“That horned blue-skinned alien bastard.” I said. “Where is he?”

“We don't know.” Gruskluan, the not-fluffy anymore alien said. “He went rogue a year ago.”

“What about his apprentice?” I asked.

“He's gone, too.” Gruskluan said. “He took your father's gun as a trophy.”

“Why didn't you stop them?” I asked.

“We didn't know he had left The Order until we received word that he had hijacked the ship we had booked him passage on.”

“What made him turn on you?” I asked out of curiosity.

“You.”

“Ha ha!” I said and squeezed the Presence Hand around his neck. “What did I tell you about lying to me?”

“It's... because of... you, then.” Gruskluan managed to say, and I eased the Presence Hand's grip. “When he killed your parents...”

“...murdered...” I said.

“...after that, we started to take a firmer hand with him and his temper.”

“Oh, I bet he didn't like that one bit.” I said, and he nodded.

“He started to chafe under the constant scrutiny.”

“Yeah, that I can understand.” I said. “Then he just left? You didn't send anyone after him?”

“Of course we did.” Gruskluan said. “Unfortunately, he's one of our best operatives and...”

“No one came back.” I said, and he shook his head. “So, no trackers on his things or tucked into his clothing?”

Gruskluan closed his eyes for a moment, at my knowledge of some of their secrets, then he looked at me. “All have failed.”

“God, I hate to do this.” I said, ignored their surprise at my words, then I absorbed all of the Presence Hands I had around the council's necks.

“Sieze him!” The scaly alien said and tried to grab his Light sword with his remaining hand, and his hand bounced off of his hip. “What the...” He looked down at his hand and it was still encased in solid Presence.

“I told you that I wouldn't let you fight me.” I said and used a Presence Hand to take his Light sword. “Wow, you really tweaked this thing into uselessness.” I held it in my hand and popped it apart with Presence, then took out the focusing crystal. “It's not as high of quality as the one that used to be mine; but, it'll do until I find a proper replacement for the one you stole.” I said and took out my mother's Light sword and adjusted the compartment to accept the different shaped crystal.

“You can't do that!” The scaly alien said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It's not right!”

“Well, I do have to adjust all of the electronics for it to work properly.” I said.

“I meant that you can't take my weapon!”

“This thing?” I asked as I held up his weapon, then reassembled the useless cylinder and tossed it on the floor at his feet. “I'm not taking it.”

“You... you...”

“How does it feel, asshole?” I asked, and he scowled at me. “You all deserve much worse than being choked for a couple of minutes.” I said and walked over to Kara and knelt by her. “I'm sorry I had to do that to you.” I said to her unconscious form and took her Light sword. I popped it apart and took the crystal from it and added it to my father's Light sword and stashed it away.

“What are you going to do now?” Gruskluan asked.

“I'm going to do the job you couldn't.” I said and stood. “I'm going to hunt down your hunter and get my things back.”

“You... are not leaving... this planet!” The scaly alien exclaimed.

“Yeah, you can't tell me what to do anymore, Stumpy.” I said and picked up his severed arm and waved at him with it. “Buh-bye!” I said and tossed him his arm, and he tried to catch it with his immobilized hand. I laughed as he tried to hold onto the severed arm and it fell to the floor, then he followed it and dropped to the floor himself to try and keep a hold of it.

“Are you really going to hunt (Undecipherable) down?” Gruskluan asked and tried not to stare at his fellow council member as he struggled fruitlessly.

“I need my mother's locket back, so yes.” I said.

“Then you can take the prepped shuttle.” Gruskluan said. “There's a long haul transport in orbit. If you use it to get to the Shara Nebula...”

“Oh, he's not there.” I said to their surprise.

“But... our info...”

“...is completely biased and flawed.” I said. “I'll follow the actual trail and not the one he's laid out for you to follow.” I walked over to the energy wall and looked at the guards on the other side of it. “I have no real beef with you, except that I didn't learn any new fighting techniques while I stayed in the barracks.” I said. “Would you mind if I borrowed a few weapons?”

