Seventy Hours on Raener-12 : Part 11

Hour 029

It had taken three men to sedate her after she had risked running. We wrestled Natalie Bassater to the ground while she shrilly screamed. The young woman was disorientated; the first thing she asked upon waking up near an hour later was "Are you from Vertigo?"

I still can hardly express how liberating it was to find my princess. For eight years my system had searched for her while every free Raener citizen feared the worst. The council's published disclosures and her own father's fitful political hush since her disappearance created a moral void in my sector. My God, when it happened she was only a child. The next matriarch of our system, the next queen of only nineteen years, had vanished.

She had never fled the system to negotiate, like her father. Never passed legislation or imposed a threat to Vertigo in any form. The last known time she was seen was by Lord Ellis Bassater himself, on respite from his war duties to Raener-06. During that time diplomats from our system were being kidnapped. All had been found, sometimes weeks, sometimes months later, either dead or disabled. Vertigo never bartered with hostages.

Bassater knew of the Vertigo threat and had regretfully ordered scores of cruisers to attack their weak spots. The system was losing hope in his ability to lead, discouraged by his less than bombastic efforts to end the attacks. Then like a dark fate she had been taken.

Our heiress, Natalie Bassater, was gone.