PLEASE READ AUTHOR’S NOTE, which follows after.

Disclaimer: No money is being made from this. The characters of The 
Sentinel, The Magnificent Seven, etc., belong to various Americans and 
Englishmen etc, etc. It is purely for enjoyment. All original characters and 
situations are the property of the author and may not be reproduced in any 
way without my permission.

Credits: OCs abound! Some of the characters in this fic are based on 
“originals” created by Susan Foster, Maedoc et al in the “GDP” & other 
series – see her website for these excellent stories. Race Keegan, Trey 
Logan, Gage Butler, etc, etc, are my OCs.  

Summary: This is AU and set in the future when humans have colonised 
other worlds. “PG-13” rating for intense emotional bonding, a bit of 
language, some violence and sexual references: all gen, no slash. (Italic 
words in brackets indicate thoughts), italics without brackets in the normal 
sentence structure are for emphasis. I’m a Brit, so all grammar and spelling 
is British, but I’ve tried to Americanise where I can. NB to American 
readers: I do not agree with, nor subscribe to, Political Correctness.

Important Note: This is the Sequel to Walking With Dark Angels. This story 
will make no sense whatsoever (assuming it does at all) unless you read 
that story first…
  
BENEATH THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS
Prologue 

Nepal Major Solar System, border between IFP space and Frontier 
Worlds…

The D-class transport vessel Jupiter II chugged its way around the 
coronasphere of a Blue Giant without a qualm on the part of the captain and 
crew. It had made this journey from the Nepal Major System to the Sentrus 
system so regularly that the crew quipped it could do on its own. 

Not that it literally chugged of course. Space was, well, space; there was 
nothing to chug through, no friction holding back a forging ship. However, 
D-class transports were the distant descendents of the old Earth cargo tugs 
and coal scows; hardy, tough little boats that had doggedly traversed almost 
non-navigable rivers and the perennially stormy North and Irish Seas. Like 
them, it certainly wasn’t pretty. Stubby and squat, a poor and distant 
cousin to the stupendous grandeur of an A-class luxury space liner or the 
colossal behemoth that was an A-class supercargo or military Battlestar, the 
D-class had been designed in line with an ancient Earth advertising jingle: 
Takes a licking but keeps on ticking. 

All inventions tended to be created for the elite and then inevitably spread 
to the masses. The Chinese had invented the printing press for the 
amusement of the Oriental nobility, and by 1066 the average Chinese 
peasant was a bookstore’s most faithful customer. The motor car had been 
designed solely for the rich to such an extent that as late as 1969, the 
British government had destroyed its railway infrastructure at the behest of 
the car manufacturers because it couldn’t conceive of a time when even the 
poorest working-class family could own two, three or even more cars. 
Heavier than air travel had been created for the super rich and less than a 
century later the ordinary masses were the mainstay of the industry. 

Space travel had been the purview of the super-wealthy. As Earth had 
suffered a decades’ long global socio-politic-economic crisis, the elite had 
sought to leave their troubles behind and emigrated to Halfway Station, 
then Mars, then Deep Space Station 1; the great unwashed could only watch 
them go. But it hadn’t lasted…the three Founding High Houses – Ellison, van 
Zant and al-Mahemi, had made vast fortunes by providing the common man 
with cheap, quick transport from Earth to Mars and beyond and humanity 
had truly become space faring. 

But the Average Joe, though an enthusiastic consumer, wasn’t a fool. Cheap 
also equated corner-cutting; in the 20th century many plane crashes and 
train derailments came down not to human error but to equipment 
consisting of a million moving parts all built by the lowest bidder who then 
creamed even more off the pot by charging for decent equipment but 
purchasing the cheaper, less durable version. 

The founding Three High Houses had gambled on investing heavily in a 
family-run Japanese space-engineering firm, Taisuke Incorporated, who had 
marketed the D-class. All four concerns involved had made money hand over 
fist because Nintoku Taisuke and his sons had spent that little bit extra on 
making sure the squat, ugly little tub could take anything up to and 
probably including a head-on collision with a small asteroid and still make 
it. 

