I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD - Pavane for a Dead Princess Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2001 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2405 8:28 PM (GALACTIC MEAN TIME) NEAR THE ROMULAN/GAMILON NEUTRAL ZONE, DUANE SECTOR Rokar had awakened with the strangest feeling that he was going to die today. Of course, this was hardly a rare occurrence. In fact, the rare day was the day when Rokar awoke suspecting that he might -survive- another day. He hadn't said anything about this peculiar feeling to his shipmates, but he suspected that he was not alone among the vessel's skeleton crew in his recent fatalistic trend. Some days, it seemed as if the Lorica herself were convinced that she wasn't going to make it, or at least that she shouldn't bother trying over-much. Most days, though, it was just a general sort of fatalistic ennui, the kind that could be attributed to minimal rations, steadily deteriorating working and living conditions, and the five-year span that had passed since Rokar's last vacation. Today, it had a somewhat greater immediacy to it. After all, on most days, the Lorica wasn't hiding behind an asteroid in the Dakhartha Belt while the whole damned Gamilon Navy hunted for her. They had the advantage, at least, that the Gamilons didn't actually know what they were looking for. Ignorance of their specific quarry meant that the blueskins had to go more slowly and investigate more thoroughly than if they were locked in on a particular target. That might work to the Lorica's advantage... if, of course, there could be said to -be- an advantage to be had in any scenario wherein one obsolete, poorly-maintained Warbird-class destroyer found itself playing quarry for the whole damned Gamilon Navy. Rokar sat at his console on the bridge and peered into the viewfinder of his sensor array. Like everything else on the poor old Lorica, it wasn't working very well. He could feel the edges of the flaking paint on the adjustment knob, rough against the edge of his thumb, as he tried in vain to coax more resolution out of the aging array. "Anything?" asked the captain. "Nothing on my scope," Rokar replied. He didn't add that "nothing" was the usual state of his scope, these days, what with the ship having gone at least ten years without a refit. The captain scowled. "Where are they?" "Perhaps," Centurion Amvor mused, "they aren't coming." "They're coming," said the captain, sounding annoyed. "They wouldn't dare leave me in the lurch." "Unless they got a better offer," muttered helmsman Jethan under his breath. Amvor was at his side in an instant, the gleaming blade of his sidearm pressed to the helmsman's throat. "Mind your tongue, helmsman," the centurion hissed, "or I will cut it out and nail it to your console as a reminder." "Enough, Amvor. I think he gets the point - don't you, Jethan?" asked the captain sweetly. Jethan, despite being scared stiff, still managed to collect what remained of his dignity and glare with undisguised hatred at the centurion as Amvor returned to his place by the captain. Rokar glanced across the bridge and made sympathetic eye contact with the helmsman before returning to his scanner. They all hated Amvor; it was largely out of fear of him that they were all still here, creaking around space in this increasingly decrepit old Warbird, lurking in the Neutral Zone, under cloak whenever they had the fuel, a ship without a country, without any allegiance except to the Gamilon noble who paid their meager salaries. Xenia Laila Dessler, in the captain's chair, looked around the dark, dilapidated, dirty bridge of the old Romulan ship and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Amvor, why don't you keep this ship up better?" she wanted to know. "You're paid well enough." "Parts for Romulan destroyers are hard to come by on the black market," Amvor replied. Jethan's face darkened. He dearly wanted to add that they were even harder to come by when the centurion used 90% of their pay to line his own pocket, and given how strongly he felt his doom upon him today -anyway-, the temptation to speak, even if it meant death, was almost too great. Fortunately, Rokar noticed something just then. "Sensor contact, bearing 129 mark 42," said the sensor officer in a low murmur. "Identity?" snapped Amvor. "Unknown. It's just appeared at the very edge of sensor range. Heading this way, speed approximately 300." "That must be them," said Xenia. "They're coming from the