Kiera honestly thought she was going to die. The pressure on her ears was giving her a piercing headache, her stomach had decided that it needed to take over her chest with an ultimate goal of conquering her throat before gaining it’s freedom. The room around her shook. Violently. She couldn’t even scream when the light that made a firefly’s luminescence the most intense light in the known universe decided to end its miserable existence by throwing itself to the floor. At any minute she thought that ship would slip apart and send her hurtling thousands of miles to crash into the surface of whatever forsaken planet that would be her grave.
She was proven wrong when the ship finally stopped shaking, her stomach returned to its normal place in defeat, and her ears popped in a biological display of celebratory fireworks. She would rather take a dozen hyperspace leaps back to pack then ever experience that kind or torture again. The door to the cockpit opened and Kiera heard two sets of footsteps exit. One of them stopped and the other continued forward. Daylight and cold flooded the hold as a ramp descended. They had finally reached their destination and she would meet the mysterious client that hired these men that had done what she thought was absolutely impossible: kidnap someone from the heart of the empire. The only way that the feat could be eclipsed was if they had taken a member of her family from Orlan during a holiday.
“You okay?” Qwen asked. He didn’t sound resentful of being charmed or enthralled, but actually concerned.
“Now that we’ve stopped, yeah,” Kiera said, regaining her composure and sitting up, “Where are we?”
“Our destination,” he replied. A whirring caught Kieras attention and she saw some kind of tined cart drive into the ship’s hold, “I suggest you lie down.”
She obeyed, suddenly glad she was wearing shorts rather than a skirt. The tines of the cart slid through the bars and lifted the cage off of the ground. There was no need to try to fight her to get her out of the hold when they could take the cage itself. The sunlight made her wince and shut her eyes tightly as she was taken off the ship. The air smelled fresh, like one would find away from a city, or any other kind of civilization. There was no smell of the sea or of a forest, just a generic outdoor scent and a biting cold. Wherever she was, winter was in full swing. She felt a shadow cross over her once, and then again but she didn’t open her eyes yet. Let whoever saw her think she was asleep.
“His Grace will be pleased to see that you’ve finally delivered,” An unknown voice said, “A thousand quasar diamonds, five thousand pieces of gold latinum, and the command codes for the system’s Gate as promised. To think that was only half of what we had to pay you.”
“High risks come with high prices,” Altrius said, “The key to her cell. I will note that there is a sensor in the cage, once we are out of Imperial Space we will transmit the code necessary to disable it. Any attempt to break it before it does, break the lock on the door, or damage the cage, and her location will be broadcast throughout the Empire. Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Load her into the truck and take her to the castle,” her new captor ordered. Kiera felt the cage lift up again and she was once more thrust into the dark. Kiera opened her eyes and sat up, out of the frying pan and into the fire. At least now she would know who hired those men to kidnap her. She wasn’t familiar with latinum or the current market rates for quasar diamonds, but giving out the command codes was high treason. So was kidnapping an Imperial princess. The penalty was death, so she figured they might as well commit as much treason as they could; death is a one time experience and if you’re going to flirt with her, might as well take her out on a nice date and treat her well, bring flowers, and take her dancing.
The ride was smooth, as expected for a hover vehicle and was just as boring as her flight from Danelar to wherever this place was. If she was planning a kidnapping, she wouldn’t meet her kidnappers at her actual planet of residence. Put her on a charter ship and send her to an entirely different system and then load her onto a personal spacecraft and planet hop. It was one of the things that crossed her mind during the trip. She might have also been tempted to have a ship standing by so the moment the kidnappers were in the air they could be shot down and whatever signal that was being broadcast to the key destroyed; or simply cut through the metal bars.
Kiera shook her head, dispelling the thoughts. She needed to focus on escaping; if the Empire thought she was dead then there wouldn’t be anyone coming to save her. She’d have to rescue herself. Hopefully the knowledge she gained from mecha maintenance would come in handy, but if not she always had her Radiance; she needed to control her anxiety and desperation and be smart. The trip to the palace didn’t take long, relatively speaking. Once more she was unloaded, but this time it was into some kind of warehouse or loading facility, the darkness of the truck was exchanged for interior lighting. The man operating the lift was a human dressed in a brown jumpsuit with a yellow hardhat. He wore the same board expression of someone doing his job but counting down the hours until he could go home and forget about his work place drudgery.
He set Kiera down near other cages, crates, and a ramp that led up to a platform where she could see an elevator. Either this was a spaceport loading dock or whoever owned this place partied hard. The only reason to have your own storage space with a loading dock was if you lived a decadent lifestyle where you had to constantly receive shipments at exorbitant prices. Which her client obviously partook of, considering the high price tag of an Imperial princess, according to the local minion.
“Well, you are certainly pleasing to look at in person,” an man with a large curled mustache dressed in a white and blue tracksuit observed, stopping at Kiera’s cage. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. “While we are waiting for our expensive mercenaries to leave Imperial space, let’s put your collar on you.”
“No,” Kiera said, folding her hands on her lap, “You’re not going to touch me.”
“Then we’re doing this the hard way? So be it. All this trouble over a woman, I’ll never understand.” He turned on his heel and walked out of sight.