The guard looked at the council and they didn't object, so he held out his pistol and rifle.

“Thanks.” I said and absorbed the wall and took the two guns and hooked them to my belt, then I turned to the council. “I won't be coming back here, not even for the reward on (Undecipherable)'s head.”

“It's significant.” Gruskluan said. “If you send proof.”

“When I send you his head, give the reward to Lashina.” I said. “She's the only one still here that genuinely cared about me as a person and not what I could potentially become.”

“You do realize that we have to put a bounty on your head for this.” One of the other council members said and motioned at the room and held up their immobilized hands.

“Well, considering you were sending me to fight a bounty hunter that specializes in killing Order members for my very first mission, having you continue to try and have me killed is no big deal.”

“You... actually believe that.”

“I always did.” I said, to their surprise. “I knew you weren't going to let me go, even when I was of legal age and could make my own decisions.” I said. “Both of my parents were rogues in your eyes, and you failed to reform me after holding me prisoner for twelve years.”

“You weren't a prisoner.”

“I wasn't allowed to leave, despite being judged able to live on my own. You've even denied my coming of age ceremony.” I said. “You can keep deluding yourselves if you want; but, I've been your prisoner all these years... and now I'm leaving.”

No one said anything in response, so I covered myself in Presence and used Stealth to erase myself from their perception and left the council chamber. I used Presence Run to leave the building and no one saw me as I went to the administration building and went behind the desk. I used the Sleep technique on the woman there and used Emari's password to enter the system and checked all of the records for ship movements from a year ago.

I couldn't spell (Undecipherable)'s name, so I looked for shuttle transfers like the one I would be using today, and cross-referenced it with missing ships. I found three possible leads with the ship's manifests and passenger lists, copied the relevant information to my datapad, then cleared the search. I woke the woman without her seeing me and left the building, then ran over to the prepped shuttle that was waiting for me. I closed the hatch and went to the cockpit.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I'm the only passenger.” I told the pilot, and he didn't question the change in the number of passengers. I was tempted to fly the thing myself, since I had some practice with it; but, I didn't know the proper procedures for takeoff and landing. I sat in the co-pilot seat and watched and listened as he went through the checklist and talked to traffic control. When he was given permission to lift, he did so professionally and we shot up into orbit in only a few minutes. He didn't try to engage me in idle chit-chat and I didn't try to distract him from his job.

I saw what looked like a long rectangle with a small bubble at the front, and that was what we headed towards. As we approached it, the size and scale dwarfed the shuttle and my eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the fact that things in space were very difficult to judge their size without any frame of reference nearby. I knew the size of the shuttle, so by using its size as a reference, the bubble at the front was the size of an apartment building. I couldn't even guess at what the rest of the ship was the size of. A large loading hatch opened and the shuttle floated inside and landed. A docking hatch on the side of the wall extended and formed a seal over the shuttle's hatch, and the pilot shut everything down.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I'm your assigned pilot.” The man said. “Where you go, I go.”

“I can't let you do that.” I said and stood up.

“You can't let me do my job?” The man asked and slipped off his helmet and hung it on the back of his seat. He had short scruffy black hair and a thick moustache.

“I'm not going where The Order told me to go.” I said.

“I know.”

“But...”

“Before you keep trying to find an excuse to kick me off of my own shuttle...” The man stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “...Lashina said she misses you already.”

I just looked at him with wide eyes and he laughed.

“Damn, I just lost twenty credits.” The man said. “I bet her that you would curse.”

“Lashina sent you?” I asked, stupidly.

“Sent?” The man laughed again. “You do know Lashina, right?”

I nodded. “She just told you if the opportunity arose, you should keep an eye on me.”

“You got it in one guess!” The man said and let my shoulder go, then held a hand out for me to shake. “My name's Rhubin Tromazz.”

I took the offered hand and shook it.

