Kara King & The Beyonders: The Nightwind Glyder Heist

Kara King and The Beyonders:

The Nightwind Glider Heist

Chapter One:

The Fade

The cold duranium doors stood in front of her like an immovable force. Kara knew this wasn’t the case. If she took one more step forward, they would slide open with a sudden woosh of moving air. She never liked entering the long-range comms room. It always took a few moments for the cameras to adjust thanks to her glowing blue hair in total and partial darkness. Even now, she thought of her father as her Half-Magnavolt blood caused her to illuminate the hallway before the room.

Kara stole herself away from the moment. Many assumed that it was her father that got her command of the renowned spaceship, The Faux. Of course, she knew that wasn’t the truth. In fact, she hated to think of her father at all, but this same thought ran through her mind every time she stood in front of this door. Her father didn’t get her this ship, it was The Fade.

She stepped forward and the door rushed open only to reveal a pitch-black room and an illuminated circle on the floor a few more steps ahead. The Faux was equipped with the highest-level technology, some systems she didn’t even understand how they operated. The holographic comms ahead of her was one of them. She stepped forward and the room began to calibrate its lighting and scanned her.

Kara was on the run years ago. Not from anything, just looking for a new handle on life. Whatever it took to remove herself from her family and become her own woman. She found herself taking on odd jobs as a pilot and merc near the dark systems. They weren’t darker than any other star system, just less controlled by the empire. She found herself on the cyberpunk city planet Neradiil. That planet was the living proof that Elves weren’t as perfect as the stories said they were. Given enough time, everyone ends up a little corrupt, that’s what Kara thought anyway. Down in a slum bar on Neradiil she was approached by Borg Rats, that’s what the locals called the cybermodded Goblins. She nearly blasted them out of The Verse but instead they offered her a job. She just needed to meet their leader.

The calibration finished and her surroundings changed. They didn’t appear to shift much as The Fade always streamed in from dark location. Bright neon lights and some sconces usually lit the surroundings, but it still kept everything relatively dark. Everything except for a stone chair which resembled the helm of a ship or throne. She never met him in person, so Kara wasn’t sure what to think of The Fade’s location.

“King.” The Fade’s voice was almost as airy or smokey as he appeared. He always wore a fashionable vest and modern socialite clothing including some kind of grey gloves, but his face was always uncovered.

That never helped Kara tell what he looked like though. She never knew of any alien race with glowing gold eyes and a face of smoke but that’s all she ever saw of him. Now it could have been a filter or program to mask his face, but she couldn’t think of that right now. The recognition of her last name both infuriated her and made her nervous. The Fade knew she hated it which meant he only used it when particularly upset with her or wanted to throw her off.

“Come now, you’re going to break your mug of caf.”

Kara looked down remembering she walked in with her morning pick me up, gripping it now so tight that if it were a songbird it would be dead. She calmed herself remembering now that he could see her perfectly. Her hair, normally an ash grey, was just darker than her fair skin, and clashed perfectly with her soft pink eyes and lips. Normally she wore just her tight fitting flight suit but she had a feeling The Fade would send them on a mission quickly since they had taken some extra shore leave after the last one. She was already wearing her aramid and armored chaps, matching vambraces, a pauldron of human design, on one hip her trusty V6 Energy Hand Cannon, and on the other her sheathed messer. “So, what is it this time? Oh, and remind me how many of these we have left?”

The Fade sighed, “I give you an experimental vessel with greater tech than the High Council and Empire can afford combined, and you ask how many more jobs? Kara, I wouldn’t say I own you- “

“But we’re not done yet.” Kara traded his sigh for one of her own. She wasn’t really sure what The Fade was up to or what he got out of their exploits exactly. When she was offered the ship on Neradiil and told she could find her own crew she wasn’t sure what to expect. She surely didn’t expect The Faux or what it would come to do. She just assumed The Fade was some kind of shadow broker or higher up in the empire that needed the occasional odd job done. She assumed every higher up politician had a team like hers, coordinating odd jobs throughout The Verse. Not once had she ever crossed paths with a group like theirs, however. With that knowledge her theory of who The Fade was, and his intentions for that matter, boiled back down to nothing. All she could hope for would be to get out from under his thumbs and leave with the ship intact.

