She sat, nestled among the pillows, on her cushioned window seat and stared dejectedly through the window. The view from there was a breathtaking image of her home-world, Elani, a planet near the center of the galaxy. From the panoramic window, she could see the magenta sky with two moons and iridescent aurora bending back and forth between them. Beneath the sky was the bustling city covering over one third of the planet. The city lights could have easily lulled her to sleep, but she was too disappointed to be tired.

Everything was all wrong. And no one would listen to her warnings. Her father, the king of all Elani, certainly wouldn’t because he was far too busy “with matters of diplomacy, ” as he liked to say.

Right now she was supposed to be preparing for a dinner for guest from somewhere else in the galaxy. Quite honestly she could care less. Her problem, which was truly every Elani citizen’s problem, was the only thing she could dwell on. She was alone to bear the burden of figuring out how to save everyone she loved. It felt like an impossible task. She was stuck inside this castle.

She held a silk pillow to her face to absorb her tears and soften her sobs.

A few moments later, she heard a knock on her bedroom door.

“May we come in?” a woman’s voice said (in the Elani language) from the other side of the door.

She wiped away her tears and threw the pillow to the side. “Yes, of course.”

Two young women, her handmaidens, entered her room. One was holding a shimmery white dress. The other was holding various pieces of elaborate jewelry.

“Pandora, are you okay?” One of the handmaidens asked.

“Your father is waiting for you in the throne room. He wants you to meet the guests,” the other woman said.

“Oh yes. I’m fine,” she sniffled.

“Are you ready to get dressed, Pandora,” the taller handmaiden, Lia, asked.

Pandora sat up with proper posture on the window seat. “Yes, I am.”

The shorter handmaiden, Kara, a dark complexioned woman with glossy black hair, motioned for her to stand up.

Pandora obeyed. “Kara, Lia, you don’t have to help me. Please go home to your families. I can get myself ready.”

“We can go home after this. If we left, you would stay in your room through the entire dinner,” Kara said.

“You’re right...” Pandora sighed.

Pandora took off her nightgown. After Kara handed Pandora a bottle of lotion, Pandora smoothed the lotion over her bronzed skin until it had a healthy glow. Lia slipped the tight white dress over Pandora’s body. The white dress had a very modest top that tied with a ribbon behind her neck, but the dress displayed her tanned back.

Kara placed an extravagant silver necklace with holographic jewels around Pandora’s neck. And then Kara slid silver cuffs, resembling ivy, a few inches above each elbow. For the finishing touches, Lia and Kara stacked a couple of rings on most of Pandora’s small fingers.

“Well, you look beautiful, Pandora,” Kara said.

With a golden comb in hand, Lia brushed through Pandora’s silky purple hair that just touched her shoulders. “When was the last time you brushed your hair?” Lia scolded.

“Probably last night,” Pandora said.

Lia gasped. “Pandora! You have such beautiful hair! Don’t you want to keep it heathy?”

“I shall try to remember from now on.”

Kara proceeded to place a small silver tiara on Pandora’s head. “A princess can never forget her crown.”

Unfortunately, Pandora thought.

It was after the special dinner her father, the king of Elani, had planned, and Pandora was alone in her room. She had yet to take off her white dress or jewelry, only the tiara was back in its place. Pandora stared at the tiara in its glass case on her dresser. In many ways, she realized that the tiara was she. The castle was Pandora’s casing, prohibiting her from helping her planet and her people. It kept her silent and hidden from the rest galaxy. The Elani were in grave danger, and none were aware except for someone who felt as though she had no voice.

Pandora fell onto her mattress and broke into tears. She knew her planet Elani was dying. When she tried to tell her father and his advisors about the situation, they laughed at her and called her foolish. She was only twenty. Their arrogance was blinding them from the truth that Pandora knew was a grave threat. Her tears soaked her pillow. Although she was aware that crying would solve nothing, there wasn’t much else she could do.

Eventually, she moved back her window seat with the panoramic view of Elani. She wanted to enjoy the moonlight and colorful aurora waving in the atmosphere for as long as she could.

Watching the lulling city lights and the flickering stars made her feel tired. And she closed her eyes.

A noise... a whirr...

Something woke her up. Pandora’s drowsy eyes turned towards her bedroom door. Seeing nothing, she turned to go back to sleep.

Footsteps echoed...

Half-asleep, Pandora sat up. No one had any business in her room at this hour. She slightly opened her eyes and saw the intruder, a castle guard.

Her tiredness quickly faded and her view cleared. The guards rarely entered her room without notice. The fact that one was standing before her meant that something was horribly wrong.

“Is my father all right?” Pandora asked the guard.

The guard offered no response, slowly stepping towards her.

Pandora scrutinized the guard more closely. He or she was much shorter and had shoulders smaller than the guards she was used to seeing.

From further examination of the guard, Pandora realized that the guard was concealing a gun behind his or her back. However, the castle guards did not carry weapons at all because their powers made it unnecessary.

But by the time Pandora realized that the intruder was not a real guard, a pistol was held against her chest.

“You scream and I will shoot,” the intruder threatened in Standard (the galaxy’s universal language).

The voice obviously belonged to a woman, but that did not ease Pandora in the least bit.

“Get up,” the intruder demanded.

Pandora didn’t move a muscle.

“Do you speak Standard?” the intruder questioned.

Pandora nodded.

“Well, then do as I say!”

“What do you want with me?” Pandora whispered.

“I wasn’t sent to kill you. But I will shoot you if you resist,” the intruder replied. “GET UP!”

This time Pandora obeyed.

“Now, you are going to walk to the nearest balcony. Do not speak or make eye contact with anyone or—”

Pandora cut her off. “Or what? You’ll shoot me? I thought you didn’t want to kill me.”

