Cavern eight, Ballenhyght Caverns, Dresse
Getting the drone into the gunship had proved a lot more of an issue than Bache had envisioned. With its struts deployed, it was too tall to squeeze through the airlock and into the payload bay. They’d had to construct a thin pallet from bits and pieces lying around the cavern and then fly the drone inside the ship and carefully settle it down on the contraption.
‘Well, that’s half a day I won’t get back,’ whinged Clunk, strapping the drone down so it didn’t move around on the flight back into space.
‘Worth the effort though,’ said Bache, ensuring there was nothing else loose on the deck. He stuck his head out the airlock when he heard the sound of an electric vehicle approaching.
Parsic waved and this time he wasn’t alone. Four other locals were with him, although Bache could see by their nervous expressions, they weren’t overly thrilled at being in cavern eight. Decades of ingrained fear of the place had clearly taken its toll.
Bache stepped down as they arrived and greeted them all as they stepped down off the small truck.
‘These are a few other surviving council elders,’ Parsic informed him. ‘We thought it only right we should thank you for everything you’ve done for us before you left.’
‘You’re more than welcome,’ said Bache. ‘Is everyone getting home okay?’
‘The ones from the local area have left on foot or calloppe, but the people from further away have found a broken-down flyer the purrers left behind and are attempting to fix it.’
‘Have they got everything they need?’ Bache asked. ‘I’d give them shuttle rides home with this but there’s thousands of them and time is of the essence for us now.’
‘We understand,’ said Parsic. ‘To be honest, we’ve got all we need and they’re quite enjoying the work. For the first time in years they’re doing something for themselves instead of an alien with a big whip.’
‘More help will come,’ said Bache. ‘Just give us a chance to thwart whatever it is the purrers are planning on doing with that battle fleet. I’m sure at some time in the future, you’ll be given the chance to join the galactic council.’
‘I look forward to the day, and remember you’re always welcome here, Lieutenant,’ he said, as all five of them bowed and clambered back onto the cart.’
Parsic went to pull away but seemed to remember something. He jumped back down from the cart and approached Bache again.
‘I nearly forgot,’ he said, pulling out Bache’s laser pistol and handing it over. ‘Thank you for your trust.’
He stepped away and alighted the truck before Bache could say anything and powered away with a wave.
Bache stood and watched the cart until it disappeared down the dormitory tunnel before turning to find Clunk watching him from the airlock.
‘D’you think they’ll recover from this?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,’ said Bache, stepping past Clunk, closing the two airlock doors and resetting the safeties. ‘Come on, let’s see where that thing’s going to take us,’ he added, nodding at the drone.
Two hours later, they sat in a high orbit above Dresse. It had been a tight squeeze, but the drone had just fitted in the airlock and now sat stationary two hundred metres off the bow of the gunship.
‘Ready then?’ Bache asked, raising his eyebrows at Clunk.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Clunk replied, with a smirk. ‘Light it up, boss. Let’s see who it points the finger at.’
Bache touched an icon on his tablet and looked up to witness the drone disappear. He turned to Clunk and raised his eyebrows.
‘Have you a trail?’ he asked.
Clunk didn’t look up from his console, he just nodded and jumped the gunship in pursuit.
One thing Bache had been able to do, was disable the drone’s ability to embed its jump signatures, enabling Clunk to detect and copy the emergence point into their own navigation computer. They both looked up at the holomap as they winked back into existence forty-six light years away. It was in non-system space but when you extended the line from the Dresse system to their present location and onwards, it pointed straight towards GDA space.
‘Well, that’s no surprise,’ said Bache, watching the drone powering off on the same trajectory and charging for its next jump.
‘Might as well get your head down for a while, boss,’ said Clunk. ‘This could be a long trip.’
Forty-two hours and several shift changes later, Bache reached over and shook Clunk’s shoulder.
‘Wake up—we might be here.’
‘Where?’ Clunk asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes and powering his seat upright.
‘Well, it’s kinda nowhere really,’ said Bache, pointing up at the holomap. ‘The drone took an unusually small jump into non-system space and instead of powering off, it stopped and is remaining stationary.’
Clunk squinted at the holomap and then surveyed his screens.
‘It was only a three light year jump,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we going closer?’
Bache shook his head and sat back in his seat.
‘No, this could be a test to see if it’s being followed. Let’s just hang around here and see what happens.’
It took four hours for Clunk’s patience to start wearing thin.
‘Fuck’s sake, don’t they want the bloody thing?’ he griped, folding his arms. ‘All the crap we went through to get it.’
‘They’re just being careful,’ said Bache. ‘And we must be too.’
He’d hardly got the words out of his mouth when they detected a ship jumping in and powering towards the drone.
‘They’re not bothering to cloak,’ Clunk said, suddenly more animated.
‘They can’t,’ said Bache. ‘That’s a Killonian civilian vessel, it doesn’t have cloaking technology.’
‘Is that right? How d’you know that?’
‘My dad was tasked with improving the design for their drive buffers years ago. That and the fact it says so there,’ he said, pointing to one of his screens.
‘Ah, right, so it does,’ said Clunk, leaning over and reading the information out loud. ‘Killonian Gaad class, mark four freighter.’
He sat back again with a perplexed expression.
‘Weren’t the Killonians from a system adjacent to Gata space?’ he asked, turning to Bache with a quizzical look.
‘Uh, huh,’ grunted Bache. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s a Killonian crew though. They’re one of the most peaceful races in the galaxy, so I’d be very surprised if they were knowingly involved in all of this.’
They watched as the two red signals on the holomap merged and became one.
‘When they leave, follow at a distance,’ said Bache. ‘We don’t want to spook them. It shouldn’t be too difficult either, those ships are pretty basic and leave a trail a junior cadet could follow.’
‘No pressure then?’ replied Clunk, as he prepared the gunship for a jump.
The freighter only initiated two jumps, the second into Gata space and a system called Berge in the middle of the Lynkas group of worlds.
The habitable planet also called Berge was one of the Gata worlds. Medium-sized, slightly lower gravity than Dasos and with two moons. The nearer one, Galle, was still whole and round and normal unlike the outer one, Brakk, which at some point in its history was hit hard by something colossal and the twelve thousand-kilometre satellite fractured into several pieces. Due to gravitational forces that no one could quite understand, the massive fragments, almost like segments of an orange, had remained bunched together. They now moved around seemingly randomly, with the gaps between them ranging from almost nothing to many hundreds of kilometres. It took a brave pilot to attempt to navigate through the forever-shifting fissures, which explained the reason Bache’s knuckles were white as he gripped his seat arms and his eyes bulged in disbelief.
‘Did you just jump inside a moon?’ he asked, staring though the front screen at walls of rock seemingly only centimetres away.
‘Outrageous, huh,’ replied Clunk, almost casually. ‘I always wondered if that was possible.’
‘Well, next time you wonder something, make sure you’re the only one who could die as a result,’ Bache spluttered, inwardly reassessing his choice of pilot for this mission.
Clunk barely acknowledged what Bache had said as he was busy concentrating on cloaking the vessel and powering the gunship out into clear space without getting crushed.
‘There we go, all tickety boo and right in the thick of it,’ Clunk said, pointing at the holomap showing the freighter in clear view, sitting in a high orbit around Berge. ‘Now we know we haven’t missed anything.’
‘I’m glad I didn’t have any breakfast, or I could be missing that,’ Bache mumbled, as he joined Clunk watching the Killonian ship closely.