I stood on the observation deck and took in the whirling colors of hyperlight as my mind wandered. It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago I had been drafting out plans for a new smart drone and eagerly awaiting to share them with New Horizon’s R&D group.

Only a few weeks ago, I had been the budding engineer and son of multi-billionaires Arnold and Cassandra Layton. I had a glorious life ahead of me at New Horizons, and eventually expected to take over the reigns of the business, so my parents could retire and travel the world.

I had had a beautiful and incredibly intelligent girlfriend who I spent most weekends with, and I had hoped to marry and start my own family with someday. I had the whole world at my fingertips, and yet, as I stood there looking at the swirling rainbow colors, it all seemed so small compared to all that I now knew.

Almost in a blink eye, my whole world had changed. It had turned upside down and inside out. I had made a deal that I wasn’t entirely sure I could keep to save the life of a man that when I left him was half comatose with a future unknown. I had learned that my birth father only wanted me back to further some sort of agenda of his. That my brothers who wanted me dead were still very much alive, and still intended to finish the job. I had also already faced an assassin and somehow changed his mind.

It was the last that sat with me the most. I had sensed that Chief Thaddeus Hon had been a decent man. Or at least I had thought so. It was difficult to come to terms with his death even though I did not know him well. But I really thought we had made a connection, and I supposed we did, if in the end, he chose to take his own life instead of mine.

It was what happened with the Chief that most declared to me that the life of Michael Layton was over. The trauma of watching a man kill himself so unexpectedly seemed to be the thing that completely severed my connection to my previous life.

That person I had once been… I could feel him fading away like a memory slowly going up in smoke. It was the same with my life on Earth, my family there, my friends, all of it. The longer I was here on this ship moving toward my new destiny, the more the old faded away.

The lights in the room flickered pulling me out of my revere. I looked around, but I was the only one on the observation deck. The lights flickered a moment more before they shut off entirely. I waited for them to turn back on, but they did not.

Curious.

I looked to my guards that stood just inside the door on each side. “What’s going on?” But they seemed as confused as me. So I crossed the large room and stepped into the corridor to find it darkened as well.

Worry started to eat at me.

A moment later, lights high in the wall flipped on, but they were not the normal lighting I was used to. These lights were yellow squares spaced every so often down the corridor. It reminded me of emergency lightening on a boat. My insides twisted with unease.

“Maybe it’s another incident?” One of the guards said from behind. I turned to see them both peering down the corridor with me.

I was a little shocked to hear them say anything at all. It was the first time a Zahnian outside of Chief Hon had said anything to me. I quickly recovered and asked. “What do you mean another incident?”

I recalled that Hon had said something about an incident, but had never told me exactly what that was.

“Perhaps, you should find Admiral Vang. He can explain better than we,” the same guard replied with what appeared to be a sheepish look.

I immediately felt bad for the guy because I knew he would be facing remediation just for saying that much. I really had to do something about that. He was only answering my questions.

Instead of dwelling on all that, I decided to take the guards advice, but after walking down a few strides I turned to the guard. “Perhaps you should lead the way. I’m still trying to learn this ship, and I don’t want to waste time being lost.”

The guard gave me a sharp nod, and then marched passed me to take the lead. I figured he knew better than me where the Admiral would be as well, though I highly suspected him to be on the bridge if something was effecting the power.

Sure enough, the guard led me directly to the bridge. I entered and the place was a flurry of activity and brimming with tension. The unease that I had been feeling when the lights went out now blossomed into full panic, but I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. These guys were professionals. Whatever was going on, they could handle it.

I didn’t want to mess up whatever they had going on, but I also felt like a fool standing there and not doing anything, so I walked up to where I saw Admiral Vang and another stern faced Zahnian that Hon had pointed out to me during our tour as the Captain of Xlero.

“What’s going on? Why are the lights off all over the ship?” I asked.

Vang gave me a piercing glare and I could tell that maybe coming here was a mistake. The anger rolling out of this guy was off the charts. But unlike when his anger had been directed at me, this felt far more sinister and dangerous.

“What are you doing out of your room?” The Admiral barked.

