Rey awoke on the bed in the room she’d been given. It took a moment for her to remember what had happened, but as soon as she did she started getting nervous.
No one had come to her room after Aneeta left, and she’d ended up falling asleep after several hours.
She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and sat on the bed for a while before getting up. Usually, her attendants would have woken her up and guided her through her morning routine.
The door slid open and Aneeta entered, carrying a tray of food, some of which Rey had never seen before.
“Oh good, you’re up,” she said, setting the food on the desk across from her bed.
“What’s that?” Rey said, pointing to a brown lump covered in a white gze.
“A scone. You’ve never seen one?”
Rey shook her head.
“Don’t tell me they didn’t let you have desserts or something!”
“Desserts?”
“Anyway, I’ll come get you in about half an hour. Zan wants to talk with you.”
She gave her a reassuring smile as she left the room.
After her meal, Aneeta took her to the control room, where the rest of the crew were gathered. Large windows looked out into space from the front of the room, below them y the control panels, covered in buttons and switches that Rey knew nothing about.
The other young woman sat at a desk against the right wall, but turned around when they entered. Her hair was the same jet bck as Rey’s, but it was put back in a single ponytail instead of two.
“That’s May Cheng, Andre Altier, and Marcus, and you know me and Zan,” she said, pointing at the young woman at the desk, then at a burly dark skinned man at the controls, and finally at a man standing in the corner of the room with messy brown hair.
“Okay, introductions over, now we can begin,” she said.
“Yes, like why didn’t you tell me your full name when I first asked?” Zan said, stepping forward.
“I-I honestly just wasn’t thinking.”
Zan sighed.
“Are you actually Princess Rey Seyn, the third daughter of Emperor Kantz Seyn?”
“...Yes.”
“What were you doing on that ship?”
“They were taking me to Karatous, where I would be given over to the dictator of the Zambac Mining Colonies.”
“Why?”
“An arranged marriage that would allow the Empire to annex the Colonies.”
“You’re kidding…” Zan’s expression was stony, and the others, with the exception of Marcus, all wore varying expressions of shock and fear.
“What’s the problem?” Marcus said. “You wanted an important hostage, right?”
“She’s a member of the Royal family! Even if we let her go as soon as we can, there’s no way they’ll just let us go!”
“We won’t be safe even if we leave the Empire,” Aneeta said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get us out of this, just…” Zan faltered, rapidly thinking through his options. “We just need to focus on escaping the Empire for now.”
“We don’t have enough fuel to get us to a pnet in the Alliance,” Andre said. “We’ll have to stop on Temure to refuel.”
Zan cursed.
“Alright, we’ll do that, then decide how to handle the situation once we’re out of the Empire.”
The meeting ended, and Rey was escorted back to her room by Aneeta while the others stayed and worked out the details of the course they would take.
“I heard you didn’t give Zan any trouble. Is there a reason you went with us so easily?” Aneeta asked at the door.
“I don’t really know… maybe I just didn’t have any reason to refuse. It’s not like I left anything behind that I really cared about.”
“Is that so? Hmm… you didn’t have any friends did you?”
“Well, one of my attendants was nice to me, but I won’t see her ever again.”
“Then I’ll be your friend as long as we’re traveling together!”
“What?” “I’ve taken a liking to you, and I consider myself to be a pretty good judge of character. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you while I’m around.”
For a moment, she remained in pce, reevaluating her image of the woman. She’d seemed concerned at first, but now Rey realized that was because she had everyone’s best interests in mind. Now that she’d warmed up to Rey, she was acting friendlier.
Rey plopped down on the bed, then heard a knock at the door.
She opened it to see Aneeta holding a movie scroll, which she gave to Rey.
“Here, it has around two million movies, documentaries, and other random stuff on it. You don’t have anything else to do, right?”
“Thank you,” Rey said, somewhat surprised. “I didn’t know there were that many things to watch.”
Aneeta raised her eyebrows.
“Two million isn’t a whole lot, though. What, they didn’t let you watch much either?”
“Well, they showed me lots of educational stuff about the Empire.”
Aneeta was giving her a strange look when she heard Zan call her to the control room through her earpiece.
“Oh, sorry, I’ve got to go. Tell me about your life as a princess ter! And have fun with the scroll,” she said, walking away.
Rey spread the scroll on the wall above her desk, then sat down in front of it. A small button on one corner activated its magnetic back that allowed it to attach to walls and other metal surfaces.
