Empire's Son: An Epic Science Fiction Novel Series

Near the Western Boarder of the Ethian Empire…

Admiral Ko-tus Vang was finally glad to put the business of Prince Adar behind him, leaving the Heir on Sora X and well on his way to bonding a new Protector. Vang had done as his Emperor wished of him in going beyond the border of the Empire––something that hadn’t been officially sanctioned in centuries––to find and retrieve the stolen prince home. But that mission had not only made his duties as Supreme Commander of the Zahnian Legion suffer, it had also caused him to abandon a battle cruiser just beyond Ethia’s border.

He had gone over the reports from Captain-Major Wexlen who had managed to recover the Xlero, but the crew left behind on the ship were now missing. What could have happened? Where could they have gone? There were no ships in the Xlero’s landing bay to use––all of them had been taken when Vang and most of his crew had been forced to abandon ship over a week ago. All life pods had been accounted for. The only conclusion Vang could come to was the mystery ship that had disabled the Xlero had also taken the left behind crew.

That possibility sat like a rock in Vang’s gut. He remembered the two encounters with the mysterious ship. The first time, it had disabled them, leaving the Xlero without power for nearly two days. But no one had threatened them beyond that. Vang’s crew had been able to get the ship woking so they could continue the mission to retrieve Prince Adar.

The second encounter was when the Xlero had almost made the trip back to the Empire. The attack had once again left them adrift and without power. Since they were so close to the border and Vang had not wanted to risk the Prince’s well-being, he had ordered the ship to be abandoned besides a skeleton crew to get the ship working again and back to the Empire.

The Xlero had indeed returned five days later, but empty of the skeleton crew, and no signs of the mystery ship. Of course, the obvious assumption was that the mystery ship had taken the crew members, but there were no signs of a battle or a breach on the Xlero. And Vang also wondered that if the mystery ship had wanted his people, then why take them the second time and not the first?

It was certainly an enigma and Vang had come to the western edge of the Empire to figure out what had happened to his people and to see if the mystery ship was still lurking out there somewhere in the void of space.

“Captain-Major Wexlen how goes the search?” Admiral Vang asked from the bridge of the Maxem.

The wide view screen across the front of the Command Center was full of the Captain-Major’s rough features. The man had served in the Legion almost as long as Vang’s seventy-five years, but it had taken Captain-Major far longer to rise through the ranks. Mostly, because Wexlen was a boots on the ground kind of person and was slow to accept being in command. But once he finally rose through the ranks, he had done admirably well. He might even make Admiral in a few years.

Wexlen’s normally wide lips were pursed in a straight line. “We laid out the grid search starting where the second attack happened. So far we have found nothing to indicate where the crew might have gone.”

Vang nodded, expecting as much. “Could they have found a breathable environment nearby, and then sent the Xlero back to the Empire on autopilot?”

It was another plausible scenario that had come up. The Xlero had been on autopilot when the ship was found. The techs just couldn’t determine where the ship had been exactly. That part of navigation had still not been brought back to full power. Though it was obvious that at least some of the repairs to restore the power on Xlero had happened, but then something seemed to have interrupt the process before it could be fully completed. So far, there was no indication of what that something could be. They crew certainly had the parts they needed to finish the job, but they hadn’t.

That led Vang back to the first possibility of the mystery ship abducting the crew, or perhaps threatening them enough to cause the Xlero crew to give the ship enough power to find a planet to hide, and then send the ship off on autopilot as a distraction. If that was the case, then Vang hoped they weren’t too late to find the crew.

Wexlen shook his head. “So far we’ve found nothing with a breathable atmosphere in our search. There’s just not much out here to begin with, but we will keep looking. It’s a large area. This could take awhile. We might even need more ships.”

Vang had already committed six for the task. Wexlen’s battle cruiser, two dreadnoughts, and three frigates. He wasn’t keen on sending any others until he knew more of what was going on. But he would if he had to. He was determined to find those men, and if they ran across the mysterious ship again, then they would be ready for that too. That’s why Vang had sent two dreadnoughts. Those ships were half the size of a cruiser, but certainly had far more firepower.

“Keep up the search, Captain-Major. I will check back in in eight hours.”

Wexlen brought his fist up to his heart, and a few moments later, the screen changed to show the map of gridlines they had set up in the area that Captain-Major was searching. They had barely even gotten a fourth of the area completed and Wexlen had been at it for five days.

Vang turned to the Captain of the Maxem. “Inform me when the eight hours is up, Captain Leonid, or if anything else comes up from the techs on Xlero. I have business to attend to in my office.”

The Captain saluted with fist to heart as Vang turned on his heels and made his way from the bridge and across the corridor. He entered his office and sat down in his chair. Now it was time to get get caught up on the normal duties he had to put aside while dealing with the Heir and the Xlero business.

Vang opened his terminal and scrolled through all the notices he had not managed to get to yet. Well over two thousand, but of course the most urgent had been sent to his second in command since Vang had left to retrieve the Prince. This was just the somewhat urgent, slightly less urgent than that, and not urgent at all, but someone insisting on complaining about some other thing or such.

At least it was down from the close to five thousand he had when coming back from being outside the Empire for a little over a month. He stifled a groan, and a mental complaint about having to go on that yavit mission in the first place. This was going to be a very long day indeed. He almost wished he’d just stayed on the bridge with Leonid, but this wasn’t going to get done all by itself. Vang grimaced and opened the message on the top and began to read.