Owl Dragon Star System.
Highest-security interstellar prison.
This was a gas planet fit for no living thing; as for the environment outside, without the proper protective gear.
To meet the outside in the bare flesh, even the Angel Race or the dragonkin, the hardiest of bodies,
none could survive out there for more than a minute.
For outside there was not only no oxygen; the gas was thick with a deadly toxin, and there was dense fog besides.
It could be called a forbidden zone for life.
And it was within this very gas planet that an interstellar prison hung suspended, like a city in the sky.
It was the Owl Dragon's highest-security prison, which Zhao Chen had built early on, well before this.
It was meant only for holding beings of special standing.
So far, the criminals it held numbered only in single digits.
And the highest-security cell had stood empty all along.
Only now had it at last received its tenant.
A shuttle passed through the gas planet's outer layer and entered the interior of the interstellar prison without trouble.
Lilith stepped down from the shuttle.
"Lady Secretary." A woman officer, in an Owl Dragon uniform somewhat different from the military one, stood before Lilith.
"Reporting, I am warden of the Sin-Dragon Prison, code-name Sin-Dragon." The woman officer stood straight as she said it.
For secrecy and security, this warden did not even have a name of her own while she worked here.
Nor, besides her, did the other soldiers.
They had only code-names.
"Take me to Cell Zero," Lilith said.
"Yes. Please follow me." Warden Sin-Dragon led the way.
Once they left the area where the shuttle was berthed, Lilith felt as though she had walked into a maze.
All around were identical corridors; round each corner, yet another corridor exactly the same.
Apart from a numbered cell glimpsed now and then, there was nothing else to be seen at all.
It left Lilith with no idea whatever of where she now was.
"Truly the highest-security prison. I have heard that the Sin-Dragon Prison is built something like a Rubik's cube. Every sector shifts position at intervals, so there is no fixed route at all. And to reach a given cell, one must apply through the internal equipment to be issued a one-time navigation device. Only then can one reach the cell one wishes," Lilith said.
"That is so." Warden Sin-Dragon walked ahead; she said very little.
Perhaps that too was one of this prison's rules.
Soon Warden Sin-Dragon halted in a stretch of corridor.
"We have arrived," Warden Sin-Dragon said in a low voice.
Arrived?
Lilith looked around in surprise, but there was not so much as a door to be seen anywhere about.
Could it be…
Warden Sin-Dragon turned to face the wall on the right and raised her right hand high; set into the back of her right hand was a black gem.
The black gem suddenly shot out a beam of purple light onto the wall.
The wall, which had been sealed tight, gave some sound, and a seam appeared in it.
Then it swung slowly inward.
Within the door was pitch-black; nothing could be seen.
"Do you need the light on? Cell Zero is set to keep its lights off at all times; it lessens the chance of the prisoner escaping," Warden Sin-Dragon asked Lilith.
Never any light?
At the very thought, Lilith felt her flesh creep.
"Turn on the light. It is not only I who would see her; someone else would see her too," Lilith said.
"Yes." Warden Sin-Dragon snapped her fingers, setting off who knew what mechanism, and at once the space within the door lit up.
No lamp of any kind could be seen, but the whole room was simply lit.
The room was a square space, with nothing in it but the glass enclosure in the middle.
And within the glass enclosure was a woman sitting on the floor.
The wings on her back, which ought to have been bright and splendid, were somewhat disheveled now, and the black veil was gone from her face, leaving her features wholly exposed to others.
Lilith frowned slightly.
But Warden Sin-Dragon's face showed no change at all; whether because she had seen it before, or because she was long used to such things, there was no telling.
"The Owl Dragon Empire's supreme secretary officer, Miss Lilith?" Renee, the Angel Queen, raised her head and opened her eyes with effort.
For she had been kept in utter darkness all this while, even in transit.
And so she had grown used to the dark; now, lit up all of a sudden, her eyes truly were not quite used to it.
On Renee the Angel Queen's hands and feet were bound some sort of metal chains.
Her neck too, and all of them were fastened to the floor.
"You know me?" Lilith looked this one-time lofty Angel Queen over.
"Naturally. In the Owl Dragon Empire, the one who stands below one and above ten thousand. Who would not know her," Renee the Angel Queen said with a light laugh.
Just then, Lilith noticed several tubes running into Renee the Angel Queen's body from behind.
"That one supplies the prisoner with nutrients. That way, no one need be assigned to bring her food. The other one carries toxin. Injected continuously, it will not endanger the prisoner's life, but it keeps the prisoner's body without strength, without even the strength to stand," said Warden Sin-Dragon, in a flat tone, as though speaking of something quite ordinary.
Lilith fixed her eyes on the other and spoke. "Before, Zhao Waner asked you whether you were willing to cooperate with us, to tell us the intelligence we need in exchange for terms under which you could live better here. You asked to speak with our Emperor."
"Quite so. Unless it is that Emperor of yours, I will not say one word of the information you want." Renee the Angel Queen smiled coldly.
Lilith said nothing, and looked to Warden Sin-Dragon beside her.
Warden Sin-Dragon already knew something of the arrangements.
She said, "The whole cell's communication barrier has been shut off. You may use your communication device to reach the outside."
Lilith raised her hand, and the handheld terminal in it projected an image of light.
That image of light was, unmistakably, Zhao Chen.
"I hear you wished to see me?" Zhao Chen looked at this Angel Queen before him; though he had long since heard of her disfigurement.
When he truly saw it, he was still somewhat taken aback.
He had never thought a dignified Angel Queen would have such a face.
"Only an image of light, after all. Am I not even worthy of your coming to see me in person?" Renee the Angel Queen said with a light laugh.
"I have no time to waste here with you. You ought to know what is happening on the northern hive line right now. That I can see you at all is already the greatest concession. If you mean to make any other demands, then our talk ends here," Zhao Chen said coolly.
"Wait." Renee the Angel Queen called him back.
She fixed her eyes on Zhao Chen, looking him up and down.
"How many times is it now that we have met?"