right direction... " She sat up straighter and snapped decisively, "Activate cloak!" Jethan touched the controls, and everyone's stomach tightened a little bit as the ship's old cloaking device whined, then kicked in with a nauseating subspatial lurch. "Cloak activated," said Jethan unnecessarily. "Move us into position." "Moving to rendezvous position." "Shall I hail them?" asked Rokar. "Not yet," said Amvor before Xenia could reply. "Work on better identifying them." Rokar bent over his scope again, twiddling the adjustment knob uselessly. After a few moments, with the bulk of the asteroid out of his way, he could gather a bit more data. "Drive emissions... impulse plasma... consistent with a Gamilon warship. Not as much of it as I would have expected from a vessel of the flagship's size, but... " He nodded. "It's her. I'm getting a return on her silhouette now. Range 5000 kmar." "The Destiny's Fist is the most advanced ship in the fleet," Xenia said pridefully. "Once I transfer my flag to her, the Navy will know whose side they should take in this little war. My dear sister won't stand a chance. Open hail." Filled with misgivings, Rokar touched the control. "Hail open," he said. Xenia stood up, faced the darkened main viewer, and said in an annoyed tone of voice, "You're late, Captain Dorlak." The sound that came back chilled everyone in the control room, not least Xenia, whose face paled under its light blue pigment as her eyes went wide with horrified realization. It was laughter - light, dangerous laughter. "Captain Dorlak sends his regrets, dear sister," said a voice that sounded a bit like Xenia's, but lower, throatier. "Specifically, he regrets that he is unable to join you at your rendezvous and assist you in your traitorous and cowardly coup attempt... because he is dead." "Another ship!" Rokar blurted as his scanner came alive. "Gamilon destroyer, K'tayyl class! She's just come out of metaspace, bearing 328 mark 11, range 400 kmar!" "K'tayyl class?! Visual!" Rokar complied, and the main viewer brightened. There she was, all right, the short, vicious wedge of a Gamilon destroyer, her armor gleaming in the green and gold livery of the Imperial Navy, bearing down on their position. "Evasive maneuvers! Charge weapons!" Xenia barked. "Can they see us?" "Unknown," Rokar replied. "Our cloak is an old model, and ill-maintained. Between that, the gamma-radiation leak in our drive unit, the damaged phase attenuators in our plasma torpedo system, and the fact that we were just in direct communication with them - " The destroyer's weapons spoke, streaks of blue-white blasterfire streaking across the old Romulan ship's hull. As the deck heaved underneath him, Rokar finished dryly, " - I'd say yes." "Sensor contact is indeterminate, Captain," reported the Vengeance's sensor officer, Lieutenant Ando Krev. "Their cloak is malfunctioning, but still partially effective." "Torpedo lock is impossible," added Weapons Officer Herg Touren. "Then use your eyes and the blasters, Mr. Touren," said Commander Garon Dessler from the command seat. "Helm, keep us on them. I don't want them disappearing into those asteroids." Princess Amanda Elektra Dessler shut down the sensor beacon which had fooled her sister into thinking that her Lightning IV astrofighter was the Destiny's Fist and smiled grimly to herself as the Vengeance's blasters lit up the eternal night. She opened the throttles and charged for the battle zone, warming up the weapons array as she went. Roughly the same distance on the other side of the large asteroid, Kitarina Dragonaar did the same. "Helm, I said I -didn't- want them disappearing into the asteroids," said Garon tightly. "Sorry, sir," replied Helm Officer Alanna Mortay. "Their helmsman's a slippery one - either that or he's mad," she added. "He skimmed that asteroid with perhaps a hundred feet to spare. No easy task in one of those old birds." "Damage report!" "Hull breach on level 2, nonessential area," replied the intercom-garbled voice of Engineer Vikaris. "More fluctuations in the power systems. The usual." "Jethan, get us into firing position," said Xenia. "I'll teach our brother not to take sides... " "Krev, talk to me... " "Not sure, sir. There's a lot of interference in this asteroid field. With their cloak in the shape it's in, that's probably why they chose this area to wait for Dorlak." "Dammit. Keep looking. Skyblade, Sniper, do you see anything?" "Negative, Vengeance," came Rina's voice. "Continuing search