Whilst tickets had been slightly more expensive than those of the other 
main competitors, a much higher-than-average safety record had won out in 
the end with the discerning public. Now the D-class was ubiquitous across 
known space; anything that could endure up to 85% atmospheric escape and 
67% total engine failure and still keep going to get most of the humans 
aboard it to their destination alive if nothing else was worth its weight in 
platinum. 

Captain Al Panelli kept to his chair on the bridge, such as it was. His family 
had been operating this space freight business between the Nepal Major, 
Nepal Minor and Sentrus solar systems for several hundred years, ever since 
the Earth Breakdown. As Italy split into three self governing states in 22-
whenever, his great-great-whatever grandparents Alessandro and Carmen 
Panelli had spent every last Euro they had to get to America, only to 
discover a few years later that the same global socio-religious, political and 
economic spasms were wreaking havoc on that country’s infrastructure, 
with hyper-inflation, jobs that lasted two days if that and rationing. 

Getting themselves on the last freighter anywhere in the fond belief they 
were going to Halfway Station they found themselves on the long haul to 
Nepal Major. Alessandro had hocked everything to purchase a couple of 
battered D-class freighters and started supply runs across the raw, frontier 
solar systems. What the family lacked in knowledge and experience they 
made up for in work ethic and integrity, never charging over the odds or 
skimming off supplies for themselves to re-sell on the black market. 

Al Panelli’s family were well-off but they were never going to be in the big 
leagues, though of course the younger generations of the family always 
came on the scene with big ideas to “maximise” profit and “expand the 
market base”; he should know, contrary to his kids’ belief, he had been 
their age once. 

Like most of his family, Al had done a stint in the IFP Navy. It had been a 
Panelli tradition, and therefore an unwritten law, that anyone wanting to 
work in the family business had to do the IFP minimum 5-year Military 
Service Contract in one of the Military Services, even though the business 
operated on the Frontier worlds (not that those nearest to IFP space were 
that wild and woolly anymore). Al heartily approved of the tradition; those 
five years instilled discipline, self-control, work ethic and tempered the 
desirable youthful enthusiasm and zeal with forethought and the knowledge 
that money wasn’t everything.  

Al had enjoyed his time, he’d even made it to Chief Petty Officer rank, but 
that job had demonstrated to him that he wasn’t cut out to be a business 
tycoon. He could sit behind a desk and make money like crazy and watch his 
bank account grow in line with his ulcers and hypertension, or he could be 
on his small but impeccably run bridge out here on the Jupiter II, being able 
to name every star he passed and watch a hundred jewel-like planets rise 
like suns across his front view-screen…

“Would ya like me to git ya pipe ‘n’ slippers?”                    
 
The acerbic tone cut into his thoughts and Al looked up to see the only 
other person on the bridge, his second in command, XO Joe Carrelli, rolling 
his eyes at him from his station. Neither man had an ounce of empathic 
abilities, the Panelli family being about as numb as you could get in that 
department – hell, Al had scored an Empathy Rating of about minus zero – 
but they’d been best friends since forever and had been crewing the Jupiter 
II every day since they could remember. In comparison mind-reading wasn’t 
that difficult. Joe was also something like Al’s second or third cousin; the 
families had been intermarrying ever since great-great-aunt Rosalia had run 
off with ‘that wild Carrelli boy’ as Mama still persisted in terming Uncle 
Ferdinando a century and a half after the event, for goodness sake. 

There had been lots of tears and drama and yelling, but hey, they were 
Italian. Since Rosalia and Ferdinando had adored each other everything had 
turned out well, but Al still remembered mama’s lectures about not being 
led astray by his older cousin when he and Joe had set off to do their 5-year 
stint in the Navy as 18-year-olds eager to get out from under the parental 
thumb. Mama had had no idea that when it came to getting into hot water, 
Al was usually front-and-centre.

He grinned now at his cousin; Joe was a hundred-oh-five tomorrow and Al 
was now of an age where he enjoyed pointing out that Joe was six months 
older than him and always would be. They were officially middle-aged! Al 
gave a moment’s thought to his plan as Joe sniffed irritably and turned back 
to his instruments. In three years, his eldest Carmen would have finished 
her second 5-year-stint in the IFP and would return home a seasoned 28-
year-old officer, probably a Lieutenant if her current progress was anything 
to go by. 

