Chapter 8 - Flight
27 Apr 2021Rsimpson500
The woman stood out of the pilot’s seat and turned to face me. “Yes, Rufus, it’s me”, she said. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here on your ship?” She half-smiled, half-grimaced apologetically.
“I certainly am - but I can’t deny I was glad to see you. If you weren’t here I’d be lying dead in the cargo bay. What’s going on? Why was I shot by that skimmer and why have you been hiding on my ship for the last 2 weeks?”
“I can explain - but please sit down” she said, gesturing to the co-pilot’s seat. “You look pale and I’m worried about how much blood you lost. I can pilot the Marcus Aurelius until you’re recovered”.
I was loath to give up command of my ship and hesitated, but grudgingly accepted it was a good idea for her to pilot the ship for the time being. I dropped into the unfamiliar co-pilot’s seat and Alicia perched on the main control panel facing me.
“As you’ve probably guessed, Rufus, I’m not just a classical pianist. I’m also an agent of the Imperial Intelligence Service. You look sceptical - I know it seems unlikely for an IIS agent to be so open, but I had permission to break cover if your life depended on it.”
“But why were you here in the first place?”
“The Empire has been following your search for months now, ever since we realised that your parents were searching for Guardian technology. If your search reveals your father is still alive, or even simply unearths some of your parents’ research, it could give the Empire an invaluable edge in Guardian technology.”
I felt shocked - not only was I being hunted by unknown assassin’s, but now I had the IIS tailing me. The IIS was not the sort of organisation you wanted paying attention to you. But at least they seemed to be on my side for now?
“So why didn’t you just ask to come with me on the journey?”
I rather liked Alicia, having got to know her on our trip to the Bubble Nebula with her father Charles. If she’d asked, I would probably have let her come with me.
“Well…” she hesitated. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want me on your ship. I never got back to you after we last met, and the IIS didn’t want any chances taken. So I was ordered to stow away and then report back once you returned to the Bubble. I’m here to protect you and to make sure we know what you’ve been doing. I know that probably doesn’t help you to trust me very much, but I always had your best interests at heart.”
“Hmph”. I felt conflicted. Alicia had been so kind and friendly last summer, and I felt something of a connection with her, but was that all just an act to get me on side? And she’d been hiding on my ship spying on me, yet she’d just saved my life.
I looked out of the window, thinking. We were skimming over a planet’s ring system with another planet framed next to it. It was very pretty, but I wasn’t in the best place to appreciate it.
“Well, I’m not sure how I feel about all this. It’s a lot to take in. But I am grateful that you saved me from that skimmer. It was brutal - I have no idea who would plant such a thing on my ship! Do you know who would be trying to stop me?”
“We don’t know - we suspected foul play in your parents’ disappearance and there are plenty of actors out there who would want to stop you. We’ll analyse that skimmer when we get back to the Empire. In the meantime, we need to decide where to go next. What were your plans?”
“I’m not sure”, I said. “I was planning to join an expedition Canonn is running, but they're behind schedule and we're out of position. After that, I was hoping that the data from this site would let me work out what the last remaining site would be. It’s probably in the NGC 3199 Nebula. If so, we could head there now, then head for the Bubble, searching along the way for my father’s ship. I’d need some time to go over the data we found to be sure, but…
**INTERDICTION DETECTED***
Covas blared out a warning and the ship started lurching to the side. Alicia leapt into the pilot’s seat and slammed the throttle forwards. She yelled backwards “Get in a scan on that ship, I want to know what we’re up against!”
As she started fighting with the unknown ship’s FSD interdictor, I saw with horror that it was a heavily armed Krait mkII, with 1500MJ shields, a dumbfire missile launcher and four railguns.
“We’re in trouble, it looks like a classic assassination build Krait - I bet that missile launcher has FSD scrambling mods.”
As we pitched and lurched aggressively, Alicia said tersely “Are we armed?”
“No - this is a pure exploration ship. I never expected to be in combat, but we do have 500MJ of shield and very good thrusters. If you can’t break the interdiction we might be able to run”.
But there was no need - Alicia was a very good pilot and was winning the interdiction. As the other ship was dumped out of hyperspace Alicia selected the furthest system she could find on the nav panel and punched the FSD.
As we shot into witchspace I realised I’d been gripping the side of my seat so hard my hands were white. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
Alicia seemed to have switched into combat mode and said, in clipped tones “We need to escape. What’s the jump range on this ship”?
“71 light years”, I said. “Do you think we could out-jump them? That Krait can’t have more than 60 light years range, at most. If we can keep jumping we could get away so they’d lose our wake trail?”
“Good idea. I can get us back to the Bubble, but they might be expecting that - I think we should head off in another direction”.
A mad idea struck me - a chance to fulfill a life’s ambition, something so absurd that no-one chasing us would ever consider it.
“Let’s go to the end of the galaxy. Let’s go to Ishum’s reach - even if they keep up, they can’t follow us where the stars thin out. We could lose them in the Abyss and then head back via an unusual route”.
There was a pause. Alicia seemed to be weighing something up. “Alright, let’s try it. It might be best to disappear for a while anyway”.
One week later
My leg was now fully healed and we’d been travelling in shifts - never stopping for more than a short time and always hiding in a planet’s rings or in the crater of a dark moon.
We found a DSSA carrier and quickly changed the paint and registration of the ship before immediately setting off again.
We visited some giant stars, nebulae and other sights along the way, sometimes taking sudden detours and route shifts so it wasn’t clear where we were headed. We prospected for jumponium once we’d put some distance behind us - it looked like we’d lost that Krait, but we kept going just in case. At last we entered the Abyss, the stars thinning alarmingly so that only one or two were visible in the sky. It felt like jumping into a black hole.
As we arrived at the final planetary nebula before Beagle, we turned and looked back at the galaxy behind us. After getting over my initial shock, I was almost starting to enjoy myself. Alicia had opened up a little, though we were both guarded with each other. Perhaps our initial chemistry had been an act on her part, but couldn't help wondering if the real Alicia was just as nice as the one I’d met back then.
Soon we’d reach Ishum’s Reach, safe from pursuers. As we turned away from the nebula and headed towards the end of the galaxy, I still couldn't help but felt nervous. Was someone waiting for us when we got back to the Bubble? Who was trying to kill me? Was there danger even out here?