Being born to an imperial slave family, the woman who today is known as Commander Anantyanta grew up on a remote retreat moon, owned by a Viscount of the Empire. Life was probably as good as it could get for an imperial slave; she and her family were treated well and received a valuable education, courtesy of their owner.

Hard sciences, technology and people management were at the core of her training, as she was groomed for the Flight officer position on the private space port at the retreat moon.

Life could have continued like this, and probably would have, although the sight of the ships landing and starting from the small port filled her with a longing to soar between the stars herself. Being the realistic, no-nonsense person she already was back then, she clearly saw there was no way to escape without putting the lives and well-being of her family in jeopardy. So whenever she caught herself daydreaming while watching a departing ship, she reprimanded herself and went back to work.

That was, until that day in 3306 when she just had left an Alliance trader's Keelback after a short inspection (and a nice chat with the withered old lady who was piloting the vessel's Gu-97 Aegis F fighter). The Keelback was ready for departure, but was supposed to wait until an approaching Python had landed.

She stopped outside the Keelback and looked up towards the entry vector of the expected ship; she knew that this Python came from one of the near-by ringed planets with a shipment of hydrogen and oxygen for the retreat's life support and power stations. What she did NOT know (but learned within seconds while watching the Python's approach) was that the miner obviously had underestimated the moon's gravity of 0.5G (or they were simply drunk or on drugs) , so the large ship was dropping like a stone towards the landing pads, the lower thrusters firing brightly in the vain effort to prevent disaster.

Screaming at the trader to initate an emergency launch, she jumped and dove through the cargo hatch back into the Keelback, just as the trader got the landing gear off the ground - and the Python crashed into the small space port behind her.
The resulting deflagration from the ship's cargo completely enveloped all launch pads and the port's buildings, pushing the Keelback within a cloud of fire horizontally across the moon's jagged landscape, but as it had already been free of the launchpad and offered little resistance, the shields withstood the thermal damage, and the trader was able to stabilise his craft after a few hundred meters.

Flying back over the space port, they could see that the accident had pushed the Viscount's Clipper into the flight control tower, both ship and tower taking significant damage; the landing pads were obliterated, and of the Python, it's cargo and it's commander, there were only traces left, smeared and scattered over an area of several square kilometers. Had the Keelback still been locked to the landing pad, it would also have been blown to smithereens.

When the Keelback's radio crackled alive, the young slave could hear her mother's barely controlled voice on the official flight control channel, asking the Keelback's pilot for status and damage report. Her thoughts raced, accelerated by the rush of adrenalin from her near-death experience; while the pilot was reporting to Flight Control, she quickly stepped up to the dashboard and began to flip the ship's headlights on and off, very quickly, hitting a specific rhythm. Then came the expected question through the radio: "Did you see what happened to the deck officer who inspected your ship just before?" The trader looked up to her and was about to say "She's standing right next to me", but she quickly muted the radio and pled: "Please tell her I was out there. She will know it's a lie, but nobody else will. Please? I just saved your life and that of your crew."

Looking into those green, earnest eyes, the trader hesitated a few seconds, then searched the eyes of his fighter pilot for consent. Finally, he pushed the radio button again. "I'm sorry, officer. She had already left my ship and must have been caught in that blast."

After a few more seconds, the answer came. "Understood, commander." Pause. "Since we cannot offer you a landing platform at this point, you should leave the system for another port. Fly safely, commander!"

"I was done here for now, anyway." The trader muted again, looked up to the red-haired slave again and asked "You sure about this?" She nodded quietly, looking out over the devastated landing pads towards the flight control tower, where she believed she could see her mother's silhouette behind the splintered glass front, raising a hand in a salute.
"We are leaving then", she heard the trader tell Flight Control next to her. "Over and out".

Thus ended the life of a young space port slave - and the life of Anantyanta the spaceship commander started to unfold.

((To be continued.))