He’d already sounded her out and she was happy to take up the reins of 
Panelli Freight rather than remain in the military. Joe’s middle son, 
Frankie, had been trying to move in on her since they both hit 14 and 
discovered their gonads; it was part of the reason Al hadn’t objected when 
she’d decided to join the IFP Navy at only 18; the decade away from each 
other would do both of them the world of good and enable them to meet as 
successful adults in their own right. 

Al had little doubt, and was more than happy, that his daughter would 
become Mrs Carrelli, but the young had vast amounts of energy and precious 
little common sense. He shuddered to remember sometimes the escapades 
that he and Joe had got up to during their teenage years. The younger 
generation of their families would be stunned if they learned half of what 
the old, stodgy guys got up to. Neither Carmen nor her younger brothers had 
any idea for instance that their practical, serene mama had been a fan-
dancer in a risqué backstreet club on Sentrus III when Al and Joe met her – a 
‘meeting’ that happened in the middle of a bar room brawl of epic 
proportions. 

Rosetta Panelli, imbued somehow with the wisdom of the ages and a body 
that at hundred-oh-two could still do that thing with – well, never mind – 
had soon set him right when he’d wanted to veto Carmen’s joining the Navy 
that young: did he want his beloved only daughter pregnant at a shotgun 
wedding to Frankie Carrelli by the time the year was out? She’d managed 
four years of eagle-eyed vigilance on the pair and it was wearing her out. 
Carmen had left, leaving Frankie in a spectacular sulk until he had hit 18 
two months later and also joined up.  

Al loved his life with a deep, quiet contentment, but he was getting to the 
age where getting out of his cramped cabin bunk made his bones ache and 
his joints creak. It was time for him and Joe to spend their days fishing at 
Bluebell Lake while the young bucks did the heavy lifting –

Al snapped back to reality, that acute prescience only experience could 
endow causing both him and Joe to kill the engines and apply reverse thrust 
to brake mere seconds before a half-dozen C-class ships seemed to appear 
in front of them out of nowhere; since there was no Stargate or Jump Gate 
in the vicinity, they had presumably been lurking behind the Haros moon 
just off the starboard bow.  

“What in –”

*KILL YOUR ENGINES AND DO NOT RESIST AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.*

The stilted voice, metallic as all such communications tended to be despite 
the advances of modern bio-technology, came over the ship’s com as clear 
as a bell.      

“What?” Joe exclaimed, “They’ve got to be k-”

He broke off as the Jupiter II shuddered slightly and they heard a faint 
echoing suck-clunk sound. It was a very distinctive sound that was instantly 
identifiable to practically any human in the Inhabited Galaxies: it was the 
sound of an airlock being attached over the entrance/exit hatch of a 
spacecraft. 

Al and Joe looked at each other in pure, stunned astonishment. They were 
being hit by raiders. It was…

Unbelievable. Of course, thanks to vid-dramas and so forth, everyone knew 
that the Frontier Worlds were a space pirate’s playground. They lurked 
around every asteroid and moon, like jackals to pick off the unwary. What 
most people didn’t know was that space piracy didn’t exit outside the 
confines of their vid-screens. 

This was not due to any great nobility on the part of Man, but simply 
because those burgeoning space pirates that had initially trawled frontier 
space had come up flush against unyielding economic reality and lost hands 
down. 

In order to be a successful space pirate, you first needed engines – faster, 
bigger, better and more state-of-the-art than anyone else. They of course 
took up what would have been living space. After that it was weaponry, 
which had to have the techno-edge over everyone else plus include a 
greater than normal stock of ammunition; more space on the pirate vessel 
gone. Finally there were the necessary false hulls and secret storage 
compartments for booty and contraband, which equalled all remaining 
‘space’ as very cramped indeed; the upshot was a vessel that was like a 
sardine tin to live in. Also, none of these were processes or parts that could 
be built/fitted at a legitimate, honestly operated space-dockyard unless you 
wanted to advertise your intent to be a ‘pirate king’. 

