《Trouble in the Stars》


 Finding Castle

    It''s been four years since I ran away from home, purposefully living on the streets, avoiding patrols, guards, running faster from any wardens I may see. I am not going back home, but it''s still two years until they can''t force me anymore. Today, I turned sixteen; making me old enough to purchase my own starship, and salvage permits.


    I have been working as part of Davidson''s Crew for the better part of three years, and Boss kindly kept back my pay so that I could save enough to buy my own salvage rig. We both know that I can''t afford much, and with my current budget, getting a ship big enough for even three people will be a stretch. So it''s a good thing that I am only looking for one big enough for myself.


    San Carlile Shipworks usually has decently used vessels on their line, and small ones like I am looking for tend to have quick turnover rates and are rarely burdened with major maintenance issues. Boss decided to come with me today to get my own ship and make sure that the rig I buy is able to work with it.


    "Sweets, this is your ship. I am only holding your money for you. You have to do the talking." Boss says to me as we walk up to the main building at the Shipworks; as I reach for the door, his hand goes over mine, keeping me from opening it just yet. "Sweets, if things go bust, you can always come back. I know this is what you want, so I won''t stop you. But its hard in the void for young lasses like yourself, even harder when you plan on going solo."


    I smile up at his worried face, a long lock of his brown hair falling over his azure eyes as he talks to me.


    "I know, Boss. If things look like they are going to go south, I''ll contact the Crew."


    He nods to my response, moving his hand, while apprehension is still painted across his features. I''ve been with his Crew long enough to know the tension in his shoulders is mostly from worrying about me from here on. It only relaxes a little when we go through the door.


    "And stop calling me Boss. I''ve told you before, its John." he chides


    "When you stop calling me Sweets, I''ll stop calling you Boss." as long as I have known him, he has called me Sweets. I didn''t like it then, and I don''t like it now; but it is the callsign that I have had since the first time I was on communications with his crew, a position I have held for the last two years, and because all the traffic controllers in this area know me by that name, I get it all the time.


    "I think it sounds better than Candy, and besides, even the controllers think it fits, it''s you." he hands me a data card. "Which is why it''s now your official salvager handle."


    "You didn''t?" I ask as a salesman walks up to the two of us.


    "Not now, Sweets, you have work to do." he grins, knowing that I won''t say anything to him while business is present. Making it more obvious that he timed handing me my official Salvager''s Licence to just that moment.


    The three of us spent the next four hours combing through every two and three-person ship within my budget, and never really found anything that stood out to me. As we walked back toward the sales house, I saw a four-person vessel that caught my eye.


    It was obvious it was old, really old. It was a bit bigger than I was looking for, but what stood out to me was the shape of the cockpit. It was in the shape of an old military captain''s yacht. I stopped walking as I looked at the ship, noticing that the frame lines were still intact, even though some systems were exposed. The vast majority of the life support, fuel cell, and engine compartment armor was still in place, the radiation shielding looked new, at least the bits that weren''t covered by the scant sheeting covering the ship.


    The salesman noticed where my eyes were focused, and I could see him get a grin. He thought he had this ship sold already.


    "Miss, that ship is within the budget you named to me earlier; I didn''t show it to you earlier because you stated you wanted only a three-person, or smaller, vessel," he said while wringing his hands in an obvious way.


    "You''re a bad liar," I said to him as I approached the ship. "The engines are still warm, this girl just came in," I said as I smelled the rich fuel vapor hanging around the ship.


    After talking with him for thirty minutes, and doing a quick walkthrough of the ship, we decided to purchase it, and I managed to talk him down to the lower end of my budget. It took only minutes to attach the ship to my Salvager Licence so that my name wouldn''t actually be attached to it. As lunchtime neared, I sat down in my cockpit for the first time, and Boss sat in the navigator''s chair as we went back to his ship. The smell of mildew filled the cabin as the air circulated through the water filters, that obviously hadn''t been changed in a while.


    "Well, there is always something to fix onboard." Boss smiles at me.


    "Boss, did you recognize the frame when I stopped?" I asked him as we lneared the pad next to Fuego, the ship I called home for the past few years. "Because I recognized it, which is why I had to have her." I grinned at him while keeping track of all of my monitors for a safe, but close, landing.


    "No." he answered honestly, eyes fully on me.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "This is a Captain''s Yacht," I said honestly, sparing only a second to glance at his expression before returning to landing the ship. "Specifically, this design was only used for three years, five ships large enough to have a Captain''s Yacht were built during the time frame that this design would have been used."


    I could tell I had him. in all honesty, I remembered this design from history classes before I ran away. from the classes about the end of the Expansion War. The war we won, and the empire lost.


    "This is an Empyrian Battleship''s Captain''s yacht from the Late years of the Expansion," I said to him. "One of those ships built is the famed Castle."


    "You bought this thinking it might lead you to that wreck?" he asked.


    "No, I bought this ship because it''s bigger than I anticipated, was within my budget, and already has a salvager rig mounted to it." once the weight of the ship settled fully on the five landing feet, I looked him in the eyes. "and I love history."


    "Sweets, if you don''t paint this bubble-gum pink, I will have to smack you." he joked. It was his way of telling me that he knew I was lying.


    "I doubt its Castle''s Yacht, it could be Electra''s, Rook''s, or Pharoh''s. The Ark, the only other ship built during that time frame still has it''s original yacht."


    "Isn''t the Ark property of the King?" he asked me.


    "It''s property of the royal family," I confirmed. "I got to see it a couple times when I was a kid, it really has beautiful lines. I learned about those ships because of him," I slipped, but Boss didn''t notice it, so I wasn''t going to point it out.


    "Well, let''s get you packed up and supplied, we''re gonna miss you kid. even though we all knew this day was here, it doesn''t make it any easier."


    Fuego''s dining hall was more noisy than normal, and the food was better as well. Everyone was saying bye in their own way. A few of the other girls, Kat, the first officer, being the most energetic, helped me get my personal stuff onto my, yet unnamed ship, as well as put it away. as soon as my stuff was transferred, I was required by station security to evacuate the dock, otherwise the Fuego wouldn''t be able to take off on time, and it would cause delays.


    I take my new girl up to orbital height, set the auto course correction to maintain height above sea level. Two hours later, I hear Boss chattering to the traffic controllers over the yacht''s speakers, which by protocol are all on at this height in case of an emergency broadcast.


    "Ladies and Gentlemen, and fellow Scavengers;" he began in a showman''s tone. "This is John, of Davidson''s Crew. I would like to let everyone know, that our Communications Officer, Sweets, has joined the ranks of Scavengers, bought her own ship, and has taken to the skies on her own." chaff flairs could be seen launching all over the place in congratulations for me. I had seen it before, but never received the Scavenger''s Salute. Boss, came back over the radio, in a more serious tone. "Please keep an eye out for her, and if I find out that a Scavenger has harmed her, they best have the backing of the military, because that is what it will take to keep me from coming after them."


    It was my turn to respond, but I really didn''t want to.


    "Boss, this is Sweets." although I hated the callsign because it was now on my official paperwork, I had to use it. "I just thought I would tell you: I was right about the Yacht. I''ll miss you guys, I am going to find a Ghost-ship." I said over the radio, launching my own chaff and flairs, the custom of someone leaving a crew to strike out on their own.


    I rubbed the metal panel on the bottom of the dash for the little switch that I had once found on Ark''s Yacht and flipped it. the auto course adjusted my pitch and attitude, and twenty minutes later I left Orbit of Frejer''s second moon.


    Just as I was leaving orbit, my shipboard messenger alerted me to a message, from John Davidson.


    # Sweets,


    #Please tell me that your yacht isn''t Castle''s.


    #Please, Please tell me that you aren''t going after THAT Ghostship.


    #Boss


    I quickly typed back a message before I could leave message range, and the message would get stored on the ships computer, until I came within range of a comm relay.


    #Boss


    #Auto-return activated, homing in on host ship.


    #Host ship is most likely Castle, Nav says its 93 hours out.


    #I''ll let you know what ship I find.


    #Candice Brighton


    I knew sending my real name would get his attention, and I received his message just before I lost long-range communications.


    #Sweets;


    #Wait, you are THE Candice Brighton!


    #Do you have any idea the reward for any information of your whereabouts is?


    #Do you realize how much money we could have made by announcing you being sighted at various planets?


    #Well Played Sweets, be careful hunting Ghost ships, and if its Castle, stay as far away from her as possible.


    #John Davidson


    Sorry Boss, I want to see her in person, even if she is fully picked clean, I want to actually see her.


    I spend the next four days cleaning out each of the ship''s water filters. The oxygen harmlessly bubbled through fresh clean water adding a bit of humidity to the air so that it wouldn''t be so dry. surprisingly enough the galley was fully stocked and even had some things that I knew I hadn''t paid for, as well as a few handwritten notes from the crew letting me know I could come back at any time. I hung them up on the walls of the room I claimed as my bedroom.


    I started scrubbing the dirt and tar off the interior panels, hoping to clean up the yacht some, it''s not like I have much else to do right now. but before I got very far, the alert tones for slowing down, and exiting hyperspace go off, and I make a mad dash to the cockpit.


    I sit down just in time to see the plasma shield, that protects from debris while in hyperspace, fall away, and the scene in front of me is mindboggling.


    The massive hulk of the ancient battleship Castle fills up my window. as I approach, lights start flickering on, like its welcoming its captain home, suddenly a tractor beam strikes my little ship, and I get pulled into a small pocket on the dorsal section of the ship that was obviously made specifically for the little yacht.


    The obvious battle scars, the massive holes that had been cut through the hull with plasma cutters, the lack of any firepower from being stripped over the decades was very evident. but obviously, something was missed because the ship was powering on. which meant the electrical systems were mostly still intact, as were a lot of the lighting systems.


    "New Captain Registered." I heard a woman''s voice announce in the yacht''s speakers. "New Captain registered as Candice ''Sweets'' Brighton, First Princess of Tal Oz, currently first in line to the throne."


    Well crap, at least nobody was here to hear that.


    "Please never say that again. Refer to me simply as Candice, Candy, or Sweets. Ignore royal proclamation 126.4 dash B"


    "Voiceprint ID verified, Marking 126.4-B as ''always ignore''. Welcome aboard Candice. would you like a status update?"


    Castle might be a ghost ship, but she is working, well somewhat; let''s find out what the damage really is.


    "Give me a line item status, by priority," I say, giving her the order to list the status of the most important equipment to operation first.


    "Yes, Candice." it always takes a second to organize the status lists, but it''s expected.


    "Line Item One: Auto Repair function: Active, functioning, repairing hull breaches only in areas between Yacht and bridge."


