In Hot Pursuit

By the time Dante reached the sandy ground, there was no one left up on the platform.

"Let's move it!" He waved his hand and several dozen men disembarked and ran towards the derelict glass dome.

The warm afternoon sun beat down upon the sandy ground even as the winds began to pick up. A storm was heading this way in a few hours and he needed to find her before then.

Dante passed the two men who had been kicked down from the platform by his brave ferocious woman. They were lying in a pool of blood that had already begun to congeal into a deep red-brown jelly.

He grimaced and passed them, moving further into the glass dome.

There were signs of struggle everywhere that resulted in dead men. Candace had put up a tremendous fight, all alone and surrounded by armed militia.

He glanced at the discarded sculpted stone arm with the bloody shoulder that had been used to clobber the two dead men on the floor. That was a classic Candace move.

Several other men had fallen where they stood and had been abandoned to their fates.

Following the trail of dead bodies, he finally reached the second floor where it all abruptly ended.

Aside from the last three shurikens Candace had thrown at the three dead bodies lying helter-skelter, there was no other sign of her.

They must have taken her away from this spot, most likely alive. It had cost them a Prince of Erenveil in exchange for this woman. They would not kill her so needlessly.

There was a part of him that swelled with pride at her bravery and fighting skills. But the part of him that was angry and frightened that she could be injured or worse was at the forefront and in full control.

Suddenly, there came a rumble and a transport pod shot up from the center of the imploded glass dome.

"You!" He pointed to one group of men. "Stay here and sniff out the rest of this area. I want to find out exactly what happened here!"

"The rest of you follow that pod! See where it's going!" Dante yelled to his men.

He and the second group ran back to their pods. As his men got ready to launch, Dante was already in contact with the rest of his private guards who were on standby above the planet.

"A pod just flew up from this location. Follow that transport pod!"

A few minutes later, word came back from the starship above him.

"Your Highness. It just docked into a starship."

"Which one?"

"It looks like one of Seventh Prince's Command Starships, the Raptor 437."

"Damn." Dante slammed his hands onto the armrest.

This was an inside job. Bio-sensors were required to fly the military crafts. Whoever did this was inside at very high levels.

"Get me in touch with whoever's flying Slate's Raptor."

A few heart pounding minutes passed before Dante received the answer he demanded.

"Your Highness, the Captain of the Raptor 437 is refusing all calls from us."

"Who is this man, and why is he not responding to me?"

"Your Highness, his name is Niles Garr. He is the Captain of this Raptor."

Dante narrowed his gaze. If he remembered correctly, Slate had boarded the Raptor so he could personally deal with the Earth delegates' annoying threats. The Raptor's captain must have betrayed him.

Dante squeezed his eyes shut.

Damn!!!

He could only think of two reasons why all this was happening.

It could be due to Slate putting military pressure on Earth warships.

It could also be Candace injured the Princess of Emporia and this was payback for Helene being eliminated from the Avgo Events.

Either of these could have triggered this calamity, and in both cases, it all pointed back to the Avgo Events. Whether or not they were connected, Dante couldn't be sure.

He had to figure this out quickly and deal with it in a swift decisive manner.

"Where are all the other Raptors?"

"Your Highness, Prince Leonardo has given the command for them to follow Raptor 437."

"Follow the Raptor and surround it but do not fire upon it. I repeat. DO NOT FIRE ON THE RAPTOR. My future wife is on that ship!"

Dante blasted the command out to all his merchant Guard-ships and slammed his hand on the console, cutting off the communication lines.

Then he jumped up and paced back and forth across the command deck, looking as if he was ready to explode.

His men sat at their consoles feverishly trying to dock the transport pod with the starship as quickly as possible.

"Your Highness." The Captain of the Guard-ship Cerberus 86, Don Kassim, strode towards Dante as he emerged from the transport pod.

"Status." Dante called out, not missing a step.

"Several of our Cerberus starships are in hot pursuit. They have the Raptor surrounded."

"Any word so far on what they want?"

"Not yet. We've been hailing them every few minutes, but there still has been no response. They've gone silent."

Dante huffed and stepped into the elevator along with the Captain and his aides.

"Stop hailing!" He rubbed his blue hair with frantic fingers, making the spikes even spikier. "We're not trying to send a friendly 'hello', for crying out loud!"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"I want the names of all the officers onboard the Raptor."

"Yes, Your Highness." The Captain bowed.

As the elevator's doors opened, Dante strode over to the Captain's chair and plopped himself down.

"How much longer before we come into range of Raptor 437?"

"Twenty-two minutes, Your Highness." One of the officers on the Command Deck responded.

"Make it fifteen minutes."

He turned to the Captain who was standing next to him.

"How much longer before I get the names of all the officers onboard the Raptor?"

"It is being populated at the moment, Your Highness." The Captain waved a hand. The virtual monitor popped open and twenty names appeared alongside small images of the officers.

Dante pointed at Niles Garr's face.

"Does he have any family left?"

Captain Don Kassim shook his head.

"No, Your Highness. His wife died last year."

"No parents? Siblings? Side lovers?"

"Not that we know of, Your Highness."

"What of the other officers?"

"Most of those officers have immediate families, but they are currently living onboard the starship."

"Then go after their parents and other relatives still living." Dante's snarl grew more pronounced as his fangs grew.

Damn it! He needed to control himself. The angrier he got, the more he was starting to crave blood. He could not afford to lose control at this moment.

"Blast a message to them that all the officers' families near and far, will be imprisoned until they return the Avgo Female Candace Farrah safely. Tell them that if one hair on her head gets harmed, their family members will all be bald!"

Captain Don Kassim gasped.

He had never seen Prince Dante not follow through with anything he ever said, threat or otherwise.

"Yes, Your Highness."