Hey, everyone! Um, I know that I have a bunch of uncompleted projects/stories still going on, but I couldn't just NOT share this idea with you guys. This is an AU story and characters may be OOC and a lot of things will be missing, but a lot of things will be the same. I won't have time to write much, so I'll get chapters up as soon as I finish them, but I can't tell you I'll update every week, because I surely won't.

Here's some facts:

- This idea first popped into my head when I downloaded a game where you have to fly flying cars around (I really have no idea, hahah)
- I started writing this 14 hours ago at 1 AM, after watching Serenity.

- For how the characters look, think of Serenity and Firefly, yeah.

- I won't be including Firefly references in here.

Well...I really hope you guys like it. I do realize that not everybody likes Sci-Fi stories and I get it, I understand those people. But for me, it's just an escape from the reality and it's beautiful and I've wanted to do this for a long time and now I'm finally doing it.

I hope you guys like it. (:

CHAPTER 1

Richard Castle sat in his living room, drinking a bottle of beer and just relaxing. When he retired (at the age of 40, not that old), he did it because there was simply too much pressure – from the fans and his family and his team. He wanted some space for himself and damn it, was that really that hard to get?

He was just mentally deciding if he should go out tonight or not, when he heard the doorbell ring. He grumbled and got up, pulled on one of his old, ragged t-shirts and ran a hand through his hair before looking at the screen next to the door to see who was behind the door. There stood a man, presumably in his sixties, with grey and disheveled hair. He looked on edge, like he was in a hurry. Richard opened the door and leaned his forearm on it, took a sip of his drink as the man's eyes stared at his.

"Umm…Excuse me for interrupting, I would like to speak with Richard Castle." The man balanced a big black leather bag on one of his shoulders while the other pressed into his chest.

"This is him," Richard replied and took another sip of the beer. It was now warm already, especially with the heat wave that consumed the city just a few days ago. He made a face at the too-warm liquid scorching down his throat and deposited the bottle on the table near the door. When he looked back at the man, he was holding the bag open in front of him, hundreds of bills filling the space.

"What the hell," Richard mumbled and stepped closer to the man, his eyes jumping from the bag to the man's eyes.

"I need your help. I can pay you. I only have $15 000, but I hope it will suffice, because I really need your help, please." Richard stared dumbly at the man and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Is this some kind of a bad joke? Or am I on one of those tv-shows where they prank famous people just so that others can get a kick out of it?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Please, I'm…I'm desperate and you're my only chance, I wouldn't be bothering you if I wasn't so desperate."

"What do you need my help with?" The old man shuffled nervously and ran a hand through his hair.

"Can I – can I come in? It's not – I'd rather not risk someone overhearing this." Richard looked skeptically at the man and then stepped aside to let him in. The old man put down his duffel bag and turned to face his host.

"Thank you, I'm –"

"Wow, easy there, sir. First of all, I have not agreed to do anything just yet. I don't even know your name and –"

"Jim. Jim Beckett. Please, I just need her back, I have to get her back, please."

"Okay, Jim, nice to meet you, I'm Richard Castle, but you – you've probably already knew that." Jim nodded and sighed.

"Look, I'm really sorry to bother you with this, but it's important and we don't have much time."

"Can you just start from the beginning? I'm kind of lost here. And please, sit." Jim sat down on the couch and Richard sat in front of him on the coffee table.

"I have a daughter Kate and she is an intergalactic detective. You'd like her, she's – she's smart and funny and beautiful."

"That's nice."

"Anyway, three days ago, she went on an undercover mission to planet Pelagus. You've probably heard about its ruler Crimonti who's hosting races there and pays the winner with a woman he kidnaps. Well, that's the case Kate was working on, so she went undercover as a worker in the kitchen of Crimonti's house, but Crimonti was fascinated with her from the very start, so he picked her as his new conquest to give away at the next race, which is in four days."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir, but what exactly are you expecting me to do here?" He had an idea or two about what the man could ask of him, but…no.

"I need you to go and race and win and get Kate back home." Aha! He knew.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Beckett."