pattern." "Nothing on my scanners," Amanda concurred. "I - wait! Vengeance, I have an energy surge at 180 mark 345, relative your position!" "Confirmed, sir - they're decloaking," said Krev. Garon clenched his teeth. "Aft batteries, open fire! Helm, emergency turn, hard about!" The aft batteries opened up, pouring out destruction in the wake of the Vengeance, but the Lorica's shields were raised now that she was decloaked, and they could handle the punishment for the moment. The Vengeance seemed to gather herself, hanging in space, exposed and vulnerable for that eternal second. Just as all her drive systems strained in unison and her bow began to swing around, the Romulan's plasma weapon spoke. "Recloak! Pursuit evasive, pattern 3!" Xenia barked. Jethan plied his board, feeling something like the old thrill of battle stirring inside his long-dead heart. The thrumming of the Gamilon's blasters from the ship's shields, the throbbing of the weapon's discharge - it was almost like the old days, almost like the Empire again. Then, of course, it all went wrong, just to remind him that it wasn't the old days any more. The Romulan ship started to disappear from Rina Dragonaar's view and her sensors again. She snarled, pushed her throttles to emergency power, and kept her eyes on her targeting reticule. An instant before she would have lost targeting lock, she launched both of her antiship missiles. As the Warbird started her evasive dive, she eluded one of them anyway, but the other tore into her underbelly, ripping through the faded bird-of-prey paintwork and into the inner workings of the vessel. A quadrant of Jethan's panel exploded in a brilliant cascade of sparks, and with a sickening THUD, the familiar nauseating sensation of cloaking reversed itself. "The cloaking device is disabled!" cried Vikaris on the intercom. "Fires on decks 4 and 5, impulse reactors - feedback - shields out - " The intercom cut out with a squeal of melted electronics. Xenia spat a curse. "Got you," Rina murmured, her lips curling into a cold smile. "They don't call me Sniper for nothing... " The emergency turn, Garon Dessler admitted to himself, may have been a mistake. "All decks, brace for - " he said, and the Romulan plasma torpedo slammed into his ship broadside. He felt himself hurled against the right arm of his command chair as the sudden impact briefly overrode the Vengeance's inertial dampeners. Alarms howled. Coolant steam burst from an overhead pipe. Crewman Ternok, who had been caught on his feet by the secondary weapons panel, slammed face-first into the torpedo bay status monitor and rebounded to the deck, bloodied and insensate. "Medic!" Garon snapped, but the bridge medic was already bounding to him, heedless of her own safety as the ship continued to shudder and heel. "Alanna, get us under control!" "RCS interlink relays damaged all across the portside board," replied Mortay. "Bypassing." "All decks, damage report," said Corimel Dragonaar from her XO's station. "Portside shields are completely blown away," said Weapons Officer Touren. "Hull breaches on Decks 3, 5 and 6, containment fields are holding. Blaster arrays 2 and 4 are out of commission. Torpedo bay 1 is offline." "Power systems are nominal," Bridge Engineer Gor Makon reported. "Switching maneuver control system to emergency power." While the Vengeance hung there like a stunned animal, crippled and vulnerable, Xenia decided the best course was to ignore the damage to her own vessel for the moment and press her advantage. The plasma weapon couldn't be recharged this quickly - if indeed it could be recharged at all - but she still had other weapons... "Open fire, all disruptors!" she barked. "Helm control restored," said Mortay. "Excellent. Explain it to Xenia," said Garon. In her own speeding fighter, Amanda listened to the sweet sound of missile lock in her ears and prepared to deliver her own part of the statement. "Captain, they outgun us two to one, even with their portside weapons disabled," said Rokar. "They can outmaneuver us, outrun us, outgun us - without our cloak, we have no chance of success." "One more expression of cowardice, Rokar, and - " said Amvor, but the centurion never got a chance to complete his threat. Even as the Vengeance was coming about, her forward shields strobing as they took up the Lorica's disruptor fire, something slammed into the Romulan ship from the rear. The bridge lights went out, then came back even dimmer than before. Part of the ceiling collapsed. "Starfighters!" Rokar