A Prologue Part Three ~ The Rise(sample)

Chapter Nine ~ the Longest Day:

Reine’s eyes widened in horror and everything began to move in slow motion. She wore her leather jacket over top of one of her newest dresses; a tight, white formal dress that came down to her thighs. It had a tribal looking dragon print that spiraled up the dress to a head on her shoulder. 

Her hair was styled differently now, it came down past her ears in places. The style was done by a razor hair stylist, an older method of cutting hair. She found herself pushing her bangs out of her eyes frequently, so she was getting sick of the style. She had dark blue highlights going down her hair in thin strips. Today, she had braided many of the blue strips into tiny braids that fell over top of it all.

She now peered outside of the viewport of the Swan's bridge, and the sight was brighter than she had ever seen, as the ship jerked violently from the battle. There was a battleship, right there, with 'S.S. Louis' painted in giant letters along its broad side. The scene around the Swan's bridge was unfolding like she had never seen.

It was still out of range with its turrets, off in the distance, but this battleship had already released hundreds of fighters and just slowly turned its main cannon towards the Swan. It just arrived, as a group of large cruisers had already engaged the Swan; fighters managed to damage the rear shields and engineering was reporting some malfunction in the FTL drive.

Tar'ee spoke panicked, “Rear shields are drawing energy from nearby systems, it's taking damage too fast for me to reroute.”

Her father spoke with a firm disappointment, “This is it - give them everything we have, crew. Gardeon, Tar'ee, Vaim thank you all for your service. Now, I must get my daughter to an escape pod.”

While all this took place, her father passed the controls to his navigation specialist and stood from his chair. When he turned to her, she looked up to see fear in his eyes for the first time. ¹Zaül approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder, as he started to speak softly even with the deep guttural sound of his voice.

“Argh. How you've grown, Reine. I want you to know… I know you'll do better than me and I'm proud of you.”

He cried a little bit, as he started to push her into the elevator that would take them down from the bridge. Reine was more astonished than anything, but something gripped her chest; they shot down the vessel in the fast elevator to the main body of the Swan. She started to cry and speak softly, as everything started to slowly sink in.

“H-how i-is that even possible? W-what am I s-supposed to do without you?”

She looked down and played with her hands, as she sadly laughed once. Her father reached over and pulled her into a hug. The elevator doors opened, and she could see the chaos aboard the ship. Many ran through the halls, meanwhile her father took her hand and led her down to a part of the ship she had never seen; he forced his way through the panic towards the bottom near the engine.

“I taught you everything you need to know to survive. They don't have any proof that you're a pirate, just stick to the story we rehearsed. They will let you go eventually. 

Listen, sometimes pirates get set up. I was set up by that last informant. Don't let that happen to you, investigate your leads to the best of your ability. Don't get caught up in revenge, like I did. The Federation isn't going anywhere, remember that and all that it means. 

You need to survive, I left you a deposit box at a bank on that last planet. The witch told me to - look for the biggest bank on the planet. Remember, the secret to my success is the heart of the Swan - so, please come back for her once I'm gone. That's all we have left of Her.”

Reine listened carefully, as he led her into a locked room with one open pod hatch attached to the bottom. The ship shook very violently and the sounds of the engine stopped, as Zaül started to push her down through the hatch into the pod. She spoke and attempted to climb out.