I shrugged, trying to keep it light. I didn’t need to bring any more fuel to this fire. “You gave me the day off. I wasn’t going to stay cooped up in there. Is everything alright?”

Vang glared at me for a long moment, and I could see the wheels turning in his head as if he had many thoughts he was trying to digest at the same time.

The Admiral turned abruptly to the Captain. “The priority is getting the Prince back to Dyniss. We should put him in a fighter craft with a pilot and have them make for the border, even with a smaller ship, they could make it in a little over an hour.”

The Captain gave a frown. “That’s if the unidentified ship doesn’t follow them, Admiral.”

A grim faced Zahnian at the nearest console spoke up. “At this point, we really don’t know what they are capable of. Maybe with us dead and without power, they will simply follow any ship that tries to escape.

“If this is the same ship that caused our other outage, they already know it will take us several days to get our ship back up and running. And yes, I can already tell you it will take at least a day and a half to get Xlero back to full strength. Thankfully, I put in some extra protection against this exact thing happening when we worked on the ship last time, but there is only so much I can do against such a powerful influx of energy like this.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Surprise rippled through me at what the man was implying. “So that was the incident I’ve heard about?”

The Zahnian looked to Vang silently asking permission to answer the question. After a long moment, the Admiral gave a nod. The man turned to me and began an explanation of what had been going on. I nodded sagely as I could as I tried to keep up with all the information he spewed at me.

Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to be included, but this guy was going into a bunch of technical terms that reminded me I still had a lot to learn about the language, and the technology.

I got the basic idea of what had happened. We were in trouble and some mystery ship was lurking out there and they had no idea if the ship would attack, or just let them repair the ship like before and be on their merry way.

By the looks Vang was giving me while he conversed quietly with the Captain a few steps away, I knew what was on the Admiral’s mind. He wanted me off this ship and safely back in Ethia, the sooner the better.

I couldn’t deny that I was all in favor of that particular outcome, I liked a good mystery and all, but this was full of more unknowns than I was comfortable with. But I also didn’t like the idea of leaving a ship full of people behind. Yeah okay, so maybe they weren’t the most friendly bunch, but that didn’t meant I wanted something bad to happen to them. At that moment, an image of Chief Hon’s slumped over body after he shot himself came to me. I shivered and pushed it away.

Surely there had to be a way to get everyone, or at least a large number of people off this ship and safely back to Ethia. Vang said the border was close enough for a smaller ship to make it in short order. Why just launch one ship, when the whole bay was full of them?

“When I first came on this ship, I saw hundreds of smaller ships. Why not send them all out at once? We don’t know what this mystery ship is capable of, but I would dare to gamble that at least some of the smaller ships would make it out.”

Vang gave me a sharp look as if he couldn’t quite believe I had said what I said, and then he turned to the Zahnian who had given me the update on what was going on.

“How many of the fighter craft were effected by the pulse?” Vang barked.

“None, Admiral,” the Zahnian replied.

Vang raised an eyebrow. “None?”

The Zahnian shook his head. “The power surge only effected what was currently powered up, and as you know the fighter craft are all on standby when not in use. All the ships should be ready for flight as soon as you wish. We only have to get the bay door open, and that won’t take a huge drain from our power reserves.”

Vang nodded and a look of hope crossed his face. “Good. Then send out on the backup communications this message to the crew of the ship. I want every one of those ships full to capacity, so we can get as many people off Xlero as we can. I want everyone, but a skeleton crew to man this ship and those fixing Xlero’s poweroverload to be on those fighter crafts. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Admiral,” the Zahnian replied with a little more fervor than he’d been showing before.

Vang turned to the Captain. “Minoya, who’s the best pilot you have?”

“Admiral?” the Captain raised an eyebrow himself.

“I want your best pilot to take the Prince. He’s to make sure he gets across the border no matter what.”

“Admiral, may I be so bold as to offer a suggestion?”

“What is is, Captain?”

“I think you should be the one to fly the Prince.”

That hung there for a moment. It even caused the Zahnians at all the other stations to look up and show sudden interest in the conversation.

“Excuse me?” the Admiral glare now turned full focused on the Captain.

