Imperial Orders

♕The Rescue Mission♕

Prime Minister Saara Remy sat at the head of a long table in the Reloriose Imperial war room, surrounded by several of the Empire's top military officers. No one had spoken for the past five minutes, and the faint bustle of media personnel fighting for updates on the Emperor's disappearance outside the thick wooden door only added to the tension in the room. 

"Well..." Remy finally began, letting out a soft sigh as she crossed her arms over her immaculate white button-down shirt. "Your Emperor has been missing for several hours, and you're all giving me blank stares. Please tell me someone has come up with something." 

"As the Emperor's Head of Security, I can assure you that His Majesty's guard measured up to protocol at all times." All heads turned to look at the younger officer seated to the Prime Minister's left as he spoke. "Since he was scheduled to leave for an engagement via airship, his ground security team was dismissed. During the time which it took for his ship- and with it his travel security team- to arrive, there was an inevitable transition period of a few minutes when His Majesty and Her Ladyship were left unprotected. Whoever orchestrated the kidnapping must have been acutely aware of the Emperor's schedule and the workings of palace security." 

"Thank you, Commander Abernathy," Saara nodded. "The kidnappers must also have a working knowledge of Imperial ships. The Emperor and Lady Violet were gone without a trace not three minutes after their security team last reported seeing them. That means there wasn't a struggle- they went willingly. There is only one possible explanation for this: the kidnappers came in a ship outwardly similar enough to ours that the Emperor was led to believe it was his."

"Well, that rules out the Djareny, I suppose. They are primitive creatures, raiding and killing as they please. This was a precision operation," an elderly man at the back of the table said with a hmph, sounding almost disappointed. Saara fought to keep her composure- she had no patience for those darkly sentimental old leaders who not-so-secretly desired to reignite the gruesome wars of the last century and finish off the Djareny for good. Yet, she almost agreed with the aged general, until she remembered something... 

It was a warm spring day on Khaas, a year before Saara and her human mother moved permanently to Homina, separating her from her father and half-sister forever. Young Saara wore a thin red t-shirt and shorts and was running barefoot through the grass, her long, blond hair whipping in the wind as she reached out with her arms, pretending to be one of the many airships that zipped by far above her head. Her laughter rang through the air, drawing dirty looks from many of the Djareny around her, but none of them dared say anything against the daughter of the highly influential Vendyr Serpis himself. 

"Saara! Saara Serpis, get back here immediately- you'll hurt yourself,"  she heard her stepmother's call in the distance. Reluctantly, she slowed to a jog, turning around to run back the way she had come. Soon, her family came into focus: her stepmother reclined on a long quilt, gazing fondly at her daughter, Nexetra, who was seated criss-cross in the middle of her smaller portable cage. Her father stood in the grass not far away, one hand shoved into his pocket and the other holding a cigarette. 

"We are having a family picnic, Saara,"  her stepmother hissed as Saara approached the quilt, carefully seating herself. "You know your father hates it when you run off like that."  

"Sorry Amélie," Saara muttered, grabbing an apple from the picnic basket at her feet. 

"We are not just nobodies, Saara, we are Serpises. At least try to act like you understand what that means," Amélie scowled. "Look how ladylike your sister is." Saara looked over to see Nexetra licking the sticky remnants of an apple pie off her fingers. A tiny pair of horns was beginning to bud from her skull- the same beautiful ebony as her mother's- and her dark hair framed her face in voluminous waves. 

"That pie was so good. I'm sorry I ate so much- there's one slice left, though!"  Nexetra added in her defense. 

"I want some!" Saara exclaimed, immediately forgetting her stepmother's chastisement. She scooted over on the quilt so that she was in front of Nexetra's cage, putting her outstretched palm in front of the bars. 

"Hmm... let's play a game!" Nexetra smiled eagerly, holding out two fists in front of her face. "I've got a five-Mark coin. If you can guess where it is, you get the last piece of pie. If not, I get it." 

Saara rolled her eyes. What a stupid game. But since there was pie involved, she decided to play. She watched as Nexetra put her fists together, probably rapidly transferring the coin from one to the other. 

"Okay, guess!" she said eagerly, holding out her two fists again. 

"This one!" Saara pointed to her right hand. 

At that, Nexetra laughed, pulling the coin out from behind her ear. "I never said it was in one of my hands. Not all Djareny are dumb!" she proclaimed, before proceeding to shove the entire slice of pie into her mouth. 

Saara smiled knowingly, her eyes fluttering open. Not all Djareny are dumb... I haven't forgotten you, little sister. 

"It's Nexetra Serpis," she declared. "Djareny stereotypes don't apply to her. She's smarter and more meticulous than most humans I know. General Quanseye, run the log of every ship that entered and exited Relorio in the hour before and after the Emperor was kidnapped through our system. I want a list of every single one of them that declared their origin as Khaas, Djara, or any planet associated with my half-sister's First Legion." 

The General, eager to implicate a Djaren, immediately obeyed, typing vigorously on the holographic screen in front of him. He paused as the results of his search popped up one by one on his computer. "There's a deep space cargo freighter come to pick up goods and two personal craft, Your Excellency." 

"Wonderful," Saara smiled. "Do we have comms info for any of those ships? If so, we can use that to track them with our asteroid positioning network." 

"Yes, all ships were required to report their comms frequencies, but... wouldn't that method violate several privacy laws? If it were legal, we would have tried it long ago," the General protested. 

A grim smile came over Saara's face as she regarded the assembly of leaders before her. She was about to make a decision that could jeopardize her career, but every second Hugo was away from the palace was another second during which his true identity could be exposed. It took her logical mind only a few minutes to decide that circumventing a minor statute was better than being exposed for political fraud and high treason. But she had to remember why she was doing this. It was all for Homina- none of it was for her. That was the line between a wily politician and a corrupt one, and she had no intention of ever crossing it. 

"When faced with a choice between our Empire's laws and her security, I along with any respectable citizen would choose the latter. Laws are here to protect us, not the other way around. If consequences must be faced for our actions, I am ready to face them alone. General Quanseye... run the search." 

Many of the room's occupants looked shocked at this revelation from their perfect, law-abiding Prime Minister, but a look of smug satisfaction came over Quanseye's face as he once again turned to his computer. Saara watched him, anxious, as she wondered if her slight overextension of her powers would end up doing any good. 

"You were right," Quanseye drew in a sharp breath through his nose. "One of the personal ships is currently grounded on Khaas, within a 100 mile radius of a suspected Djareny settlement." 

The room resonated with relieved applause at the result of Saara's bravery, while the Prime Minister herself didn't allow any joy to show on her face. 

I've found you, little sister... but now I must fight you on your own turf.