Call Her Captain: Pursuit, #1

By Abbie Payne

BOOK ONE OF THE PURSUIT SERIES

"I was fooled by a 21-year-old girl in a corset, ballgown, and a petticoat."

 

Claire is a space pirate queen who wants nothing more than freedom not only for herself but for those that she holds most dear. Garnet is a devoted Galactic Force member who is embarking on her first mission as captain of a starship in pursuit of the dream that her father failed to achieve. Both want to get away from their lives back on Earth, and both think that the dreams they're chasing are the key to that. However, when their paths cross, they will soon learn that what they think they want and what they actually need are two vastly different things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbie Payne
• Release date: Mar 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201253851

Abbie Payne

Abbie Payne is an author from right outside Houston, Texas. She writes young adult and adult about found families, hardships, and the things that make us different in hopes of inspiring people and offering people that are even just a little bit like her a way to escape and a little bit of solace that they aren't alone.

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Pursuit: Call Her Captain (Vol. 1)

The following work comes from the writer’s imagination only. Any similar people, events, or places are coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 Abbie M. Payne

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, copied, or transmitted in any format, digital or printed, without written permission from the author.

Call Her Captain

Pursuit Book 1

By Abbie Payne

For my nine-year-old self who was told she couldn’t write about pirates. May this forever be proof we can do whatever we set our mind to.

Trigger Warnings

CALL HER CAPTAIN deals with themes that may not be suitable for all viewers, including:

●  Sexual assault (mentioned several times, never described in detail)

●  Kidnapping

●  Miscarriages

○  Planned abortion (Discussed, never described)

○  Discussions of infertility

●  Racism

●  Homophobia/transphobia

●  Sexism

Cast of Characters

THE PURSUIT CREW

●  Garnet One (She/Her) - The courageous, moody, and sometimes vengeful captain of the GF Pursuit. Twenty-one years old, from Rook.

●  Denali Nakada (He/Him) - The half-human, half-Domineer lieutenant of the GF Pursuit, and best friend of Garnet One. Sometimes has a difficult time reading emotions, and doesn’t seem to care about showing his own either. Twenty-four years old, from Rook.

●  Harbor Gonzaka (He/Him) - The nervous head navigator on the GF Pursuit and the youngest aboard the starship. Nineteen years old, from Rook.

●  Crimsyn Esperon (She/Her) - The callous navigator on the GF Pursuit. Twenty-one years old, from Rook.

●  Freesia Ifera (She/Her) - The flirtatious and charismatic communications officer. Twenty years old, from Rook.

●  Lorelei Rory Rahvos (She/Her) - The beautiful and equally charming chief morale officer and cousin of Giselle Rahvos. Twenty-two years old, from Rook.

●  Lydia Holbach (She/Her) - The quiet and serious head of defense. A twenty-five-year-old Disraelian refugee whose family moved to Rook when she was an infant.

●  Dove Hofwitz (She/Her) - The beautiful and kind-hearted head engineer and half-sister of Cannon Hoftwitz. Twenty-three years old, from Disraeli.

●  Kol Forgrave (He/Him) - The cold and callous head medic. Twenty-five years old, from Disraeli.

●  Giselle Rahvos (She/Her) - The sweet and shy nurse and cousin of Rory Rahvos. Twenty years old, from Rook.

●  Cannon Hofwitz (He/Him) - The quiet scientist and half-brother of Dove with a severe inferiority complex. Twenty-three years old, from Rook.

THE HME KAMALI CREW

●  Princess Claire Cook (She/Her) - The 21-year-old resourceful, confident, and spirited space pirate queen and crown princess of Ecoastria.

●  Davis Davy Adams (He/Him) - The impatient and stubborn palace servant turned pirate tasked with looking after Claire since infancy. Also the secret lover of Bones. Presumed to be somewhere around thirty-one years old, though his actual age is unknown.

●  Roger Bones Graves (He/Him) - The deceptively quiet palace servant turned pirate also tasked with looking after Claire since infancy. The secret lover of Davy. Somewhere around thirty years old, though his actual age is unknown.

●  Smiles (He/Him) - The playful, often drunk ex-servant who is usually found flying the ship. Thirty-five years old.

ROOKIANS

●  Emperor Octavius Romulcan (He/Him) - The fourteenth emperor of Rook. The doting husband of Empress Marina and father of Prince Parzival. Seventy years old, paralyzed from the waist down, and currently on his deathbed.

●  Empress Marina Romulcan (She/Her) - The sixty-eight-year-old wife of Emperor Octavius and mother of Prince Parzival.

●  Prince Parzival Romulcan (He/Him) - The cruel, yet charismatic twenty-five-year-old only son of Emperor Octavius and Empress Marina. The sole heir to the Rookian throne and the future husband of Claire Cook.

●  Lucian (He/Him) - A just barely nineteen-year-old orphan boy.