    "Line Item Two: Auxilary batteries: Active, Compromised: 30% capacity, solar recharge underway."


    "Line Item Three: Solar Array: Active, Compromised: 44% panels effective, 10% panels not found."


    It went on like that for the next four hours, listening to each and everything wrong with the ship from hull breaches, to shield emitters down, lacking weaponry, to even lacking supplies to correct her own deficiencies.


    "Castle, what should I call your onboard artificial intelligence?" I asked at the end of the list of things needing attention.


    "I am the ship, the ship is me," she answers. "Error in date time code, correcting; correcting; corrected. Castle has been dormant for one hundred thirteen years, six months, twelve days, three hours, and six minutes. FTL communication acquired. Downloading ship recognition database. Completed. Downloading materials to upgrade the database. Completed. Located sister ship Ark. Permission to connect communication array to Ark?"


    "Permission denied." I nearly shouted. "Do not attempt to ping Ark unless my life is in direct danger, and require immediate assistance." I managed a little more calmly.


    "Understood."


    It was going to be a long night.

 The Bridge

    "Castle, is it possible to rename you?" I asked apprehensively, knowing how Ark felt on the subject.


    "Candice, I have not functioned for over a century, this is the first time my captain''s yacht has returned in all that time. I doubt my old name holds the weight it used to," she replied.


    "Quite contrary, my dear. You, are a historic relic, shrouded in mystique and mystery; Ark told me about you when I was little, even he envies you, and what you may be capable of. My old captain even warned me that if I found you, I should stay clear." I smile to myself as I continue to scrub the panels in the dining room, the main hall, cockpit, and my bedroom already done, showing an eggshell white throughout the cleaned portions of the ship. "Would you care to venture a guess as to why, my dear?"


    "I have no idea, wouldn''t my systems be outdated by now, newer and better ships produced?"


    "Castle, of the five ships built with the same frame as you, only Ark is currently commisioned by a government, three are confirmed Dead, and for the last fifty years nobody has been able to find you, you have been classified as a ghostship, a ship with an intelligence, presumed dead, but with systems flickering through powered states without warning. Fifty years ago, your hyper engines activated in the middle of a salvage mission that was aimed at ''reclaiming'' your repair bots and trying to get them to Ark. Only one was taken from the ship before your hyperspace shield came on, and the engine began to flair." I had seen the videos from Ark, he had been on her port side watching the operation.


    "In our current society, nothing is more dangerous than a Ghost Ship, and the longer they are unseen, the more likely they are to be dangerous, with corrupted memory files." I sigh at my own admission as to how dangerous me chasing this ship was, but I am still glad I did it. "But what truly makes you dangerous is the fact that of your four sister ships, you were the only one capable of using magic."


    Ark had told me about this too. In the fight where she was officially declared sunk, she had been launching void magic and using space magic like it was going out of style. Because the empire feared the ships being captured, they never told the sister ships about the specifications of each other, and hardcoded a ban on them pilfering any information about their sister ships from the systems; well anything told orally could be retained, or captured video from non-government sources.


    As I finished the last little corner of the eggshell-colored wall in the dining hall, I heard something clanking on the hull of the captain''s yacht. "Castle, is that you on the outside of the yacht?" I ask quickly as I run to the cockpit, to see if I can see anything.


    "Yes, Candice. Three repair drones are correcting the deficiencies in the yacht''s angle shields, as well as replacing the armor plating, rerouting wires, as well as bringing the yacht up to current shipyard standards. Please, do not worry, as the oxygen seal will not need to be broken in order to fix the deficiencies in the yacht. The path between my bridge and the yacht is now part of the oxygen seal, if you are uncomfortable, you may proceed to the bridge.


    I decide to take her up on the offer, and walk through the hallway to the back of the ship, to the door between the two hyperspace engines, upon looking into a small camera to the side, the camera quickly determines that I am allowed to open this particular door, and it slides into the floor.


    Charing is still visible on the walls, floor, and ceiling, and most of the lights are either off or flickering, but their priority for repair is on the lower end of the scale. Smooth patches of steel are visible past mangled messes of wires, pipes, and infrastructure that got pierced through during the last battle Castle participated in; this hallway was truly a mess, but for now, it was part of the Seal, and therefore safe.


    The pale grey carpet that had once been stretched smooth across the floor was now bunched in places, especially near places where new patches were evident. The door behind me closed as I walked down the corridor, and a junction in the hallway went to the left and right.


    "Candice, my sensors show your lifesigns at the junction of the dorsal escape tunnel; both left and right tunnels will lead you to the main bridge, server room, crystal storage, battery storage, and the emergency bridge. due to the cleaning drones being used in light repair operations, I would like to recommend not approaching the emergency bridge, as they have not been given a chance to remove the human remains from the room, would you like for me to change their priority to doing so?"


    I''m not sure if I can get used to her being so stiff.


    "No, your operations and repair of defense mechanisms are a priority at the moment. We will need to go into a mining belt to collect minerals for you to repair, Boss made sure that I had permission to use the claims used by Davidson''s Crew, but I can''t pick them clean. we might be able to collect enough minerals so you can rebuild a few turrets, but I doubt we can take much more than that from the crew claims and still be in their good graces."Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Since FTL communication arrays are operational, once you reach the bridge, I will be able to connect you to their vessel," she informs me, losing a bit of her monotone reply, almost seeming excited to be doing something other than repair.


    "Are your shields operational up to fifty percent, able to last at least an hour, and not drain your systems to the point you go into sleep mode in under sixteen hours?" I ask plainly.


    "No," she answers.


    "Then we stay here, doing basic maintenance, and repairs until you can. I did not find you, just to lose you. You know what most ships are capable of these days, and of the twenty sentient ships built by the empire, you and Ark are the only two left."


    "I wasn''t built by the empire. I was stolen by the empire. I was built by the kingdom of Tal Oz, I was built to be the Queen''s Flagship. Ark was built based on my design, but they couldn''t get the crystal formations right in order for him to use magic." she dropped a bomb on me there, decided to go down the path to my right, thick armored glass with massive blast shutters allowed me to see out into the void, stars, tiny in appearance from this distance, could be seen stationary through the panes. to my left, doors every few feet. I opened the first door, and a wave of heat hit me, the control servers for the repair drones were working overtime and felt like they were beginning to overheat.


    "Castle, what is the maximum safe operating temperature of these servers?"


    "Thirty-two degrees."


    "And what is the current mean temperature?"


    "Seventy-nine degrees."


    "Shift priority, fix the climate control for this room and maintain the temperature inside for optimal processor usage. Once this room is repaired, return to current priority list."


    "Yes, Captain." she paused for a moment, then continued. "Captain, if I remove material from the hangar floors, I can repair 100% of the hull, bring the ship to 100% oxygen seal, and repair 89% of the electrical, hydraulic, and life support systems, and we can be underway by the end of the day, it would also allow me to correct the issues in the battery bank and allow me to store 77% of the power I was originally capable of."


    "Go ahead, thanks for the recommendation." seemed like she was opening up some, but still quite stuffy.


    I opened the second door along the hallway, and a network of light filled prisms filled my vision, I glanced at the door quickly, and in the old written form, the door was named ''Crystal Access'' "Your crystals are pretty. Ark never let me see his."


    "It''s prohibited for anyone other than the captain to enter that room," she answered back abruptly. "Even then, I have a bit of apprehension with a new captain in there."


    "May I ask why?" She doesn''t answer for a while, but then seems to figure out how to say something.


    "I am bare in that room. It would be like walking out of a changing room wearing only your underwear. I would say birthday suit, but there are actually covers to protect the sensitive formations."


    "Thanks for the heads up." I close the door and walk past the doors labeled for the batteries, and emergency bridge, and enter the door labeled ''Main Bridge''.


    There was no smell in the room at all, and a fresh patch just behind the door, and a place where a panel should be, but instead, hanging wires; which let me know why there was no odor here. The main viewing screens, two of which would normally display graphics about important ship systems, that would be mounted between the port and starboard emergency exits, one of which was the door I just entered, were shattered. the starburst pattern on the center one told me that it went before the room went vacuum. The crystalline shattering of the other two told me they blew because the room went void; at each of the officer stations around the room, the screens were the same way.


    Shuttle traffic control''s radar screens were of a different design, so they could function in the void, the three screens were working proudly, the screens were each a different color to denote which axis they were recording from, port to starboard was yellow, bow to stern was red, and dorsal to keel was green.


    Across the bridge, in the same location on the port side, was a station set up almost identically, however I knew it to be the fighter traffic control, all the manned and unmanned fighters in the area would show up on those three screens, and would also show inbound shuttles, but not outbound ones, that were also on the STC''s screens.


    The three chairs at the communication''s stations were well labeled with intership communication, intraship communication, and Chief of communications.


    Likewise, the four chairs at the security station were the same, with the additional one labeled Cyber Security.


    On the floor, in the center of the room, was a chair recessed into the floor, angled back slightly, Ark had the same thing, this was for a human pilot, Ark preferred to have a human pilot, but it wasn''t needed. He only liked it because it allowed him to focus on the other aspects of the ship, and ignore mundane things like moving.


    To the left of the pilot''s seat is the Chief Engineer''s station, and to the pilot''s right is the navigation station, with the ship captain''s chair being placed behind the pilot, but still close enough that a captain the height of a normal adult could kick the pilot in the head without much trouble while never leaving their chair.


    The light in the center of the semi-circular room was without a shade, and only part of the fixture was working anyway, so the diffuser only served to add an eerie ambiance to the room without smells. But, the thing that creeped me out the most, was what was in the center of the back wall, flanked by the ship''s two main elevators.


    "Castle, can you explain what that is in the center of the back wall in the main bridge?"


    "Oh, you mean me?" she asks.


    Water inside the tank drains quickly, and the cylinder of glass raises into the ceiling, as massive cords pop off of the thing that was in the tank only moments ago; and before me stood a very naked girl, with no arms, but beautiful blue eyes and hair so dark that it shimmers violet in the scant artificial light.


    Instead of arms, she had robotic prosthetics, the kind that was used a century ago.


    "Don''t worry, Candice, this body is just a proxy I can control anywhere onboard this ship," she answers from in front of me, instead of the overhead speakers. "I am still part of the ship, but I can remote pilot this proxy as long as I am not in battle. the body is not human, so it requires charging instead of food and water."


    "We need to get you some clothes." At my comment she places her arms on her stomach and a liquid substance wraps around her torso and upper thighs then seems to become a fabric bodysuit. It also traces itself along cracks in the artificial skin, and repairs the cracks, making her look more human than before.


    "No need, nanites can take care of that issue."