"Please, I'm – I'm desperate, I don't know what to do if you don't accept."

"I can't accept it. I've stopped racing, you know that," Richard told him and stood up, took another bear bottle out of the fridge.

"Couldn't you make an exception?"

"I can't just go there and risk my life for a woman I don't even know. You know what happens to the losers," he spat out, unintentionally snapped. He took a sip of the cold beverage, then shut his eyes. He hated leaving this man like this and leaving his daughter (Kate, right?) like this, but he swore to himself that he's never going to race again.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry about your daughter and everything, but I can't."

"Why?"

"Why can't the intergalactic police do something? They have money and army and weapons, they could storm Crimonti's place, get your daughter back and arrest him at the same time."

"It's not that simple," Jim fired back, now getting angry himself, apparently.

"Why not? I'm not going to be their crutch now. If they can't help her, well, so can't I," he stated, his tone harsh, and opened the front door.

"I'm asking you very politely to leave, Mr. Beckett."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"Oh yes, I know damn well what I'm doing. I'm sorry about Kate, okay? I really am. But you've no right to just come at my place, dangle some money in front of my face and expect me to accept a suicide mission. I may be the world's best racer, but I am not an intergalactic champion." He was slightly out of breath once he finished, and the man in front of him was all crumpled and looked ten times older than he did when Richard first opened his door.

"Well, I guess there's just nothing I can say, is there?" Richard shook his head, looked down at his feet, feeling ashamed for letting this man down for a moment.

"Do you have a daughter, Mr. Castle?" Richard's eyes snapped up at the man's question, but he didn't say a thing, didn't even nod.

"You do, don't you? I think I've read about her somewhere." His fists clenched by his sides as he remembered what the tabloids said about his beautiful daughter.

"Think about what all you would have been prepared to go through if she was the one whose independence, whose freedom, whose life depended on a stupid race. Would you be prepared to do anything?" With those words, the man left his house and drove away in an old blue car.

Richard had thought about it a lot. He couldn't rip the image of his own daughter in the hands of Crimonti out of his head. He threw the almost-empty bottle in the wall, the brown glass shattering against it.

Damn it.

The man said his daughter's name was Kate.

"Kate," he tried it on his tongue and it sounded beautifully. Why was she haunting him when he didn't even know how she looked like?

"Are you talking to yourself again, dad?" He looked towards the front door to see his daughter standing there, taking her shoes off.

"Alexis," he breathed, stood up and almost ran over to her, wrapped her in his arms.

She was safe, she was okay.

"Dad, are you alright?" He shook his head against hers and sighed heavily.

"No, I'm not. I feel awful."

"Dad, are you going to go?"

"I don't know sweetie. I've stopped racing and if I lose that race, I lose my life. But I can't just leave her there, I can't just let her down like that."

"You don't even know her."

"I know. But I have this feeling, you know. It feels like I'm supposed to go there and save her, but I don't know if I can."

"Don't go risking your life for someone you don't even know, dad. Please. Think about me." Richard buried his head in his daughter's hair and exhaled shakily.

"Exactly. What if it were you instead of Kate? What would I do if your life depended on me?"

"But that's different."

"I know. I just…All my life I've done nothing but show off and race and I don't think I ever did something really big for someone. I thought I had given up on racing, but that's my life. It's who I am. I need to go there. I need to save her. She's my only choice of forgiveness."

"I don't want you to go."

"I know, pumpkin."

I realize that Castle is a bit out OOC here, but this is what I need for this story to work.

Also, there are a few things I would like to explain before we go to another chapter:

- Think that Castle and Kate are looking the same as in season four. Maybe Castle with a little less weight, but okay.

- Castle is a world champion in starship racing, but think of starships as flying cars, okay? Okay.

- The rules of the race/battle that Castle should participate in to rescue Kate will be in the next chapter.

- Intergalactic police is somehow a mix of CIA, FBI and MI6 and every other agencies that catch criminals, just that it works throughout the galaxies.

- Castle's character is a mix of Castle from season 1 and Castle from season 4.

I think that's it for now. If anyone doesn't understand something, PM me. (:

- Ariela