The finest remaining ships held a tight formation in stasis around the royal family’s secure bunker ship in deep space. When they’d exited the Imperial court starting on their way here, they’d put on a show of going on a short vacation. They waved goodbye to people, and made shallow promises of prompt return. The ships that escorted them into space were a heavier force than the usual detail. Not just a guard, but a final guard.

King Proxem Grant Vario was pilot of the family’s vessel, with the younger of his daughters and two sons inside. He had decided on a textbook strategic withdrawal in accordance with the defensive strength still present after the devastation of the Photuris Vortex, the city shutdown zone attacks, and the fleet wipe. They could muster an adequately impenetrable defense for the lineage, and Vario decided to do so before anything compromised that. This kind of extreme threat to the royal family had happened only very few times in the history of the Pan-Galactic Imperium. Grant Vario was sullen.

Little Carlo looked at his father thinking of asking him to play, then thought better of it. Instead, he took on his father’s mood and turned it on him. “Why is everything so weird,” he said with little expectation of response.

His older sister Mireille intercepted the communication for everyone’s sake. “Carlo, we’re in grave danger.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Everywhere,” said their brother Cristobal, “The danger is everywhere, but here.” He was poring over some files he brought that otherwise held his attention. He would occasionally lift a glance to his father, his sister, and his brother. He was also doodling in his notebook.

Mireille refrained from asking her father what he was doing about it. He did not look entirely well. Instead she asked, “King my father, can you show me the next flight system?” They’d already been over the first two emergency getaway protocols, making sure that Mireille also knew how to control this vessel.

They started going through the functions of a row of knobs. Vario looked at his daughter, and considered her maturity regarding the possibility of being next in the line. Her sister may not return, and he himself might not make it through this. Nineteen wasn’t the youngest age in their dynasty for the unexpected burden. Vario’s reckoning was at hand, and the math wasn’t working out well for him, no matter which way he turned the equation. Something would be coming for him. It might get the kids, or it might not. He knows he got some things wrong, really wrong, but he’d been holding onto his justification. He told himself he was serving the Imperium; he told himself he was serving his family; looking at them now, quietly enduring this floating bunker, he wonders if he might only be serving himself at this point. He hates it, enough to want to lie to himself some more. The feeling that he couldn’t keep doing that any longer told him that the world he knew was coming to an end.

She’d flown before, but in this circumstance, everything was happening for the first time. Princessa Mireille focused and learned the controls.

“I’m glad you’re so up to date on today’s issues.” The two women sat at a streetside brunch table, plates empty and polished, sipping hot herbal tea. They both wore sunglasses, as it was a bright, warm day. The one speaking looked and sounded nothing like Princess Ascendant Soleil. To any passerby, she was an independent consultant, the kind that populate this district and are seen chatting at different places with different people throughout the day. The woman she was speaking with, the notable Margeaux Rienne, was footing the bill. They were concluding a detailed discussion about reallocating resources according to new and sudden changes in relevant economies – wink, wink.

“I’ve been closely concerned with these matters for a while, but you supplied key insights that’ll get me going on these initiatives right away. If I can leverage useful partnerships, I will. We’ll have a better chance of creating a more favorable environment for our greater interests.” Margeaux was wearing a smooth ensemble from the latest collection in her fashion line, the one that featured an edgy stamped tin necklace brought to the relief benefit runway at the last minute.

“I’m also deeply appreciative of the bonus, Ms. Rienne.”

The fiery-haired young business owner smiled behind her warm cup. “I already told you that you may call me Margeaux – and it’s a pleasure to adequately reward expertise and first word.”

“I’m in agreement with you on that. It has been a delight to finally meet you.” The consultant checked the small phone com on the table stickered with the Look Out World logo. “I have a couple replies already.”

“If you feel like sending that back, we’ll do the usual full scrub – but if anything terrible happens to it, you don’t have to worry about reimbursing us.”

“Company phone is an exciting extra. I’ll try not to flash your logo in any of the wrong places.”

“I have no idea where those would be, but I trust you to know.”

When she’d been deposited via interdimensional dragon torrent in the mountain meadow where she mourned her mother, Princess Ascendant Soleil gathered her senses as she gathered her atoms. Beginning with light footsteps down the trail, she made her way towards her home city on the horizon.

Plans had gone in advance with her friends, to set in motion for her. She’d be able to find out quickly which of them, if any, had opened up, and what she could do from there. Approaching her old neighborhoods, she disguised herself with her dragongift, to maintain her situational autonomy. If there was anything left for her to do from the shadows, she could only do it there. She looked like a hiker, just a hiker. Illusions that are partly true are easier to maintain.

Upon accessing the system, Soleil found that some of her calling cards had been received and acknowledged. This meant there were some people who’d agreed to expedite her into their books through a back door. These stones might only be good to land on once, but there they hovered in midair.

“Let’s start with brunch,” Soleil said, smiling over a com to a kindred spirit. “A lot needs to happen very quickly, and I want the whole day ahead of me.”

Margeaux Rienne’s voice patched through the earpiece at minimized volume. “This is feasible. It’ll be a pleasure working with you again.” She kept all her spoken terms generally ambiguous, keeping context as subtext like the elite partner in crime she’d always been.

“My only regret is that we couldn’t have begun this venture sooner.”