“By the way, I packed the shuttle's cargo compartment to the bulkheads with supplies.” Rhubin said. “We won't need to stop at the relay point.”

“Are you really doing this?” I asked. “The council told me that they were putting a bounty on my head.”

“Oh, no! I've been coerced by a rogue!” Rhubin said in a scared voice, and I laughed.

“Okay, I have to admit that was good acting.”

“Stick with me and I'll show you all the best tricks!” Rhubin said and walked over to the shuttle's hatch. “They should have sent someone to meet us at the docking umbilical by now.” He hit several switches on the panel by the door and nodded. “Good seal... aaaaaand... it's pressurized.”

“Why did it take so long?” I asked.

“Probably because a lot of the resources on long haul transports are dedicated to living arrangements for the crew and not on luxuries like high-end air pressurizers.”

“You mean if it works, why buy the expensive ones?” I asked, and he nodded.

“If my guess is right, these people run the ship on a shoestring budget.”

“We're about to step onto a spaceship for an extended voyage and you're telling me they cut corners to save money?” I asked with some incredulity, and he laughed.

“No, they don't cut corners or endanger themselves.” Rhubin said. “I meant that there's no frills on this flight. They're frugal, not stupid.”

“Oh, no!” I fake gasped. “They aren't going to serve us meals in our rooms!” I said and slapped my hands on the cheeks of my face. “Who's going to peel my fruit and wash between my toes?!?”

Rhuben was in fits of laughter when the shuttle's hatch opened and a five foot six inch tall blonde woman stood there.

“Um... h-hello.” The woman said and stared at Rhuben. “Is this a bad time? I could come back when you're actually ready to disembark.”

That made Rhubin laugh even more.

“Just ignore the laughing fool for now.” I said. “How is the ship? Are we ready to leave?”

“Once we get you stowed away and your shuttle locked down, we can head out.”

“Then lead the way.” I said, and she nodded and turned away. I grabbed Rhubin's arm and pulled him with me as I followed her and closed the hatch.

“Ooo... oo. I'm okay now.” Rhubin said as he calmed down. “That was funny.”

“That's me, a regular comedian.” I said.

Rhubin barked a laugh. “I wanna meet an irregular comedian now!”

I had to chuckle at that, and we stepped into the ship. The woman closed the hatch and sealed it, then hit the button to depressurize the umbilical. The air was sucked out and it disengaged from the shuttle. I looked out through the window there and saw someone in a thick spacesuit manually turn and apply large docking clamps onto the shuttle's landing gear.

“That looks like a pain in the ass.” I said, and the woman chuckled.

“It is a pain in the ass.” She said. “We looked into retrofitting the rail system to upgrade it to electronic; but, the damn thing would cost more than the ship.” She said. “We even thought about splurging on a heavy maintenance droid for it.”

“Let me guess.” I said and smiled. “It kept trying to move the shuttle instead of trying to tie it down.”

The woman laughed. “The sales guy had no idea why the droid kept doing that, no matter how many times he tried to update its programming!”

“Did you get to keep the droid?” Rhubin asked.

“He practically gave it to us.” The woman said. “He listed it as defective and even sent word back to the manufacturing plant to check the other bots from the production lines.”

“You put it right into the cargo hold, didn't you?” I asked.

“I sure did! It's been a blessing, since it has no problems moving stuff around.” The woman chuckled. “Come on. We need to get to the cockpit.”

“I assume we're going to meet the captain?” I asked, and she laughed.

“Oh, he is just going to love you!” The woman said and turned away. “Captain! Ha ha!”

We followed her through several hallways and we came to what looked like a large empty lobby with a double-wide ladder off to the side on the bulkhead. I looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor, and I was sure I could see that they were large sealed metal doors and not a ceiling or floor at all.

“Welcome to the central shaft.” The woman said. “There are safety hatches on every level that we keep closed when in port.” She said and hopped onto the ladder like she had done it a thousand times. “We open them all up when we're in flight, though.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Have you ever been in weightlessness?”

