Unicorn Riders - Pinch (English)

Prologue

Vera Lippson was eleven years old and peeved. Peeved about herself.

She was sitting on a narrow wooden bench in a waiting room of the Coock City Spaceport security office and had her arms crossed before her in a sullen way. She ignored the two security officers standing to her left at the door, watching her warily, as well as she could. Besides that the room was empty – the information desk facing her was vacant, and there were no windows or holoscreens or anything worth her attention. On the other side of the closed door – the only door leading out of this room, hence guarded by these grim security officers – she could hear other security men going about their business of keeping law and order at the spaceport. That she ignored as well.

But when she heard a distant buzz, her face became even gloomier than before. The buzz increased, then changed its pitch and started to disappear. She knew what it meant. The buzz came from the engines of a starship. That starship which was supposed to take her away from this dull planet. Now it had left without her.

It was not very long before she could hear a male voice on the other side of the door. Despite the door between them Vera could clearly understand what they spoke: "... looking for my daughter, Vera Sofia Lippson. About that height, long dark hair, blue eyes."

Grey eyes, Vera corrected in thought with loathing. That bloke could not even get this detail right. Her mood dropped another two levels, and adding to her defiant pose she puckered her lips and looked gloomily at the door. Then she turned to the empty desk in front of her.

The officers on the other side seemed to make no heads or tails from that description. "I have nothing on her in the system. Could you state any more details?"

As she heard the words from the man on the other side of the door claiming to be her father, Vera was not sure whether to laugh or run berserk instantly. "Cocky, disrespectful and a bonafied pain in the ass."

"I see. Through this door, please."

The door slid open with a hiss. In came Igor Lippson, freelance mercenary, former transport captain and farm owner on this backwater planet Geshtachius Prime bursting with lush green meadows. Vera gave him but a short glimpse. He didn't look awfully happy. Big, with broad shoulders, short black hair, an edgy beardless face and a look Vera had encountered many times before on him, he even managed to impress the two security officers to both sides of the entrance. They took a small step back when he entered the room.

But she had nothing more in store for him than this short glimpse. She leaned back on her bench, staring at the empty desk in front of her. As the door closed hissingly, Igor stopped and looked grimly down at his daughter. Uncomfortable silence was building up between them.

Until Vera finally broke the silence. "I'm not talking to you," she hissed at Igor.

By crossing his own arms before his body Igor almost turned into a bigger, more muscular reflection of Vera. "All right," he said. "Then don't talk! Just come with me!"

"No." Vera defiantly shook her head. "I'd rather stay here."

She would have liked best to be aboard the starship on its way to planet Aquatica, a place a thousand times more interesting than this one. It drove her crazy that it hadn't worked out. It drove her even more nuts being on Geshtachius Prime in the first place – a planet on which the law was seemingly created to just keep children from doing anything. She did have the money for a ticket. But as soon as she had put her data into the booking computer in the spaceport main hall, she had triggered an alarm. Five minutes later she had been here, accompanied by these two security guys who wouldn't let her out of their sight.

Maybe she shouldn't have kicked the one's shin. Or maybe, just for that, she should have done so twice.

Igor took a few steps further into the room and rose to his full size in front of her. "Vera," he said insistently. "I'm serious: Come!"