The Emperor was back in the hidden garden surveying the work that Crishner had done since his last visit. It was almost like it had been twenty years ago. All the weeds were gone. The paths were clear and unimpeded. The flowers were in bloom and the trees were lush and green.

Ghar couldn’t help but smile as he looked around and remembered the many delightful hours of talking, laughing, and simply enjoying each other’s company. He missed the lighthearted times. He missed Leeta. He missed her brilliant smile and contagious laugh.

It certainly wasn’t hard to notice the parts of their son that was most like her. His curiosity. His fiery temper. And his soft heartedness. Ghar hadn’t been prepared for them when he had gone through the Admiral’s reports or through Ghar’s own interactions with Adar, though he supposed he should have. Leeta always did have a way of making lasting impressions, it was the reason her betrayal and escape from the White Palace had been so difficult to accept.

Ghar walked through the winding paths to stop before a large white blossom. The petals felt silky against his skin. This had been the last annual that the two of them had planted before things went wrong. The aminox had been a gift from Ky-mara to celebrate the recent union with his new Empress.

He remembered how the orange-red hair had fallen across Leeta’s face as she dug the place for their flower. She had tried to blow the strands away as she worked, but the hair remained stubborn. Not far away, young Adar had been perched at the edge of the pond keenly watching the bright colored fish swim underneath the black waters. Every once in awhile, he’d reach out a pudgy hand as if to catch one, but they were too deep for his short reach.

Ghar remembered watching them both in that wonderful moment and a strong emotion that had come over him. It was new and strange. Something he had never felt before. Not in all his time with his other wives or offspring. He had struggled then and since to understand it. Ghar still felt the echo of it as he continued to stroke the lovely blossom.

A shadow fell upon the white flower. It wasn’t until then that Ghar had realized someone else was in the secret garden with him. His temper flared at the distribution, but perhaps more because of the bitter disappointment that would descend upon Ghar only a few months after that particular memory. He pushed the dark past and the emotions that went with it away to address the more immediate concern.

Ghar turned to find one of the palace guards standing at attention behind him. This one was new, and had been providing day time protection at Captain Hame’s instruction, but Ghar had not yet learned his name. This man and one other had escorted Ghar to the garden this morning.

Captain Hame had been noticeably absent when Ghar had exited his bedchambers an hour before, but that wasn’t unusual. Besides bodily protecting the Emperor, Hame’s duties extended to the entire palace’s protection. Sometimes that meant Hame had to be elsewhere, and he left those he trusted to stand watch over Ghar. The downside of that was that these palace guards did not always know the proper way of things. Certainly, no one had bothered to tell this fool not interrupt his garden time.

“This better be important,” Ghar snapped.

The guard’s face paled at the sharp tone. He supposed it was dawning on the guard that he had made a mistake. There would be no second chance. Ghar would certainly make sure Hame knew to replace him as soon as possible.

“Excellency,” the man gave a low bow as if that could make up for his actions. “I was told to tell you right away. There’s been an incident concerning Captain Hame and the returned Prince.”

Ghar stiffened. Had something happened to Adar? Had one of his brothers attacked him? Ghar had done his best to sweep the palace and remove any of his other sons’ traps or left behind ploys to strike out against Adar once he arrived. But there had always been a chance that they didn’t get them all. Ghar’s sons had spend most of their lives here. They knew most of the secret in and outs of the White Palace, and how to get around them.

Hame had warned Ghar of such a possibility. But the Emperor relied on the Captain to do his job. Certainly, he was not Adar’s Protector, but Hame knew how important Adar was to Ghar and the future of the Empire. He would act accordingly.

If this had been an attack, then it would explain why Hame had been elsewhere this morning. Perhaps he had been alerted to a plot against Adar?

“What sort of incident?”

The guard looked stricken as if he wanted to be anywhere but here. “Sire, perhaps you should come see for yourself.”

The Emperor opened his mouth to demand specifics when he realized that perhaps the guard was right. Whatever had just happened obviously needed his direct attention. Ghar pushed past the guard and exited the hidden space determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

Concern for Adar rose inside Ghar, but he decided not to get ahead of himself. Hame was good at his job. He would have to be to last thirty years as Ghar’s Protector. Whatever was going on, he was sure the Captain had it well in hand.

***

Admiral Vang scrolled through the hundreds of names for what seemed like the thousandth time that week. Each of them had an image of what the Pledges looked like, but far more important, were the highlights of their abilities and accomplishments. The Admiral had flagged certain qualities he was looking for, but that had only weeded out about fifty of the names.

That’s what happened when you had a College dedicated to the sole purpose of training their students in top quality education of combat and protection. It became almost impossible to narrow down the list of qualifying candidates. They were all good, most better than just good.