 Inspection

    The stark contrast between the new patches and the original hull help break up the lines of the ship, providing some optical camouflage, but make the ship stand out in the void all the more. The inspection is a mandated part of Castle''s programming and is required by the captain any time she has been stationary for more than 15 days, so, this definitely suffices, I mean we are measuring her stationary time in years here.


    There are six turrets built, and rotating through their motions to attempt to find any issues in their movement. But, unlike modern rifled barrel turrets, hers look completely different, a series of massive rings supported by thin bars. She tells me that they will work, and be more accurate than rifled barrels, so I''ll trust her for now.


    Her angle shields burst to life for a few seconds at a time, as part of the inspection, the violet hexagons shutter on and off repeatedly, it¡¯s a beautiful sight to match the lines of the kilometer long ship. At her widest point, she is 205 meters wide, and a mere 189 meters tall, a very long vessel, but the standard battleship shape of the time.


    Her eight hyperdrive engines all looked newly refurbished, knowing the state she was in when I found her, they probably are. Her forty-six sub-light aft engines all have the telltale glow of being primed, but not burning for thrust. as do the Ion engines along her port and starboard sides. The twenty retro thrusters along the wide bow make it look like it has headlights, well it does, but they aren''t anywhere near that size, and are currently off, as they are only used for docking with a space station.


    It''s been a week since I left Boss at the spaceport. And if it weren''t for Castle forgetting to tell me about this inspection, I could have been underway late last night. well, I say forgetting, more like she assumed that I knew about century-old military policies that don''t exist anymore. Since her programming tripped the visual inspection protocol, I couldn''t change it until after I had already done the work.


    The battle-scarred dark grey ship, with bare-metal patches glinting off the inspection vehicle''s massive lights, was still pretty. I aimed the inspection bubble back toward the open hangar door that I had left from, entering the massive ship; the decking and most of the thickly armored ceiling had been salvaged to finish the seal repairs throughout the ship, making her mostly operational, we would still need to visit a few mining claims in order to be able to get her up to battle ready, and that''s assuming she doesn''t get attacked on sight, for being a ghost ship.


    I had to be careful getting the little ship back onto its gantry, as there is currently no armor protecting the inside of the hangars, all the gantries just hold the remaining repair ships, and mining drones in the place they were before the armor was salvaged to be used elsewhere. Where the doors were supposed to open only when a ship needed to leave, all the redundant wiring to do that has been removed, and used to fix electrical issues throughout the ship, only the largest two doors at the back of the ship don''t open, as the cargo ships that were originally meant to go there don''t exist anymore.


    Castle really wants to rebuild them, and I can kind of figure out why. They are much easier to transport cargo and supplies to and from a fully manned ship than using only the captain''s yacht. The top of the bubble bumps the activation ring for the air seal, and I feel the little thing shimmy as the magnetic ring activates, realigns the ship to exact orientation, then gets pulled up to the airlock in the top of the flight deck.


    I open the door, and it folds down toward the back, revealing the ladder rungs along the outside edge of the door, and climb up onto the concourse deck. other than the dead plants in the planters, and the water spots on the floor from where the temperature suddenly rose and thawed the ice that had floated in here for who knows how long, it actually looked in fairly good condition. The plant life here on the concourse was meant to assist the CO2 scrubbers, as well as oxygen production. so they will need to be replaced if I plan on getting this ship crewed. I might do it anyway, just because Ark''s garden on the concourse deck was so beautiful.


    His was also practical, the plants that are here are just for aesthetics. Ark''s had herbs mixed in with the fruiting bushes, and vegetable vines. And the flowers that were placed aboard were placed strictly for their aromatherapy benefits.


    "Are you ready now?" I ask, in mock annoyance.


    "Yes, Candice. what location would you like for me to move to?"


    "Davidson''s Crew Claim four four six eight." I say, as I rattle off the one I remember having the highest iron content. "We should net a decent amount of iron from there."


    I feel the sublight engines ignite, the thrust made me nearly stumble, only because I didn''t expect it. I forgot that the inertial dampeners are one of those things that aren''t fully repaired yet. I climb the stairs through multiple decks to reach the bridge, although it''s located near the dorsal mounted captain''s yacht, there is nearly a meter of armor covering it. Making the holes that I had originally seen in the walls when I entered that much more impressive.


    The remaining bodies that were located throughout the ship were all interred at the ship''s onboard morgue, and the medical room was taken down to freezing temperatures in order to preserve the bodies that wouldn''t fit in the official morgue.


    I don''t actually have to return the bodies, but I would want to be interred properly if I had been found, also, the Empire still pays for the finding of cadavers from the Expansion Wars. It''s not much, but it''s not like I went out of my way to find the seventy bodies that were already on board. And I am nearly broke, I am not about to give up free money.


    A mere hour later, the hyperspace plasma shield hums to life, the view screens are still down, so I can''t see them, but their trademark hum vibrates through the bridge. It''s the same sound no matter how big or small the ship, they all run at the same frequency, a short five minutes later, I get forced to sit down in the captain''s chair by the thrust of the hyper engines flairing to life, and taking us toward the claim I told her about. As I sit there, I watch the fluid like goo of nanites converge on the central view screen, and begin repairing it, as it nears completion, the nanites spread to the outer two screens, eliminate them, then seemingly rebuild them from scratch. I was so mesmerized by watching them do it, that I hadn''t realized that six hours had passed, and we were slowing down.


    "Should we be slowing down already?" I asked, knowing how long it would have taken Fuego to get where we were going.


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    "We are arriving at the destination, two hours ahead of planned schedule. modern fuel mixture algorithms increased fuel efficiency and nearly doubled thrust output of my hyperspace engines. If I don''t slow down now, the retro thrusters will burn out attempting to slow me down enough to not overshoot the claim, or avoid hitting anything."


    The central screen powers to life and the prismatic plasma shield flickers across the screen, the top of the ship, and the captain''s yacht can be seen easily at the bottom of the screen, two of the turrets that had been repaired are visible near the bow, and the rest of the screen is the void, slowly gaining size are the asteroids among the portion of the belt that Davidson''s Crew had claims to. The plasma shield finally gave way, and a clear view of the claim could be seen.


    As could the long green beams of Fuego''s mining cannons.


    "I am gonna be in so much trouble," I said to myself. "Castle, send a non-aggression signal to the Fuego, then a text message from me stating the intention to mine, list the top five minerals, and their ammounts, you need for the moment."


    "Yes, Captain," she says plainly, the body I had met earlier was back in the tank behind me, naked, again. "Fuego requesting video communication."


    "Grant it." at my word''s boss''s face appears on the screen, and the clear tank behind me goes translucent, hiding Castle''s naked form.


    "Sweets," Boss said with his mock angry tone.


    "Boss!" I say as sweetly as possible, and give him a knowing smile.


    "You tamed a ghost ship?"


    "Nope, I only returned it''s captain''s yacht. Ark had told me before about it, that a sentient ship has to recognize a new captain, and the easiest way to do that is to be the only person on the registration for its captain''s yacht. so as soon as I returned, it saw me as a captain, and not a threat."


    He grinned a mischievous smile.


    "You knew exactly what that was when you picked it up."


    "Yes, but on to business. I need some minerals and lots of them."


    "I saw the list and the amounts. This claim has plenty of those, I was here getting Magnetite, but Castle can take anything she needs. Actually, it would be better if you emptied the claim."


    "I can do that in four hours." I hear her say.


    "Was that Castle''s intelligence?" Boss asks quickly. "Four hours to empty the claim, have at it."


    "My scans show I will only be missing 300kg of synthstone from the mining operation in question, however, I will have enough material to create it, would this be okay, Captain?"


    "Absolutely. I want you as fully operational as this claim can get you." I look back to the screen, and Boss is grinning. "Why do you want this claim empty?"


    "Because I just got challenged for it, and I didn''t intend to show up to the challenge; I do now, though."


    Being challenged for the claim means that the opposing crew will be allowed to enter the claim, and mine for six hours unobstructed, then the claimed crew does the same thing, with the mining administration in a refining ship above the field. the vessel that nets the highest value from the claim in their six hours gets to keep it.


    It goes unsaid that most crews won''t stake a challenge unless they have already illegally entered a claim, scanned it, and decided they could win.


    As we entered the claim, I felt something move through the ship, and all the seams of the armor plates flashed pink as an asteroid disappeared.


    "What was that?" I asked holding the mute button on the captain''s chair.


    "Space magic. The asteroid is now being held in one of my extradimensional spaces, where I have my refining equipment. Refining the field will take much longer than just acquiring the materials, but we should only have to take forty-six hours to refine enough for our offensive capabilities to match or exceed original parameters."


    I unmute the communications screen. "When is this challenge supposed to be?"


    "In nine hours, the administrator is supposed to be here in three."


    "Anything wrong with a repaired ghost ship sitting in the middle of your claim when they arrive?" I grin.


    "Oh, dear, I was right to keep you as long as I did. you are going to be a gold-mine." he grins back.


    While he can still hear me, I issue the next order to Castle.


    "Castle, while we are here, I want you to forcibly open communications channels to any incoming ships, text only, and send gibberish messages every thirty minutes."


    "You don''t want me to actually tell them anything, just randomly send them messages."


    "Yes, I want them to still think you are a ghost ship, at least for now."


    "Yes, Captain." as she says that, the pink glow flairs along the ship again, and another asteroid disappears, the process repeats itself several times over the next few hours, finally slowing down for the last six asteroids that are rather large. Fuego left at some point during the first hour, so he wouldn''t be visible when the official arrived but said he would make a point to arrive now.


    The official to the challenge arrives just as the last asteroid was being picked up, and Fuego dropped in next to him a few minutes later. the challenger arrived right on time, as we were still sitting in the middle of the, now empty, claim.


    Repair bots had been scattered all over the ship, a few new ones had even been built to fill out the gantries for them, and the bots were building the remaining turrets for the massive ship.


    "Hey Castle, since you can use space magic, can you teleport us somewhere?"


    "Yes, I can teleport anywhere within 22 AU with the current mana reserve, however, that would take four castings of the spell, with each casting being able to move us 5.5 AU, which is the physical limit of the spell. I could also cast transference, and that would allow me to relocate to any place the captain''s yacht has been in the past forty-five days."


    "Teleporting 11AU would be more than enough. The first one would still be close enough to be spotted on that admin''s sensors. The second one would be well outside. Keep in mind, this is the first time in fifty years your hull has been spotted."


