Page 10 of Savage Union

“What harm can it do to let her try, Sire?” he’d said to our father. “She’s a female—she’ll get bored with it after a lesson or two.”

If that sounds horribly misogynistic, well it was—but on purpose. Slade has always known how to get my father to agree to things and he knew my Sire would let me go with him if he thought I was just being a silly girl who wanted to do everything her big brother did.

I didn’t take offense because I knew that wasn’t how Slade really felt about me. He’s always encouraged me to try and achieve whatever I want. And so it was, that I got to tag along with him to his piloting lessons.

I learned quickly—more quickly than Slade, even—which impressed and surprised the instructor. He told me later that he’d never had a faster pupil and asked me if I wanted to learn even more.

I came in on my own time, without Slade, to see what he was talking about. My near disaster at a club when I was younger made me cautious though—I brought a stinger-pen with me. It’s a tiny self-defense device that looked like a writing instrument but delivers a stinging shock that will make any attacker think twice before trying anything.

However my instructor, Grr. Horstauf, was a kind old man who, thank the Goddess of Four Faces, didn’t try anything. He was genuinely interested in my piloting ability.

“Here—try this on,” he said to me once we were in the flight simulator set up in his office. He handed me an adjustable silver circlet with various lights and sensors set in it.

“What is it?” I asked, taking the circlet from him and turning it over in my hands.

“A navigator’s helmet—sometimes called a ‘nav band,’” he told me. “Put it on and tell me what you see.”

I carefully placed the circlet on my head and Grr. Horstauf adjusted it so that the cool metal touched my temples. A moment later, a field of stars appeared in front of me.

“Oh!” I stared in surprise at the sparkling image. There was a huge swirl of stars and planets like an enormous, shiny disk spinning right before my eyes. “It looks like a galaxy,” I said to Grr. Horstauf.

“It is—ourgalaxy. The Imperium galaxy is vast—two-hundred thousand light years across,” he told me. “You’re looking at the macro view. I want you to concentrate and try to bring it closer in. Narrow your field of view and play close attention to the Star Gates—they’ll appear as burning blue spots surrounded by a golden halo.”

I did as he said, though I couldn’t tell you exactlyhowI did it. It was easy though—I just told myself I wanted to see a more close up view of a certain part of the galaxy and the view automatically narrowed. Soon I was staring at one of our local Space Gates—I recognized it by the structures around it.

“Okay—got it,” I told my instructor.

Grr. Horstauf frowned.

“Already?”

“See for yourself. Er—can you?” I asked.

He nodded and plucked the nav helmet from my head and put it on his own.

“Why, that’s our closest Space Gate!” he said. He sounded surprised.

“Yes—is that okay?” I asked anxiously. “You said to bring it in close and concentrate on the Space Gates, so I just…”

I trailed off because he was already putting the band back on my head.

“Plot a course from this Space Gate to one across the Galaxy—in the Fourth Quadrant,” he commanded.

I concentrated, picturing the jump from one gate to the next.

“Which gate do you want?” I asked him. “The Fourth Quadrant has seventeen…no, eighteen of them,” I amended as I counted.

“Remarkable,” I heard him mutter. “Take the one closest to Hyfrx Four—that’s a silver planet with four moons in the upper right sector of the quadrant,” he ordered.

I did as he said and the simulation automatically transported us through the simulated Space Gate. Soon the simulator’s viewscreen was showing a silver planet with four moons orbiting it.

“Excellent!” Grr. Horstauf seemed really pleased. “Now let’s try something even more challenging.”

So far nothing he’d asked me to do had been difficult at all, so I wasn’t sure what he meant by “more challenging.” However, I was willing to learn anything he would teach me.

“We’re going to try some extra-galactic navigation now—we call it Cross-Dimensional Navigation,” he told me. “There are no Space Gates outside the Imperium Galaxy, so you’ll have to use semi-stable worm holes instead. The holes often shift positions so using the right one can be challenging even for a seasoned navigator.”

I had never flown through a worm hole and said so. My teacher nodded.

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