“And slavery is added to the list of crimes,” Kiera said, looking around the dock. There wasn’t an obvious sorting pattern that jumped out at her. Boxes and crates seemed to be placed anywhere they could be fit. A few men were walking around or driving some kind of railed platform vehicle they used to raise and lower themselves by putting various labels on them. Men in lifts unloaded trucks, and others in power loaders broke down crates or moved them onto vehicles that had a steering mechanism and a pair of long forks.
The power loader was an industrial mecha only eight feet in height. They were used when shipments were fragile or had to be loaded in a tight space. The difference between a power loader and an exoframe was you sat down in a power loader. Exoframes were also almost exclusively used for warfare; the Army used them the most.
She saw another lift operator put down a metal cage filled with paradise swans on top of a wooden crate that was labeled “Fragile - Elysium Glass.” Both objects were now in the bay adjacent to Kiera. There was a crack as the swan’s cage was placed on the crate but the operator just left it where it was. He didn’t even glance towards Kiera. “I’m suddenly very glad for a metal cage and not some wooden box filled with holes.”
The crate creaked again and the room was filled with the sound of frightened swans as their cage crashed into the floor. Mustache returned and roared in rage. He walked out of sight shouting numbers, they didn’t sound like prices, maybe they were the bay numbers? He returned with two men behind him and holding a thin blue collar he used to gesture at the mess.
“You idiots! Why would you put an iron cage full of waterfowl on top of a wooden crate that was labeled “Fragile?”
“We didn’t, Lord Farbargton,” one of them said, “We’re stockers, not unloaders. Go yell at them.”
Kiera had to resist laughing, Mustache’s name was Farbargton? For his sake she hoped it was a surname otherwise his parents were true sadists. Calling him Mustache was a favor!
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“I don’t care what you are!” Mustache growled, “Get those birds stored with the other livestock! Get that mess cleaned up!”
“I’m going to get a power loader to do that with. I’m not picking up that crap with my hands,” the other man said.
“They don’t have a stocking label on them,” the first man said, “Super’ll get mad if they get put in the wrong place.”
“Then tell him where you put them! Get them out of here and be quick about it!” Mustache gestured with the collar again.
The workers turned and walked away. No, they didn’t walk, they meandered as if they simply didn’t care or didn’t understand what the word ‘quick’ meant.
With an exasperated sigh, Mustache marched over to Kiera and threw the collar into the cage. “Put that on and be quick about it!” he shouted. He turned away from her to shout at the retreating workers, “I said clean this up quickly! All of you will be punished for this blunder. We are not made out of money! That glass is expensive!”
Kiera picked up the collar and inched towards Mustache. The collar looked like it could fit around his leg, and while she understood exactly what he meant by his order, he didn’t say who Kiera should put it on and was standing right next to her. She slid the collar through the bars and clasped it around Mustache’s ankle, just below where the pants ended. It beeped once, and then adjusted itself. Scooting away from him she realized that something about this man seemed vaguely familiar. She knew she had never seen him before and yet his appearance was poking a sleeping memory that was refusing to awaken.
“The collar’s on,” Kiera said.
“Finally someone listens,” he grumbled, not turning around, “I see that you understand the need to get out of this deathtrap as quickly as possible. If only those mercenaries would hurry up.”
“Who were those mercenaries, anyway?” Kiera asked, “Are they expensive?”
“Exorbitantly. With luck they’ll decide to leave Imperial Space before they decide to analyze their ill gotten gains. I told Albrecht that we shouldn’t meet them where we’re actually living. Once they find out we swindled them they will be furious. Cut glass and painted chain links won’t fool anyone for long. As for who they are, I don’t know. They were hired by a third party.”
The memory roared awake like an angry dragon. It was the same tracksuit that the former Crown Prince of Dalimar wore to the exam. “Albrecht? You don’t mean the disgraced prince of Dalimar, Tracksuit?” Kiera sputtered.
“That’s His Grace the Grand Duke of Southsby,” Mustache snapped, “It will be his Majesty the King of Dalimar once the coup is complete. Although you will be referring to him as “My Lord Husband.” Once he takes back the throne he’ll actually be able to afford half of all this.”
“What happened to the former King?” Kiera asked.
“Albrecht killed him. He wants you above all else, wanted to put all of our resources into securing you. Halbrecht refused and threatened to disinherit him. Albrecht responded by shooting in the shuttle before they even left the Onarran system. Covering up that scandal was costly. It is only fortunate that Halbretch’s abdication from the Peerage was ruled to be that he was abdicating the throne. That Selune is now king is an insult to our household. If not Albrecht then it should have gone to Balbrecht. But all of that won’t matter. Soon, Albrecht will fulfill his destiny.” Mustache sighed and pinched his nose, “Or he would have if he had picked the right damn girl! He was supposed to wed that half-eladrin mongrel last spring.
“Watch how you speak about my niece,” Kiera snapped, her loathing for this man growing with every word. “How did Tracksuit become a Duke?”
