Frial Realfen is on a mission. He is not thrilled to be stuck with a crew for the long distance to the banned regions; he had hoped that Whadgaf Jiris would choose the ship with the crew, but she had chosen the single ship and there were obvious advantages to that for an experienced pilot. Smaller ships tend to handle warp speeds much better than large crew ships and they are much less likely to catch the attention of the many pirate ships that are known to circle the banned regions. The disadvantages of solo flight were outweighed by those advantages in Frial’s opinion. Sure, the small crew ship that Frial had procured from a shipping company had access to universal warp ways that were maintained by governments of the sector of the universe in the vicinity of the banned regions, and they ensured safe travel free of potentially destructive debris that is impossible to maneuver at the unimaginable speeds that ships capable of interstellar travel must attain. But a ship with a crew required a functional teamwork to be effective in an endeavor like a race. As a ship captain, Frial would be more orchestra conductor than pilot. He would dictate the ship’s speed and direction, but the crew ship necessitated a dedicated operator on the controls of the warp speed engines, a separate operator on navigation, and another operator still to maintain the artificial environment of the ship to sustain the lives of everyone else on board as the ship undergoes stress while in warp.
But, Frial will make do. He must complete his mission because Whadgaf Jiris must die, and he must triple his strength so that Agent Red can be a legendary name across the universe. It is the way that he will never let the memory of his family die as they had been massacred at the hands of the jafara Jiris.
“Everything is ready for your command,” his assistant said meekly when Frial first took his seat in the center of the ship’s main command room.
The ship is a smaller model crew ship, but there are sleeping quarters for each of the ship’s five crew members including Frial. The floor space of the command room is substantial, about the size of a standard living room in a home on Earth.
“Excellent,” Frial said with a maddened look in his eyes. “Let’s take off.”
Frial’s crew consists of very different beings that he had managed to blackmail over the course of his adventures as Agent Red. His close association with the transportation service had allowed him to meet many beings of planets in the sector of the universe around Hafjeran, and losing his family had loosened his morals just enough that he had no qualms kidnapping the only child of an Ointite Nurse of Universal Skill and forcing her to serve as his medical advisor, or strapping an explosive to the body of a Druinte to force eris service as his ship’s mechanic and engineer. Frial does what needs to be done to be sure that he makes it to the banned regions before Whadgaf so that he can feel the sensation of ripping her limbs from her body.
His assistant is Hafjeris and she was an assistant to a pilot of the transportation service before Frial used her to gain access to the service’s computer servers, which allowed him to rob the service and gave him leverage over the woman. She also handles the ship’s navigation. She is a smart woman, underestimated by Frial because of her pleasant face and shiny beak, and she is determined to see Frial die by the end of their trip.
The journey is a very long one, and though, at the start of the trip she does not know her fellow crew members at all, she is very nice to them with the hopes of gaining their trust and help in killing Frial.
Her name is Restili Rhaldeg and she hopes to confirm that everyone on board hates Frial as much as she does, but most of them seem to be petrified of the man who kept some secret about each one of them and held it like an antidote to a poison they had ingested. She just had to find out each of their poisons, and the antidotes that she would have to offer them in order to make them loyal to her plans.
Frial is confident in the loyalty of his crew. The Ointite nurse, Sevi Swite, develops a meal plan unique to each member of the crew that keeps their bodies in top shape and their minds sharp. Over the course of the long journey, she has developed a perverse love for her captor that can only be identified as Stockholm syndrome. Frial is not nice to her, he is not nice to any member of the crew as they push the limits of the speed of their ship over the interstellar warp ways, but she derives a perverse sense of pleasure from working very hard at something, like preparing meals in advance for Frial, that he destroys in his dissatisfaction. When she redoes the task, such as the preparation of Hafjeran cuisine which can be a very detailed process, she chastises herself and begs Frial to consider accepting her second attempt. She told Frial of Restili’s plans to eventually murder him with the support of her shipmates.
“She is a very nice person, for sure,” Sevi said to Frial while she knelt before him referentially. “But I get the sense when we talk that she is probing for details of my life starting from when we first interacted. And I overheard her with the Druinte, Spevak 49, and she told Spevak that we could all ambush you. Steal your ship and free ourselves from you. But a proper Ointite never tests fate. I am here with you because the great center dictates that I be.” Ointites attribute all life, all matter in the universe, to the large black hole at its center, and they believe that it dictates the true purpose of everything in the universe and a being would be stupid to work against that fate.
Frial thanked her for her loyalty, “Your obedience will ensure the safe return of your child.” But he struck her for not coming to him sooner. She thanked him for correcting her and begged for his forgiveness.
Frial watched his assistant Restili very closely, and he took note of her private conversations with the other members of the crew. He formed an idea in his mind about what exactly Restili had planned for him as they rocketed to their destination. They were on the tail end of their journey and Frial was ecstatic at the ship’s progress; according to his navigator he would arrive to the banned regions well before Whadgaf. When he was confident that he could complete his mission without his navigator, Frial called Restili to the main command room for a private word. When she arrived there, Frial aimed a rocket launcher at her head.
“What would be best from your vantage Rhaldeg?” Frial asked her from behind his weapon. “Would you rather die for your insubordination, for planning to murder your captain, or should I reveal your shame to your very important family on Hafjeris? They will disown you once they learn how much you stole from your employer.”
“You cannot disgrace me before my family,” Restili begged. “You know that I would gladly die a thousand deaths before I would embarrass my family.”
“I had a good feeling you would say that,” Frial said with a smile. Then he motioned to the monitor behind her and she was horrified to see her eldest relative and head of her family watching her with disappointment. “She doesn’t deserve to bear your name. But do not fret, Senior Rhaldeg, she is in my custody and I will ensure that she is punished for her wicked ways.”
The elder Rhaldeg yelled at Frial. “Do not insult my family! We take care of our own. We will blast your ship out of the sky, we will purge the universe of the embarrassment. And you along with her. There can be no evidence of her embarrassment.”
“Don’t overreact…” Frial said nervously.
“There is no overreaction, just the preservation of our reputation. Prepare your crew for annihilation.”
The monitor of the communicator went black before Frial could respond, and then there was an alert from the navigation system.
“We are being pursued,” Restili said with panic. “You have doomed us all. And you have ruined your mission.”
Frial punched her beak, hoping to crack it. “I won’t die before I murder Whadgaf Jiris. Get everyone to their stations. We’ve got a race to win.”
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