-KAJA-

  Community service. That was the compromise Kaja’s family had negotiated. She hated it, but it gave her freedom. She had freedom from the consequences of her admittedly rash actions in chasing after her father's killers, and she had freedom from the bounty the Authority was willing to place on her if she ever tried to escape.

  She wondered, not for the first time, why the Authority would bother placing a bounty on her. They had several capable agents. Ben Wilson was one of them. She had seen the way the scary man's eyes had darkened when he looked at her. He was not happy to see her, but he didn't say anything.

  After the Vice Captain introduced her, Ben had just shrugged and disappeared into his ship. The other one stayed.

  What had the Vice Captain called him again? Blazecorra.

  It was such a weird name. He was probably from one of the more loony colonies in the galaxy.

  Kaja was shocked by Blazecorra’s reaction to her. He laughed, then smiled warmly, and held out his hand towards her. She shook it.

  Then Blazecorra listened, nodding as the Vice Captain explained Kaja's situation to him. Community service as punishment for her crimes. She was to do it for two years. The exact details of where she would be spending the whole two years were apparently not ironed out, but she was to start off as a support staff for Blazecorra and his partner on their new mission.

  "Noted," Blazecorra said. "But what kind of support can she provide?"

  "Whatever she can," the Vice Captain responded.

  They moved on from Kaja after that. Kaja watched as Agent Blazecorra argued with the Vice Captain. It was like watching waves strike at a massive sea wall. Blazecorra ranted and negotiated, and the Vice Captain remained stoic.

  Apparently, Kaja was not the only one dissatisfied with her lot. Agent Wilson and Blazecorra had been assigned some sort of escort mission in a backwater corner of the galaxy. A mission that would last several years.

  Ouch, Kaja thought. Well, I'll be long gone by then. Not my problem. I just need to survive this.

  She instinctively began to plot escape plans, but she banished them quickly. A 10 million chegg bounty was a hard thing to hide from. Plus, Agent Wilson had already proven to be very difficult to escape.

  A quiet voice inside Kaja worried about Agent Wilson trying to exact revenge on her somehow. Her family had struck a blow at his credibility after all. But she banished that thought too. Something about Ben made her doubt he would do that. He had a certain air to him. It reminded her of her father.

  Kaja had to fight to keep her thoughts and emotions from spiralling. That always happened whenever she thought of her father. She turned her attention back to Blazecorra and the Vice Captain.

  Apparently, Blazecorra had lost the argument. His shoulders sagged and he looked miserable. The Vice Captain turned to Kaja and said, "This is where I leave you young lady. You will find a mission brief sent to your mail account we created for you. Agent Wilson is the team lead, but I am placing you in the care of Agent Kuto. He's likely to be more amiable. Goodbye."

  Kaja couldn't resist poking back.

  "So that's it?" she said. "You're just going to ship me out to some dark recess of space? Isn't this slavery or something?"

  The Vice Captain suddenly stepped towards Kaja and glared at her. Kaja found herself taking several steps back, trying to flee from the woman’s wrathful face.

  The Vice Captain spoke. "I assure you that I despise this arrangement much more than you," she said. "I am being forced to send two of my best agents on some crummy mission which might take them more than ten years to complete-"

  "More than!" Blazecorra pipped in, looking panicked.

  The Vice Captain ignored him.

  "And the only assistance I have been asked to provide them," the Vice Captain continued. "Is you. A small-time, self-absorbed criminal. To answer your question, this isn't slavery. It is punishment. And you will deal with it."

  The Vice Captain stalked away, leaving Kaja stunned. She looked at Blazecorra who smiled.

  "I guess we're in this together," he said.

  -BREAK-

  Kaja followed Blaze (he told her to call him that) into the cabin. Kaja knew a lot about starships. (She knew a lot about any type of technology), and she knew enough to know Ben and Blaze had heavily modified their vehicle. She liked it. The first time Kaja had been on the ship, she had been too busy trying to find a way to escape. She hadn’t noticed the beauty of the ship.

  Regular StarHawk T700s were built to be a cross between fighter ships and cruise ships. They needed to be comfortable enough for a crew to live on, yet deadly enough to be effective in a dogfight. For the most part, the ships achieved their purpose.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  But when Kaja had first combed over T700 schematics, she had found a number of ways to improve the design. Blaze and Agent Wilson seemed to have made all those changes.

  "Your ship is sweet," Kaja said, purring.

  The ship’s entrance led to a small cabin. Regular T700s had unnecessary upholstery and control panels which took up a lot of space and were rather ugly. Blaze and Agent Wilson had replaced much of that with a single control board in the far wall. The rest of the room had been refitted to resemble a comfortable living room with bolted down couches.

  They had installed a centre table which, Kaja realised on closer inspection, doubled as another control panel. There was an exit arch in the cabin which led to the cockpit.

