Chapter One:

Preemptive Equivocation

"The alliance is crucial to our realm," the Chancellor had said, looking down with the coldly calculating, steely grey eyes of an aristocrat to the ramrod-straight, severely uniformed figure who stood before him, a few steps lower on the grand throne dais. "You will go to close the negotiations, Consulate, and then you will escort the princess here—to her wedding."

The hazel eyes of the other man—the consulate—hadn't so much flickered; the straight, thin line of his lips had no altered from its grim frown. A curt nod was his only acknowledgement of the chancellor's words, and then—

"It will be done, your grace."

Satisfied, the ruler gave a dismissive wave of his hand: the deep garnet gem on his signet ring catching the sunlight and flashing bright blood-red.

"Then go, Consulate Lysander."

That had been before.

Now, it was later—afterwards—the future of that time, currently the actual present time. The event had gone by in a dizzying blur of politics, careful manipulation, and leverage—wit and cautious plotting and deft maneuvering. And now he was on the journey back to his home-world of Tyrellia: the sleek and stunning, proudly caste-oriented and entirely imperialistic jewel of the Inner Rim—with a princess-bride in tow.

Quite literally.

But…thinking of that not-so-little and not-so-minor issue was just begging his migraine to return in doubly vengeful force.

And so he turned his thoughts elsewhere.

His name was Aidan Lysander, and he was the chief advisor, aide-de-camp, and clandestine bodyguard and assassin of High Chancellor Armad Valdorian, ruler of Tyrellia. Tall and flawlessly fit, having just begun to reach the prime of his life, he was one of the court's most respected, privileged, and imposing figures.

For multiple reasons.

No one could really say that they knew what he was, how old he was, where he had come from, or how he had gotten to his current and incredibly favorable position at court. No one had ever asked.

Everyone assumed that he was human, like them, because he had the form of a human—he had two arms, two legs, two ears, two eyes, one mouth and nose, and all the other distinguishing bodily characteristics of a human, or at least a humanoid. Outwardly, he was unquestionably human.

Everyone assumed that he was somewhere around his thirty-first year of life, because he looked as if he could be of that age.

No one really cared what planet he was from—again, they had all assumed that he was from Tyrellia, like them. He had the accent and mannerisms of a Tyrellian. He said all the right words; did all the right things. No one asked, because they assumed that all of their assumptions about him were true. Their determinations couldn't possibly be false—that was simply unthinkable.

But no one really knew the real truth, because no one had ever asked him about it, and everyone really did wonder about him, from time to time.

.As it was, though, Aidan Lysander was the Chancellor's most trusted official, and when it had been decided that the royal house of Valdorian would make an alliance with the powerful and fabulously wealthy house of the Baron von Rothbart...well, there had been no other option in the Chancellor's mind. There was simply no man better suited and more apt to carry out the immensely important task of escorting the prince's bride to her new home than Consulate Lysander.

For his own part, Aidan didn't like the idea of selling off a woman in order to make a political alliance—

And the woman in question, the Princess Odette Annasophia Honorine Gisella Andressa von Rothbart, was little more than a girl.

She was a very young woman, at best.

He hadn't spoken a word to the princess upon his arrival to Rook's Cliff, the ancestral von Rothbart bastion—he had seen her, once, and from a long ways off at that. But he knew, with acute and regretful clarity, that she was very young. She was just nineteen years of age, the baron had told him in a carelessly offhand manner—as if it didn't matter to him in the slightest that his own daughter's life was now, in essence, the property of a man whom she had never met.

Bartering things—especially living things, and especially women—disgusted Aidan Lysander. Every atom in every fiber of his being revolted against the practice. It was insensitive, uncaring, archaic, and barbaric.

But, because he was the chancellor's right-hand man…

He had no choice.

Now they were on the return trip, and it was too late for unsettling thoughts and second-guessing. He was the consulate, and his duty was to obey the chancellor and all of his commands; his function at court was not to have his own opinions.

It simply wasn't done.

