Chapter 2

Kurana stared at the readout in consternation. Impossible! With a growl, she turned to the operator of the BioEssence Array. “What did you do to this thing? This says there are absolutely no Lords or Great Lords on a planet of six billion humans!”

The man, shocked at her vehemence, couldn’t formulate a response. Shiloh, the ship captain, cleared his throat. “Yes, Captain?” Kurana had grudgingly come to respect this skinny little balding man. He obviously had the trust of the crew, and he had displayed his competence on a number of occasions, but his brash ego grated on her nerves. It was also obvious to her that he didn’t like highborns.

The lanky captain spoke. “It’s not impossible, Great Lady. It might be a colony formed by commoners, tired of being ruled by the decadent Imperial Aristocracy. There might have been a revolution against the highborn, or a disease that highborn were particularly susceptible to. Any number of things could have happened...”

“No. You don’t understand. These people are powerful. For some reason, the BioEssence Array just isn’t picking them up.” She glanced at the navigation display. Nine months and change before Battle Group 9 showed up. How long could she afford to stay in this system? “Power up NavCon. Execute stealth landing procedures.”

The bridge went absolutely silent. A pregnant pause was followed by a series of murmured acknowledgements and a flurry of activity. Shiloh talked into the ship intercom, ordering the crew to prepare for landing. Kurana knew that none of them understood her conviction, but they were a good enough crew not to question orders in the moment of action. She also knew that as soon as they were down, Shiloh would pull her aside and quietly demand an explanation. She would give him one, too—whether or not he would accept it, who knew? It doesn’t matter.

It took over an hour to prepare the ship for landing. The crew hustled about, securing loose items, sanitizing the galley, and preparing the sick bay for a possible emergency situation. Kurana was impressed with the crew’s efficiency, but worried about the necessity of all the preparation. She had never landed in such a small craft before, but had assumed it was just like a larger cruiser-class ship landing, which were usually quite smooth. When she voiced her concerns to Shiloh, he laughed.

“No, Great Lady, landing a courier-class ship is nothing like landing a cruiser. A cruiser has anywhere from 15 to 30 individual gravity controls to regulate every possible anomalous force vector. Usually two or three are used just to ensure hull integrity. With a courier, you have a total of four controls- one dedicated to maintaining hull integrity, and one for each dimensional axis force vector. There’s no room for error, and the ride is a lot bumpier. Also, with the big ships, they have enough room to have a Stabilization Computer hooked directly into the NavCon; that way, the landing is done almost automatically. With this, we use a force feedback control system and land the ship by hand.”

Kurana felt her blood run cold. “You mean you’re actually going to steer this thing onto the ground? What’s the crash rate for that kind of thing?”

Shiloh grinned. “In the Imperial fleet? About twenty percent. Of course, the odds go way down with a veteran crew. But that’s why you don’t normally see couriers or scouts land on planets.” His smile grew wider at her look of horror. “Don’t worry, Great Lady. This is a very experienced crew. We’ve literally made dozens of planetfalls. I argued with your father about the wisdom of using such a small ship, but he was of the opinion that anything larger would be easily detected by the Battle Group, and I understand you agreed. Oh, that reminds me, have you given a thought as to where we ought to land?”

She stared at him with bemusement. “We had located several population centers. The outskirts of any one of them should do. The largest one would be...” she glanced at the rotating three-dimensional image of the planet below. “ ... here,” she said, pointing. “I’d like to get within 10 marks of the city, that should be ideal. Can you do that?”

“Of course. The approach for that location should open in...” He made a few calculations on his screen. “ ... four minutes. Attention crew! This is Captain Shiloh,” he called into the ship intercom. “Planetfall approach is in less than four minutes. Secure yourselves. Shiloh out.” He glanced towards Kurana. “You’ll want to strap yourself in, Great Lady.” Kurana nodded and headed for an empty seat.

“Oh, and Great Lady?” Kurana turned again. Shiloh smiled. “Try to enjoy yourself. It’s a rare experience.” One of the nearby crewmembers snorted a laugh.

She returned his look with the flattest stare she could muster and sat down. Strapping herself in, she promised to have a long talk with her father for choosing this infuriating man for such an important mission. She hoped for the opportunity to talk with him again. Twenty percent. He had to be joking.

Eric woke suddenly and glanced at his clock. The red digits glared an angry 0243 hours in the morning, but all thoughts of returning to sleep were gone from his mind. She’s finally here, on the planet. The implications of that thought blew his mind. That meant she wasn’t on the planet before! But she was human? He couldn’t make sense of it yet, but knew the answer was on the horizon. The time for hiding was over. With a flash of his will, he flipped the light switch across the room and strode into the bathroom for a quick shower. Don’t know when I’ll get to take another.

By the time he was done with his shower, there were four people in his living room. He ignored them as he carefully dressed, making sure to include things on his person that he had not had to worry about for over five years—things like money, and his driver’s license, and his credit cards. He had been paid a salary as a “research assistant” and they had allowed him to get mail, after which he had made a good case for credit cards for online purchases over the Internet. It hadn’t been a bad life, these last five years, but it hadn’t been his life.

When he was convinced he was ready, he walked into the living room. Gary and Shelby, the two parapsychologists who actually lived at this installation were still rubbing their eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them. They were accompanied by two sergeants on guard by the door, fully armed and ready to use their weapons. Standard Operating Procedure, Eric knew, whenever the researchers wanted access to Eric during off-duty hours, but a stipulation that had never been used before, and the guards were nervous. Well, I guess they should be.

As soon as they saw Eric, they leapt to their feet. Gary spoke first, so excited he could barely articulate himself. “Eric, Eric, what was that you did in your room? You turned on the light from across the room! That’s telekinesis, that’s incredible, do you have any idea what this means to the scientific community? You have proven so many scientists wrong with your very existence! Tell me, what can you—”

“Later, doctor. I’m very busy. I plan on being out of here within the hour, and I haven’t eaten yet.” Using the startled silence that statement provoked, he crossed to the kitchen and dove into his fridge, pulling out the eggs and milk. He called into the living room, “Hey do any of you guys want some eggs or something while I’ve got them out? I don’t think I’m coming back, and I don’t want them to go to waste.”

A moment later both scientists shuffled into the kitchen with a very wary look in their eyes. This time Shelby spoke.

“Umm, Eric. I’m not sure I understand all this talk about leaving. They’ll never let you walk out of here, you know that.” There was no need to ask who they were. “If you try, they’ll kill you. You don’t want that, do you?”

While the doctor was speaking, Eric was busy breaking eggs into his frying pan. “Of course I don’t want to be killed, doctor, but the simple fact remains that I have to leave. I have to meet someone.”

The doctors exchanged those wary glances again. Gary ventured, “That girl in your dreams?” Of course, they had a complete recording of that conversation with the colonel a little over a month ago. Eric nodded distractedly, watching his eggs. “Eric, you said yourself you didn’t know who the girl was, or where. How can you go to her?”

“If you’d really been paying attention, Gary, you would have remembered that I also said that I would learn more as time passed. Well, time has passed, and I have learned more. In fact, I believe that I would have understood more from the get-go if I had not been proceeding on an erroneous assumption.” With that, he studiously flipped his eggs.

“And that would be?”

“That she was already on this planet. In point of fact, she was not until about an hour ago. And her name is Kurana Mitonir SeliGarde. She is a Great Lady, whatever that means, and she is parked in the ‘burbs of New York with her merry band of men, looking for something very important to her.” The eggs were almost ready. While he was waiting, he poured himself a glass of milk and let the two poor scientists digest this latest information.