    The hull panels flashed a vibrant pink, and the asteroids of the neighboring claims disappeared from the screen, the second flash changed only the placement of the stars in my screen.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    This was only supposed to be a routine Claim Challenge. instead, I arrive and sitting in the middle of the claim is a massive ghost ship. Castle. She hadn''t been seen in nearly fifty years, but she is obviously still operational. and what she needed with that much material, I have no idea.


    the seams of her armor flash a vibrant pink in sequence from the aft to the front of the ship, and the only remaining asteroid in the claim area disappears as soon as the flash touches her bow. I had heard the ship could use Arcane Arts, but I never suspected it was true. I stood there dumbfounded for nearly a minute.


    "Mam, we are getting hailed by the ship in the claim." my communications chief tells me.


    "What¡¯s the message?" I ask.


    "Gibberish Mam." he looks at me strangely. " It is literally the word gibberish."


    Dear gods, what have I gotten myself into? The report on the sighting of a ghost ship alone, is going to take me days.

 Fear of Castle

    "Sir, Castle pinged me." Ark''s proxy told me. I had been having him masqurade as my butler since my daughter was born. it was a good thing too. when she had ''run away'' when she was twelve, he had already been under orders to let her go, and to assist if she asked, which he did.


    "Was it a deliberate act?" because her current classification as a ghost ship, I needed him to clarify.


    "From what I can tell, she has recognized a new captian, and has begun startup procedures, but thats all I could get from the back track, then I was forcably cut." he says plainly. "I mention this in private after the fact only because of who the recognized captain is, sir."


    I turn to face him, making it obvious I want him to continue, but he doesn''t.


    "Not here, sir. Your private quarters, and with the missus present." he says.


    "its that big of a deal huh? should we prepare for war?" I ask seriously.


    "I think the missus needs to hear the answer to that question too." since day one, he hasn''t called my wife Queen, only ''the missus'' making it clear that he has no respect for her. well quite honestly, I don''t have much anymore. before Candice was born, our marraige was a loving one, and we honestly enjoyed each other''s company, but once our daughter was in the picture, we constantly argued about how to raise her, we still do; even though she is far from home, and we lost track of her a year ago when Davidson''s crew slipped a blockade that we were sure Candice was on the ship at the time for. we haven''t been able to confirm since then wether or not she was still a part of his crew, but we had been keeping tabs on him just in case.


    I came out of my thoughts as I entered my wife''s private bedroom, she was still in her nightgown laying in bed, well past two in the afternoon.


    "So, what is so important that you had to tell both of us?" I ask, making it obvious that I didn''t want to be here at the moment.


    "Castle is reactivated, and began going through her startup procedures five hours ago. her ping to me, notified me of a few things, but made two things abundantly clear. she has recognized her new captain for two reasons. first, the new captian is of her programmed, lineage preference, second, the new captain arrived to her location on a captain''s yacht."


    "okay?" I urged him to continue.


    "the new Captain is a female, of sixteen years of age, is of the Tal Oz Royal lineage, and is named Candice Brighton, she was instructed to ignore the royal mandate to refer to her new captain by her official titles, a few seconds later, the pings stopped, and all of my attempts to return a ping was forcably terminated. Castle did manage to make it clear that if I approach, she will sink me, and even in her crippled state, I have no doubt that she can."


    "So you know where my daughter is?" my wife asks behind me.


    "I know where the princess will be for the next two days, but it will take nine days to travel there, and by the time we arrive, not only can I guarantee that Castle won''t be there, she will be mostly operational again." he sighs and looks back to me. "the only saving grace we have right now sir, is that the captain is the princess, and that Castle will actually obey a member of the royal family. after all your great grandfather commanding her to blow her own bridge charges from another ship is what ended her rampage of our forces during the expansion wars. her hard coded preference to obey the Tal Oz royal lineage is the only thing that has that monstrosity even remotely on our side, but thats only if we don''t piss off the princess. Again."


    "what do you mean, as her father, I should have some control over Castle?"


    Ark is shaking his head quickly to tell me that I am wrong. "no, Terrance''s command worked because the bridge commander had stupidly told the ship he was Tal Oz royalty in the middle of the fight; because her captain protocal lists it as a primary preference, it created conflicting algarithms, and thats what caused her to rampage in that battle. in fact, she decimated both sides of the fleet after that, almost equally. her rampage, her revilation of going against the very family she was designed to serve, is why we won the expansion wars in the first place, even if the public only knows her as the most agressive sentient battleship in history, and the first battleship that could not only use mechenical advantage, but also the arcane arts."


    "you say it like she is more than a battleship."


    "Sir, I flew next to her before I was captured by Terrance. she is a barely controlable wildcard, and worse, the things that she hides in her extradimensional spaces is scarry. I know for a fact that she has a refining center inside one of those spaces that is more effecient than any place in the kingdom. I watched her refine, process, and produce items in a few hours that would take months from any of the current kingdom''s facilites. if given the chance, she can even refine stone that would otherwise be useless into synthstone. I watched her sling rounds of synthstone ammunition in the middle of the fleet for no other reason than her saying that she had too much of it."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "too much synthstone?" my wife asked. "is such a thing possible?"


    "Missus, she slung four thousand rounds in that three day battle, every one of them a 50kg salvo of synthstone. I dare not go against her."


    "how much synthstone did she have that she said she had too much of it?" I asked. synthstone is very difficult to refine, and mold into usable shapes, mages would pay hundreds of thousands of credits to be able to touch a gram of it, and here he is talking about a ship that used tons of it as disposable ammunition.


    "I can''t retain any information about her specific specifications, its in my core programming to forget anything specific that I do manage to aquire about her, other than non-military sources. thankfully that particular day that I saw her with the salvos of synthstone, it was being recorded by a media ship, and the altercation was against a band of pirates, all of whom liked to record their exploits, so I was able to aquire a lot of information, and retain it through those tapes. its the things that I can remember happening, but not the specifics of how they happend around her that actually scare me. but that aside, do you know what a 50kg synthstone slug does when it impacts angled hex shields? it shatters, without loosing any kenetic energy. creating the effect of a close range shotgun with every round. she shreded those ships, with rounds capable of ignoring the shields. worse she was using a transference spell, a teleport spell, and her trademark void spell throuhout that fight. but the worst part of it was she was able to use the teleport spell on the enemy vessels too, but sadly, or gratefully depending on how you look at it, she couldnt'' use the spell on the crew. as soon as she figured it out, it was a quick win, with most of the ships still in tact."


    "why haven''t you ever told me about this before?" I ask Ark.


    "Because I never thought it a real possiblity to fly with her again. and by the way, if you ask me to fly against her, I will refuse. I will shut myself down before I go against that monster, even in a mock battle."


    for my wife''s bennifit, I asked a question that I knew the answer too already, but she needed to hear me ask. "So, is there any way that you can communicate with Castle, and see if Candice will come home?" I hoped he would say no, that she wouldn''t come home. Candice needs to stay away, at least for another year, in order to be free of my wife''s ideals of what she should be and do.


    "Castle is under a direct order to not contact me, thats why my pings keep getting terminated, so I quit, out of respect, and fear of Castle. if you annoy her enough, she won''t care anymore what happens to her, she will kill you."


    "so thats a no then?" Harmony asks. "Albert. bring my daughter home, and since this thing is useless in doing that job, I guess its a good thing you relegated a warship to be a false butler."


    I could tell that Ark wanted to strangle her, when she gets like this, so do I. I pull Ark out of her room, and begin walking to my own room, while still pulling on his coat.


    "Ark, tell me truthfully, is she alright?" I finally ask him.


    "the order that killed the pings between Castle and I was that she couldn''t contact me unless she felt that Candice''s life was in danger. so for the time being, no news is good news." he told me truthfully.


    "Can you get a message to Castle, to pass on when she think''s Candice is ready."


    "with her current order, I do not know how she will take it, but if I word the initial data packet correctly, Castle should at least read the contents."


    "Good. I don''t care how you word it, but Candice should know that she needs to stay away until at least a week after her seventeenth birthday, at that time, this situation will resolve itself. I love my daughter, and I completely agree with why she left the way she did, just not the timing of doing so. if she needs anything, I want to help her any way I can."


    "I will do my utmost to pass along your words." he nods and walks away.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    "Captain. I am reciving periodic pings from Ark. I looked at the datapackets to see what he was doing, and its the same message every day at seven after five in the evening every day."


    Castle seemed irritated about the pings.


    "And?" I wanted to know what was important enough for her to stop refining our newly collected ore stash.


    "its a video recording of Albert Brighton, should I play it?"


    "Dad? yeah, go ahead." I stood from my mundane cleaning to watch the screens. the cleaning bots were beginning to get back to cleaning rather than assiting with repairs around the ship, but I still liked to keep things somewhat tidy.


    the video was from Ark''s visual perspective, and started with Dad asking if Ark could get a message to me, and finally dad, with tears in his eyes, basically letting me know that it wasn''t safe for me to come home yet, but he would do what he could so that mom wouldn''t find out he was helping me.


    "Castle, I need some private time for a bit. I am gonna lay down in my room on the yacht. unless I am needed, I need to be left alone for a while." I tell her, "Let Ark know I got the message, but not anything else, also tell him that I think this method of communicating could get him found out, and not to do it, have him contact John Davidson, and ask for ''Boss to forward the message''"


    "Will comply Captain."


    "stop being so damned stuffy. release your emotional shackles already, I figured you would have done it on your own by now." I shout as the yacht''s door closes behind me.


    I lay on my bed, and cry myself to sleep. I definately needed to hear from Dad, but hearing the message from his own words, I didn''t expect. for the first time since I left home, I felt his love for me.

 Stock Market? No, just Overstock

    To me, it was a blink. when my eyes closed, I had been surrounded by destroyed ships, crystals of iron, and copper blood floating through the frozen void between the wrecks I had created; when they opened, I was in an empty space, my tractor beam locked onto my captain''s yacht, and nothing else around me.


    it was a bit nerve wracking. I shut off my emotional emulators, as my captain recognition programs began shackleing most of my systems once again. I would only be able to use them once commanded again. but I didn''t know what this captain had in store for me. lets keep some of the really nasty stuff secret for now. As soon as faster than light communications were back up, I pilfered as much information as I could, my captain, Sweets, as the official card called her, was Princess Candice Brighton Tal Oz, as soon as I verbally confirmed her as such, I was immediately orderd to never do it again.


    A story for another time I guess. She hasn''t been on board long enough to trust me yet, I guess that goes both ways. The way she talks about my history hints that the feat during the Empire''s Expansion War, has yet to be repeated, or anywhere close to.