I was impressed that Minoya didn’t back down. Instead, he squared his shoulders and stood with as much authority as a subordinate could in the presence of someone like Admiral Vang.

“Well, as I understand it, you are one of the best pilots that Ethia has ever had. Granted, you’ve been busy being the Supreme Commander of the Zahnian Legion the last fifteen years, but that’s even more reason why it needs to be you.

“The Legion can’t afford to loose you, Admiral. You should be in the ship with the Prince. I will instruct the other fighter craft to provide any interference that’s necessary to make sure your ship makes it to the border.”

The bridge was eerily silent for a long moment before Vang responded. “The Xlero needs a commander.”

The Captain was quick to respond. “And that will be me. This is my ship after all. Just because you are the senior officer doesn’t mean you have to be the one to stay.

“If we can, we will make it back to the Empire once all the repairs have been made, but there’s no reason why it should be you over me. You have a mission to finish, Admiral.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed by this man. I could feel the extent of his sincerity, and it made me feel humble in the presence of it. This was a man willing to die for his men, and he wasn’t going to be intimated out of his sacrifice, not even by the great Admiral Ko-tus Vang.

The Admiral pursed his lips as if he didn’t like where this was going. But I could tell that even he knew the futility of arguing with the Captain. Or maybe it was that he realized that he did indeed have a bigger commitment, not to just this ship, but to that of the entire Zahnian Legion.

Vang finally nodded to Minoya. “Very well. Captain, I give the command of Xlero over to you. I expect to see you at Dyniss in a few days time.”

Minoya saluted back to Vang. “As you command, Admiral.”

Vang took the time to give every Zahnian on the bridge a long look as if passing that same command to them, expecting each of them to report back to Dyniss as well.

That caused me to feel a hollowness in my stomach. Something told me that none of these men would make it back to Ethia, and I was pretty sure Vang felt the same thing, because as he turned from those on the bridge, there was a fleeting look of sadness that crossed his face. It also made me have a sudden surge of respect for him. Vang might be a hard ass, but at least he cared about the men under his command.

The Admiral marched from the bridge in his usual fast pace and barked out as he went. “Highness! With me!”

I didn’t dare hesitate, because I knew from experience that even though the Admiral was a head shorter than me, he could out pace me in a blink of an eye. So I ran to catch up.

“I’m sorry,” I said breathlessly as I finally caught up to the Admiral. “I know how hard it is for you to leave them behind. I can feel it.”

Vang didn’t answer. He only picked up his pace, and I did the same. We made it to the landing bay in no time. The place was already a whirling mass of craziness as streams of Zahnians filled the bay. All the smaller ships looked like they were being prepped for flight, all except the one they had salvaged from Earth. It alone stood like a desolate island in a sea of movement.

Dad said it had been disabled when they crash landed on Earth, so I knew no one would be taking it, but still, I felt a feeling of sadness that it would be left behind. I suddenly remembered the small drawer in my room with all my earthly possessions. I looked over to the Admiral to say something, but he was already making a beeline for one of the other ships.

I looked back to where we had come. I knew the route to take to get back to my room. If I did a hard run it would only be a matter of a few minutes round trip. I could do it.

“Highness!” The familiar bark of the Admiral sounded behind me.

Shit.

He’d never let me go, even if I asked. I knew it in my heart, but part of me wanted to make a run for it anyways. In that drawer was all I had left of my past, all I had left of the life taken from me. It didn’t seem fair, none of this seemed fair at all.

“Let’s go!” the Admiral barked again.

I gave one last fleeting look to the corridor that would take me back to my room, and then I reluctantly turned away and made for where the Admiral stood. It felt like my world was falling apart, again. The despair, the agony of leaving my whole life behind rose up inside like it was choking me, making it hard for me to breath, to even see straight.

I doubled over, trying hard to catch my breath, because I realized it wasn’t just my own emotions that was flooding through me, but the panic of every other person in this massive room. Once again, that invisible barrier had disappeared and I was at the mercy of all the panic radiating throughout the docking bay.

It consumed me until that was all that existed. There was no Michael Layton or Adar Zahn. There was just the twisting turmoil of panic and fear in a world of eternal coldness and dark.