In short, it required the expenditure of fitting it out to be recouped as fast 
as possible. Unfortunately that had been equally as problematic for those 
early criminals. Like predatory big cats on the African savannah, they had 
had to make big kills on virtually every other expedition merely to break 
even, never mind make profit. Having to expend just a small amount of fuel 
and/or firepower on ships that fought back or took flight narrowed or more 
usually wiped out that profit margin even further. 

Brutalising and/or murdering the victim passengers and crew as a method of 
discouraging flight/fight-back had backfired spectacularly when one group 
of victims’ families gathered together in a consortium and offered a truly 
mind-boggling bounty for the pirates’ capture. That resulted in the entire 
lot being ‘ratted out’ within ten Earth days and hung – gruesomely and 
spectacularly – from the cargo loading pylons at the spaceport of the world 
the unfortunate ship had set out from. 

Other victims families’ had followed suit and since honour amongst thieves 
existed nowhere except in the pages of certain liberal-radical political 
literature it became far more profitable to betray your fellow than be a 
pirate yourself. In addition, it had quickly become apparent to the criminals 
that the honest freight crews they robbed worked less for more benefits in 
better conditions than they themselves enjoyed. Since 99.99% of all 
criminals are criminals because they are lazy, non-contributing parasites to 
society, rather than poor misunderstood diddums whose daddy yelled at 
them once, those with fond dreams of getting fast mega-galacs interspersed 
with lengthy periods of indolence were soon disillusioned, imprisoned or 
deceased. 

In short, space pirates remained the staple of a whole host of action-
adventure/romantic-suspense type drama shows while being as non-existent 
as fairies and leprechauns in reality. 

Al Panelli knew for damn sure, however, that the airlock clamped onto his 
outer hull was very real. He picked up the carefully maintained C20 Phase 
Blaster he’d never used in his over fifty years board the Jupiter and stood 
up. “Secure the bridge.”

He didn’t wait for a response because he didn’t need one. He and Joe had 
seen combat together during the Vibe Wars of Golan in 2498-2502, when 
they’d been terrified twenty-year olds convinced they were doing to die, 
having previously bought into the myth that the IFP was by then just an 
intergalactic bureaucracy that only knew how to hit you with a work order 
not a missile. Joe would seal off the bridge so a microbe couldn’t get in and 
wouldn’t open it again unless Al ordered him to using the codeword that 
neither man had ever uttered to any other living soul. 

Al moved slowly and cautiously through the ship, gratefully noting that the 
Jupiter’s remaining crew complement of nine people had obeyed his and 
Joe’s often drilled-in protocol that in any untoward situation they were to 
go immediately to the forward port bulkhead and lock themselves in until 
given the all clear. Reinforced with its own heat, air and power supply, the 
hermetically sealed compartment was Al and Joe’s just-in-case failsafe. 
Pressing a button on the wall activated the long-range full spectrum distress 
beacon that would reach Nepal Vishnu spaceport within an hour and bring a 
medical rescue team. 

With them in there and Joe on the bridge, Al was in theory free to operate 
with only himself to worry about, since anyone else he encountered should 
be by definition a bad guy. However, only Al and Joe knew that was not the 
case, so he moved with extreme wariness towards the tack-tack sounds that 
bespoke armoured boots. Another sound he recognised; Marines and Special 
Forces commandos such as the SEALs and SAS favoured a particular style of 
armoured gravity boots that were extremely durable but nonetheless light 
to wear. The problem had plagued military manufacturers for a long time 
since most of the early boots were, according to Al’s two-hundred-and-
ninety-seven year old Uncle Louie, like walking around encased in concrete 
blocks from the ankle down. Net result being that many of the Special 
Forces had ignored them; the bad guys had quickly caught on to ignore the 
well-defended head and body and aim for the feet. 

Al moved cautiously out of the T-junction corridor, turning right towards the 
men in combat gear –

“Please remain still, Captain Panelli.” The polite request was accompanied 
by the ominous hum of a fully charged phaser pistol. 

