Prologue

A small ship zoomed through the inky blackness of space. Its engine left a half-yard long blue streak behind it. The ship itself was rather sleek. The four engines that powered it were half ovals. The all curved at opposite thirty five degree angles and thus formed a weird eight-corner kind of square. The ovals were black save for three and a half inch thick strips of green at the ends. The ship overall was jet black.

The ship, save for the two meters that supported the ovals which was flat sided, was an oval. The cockpit blended in with the paint job perfectly. Inside the ship was mainly gray save for some doo-dads and other things inside including the seat. In the seat was a young man. The man was obviously Spanish by his skin tone. He had neck-long black hair that seemed as smooth as silk. His ice blue eyes quickly scanned outside the cockpit.

Gloved hands moved with ease to the various controls until one darted in to a small cabinet and pulled out a bland manila envelope. The man pulled the metal clip away from the flap and flipped it open. He reached inside and it retrieved a picture of a planet. The planet was beautiful and it looked like there was barely any land on it. In Sharpie at the bottom was the word ‘Hillys – Jade’.

The man put the picture away and pulled out a silver lighter with a cross of gold on either side. He lit the manila envelope and tossed it on the floor of the ship where a tiny maintenance drone waited for it to extinguish before it wiped it away. The man then smiled as he saw the planet appear, first as a speck on his radar, than after several miles, in his cockpit and growing ever larger.