choked through the thick smoke which filled the bridge, not knowing if anyone was alive to hear him. "That must be what hit us before, what disabled our cloak!" To Rokar's distinct disappointment, the coughing voice of Xenia Dessler replied angrily, "And why didn't you warn us of their presence, sensor officer?" "They're too small for these old sensors to pick up reliably," Rokar snapped back, well beyond fear of the centurion. "If we had upgraded them to something vaguely modern, or even maintained them properly, then perhaps I would have had a chance." The atmosphere conditions kicked in, sucking away most of the smoke, and Rokar saw the first thing that had truly delighted him in more than ten years. The part of the ceiling which had collapsed had possessed the tremendous good grace to do so on Centurion Amvor, who was now, as a result, thoroughly deceased. "How long before the plasma weapon can be fired again?" "Too long," Jethan replied, desperately trying to keep the limping Lorica on the Vengeance's weapons-out side. He was only partially successful - the ship was handling even more sluggishly than normal. Blasterfire from the two starfighters and the destroyer raked the old Romulan vessel, holing her in several spots across the upper deck and blowing off part of one engine nacelle. "This battle is lost." Xenia sat in her chair for a moment, her face blank with disbelieving horror. Then her eyes hardened, glittering in the dim emergency lights. "Make your course for the Vengeance," she said. "All ahead full." "Captain, the plasma weapon will not fire again," said Jethan. Our disruptors cannot overcome their shields. -Our- shields are -down-. We - " "ALL AHEAD FULL!" Xenia snarled; then she rose from her chair, came to Jethan's side in a single leap, and hurled the Romulan from his seat with greater strength than he would have expected her skinny, pubescent body to contain. The madness on her face gave some indication of how she had managed it as she clawed at the controls. With the constant threat of Amvor removed, Rokar came to the sudden, startling realization that he didn't want to die. Not only didn't want to, but didn't, for the first time in some time, feel as if it were immediately inevitable. He -certainly- had no desire to die at the suicidal hands of this Gamilon female. He was a Romulan, a dishonored one perhaps, but a Romulan still. Some shred of pride not yet crushed in his heart rose up and drove him to his feet. He leaped to the side of Jethan's console, seized the Gamilon princess in his arms, and slung her out of his seat onto the deck, where she fetched up against the base of the command seat. "Jethan," he snapped, "go to my console and signal the Gamilons our surrender." "And live the rest of our miserable lives in one of their prisons?" Jethan replied. "In prison there is the hope of escape," Rokar shot back. "I will not -die- because of this creature's stupidity!" He neutralized the helm, shut down the engines. "Tell them before they destroy us!" Suddenly there was a thump, as of something alighting on the hull above them. Jethan looked at Rokar; Rokar looked at Jethan. Then, abruptly, they noticed that the Gamilon ship wasn't firing at them any more. With a wash of green light, a space-armored figure appeared at the front of the bridge, a disruptor rifle in its - no, not its, by that shape definitely her - hands. A moment later, another thump, and another one appeared beside her. The taller one, first to arrive, pulled off her helmet and dropped it to the deck, releasing a great sheaf of shiny black hair and revealing a beautiful face marred by a nasty scar that crossed the maintenance plate of a rather crude cyberoptic mount. "I am Dessler," she announced in a hard, cold voice. "Amanda Elektra Dessler of the Vengeance... and this ship is my prize." "So, Xenia," said Amanda across the Lorica's command conference table. "Here we are, at last. Your machinations exposed, your plans destroyed along with your confederates. Only you remain... huddled in a chair on a filthy, ill-maintained outlaw Romulan ship. These were the best you could do for servants? A gang of renegade Roms and an idiot like Goran Dorlak?" She shook her head. "Pathetic. Almost as pathetic as your choice of instruments on Earth. How in the universe did you ever think of using -Broadbank-?" Xenia glared. "You think you're so smart," she said. "You figure it out." "Very well," said Amanda, nodding. She got up and paced around