  Kaja could see that work had been done there too. The cockpit had four seats instead of the usual two, and the dashboard was fitted with several cool looking buttons she longed to press. The back wall of the cabin had a sliding door which Kaja knew led to the toiletries, kitchen, and two bedrooms in the ship. She was sure work had been done there too.

  From the corner of her eye, she noted Blazecorra smiling at her.

  "I wish I could say we did it ourselves," he said. "But I can't. We know a guy. Well I know the guy. Stu. He's one of the best technicians out there."

  Kaja nodded thoughtfully. A thought had occurred to her. There were only two bedrooms. They were not likely to spend too long travelling on the ship, but Kaja would have liked to have had a place of her own.

  Blaze seemed to read her mind.

  "You can have my room," he said, then laughed at her expression.

  "Oh don't worry about it. I spend most of my time here anyway."

  He jumped onto one of the couches.

  "I am a criminal," she reminded him.

  He shrugged. "People make mistakes."

  "You don't know me."

  "So tell me." Blaze spread his hands out wide. "Tell me about yourself. We're going to be around each other for a while. Might as well know something about each other."

  Kaja eyed him warily. "My name is Kaja Khan," she said slowly.

  "Hi Kaja Khan." Blaze waved at her.

  That brought a chuckle out of Kaja. She tried to think of something else to share.

  "I'm a mechanopath," she added. She noted his frown and continued. "It means I can talk to machines."

  "That's pretty cool. So can you talk to the ship?"

  Kaja had been expecting that question. "I've tried," she said, and she had. "It doesn't want to talk to me. Not anymore. Doesn't seem to like me."

  "That’s a bit strange," Blaze said.

  "Not really," Kaja replied. "I tricked it the first time I was here." She sat down on one of the couches and turned to look at Blaze. "What about you?" she asked.

  Blaze’s smile seemed to falter. "Me?"

  "Yeah. Tell me about you."

  "Alright then... I'm Blazecorra Kuto. I'm a Stellar Authority Agent, as you already know."

  "What kind of magic do you use?" Kaja asked.

  Blaze looked away for a second then looked back. "I have memory magic. Have you heard about it?"

  Kaja shook her head.

  Blaze nodded. "It’s not the most popular magic, particularly my type. Memory magic allows people to access the memory of the galaxy."

  Kaja didn’t understand what he was saying.

  "So like…you can access my memories?" she asked. If that was the case, then maybe she would be steering clear of Blaze. Kaja didn’t want anyone digging into her trauma.

  "No," Blaze replied. "I access the collective memory of the galaxy. There are types of memory magic. Mine is called Memory morph. I am able to transform into creatures that used to exist in the galaxy."

  "Used to?"

  "Extinct creatures," Blaze explained. "Those that only live on in memory."

  That was an interesting concept, and Kaja wondered how it worked.

  "So how many creatures can you turn into?" she asked.

  "As of now, I can transform into five. I’ll probably unlock more."

  Kaja rubbed her chin. "So you're a gene bank," she said.

  That made Blazecorra laugh. "Yeah, you could say that. There are people who say memory magic is a method the galaxy created to preserve all living beings."

  He let that statement hang in the air as he stood up.

  "So now we know something about each other," he said. "Let me show you your room."

  -BEN-

  Ben sat at the desk in his bedroom on the StarHawk. The fight with the Falcon pilots had taken away much of his anger. Unfortunately, the Captain’s letter sent some of it boiling back up. He read the letter again, combing it for any hidden details.

  He found none.

  He tossed the sheet of paper onto the desk and sighed. Why had the Captain written him a physical letter instead of sending a message to his Pager?

  Ben had found the letter stuffed beneath his door in the morning. He had seen it right after receiving the absurd mission debrief.

  The Captain's letter answered some of the questions Ben had about the mission, but the answers were vague. This wasn't punishment. According to Captain Doe, it was a test, and an opportunity to grow. Captain Doe mentioned how he did not believe the mission would take ten years.

  The letter had also revealed who Agent Blue would be. Kaja Khan. Her family had found a way to help her escape real justice, and now Ben was stuck with her.

  The Captain had explained that decision too.

  "Ms. Khan has tremendous room for growth," the Captain wrote. "I see a spark of greatness in her. It just needs the right nudge. I think this is it. And I think you and Blaze will be of great help to her."

  And that was it. Kaja Khan was on the mission.

  Ben sighed again. It might have been okay if the letter had ended there. But it didn't.

  Ben picked up the letter and read the last paragraph again.

  "Another great war is about to break out, Benjamin. The Stellar Authority is going to need our best to fight it. You need to become strong. Even stronger than you were in the past. Push yourself to the limit. Push Blazecorra to the limit. I have a lot of faith in the two of you. Become strong. Don't die."

  Then the Captain added.

  "It may interest you to know that an associate of Silver has been tracked onto the Freighter you will be using to get to the Andaris Reach. I do not know his name. I do not know how close he is to Silver. But I know he will be in the VIP section. The Stellar Authority has forbidden everyone from taking direct action against Silver, so I cannot pursue this. I cannot order you to either. Do with this information what you will."