The Hyperion Ascendant was a fine ship—one of the finest vessels in the galaxy, perhaps, let alone the system—and journeys of this nature were never difficult.

—provided, of course, that intergalactic traffic didn't foul up. Even with the Senate's most recent amendments to the merchant lines and the commuting routes, interplanetary traveling could be messy. This usually didn't cause any problems for the head consulate of Tyrellia, however. A flash of credentials and a word or two was all that it took for Aidan to ensure that the Hyperion Ascendant would not be delayed in any manner—because he was the Consulate of Tyrellia. After all…no one said no to the Consulate.

And today—

Well, today… he reflected, with a tiny bit of a scowl etching into his thinned lips, as he shifted his gloved hands' grip on his wrists.

Today was important

Without warning—yet without the slightest trace of abruptness—he turned to the side, glancing with calm hazel eyes to the ship's chief helmsman.

"Our course?" he inquired, evenly.

The man glanced up from the controls, and gave a brief nod in acknowledgment of the consulate's inquiry.

"We are on course, and will arrive as scheduled, Consulate."

A brief nod was the Consulate's response to this.

"Good," he said, after a moment. "Bring us down to mach four, and hail the traffic controls. Request that they give us permission to come on-planet, and that we should be allowed to haul-in at Docking Station Alpha Gamera, at 0500 hours."

"Aye, Consulate."

At that, the bridge abruptly came alive with movement and snippets of low, controlled conversation as the crew busied themselves with carrying out his orders. Meanwhile, the consulate stood calmly amidst it all, watching as the ship approached the cloud-enshrouded planet of its destination.

After a moment or two, his shape gaze strayed to the other ships that surrounded his Tyrellian cruiser, following the same coordinates. It would be hours, perhaps, before any of the ships in the line would be patched through to the traffic control center, and allowed to enter the planet's stratosphere.

His royal envoy's ship may have been the most important, even the largest ship that would wait in the line—but wait it would, he reflected grimly. The checkpoints weren't exactly the fastest, most efficient systems that existed. And this was ironic, considering that governmental procedures were supposed to be known for their order and proficient handlings of all interplanetary traffic.

He turned his head slightly in the direction of the chief helmsmen as the man made the connection to the control tower on-planet.

"This is the Hyperion Ascendant, class beta-zi-alpha, Tyrellian royal cruiser six-of-eight, requesting that we be given permission to land at Docking Station Alpha Gamera at 0500 hours."

There was a pause; then a businesslike voice responded from the other computer. "Your purpose?"

The helmsman glanced at Aidan for permission, which the consulate gave with a silent nod. He leaned forward again, and replied, "Official royal business of the royal house. We are on a mission from Chancellor Valdorian, escorting his son's bride."

"Your cargo?"

"Crew, passengers, and luggage."

And since this is a princess that we're dealing with, there was a lot of it… thought the consulate, briefly passing his leather-gloved hand over his eyes and then the bridge of his nose: restraining the sudden urge to sigh wearily, and give in to a looming migraine at the memory. Loading all of the necessary cargo onto the cruiser had been quite the complicated process.

"Your commander?"

A roll of the eyes would have been a humanly appropriate reaction to this rigid adherence to policy—but Aidan Lysander had built his current existence on the necessity of rules, and so he did react with irritation. As it was, however, it could take hours for them to simply gain permission to land at the rate that things were going now. Shoving abruptly away from the wall that he had been leaning against, he walked over to the communications console, and pressed in the intercom button.

"Control tower, this is Consulate Lysander of Tyrellia, acting on behalf of Chancellor Armad Valdorian. Our coordinates are being sent to you now. We carry no weapons outside of those installed for the necessary defense of this vessel, which you may scan freely, if you so desire. We cannot afford to be delayed in any manner at this time. We desire your cooperation."

There was a pause on the other end; then, "Very well, Consulate. Permission granted for the Hyperion Ascendant to dock in landing station Alpha Gamera at 0500 hours. Proceed on your charted course."

Satisfied, Aidan returned to his command seat.

