Captain: Eye of the Empress 1

Prologue: Before

The young man was surrounded by a soft halo of light as he moved.

The light followed him through the darkened rooms of the Imperial Palace on Planet One. A gentle, warming orange glow, designed to let him see to the edges of each room without disrupting his sleep patterns with too much blue light. A soothing blend of lavender and sleep hormones wafted through the air. It was very early in the morning designated sleeping period, and the builders of the Palace assumed that anyone wandering the rooms was having an unfortunate bout of insomnia.

The man was glad he had taken stimulants before leaving his quarters. Illegal stims were a small risk in the greater scheme of things.

There were sensors hidden in the smooth curves where the ceilings touched the walls, hidden along the edges of the sparkling pools and fountains, adjusting the environment for his comfort. The Palace systems would show a steady lightening and darkening of the rooms as he passed, the environment seamlessly adapting to his presence.

There should also have been a warning flashing somewhere in the partially organic Palace systems. Security should have been aware that a Service class person was in Ruling quarters, well outside the usual times for service and cleaning. Perhaps, the Palace AI would suggest, someone from Security should check the anomaly out. The Imperial Palace itself was the man's most dangerous opponent.

The young man hoped that his hacker friend had taken care of that, had confused the Palace's systems with false reassurances. He wouldn't know, he suspected, until a guard arrived, or until he finished his mission.

He strolled along the side of a pool and towards the relaxation pod next to it, careful not to hurry or show any sign of furtiveness. If he encountered a human guard near the pool, the pod gave him a good enough reason for his presence. His present mistress was known to be eccentric, even for an elderly member of the Ruling rank. A sufficiently blushing explanation that his mistress had a midnight desire for the scented herbs from the relaxation pods should meet with some sympathy, and humiliation would explain his raised heart beat.

He reminded himself to bring a bunch of herbs back; if questioned after the fact, he had no doubt that his mistress would insist she had ordered them herself, outraged at the insensitivity of Delegate and Service rank guards for daring to question her servants. Her memory was poor, a neurological weakness shameful in a genetically perfect Ruling citizen. As a result, she was easily manipulated into insisting she remembered events that had never happened for fear someone would notice her faulty memory. An invaluable trait in a mistress for a man like himself.

At least the lie might buy him enough time to flee into the Laborer slums before anyone discovered the hacking of the sensors. Just as long as no one realized that he had brought nanobots with him on his mission.

In only moments, the bots would be out of his body and into the scented oils in the relaxation pods, and he would have succeeded in this mission.

Adrenaline flooded through him. Everything seemed sharper, more beautiful. They had planned for months, and now it was real. There was nothing better than an actual act of infiltration. No stimulant could compare. It was as if all the Imperial Palace was a tightly furled flower bud, and only his delicate touch could ease the petals apart.

He raised his hand and flicked his fingers to indicate to the relaxation pod that he desired entry, his mistress's authorization imprinted on his fingertips. The authorization had not been easy to come by, except to a thief who considered nothing impossible to steal.

The padded door slid noiselessly open, inviting him into the pod.

He took a deep breath as he stepped over the threshold. He had never been in a relaxation pod before. The other quarters had been luxurious, but this was like stepping into another world. The gentle sounds of something only a breath away from music caressing his ears, the softly pulsating, ever-changing colors, the heady scents of flowers and herbs mingling with the salty-metallic smell of blood.