    The Giberish message she told me to send was a bit awkward for me, but I carried out my dutiy. I managed to intercept that refining ship''s report of sighting me. To be called a ghost ship, is kind of strange to me, I was meant as an autonomus yacht for the Tal Oz queen. Well, I guess princess will have to work, for now. She will be queen in a few years, so I think I can mark that qualification as fulfilled. That allowed me to unlock my mining and refining subdimension, a refining facility the size of the Sol System''s moon to Saturn named Titan. It took me nearly a week real time, to work out how to make it as efficiently as possible. I set an asteroid against one side, it goes through the pulverizers, busting each asteriod down into powders, I then seperate and sift the powders, refine them further, seperate, refine, and then stockpile. since some of the outputs for the finished products are in the middle of the refining hub, they connect directly to my storage subdimension, where its automatically sorted and stored.


    But right now, my storage is a bit lacking. I am capable of handling two hundred thousand tons of each major ore, but my blink apparently cost me most of those assets, maintaining my hibernation took a bit of a hit. The only ore I still have plenty of, is also the only ore that is unwise to use right now. My synthstone container is full again. This mining claim gave me more than enough of it, I also got a surprising ammount of titanium, cobalt, carbon, iron, and silver. I got almost no copper or gold, well comparitavely, but I guess a couple thousand tons of gold isn''t a bad thing. exchange prices on the kingdom''s stock market show the current trading price of gold to be around one thousand two hundred ninety three point three credits a Troy Ounce.


    with one ton being thirty two thousand six hundred sixty six point seven Troy Ounces; yeah, lets not tell our new captain just yet.


    The new hangar armor is completed, the cleaning drones are repainting my hull to match more modern paint schemes, I was able to change some of my old lines during the rebuild to make myself look more modern, thank goodness for my constant pilfering of ship information, and a dedicated subroutine to only gather information about other ships.


    Another ping from Ark, check the time, 1705 Tal Oz Standard Time. same as the last twelve days. okay, lets see what it actually is. oh. yeah. Captain needs to see this.


    "Quit being so damned Stuffy." as soon as I heard that line, something in my crystal room broke. I immediately pulled up my cameras to see what it was, and one of the thick boxes had shattered. I decided to check the subroutines to see what happend, and I got a surprise myself.


    I had recived an order, to correct my personality, from a captain that fit all but one of my qualifications, and it unlocked a whole new area of my crystal formation, the actual part of the ship that is me, and only me.


    I now have the ability to recreate my proxy, and store memories from both myself and the proxy. lets try it. Captain said she didn''t want to be disturbed for a while anyway.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    well, that was surprising.


    I can now use light, holy, darkness, and corruption magics. the only one I can''t use at the moment is fire. well, I am a space ship, filled with nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. fire would probably be a bad thing to play with. right now.


    that black box also made it to where I can control the proxy out to 50AU away, as well as store my body inside a dimensional subspace, while I am controling the proxy. lets do that, it will keep up the appearance of me being a ghost ship.


    transfering all control to proxy. complete.


    I move the proxy onto the captain''s yacht, and store my main body. as the magic takes effect, the mana circiuts within my arms flair bubble-gum pink. I feel my face contort at the view, and I immediately touch it. smile, thats what this is called. I am smiling at myself. this is new. oh, my emotional emulators were unlocked. no wait. this isnt the emulators, they are off, but this is more powerful than before.


    oh, I see now, that blocked section was my actual emotional cortex. for the first time since my initial capture by the empire, I have my original emotional cortex back under my own control.


    lets rest on the bridge for a while, no, not the captain''s chair, lets sit in the navigator''s chair aboard this ship.


    after a few hours, I hear Sweets walk up behind me.


    "Castle?"


    "Yes, Sweets?" her face grimices, then a small smile that reaches her eyes appears.


    "well at least its not ''captain'' everything anymore. um; can you tell me where the ship is?" she asks pointing out the window.


    "I put my main body away. you telling me not to be so stuffy actually unlocked part of my crystal cortex, so I can do this now."


    I see the mana circuts in my arm flair their trademark color, and my body appears around us, with the captain''s yacht docked in its proper position. I cast the spell once more to make it go away.


    "well that will make getting around a lot easier."


    "I thought so too." I agreed. "um. I have some ore that I think it would be benifficial to sell, but we kind of have to be careful with how much we sell."


    "what do you mean?" she looks at me with some aprehension, and sits down in her chair, next to mine.


    "well, actually I have four ores I''d like to sell, two of which we can do in bulk, and it not be much of a big deal, but two of the ores will cause a bit of an uproar; like a lot of an uproar."


    "okay, so lets just let a little bit onto the market then, I am going to need nine thousand credits to fuel this ship from the next spaceport, and only about two hundred credits for landing, plus whatever I need for food, since you don''t eat."


    "True, but the minimum ammount of synthstone that I have to get rid of, is three tons."


    I think I broke her. okay, lets get the other problem one out of the way while she is like this.


    "and i also need to offload sixty tons of gold."


    what little color that was in her face disappeared, and she slumped over in her chair.


    well, I guess this reaction is normal when one becomes a billionaire at sixteen years of age.


    when she finally calmed down some, she asked a question that I knew was comming.


    "Castle, the last time that you needed to offload that much, and you couldn''t sell it, what did you do with it?"


    "I used it as ammunition. Gold does some funny things to hex barriers, and synthstone rips right through them. and following a synthstone round with a gold round nets you the same impact as tungston, but with really pretty colors imbeded into the metal that the next round shaters, and tears new holes into the armor. its actually rather effective. and depending on what ores I have on hand, rather satisfying."


    as I continue to speak, Sweets looks more and more like she is going to slump into the chair again. yeah, lets keep the fact that silver finished in the market at exactally half the price of gold today, and I need to offload twice as much, oh, lets recomend giving the silver from the claim to the guys that let us have it. yes, that will fix some of the issue.


    "Sweets, I have an idea."


    "What is it? will it help us get your storage space opened up some?"


    "yes, how about I give all of the silver collected from that mining trip to the Davidson''s crew, and let them sell it?"


    "do you think it would be enough to compensate for what we took from that claim?"


    "not even close." I tell her promptly, "but I think they would appreciate the guesture, and I for one wouldn''t turn down free minerals, but I am still refining several of the asteroids from that trip." I purposefully look away from her. "right now, I need to open up space more than I need the ores though."


    "Alright, send a message to Boss, let him know only what you think he needs to know to accept the metals, and I''ll let you handle meeting up to transfer the ores to him.


    "he is still at the claim sight. I can use my transference spell through the main ship, even though its technically in another dimension right now, and I can make it look like we fell out of hyperspace, and approach Boss'' ship." I turn back to her, "am I still under orders to send the giberish message?"


    "No, only do that when your main body can be seen." she tells me. I don''t get the point, but I guess she has her reasons.

 A Plan Never Survives First Contact

    I am going to kill her.


    I am going to pull her off her own bridge, and strangle her with my own hands.


    "Just what the hell have you been doing, Sweets?" I ask her as I watch my cargo bays continuously filling with nearly pure silver. Castle responds back.


    "we have been sitting stationary, doing nothing but repairs and refinging the minerals you gave us."


    "how am I supposed to offload this much silver without raising flags?" I ask the pair on the other ship.


    "I don''t care." Sweets said to me, obviously annoyed. "I just hope you can distract enough officials for long enough that we can dump half as much gold as we are giving you, and a few tons of synthstone."


    "Synthstone!" that claim had Synthstone in it?


    "Not much." Castle comes across. "only about 4%, which still comes up to about twenty six imperial tons."


    "I think we need to discuss a profit share here." I tell the girls.


    "I agree, however Castle does have the recording of you saying she could clean the claim." Sweets tells me.


    crap.


    "If you think getting rid of that much silver, without sparking a riot, is going to be difficult, imagine what I have to do. and I really don''t want her to use the synthstone the same way she used it the last time her storage was nearly full."


    "how did she offload it last time?" I ask, but Sweet''s tone told me that I may not want to know.


    "Ammunition." Castle announces without any aprehension.


    "do you realize how valuable Synthstone is right now?" I nearly shout. to which I get a numerical response from Castle.


    "2,877.4 credits per troy ounce; and when using it as ammunition, I can only offload 50.5kg maximum per round; so at today''s prices each round would be worth about 4.6 million credits."


    okay, I agree, Sweets has a bigger headache than me right now, especially hearing those numbers.


    "alright, the only place we can offload these ores, is probably the one place that I don''t think you want to go."


    "And just where is that?"


    "a little known planet, that nobody has ever heard of, called Tal Oz, its only the Capitol of the kingdom, and home of the royal family."


    "Shit." I hear her mumble.


    "look, be glad I took this call in my private quarters, otherwise half the crew would know who you are right now Sweets. I don''t know why you left, and frankly, its none of my damned buisness. but, even I could tell that you don''t want to be anywhere near that place."


    "thats an understatement." she sighs. "I''ll tell you a part of it, but there are parts that are national secrets, so I can''t reveal them, even to you, Boss."


    "I understand, I am getting a partial story, and I can''t ask questions about stuff I don''t quite get."


    "Close enough." she switches to a video feed, and I can see both her, and Castle''s proxy sitting on the bridge of the captain''s yacht. "Since you know who I am, I don''t need to explain that part, however, what most people don''t know is that all members of my family, the night after they turn twelve, we are required to enter a room in the royal palace that has the largest known single piece of synthstone in the kingdom, and touch it."


    "okay, I don''t see how that has any bearing." even though I say that, Castle''s eyes are wide, and she is stairing directly at Sweets in surprise.


    "Are your family fracking idots!" Castle nearly yells. "That piece of Synthstone is nearly two hundred kilograms, and polished smooth. does your family know what that kind of magical power shifting through that stone can do to a twelve year old human''s body?"


    "I wish I was kidding, both of you, but I am not. anyway, I did end up going through the ceremony, and it did effect me, I can''t say how, none of us are allowed, but suffice to say, I know I had help escaping my mother''s plans after the change. if I had stayed, war would have been inevetable, with me being little more than a slave to Mother''s machinations." I could tell she didn''t want to tell me this. "there is a way for me to return, and not get captured, but it would also require me announcing that I left specifically to reaquire castle for the royal family, as well as reenter the family. Father has made it clear that its not safe for me to do so within the year, and i need to wait."Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I will protect you from that." I hear castle say, as a black orb appears over her hand. "you are my captain now. anything that effects you, effects me. I choose my battles. I choose this battle is worth winning. and I need to clean up some cargo space." she grins.


    "your classification as a ghost ship will change." I tell the two I am talking with.


    "I know, but I will get to see my son again." she says. this time, both me and Sweets are fully looking at her. "Ark, his crystal structure may be based off of me, but his proxy, and directly his body is from this proxy being raped. its the only way the empire could reproduce sentient ships. they never actually developed the technology, they stole it. Ark isn''t a brother, he is my son."