●  Head Commander Salama Amari (She/Her) - The head commander of the Galactic Force and adoptive mother (though not official in the eyes of the empire) of Garnet One.

DISRAELIANS

●  Emperor Auberon Pulreina (He/Him) - The short-tempered and reclusive reigning monarch of Disraeli, husband of Empress Valerie, and father of Princes Frederick and Sebastian. Forty-three years old.

●  Empress Valerie Pulreina (She/Her) - The radiant forty-two-year-old wife of Emperor Auberon and doting mother of Princes Frederick and Sebastian.

●  Prince Frederick Pulreina (He/Him) - The twenty-one-year-old crown prince of Disraeli and future husband of Princess Audrey Cook.

●  Prince Sebastian Pulreina (He/Him) - The socially awkward eighteen-year-old prince with a stutter.

ECOASTRIANS

●  Queen Rhea Cook (She/Her) - The bitter and vicious reigning queen of Ecoastria, reluctant wife of King Archibald Cook IV, and mother of Princesses Claire, Audrey, and Edith Cook.

●  King Archibald Cook IV (He/Him) - The loving, yet doormat of a husband of Queen Rhea, step-father of Princess Claire Cook, and biological father of Princesses Audrey and Edith Cook.

●  Princess Audrey Cook (She/Her) - The eighteen-year-old younger sister of Princess Claire Cook and future wife of Prince Frederick Pulreina, whom she had been betrothed to since infancy.

●  Princess Edith Cook (She/Her) - The thirteen-year-old youngest princess of Ecoastria who looks up to her eldest sister despite her mother’s wishes.

DOMINEERS

●  Sovereign Uzair (He/Them) - Reigning monarch of Dominia and neglectful husband of Sovereign Consort Fiorella.

●  Sovereign Consort Fiorella (She/Her) - Wife of Sovereign Uzair and expectant mother. Quite sheltered, but extremely warm and doting.

●  Senator Ozias (He/Him) - Senator of Dominia and best friend of Sovereign Uzair.

As much as being different in this world was a burden, it was also a blessing. While others never got to learn what it was like to struggle, we did, and that was our strength.

-  CLAIRE COOK, CALL HER CAPTAIN

ONE

GALACTIC FORCE ACADEMY II July 1, 4021

Garnet One

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a little girl who spent the early part of her childhood roaming the halls of a starship.

There was only one thing in the entire universe she desired, and that was to be like her father, Captain Mike One. He was the best captain the Galactic Force had ever seen and her first role model. They were so close some said not a single thing could separate them.

There was rarely a moment in which they were apart. Even when he was working, she would sit in his lap while he sat in the captain’s chair on deck. He included her in everything he could, and even some things he probably shouldn’t have.

It didn’t matter to him. All Captain Mike ever wanted was for his little girl to know she could do anything she set her mind to.

The little girl spent the first eight years of her life on a starship, the GF Lifeline. There, she made some of the greatest memories and met someone. His name was Denali Nakada, and he was her best friend. Over time, Denali would become the only person she loved and trusted more than her father. It was far from the traditional upbringing for any little girl from Rook, but she was happy. They were happy. The girl never knew anything different, and she never asked for anything different. She had no reason to.

Unfortunately, on July 31, 4008, she would no longer have the option.

It turned out there was one thing that could separate a father from his daughter. This thing, as Captain Mike and his daughter would soon find out, was death.

As the majority of the crew slept, the ship was ambushed.

By what or whom, no one knew. All anyone knew was the culprits were members of an alien species no one had seen before or since, the ship was barreling straight toward the side of an unknown planet, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

Captain Mike, desperate to save the one person he had left in this world to love, shoved his young daughter and her best friend onto the escape pod - the only one still in one piece. He planted a kiss on the top of her head and, before closing the door, left her with words he knew she would never forget.

Keep dreaming, Little One. You give up on dreaming, you might as well give up on living.

He then closed the door, pushed the button to start the escape pod’s departure from the main part of the ship, turned on his heel and ran off to fight valiantly alongside his crew.

Captain Mike’s sacrifice was not in vain. After months of drifting in deep outer space, the escape pod finally reached Earth. There, the little girl and Denali were deemed to be the sole survivors of the GF Lifeline Tragedy. No one ever bothered to find out what happened to the crew.

After five years of no sign of the GF Lifeline crew, the Galactic Force decided there was no point in continuing their search or even trying to understand what went wrong. They just labeled it as an unfortunate mishap and a mystery and left it at that. Not everyone forgot about it, though, no matter how much the authorities might have preferred it.

My father was Captain Mike One, after all, and it was going to take a lot more than a few members of a royal family to make me forget about what happened to him - what happened to us.

I rarely spoke about the incident - especially since Denali was the only one who fully understood what I was going through and he wasn’t exactly the greatest at emotionally charged conversations - but I never forgot it. Even if I wanted to forget it, my subconscious wouldn’t have allowed me to.

