Alice laughed and shook her head. “Well, either way, it's going to be interesting to finally meet him. He's made an impression in this part of the galaxy. Must be in the blood.”
“He made a bigger splash than I did, that's for sure. I couldn't imagine a life of bounty hunting, repossessions and everything else he's on record for.”
“I could see you doing the privateering.” Alice said with a smile. “You'd make a great pirate.”
“Okay, maybe, but privateering is different that piracy.”
“Right, someone gives you a bazillion digit number that says you can destroy and steal stuff that belongs to specific companies and governments instead of you just going off and doing it without permission.”
“See? Completely different.”
“I guess. We're coming out into the Enreega system,” Alice said as the timer counted down the last five seconds and she took the controls.
They emerged into regular space and immediately adjusted course to avoid a large section of hull drifting nearby. “Check the tactical screen.”
“On it.” Jonas said as he looked over a holographic representation of the area around the planet Seneschal. He jerked in his seat as the image of the octagonal appeared along with the dozens of ships it was launching. “Holy hell! Looks like Regent Galactic is here, and they've been busy. There's a command carrier here that beats pretty much everything I've seen for volume and mass.” He looked around a little more. “Something really bad happened here, there's wreckage everywhere with various signatures, even a bunch of Eden Fleet ships.”
“I hope we missed the main event,” Alice muttered as she guided her course to a nearby moon and engaged the cloaking device. “We're down to about fourteen percent fuel, the constant attack the Clever Dream maintained while we were escaping really cost us.”
“I'm sorry my estimates were a little off after taking a tour of that strange ship's brain,” Lewis interjected.
“Don't worry, you still saved our butts, but we should start plotting a jump out of the system. I don't want to be around here, cloaked or not.”
“Yes Alice, but I think you might want to focus your targeting reticle on the ship ahead, you might find it very interesting.”
Alice looked through the targets ahead and selected the Sol Defence ship. “The Triton?” she said to herself.
“That's Wheeler's ship.”
“The Freegrounder who betrayed you?”
“Yup.”
“But it's not registered to him. My target information says it was just captured by Jacob Valance as a war prize, legitimized on an Aucharian letter of marque.” Alice said with a wide grin. “Oh my God, how did he take a carrier?”
“Oh hell, how am I supposed to top that?” Jonas said with a chuckle as he focused the scanners on it.
“You got the girl, remember?”
“Right, here's hoping that's holding true. It looks like they're trying to hide behind that moon while they take people on from a smaller ship.”
“Lewis, open a channel, make sure he only sees me,” Alice requested.
“Our cloak will be ineffective while we're transmitting,” Lewis reminded her.
Alice flipped three switches to deactivate the cloaking system. “No need to waste fuel.”
“Opening channel.”
“ Clever Dream to Triton. This is Alice Valent, requesting permission to land.”
A moment later Jake Valance's face came up on her secondary display, smiling uncharacteristically. “I can't believe it, we were just about to go. Could you do us a favour first?”
“Name it.”
“Pick that transit ship off our hull? Don't worry about it's condition, just don't expect to clip it off easily, it's hard docked to us.”
“I have fantastic aim, don't worry.”
“All right, after it's clear, land in hangar two.”
“See you there.”
The channel closed and she armed her pulse cannons.
“I still can't believe how much he looks like me. I mean, I know he's a version of me built around a materializer frame, but it's like looking into another dimension, seeing the dark version of yourself.”
“You think you're confused? Imagine the look on his face when he sees you.” She locked on to the smaller ship and angled her guns parallel to the hull of the Triton then opened fire with a burst. Half the vessel flew into pieces, the thin hull came apart like paper. She fired one more burst, closer to the Triton's hull and cleared all but the docking port away. She sucked air in between her teeth as her last pair of shots deflected off of the Triton's armour. “That's gonna scorch.” She cringed. “Good thing it's superficial.”
She flipped the Clever Dream end over end and started a long turn that brought them in line with the open hangar on the underside of the much larger ship. “Reunion tiiiime,” she announced with a smile.
“Can we enter hyperspace?” Captain Valance asked the helm.
“Our profile is clean enough sir, as soon as the Clever Dream is aboard and the hangar doors are closed we'll be good to go,” replied Larry from navigation.
The bridge was dead silent as everyone watched the main holographic projector display the Clever Dream landing in hangar two. As the sleek, black ship decelerated and touched down, the hangar doors slowly closed behind it.
They sealed. “Get us out of here,” Captain Valance ordered.
Ashley increased throttle to maximum as Larry started the hyperspace particle emitters and the Triton was moving faster than light in a matter of seconds. There was a collective sigh of relief on the bridge as the realization that they had made it out of the area sunk in.
The View From The Top
The Communications Lounge aboard the Kraken was pleasantly busy that afternoon. There were many well dressed men and women going about their business remotely, contacting their posts through micro wormhole assisted transmissions and hyper bursts as they pored over prospect data on the Enreega System. It was a boom time.
The white and red booths and round tables filling the thickly carpeted space were the offices of the Regent Galactic Development and Product Deployment employees. They were the elite, the ones that generated the big projects, chased down the prospects that kept billions of peons in countless subsidiaries and contracted partners busy.
Few had the opportunity to mix in if they weren't among their number, to walk up to the bar and have a complimentary unrationed drink, or to stand and look through the transparent wall at the top of the Kraken and watch all those rescue and utility ships go about their business. It was a monarch's vista with a rich water planet in the distance and the wreckage of thousands of vessels scattered across the busiest area in the system. The pickings were ripe for those who knew how to best take advantage. Cities were just waiting to be rebuilt, there was a well trained displaced work force looking for new jobs, and those rescue ships would soon be filled with people wondering where they'd be sleeping.
The citizens had little to worry about. Rebuilding the Enreega system and the cities on the planet Seneschal would take years, possibly decades, but everyone would have plenty of opportunities and living space while the work was under way. They'd work under contract, have plenty of jobs to bid on and when it was all done they'd have great cities to live in and Regent Galactic would take care of all their needs for a price balanced against maximum market tolerance.
These things were of little concern to two gentlemen sitting beside one of the massive two storey tall windows facing the moon named Vallestra. A quick flash of light marked the departure of what their attentions were