the room. "When Father sent you to the Military Academy, you were, of course, livid. Somehow, you managed to figure out what Devlin is. Surveillance video from the ballroom, I would imagine. He reacted before he could have seen what Investigator Rijiger held. How did you ever recruit -him- into your little conspiracy?" "He had a secret he would rather die than see revealed," Xenia replied calmly. "Like most men." Amanda nodded and failed to follow the script by asking about that secret. Instead she went on, "Very well... you deduced the truth from that evidence, and it wouldn't have taken long for the idea of selling him to the Psi Corps came into your mind. You asked your contacts in Imperial Intelligence - oh yes, we know about Commandant Borjik and his staff," Amanda added to her sister's sudden look of shock, " - you asked your contacts in II for the report they would inevitably have prepared on my schoolmates for Father when I went to WPI. And in it, the web of my acquaintances led you to Liza." Amanda shook her head. "I called it pathetic, but considering it now I must confess it was a sort of twisted genius, using her. I suppose you made a video call to her, gave all your titles and such, very impressive. The II report would have mentioned her snobbery, and you played on it. How did you couch it? Did you suggest that I might be in danger from the desperate rogue telepath at my side? No, of course not - why should Liza care if I were in danger? No... you must have suggested that -she- was in danger. "And then her petty little mind went to work, as your petty little mind calculated it would. And, like the fool she is, she thought nothing more would happen than this: they would come, take Devlin, and leave us in heartbroken disarray. As though I would not fight for my beloved. As though my friends would not fight for -me-. As though Kaitlyn and Tenjou were not WARRIORS!" she bellowed, driving her k'tayyl into the tabletop in a sudden fit of offended rage. Then she leaned across the table, her face practically touching Xenia's, and hissed, "The Corps beat them, phasered them, mind-scanned them because they fought for Devlin and me. They made a war zone of our school, drove our friends into flight. When we escaped, they tried to kill us, and they would have succeeded if not for Kaitlyn's brother. You didn't count on him, did you? II's reports aren't comprehensive enough. He's her brother and her roommate's beloved - of course he came to their rescue. Do you understand yet, Xenia? Devlin leads to me leads to Kaitlyn leads to Tenjou leads to Corwin... when you attack one Duelist, you attack all of us." "Pretty words," Xenia replied, still haughty. "Are you trying to tell me I sit here, prisonbound, my plans undone, because I failed to account for something as ridiculously ephemeral as -love-?" Amanda looked surprised. "Why, Xenia," she said. "Who ever said you were going to prison?" "You can't kill me," Xenia replied. "Father would never permit it. If you did, he would have you and Garon both banished, take another wife, and start over. And then you would never have your throne, and our precious idiot brother would never get the chance to be the worst Grand Admiral in the history of the Navy." "Go on," Amanda said, retrieving her k'tayyl sword, which seemed none the worse for having been driven two inches into a metal tabletop. "If you had meant to kill me, you would simply have had Garon blow the Lorica out of the stars," Xenia went on. "You wouldn't have bothered taking us as a prize. Or were you just that eager to quote that ridiculous Klingon television show you and Garon wasted your youth with?" "Perhaps I was," Amanda replied with a dangerous sort of smile. She slowly sheathed the short sword at her side. "Your logic is, as usual, impeccable." Xenia made a satisfied little "hmph" sound. "I should know your patterns by now, dear sister," she said. "You're depressingly predictable. Now you'll tow us back to Gamilon and march me in irons before Father, who will - with great reluctance - send me to some asteroid prison to rot and wait for the day when you ascend the throne. And there I sit for the rest of my life, wailing and crying, disturbing the other prisoners as I descend ever further into madness. Isn't that how the rest of your script goes?" Amanda folded her arms across her flight-armored chest and said nothing. Xenia, taking her silence for grudging confirmation, smiled coldly. "Well, let me tell you what will really happen," she