"Bring us down," he ordered the helmsman.

At the touch of the officer's hands on a few of the seeming hundreds of levers and blinking controls that littered his station, the enormous sleek silvery bulk of the Hyperion Ascendant eased down to a lower velocity, beginning its approach to the planet with a kind of ponderous caution. Engines roared; turbines groaned as the power was gradually suctioned out of them, and the ship drew closer to the increasingly large, palely-glowing yellow-white orb that was the planet Caraesthir.

It was just as he remembered it.

It had been quite some time since he had visited the planet that was the Mid-Rim's central hub; usually, his role as the chancellor's right-hand advisor and envoy kept him based on the planet of Tyrellia itself, or on any number of the planets that were near to it. Since he had gained his position at the illustrious and grandiose Tyrellian court, he had rarely left the Inner Rim.

But that didn't dull the memories.

Caraesthir was a center for middle-class commerce and politics: a kind of lesser twin to Eärantharis, the capitol-planet of the Supreme Intergalactic Star Empire.

It was also the location of a little-known rotunda, where the commencement ceremonies of a very little-known academy had taken place for hundreds and hundreds of years. Almost no one knew this.

But Aidan Lysander did. He remembered the place all too well. Fortunately, however, his mission today would take him nowhere near that place. Another stressful past-induced crisis averted, he thought, sourly.

And now, onto another.

He leaned back against the chair—more to alleviate the tension of its metal against his shoulder blades than to actually relax—and watched through the crystalline plexiglass of the bridge's enormous view-port window as the Hyperion Ascendant dove through the hazy, almost blinding white outer atmosphere of the planet. Within a seeming split second, the inner sphere of the planet revealed itself for all to see.

It was a truly glorious sight.

The planet's sky was a-blaze with a kind of gold-white, early morning sunshine that caused everything to shimmer before his dazzled eyes. Veritable mountains of voluminous white clouds swirled in the air: brushing against the Hyperion Ascendant's brushed silver hull as it sped through on its course to the docking station, cutting like the blade of a scimitar through silk.

Lower and lower the Tyrellian vessel dived, swooping around the blue-edged cloud—then, a low chime went off on the helmsman's chart, and he announced—"Docking Station Alpha Gamera in sight. Beginning our final descent."

"Power down the engines, and cut us back to mach three," Aidan said, his eyes focusing intently on the floating spire of the docking station, which had suddenly appeared—adrift in the sea of dawn-tinted clouds—some distance off.

"Aye, sir."

Aidan continued to watch as the docking station seemed to grow in size, the fine details of its exterior—the nautilus-like spiral of its main bulk, the countless numbers of durasteel plating, the seemingly tiny windows that caught the sunlight and gleamed like tiny suns—becoming clearer by the moment.

One part of his admittedly-trying journey was completed.

He had succeeded in processing all due protocol, and secured the princess. There would be one last stop—here, to Caraesthir, where they would re-fuel the ship and allow for mandatory inspections to be made—and then…

Then they would head to Tyrellia, where the Chancellor's son—the crown prince and sole heir, the pride and joy of that kingdom—would be given his trophy-bride.

Aidan shook his head.

Absolutely disgusting.

But he had no time to think any further along this train of thought, for the crew had now assumed their stations for the final landing procedures, taking hold of myriad of sensitive controls. The Hyperion Ascendant glided down and flew low over the air traffic into the docking port.

With a heavy sort of easing-down, the enormous ship came into the holding bay and locked in, its landing gear unfolding with casual deliberation. The Hyperion Ascendant was a ponderous royal giant of a ship: a tangible symbol for the Tyrellian chancellorship's power and affluence. Tyrellians hurried for no one.

As he looked down from his command seat, Aidan could already see that a contingent of technicians and an accompanying handful of Caraesthirian security detail agents awaited the ship's arrival below, standing at edge of the docking port. He drummed his fingers, once, on the armrests of his chair.

It was all quite routine.

