Chapter 25

MARK

It had been two months since the fleet was in normal space, the longest jump they had ever done. The Mothership was on course, and they have stopped inside a turbulent asteroid field to avoid Taiidan detection. The resource veins were large enough to hide their fleet from any scanners.

The ion cannon equipped vessels were aiming their particle beams on incoming asteroids. As the colony ship’s engines were still inoperable, they had no way to navigate around these boulders. The fleet of useful ships now consisted of one Skaal Tel destroyer captured from the Taiidan battle, twelve Sajuuk Cor ion cannon frigates also captured from the Taiidan, six dagger ion array frigates held over from their encounter with the Turanic Raiders, and eight of their own Firelance class ion cannon frigates. All other vessels moved behind the Mothership for protection, including the captured Taiidan carrier, the Saarkin-Cho, which was serving as a resource drop off point.

An asteroid broke apart in an unexpected way sending a chunk careening in to the Skaal Tel, but the damage was negligible. A couple Mercy corvettes moved in to repair. Mark watched all this go on from an observation deck within the Mothership along with Isabella, Eric who has been living on the captured carrier, and Jasiid.

From the carrier’s computers, the fleet now had a reliable map of where the nearest enemy outposts were located, as well as a full fleet manifest. Research division was hard at work replicating a handful of the vessels, but it would take time to reverse engineer the largest capital ships. They would not dare attack an outpost at their current strength, such a mission would be suicide. Instead, the plan was to jump to resource rich regions along their path and hide, mine, and build up their forces. They learned of a large nebula which would be their next destination. Hopefully, they could harvest enough resources to build up a sizeable fleet able to contend with the Empire.

The former crew of the Saarkin-Cho and its escorts were held in prison encampments much like the Turanic Raiders before them. They worked manual labour attempting to finish the Mothership’s engines, a task that would take almost a year to complete at current progression. There was a movement that wanted to simply space them all, but revenge wasn’t in their nature, even for the atrocities committed. No, their captives would be stuck on the journey with them for better or worse.

With the awakening of several thousand of the sleepers over the last month, it had gotten quite busy on the colony ship. More military personnel were required than they had at their disposal, and so recruitment efforts were high on the list of priorities. The advertisements were becoming quite overt about their situation. Join up or go back to sleep, some would say. Many took that option, not able to handle the revelation of what happened to Kharak. But more often than not it served as a recruitment tool. A lot of people were angry at the Empire and willing to fight.

Mark and Isabella continued to train new pilots in the capital hangar and with more time available to them they could go into further depth with each pilot. They now had a total of sixty pilots able to be deployed, which was more pilots than they had ships. His age played more of a factor as time went on. He was among the youngest of them, but the pilots still showed him respect. Part of it was who his father was, another part was their trust in him. He was in a position of authority he was not used to, but handled himself well enough to earn that trust.

He was still a kid, though, and missed the amenities of regular life. Back in Tiir he and Valerie would frequent bowling alleys to pass the time or see films at the theatre. Now there was none of that. The most they got was spending time on the observation decks to talk shop and other things. Eric had plenty to say, he once showed a book he was writing detailing their journey thus far. As it turned out, he had a large background in history and could outline anything they wanted to know, such as their banishment from Hiigara and the secrets of its Angelmoon.

“I have to say, it’s looking rather boring out there,” Jasiid began.

“Better that than the alternative,” Mark replied.

“What do you mean? Last time you missed out on all the fun!” Isabella added.

“I don’t know about all that, the view from Strike Command was something else, I tell you.”

“Speaking of missing out,” Eric began, “I will be returning to the carrier once we get through this asteroid field.”

“Oh? How come?” Isabella asked.

“It’s too crowded. I keep getting looks my way as though I weren’t supposed to be here, which to be fair they’re correct. A Gaalsien has no place on this ship, especially not after the sabotage attempts.”

“You’re always free to take the red,” Jasiid offered. “The Soban would welcome you with open arms.”

“Perhaps, but it would be a betrayal of my heritage. I still feel it necessary to document the events of this journey and I just think things will be a lot calmer over on the carrier compared to here.”

“You might be right,” Mark said. “I’ve considered it myself, but I’m needed here for now.”

“I’m not needed anywhere,” he said. “That’s why I’m choosing this. That and I don’t actually own anything so the move shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve grown to like it over there.”

The group remained on the observation deck a while longer. It was relaxing in the dimly lit room, none wanted to return to their normal daily grind. This was downtime for them, and they made the most of it.

“Destroyer complete,” Karan’s voice echoed. They watched patiently for the large Revelation-class vessel to make its way out of the capital hangar and onto the field.

“How many crew does a destroyer have, anyway?” Jasiid asked.

“Two hundred, give or take,” Isabella responded. She would know, she had a particular obsession with the various ships of the line from each faction we’ve encountered. “Ideally they should recycle those ion array frigates. They take too long to fire up, might as well build more of our own kind.”

“Hey now, I like my job, you hear?” Jasiid responded. “I feel like a pirate, seizing enemy ships and carrying them away.”

“Sure, but the logistics of using foreign tech...”

“We make due with what we’ve got,” Eric said.

“As always,” Mark added.

They watched as a blast of ion cannon fire broke apart the final asteroid in their way. “We’ve cleared the field,” Fleet Intelligence said. As the asteroids cleared the Mothership, the other smaller vessels began forming up into their standard military parade formation. “We’re detecting an incoming Bentusi vessel from the clearing ahead.” The Tradeship was fast-moving with no engines to speak of. It was a mysterious craft. As for weapons, they hoped not to find out.

“Greetings, we have come to trade.” The Bentusi said over the comms. They were offering drone frigate technology to them. Something Mark knew not what to expect. Perhaps unmanned fighters or deployable gun turrets. He would simply have to wait to see one in the field.

“This is a dangerous and unpredictable region. Can you give us information that will guide us through the nebula?” Fleet Command asked the nomads.

“We hear nothing there. Even the Taiidan fear the Great Nebula. No one returns.” And in that instant, they activated their hyperdrive and departed. They were gone. Their last words sank deep, however. No one returns.

ERIC

He made his way back to the carrier prior to their hyperspace jump. He would have liked to stay with his friends, but had prior commitments. And so, he returned to his quarters aboard the Saarkin-Cho.

Opening his door after entering the combination, he saw her laying in bed reading her tablet. “When you said you’d be gone all day I figured you meant it,” she said.

“I’m back early.” He met Tristen shortly after moving aboard. She was Taiidan, but he never had a reason to feel one way or the other about it.

Most of the Taiidan were imprisoned aboard the Mothership. She was allowed to remain on the carrier for having saved their journey, so to speak. As a prisoner, that is until he helped her escape the detention level. For the last month or so she had been living in the room adjacent to his. He found out that it was vacant, and so picked the lock through the washroom. Before that she had been hiding out in the maintenance crawls, apparently having done so more than a few times. Enough to know her way around in them.

He helped her escape because he thought what she did for them merited a medal not imprisonment.

“I brought food,” he said taking a seat beside her.

“How long this time?” She asked.

“Hm?”

“Our next jump. How long will it take?”

“Only a few days. We’re heading into a place the Bentusi called the Great Nebula.”

“I see.” Her vision was glazed, as though deep in thought.

“Know anything about it?”

“No one does, just that it’s dangerous. It’s one of the largest nebulas in the galaxy. Off-limits to all trade routes and military fleets. If the interference doesn’t get you, whatever lurks within surely will.”

“Ominous.”

“The Empire avoids it for a reason.”

“I guess we’ll see,” he said.

“I guess so.”