Bohrne station was way down below them, astronomically speaking. Valentinian had specifically brought Longshot Hypothesis out of the overdrive well early. Enough so that they would have to bounce back in at some point, or spend the better part of two weeks riding the engines down to the planet. Not worth the headache.
Because he wanted silent darkness today.
Dave was in his starboard seat, looking professional. Kyriaki was standing behind them, just inside the hatch, watching.
“It’s beautiful out here,” she whispered in a voice probably not meant to be overheard.
Not that there was much space in here. She was almost breathing on his ear as it was.
At least she hadn’t thrown a punch at him in the last week. He still wasn’t about to let the woman have the passcode to the armory, though. She had Dave to protect her, if she needed something. Or him, technically, he supposed.
Shock pistols didn’t do any permanent damage, usually. She might still convince him to experiment. But she had kept her tart tongue to herself, for the most part.
They were all in new territory. How many people got to a place in life where they could never envision being allowed to go home, even if they wanted to?
Valentinian shrugged inside and brought up a system schematic on the main console, setting it to listening. Most of the traffic was one-way transponder. The station broadcasting lane assignments and current vectors of other ships, as you came out of warp and needed to know where to maneuver.
But they were more than two light hours away from the planet, trailing it as it dawdled around the orange-red star in the middle distance.
“Do we trust them?” Dave asked carefully.
“As much as we can anyone,” Valentinian grinned back.
They had all had to mentally move to a new place over the last week. Wanted outlaws, damned near anywhere, except maybe here and places the Widow hadn’t had a chance to raise an alarm yet.
Valentinian scrolled through the traffic. Bohrne wasn’t all that busy a station. Most of the transits were small freighters like Longshot passing through with loads of things, plus the occasional mega-transport hauling cargos the size of his ship, to be broken down in orbit and delivered by smaller vessels to specific locations on the planet below.
There. Hopefully, that was the message for him, and not a honeytrap designed lure him in and kill him.
Valentinian had a second course plotted, just in case it was. The benefit of taking the time to drop out of warp this far out. He could set another looping course as a backup and trigger it as soon as he decided he was nervous. This one would be even more fun. It was as exact a reciprocal for Cronus Prime as he could calculate from here.
Someone watching him go would look at his vector and their nav computer would spout apparent gibberish at them. Who returned to the scene of a crime?
Dominion-427, departure outbound on lane 27. Destination Meskle.
Just what it should read, except that it should have been cleared off the boards six days ago, assuming they had chased him into warp the first time. It might still be a trap.
The current list of ships docked at the station didn’t include any Dominion-flagged vessels, let alone Dominion-427, although that would change if all went well today, adding Longshot Hypothesis.
Valentinian hadn’t considered that they might have to reflag the Longshot. He supposed that made the most sense, at the end of the day. The Dominion wasn’t safe for any of them, so they should look for citizenship elsewhere. At least his ship should. The crew had some time before they had to make a decision.
“And?” Dave asked.
“And my paranoia has the better of me,” Valentinian admitted. “The evidence suggests that the Widow took the bait. I’m going to drop back into warp for a few seconds, until we get to the normal drop-out point, but I’m ready to run like hell.”
“And you think Bayjy will still be there?” Kyriaki asked with an odd tone to her voice.
Valentinian had explained the whole thing to her over the last few days, to prepare her for the fact that the crew might be expanding to four shortly.
“It’s not like she had anything pressing when we left,” Valentinian said. “Or anywhere to go. I’m really just hoping she’s not still mad that we left her.”
He engaged the overdrive and blinked through the intervening light hours fast enough he could have held his breath.
Bohrne Station appeared in front of them as their bubble popped and space became a mathematical certainty again. A quick slider on the controls and the autopilot shifted them onto the new heading with the thrusters still off, rolling down and away while still falling forward.
Valentinian sent a hard sensor ping downrange to see as much of the station as he could from here. The locals would have had no idea what direction he might return from, so they wouldn’t know what the blind side might be. Plus, they were supposedly broadcasting what he hoped was a complete and accurate list of everybody docked or close by, and none of them were bad guys.
As long as it was truth.
“Bohrne Station, this is Longshot Hypothesis, requesting lane assignment for docking,” Valentinian sent downrange with a brief prayer.
His hand was still poised on the overdrive button, ready to cast them back into warpspace as fast as the engines could cycle up. He’d sort it out later, if he had to. Just getting gone and surviving would be the important part right now.
“Longshot Hypothesis, this is the Stationmaster,” her voice came back. “We’ll have a chat about maneuvering rules in my zone, when you land, but Sheriff Bolat-Nurlan says he’ll vouch for you. At least for now. Your crew and cargo will meet you on bay seven. Lane assignment transmitted.”
Valentinian grinned. They were playing that final hand of Arcades now, and the dealer had just given everybody their seventh card, face down.
The Build card. Time to see if you managed to complete your Arch, or had to bluff into something else.
He spun the ship again, this time dropping ass-first towards the station, and lit the engines to bring them to rest. Hopefully, the reference to crew meant Bayjy, and not the Widow and a crew of gunmen.
He’d burn that bridge when he got there.