Ellie looked down and her ID necklace caught her eye and she grabbed it, Of course, she thought, Valentin would change it to this. “I, Elloisa, admired by Valentin, Commander of the Nage Horde is looking for my transport.” She thought, New life, new future.
Suddenly a fancy black non-Imperial transport from the back lifted and came towards them. A blue light was flashing at a familiar rhythm to indicate to others it was on its way to its owner.
Ellie followed the transport as it found a place to land near them. She thought the door would just open now. “Why isn’t it opening?”
“You need to ask it to open with your code.”
“I don’t have a code,” Ellie replied and then under her breath said, “You’re not making this abduction easy.” Ellie knew the code would not be her name. It would be something she made up, a number or a word and she knew it would not be her GC code.
“It’s not supposed to be easy. If you don’t do these things the Empire will see this husband stealing as inauthentic and then I’ll be accused of abduction. Think, what could be your code? Two little terrestrial animals that came into your life recently,” Valentin spoke gently to her.
Ellie wanted to question him how he knew about her kittens. She was both charmed and worried as that was borderline stalker behavior but then she remembered them being featured in the Capital City gossip columns a few weeks ago, “Prue and Piper.”
The transport unlocked and the door opened. Ellie let Valentin enter first. As he entered, she saw his guards getting into two smaller but identical transports. One of them nodded to her. Once she was in, she closed the transport door and waited for Valentin to take the pilot’s seat so she could sit in the navigator’s seat. “Why aren’t you moving?”
“You need to fly this Elloisa or it’s not a valid husband abduction.”
“Stop smiling. I can’t fly a transport,” Ellie replied honestly.
Valentin stopped smiling, “You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke at a time like this?”
“Never mind,” Valentin said calmly. “Sit down and I’ll talk you through it. It’s simple.”
“We can use autopilot, right?” Ellie said sitting down in the pilot’s seat.
Valentin frowned.
Ellie looked over at him when he didn’t answer, “No autopilot?”
“It goes against the husband stealing requirements, but you can do this. Flying is easy. The transport does most of the work, you don’t need wings or anything. Now,” he took a deep breath, “it’s probably a good idea to strap us in. Press the seatbelt button there on your left.”
Ellie did that and the straps appeared around them.
“Now turn on the engine,” Valentin instructed.
“Which button is the engine?” Ellie asked as she looked at the transparent panel of icons without words.
“It’s the green icon second to the right third row.”
Ellie touched it and suddenly she felt the transport come to life, “Now what?”
“You see those long arrows follow them up with your fingers very slowly.”
Ellie saw them and flicked them up with her fingers.
“Too fast! Too fast!”
Ellie removed her fingers and then they began falling.
“Put your fingers back or we are going to die,” Valentin said quickly but calmly.
Ellie put her fingers steadily on the arrows and they just hung in the air. “Like this and we are out of the atmosphere?”
“If only it were that simple. No, you must use the thrusters.”
“Where are they?” Ellie asked looking around at the other icons.
“Third row, fourth icon over,” Valentin said. “But you must tap on it steadily.”
“Like a drum?”
“Yes, a little bit,” he replied, not having heard the human word ‘drum’ in years.
“Like, bum, bum, bum or faster or slower?” she didn’t even reflect on the ridiculousness of singing the rhythm to one of her favorite songs as an example she was so nervous.
“A little faster. And you will do that steadily until we break orbit.”
“How will I know we have broken orbit?” Ellie asked blue eyes meeting.
“You know because we will be in space. We will see the planet below,” Valentin patiently explained wondering if this really was a good plan. “You can do it. First time is the charm, right?”
“You don’t sound confident?”
“No? My father always used to say that to my mother when she tried cooking a new dish.”
“Is she a good cook?”
“No.”
“Great,” said Ellie sarcastically.
“Steady. Steady. Steady,” Valentin said gently.
“I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. You can do this. Take your right hand away from the arrows and start tapping, steadily. Be mindful of the other ships. Stay in your space,” Valentin said in his most confident voice.
Ellie gave herself a few seconds and then decided that she had to do this now or just return to the planet, which she didn’t want to do. She didn’t want to say she gave up because she couldn’t break orbit in the transport. She began tapping the thruster’s icon and trying to avoid running into other transports who seemed to notice her hesitation and were distractingly whipping around their transport.
“Steady, that’s too fast. Slower. Slower,” Valentin was guiding her. “Too slow. Yes. That’s right. Don’t mind the other transports, just focus on your own path. Now, tap, tap tap. Just like that. Whoa,” he said instinctively when they got too close to another transport. “Give them space. That’s it. We are almost there. Tap, tap, just like that.”
“We are on fire!” Ellie began tapping faster, thinking her speed was the issue.
“No slowdown or you will burn us up. Tap, tap, tap.” Valentin was glad she slowed down. “We are leaving the atmosphere. It’s always like this. It’s the strong gravitation pull of Alliance Planet Two. Keep going we are almost out.” Finally, they reached space. “Stop tapping now.”
Ellie obeyed, “What’s the red light?”
“We are being hailed.”
“Should I answer it?” Ellie asked. Her finger was already on the icon though. It was an RVM.
“No,” Valentin said too late.
It was the High Council. “Madame Ellie, Ward of House Rega, You will return to Alliance Planet Two at once or your status as a maximum class woman will be in jeopardy. I speak on behalf of Admiral Jei of House Rega who is unfortunately indisposed at this moment.”
“Indisposed?” Ellie asked incredulously. “If he can’t even bother to talk to me now then he doesn’t deserve to keep me in his House.” She was hurt he didn’t even care enough to see her now to try to convince her to stay.
“Yes, he is indisposed. Return to the Alliance Planet Two now and save yourself from this Outcast,” the House Rega representative said coolly.
Ellie was so overwhelmed with the hurt of Jei not caring and with the added stress of trying to fly the transport that she couldn’t think clearly, “No, I will not return. I’m abducting or husband stealing or whatever it’s called, Valentin, the Outcast, commander of something that ends with the word ‘horde’.”