Empire's Son: An Epic Science Fiction Novel Series

I opened my eyes and a sea of blackness and stars cradled me in soft oblivion. It was a peaceful sight and I welcomed it. And then I tried to move, and found myself restricted. Something kept my chest firmly in place. I blinked as I lifted my head and looked around.

The black and stars only partially surrounding me as some sort of transparent bubble rested just above my head. The rest of my body was tightly cocooned in a seat with blinking lights all around me. It took a moment of concentration for me to focus my vision enough to notice the lights were attached to a wrap-around console. I surmised I must be in one of the small ships in that I’d seen in the landing bay.

“Good. You are awake,” I heard the Admiral say from somewhere ahead of me.

“Admiral? Did we make it out?” I asked, my voice a little slurred as I continued to come back to my full senses.

“Yes, and the border is only a few minutes away. You were right about the unidentified ship being distracted by the large dispatch of ships. A couple star fighters were lost, but the large majority are still with us.”

I nodded, but found it difficult to do in the enclosed space. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“What happened back there?” I could hear the concern in the Admiral’s voice, which felt strange and a little surreal. “We didn’t have time to get Benite to run a scan, so I just had your guards carry you and put you in the back of the fighter.”

Well, that solved the mystery of why I was scrunched into the small space of the fighter at least.

“It’s nothing, really. I just get overwhelmed sometimes when I’m around a lot of other emotions. Though, I think that’s the first time I actually passed out. That was a little weird.”

I checked in with myself to make sure I really was okay. I remembered the strong waves of fear and panic that had come over me. I remembered how absolutely out of control it felt, and that I was powerless to stop it. A surge of disappointment washed through me.

Why had the barrier suddenly been gone? It was the second time it had happened since I had discovered it in my parent’s kitchen. I thought I had finally gotten past a real crutch I’d had to deal with my whole life, and now… well, I just didn’t know. Why did the barrier work sometimes and not others? It was something I would have to put some thought to when I had a moment to myself.

“It was the Empathic Dome-ni,” Vang said like he was putting the full brunt of responsibility on that ability. Clear disapproval evident in his voice.

My defensiveness was immediate. “My mom has helped me come up with ways to control it, but I’ve never been around that much strong emotion at once. It surprised me.”

“You should have had better training,” Vang replied.

I wanted to lash out at the Admiral, but he wasn’t wrong. Maybe that was why the barrier didn’t always work, so I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I focused on the small screen radiating blue light down below my eye level. It that showed hundreds of tiny little blips.

Something from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned my head to see the nose of several other star fighter’s against the black of space. I turned back to the blue screen.

“So this screen in front of me shows the other ships around us, correct?”

“Yes,” was the clipped response.

I then noticed a patch of black that ran the whole length of the top of the screen. “So then what’s the black area?”

“That is the Ethian border.”

“Oh,” I said as I sat back and watched the screen with interest.

It was coming up fast. Each moment, it seemed the blackness was filling up more and more of the screen. I tried to look and see in front of me, but much of my vision was obscured by Vang’s seat. The little I could see was just pitch blackness up ahead too.

I had questions, but I decided to wait and see if they would be answered. I didn’t want to annoy Vang any more than I had too. Already his mood seemed sour by mentioning my Empathic Dome-ni.

About five minutes later, my entire screen was black. Again, when I tried to get a visual outside the ship, my eyes only detected blackness.

“This is ST–A1. Fighters line up on me. I’m opening the barrier. Be ready.” I heard Vang say in a commanding tone and I knew he wasn’t talking to me.

“Copy that, A1,” another voice replied from somewhere up front. I gathered there must be a comm open to the other ships.

“How are you going to open the barrier?” I asked before I could stop myself.

I got nothing but silence from Vang. No surprise there.

I kept my eyes glued on the screen. The black parts turned back to blue. I quickly looked up, but it didn’t look like anything had changed. In front was still black space.

Moments passed as Vang continued to fly the ship without a word to me. I kept watching out my window for something interesting to see, but I was greatly disappointed.

“All fighter leaders confirm passage across border for your squads,” I heard Vang say.

A chorus of affirmatives and designations sounded in the cockpit over the next minute. Vang must have been satisfied with what he heard, because he responded. “Barrier coming back up. Proceed to Maxem.”

“Maxem?” I threw out there, not completely expecting respond.

I was surprised when I heard the Admiral answer me. “It’s the battle cruiser we left just inside the Ethian border in case we needed the extra help. We are a little off our target coordinates, but not by much. We should be there with fifteen minutes.”

“Then we made it past the border?” I looked down at my blue screen for a clue to exactly what the barrier was. I didn’t get any new insight, but I did notice that the space behind us was now in black. I also saw a blip much larger than the star fighters on the very edge of the top of the screen. I surmised it to be Maxem.

“We did. Welcome back to the Ethian Empire, Highness.”

I had to admit I felt relief flood me, something I was surprised at. Though being chased by a mystery ship might have something to do with that. It was an unnerving way to be introduced to my forgotten place of birth, but we were safe, and that was what mattered.

I leaned my head against the back of my seat and tried to relax as best as I could, because I knew that when I finally did reach Dyniss, I would need all my wits about me. I was about to meet my birth father, and it scared me in more ways than I liked.