“Halbretch named his brother the Duke of Southsby when he became king. If Balbrecht was killed then the next oldest family member without a title would receive it. Since you stripped Albrecht of his title he became eligible.. Killing Balbrecht was child’s play,” Mustache said, “That menagerie of his is rather dangerous, after all. If only Albrecht hadn’t picked up Bal’s safari hobby! What is taking those idiots so long! Those swans will lose their color and become worthless if they stay in distress!”
“Just how much treason have you and Tracksuit committed, exactly?” Kiera asked. They weren’t taking death out on a date, they were actively courting her! Or they were trying to set the Imperial record for “most treason done in a single solar year.”
“There’s been no treason, just business.” He glanced back and glowered, “Albrecht Rance Halban Dalimus. Do not refer to him by his choice of attire. It will be “My Lord, or His Grace. Soon to be his Majesty.” He walked away as the two men returned, one in a power loader and the other with a lift. Mustache started giving orders, threatening to activate their collars if they didn’t hurry up and start following the proper receiving procedures. The two men seemed to ignore Mustache. Kiera didn’t see any collars on either of the men, but they might have been hidden by the collars on their jumpsuits. Mustache swore when his ID bracelet blinked, signaling he was receiving a call.
<<”Eustace, I saw the notification! She’s here! At long last she’s here! Bring her to me immediately!”>> Tracksuit’s voice came from the band. Kiera was glad that she couldn’t see that smug face and beak he called a nose.
“Your Grace your bride isn’t ready for you to see her, it’s also extremely bad luck for you to see her before the wedding ceremony. We need all the luck we can manage your Grace, we’re running out. The last of our money was spent paying the mercenaries, they didn’t come cheap. Please, be patient, I shall deliver her to you and perform the ceremony the moment that she is ready.
<<”I want the ceremony to be in my bedchambers and I want her in lingerie. We will consummate our marriage immediately following the ceremony.”>>
“Yes, in your bedchamber so you can take her without delay.”
“I’m going to be physically ill,” Kiera said.
<<”Oh, I can’t wait! I have to see her now, it’s been far too long. I have to see her, have to hold her. I was so close when we slept next to each other, if that vile fish woman hadn’t stopped me I would have caressed her breasts, claimed her as mine! The pleasure bot isn’t nearly enough. I’m going, Eustace! Tell me how to get to the warehouse at once and bring me to her!”>>
“ALBRECHT DO NOT COME DOWN HERE!” Mustache roared, then whirled around and glared at Kiera, the call ended. “Don’t you say another word or I’ll show you exactly what the slave collars can do, it’s much more than pain!” He rushed towards the elevator, “Attention all staff, do not let His Grace into the loading dock, and don’t help him find it, either!”
“Willing to cheat, murder and scheme for someone he can’t control…not like it seems he can control anything…” Kiera looked at the two men who were working to clear away the mess. They were completely apathetic, not that she could blame them. If she was in their position she’d put forth minimum effort as well.
“Be careful with those birds,” the man in the power loader said, “We don’t want them to get hurt. Can’t believe Ray put them on top of something else.”
“They’re just birds, who d’ya think’ll be cleaning up after ‘em?” The lift operator scoffed, driving away with the still panicked birds. The men’s interaction gave Kiera an idea.
“Excuse me, can you go get help? I…I think there’s something wrong,” Kiera called, lying down on her side.
The man in the power loader turned around, surprise on his face as if seeing Kiera for the first time. She groaned and started breathing heavily giving him a pleading look. The confused look changed to panic and he took four large steps to stand in front of her cage. He exited the power and stared at the door, before grabbing on the bars and tugging. He climbed back into the power loader and grabbed the bars of the door. He pulled but only managed to move the cage along the ground. With an annoyed groan the man tried to change tactics to pull the bars open, but the power loader’s hands were simply too big.
“I need a cutting laser,” he grumbled and then drove away. He was back a few minutes later and once more climbed out of his exosuit, picking up an energy sword from his lap as he exited. He ignited the sword and then adjusted the magnetic field to its thinnest setting. Kiera scooted back as the beam became brighter and longer. The weapon hummed as its red blade was pressed against the front of her cage. He cut through the bars of the door and dropped the energy sword, which immediately deactivated thanks to a standard safety feature found on every blade. “I’ll get you to the infirmary right away!” he said.
Kiera let him help her out of the cage, using her Radiance on him enough to charm the man. “It might be a better idea if you start cleaning that glass back up. If Mustache comes back then he’ll know that you let me out and I don’t want you to get into trouble. But you can tell me where the infirmary is located.”
“Okay,” the man said, “Go down the main back aisle until you reach the end, and then follow it down to the changin area. The infirmary is right there. Make sure to use the walkways so you don’t get run over.”
Kiera flashed him a smile, “Thank you so much.” The man climbed back into the power loader and walked over to the broken crate. She scooped up the blade and headed into the aisle where a fenced lane marked with yellow and black warning stripes marked the walking path. As Kiera headed towards the infirmary she adjusted the blade to sparring mode; she didn’t want to kill anyone but if she needed to fight she would. No one paid her any mind, the men weren’t motivated to work fast and many of them were just sitting in their vehicles.
Escaping might be easier than she thought.