Ed and Andy assisted Bache with the last two Blend cruisers that remained obstinate and refused to surrender. They demonstrated their trick of jumping inside the shields and taking out their arrays and propulsion without completely destroying the ship. Once the large vessels were blind and unable to escape, Bache sent carriers full of Marines across to board them.
Surprisingly, they met very little resistance and were quickly able to gain control of the two vessels. The reason soon became apparent as two extremely unhappy and uncooperative Moguls were found trying to hide amongst the Blend crews. They, it seemed, had more antipathy towards the Blends than the GDA and were, for their own safety, swiftly transferred across to cells on one of the Katadromiko cruisers. A very angry Blend Adjudicator Reez Treqqer was found in a cell aboard the Los’enyat Attack ship and much to his displeasure, transferred to another cell on the same ship as the Moguls.
Once all the surviving enemy fleet were gathered up, boarded and under GDA control, more vessels from Dasos arrived to escort or tow them back to the Prasinos system where a full investigation and hearing would be held.
A humanitarian force of four Katadromiko cruisers was sent to Garag to assess the damage and aid survivors. Two more went to Callamet to check on the political situation there.
Captain Jiccain of the attack ship Los’enyat informed them that Hassik Triyl had left with a small force of black guards in one of their heavily armed military landing craft that had been fitted with a cloak. More worrying was the fact that a recently constructed Genok weapon was missing from the ship’s inventory too. This one, much to everyone’s apprehension, was most likely complete and fully operational.
Commander Loftt put out an all-ships and all-planets alert for Triyl’s small vessel, with instructions to fire on sight. The risk of that monster having a serviceable Genok missile was more than just cause for concern.
Andy had followed Ed across the system uncloaked to meet up with the Arena, slowly rotating five hundred thousand kilometres distant from Panemorfi and still hanging on to the wreckage of the Hope.
‘What a mess,’ said Andy, as they scooted around the two sections of the broken vessel.
‘It’s a write-off, that’s for sure,’ said Ed. ‘It was such a pretty ship – a shame really.’
‘Hello, Ed,’ said Conor, his voice loud in their ears. ‘I’m going to send you a route to follow that’ll bring you into a hangar where the Gabriel is parked.’
‘Ah, okay. That’s where everyone’s got to,’ he said. ‘How bad is she?’
‘Best you see for yourself,’ came the reply.
Ed’s brow furrowed as he wondered what that meant.
The route they received took them towards an enormous round opening on the surface of the planetoid. It was over a kilometre wide and had slowly hinged outwards for them like a turret hatch on a tank.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Andy. ‘You wouldn’t know that was there, would you?’
‘Biggest and most secure hangar door I’ve ever seen,’ said Ed. ‘Look how thick it is.’
They made their way into a tunnel as wide as the door and lit with a strange blue light.
‘It’s thirty kilometres long,’ exclaimed Andy, peering out at the rough machine-cut walls. ‘I’d love to see the gear they use to do this.’
It took them a few minutes to reach the far end where angled doors slid sideways, disappearing into the rock walls. A chamber confronted them with a similar metal door at the far end.
‘Starship airlock,’ said Ed. ‘Impressive or what?’
The two tiny gunships were dwarfed by the gargantuan chamber and Ed felt very insignificant as the huge doors closed silently behind them.
‘Well, this isn’t intimidating at all is it?’ said Andy. ‘It’s resemblance to the Death Star is giving me the willies.’
‘Just manned by a friendlier race,’ said Ed.
‘Yeah – so far,’ said Andy. ‘If I see one stormtrooper, I’m outta here.’
A few minutes later the soft blue lighting in the chamber changed to green and the second door began sliding away with a now audible deep rumble. A much larger, brighter chamber beyond caused them to squint and as they powered forward into the huge cavern, they realised they were emerging from a hole in the floor. Turning their craft ninety degrees brought them into a similar orientation to the Gabriel and Ed gasped as he saw the damage to his five-hundred-metre starship.
‘Oh shit,’ said Andy. ‘I think we’re in dry dock for a while.’
Ed stopped his ship and just stared. A huge section of hull was completely missing from the starboard side where the hangar had once been. On the port side the whole wing assembly containing one of the Alma drive housings and three weapons pods had gone, leaving black scorch marks and melted hull stretching back over fifty metres. Cabling and jagged detritus hung from both areas, dripping fluids on the clean hangar floor.
‘Bugger,’ was all he could think to say.
‘D’you want a hand with the claim form?’ muttered Andy, glancing across at Ed from his cockpit.
‘Where do we even start?’ Ed replied, sounding uncharacteristically downbeat.