The Admiral sat back with a sigh and rubbed his eyes. He was irked that this task had fallen under his purview. He had dozens of other things he could be doing, even should be doing that was much more important than finding the next Protector of Prince Adar Zahn. But the Emperor had spoken.

Vang was just glad his punishment for allowing the Prince to almost get killed and loosing Xlero wasn’t worse. He certainly had expected it to be. But the Emperor seemed more concerned in getting the Prince a new Protector, so what had happened on Xlero and with the Chief would not happen again.

At least that meant there was an end in sight of this demeaning task that should have been given to anyone else but the Supreme Commander of the Zahnian Legion. All Vang had to do was narrow down the candidates, make sure they were vetted properly, submit them to the Emperor, and he’d be free of it all. He could finally put his attention onto matters he had to set aside for far too long.

Thankfully, there had been no major issues or conflicts when he was gone from the Empire to retrieve the Prince. That much he could unburden himself from. But there were still many other daily tasks and more that as the Supreme Commander, needed to seen to, not to mention the business with the Xlero.

It had been almost a week since they had to abandon the ship, and there was still no word from the Xlero or the crew that was left behind. That fact unnerved Vang to no end. He had to assume the ship and crew were lost, which was bad enough, but there was also the mystery ship that lurked just beyond the Empire’s borders. What threat it would pose to Ethia was anyone’s guess at this point.

Vang had given the task of reviewing the records of the Xlero’s two encounters with the mysterious ship to a team of scientist. So far they had only confirmed that it was indeed a ship that had attacked them, and that part of why it had been undetectable was it appeared to be made from a living organic structure unlike anything the team had seen before.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Living organic ships wasn’t a new concept to the Empire. Many of the Fazha had ships grown from seedpods that could carry upwards of a hundred people and do most anything a regular ship could, and sometimes things a regular ship couldn’t do.

But this mysterious ship didn’t have any of those known qualities. It was made different. Acted different. And certainly couldn’t be detected like other organics, and it seemed to be impervious to pulse fire and fusion bombs. What’s more was the ship allowed them to escape the first time, but not the second. Why would the ship, or those in charge of the ship, do that?

All of it felt like a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve, and Vang certainly wasn’t going to be able to if he had to put his attention to this ridiculous task of finding an Imperial Prince a Protector. He stood up from his terminal. He needed a break.

At least he had managed to pull out ten names that seemed promising, though he wanted to check the list again to be sure. Vang may not want to do this demeaning task, but yavit if he wasn’t going to do it to his best ability. His plan was to hand over Adar’s protection to someone who could handle it with confidence, so the Emperor would finally let Vang get back to his own duties, and stop pestering him with his Heir’s well-being.

Vang started to march from his office, but was stopped by the sudden beeping of the door. Vang returned to his desk, settled back into his chair, and then called out.

“Enter!”

The door slid open to reveal Captain–Major Wexlen. He was the one the Admiral had put in charge of searching for Xlero. The Captain–Major marched to the front of Vang’s desk and stood at attention, waiting for the Admiral to address him.

“Wexlen, I assume you have some news for me concerning the Xlero?”

The Captain-Major nodded. “I do. It was detected entering Ethian space only an hour ago. We sent the ship numerous hails, but not one has been answered. The Fordex was the closest, so I dispatched it to intercede. They should be there within moments. I thought you would want to know.”

Vang felt a wave of relief washed through him. The Xlero had returned after all. It didn’t bother him much that they couldn’t hail the ship. The systems may still be out. It could be they simply couldn’t return the hails.

He stood up and nodded to the Captain-Major. “Excellent, let’s go to the war room and watch the Fordex welcome our brothers home.”

Vang marched from his office and turned down the white corridor of the palace hall. The war room was only a few doors down, but it always felt longer than that. He much preferred one of his offices on the close quarters of the battlecruisers to the more spaciousness of the White Palace, but he couldn’t deny it was far better as a central office to head the vast numbers of the Legion. Old habits die hard he supposed. That’s what he got for spending over half his life in one ship or another.

In a handful of minutes, Vang entered the war room to see it was already full of officers. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to see the Xlero and crew safely back home. Vang stopped before the large view screen that was suspended in the center of the room. Right above the tactical display that monitored every single Legion ship stationed across the vastness of the Empire.

“Time to contact?” Vang barked.

“The Fordex just exited hyper-light. One minute to the Xlero,” one of the officer’s at a bank of consoles to the right replied as if he was waiting for exactly that inquiry, which he probably was.

The screen above them took that moment to flicker and change to a view of space and the Xlero floating on a backdrop of distant stars.

“Let’s get a close up,” Vang said.

The image magnified and showed a much closer view of the ship. The Xlero looked much like it had when they left it. There were no obvious scorch marks or any sort of damage that could been seen, even the starboard docking bay in which they escaped was still open.

The only discernible change was a patch of bright green splattered across the area where the bridge was located. That in itself was not alarming though. They had been traveling outside known space for weeks. It was very possible the ship’s hull had attracted any sort of debris floating around out there, especially without the main shields being online.

