“We were bound for the Palimino when it was destroyed. A whole city ship, just sunk. Then those little ships came along and nearly killed everyone. Luckily they only damaged our engines and destroyed our communications. We were able to catch you with thrusters, though you were no help. Your ship kept veering away.”
Stephanie shook her head, unwilling to get sucked into another argument. A soldier closed the outer then inner airlock. “All right, time to cut it loose. Do you have a remote system or command code?” Stephanie asked.
“What do you mean? That ship is my responsibility, I can't just set it adrift.”
“You have to. If you don't we can't go into hyperspace.”
“What? You're not staying and helping anyone else in the system?”
“Like I said, we're not equipped for that so we're going to the nearest port and we're going to drop you off at an emergency center so they can take care of you. Now just decouple your ship and we'll be-”
“What kind of people are you? First you play keep away when we try to dock, then you don't let us in for four hours, now you want me to dump my ship while you leave the system without helping anyone else? This ship is huge! There must be room for thousands aboard! You must have a crew and medical facilities!”
“None of that is any of your business, just take it on faith that we're not ready to help and release your docking system, please.” Stephanie said as calmly as she could manage while talking over the woman.
“I can't! Weren't you listening? We jammed it so you couldn't just shake us off and leave us twisting in the cold!”
“All right. Go with the officer please. He'll show you to a bunk.”
“What? What about my ship? Are you going to do something to it? What are you going to do?”
“We'll rip it off like the scab it is! Now get your ass down the hall before I stun you!” Stephanie snapped.
The soldier grabbed the frazzled woman by the arm and nearly had to drag her down the hall.
“You can't do this! That's Transit Authority property!” she yelled before giving up on Stephanie and turning to the guard, who was guiding her towards the upper berth where the rest of the refugees were being taken.
“You handled that well,” Liz commented quietly.
“Until I threatened to fire on her.”
“She wasn't being reasonable. Can't blame her much though. Who knows what she lost in the attack.”
“You're right. I just can't wait to get out of this system.”
“What are you going to do about this ship?”
“Well, I'll seal this hall off at this end and leave it up to the Captain. He might have to send a crew out to cut it loose.”
“That makes sense,” Liz grabbed an end of the full trunk of weaponry and ammunition while her larger counterpart activated the gravity lift. It hovered a few inches off the deck and she pushed it in front of her with ease. “My uncle used to drive transit. Said it was exciting for the first week, but after that it was the most boring thing he'd ever done.”
“Did he quit?”
“I think he's due for retirement actually. He's been at it for about thirty five years.”
They passed under the emergency pressure door closest to the airlock and Stephanie sealed it behind them. Liz looked up at her and smiled. “Well, on to the next issue. I've been on stims for three hours, wee.”
“I was nearly killed on the bridge and feel like I've slept for a week ever since they brought me back from the brink. I'm sure we'll get a chance to sleep after we're in hyperspace.”
“Stephanie, why is that ship still attached to us?” Asked Frost through the communicator.
“They jammed their locking mechanism so we couldn't shake them off. Everyone's out though, so if the Captain wants to scrape it off he's clear to do so.”
“Alright, I think he's got a solution. Thanks Steph.”
The Clever Dream
Alice and Jonas sat in the darkened cockpit of the Clever Dream watching the wormhole emergence timer count down from two minutes. “I wonder what he'll say when he sees you?” Alice asked quietly.
“I hope it's something like; 'oh, hi. The more the merrier.' and not something like; 'there can only be one! Die impostor!'”
Alice laughed and shook her head. “Well, either way, it's going to be interesting to finally meet him. He's made an impression in this part of the galaxy. Must be in the blood.”
“He made a bigger splash than I did, that's for sure. I couldn't imagine a life of bounty hunting, repossessions and everything else he's on record for.”
“I could see you doing the privateering.” Alice said with a smile. “You'd make a great pirate.”
“Okay, maybe, but privateering is different that piracy.”
“Right, someone gives you a bazillion digit number that says you can destroy and steal stuff that belongs to specific companies and governments instead of you just going off and doing it without permission.”
“See? Completely different.”
“I guess. We're coming out into the Enreega system,” Alice said as the timer counted down the last five seconds and she took the controls.
They emerged into regular space and immediately adjusted course to avoid a large section of hull drifting nearby. “Check the tactical screen.”
“On it.” Jonas said as he looked over a holographic representation of the area around the planet Seneschal. He jerked in his seat as the image of the octagonal appeared along with the dozens of ships it was launching. “Holy hell! Looks like Regent Galactic is here, and they've been busy. There's a command carrier here that beats pretty much everything I've seen for volume and mass.” He looked around a little more. “Something really bad happened here, there's wreckage everywhere with various signatures, even a bunch of Eden Fleet ships.”
“I hope we missed the main event,” Alice muttered as she guided her course to a nearby moon and engaged the cloaking device. “We're down to about fourteen percent fuel, the constant attack the Clever Dream maintained while we were escaping really cost us.”
“I'm sorry my estimates were a little off after taking a tour of that strange ship's brain,” Lewis interjected.
“Don't worry, you still saved our butts, but we should start plotting a jump out of the system. I don't want to be around here, cloaked or not.”
“Yes Alice, but I think you might want to focus your targeting reticle on the ship ahead, you might find it very interesting.”
Alice looked through the targets ahead and selected the Sol Defence ship. “The Triton?” she said to herself.
“That's Wheeler's ship.”
“The Freegrounder who betrayed you?”
“Yup.”
“But it's not registered to him. My target information says it was just captured by Jacob Valance as a war prize, legitimized on an Aucharian letter of marque.” Alice said with a wide grin. “Oh my God, how did he take a carrier?”
“Oh hell, how am I supposed to top that?” Jonas said with a chuckle as he focused the scanners on it.
“You got the girl, remember?”
“Right, here's hoping that's holding true. It looks like they're trying to hide behind that moon while they take people on from a smaller ship.”
“Lewis, open a channel, make sure he only sees me,” Alice requested.
“Our cloak will be ineffective while we're transmitting,” Lewis reminded her.
Alice flipped three switches to deactivate the cloaking system. “No need to waste fuel.”
“Opening channel.”
“ Clever Dream to Triton. This is Alice Valent, requesting permission to land.”
A moment later Jake Valance's face came up on her secondary display, smiling uncharacteristically. “I can't believe it, we were just about to go. Could you do us a favour first?”
“Name it.”
“Pick that transit ship off our hull? Don't worry about it's condition, just don't expect to clip it off easily, it's hard docked to us.”