Al froze and cursed himself for not realising that the milling group might 
have the smarts to send one lone man past the opening to lie in wait while 
they made a lot of distracting noise, but felt slightly better when the 
combat-clad men also all spun round in clear surprise. So only the guy 
holding the phaser on him appeared to have initiative, or at least combat 
experience. However, as Al took another look at the group his heart sank. 
They weren’t military, though most clearly had military experience. He 
knew a bunch of guns for hire when he saw them and at least two were the 
swaggering bully-boy type. 

He remained still, but kept his pistol up and pointing at the group. Even if 
the man behind him fired, autonomic reflex meant Al would take some of 
them with him, since he’d set the pistol to broad range dispersal and was 
aiming at their unprotected heads. “Look, fellas,” he kept his voice calm 
and reasonable, “we’ve got perishable medical supplies on this tub, so I’m 
thinking that this joke has gone far enough.”

A superficially handsome brunette at the forefront of the group swore 
crudely and spat, “We’re here for the Guides, spic. Where are they?”

Ignoring the derogatory epithet regarding his origins, Al blinked rapidly. 
“What?”

The man behind him moved into Al’s peripheral vision, and his heart sank. 
Al had seen Sewer-Mouth’s type before: sadistic, arrogant, stupid; his eyes 
hot with the lust to hurt and kill, fatally flawed by his vast, overweening 
confidence in that he was holding that big badass gun. Problematic, true, 
but hardly insurmountable odds for one with Al Panelli’s skills; he could 
have turned the tables on the punk and had the group in disarray in about 
thirty seconds flat without breaking a sweat.

The guy who had got behind Al, however, was the Real Deal, and Al 
acknowledged he was checkmated as soon as he locked eyes with this man.  
Not tall, about 5’ 7”, and slender, maybe a 120lbs if that, with spiky nutmeg 
brown hair framing an oval face with a somewhat sharp nose and chin; in a 
woman his features would have been termed gamine. But it was all there in 
his eyes. They did not burn with the brutish bloodlust of the big-mouth 
brunette punk, nor were they the dead, iced-over puddles of the 
conscienceless sociopath. His eyes were a pale hazel-tree green that were 
clear, calm, intelligent, and above all supremely confident in himself and 
his mission. This man would make no mistakes.

Macho brunette’s face became ugly, “The empaths, man. We want them all, 
now.”

It would take them a month of Sundays to get at Joe and the crew…and the 
hidden empaths, safely in and safe in the false hold. His muscles tensed 
automatically in anticipation of the lethal blast to come as Al opened his 
mouth preparatory to suggesting his unwelcome guests each perform 
something anatomically impossible with their phase rifles.

“Leave him alone!”

Like everyone else, Al swung his head to the voice; which was almost 
squeaky with fear. Inwardly Al cursed; the empaths of course could not read 
Al’s mind, but they could his emotions, and so would have felt his 
resignation and resolution when he was faced with Hazel Eyes and the Goon 
Squad and realised he could not win…and so would die. 

The empaths were a mixed bag of 45 people of several ethnic groups and 
ranged from a seven-year-old black girl to a 52-year-old Earth Chinese 
woman. Right now, they were all residents of the state of fear. But they 
bunched together in the corridor and glared at the intruders, determined to 
save the man who was helping them if they could.

The brunette thug cackled and leered with vulgar lasciviousness at 17-year-
old Daenera Möet, one of the more powerful empaths and unfortunately – 
for her – possessor of a lushly feminine form and attractive features; she 
recoiled with an expression of utter revulsion on her features and Al tensed, 
guessing what emotional sewage the young yob was spewing from whatever 
passed as his brain.

Hazel eyes took a step forward that managed to interpose his body between 
the girl and the nasty youth. With a polite smile as if ordering an afternoon 
aperitif, he said, “Would all the male empaths older than twenty and 
younger than thirty-five please come to the front?”

Hesitantly, they complied, nervous and confused. Al could relate, since 
Hazel Eyes had paradoxically managed to reassure and scare them. Reassure 
since he was not interested in the women, or worse, the children, but scare 
them because it was obvious they were not to be permitted to go on their 
way untouched.

