Darrick was not homophobic, but no straight male would find being tossed into a gay bar pleasant. Seeing the reaction her words caused was enough to put a smile on her face.
Karen decided that she was definitely turning into a sadist. “Remain on standby until my business here is concluded.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t hit on any of the female employees while I’m gone. I’ll be checking the security cameras to make sure that you don’t. Got it?”
“… Yes, ma’am.”
Karen walked up to a small office located near the entrance into the prison. Relaxing behind a control panel was a man dressed in the garb of a warden.
Coughing to get the man’s attention, Karen said, “I’m here because I was recently informed that a particularly unusual prisoner has found himself in our custody.”
“C-Commander Karen!” The man hurriedly stood up and snapped off a salute. “That is correct, ma’am! Just the other day, a prisoner wearing strange armor and carrying a bladed weapon of unknown origin was taken in after putting up a struggle. He only just quieted down about an hour ago. He was causing quite the racket before then.”
“I would like to see this prisoner.”
“Ma’am!”
The warden exited his office and moved over to a door with a powerful locking mechanism. Burnished steel gleamed brightly in the low lights of the hanger. Ten bolts ran parallel to the ground, while five ran perpendicular. They spanned the entire door and beyond, spearing the walls and sealing the triple-layered durasteel door shut.
The warden typed an access code into the locking panel that was embedded into the wall near the door. The grinding of gears creaked before the bolts slid away from the door one by one, retracting into the walls. Then the door slid up to reveal a well-lit corridor of concrete floors and barred cells. As she walked through the entrance, her footsteps echoed along the hall, mistimed to the footsteps of the warden following a few steps behind her.
“Where did you find this troublemaker?”
“We found him near Memorial Hall, however, we captured him in the red-light district, ma’am.”
Karen twitched. “You captured him in the red-light district?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I see. Did he say anything while resisting arrest? Like what he was doing there?”
“No, ma’am. He didn’t say anything about what he was doing when we arrested him. He just kept shouting on about how he was a commander of Angelisia.”
“… Angelisia, huh?”
“Um, a-are you okay, ma’am? You look… a tad annoyed, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Oh, yes, I’m fine.” Karen barely noticed how the warden slowly stepped away from her. “Never been better. Now then, let’s go see that prisoner.”
“Uh… okay.”
The prisoner in question was sitting on a small cot. His feet were planted firmly on the ground as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and his hair cast shadows over his eyes. He made quite the pitiful sight.
“Azazel.” Karen planted her hands on her hips and sighed. “It seems you can’t keep from causing trouble for me.”
Azazel looked up at her. “Ah, Ms. Karen. It’s you.”
“What kind of response is that? And what are you doing in here? I thought I told you to hurry up, find that princess of yours, and stay out of trouble. Honestly, you’re a commander, aren’t you? How hard is it to follow orders?”
“You have my utmost apologies, ma’am.”
“I don’t wanna hear your excuses!”
“EEK!”
Karen glowered as Azazel shot to his feet. “I-I am terribly sorry, ma’am! It won’t happen again!”
“Tch. Could you just tell me how you landed yourself in this mess after I gave you clear instructions to stay out of trouble?”
Azazel straightened up and pounded his right fist into his left breast plate. “Of course, ma’am. I did exactly as you said and took a shuttle the moment I left your office. I disembarked to begin my search for Princess Gabrielle. Most unfortunately, my charge did not appear to be within the district I found myself in. I ended up taking more and more shuttles, until I eventually found myself being accosted by a law enforcement officer, who ended up taking me into custody because I refused to relinquish my weapon.”
“Yes… your weapon, that high-powered energy sword of yours. If I am not mistaken, when you tried gaining entrance into Mars City, you initially threatened my men with that weapon.”
“Urk.”
Azazel made strange choking noises as he folded over, as if a spacecraft traveling at lightspeed had slammed into his gut. He tried to straighten up and pretend nothing happened, but there was a faint blush on his cheeks.
“Y-you are indeed correct. I did attack your men.” Karen’s glower intensified. Azazel squeaked. “B-but in my defense, they attacked me first upon forcibly boarding my ship.”
“They boarded your ship because you were trying to destroy our space fleet, in case you forgot.”
“I-I was only trying to get your attention by firing near your fleet, notー”
“I don’t want hear your excuses!”
“My apologies, ma’am!”
“Considering what happened after you fired on our fleet, when the GDF tried opening a line of communication to you, and you responded by attempting to shoot them down, you have absolutely no right to defend yourself. I get that you’re a high and mi
ghty commander of the Angelisian army, however, Mars isn’t a part of your empire; your status means nothing here. Here, you are a civilian just like anybody else, and that is how it shall remain until official negotiations between our two nations open up. Do you understand?”
“… Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Karen nodded. “And now that we have settled this matter, this is how we’re going to be doing things from here on out. I am going to let you out of this cell and give you a map. Then you and you alone are going to find your princess, pick her up, and leave. Your men will stay on your ship.”
She actually thought about just calling Alexander and telling him to bring the princess to police HQ. It could certainly make things easier. Then again, knowing that reckless inventor as well as she did, it could also have significant consequences. If he had already agreed to protect this Gabrielle, then nothing short of divine intervention (and even that was not guaranteed) would stop him from doing what he felt was right.
She also thought about assigning Azazel an escort, but she’d written that idea off as impractical. They were short-handed as it was. She couldn’t afford to have one of her men babysitting the Angelisian commander while he searched for his princess.
“Of course, ma’am. I am very grateful for your kindness, ma’am.”
“However, because of how much trouble you and your men have already caused, and to avoid you causing any more damage, I’ll be keeping your weapon in storage until you’ve acquired your princess and are ready to leave this planet.”
“What?! But that’s—”
“I am going to keep your weapon in storage and you will not see it until you’re ready to leave. Is. That. Clear?”
Under the weight of her intense stare, Azazel cowered.
“Crystal, ma’am.”
Chapter 5
A Princess’s Knight
Alex and Gabrielle were in the lab, working on building the crisis suit that Gabrielle had designed for him. Being the curious person that he was, Alex had offered to help, both as a means to learn more about the girl, and also to learn more about her people’s technology.
It was the morning after Gabrielle had started living with him again. It almost felt like nothing had happened, as if their fight had been a really bad dream. While Alex still felt a little guilty, he’d done his best to not let those negative feelings interfere with his daily life.
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