Triyl was in a foul mood after watching his new shuttle, the alien prisoner and a stranger masquerading as himself disappear out into space. He’d immediately had the chief of security and the hangar supervisor, who was actually off duty and asleep in his cabin at the time, spaced.
The roll call had proven no one was unaccounted for, so he reasoned his doppelgänger must have been holographic. The camera recordings had shown the imposter appearing somewhere in a blind spot on deck seventeen near the detention centre.
‘It must have been Virr,’ Triyl snarled, pointing accusingly at the captain. ‘You told me their ship was destroyed.’
‘The hull residue we traced after the explosion was unquestionably from an organic Theo vessel,’ said the captain. ‘Whether they planted it after the fact, to make us believe they were destroyed, is another scenario we’d not considered.’
Triyl kicked out at the nearest seat, causing a hapless environmental officer to head-butt his console and land in a heap on the deck, blood pouring from a head wound.
‘Prepare the fleet for departure,’ he roared. ‘We leave in one hour.’
‘The Callametan vessel isn’t full yet, my Mogul,’ said the captain, nervously.
‘It will have to be enough,’ Triyl shouted, as he made his way towards the door. ‘They won’t be expecting us where we’re going and even half full it will more than do the job.’
Triyl retired to his chambers as the fleet’s pilots and navigators prepared for the long journey to GDA-controlled space. The rock hoppers discharged their last boulders within Hope’s hangars and dispersed back into the nearest vessels.
It took almost the full hour for the fleet to manoeuvre into a safe jumping formation, with the Hope and its attached ship leading, followed by Triyl’s attack ship safely ensconced within the fleet behind. Triyl also had a new shuttle brought to the bridge hangar with an experienced pilot and a continually updated emergency jump programmed in.
Once all the vessels had synchronised their jump coordinates, Triyl gave the order and the fleet, divided into six echelons, disappeared from the Dubl’ouin system one at a time.
‘Any signs of pursuit?’ asked the Tas’Hynd’s captain, looking across at the array officers.
‘Nothing, sir,’ came the reply.
‘It doesn’t mean they’re not there,’ he grumbled. ‘Ensure all the fleet’s weapon systems are at standby and at sight of even the slightest abnormality, give the area a thorough dose of everything we have.’
Triyl, who’d also been closely watching the area of space they’d just vacated, nodded and made his way down to his chambers. He had six newly acquired young breeders, recently abducted from a human world, waiting for his evaluation.