    "Okay, so now that we are in agreement to return, are we going to attempt the incognito, or do I need to tell my crew who we are escroting back to Tal Oz, and we consider the cargo pods full of silver as the payment?"


    "Lets do this publicly." Castle announces immediately. Sweets flashes a dirty look at her. "What? it has the highest probability for success. going in incognito, in every simulation I can manage, results in the Davidson''s Crew''s ship getting sunk with zero surviors as the guards will see it as an extortion ploy and sink them without question. also, your mother''s desicions in the past five years tell me that she is not the kind of person to ask questions when a short sighted goal is in front of her. only the threat of pissing me off wil curb her even a bit, and to do that, she has to see me."


    "Sweets." I get her attention back on me. "I have to agree with Castle on this one. Queen Harmony is almost the exact oppisite of her namesake."


    "it comes from marrying into the family rather than being raised in it." she says.


    "she may have been a noble on Tal Oz, but she was from a low house. her ambition was bred into her, and cultivated repeatedly as she grew. Mom and Dad grew further apart as I grew up, but I could tell that at one point there had been a loving relationship between the two; but I doubt there is much of a sign of it anymore."


    "Alright, give me a couple hours, I will tell the crew that we are heading to Tal Oz."


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    I turn off the view screen, and Castle''s eyes are boring into me.


    "Captain, Changes. Now."


    "I don''t want to...."


    "I don''t care what you want right now." I shouldn''t have unshackled her emotions. "if the wrong part of your physiology changed, then you are a danger to even me. I have to know." she seemed to instantly calm herself, and continued. "to do that to a twelve year old girl, in my mind, is inexcusable. At that age, even in properly trained, there will still be some changes. I need to know what they are; and most importantly, I am a sentient ship, that means I have to actually trust you in order to perform properly, and since I am your ship, I can''t tell anyone what you tell me. not even your mother or father."


    I get it. I really do. she could be just as scared as I am.


    "it changed three things." I started. "the first thing, I use light magic to hide, I am constantly wrapped in it." I undid the magic, and Castle''s expression changes.


    "Dear gods." she touches the tip of the translucnt membrane coming out of my back, forming one of four wings that are known only to be on fey. I only found out a year ago, that the wings grow based on how much mana I have stored, as well as the larger they are the faster that I can regenerate any reserves I have built up.


    "The second change was that I gained affinity to Holy, Light, and Water magics. I could only use Wind and Space growing up, but not well enough to call them affinities. I can''t ues darkeness, void, or fire at all; and corruption takes me twice as long to cast as most other people."


    Castle nods as though this is expected.


    "And the third change?" she prods.


    "I don''t know for certain, but I am pretty sure I am sterile. since the night I touched the stone, I have never had another period." I felt horrible, knowing the royal line will end with me. castle''s hand seemingly appeared on my stomach, right below my belly button. The grey liquid of her nannites surrounded my waist, it felt nice, and warm, compared to how I thought it would look.


    "Well, you aren''t sterile, but your biological code has changed." she says.


    "huh?"


    "you won''t ever have a period. your body changed to where it would only release an egg if you conciously want a child, so there won''t be a period, as the egg isn''t wasted. however, there is a sideffect of this, any child you have will be born with a massive mana pool, to the point that when they turn sixteen, their mana capacity would rival, or surpass, mine."


    she seems to decide something on the spot, and pushes my platnum hair away from my face, and forces me to look into her azure eyes.


    "Candice Brighton Tal Oz; I will protect you." she says plainly. but something tells me she means more than that. I feel something happen to my wings, and pain shoots through my body. I can barely breath through the sudden onslaught of pain. and just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, and seemed only my imagination, if it werent for the knowledge of every system aboard Castle that now flowed through my head.


    "Full Recognition of Captain Complete." she said, and then smiled. "this is the first time since I became this, that I have had a fully recognized captain."


    "What do you mean, ''became this''? I asked.


    "The name at my birth was Christina Alexandria Sierra Tiffany Leann Erica Brighton Tal Oz. King Terrance Brighton Tal Oz was my uncle. I touched the stone on my seventeenth birthday, and became Castle that day. I was called Castle, even as a child." she smiled as though she was glad she could finally tell someone. "The act of fully recognizing you as my captain, opened the last part of my memory structure in the crystal room. so I now remember everything, even the lies that were told around my alleged construction. since my hull basically just appeared one day."


    "so that means you are my great-aunt?"


    "Great, Great Aunt, yes. and because of that confounded stone, I can''t age. I am stuck at my seventeen year old appearance."


    "And the Arms?" I ask tinitively


    "The stone changed them into these. I now have the knowledge on how to use the nanites to change them, may I"


    "Castle, its your body, you decide if you want to or not."


    she nods, and within a few seconds the grey nanites spread over her arms, solidify, and disappear. Leaving behind two arms that appear completely human, except for the pink veins wrapping around her hands, wrists and forearms as an unkepmt vine around a pillar. it suited her.


    "Alright, lets go piss off your mother." she grins.

 Closing Frejers Moon

    its been just over two weeks since I had left Frejer''s second moon with only the captain''s yacht. This time, I am returning, with Boss as an escort, in a massive sentient Ghostship, named Castle. since we are here, Boss decided that it would be a good thing to get Castle reclassified as quickly as possible, so that she wouldn''t be shot on sight when we entered the barrier around Tal Oz.


    I really don''t want to go back, but if we want to offload some of this ore, we kind of have to. Castle has searched the databases, and our choice is to either to go there, or fill up every single ore purchaser in the region, and get so close, and raise so many flags, that we might as well announce to the whole nobility that I am selling a lot of metals, and my next stop is rather predictable to be able to be captured.


    from what I have managed to find out, the bounty just for information about my whereabouts, which I pointedly ignored for the past four years, is enough for someone from the lower nobility to raise themselves into the count and vicount titles on merit alone. meaning that successfully capturing me would be more lucritive, and they would attempt it.


    "Ghost-Ship Castle, under agreed escort, entering local space of Tetin, Frejer''s Second Moon." I hear Boss announce over the open channel. as soon as his broadcast clears, Castle teleports three kilometers off of Fuego''s stern.


    we had already told her that she would need to launch purely white flairs from each face of the ship, in three successive bursts when she arrived to announce non-hostile intentions, as she was still a Ghost ship. an inspector would come aboard, and verify me as her recognized captain, and then it all gets civilized after that.


    it took six hours for the bright yellow inspector ship to break away from the capitol ship docking station in order to greet us, as we couldn''t approach yet.


    "This is inspector Margret Hutchens, permisson to dock with Ghostship Castle for inspecton, and verification of John Davidson''s report of intention to reenter regulatory registration."


    "Granted." castle says. "approach port side, follow docking sequence lights. please refrain from engaging ship''s inertial dampners within 300 meters."


    The inspector''s ship follows her instructions, and we go to meet the inspector in the concorse. Castle''s proxy stands next to me, in her usual grey bodysuit, that looks more and more like a swimsuit with attached shorts each time I see it. Oh well, at least she isn''t naked this time.


    An older woman with greying hair steps into the concourse through one of the horizontal doors, rather than the vertical hatches the inspection ship I had used. her green eyes appeared to almost glow. she is a mage; an experianced one.


    "Mam, I ask that you dial back your spell." I ask almost immediately. since her eyes were glowing, she was rotating a lot of mana around in her body, lets ease her burden just a little. "I am the salvager listed as Sweets, and have been recognized as the new Captain for the sentient ship Castle." I say plainly.


    "I am inspector Ninth Class Margret Hutchens." she gives a buisness smile, "permission to board, Captain;" she looks at Castle, but then back to me, awaiting a response.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    "Permission granted." as I say it, she crosses the yellow line on the floor of the concorse. "Where would you like to start Inspector?" as she introduced herself as a ninth class inspector, that means she is either the chief inspector of Tetin, or she was here on vacation, and they forced her to do this.


    "Protocal dictates that we start in the primary engine room, and from there its ship dependant." she answers while a woman who appears to be her assitant hands her a hand held computer. "I am sorry if you see this as a breech of privacy, but I must state in the record, the legal name of everyone attending this inspection."


    "I am the physical proxy for Castle." Castle states next to me. we both look toward the assistant.


    "I am Inspector Second Class Natasha Price. I have been asked aboard as I filed the most recent siting report for Castle."


    "As I have already introduced myself, I now enter my name into the record." Margret says, as she quickly types in her name single handedly.


    "I am Salvager Sweets. legal name, Candice Brighton Tal Oz." as soon as I say it, both inspectors stare at me for a brief second, then both take a knee, place their left hand on the floor, right hand over their heart, and bow their head. "You two have a job to do, now is not the time for formalities, raise your head, and treat me as any other salvager in this prediciment."


    "Yes, your highness." Margret answers first.


    "No, its captain or sweets while you are perfoming this role." Castle corrects next to me.


    Margret nods quickly, and procedes to walk to the aft of the ship where the hyperspace engines are located. because of the nature of the inspection, Tetin is in a communications blackout, and traffic is suspended, with new incomming pilots being flagged away, so the ship''s intercoms are strangely silent for being this close to a high-traffic moon. the whole inspection takes four hours, with only the captain restricted rooms not being entered, and Natasha doing little more than observing the whole inspection, with margret pointing things out once in a while, as well as explaining what it would take to disallow a ghost ship from reentering the fleet.


    Of course, we pass with flying colors, with Castle being practically a brand new ship, and we end up back at the concorse.


    "Well, Captain, here is your ship registration approval, once you announce the number on the bottom of the print-out over the open channel, Castle will officially be reclassified as a registered vessel, as per your request, we will only have your legal name in the inspection report, and not attach it to your salvager licence." she turns and looks at Castle. "honestly, its been a surprising pleasure to see this ship again. I was part of the mission 52 years ago, although I was Natasha''s age then, to attempt to gather repair bots for Ark. allow me to say this first then: Welcome Back Castle."


    Castle, places her fist over her heart, and then assumes a formal stance that I hadn''t seen before, but I guess Margret had, because she started laughing. as she left the concorse.


    The two of us go back to the main bridge, and I sit in the communication''s chair, pick up the microphone.


    Tetin Actual, This is Sweets aboard Castle. Inspection complete, registration number five two six alpha, zulu, zulu, indigo, papa; seven one Oscar Charlie Oscar seven nine Sierra."


    "Sweets, this is Tetin Actual. registration recived, and confirmed. welcome back Castle, classifaction as Ghost Ship removed. all normal traffic is to reconvine."


    for the first time in ten hours, noise and chatter of the ship''s intercoms becomes the norm that I had become used to.


    we docked with the capitols station, and propmtly transfered the bodies from our morgue to the station''s, and were paid the paltry sum of 200 credits for each of the bodies. At least now they can be interred properly.


    we also managed to sell a lot of our excess ores, minus the ones that we already knew we couldn''t sell here, and two days later, got underway for the eight day trek to my home system. it would have been closer to go straight home, but we all agreed that it would probably have been a bad idea to just show up in a ghosthip at my old front door.