“Shut up!” the intruder demanded.

“I could care less whether you shoot or not,” Pandora mused.

“You talk too much!” The intruder did not allow Pandora to reply. She flipped a switch on the pistol and shot it at Pandora.

Pandora opened her eyes.The first thing she saw was a viewport and space. She stared out at the trillions of tiny stars, shining in the infinite void of darkness. One of those stars could have been her home Elani.

She didn’t know how much time had passed since she had been shot. The fake guard must have turned her pistol on stun before she fired.

Pandora noticed that she was moving towards an extremely large ship, hovering in space. For the first time since she opened her eyes, she wondered where in the galaxy she was. She looked closer to herself and noticed a blinking control panel with too many buttons and switches to count. She must be on some kind of ship.

Turning to her right, she saw another seat which held the pilot. The pilot was a half-human, half-siren woman. The woman had a deep umber complexion and very curly black hair, touching her shoulders, revealing her humanness. The half of her that was siren was shown through her uniquely pointed nose and fin-like ears. She also had shining silver markings that spiraled out like vines on her face and neck. The woman still wore the oversized Elani guard armor.

Pandora tried to speak, but her mouth was taped shut. She planned to remove the tape with her hands, but her arms were tied behind the chair.

Her kidnapper smirked, hearing Pandora mumble through the tape.

Pandora eventually grew tired and stopped struggling. She decided to just stare in silence at the large ship ahead.

The kidnapper cleared her throat. “Not that it matters, but the people who hired me aren’t interested in killing you. And when we go in there,” She pointed to the ship ahead, “I would keep my mouth shut, if I were you...”

Pandora huffed indifferently.

Thirty minutes later, they arrived at the ship which upon closer inspection appeared to be more of a large base. Pandora’s kidnapper carefully steered her ship into one of the hangars located on the base and landed.

The kidnapper untied Pandora from the copilot seat and ripped the tape off her face. “Now look, the second we get off of my ship, you are to follow me. Don’t say a word to anyone and you should be fine. I don’t want you to get me in trouble. Otherwise you may not ever go back home.”

“Am I being ransomed?” Pandora asked.

“I can’t answer that,” she replied.

The kidnapper handcuffed Pandora’s wrists again and pushed her down the ship’s exit/entrance ramp. They began to walk towards the double doors in the hangar. Well over twenty personal ships were kept inside the enormous hangar. Some of the pilots, each a different species, were busily working on their ship. Three ships from the kidnapper’s ship, a woman with red hair and a man, both appearing to be human, were walking towards the same doors as Pandora.

Pandora and her kidnapper and the red-head and the man all stopped at the door and waited. While they stood there, Pandora couldn’t keep herself from analyzing the woman. The red-head, though beautiful, came off as self-satisfied and not at all friendly, at least to Pandora. The man was incredibly attractive as well. He looked to be in his mid twenties and over six feet tall. Pandora couldn’t help but notice, and tried not to admire, his lean, muscular body and broad shoulders. She also watched him run his fingers through his brown hair which was cut short on the sides and longer on the top.

With a tinge of jealousy, Pandora watched the couple make flirty glances at each other. She wondered if the red-head actually appreciated him. Of course, Pandora knew she shouldn’t make judgements about people she didn’t know. It wasn’t healthy.

Just before the four stepped through the elevator door, he turned his head and grinned at Pandora, slowly looking over her body from head to toe. In the brief moment they made eye contact, she realized from his ocean-blue eyes that he wasn’t human. He was like her. He was an Elani too. Anybody else that wasn’t like them wouldn’t have been able to notice it. But the energy she felt when she looked into his eyes confirmed he was, in fact, Elani. She hadn’t expected to ever run into another of her kind outside her home planet. What was he doing all the way out here, away from Elani?

After they all stepped through the doors, the man acknowledged the kidnapper and seemed to know her. “Zaya, I thought you were retired,” he commented.

“And I thought you were dead,” the kidnapper, Zaya, retorted.

The red-head reached for his hand and grasped it tightly. “Why don’t we get something to eat first and check in with Coran later?”

“Sure.” He gave a slight wave in Pandora’s direction as he walked away.

The two went to the right a few meters and through an open entrance. Because of the strobing lights and pulsing base of electro music coming from the room, Pandora assumed it was a club.

“Do you know him?” Pandora asked.

Zaya rolled her eyes. “Yeah,”

“Who is he?”

“A criminal. Not someone who a princess would associate with.”

“Who’s Coran?”

Zaya huffed loudly. “Can we not talk? Remember what I said?”

Zaya dragged Pandora along and then pushed her up against a shiny black wall. Laughing and grinning, Zaya skipped away to the club.

Pandora stood against the wall for a minute or two, but when she attempted to move away from it, she realized what Zaya thought was so funny. Pandora was stuck to the wall. Though she kicked and pulled, her arms were still stuck on the wall behind her back.

A rustling voice to her left coughed. “It’s the handcuffs. They are like magnets on the wall.”

Pandora turned to see a greenish, scaly creature with horns making almost a crown on his head. “Oh.”

“First time here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“If I were you, I would be terrified of what these people have in mind for you.”

Pandora didn’t flinch. “And what would that be?”

The creature laughed cruelly. “You don’t want to know.”

Pandora turned away and purposely ignored the annoying creature. Though it seemed these criminals planned to ransom her, Zaya wouldn’t tell her anything. She would be foolish to believe that anyone would tell her the truth.

To pass the time, Pandora turned her attention on the enormous criminal hideout she was inside. Aside from the customers, it was quite a sight to behold. Instead of only walls, there were countless viewports displaying infinite space. In the center of the octagonal room, intricate, multi-dimensional holographs were displayed like artwork; and no one seemed to even notice.

These people, mostly criminals, were too busy counting their money or drinking.