‘’Tis but a scratch,’ said Cleo cheerfully, making them both jump.
‘Bloody hell, Cleo,’ said Ed. ‘It’s a bit more than that.’
‘I can fix it,’ she chirped.
‘Ed,’ said Andy, ‘the others are over there next to those buildings. Let’s leave Bob the builder to sort this mess out and go check they’re okay.’
They both extended their landing struts and set the small craft down behind the Gabriel and against the hangar wall.
As he scrambled out and made his way towards the group, Ed noticed the gravity was slightly lower than on Earth.
‘I’m so sorry, Ed,’ said Linda, as he approached. ‘We just couldn’t get them all.’
‘You’re safe is all I care about,’ he replied. ‘Cleo says she can fix it and I imagine she’ll need the hangar in vacuum to regrow the hull and bulkheads.’
‘That is true,’ Cleo said, appearing next to them, staring at her hands closely. ‘You know, the holo emitters are very good here.’
‘Everything’s very good here,’ said Conor, butting in on the conversation. ‘As I said to these guys, you’re welcome to stay here until you’re all rebuilt. We think you’ll find our world quite adequate.’
The group of humans and Callametans followed Conor as he beckoned them over to an oval-shaped opening in the rock wall.
‘It’s an elevator similar to your tube lift on the Gabriel,’ he said. ‘It’ll take us into the surface.’
The elevator was easily big enough for all of them and an opaque red shield materialised across the doorway to seal them in. It rose immediately, quickly picking up speed through a tube in the solid rock.
‘How far is it?’ asked Ed after about thirty seconds’ silence.
‘Twenty kilometres,’ said Conor, smiling as he got several raised eyebrows in return.
‘I understand you’re a telepathic race?’ said Ed. ‘All joined in like a collective.’
‘They’re the Borg without circuit boards glued to their faces,’ said Andy, from the back of the group. ‘Resistance is futile.’
Ed rolled his eyes and looked at Conor apologetically.
‘What is Borg?’ asked Conor, with a puzzled expression.
‘Ignore it, Conor,’ said Ed. ‘He’s just attempting a joke that most of you wouldn’t understand.’
Surprisingly it only took four minutes until the elevator suddenly flashed out into bright sunlight and came to a halt overlooking a park.
A chorus of gasps rippled around the group as they stepped out of the lift and gazed around at the stunning vista. For as far as they could see the colossal internal world stretched away from them, curving upwards and disappearing into the distance. Thin fluffy clouds drifted across the sky, dotted with aircraft of assorted sizes flying in tight lines to destinations around the cylinder-shaped internal world. Massive round rock buttresses, a kilometre in diameter, stretched away across the void.
Ed could just make out greenery with towns and villages dotted around on the opposite side above them.
‘Now, that is something truly spectacular,’ he mumbled, as all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Although they had emerged in some sort of green park area, with unusual trees and exotic birds chirping and warbling around them, Ed noticed a large city a few kilometres away, its extreme high-rise buildings glinting in the bright daylight.
‘Arena Prime,’ said Conor, noticing Ed staring in that direction. ‘It’s the capital of our world.’
‘How big is it in here?’ Ed asked, as a strange catlike creature emerged from the undergrowth, ran up a tree and continued to glare at the party from the high branches.
‘The cylinder is four hundred kilometres long at its widest point and a hundred and seventy kilometres across in the centre. It’s more ovoid in shape than cylindrical really.’
Ed realised the gravity here was more Earth-like as they were deeper inside the rotating moon now.
‘The Conclave have decreed you can stay here,’ said Conor, pointing to a group of glass buildings not far from the elevator. ‘They’re still nervous about showing aliens too much. Although you won’t be guarded, I will ask you not to stray from this parkland during your visit. I’ve staked my reputation on this, so please don’t go wandering off unless you’re specifically invited.’
Ed turned and glanced around the group, receiving nods of agreement from everyone.
‘We will need to retrieve some more Theo suits from the ship before the hangar is vented,’ said Ed, looking down at his. ‘So we can come and go from the Gabriel to aid Cleo with the rebuild.’
‘Not a problem,’ said Conor. ‘It’s early evening here now, so I’ll show you to your rooms and we’ll sort all that out in the morning.’
Even as Conor spoke, Ed noticed the light emanating from above had noticeably dimmed over the last few minutes.
The accommodation proved to be minimalist but super comfortable, and after they had all eaten in a communal dining area, they retired to their rooms.
Ed quickly fell into a restless sleep and dreamt about silent black-clad soldiers with no faces pushing him about.