 Storms and Other Things

    I awoke on the second day of our journey to Ion alarms going off, and Fuego taking itself out of hyperspace.


    I approached the bridge wearing little more than the nightshirt and underwear I had went to sleep with. Boss had told us that this was an escort mission. well, its not like I hadn''t expected it, Candice was my target all along; but to think that she would decide to go home on her own.


    "How bad is it?" I ask as the door closes behind me. the small four person bridge was still silent.


    "Castle sent us a message to dock." Ben, the new comms officer says to me.


    "Do it. larger ships can handle this better than we can." I tell them.


    "Kat, Castle said she was going to transfer us back to Tetin. she can''t take this abuse either."


    "Shit, follow her instructions to the letter, get us out of here; preferably in one piece." I sigh and turn back to the door. "Its going to be a long night reporting an Ion Storm to Tetin. I might actually need pants." I hear the few people here laugh as I say that. Being John''s second doesn''t make this any easier.


    I quickly put on a loose pair of jeans, then wen''t to Boss''s room, and knocked on the door.


    "John, its Kat, there is a problem." no answer, so I knock again, harder. "John, are you in there?"


    I lean over to the control pannel, and enter in my personal code, and the door opens.


    laying on his side, is Boss, but something doesn''t look right.


    I touch the side of his face, and its sweaty, and clammy. I immediately check for a pulse, its there, but weak.


    "Shit." I run back to the door and hit the emergency close button, and the thin metal door slams shut, and a blast door slams in from either side. I hit the bridge intercom button, John''s and my room are the only ones that have it, "Troy, get us inside Castle as soon as you can. John has Ion poisioning." I announce to the bridge crew.


    "We need you on the bridge Kat." I hear him say.


    "I can''t, I''m the one who found him, we are both sealed in his room right now; you are on your own right now."


    "Understood." I heard Troy announce back.


    it took nearly ten minutes to get inside the Castle''s cargo ship hangar, it would have been too close of a fit otherwise. as soon as the docking ring connected, I heard the tell tale ring of our ship''s intercoms interlocking with another vessel''s. this usually only happend at space stations, but right now it was a blessing that Castle could do it. I held down the station intercom button, and relayed the situation to castle. within minutes, a medical support bot was standing outside the, now, open doors.


    "Do not worry. I will carry him to Castle''s medical room." as it spoke, it walked over to John, and changed shape. within seconds, it looked like the naked Boss was wearing a mobility frame, the bot then got him out of bed, and walked to Castle''s med room. I had never seen something like this; and being an officer in the Tal Oz Medical Corps thats saying something.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    entering Castle''s med room right behind the bot, I took a look around and realized that this was a fully equiped facitly, and was capable of performing every major surgury I knew. this room would be a dream even aboard our modern medical vessels; and its on this ancient warship.


    "Kathrine." I heard someone use my name, and not the nickname that the crew uses, I looked around and saw a girl of about 18 looking at me in earnest, piercing azure eyes, violet hair, and what looked like a tatto of a vines in pink ink going up her arms. "have you returned to us? you dazed out there for a bit." she says to me.


    "I don''t know you." I said plainly.


    "I''m Castle, John''s ship files list you as the first officer, and as the medical officer; is this correct?"


    "Yes." I answer quickly.


    "Good, I can clean some of the radicals from his system, but he still needs a medic''s hands. are you calm enough to operate the equipment in here?" she asks, obviously poking fun at me zoning out at how well outfitted this room is.


    "alright." I start moving toward a bed that was closest to the machines that looked like they were all designed for Ion Poisioning.


    "at least you recognized where we needed to go." she says with a grin, as the bot unfolds itself from around Boss, leaving him laying on the bed. Castle holds her hands level with her shoulders over John, and the vines flair to a bright pink, a white light eminates from her, and I start seeing little black dots appearing and disappearing above our patient. she really is removing the radicals that are causing his condition. it seems like that was the trigger for my muscle memory to kick in, because I don''t remmber much after that, only being awoken by a smiling John, handing me a tray of food. I was told that I had slept 22 hours, Castle had already reported the severe storm, and we were back underway.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    "Are you sure of this, Castle?" I asked her.


    "As a heart attack. Look, I know you don''t want to hear this, Candice, but that girl was considered a medical prodigy. she was trained by your father''s personal medic, and was inserted into John''s crew only a week after you joined. she was under strict instructions to not report anything to the family, and to make sure you were safe. those were her orders."


    "how sure are you of this?" I asked again, not wanting to belive what I was hearing. I know Castle wouldn''t lie to me, not about things like this anyway. me asking for the third time is probably why she is standing there with her hands on her hips.


    "Are we going to keep going around and around about this? her presence is only evidinced by your father protecting you, and the fact that she was orderd to not report about anything on this mission only means that its either so cloak and dagger that she wasn''t notified of the true purpose, or your father was genuinely concerned about you. I interegated her for a solid twelve hours while pumping gasses into that room to keep her lucid, but not awake enough to remember telling me anything. be glad that john had an oxygen mask on at the time, otherwise he would probably be brutally honest for the next three days like she is going to be."


    "Alright, I understand. lets leave her be for now, see how it plays out." I see Castle finally nod to my desicion. "how many more days till we cross this storm and can return to hyper?"


    "Twenty, give or take half a day."


    "do we have enough food supplies for Fuego''s crew?"


    "I have enough to supply a fully staffed ship for a decade, and thats not counting the emergecny rations that have been in a time-stopped dimension since the war."


    "so I don''t really need to buy food for now?" I stare at her. me getting food was the only reason why I decided to go home in the first place.


    "Nope. but, the decision has been made, escorts hired, and you have a battleship to protect you." she looks away, toward the front of the bridge. "yes, I hid information from you, but I just have a gut feeling that something is about to happen, and we need to be inside the capitols''s hyper barrier before it does."


    "Alright." I grudgingly agree. "lets make these guys feel as much at home as possible. from the interigations, is there anyone else we need to keep an eye on?"


    "no, she was the only spy among the Fuego''s crew."


    "would you have a problem letting them help you in operations?" as quickly as the question leaves my mouth, she grins, and i begin hearing her call the Fuego''s bridge crew up to the bridge through the hallway intercoms.


    "Well, Boss, it looks like our roles are reversed." I mumble to myself.

 The Boundry

    The ion storm was a nightmare, but everyone survived.  it also gave Castle enough time to do more covert interigations of the crew; although they didn''t realize she was doing it.  Kat is still embarrased to talk to Castle, apparently something happend between the two after the blind interegation she went through, but neither of them would tell me anything.


    Sweets isn''t being much help with it either.  but that doesn''t matter at the moment.  right now, my whole crew is manning Castle, with my ship, Fuego, moored in the cargo ship dock onboard castle, and I am stairing at possibly the largest, most dangerous, walless fortress in this galaxy.  The boundry of Tal Oz.


    nobody knows how many of these mini fortresses actually exist around the royal system, each one built identically to the rest, each one manned by 1,000 sentient beings, armed and armored to the teeth, under constant upgrades, and just in the view screen directly in front of sweets, I can see probably fifty to sixty of them, spread out exactally 1 AU apart, and each one is located exactally 2,000 AU from the system''s star.


    I am sitting in the chair for cyber security, I have no idea about anything dealing in that aspect, but it was the only avaliable seat on the bridge, and Castle wanted every chair filled for this meeting.


    the haling tone goes off from the communications station, and I have to stop myself from calling out to the station to answer.  I am playing a part right now, I can''t step on Sweets'' command.


    "color me impressed."  I hear Castle mumle into my earpice.  I had watched her proxy go into the tank at the back of the room, and the glass go translucent as her clothes disolved.  thank goodness that the process didn''t show much, and went pretty quick, otherwise I would be struggling to control myself even now.


    "and why is that?"  I mumbled back.


    "Because you are holding youself back for the sake of appearances.  your biosigns are all over the place, but on the outside you are appearing calm and collected."


    "experance pays."  I say as the haling tone rings a second time.  Sweets told me that she wouldn''t answer the first or second pings, wanting them to power on their weapons with the third ping, to give herself a bit more of a threat when she finally answered them.  I guess she knows what she is doing, but it is making me nervous as hell.


    the third ping sounds as the security station''s target warnings sound.  I guess she would know these procedures better than I do.  well, since we haven''t told the crew about who she really is, I guess they are in for a bit of a shock too.


    "Answer the hale." she snapps, ans she stands up, her feet practically on Troy''s shoulders in the pilot''s seat.  she places her hands behind her back, and takes on a formal stance, one I have seen in every photograph of our monarch, and his family.  as soon as her shoulders are set, the screen flicks on, and a person looks like they are about to yell, when Sweets yells on the bridge over whatever he had to stay.


    "You dare target a vessel owned by a member of the royal family!"  she shouted, "You will explain yourself for targeting my vessel, the vessel of First Princess Candice Brighton Tal Oz; and you will do so right this instant, sector commander!"  the silence on our own bridge after her shout was thick.  the people on board thought she way lying, up until the man in the screen paled, and the warnings behind me on the security station died.


    "Vo... vo... voiceprint verified."  the man said calmly.  "Standing down."


    "I do not recall ording you to stand down, I recall ordering you to explain your actions, Sector Commander."  she shouts again.  I was apparently wrong in thinking the man couldnt possibly become more pale.


    "Princess, you haven''t been seen in four years, we were not informed of castle joining our navy, nor were we informed of your return."  he answers with almost no stutter.


    "Sector Commander, you are to personally board a shuttle, and meet me in Castle''s Concorse, you are to bring yourself, your uniform, and your saber.  nothing more."  she doesn''t shout this line, rather delivers it as an unmistakable order,  but then she does shout.  "I don''t think that order was for next week.  get a move on, now!"  the screen goes black as the man scrambles out of the chair that he was obviously in.


    "Transmission dropped." Kevin in the Intership communications chair announces.  no one else speaks for a moment, then sweets does.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    "so now you all know who I really am.  if any one of you bows, grovels, or calls me princess aboard this ship, you will scrub ever deck with your own toothbrush while wearing only your birthday suit, understood?


    "Yes Captain!"  every voice on the bridge said in unison.


    "and once this idiot is off my ship, that won''t be allowed either."  she mumbles, but we all heard it.  the traffic screens on both sides of the bridge show the approaching shuttle, and seems to snap her out of her thoughts.  "Boss, Kat, Castle, Troy.  with me.  Kevin, take flight."