“Not much longer though. I hope that doesn’t sound to menacing or mysterious.” He chuckled to himself knowing that wasn’t the case. “I can tell you that this next job, if you’re successful, will take off quite the lump sum off the value of your tab. In fact if you would do as I’ve advised you before-“

“I’m not killing my crew Fade.” Kara took a sip and rested a hand on her pistol.

“I figured; the hazard pay is just so much. The take on this one would be enough for you to be done if I didn’t have to pay out the crew as well.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve made my decision. Same as the last dozen times you asked me.”

The Fade stood from his chair and approached a holo-display in front of him. Their projections were so perfect that as the table whirred to life in whatever room The Fade was in, it lit up perfectly in front of Kara as if they simply stood on opposite sides of it. The image only had to flash on for a moment for Kara to pick up what it was.

“Th- That’s the Nightwind Glider?!” Kara moved forward and went to rest her cup of caf on the table but it fell through the holo to the ground and shattered instead. “Shit.”

“Is that a problem?”

She laughed nervously and returned with a condescending tone, “Depends. You want me to shoot down the imperial pleasure yacht? Then yeah, we got a problem.”

“Oh? I didn’t know you were so attached to the Emperor.”

Interesting. That’s certainly a development. Kara went through life assuming people knew she had connections to the imperial house simply based on her Half-Magnavolt blood. Her father’s race of people came from a far-off planet called Utara. They rarely left the planet much less rose in imperial society. Fade’s comment clearly showed he didn’t connect her with anyone who might be on that ship.

“No. Not an issue, it’s just suicide.”

“Hmm. Just as well, I’m not having you fire at the ship.”

Kara’s brow lifted. “Okay you’ve got me interested.”

The holo of the ship disappeared and an antique zero space Japanese katana took its place. “The emperor owns this sword. It’s a New Showa Era Relic. The Emperor at the time, Hirohito the second, was the great great great great grandson of the original Showa Emperor.”

“Woah, Hold on. So, this thing is like 600 years old? How is it not completely disintegrated by now? Or for that matter just destroyed from the Second Contact War? Right? I mean I’m not a history teacher but that would be around the time The Humans and Cytherians first made it beyond Pluto, right?”

“Precisely one reason I want it. If it is legitimate, then current Japanese descendants on the council would pay a fortune for it. If it is fake, then it could shift their position in The Council.”

“Ah so were talking theft? What’s the plan? Is it docked for maintenance or being sold at auction?”

“On the contrary,” The sword disappeared and instead a vid of the emperor and his retinue waved at a crowd.

Kara’s stomach sank at the sight of it.

“The Elf Emperor Valdas, is celebrating his six hundred and fiftieth birthday.”

“Here’s to three hundred and fifty more years of tyranny,” Kara muttered under her breath.

“The emperor is celebrating by taking his yacht out with one thousand individuals to view the timely death of Palivan V.”

“What?! You’ve got to be kidding me. You want me to not only sneak onto the most famous ship in the verse where the biggest party of the century is happening, and not to mention probably the most guarded one, but there’s a star about to go supernova next to it!”

“Well, if you want to sneak on you can, but I’ve got three passes for you and some of your crew here. Anyways you have three days till the reception begins. I’d take the time to put some plans together. Let me know if you need anything.” The Fade held up three passes and laid them on the table. The tickets fizzled and disappeared into the table, then a pillar rose from the ground near Kara and the three passes materialized atop it. Kara could tell that final offer of help was just a formality. “Plus, they’ll park the yacht at least fifty lightyears from the giant star when it goes nova. Most likely.”