said. "Father will send me away, all right, but not to an asteroid fortress. Criminal or not, I'm still his daughter, and deep down, he will never believe me capable of true malice." Her eyes narrowed as she added in an even colder tone, "But let me assure you, my darling sister, that when I emerge - as I inevitably will - I will come for you. You, and Garon, and your redheaded lover, and your Earthman will die screaming my name. If Father has died and you have ascended the throne - and I rather hope you have by then - I will throw you from it with my own hands and watch you bleed at my feet as I take your place, and then I will keep you alive just long enough for you to watch -my- Navy reduce your pet telepath's homeworld to a radioactive hell." "Poetic," said Amanda. "Very vivid imagery." "I am very talented," Xenia replied without a trace of irony. "And the image will keep me warm through the cold nights I will have to endure before my inevitable triumph." "You think so." "I know it. It's my destiny. Do you understand? My destiny!" Amanda unholstered her disruptor pistol and adjusted the power setting all the way to the top of the dial. "Xenia," she said softly, "haven't you noticed that Father isn't here?" Xenia blinked, startled out of her smug reverie. "Believe it or not," said Amanda conversationally, "I do wish it hadn't come to this. If you hadn't made this last attempt, if you hadn't involved Devlin and Kaitlyn and everyone else I care about, I could have let our game go on. There were even times when I rather enjoyed it. There were boundaries. Rules." She leveled the disruptor, looked over its gleaming barrel at her sister, and said, "But Earth was neutral ground. When you involved it, destroyed my life there, you crossed those boundaries. You went too far. It has ceased to be a game, and I am tired of playing. Father understands this, or I would not be here. -He- would." Xenia's mouth twitched. She laughed, a high, cracking, hysterical laugh, as her whole world unraveled and fell away in a great nonsensical spiral. Amanda bowed her head as if in prayer, then raised it again, opened her eyes, and said softly, "Goodbye, Xenia." The younger sister was still laughing when the disruptor in Amanda's hand shrieked. The rest was silence. The black-haired princess emerged from the conference room alone, perfectly composed, her weapons holstered. By now, Engineer Vikaris, battered and bloodied but very much alive, had forced her way up from the half-wrecked engineering spaces to give a full damage and casualty report. The Gamilon didn't seem to recognize her; she stepped over the shattered body of Centurion Amvor without seeming to notice it was there, then paused in front of Jethan. "You are the ranking officer?" Amanda inquired. "Former Sub-Commander Jethan," said the helmsman, crossing his arm across his chest in the Romulan salute. "Your... employer... is no more," Amanda informed him evenly. Jethan merely nodded. "Your prerogative, as victor," he said calmly. "What becomes of us?" "How many are you?" she asked. "Twenty-two living and six dead," said Vikaris. Amanda looked faintly impressed. "A ship of this type normally carries a crew of one hundred." "And one hundred we were, when we quit the Empire ten years ago," said Jethan. "But time as nationless outlaws is not easy time. Many died; more deserted. We are all that remain." He shook his head. "With six more dead, there are not even enough of us left to run this ship... not that it matters," he added sadly, shifting out of his formal tone. Amanda paced silently around the bridge, running her hand gently along the helm console, studying the fittings, the burned panels, the blown lights. "You fought well," she said, "considering the condition of your vessel, the attrition of your crew and the incompetence of your commander. You did not fear, but stopped short of a foolish self-destruction." "Thank you, Your Highness," said Jethan, surprised back into formality. "You are most kind." "These were fine ships," said Amanda, her tone startlingly sentimental, as she looked up at the partly shattered dome ceiling, touched the arm of the command chair. "That they were, Highness," said Vikaris. "No modern vessel would survive ten years without overhaul, parts, or a full and proper fueling, much less be able to put up the fight we gave you." Jethan glanced sharply at the engineer, as if warning her that she overstepped herself, but Amanda merely smiled. "I think you may be right," she