“Thank you…now, all of you that are not white, please step back…ah, and 
the gentleman with the red hair, you too please, back you go. 
Excellent…and finally the three blonds…yes, you, you and you, back you go. 
So what do we have?”

What they had, was nine men. Al knew only about half-a-dozen of the 
empaths, but if he remembered correctly, the youngest was Johann 
Francken-Strauss who was about 21 or 22 years old, and the eldest of the 
nine was Andrew or Anderson or Anders Novatzky or Novacs who was in his 
early or mid thirties. 

Hazel eyes stepped aside. “If you nine would proceed to our ship we’ll get 
on our way. You gentlemen have been chosen to meet our employer and 
then you will be – free - to go on your way.”

Al would bet his last galak Hazel Eyes had mentally vetoed ‘released’ for 
the less emotive ‘free’, but Novatzky or Novacs dared, “We’re flattered, 
but we’ll take a raincheck.”

Humour twinkled momentarily, “Not an option on this tour, I’m afraid. Now, 
please.” A little more menace to the tone.

The empaths began to move forward with fearful looks at the goon squad, 
who to their credit (all bar the brunette swaggerer) made like stuffed 
dummies. Daenera Möet made a little distressed noise in the back of her 
throat and Al remembered the budding romance between her and Johann 
that had been developing aboard. 

“I think we should take some entertainment, too,” the brunette kid said 
suggestively, his eyes roaming lustfully over Daenera’s body. 

“You aren’t paid to think, Bartley.” Hazel Eyes’ tone was flat and empty 
and somehow more dangerous than a snarled command or expletive-riddled 
bellow. 

Bartley the brunette’s face flushed with the sudden rage that bespoke 
egomania and no self-discipline, but he could not meet the cool, supremely 
self-confident eyes of his ‘boss’. 

With a glance at his sweetheart, Johann baulked at the airlock, his 
somewhat prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up-and-down almost violently. 
He was by his own admission a ‘studious’ lanky type rather than a corn-fed 
jock male, but like most empaths, his empathy had required the forging of 
some inner steel. Just because Leo Kessler’s vile empire had been destroyed 
didn’t mean that being an empath was suddenly no longer persistently 
stressful and traumatic. 

“H-H-How long will this meeting take?” Johann looked at Hazel Eyes 
squarely even though he was the image of all those kids’ animated vid-
programs where the cowardly duck literally quaked in its boots.

“No more than three days. You’ll all be done and back to your normal lives 
by Thursday,” Hazel Eyes said reassuringly.

“Where?” growled Al suddenly.

Hazel Eyes looked momentarily nonplussed but then said, “I’ll arrange for 
these gentlemen to be dropped off at Deep Space 23.”

The already moving cogs in Al’s mind clicked. Deep Space 23, the IFP deep 
space station which was positioned where three borders came together – 
those of the Intergalactic Federation of Planets, Sentrus System and the 
Dalesian System. The Tyrant of Dalesia, that was what this was all about, or 
else Al Panelli would eat combat rations for a year! 

“The Jupiter II will be there,” Al stated and then locked his gaze with Hazel 
Eyes, “but if they are not, I’ll come looking for you, and son, I never forget 
a face.”

“Your mistake, grandpa!” hissed ‘Bartley’ in glee at this unsubtle threat, 
swinging up the rifle.  Al knew he had no chance to avoid the shot even if he 
had tried – and he could not try because to dodge would leave the huddle of 
empaths standing right behind him directly in the line of fire – and could 
only stiffen involuntarily as if rigid muscles would somehow ward off the 
blast.

The distinctive hiss-phhzzzt of the energy discharge was distortedly loud to 
Al’s ears; for a hundredth of a second nothing happened, and then ‘Bartley’, 
the greedy bloodlust still twisting his features, toppled face-forward to the 
corridor deck with a large smoking hole where the back of his head used to 
be. 

