Centaur Trade station was a backwater posting on the edge of the Leonidas Kingdom. I didn't want to be sent here, but here I am, three years in, to a five year assignment.

I laid in my bunk reading on my tablet. There isn't much use in a female diplomatic guard where diplomats never come. I pretty much did whatever I wanted every day. Spending at least three hours a day training to stay sharp, but not so much I am ever useless.

"Dame Edington, front and center!"

'What did I do now?' I thought to myself as I saluted the station's executive officer, while wearing my physical training uniform.

"You are required on the deck in full diplomatic dress. You have five minutes!" He shouts inches from my face.

I run to my bunk, and begin changing. Full Diplomatic Dress. A uniform reserved for escorting a head of state. I finally get to use my training.

I arrive on the station's command deck and see the commanding officer staring at an old ship quite a distance away. It looks like it traveled through a war zone.

I salute, and wait for an order.

"Edington, relax for a second." I am told. The commander points at the ship. "Do you recognize that?" He asks.

"No sir." I admit.

"That is your duty assignment." He puts his hand up to stop me from saluting, and Leaving. "You're going to listen to a recording from that ship from six minutes ago."

The sergeant next to him plays an audio file. It's a young girl calling herself a Princess Korvall.

"Does Leonidas still stand? Does my banner yet wave?" The sergeant stops the file. It's obvious the girl is crying as she asks the question.

"Leonidas has been ran by a council since the last of the imperial family went missing five hundred twelve years ago." The commander tells me. "What you just heard is your charge, a fifteen year old princess who had no chance at the throne, who just woke up from that five hundred year long cryo, discovered her siblings dead, and first in line for a throne of a kingdom she isn't even sure still exists."

He faces out the window, "and her first request in the universe she now finds herself is her family to receive honors, and a meal for herself." He looks down, and shakes his head. "She could have ordered anything, and her first official request is a funeral."

"Sir," I interrupt, "did she know she could order anything?"

I watch as the glass covered gangway extended toward the ship, and media broadcast vessels get in position. The station's honor guard marches toward the ship. Steps in unison. Their training is just as harsh as mine. But they are required to spend a full year in a capitol planet's central morgue, so as to not dishonor their charges,

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"Should I go down there?"

"Not yet. I want to personally introduce you. But she gets to eat first." He says to me.

I watch as the honor guard carries flag covered stretchers through the walkway. The red flag of Leonidas, emblazoned with a black lion's head, and eight blue stars representing the royal children of Gaias Korvall, and the two white stripes to represent the people's hope. The flag hasn't been changed since Gaias commissioned it.

I memorized it only because this station was built by their last king, but I didn't know much beyond that.

The seventh stretcher comes through the door, and a black haired girl steps through. Her bearing, even at this distance is regal. I can tell the dress is old.

"Dear gods." The executive officer says, his eyes wide. "Sir, that dress. It looks like the same one she was wearing when the bombardment started."

"It most likely is." The commander says. "They would have drug her to the cryo hold on board, no chance to pack, or change."

"Sir, there are burn marks on the bottom of that dress." A sergeant with binoculars states.

The commander nods to himself, and adjusts his shoulders. "Listen up! I want every section, and every media ship to know, asking her about anything older than yesterday is prohibited while she is within the control area of this station."

A shout of affirmation went up in the room.

"Edington, let's go meet the Princess."

I fall in behind him and walk to the dining hall. Walking in. The leader of the honor guard, and two female flag bearers flank her, as she eats a simple looking meal on a divided tray, that would usually be served to the rank and file. Not a head of state.

The commander seems mad as well.

"Sir," one of the flag bearers approached, and whispered. "She told the cooks she wanted anything that was easy for them, preferably something already done." She defended the food.

"Corporal, that's her first meal in five hundred twelve years. Would you want to wait for veal?" He whispers back. The princess seeming oblivious to her surroundings, but something has my hair on end about her. This woman is practically brimming of threat, and vigilance.

"Sir," I whisper. "She is trained. She would easily best me in a serious spar." I tell him.

"I can hear you, you may approach." She says, making us jump.

"Forgive me," the commander says. "We are unaccustomed to dignitaries here."

She nods, "I'm not one for flowery speech outside formalities. Please sit; you too." She added when I stood behind the commander, I sat next to him.

"I have a few tons of gold, platinum, and Tungsten on board, I figure it should cover some of the expenses of my arrival, as well as give you a position to barter."

Her thought surprises me. She wishes to pay for her stay on her own trade platform.

"By your looks, I have surprised you." She leans back, setting down her fork. "The captain of the Loki told me this is an old platform, old platforms need updates, maintenance, refurbishment. All these things require specialists who can seamlessly blend the new and old. And that also takes money." She rests her elbows on the table, seeming to guard the rest of her food, then rests her chin on her interlaced fingers, the Royal signet ring all the more obvious on her tiny fingers."I was raised to be fair."

"That aside, I gathered you are Centaur Actual. So who is this?" She references the commander and myself.

"I am Commander of this platform Simon Fits, and this is our station's assigned diplomatic officer, Dame Danielle Edington."

She looks at me, and smiles. My skin crawls. "Well met, I am Princess Dame Sierra Korvall.

A Princess and a Dame.