said. "As it happens, I have always wanted to have a Romulan Warbird." Jethan arched an eyebrow. "Indeed?" Amanda nodded. "Quite so. I've admired them since I was a small child. So graceful, so flowing... so deadly. So. Here is what will happen, Sub-Commander. My brother's ship will tow yours to Gamilon. From there, the possibilities diverge. If you do nothing, you will be prosecuted for your role in my sister's attempted coup. I will make certain none of you are executed - unless you wish to be, of course. Perhaps you will escape from prison and resume your rootless life; perhaps you will live out your days in the relative comfort of our military stockade and die in your beds, 150 years or so hence." Jethan tilted his head thoughtfully. "Or... " "Or," said Amanda, smiling, "you gather your crew and swear your loyalty to me." "Trading one princess overlord for another," Rokar said. "Due respect, Highness, I think I would prefer prison." "Your ship," said Amanda as though he hadn't spoken, "will be overhauled and modernized. Those components that cannot be replaced by anything less than authentic Romulan equipment will be stolen from the Empire by my agents. With modern automation, the twenty-two of you will be more than sufficient to operate a ship this size. You will have uniforms, rank and privilege in my personal branch of the Imperial Guard. You will eat well, sleep comfortably, and be able to show yourselves with pride anywhere in Gamilon space and the Federation. And one day, you will have the honor of serving as the personal guard to the Empress of Gamilon, much to the dismay of the Empire that drove you to flee it." Amanda spread her hands as if weighing two items. "So, lady and gentlemen... which is it to be?" Jethan, Vikaris, and Rokar glanced at each other in disbelief. Amanda strode onto the bridge of the Vengeance alone, to the applause and cheers of Garon's bridge crew. "Commander Dessler," said Amanda formally. "Take the Romulan vessel in tow and prepare your metaspace engines. We will return with it to Gamilon. The crew are remaining aboard to effect what repairs they can." Garon nodded. "Mr. Mortay, Mr. Touran, as the Princess commands." "So must we obey," replied the two junior officers in something approaching unison, and they set about their task with quiet industry. Garon got up from his seat and followed his sister back to the bridge exit, out of earshot of his crew. "(Are you all right?)" he asked in a murmur. "(No,)" Amanda replied. "(I'll be in my quarters if I'm needed.)" The commander nodded. "(And I'll be here,)" he replied, "(if I am.)" He squeezed her shoulders, knowing that however she felt, she would never want him to make a spectacle of them in front of his crew. She smiled gratefully, turned, and left the bridge. Commander Dessler went back to his chair, plunked down in it, and sighed, to the accompaniment of a sympathetic glance from his executive officer. The one remaining princess of Gamilon let the door to her stateroom close behind her, leaned back against it, and let out a huge, unregal sigh. A small light flicked on nearby, illuminating a little table. Behind that table sat the blond-haired, blue-eyed Earthman named Devlin Carter, Amanda's fiance and so much more besides. "Rina says... " he began. Amanda nodded. "It's done," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. Another light clicked on, this one illuminating the double-width officer's bunk set into the bulkhead to the right. "How bad was it?" asked Rina Dragonaar softly. Amanda drew a shuddering breath and let it out again. "Bad enough," she said, her voice breaking midway through. Devlin got up, took her hands, led her to bed, got her undressed. Rina shoved over to the bulkhead, and she and Devlin arranged the sobbing princess between them. "I hated her... I hated her almost all her life," Amanda husked, her hands clenching on Devlin's. "But... she was my sister... " "I know," said Devlin softly. "I know." /* Maurice Ravel "Pavane for a Dead Princess" */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - Symphony of the Sword - Pavane for a Dead Princess The Cast (in order of appearance) Rokar Xenia Laila Dessler Amvor Jethan Amanda Elektra Dessler Ando Krev Herg Touren Garon Tultalian Dessler Kitarina Telaia Dragonaar Alanna Mortay Vikaris Corimel Jandhia Dragonaar Gor Makon Devlin Carter Grand Admiral Benjamin D. Hutchins Consultation The Usual Suspects Romulan Warbird designed by Matt Jefferies The Symphony will return