Behind Al there was a soft ‘unh’ and a thud; at least one empath had 
fainted. Prudently he kept his not inconsiderable bulk between the empaths 
and the ghastly sight – at least energy weapons unlike lead projectiles 
cauterised a wound on impact eliminating the ‘bloodbath’ spectacle. It also 
confirmed Al’s suspicions regarding Hazel Eyes; it was the classic ‘kill’ shot, 
instantly destroying the cerebellum and the brain/body connection to the 
spinal cord so that Bartley’s autonomic nervous system didn’t make his dead 
finger automatically squeeze the trigger in his death spasm and kill Al 
anyway, always a danger even with straight-to-the-heart shots. 

The muzzle of Hazel Eyes’ phaser glowed momentarily from the firing and 
then faded as, with no discernible change of expression, he ordered, “Thisk, 
Rathwait, bring that and let us allow Captain Panelli to continue on his way. 
Captain, Deep Space 23 by Thursday.”

And the hijack was over. The two mercenaries, one of whom had to be Thisk 
and the other Rathwait, slung their rifles over their shoulders and picked up 
the deceased ‘Bartley’ with no discernible grief at his demise or that they 
were handling a corpse and smartly manoeuvred it onto the hijack ship 
whilst Hazel Eyes and their companions took the nine male empaths, sealed 
their airlock and then detached from the Jupiter II. 

Knowing that Joe had been able to monitor everything from the Bridge, Al 
was unsurprised when the corridor lights flickered on-and-off twice in quick 
succession, which was Joe’s way of saying that the hijack vessels had 
cleared off. He raised his hand in acknowledgement to the vid-monitor, 
wishing momentarily that like military ships, his internal vid-monitors had 
weaponry fitted. If Al and Joe had been able to fire those miniature laser-
weapons that were incorporated into some vid-monitors’ specs from the 
Bridge, the hijackers could have been repelled with no loss to the Jupiter 
II’s crew or the empaths. But then hindsight gifted everyone with the ability 
to respond more effectively.

Daenera – it was she who had fainted, not surprising considering she was 
only seventeen, poor kid – looked at Al with tear-filled eyes. “What if they 
kill Johann – and – and - Mr Novabtzki and the others?!”

“They won’t,” Al said confidently. “Thisk and Rathwait…from Thirsk and 
Radmanthwaite, I’ll bet.” Realising his half-to-himself muttering was 
unnerving them even further, he assured, “Their employer won’t harm 
empaths.”

“How do you know?” asked Ian Sachs, the weakest of the empaths but their 
usual spokesman.

“Because the Tyrant of Dalesia is searching for his Guide…”

To be continued in Chapter 1

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart
   

Author’s Note: I had decided I would not post Beneath the Shadow of His Wings until it 
was at least 90% written as it took me two years to write Walking With Dark Angels (and 
Destined is still dragging on). I intended to produce the sequel in 2006. Unfortunately, 
events have conspired against me – the after-effects of a 2005 car accident which now 
requires me to save up £2,500 for an operation to correct these, the death of my granddad 
in 2006 and a very grim respiratory infection on two occasions. 

However, because I once promised that I would never post a story I wouldn’t finish if at all 
humanly possible, I realised that to stick to this decision would effectively mean the sequel 
would spend eternity in ‘development hell’. My Real Life is hectic, traumatic and very 
busy. There would always be something that would push BTS further down the To-Do List. 
Destined is the classic example – I know it’s taken me aeons to get to Part 2, but if I’d 
never posted it, it would never have been continued with as it got crowded out by a fresh 
crisis. I have several stories in various fandoms that have been lurking in the ether for a 
long time that have just got pushed aside because I never posted them.  

I cannot say how long it will take me to write the sequel. It could take me two years like 
WWDA. It could take longer or less time. However, I have posted this Prologue because I 
now have the motivation to keep going, rather than leaving it…I’ve started, so I’ll finish, as 
it were. Therefore all I can ask is that you ‘bear with me’. 

In case you didn’t know, as a technical point, this story is AU The Sentinel and is a Cross-
over (of sorts) with The District, The Magnificent 7, Starsky & Hutch, The Professionals, 
and sundry other things that will probably go by in a blink-n-you miss-it fashion.