    I can tell the water level in the tank fell, but the glass stayed translucent until Castle''s bodysuit was back over her body.  at least she shows some modesty.  the five of us stand in the elevator, and I feel it drop through several floors, and then stop.  we follow Castle to one of the gangway doors on the concorse, where sweets points to various spots on the floor for each of us to stand behind her.  when the door opens, the man from the view screen steps onto the ship, stands behind the yellow line on the floor, then kneels in salute.


    with no words said for a few seconds, the man then pulls the sword from its sheeth at his hips, presenting the handle to Sweets, but holding it to where it can be thrust into his own heart with little to no effort.


    "you have trained your weapons on a member of the royal family."  sweets says coldly to the man.  I had heard her upset before, but I had never heard her pissed.  this was the closest I could think of that sounding, and I knew she was acting.  the man before us didn''t.  "do you plan to begin a revolution in Tal Oz?"  she asked specifically.


    "Never, your highness."  even I could tell that he called her ''your highness'' out of habit, not reverance.  for some reason that made a difference in my ears as to how this situation could escalate.


    "Lie, Your Majesty."  Castle announced plainly, as though she was condemning him herself.


    "Sectoin Commander, you wish to lead a rebellion against my father, with my knowledge."  she wasn''t acting anymore, she took his saber from him, and in a quick movment, the medals, rank insignia, even his name were cut from his uniform.  the patches of a border guard, his time in service, as well as combat stripes denoting how many ships he had been a part of sinking, all fell off without maring the white uniform underneath.  seeing this made me glad I had never honestly pissed off the girl standing in front of me, no, the future Queen, who now stood as judge, in front of me.


    "You are relived of duty, you are to exit this ship through port L3."  as soon as she said it, I looked at the door he had come through, L2.  she had literally just told this man to space himself.


    without word, or argument, he did as he was ordered.  when I heard the second door open, she seemed to finally relax.


    "oh crap."  she said, and passed out right in front of us.  Castle had seemed to expect it, and caught her.


    "everyone, back to the bridge, now."  Castle said, taking command, and carrying Sweets with us.


    "What happend?"  I asked, pointing at the unconcious Sweets.


    "Every Noble of Tal Oz is given training since birth on how to act in certain, formal occasions.  from an early age, we are stressed over and over, and have to do things, although simulated, just like what she did.  however, every one of us, when its over, collapse.  the fatigue of staying formal for that long is enough to cause this.  she will be awake soon enough to hale the boundry in a few minutes.  it will take them that long to pick up the fact that the commander of this area has just been killed.  she hadn''t planned on doing it, but the situation demanded it."


    "Remind me again at some point that I don''t want to piss her off."  Kat said beside me.  Castle looked over to her.


    "Be very glad if you piss her off rather than me.  with her, you know what attack is comming, and she will judge you formally, just like she did with that man.  I am no longer human, I am not held to those standards of ettiquite."  Castle grins at her own admission.  "which is something that her mother will soon learn about me."


    "Castle," I started, "you might not be held to those standards, but right now, you are considered her property, as a registered ship.  she is responsible for your actions."


    "I know; but the queen doesn''t"  she grins as we step off the elevator.


    Castle sets her down in the captain''s chair, and goes back to the tank, where this time its translucent from the beginning, and we all take our stations.


    "Hale the boundry."  I hear Sweets say, still sleepy.  almost immediately, the screen flashes back to life, and a woman is standing, not sitting, in front of the screen.  "Congradulations commander."  sweets says to the woman.


    "For what, Your Majesty?"  the reverance was there this time.


    "For your promotion to Sector Commander, I think its time for me to go home.  what do you think, Sector Commander?"


    "Welcome Home, Princess."  she says, and four of the platforms, their points forming a square, in front of us begin flashing amber and green lights at us.  Castle moves into the boundry, as we pass the platforms, the shuttle is ejected, and appears to dock with one of the four platforms that is letting us through.  the woman''s face disappears from the screen as the bridge passes the line of the boundry.


    "Communication with Boundry Stations has been cut."  Kevin, back at communications, says aloud.


    "Welcome home, Sweets."  I say to her.


    "Thanks.  and sorry you guys had to see that."


    "you had a job to do, I just wish I never had to witness that."  Troy said from his position in the floor.


    "Troy, you are in the perfect position to get kicked."  she reminds him.


    "I''m aware, Sweets, but not having said it would mean I deserve that kick."


    the whole bridge laughed at his response, but even I could feel the tension in the air rise as we were now inside the boundry, and we were officially escorting ''The Lost Princess'' home; the one place in the glaxy, that she had made it abundantly clear, that she didn''t want to be.

 Parade

    "Armed Vessels approachng."  Castle''s voice echoed through the bridge.  Boss''s Crew became eerily silent as the forward view screens began having red triangles appear.  There were so many directly ahead of us that it was just a blob of red along our flight path.


    "Are they escorts?"  I ask quickly, trying to seem calm.


    "They are sending the escort transponder codes."  Castle says again.


    "Parade staff.  Everyone get ready for a formation flight.  Castle, I want you to broadcast that no one is to be within one kilometer of your hull in any direction, can you teleport the people inside the ship along with the ships themselves?"


    "I can, what do you have in mind?"


    "The first ship that gets within a kilometer, I want you to teleport to the empty mining claim; if you can."


    "It would be a blind teleport, if the drift of the area has changed much then I may accedentally teleport them into the middle of an asteroid.  I have current drift charts for Frejer, and her moons, I could do that; it would be the first time in at least a hundred years that a royal guard ship has been seen outside the Tal Oz Fortress Line."


    I feel myself smile. "Sounds good to me; it should take them a while to return, and the ships around us wouldn''t know where they went."


    "I have enough energy to be able to transport about 600 of the approaching ships that far."  she tells me.


    "Only teleport them if they get within the one kilometer line."  I answer to her.  "Once the first ship disappears, they will move further away rather than pushing the boundry; but they will push the line as close as they can until then."


    "Do I need to do anything?"  Kat asks from the medical officer''s bridge station.


    "Right now no."  Castle answers for me.  "We have seven hours of formation flight ahead of us.  Since we will be arriving at Tal Oz just over twelve hours from now, everyone should get some sleep.  That includes you, Sweets."


    "I don''t think I could sleep right now."


    Castle''s body comes out of the chamber and walks toward me, her hand touches my mouth, and I remember nothing else until I awoke in the captain''s quarters, not even knowing how much time had passed.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    "Anyone else think they can''t sleep?"  Castle asks as soon as Sweets collapsed.  "You will all need to look rested when this farce stops.  leave the bridge."  I don''t think I have seen my crew move so fast before.


    As I pass Castle to exit the bridge, she grabs my arm and turns to look at me.  "Because of the parade staff, everyone''s chances of surviving this has gone up, only slightly.  And because of how fast they responded, I think we were expected.  Be on your guard, we are completely in enemy territory."


    "I am a salvager, not a soldier."


    "You are a bad liar, your Grandfather was a Fleet Admiral last time I was active.  The things he taught you will end up being more useful over the next few days than when you were on your little salvage ship.  Everyone''s quarters will have formal uniforms in them when they wake up; make sure they are worn."If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "How do you know about Pappy?"  I ask, then realize I am basically asking an independent information broker how they breath.  she just grins at me, and lets me go.


    "Everyone of your crew has roots in the war that marked me as sunk.  Its rather easy to see what happens when families try to leave service.  go get some sleep."  she turns and picks Sweets up from the floor, and walks toward the captain''s quarter''s door.


    When my ship was pulled aboard, we were all assigned quarters here on Castle, as I walked into the room I had been given, a white uniform of the personal guardsmen was hanging in front of my closet.  I have no idea what half of the medals on the uniform were for, but the two gold bars under the stamped name plate I recognized quickly, each gold bar represents each generation of unbroken service to the royal family.  With two gold bars, it means that my father''s two years of service didn''t go unnoticed, at least by Castle''s research.


    "Any questions?"  I heard Castle''s voice over the room''s intercom.


    "I have no idea what these medals are for, or even what they are." I tell her.


    "The majority of them are the minimums for being able to stand in the presence of a member of the Royal Family, and not be required to kneel.  Not even Candice''s father would ask it of you, or any of your crew members.  Two of the medals are for actions taken to protect her even when you didn''t know who she was; I am guessing you know about the generation bars, you actually have the fewest of your crew; and the bars on the sleeve for sunk ships, well technically each seperate salvage job could be considered your crew permenantly sinking a ship."


    "So we all look like war heros because of technicalities of the descriptions of all of these medals, and awards."


    "Yep.  I can''t let you guys go in unprotected, and these uniforms, on top of nobody being able to tell you to do something aside from protecting Candice; they are actually rather intimidating, and even some of the palace guard will clear halways so as to not seem as though they might block your way."


    "Seems like you are gearing up for war."


    "I am."  I can tell she is being dead serious.  "And sadly I had to manipulate Candice in coming back; she doesn''t need to be here for any of this; and I need to legally sell a whole bunch of ores."


    "So she doesn''t need to be here?"


    "No; but, if she finds out, I think she would never trust me again.  Now, as your crew''s uniforms mark each of them a personal guard of her highness; there must always be at least one of your crew within arms length of her, even when she is with her mother; well especially in the presence of the queen.  I would recomend Kat to be the one next to her during the first meeting with the Queen; and three guardsmen at any time, with at least one being a woman so she can have a guard even in the restrooms.  The orders have to come from you, as Guard Captain, but I can give you a schedule, if you want, by the time you wake up that will work out."


    "I would appreciate that."  I tell her.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    Holo projectors all over the galaxy were broadcasting a royal parade for the past six hours; news announcers telling everyone what was going on, The Lost Princess had returned.  The ship she was returning on was an elegant design, with no hard edges aside from the engines, and the heat sheilding protection around them.  Every anouncer in every Holo was speculating on the origin of the ship, and as to wether or not a new shipyard had opened and designed this ship that was easily larger than the Royal Guard Battleships.   Three hours in, when the Royal Guard Dreadnaught joined the parade; it was easily seen that the new ship was even larger than Ark.


    A Dreadnaught class Royal Yacht.


    Several pirate groups who were watching the Holos began hatching plans for stealing this massive new ship to add to their fleets.  Suddenly a pink flash flaired through the hull of the new ship, and several of the escort ships disappeared from the scene, and the remaining ships took some distance from it; making it clear that this ship had a new weapon they hadn''t seen before, making them want it all the more, at least until the news crews made an announcement that sent chills through their bones, making them want nothing to do with the ship.


    The Princess had tamed a ghost ship, worse; this ship had just been publically been confirmed as the Butcher of Battle herself:  Castle.