Rey used her finger to scroll through, amazed at the quantity and variety of media she’d never seen before. Eventually she settled on a documentary about Temure, the pnet she’d heard them mention as a pce to refuel.
She almost felt like she was doing something wrong, learning about something of her own choosing, but she became absorbed in no time at all.
Temure, a rgely agricultural pnet that exported most of its produce to other pnets throughout the empire. It’d only been under Seynian control for the st few years. It’d been a mostly peaceful takeover, unlike the invasion of the Neveus system 28 years earlier.
Rey spent countless hours watching documentaries and movies, but eventually her eyes began to grow heavy and she noticed that her body was beginning to feel stiff from sitting in the same position for such a long time.
She decided to take a short break, but ended up falling asleep within a couple minutes of lying down.
***
It was the sound of the door sliding open that awakened her. Rey opened her eyes to see Marcus step into her room. He leered at Rey in a way that she found deeply unpleasant.
“Hey Princess, mind if I come in for a minute?” he said mockingly.
“What do you want?”
“”Listen Princess, I’m really gd that you came aboard this ship. It’s a better situation than I ever imagined, and it’ll give me a much more satisfying revenge than I could’ve hoped for.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, my mom was on Neveus 7 when the Empire invaded it. I wasn’t born yet, but I learned what’d happened ter on.
“Even though my mom didn’t get caught in the bombing, the soldiers found her, and you wanna know what they did to her?”
Rey could hear the hate growing in his voice as he started stepping towards her.
“They made her watch while they killed her brother right in front of her, and then-”
“I’m not at fault, though!” Rey said, her heart beating faster.
“Yeah I know, but neither was my mother. I know the bme is on the people that are actually in power, but I can’t do anything to them. No one can.
“But I can hurt something they care about, and that happens to be you. By breaking you now, even if they recapture you it’ll piss them off pretty bad! I’d like to see their faces when they learn what somebody like me did to their precious princess.
“They caused my mom a lot of suffering, so I’m gonna return the favor,” he said, drawing near as Rey backed up against the wall her bed was next to. “If you don’t make a fuss I won't make it too bad,” he said, sneering.
“But I haven't done anything to you or anyone!” Rey said, in a st desperate attempt.
“I already told you, it doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or not, just that you’re Seynian royalty.”
“I see…there’s no use arguing with him.”
Rey slumped against the wall as he reached towards her and grabbed a handful of her hair. He yanked her roughly off the bed with a grip of steel, then tossed her across the room.
She let out a cry as her stomach hit the leg of her desk. She curled up in pain as he crossed the room and kicked her in the back. Using her left ankle this time, he flung her across the room again. She hit the wall with a painful thump, dislocating her shoulder before falling onto her bed, gasping in pain.
Marcus grinned as he advanced, taking off his shirt.
“What are you doing?!” Aneeta said from the doorway, covering her mouth.
“Shit. You stay out of this!” Marcus said, pointing at Aneeta, who was still taking in the scene. “I’m getting my fair share of revenge, so just pretend you didn’t see anything and walk away.”
“You can’t…” she started backing away.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll come after you as well,” he threatened.
“How about me?” another voice asked from the hall behind her. Zan stepped into view, his eyes burning with indignation. Aneeta turned in shock, then quickly stepped aside as Zan walked through the doorway.
“And what exactly is going on here?” he asked, looking at Rey, who was still lying on the bed, then Marcus, who was standing in the middle of the room.
“I’m taking revenge.”
“She’s not at fault for what your mom went through.”
“I already know that, but she’s the only one I can hurt, and she’s more valuable to the Empire than the bunch of nobodies I’ve spent my life fighting.”
“I hired you to help me fight the guards, not assault the innocent hostage I picked up.”
“Are you telling me that I can’t do anything, even when this is the best chance I’ll ever get?!”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m done listening to you. I’ll do what I want, even if I have to kill everyone else on board!”
Marcus raised his right arm, as metal armor slid out of his skin, covering everything from his shoulder to fingertips. He clenched his metal fist and assumed a combat stance.
“It looks like a fight is inevitable. Aneeta!” Zan held his right hand out to her while keeping his eyes on Marcus. She touched his hand with hers, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then Zan crouched down like he was at the start of a race, and shot forward.
Rey watched from where she’d fallen as Zan and Marcus began the fight that would determine her fate.
GreenHunter128