“Not since the womb.” I said, and she snorted a laugh.

“That's a good comparison, actually.” She started to climb the ladder and she hit the hatch release, then the large metal door, which was also the ceiling, opened when she approached it. “There's not really a lot to do on a long haul voyage. Since we always need to save power when not in port, we cut off all the artificial gravity in the non-essential parts of the ship.”

Rhubin and I climbed up the ladder after her.

“One of the things we do is come here into the central shaft and play games in zero gravity.”

“I like these people already.” Rhubin said.

“I should tell you to hold your opinion until you meet everyone; but, we're all good people.”

“Uh oh.” I said. “That means there's a bad apple in the bushel.”

The woman laughed. “Well, I guess Cassie can be a bit melodramatic.”

“I told you.” I said to Rhubin, and he laughed, too.

We climbed through several decks and I gave a cursory glance around with both my eyes and with Presence. I wasn't surprised that the distance I could detect it was the same, what did surprise me was that in space, I could literally see in three hundred and sixty degrees with Presence.

On the planet's surface, I had almost always limited myself by only looking on the same horizontal plane that I was on at the time. If I was in a room, I only looked at the room or the rooms beyond, and not up at the next floor or down to the floor below. I berated myself mentally that I had unintentionally limited myself like that, and also glad that it hadn't been a detrimental mistake or caused me problems from having such massive blind spots in my perception.

Well, I know what I'm going to be practising for most of this journey. I thought as we kept climbing up to the floor with the cockpit. It took a little while, and I thought about asking why they didn't have a lift, then I realized they wouldn't need a lift if the entire center of the living section didn't have gravity and all of the security hatches were open most of the time. It was only when they were in port that it was a chore to go from the shuttle dock to the cockpit.

“Here we are.” The woman said and waited for Rhubin and I to cross the floor hatch and she closed it manually. “He's going to be happy that we're ahead of schedule.”

I didn't ask her who she meant, because she jumped off the ladder and walked over to a large security door with a small hatch in it. She typed in a short code and the door popped open. She stepped through the hatch and we followed her into the cockpit. I held in my chuckle as I saw that it was more like a bridge and not a cockpit. Three chairs were arrayed around a large central console and the center chair had someone in it.

“I've got our passengers.” The woman said and the center chair turned around to face us. The man was completely unremarkable and could have been in any situation in any chair anywhere, and he would have fit the description of 'he fit right in'.

“What about the shuttle?” The man asked.

“Donny should have the clamps secured by now.” The woman said and sat in the far left chair and hit a button. “Donny?”

“Yeah, the clamps are secured and I tied the shuttle down for good measure.” A man's voice came out of the speaker by her hand.

“Thanks, Donny.” The woman said. “You better strap into the jump seat by the crew compartment instead of coming up here.”

“I'm already there.” Donny said. “I even told Cassie to secure herself.”

“Good going.” The woman said. “What about Evelyn?”

“She's in the medical bay and already has everything locked down.”

“Thanks, Donny.” The woman said and turned to the man in the center chair. “We're all good.”

“What about us?” I asked.

The man pointed at a small row of folding seats against the bulkhead. “Strap in and get ready to pull some G's.” He said. “We're already ahead of schedule because you boarded so fast and I fully intend to stay ahead of schedule.”

Rhubin and I went to the seats and he showed me how to strap in without hurting myself.

The man in the center chair turned to his console and hit a button. “All hands, prepare for acceleration burn.” He said and flicked several switches, pushed some buttons apparently at random, then grunted and hit the button again. “Here we go.”

The man's hand hit a huge red button and the whole ship vibrated. I was pretty sure it was the engines igniting, then he grabbed a set of levers and pushed them forward. My whole body was pressed into the jump seat at about six times my normal weight, and I used Presence to reinforce my body to take the strain. The massive ship started to move slowly, then it started to gain momentum.

We were on our way.