I'm reading the Stardrifter series by David Collins-Rivera, and reviewing each book as I finish it. The short story The Proposal is a story about a special-ops mission performed for a mysterious client. That's the same elevator pitch I used for the previous story but, believe me, the two are nothing alike. This review contains no spoilers.
Noblespace is a strange place in the Stardrifter universe. It's sort of the Dune or Rogue Trader corner of the galaxy, with noble Houses controlling every aspect of people's lives, both inside and outside the borders. We've gotten glimpses of this in previous stories, particularly Street Candles. In this story, we get a view into the backroom politics of Noblespace, and not surprisingly, it ain't pretty.
A young nobleman is engaged. He's in love. The marriage has been announced, the public is abuzz with excitement. All the news outlets are tracking the progress of the engagement, and the wedding date grows ever nearer. And then the nobleman is kidnapped.
Actually not a big deal. That sort of thing is basically expected, or at least it's an attack vector that's been accounted for. The family is practically insured against it. The young nobleman has literally been trained for a kidnapping scenario all his life. It's easy. Cooperate with the kidnappers, assure them that the family will meet all ransom demands. It'll be over before the day is out.
There's an interesting language barrier between the nobleman and some of his kidnappers. He speaks Ceicion, so one of his kidnappers has to speak through a translator. It's usually something that's sort of introduced and then breezed past in stories, and to some degree that's what happens here. Obviously the story must go on, and this is the future, so the translator gets integrated into the storytelling. But it's introduced as being clunky and awkward, with the kidnappers stumbling through their demands in untintelligible Ceicion. It's all delivered to us readers as English, of course, but it works perfectly. There's no real impact on the story. It's just a nice storytelling touch.
The problem isn't the language barrier, though. It seems that this time, the kidnappers aren't asking for ransom. They don't seem to be interested in money, but they also don't seem to be interested in doing harm to the nobleman. In fact, they seem more interested in his assistant more than anything.
What happens next? Does Ejoq and a special ops team crash through the door to shoot all the kidnappers and rescue the nobleman? Or maybe one of the kidnappers throws off his robes to reveal he's Ejoq, and he's holding a thermal detonator. I'm keeping this review free of spoilers, so you'll have to read it to find out. It's worth the read. You learn more about the Stardrifter setting, you learn something about some familiar characters, and it's the lead-in to the next story, Lacey and Time.