As the commanding officer of the vessel and sole representative for the chancellor, he would be the one to disembark from the ship first, followed by the other Tyrellian court envoys and officials, and the top-ranking officers of the ship's crew.

It would be his responsibility to greet the Caraesthirian delegation that would no doubt be there to accost him. It would be his prerogative to make the necessary explanations and exchange light jovialities, smiling at things he didn't appreciate and chuckling at jokes that he didn't find amusing—complimenting people that he didn't like, and mechanically repeating the tepid and politely neutral lines that had been drilled into him during his court-training.

Of course, the Caraesthirian port-magistrate would insist upon entertaining the Tyrellian consulate and his entourage, while their ship was inspected and refueled for the last leg of its return journey. This meant crowds of chattering, inquisitive people who would ask him thousands of questions and expect him to answer every one; this meant a delay in their schedule, for the sake of appearances, and this meant a headache for him.

But—

Well, it was protocol.

Aidan inhaled—taking one last, deep, cleansing breath—and stood. The bridge was silent as everyone waited for his cue: only when the consulate gave the word would anyone move a muscle. He squared his shoulders, setting his frame into its proper confident and proud stance; then he looked to the chamberlain who stood nearby.

"If all is in order, let us go."

It was twilight by the time that he was given word that the Hyperion Ascendant had been refueled and cleared for departure. Deftly hiding the muscle that was working in his tightly clenched jaw—something that would have given away his irritation at the inconvenient and presumptuous delay that the Caraesthirian policies had caused him—Aidan dismissed the man who had delivered the message, and turned to the magistrate.

Bloody underworlds, five more minutes of this…

He gritted his teeth, and put on a coolly neutral, polite expression.

"Magistrate, forgive me for interrupting…"

It was no wonder why Caraesthir had never grown to be anything more than a very minor reloading port of a planet, in the grand scheme of the Empire, if this man was a typical native. Magistrate Phyris was repulsively fat, gallingly obsequious, and a blasted nuisance—and that was a generous description, in Aidan's severely critical eyes.

But he dismissed the thought and prepared to continue his announcement, having noted that he had gained the bumbling official's pig-eyed attention.

"I have just been informed that my ship has been approved for travel, and that the inspections have been completed. You have our highest thanks for your hospitality, but we shall trouble you no longer. It is high time that we departed."

"It has been no trouble at all, Consulate!" the bumbling magistrate told him—in a voice that was too enthusiastic, too loud, and bound to gain everyone's attention, as was most likely the man's intention. "We are most honoured to have Chancellor Valdorian's delegation with us! But, here, I'll not keep you any longer; you've been delayed for long enough here, and your lord is surely watching for your arrival back to Tyrellia with a most expectant eye. I assume that the princess is well?"

Aidan balked a bit at that, though he didn't show it. Being a diplomat involved certain problems—one of which concerned knowing what to do when one was asked a question that one couldn't possibly answer with any certainty.

Well…

In all truthfulness, he didn't know whether the princess—the maiden ensconced on the Tyrellian royal cruiser, in the safe keeping of her escorts—was well or not. He hadn't seen her since the day he had arrived to her father's castle, and while he wasn't certain about the reason for that, he had an idea that he wasn't supposed to know. Or to ask. Anyone else inquiring after such a thing was unthinkable.

He scarcely kept himself from narrowing his eyes dangerously, substituting that preferred action with a more acceptable, light clearing of his throat.

"She…is very well, thank you, Magistrate. The Chancellor, Duchess Rafaela, and Crown Prince Theophilis are very much looking forward to her arrival, and the upcoming wedding festivities."

Phyris nodded sagely.

"Of course, of course," he chortled. "It is a most advantageous alliance, the treaty between the Baron von Rothbart and the house of Valdorian! The rest of the empire will surely be looking with interest to what future events will transpire from the union."

"Indeed."

And then Aidan bowed, with a curt yet fluid, sharp kind of ease.

"Thank you, once again, Magistrate. You have been very kind in accommodating us during our stay here."

He gestured silently to the second-ranking official in his delegation, making known his command for the departure of the Tyrellians.