When I laid my head down on the pillow at night, I dreaded the sleep and the nightmares that would inevitably come my way.

Counseling never worked for me either. Salama, my adoptive mother of sorts, paid for me to go to some of the best therapists the empire of Rook and the empire of Disraeli had to offer, but it was no use.

Again, Denali was the only one who would ever understand how I felt - at least, that was how I always saw it. Besides, I never liked telling people about my problems.

Salama and Denali always said it was my father’s fault.

We were both as stubborn as could be and we both bottled up our emotions at all costs.

I couldn’t say I didn’t appreciate inheriting this trait from my father. It was, in part, what got me through my years at the Academy. It ensured I was able to cross the makeshift stage in the Galactic Force Academy gymnasium and hear my name over the loudspeakers as I accepted my diploma from Salama.

It was because of all of this I was going to finally embark on the path that had been so out of reach for most of my formative years. Now that I was a Galactic Force Academy graduate, I could become a Galactic Force cadet.

The Galactic Force Academy was the only way to get into the Galactic Force, and it was far from a small feat to make it through the several years most cadets spent there.

Students typically started when they were somewhere between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, but some started much earlier or much later than that. Either way, it was rare to survive all of the classes the GFA required (51 credits in total, but the younger students had extra credits to fulfill per the Rookian and Disraelian education laws) as well as the final exams. Actually, it was rare to pass the final exams, let alone survive them.

Denali started attending the GFA when he was thirteen and I followed him a year later when I was eleven. Now, we were both graduating at the same time since I’d managed to skip several grades, and Denali was  -  of course - at the top of our graduating class.

Somehow, I wasn’t too far behind him.

I wasn’t remotely disappointed when the formalities of the graduation ceremony ended and Denali and I were free to leave. We didn’t stick around long after we were dismissed. After all, I only had a handful of friends in the Academy other than Denali, and I’d be seeing them all again soon when we reported for our duties the following Monday.

After saying goodbye to the handful of teachers I had any kind of connection with and collecting my diploma, I walked outside to meet with Denali who was standing by the stairs waiting on me before we went to meet our mothers.

Denali had already taken off his graduation cap and robe, and thus was standing there in a black pair of slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a black vest. Even though he was dressed almost identical to the other men, it didn’t take me more than a few seconds to spot him.

He didn’t exactly look like the others. His reddish-brown skin, wavy blackish-brown hair, and expressionless, yet chiseled face showcased his deep brown eyes I swore I couldn’t see my reflection in, let alone any kind of emotion.

Denali was only half-alien - half-Domineer and half-human, to be exact - but his Domineer half still meant, while his intelligence was incomparable as far as books and logic went, he lacked social or emotional intelligence. I was never sure about all of the ins and outs of the Domineer race, but I did know Domineers excelled in only one or two types of intelligence while they were deficient in all other types.

For Denali, it meant he was much more useful when it came to knowing facts and the best steps to take in a fight, but not when it came to talking about feelings or processing them. Most considered this quality to be bizarre if not downright unnerving, so his friend group was as sparse as mine was.

Not that he seemed to mind it.

I walked up to him as I shrugged my graduation robe off of my shoulders and pulled the stupid little hat off of my head.

I’ll be perfectly fine if I never have to put this on again for as long as I live, I decided.

It was miserably hot in Rook today, and the stiff material of the graduation gown we were forced to wear wasn’t helping.

Denali arched one of his eyebrows at me, Why would you need to? You’re not going to a different school, and even if you were, it would be illogical to attend another school after managing to survive all of our years in the GFA, right?

I folded my arms across my chest, "And what if I was considering going to another school? It’s not like anything is stopping me."

Briefly, the corner of Denali’s mouth twitched into a smirk, but it was far from anything I could comment on or tease him about. He would’ve just told me my eyes were playing tricks on me and, frankly, I would’ve believed him.

Even on the Lifeline, all you talked about was how you would graduate from the GFA one day, he pointed out in an even tone, Any dream that lasts so long is bound to remain a reality.

He wasn’t wrong.

When we were children, I used to tell him about how badly I wanted to be the captain of my own starship. He always played along with the idea, so long as I promised him I would choose him to be my lieutenant whenever the time came.

Can’t you let me be right for once?

Denali shook his head, Not if you’re wrong.

Not even on my graduation day?

"It’s our graduation day, and my previous statement still stands."

"You can’t just pretend like I’m right?"

Not if you’re wrong, Denali repeated.

I started to protest when Denali’s adoptive mother and Salama walked up to us, not seeming to notice they interrupted our conversation.

Linyak didn’t hesitate to pull her son into a suffocating hug, but Salama did. She knew I wasn’t a fan of hugs or any kind of human contact. I never was, and probably never would be.

