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“Well,” Epcar announced as the cockpit door slid shut behind him. “We won’t have to worry about keeping an eye on the second ship anymore.”
Khalin stared at him. “What do you mean?”
Epcar planted himself in his chair, slinging his arm over the side. “Well, it looks like it got here ahead of the bigger ship too. Or at least it was cleared for landing first. Anyway, the pilot went down to the service areas under the landing platforms and got himself decked up as a spaceport worker. Then when our friends in the bigger ship landed, he latched onto the captain, pretending he was going to refuel his ship. Then, when he and the captain got up to the landing platform, he tried to kill him with a wrench.”
“You’re joking.”
“It gets weirder. The captain managed to get out of the way in time. And then his first mate or someone saw the whole thing, ran over and snapped the other guy’s neck.”
“Snapped his neck?”
“That’s what I said.”
Khalin leaned back in her chair. “Hard to believe.”
“Well,” Epcar said, “the guy was a Harskan.”
Khalin let out a long breath. So their mystery ship was heading to the Harskan sector and they had a Harskan on board.
“I’ve never heard of a renegade Harskan returning to their home sector,” she said. “They’re up to something and I intend to find out what it is. Do you have any idea who their attacker was?”
Epcar shook his head. “Not really. I didn’t get a good look at the guy. And by the way the crew of the ship were scratching their heads over him, I don’t think they recognized him either.”
“Which means he’s probably some gun for hire,” Khalin muttered. “Whoever he was though, he’s done us a big disservice. Now our friends are going to be looking over their shoulders for the rest of the trip.” She rapped the control board in annoyance. “You didn’t get anything that could tell us who this guy was?”
“I might have something,” Epcar said, pulling out a small surveillance recorder. “I got a little bit of the fight on this. The resolution’s pretty good.”
Khalin checked out the footage. “Yeah. I can probably pull a decent still image from this and run it through the system.”
“All right,” Epcar said. “You do that and I’ll see if I can pull the name of our other mystery ship from the landing records here.”
––––––––
It took about twenty minutes for the Lady Hawk to be refueled. It took just two minutes afterwards to high-tail it out of there.
“There’s no need to hurry,” Carla said, trying to calm Asten’s nerves.
“Maybe not,” he replied. “But I don’t want to stick around either.”
He watched as the hue of the planet fell beneath them on the viewscreen, giving way to the darkness of space. Then he glanced at the switch that would, with a small flick, open the rear cargo hold to the vacuum of space and suck the body of their would-be-assailant into the void. However, as keen as he was to get rid of it, it was better to wait until the Lady Hawk was clear of the planet’s gravity well. He pulled his hand back.
Beside him, Drackson sat up. “I’ve got him.”
“Who was he?” Asten asked.
“A bounty hunter called Tath. There’s not a great deal on him. And he didn’t have any criminal convictions, although he was wanted for questioning by several authorities around the Federation core worlds. But the reasons aren’t specified here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Asten told him. “I’m more concerned with why he was trying to kill me. Because unless that guy was after me for some past indiscretion that I’ve clean forgotten, the only thing I can think of is that he somehow knew we were doing this job for the Resistance. And if he thought it was worth his time to track us down, then there must have been a nice reward in it for him.”
“And who would offer such a reward?” Drackson suggested.
“Exactly. Now, I don’t know how badly we’ve been compromised. I think since we’ve come this far, we may as well stick at it. And we’ll be safe enough once we reach the Harskan sector. At least from any Federation nonsense. But we might have some trouble when we get back to the rendezvous.”
“We might,” Drackson agreed. “But there’s no point in worrying about it now though.”
“No,” Asten conceded. He flicked the switch and jettisoned Tath’s remains into oblivion. It didn’t lift his spirits as much as he’d hoped.
––––––––
Admiral Roth left the bridge of the Sentinel, satisfied there was no pressing business there requiring his attention. Commodore Hallyd, much to his chagrin, had been placed on a shuttle several days ago and taken back to Corsida and things had been quiet since.
When Hallyd had complained about the haste of his forced departure, the admiral by way of explanation had offered none, save that an urgent matter had arisen. No doubt Hallyd had his own opinion on that and was possibly telling Corinthe all about it right then. Admiral Roth however couldn’t care less. And right now, something had come up.
He crossed another hallway and entered his private quarters. As the door slid shut behind him, he hit the lock and made his way over to a small communication console. He checked the recognition code and flicked it on.
“Proceed.”
“Pilot of second vessel a known bounty hunter named Tath. Jumped the mystery ship crew at the last stopover. Unsuccessfully. Harskan crew member took him out. Ship still outbound. Landing records identify it as the Lady Hawk. Keeping our distance.”
“Understood. Carry on.”
“Over and out.”
With that, the transmission was ended.
For a moment, Roth didn’t move. This was not a wholly welcome turn of events. The quarry would now be paranoid and this was going to make the task more difficult for his unit.
He conducted a brief search through the records for any mention of the Lady Hawk and the results of his query confirmed what he’d already suspected. There were no orders anywhere in relation to the ship, which meant it had either been targeted by a private organization somewhere or that the bounty hunter had been acting on his own volition.
Despite the inherent absurdity of it, Roth’s instinct leaned towards the latter. The Lady Hawk was heading for the Harskan sector, that was certain, and that wasn’t considered a place of refuge for people on the run. It also struck him that jumping the ship’s crew hadn’t been Tath’s end goal but rather a step towards it. And if that was the case, then the Lady Hawk could be a lead to something quite valuable. Tath wasn’t in a position to follow the trail any more but Roth was.
––––––––
Epcar watched the viewscreen of their disguised gunboat as the computer calculated possible course projections for the Lady Hawk. And as they left the familiarity of the Federation behind and headed into the void that lay between it and the Harskan sector, he wondered if any of the toys the admiral had provided him and Khalin with would be up to the task ahead. Finding what types of ships and miscellaneous military hardware the Harskans had at their disposal would be straightforward enough but the Lady Hawk was another matter.
“What do you think about this ship of ours?” he asked Khalin.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Following it is one thing but I’d like to see what happens when the crew disembarks at some of their stopovers. I want to know who they talk to and what they talk about.”
“Me too,” Epcar said. “The question is how.”
Khalin thought about it. “Well, the Lady Hawk’s going to land somewhere sooner or later and I’ve got a hunch that it’s not going to be on any of the more heavily populated worlds. I doubt it’d be on El’aesi.”
Which made sense, Epcar knew. Humans aside, the Harskan leaders weren’t too keen on rogue Harskans who’d left the sector either. So whatever their intentions, the crew of the Lady Hawk would have to play things safe to start with.
“When it does make its first landing,” Khalin continued, “it’ll probably be somewhere quiet with minimal, possibly non-existent, security. When that happens, we’ll land as close as we can and one of us will stowaway on the ship.”
“That could be dangerous,” Epcar said.
“It could be,” Khalin agreed. “Which is why I’m going to do it.”
“You?”
Khalin smiled. “Well, it’s my crazy plan, isn’t it?”
Epcar shrugged. “Fair enough. So I guess I’ll be documenting Harskan hardware all by myself then. But how will I find you after I’m done?”
“You’ll still be tailing this ship, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take a beacon signal with me. Once I’ve found out what I want to know, and it’s safe to do so, I’ll get off the ship and activate it. Then you can come and pick me up.”
“All right then,” Epcar said. “Now since there’s nothing but empty space from here to the Harskan sector, let’s go and get some sleep. I doubt the Lady Hawk will be making any more stopovers today.”