Farewells were exchanged, conversations were ended, and belongings—cloaks, weapons, coats, and other such mundane items—were gathered up, handed to their owners at the door. Magistrate Phyris kept his place a little to Aidan's side all the while: blathering on and on about recent politics and social gossip, and after a few moments, his talking transformed into a dull mumbling noise in the back of the stern consulate's mind. Everyone moved towards the door.

"You will, of course, allow us to escort you to your ship?"

Aidan turned, putting on yet another politely indifferent smile.

"Of course, Magistrate."

The journey back to the docking bay was more like a tour of the floating, city-like space-port. The Magistrate's quarters were not close to the docking bay by any means, and the fact that the man seemed insistent on detaining the Tyrellians there for as long as possible was becoming more and more irritating to Aidan by the moment. As they paused beside a wall that seemed to be made entirely of crystalline plexiglass windows—which gave a gorgeous view of the sunset-lit clouds beyond, in the sky—Aidan scarcely restrained his urge to glance pointedly at the wrist-timer that he wore.

Oh, the Chancellor would not be pleased with this.

And then things went from merely irritating to worse. Magistrate Phyris turned from his contemplation of the roiling cotton-like puffs of the clouds, and looked straight at Aidan, with a sort of incisive gleam in his glittering little pig-like eyes.

"Does the princess dislike travel, Consulate?"

That jolted Aidan from his disinterested thoughts. He didn't even have to look at the other man to know that the magistrate had set him under intense scrutiny—and he knew what the consequences would be if he gave the wrong answer to that maddeningly intrusive but seemingly blasé inquiry. A muscle worked in his jaw for a moment as he permitted himself a thunderous scowl at the floor.

Such inappropriate and prying questions were not acceptable.

Not in the slightest.

"Ah, well, she is…unused to the arduousness of space-travel. She has never ventured this far away from her home before—the Baron von Rothbart, as you know, lives in a nearest corner of the Outer Rim, and it is not often that he or any of his kith and kin leave Rook's Cliff. The princess was indisposed to joining us tonight, for which she sends her most profound apologies."

He hoped that lie would hold.

Apparently, it did. Magistrate Phyris gave a sort of knowing look, as if he had just understood some great universal riddle, and his fat mouth formed a small O. "Ah," came from him, in a musing sort of tone. "Well—women will always insist upon being women, won't they! No matter, however, no matter at all; I am certain that we will be seeing much more of her after the wedding."

"Quite," was the consulate's only marginally strained reply.

Phyris shrugged, and the group moved on again, towards the enormous doorway that led out onto the docking bay.

There, beyond the slowly parting mechanical doors, the Hyperion Ascendant waited the arrival of its passengers and commander, looking for the entire world like some sort of patiently looming quicksilver behemoth: its gigantic turbine engines filling the air with a low-resounding hum. Aidan—again—only gave half an ear, possibly less, to the magistrate as he dithered about shipping lines and the ingenuity of Chancellor Valdorian and the Baron von Rothbart, in the making of their realms' alliance through the marriage of the princess and the chancellor's son…

The sunset had transformed from a brilliant conflagration of unnaturally pure, fiery colours into a much deeper, ruddier palette; darkness had now stained the furthest corners of the clouded horizon, like black ink spreading across a crumpled parchment. There was no moon that night, and he could only see the very first, brightest star in the sky: glimmering like the last shard of hope in Pandora's Box. In keeping with his official requirements as Consulate, he moved through the now-open door first, Magistrate Phyris following close on his heels, still talking—

And then something odd happened.

Something very odd.

He felt a bit of pressure in the middle of his chest, immediately over the spot where his rib-bones connected over his diaphragm. It was only a tiny bit of pressure—caused by an astonishingly thin and alarmingly bright, silvery blade.

Cast list:

Chancellor Armad Valdorian, of Tyrellia: Terrence Stamp

Magistrate Phyris, of Caraesthir: Richard Griffiths

...And starring Christian Bale, as Consulate Aidan Lysander.