Still, just this once, I walked over to Salama and wrapped my arms around her torso. I could feel Salama grinning as she wrapped her arms around me, lightly stroking my hair. She planted a kiss on the crown of my head before settling into holding me close and tight.

For whatever it was worth, I loved Salama. She was the most prominent woman figure and the only mother figure I’d ever had, and I thanked the stars for that.

With long, black hair which was almost always covered by a brightly colored (usually violet) veil, kind brown eyes, angular features, and skin the color of topaz, she was most known for her beauty. Most women, even outside of the empire of Disraeli were only perceived in regards to how beautiful they were, but Salama was much more in my eyes.

More than anything else, Salama taught me how to be strong. She dared to believe in something (and someone) only a handful of people (let alone Rookians) did. She stood in the face of not only Emperor Octavius, but also his son, Prince Parzival, and declared her unwavering loyalty to the celestial being she referred to as her God although no one believed in it anymore.

It wasn’t illegal to be religious, but since the Romulcans didn’t believe in any spiritual beings (except for maybe themselves), most Rookians followed suit.

Only two or three people ever dared to speak or act out against Emperor Octavius and no one dared to defy his son, but Salama did, and she was also the only one who survived to tell the tale.

Salama walked with a violet scarf covering her head, holding her head high as if she was wearing a crown worth more than any crown any Rookian, Disraelian, or Ecoastrian ruler could ever dream of having in their possession. I wished I had the kind of confidence she did.

That was the Head Commander Salama Amari I knew. Not the combative shrew many seemed to think of her as, and not the beautiful woman everyone thought they were allowed to objectify. Then again, the latter was hardly an uncommon belief held about most women in the three kingdoms.

"I’m so proud of you, Salama told me, now holding me at arm’s length so she could look at me properly, You’ve come so far - your father would be so proud of you, and I’d like to think she would be, too."

Don’t kid yourself, we both know she wouldn’t give any of this a second thought, I told her, unable to even entertain the notion.

She referred to my biological mother - the woman that was supposed to take care of me after my dad died. I didn’t know much about her and never met her to my knowledge, but I could guarantee she didn’t care about me, not one little bit. Something as small as a birthday card seemed to be a big ask of her. Salama told me she tried to contact her a few times, so it wasn’t like she was dead or thought I was.

Then again, if she thought I was dead with how much people talked about me, then maybe I didn’t want to know her in the first place.

Salama made a face at me, but she didn’t try to push it and instead just changed the subject. She looked over at Denali.

Denali, congratulations for graduating with such a high rank, she told him.

Denali graduated at the top of our class (which had a little over six hundred people) and I graduated just one rank below him.

Denali thanked her, but I could tell he didn’t think graduating was a big enough deal to warrant any kind of congratulations.

Have you two figured out what your first assignment is yet? Miss Nakada asked as she kept her arm around Denali.

It never ceased to amaze me how much she could love someone who couldn’t reciprocate her feelings. I never expressed that fact, but it was something that came to mind quite often when I saw the pair together.

I shook my head, but Salama’s grin seemed to say she knew something I didn’t. Granted, she was the Head Commander of the Galactic Force, so it wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence.

Little did I know as we stood outside of the Galactic Force Academy that for the time being, I would be but a graduate - another number amongst the thousands of Galactic Force troops, but within a month I would be something entirely different.

Soon, I would come to realize I wasn’t the only one who knew how to fire a Lifebender and do it with a smile on her face.

✦ ☾ ✦

Galactic Force Administration II July 15, 4021

IN GENERAL, GETTING called to the head commander’s office wasn’t a good thing, but especially not when just getting back from a mission. While Salama sometimes personally gave us our assignments, it was rare, and we were always allotted at least three days in between the end of one mission and the assignment of another. We couldn’t be given much longer than that due to what the Galactic Force’s purpose was (finding new planets to conquer, patrolling our current territories, and keeping interstellar attacks from other kingdoms at bay), but for the most part, we accepted any amount of respite we were offered. It was better than at the Academy where we were given one day a year off - our birthdays.

I walked across the campus of the Galactic Force Headquarters. I was wearing my uniform - or, at least, one of the many we were expected to own, keep clean, and know exactly what occasions they were for - as I had stopped only briefly at the house to change before going to meet Salama. Even if Salama was my mother, she was still my boss, and she would treat me the same way as she did the others.

The Galactic Force Headquarters was expansive, though only a few miles away from the Galactic Force Academy. There were several dozen acres of land dedicated to the buildings, and there was almost always a starship or two flying overhead. There were countless buildings, but the building I was expected at was the administration building.

From the captains to the head commander, everyone who was tasked with making sure the Galactic Force ran the way it should have had an office in the administration building. Granted, the captains usually shared an office with their lieutenants, but the idea of having an office excited me so much I couldn’t say I cared.

I walked