“Any idea what’s on the hull?” Vang asked no one in particular.

Another officer off to Vang’s left answered. “Scan shows it’s organic in nature, but cannot identify it specifically.”

Vang nodded, not surprised. He studied the ship carefully, a little surprised that the crew of the Xlero had yet to get the running lights on. Were they still having power trouble?

“Admiral, Captain Heila reports that the Xlero is not answering any hails. He wants to send a recon team over to investigate,” the officer from the right said.

The Admiral gave him a nod. “Proceed.”

Time passed slowly as Vang and the other officers in the room watched the Fordex launch a shuttle toward the Xlero. Minutes passed as the shuttle move into orbit around the battle cruiser. The hangar door to the landing bay was gapping wide, so the shuttle had no trouble landing. More minutes ticked by as those in the war room waited impatiently for news.

“Patch into the recon teams comms so we can hear what’s going on,” Vang said.

A moment later, a baritone voice came across the com-link. “The bay is dark. There is no atmosphere here. We are moving into the rest of the ship.”

The news wasn’t all that startling. If they were still having trouble with power, the Xlero crew certainly wouldn’t waste it on providing power or life support to the docking bay. Time ticked by slowly while they waited for another update.

Finally the baritone voice came across the com-link once more. “We are in the main corridor. There are still no lights or atmosphere. We are breaking up into two teams. One to bridge and one to engine room.”

That caused a stir around the war room. Many of the officers began to look uneasy, and Vang had to admit that he was feeling it too. Surely, at least the emergency lights would be on in the main passages? And it also bothered Vang that no one from Xlero had come to greet the recon team. Weren’t they aware that they had been boarded?

Over the next quarter of an hour a series of reports gave the same news as the split team searched the ship. No power. No life support. No crew. It was as if the Xlero had turned into a ghost ship. Vang knew the question was on everyone’s minds as his own. Where was the Xlero crew?

“Maybe they had to evacuate the ship?” Wexlen speculated.

“Pardon, Captain–Major,” the officer at the right console spoke up, “but I’m receiving real time telemetry readings from the recon team. So far, they have reported that every ship in the two docking bays and all the life pods are accounted for. Besides the ones that were used in the first evacuation, not one ship is missing.”

That caused a coldness to settle on those in the war room. The previous hopeful looks were turning hard, and Vang felt it most of all.

“Pull the flight logs. I want them analyzed immediately, and get a sample of that green sludge on the hull. I want to know what that is too.” Vang ordered gruffly.

The Admiral turned to the Captain-Major. “Your new assignment is to find out what happened to the Xlero crew.”

Wexlen gave a sharp nod. “Yes, Sir.”

“Inform me immediately of any new updates,” Vang said to the room in general. He then turned to exit the room. If they weren’t going to learn anything new, then he had other things to take care of. Besides, if the crew of the Xlero was truly gone, then he would have to inform the Emperor soon. He needed to get his report together to deliver the bad news.

“Admiral!” an out of breath Zahnian assigned to the White Palace guards burst into the war room.

Vang halted in his tracks at the sudden appearance of the winded guard. “What? And why have you been running?”

The guard took a moment to catch his breath, and then he started to speak. “We tried to raise your unity ring, but you didn’t answer, so I was sent to fetch you in person.”

Vang looked down at his wrist where his unity ring normally rested. It was missing. He sometimes had a habit of taking it off when he was working at his desk because it made his wrist chaff after long wear. He must have forgotten to pick it up before he left for the war room. Just his yavit luck that something significant had happened when he’d left it behind.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s the Emperor. He’s demanding your immediate presence. There’s been an incident with the Heir. From what I understand it was a close one. He’s in a Remaker now.”

Shock ripped through the Admiral like a lightening storm had slammed into him. “The Prince was attacked?”

The guard nodded. “By Captain Hame.”

That caused Vang to blink at the guard, not quite believing what he had just heard. “Are you certain of that?”

“Yes, Admiral. In fact, the Emperor’s in the Captain’s quarters now waiting for his treatment to end.” The guard looked around, and then leaned in close as if he was wanting to share a secret. “They say the Prince knows quat-lo. That’s how he beat the Captain. Can you imagine such a thing?”

No, the Admiral most certainly could not believe anything the guard had just said. Not that the Emperor’s Protector had attacked the Prince. And certainly not that the Imperial Prince knew a discipline only taught to Protectors. He considered that perhaps the guard might be mistaken, but he looked into the eyes of the man before him. The guard seemed to believe every word he said.

A shiver went up Vang’s spine. The implications of this new development too much for him to consider in the moment. He needed hard facts, not palace gossip before he drew definite conclusions. Vang pushed past the guard, making for the closest transporter to take him to the central tower and discover what the latest upset was really about.