The slowly spinning pair of roids outside of Epsilon Hold turned as they had for the last million years on a 45 and a 189-degree angle respective to where the central mass of the Epsilon roid field was located. Coincidentally, where the station had been constructed around and inside the dense Ferric core of a proto-planet that was never going to assemble. The dense roid field posed some navigational dangers to the cargo ships that frequented the station, which the many pockmarks on the nearest roid bore evidence to but to a small light fighter such as Azumi's it was not a problem. Still, a pilot needed to be active and awake to safely traverse the distance from the emergence point to the docking bay, something that she couldn't claim to be after flying all the way from Eo in one go. She was hailed at the NFZ by a lone CLM guard she had never heard of before.
"Unknown pilot this is CLM security. State your business or face the consequences."
Azumi grinned and almost sent a spitefull reply to see what would happen but restrained herself. She sent the required CLM access codes and didn't bother to respond.
The guard closed, turbo flaring and targeting radar beeping.
"Last time unknown pilot. State business here."
She almost hit herself on the forehead. Off course they would not recognise her CLM codes as they were almost two months outdated.
"CLM pilot Azumi inbound from Sedina. Busines..."
She smiled at the thought.
"I am returning home."
There was a small delay before the guard responded and drifted slowly back to the previous position.
"Roger, welcome back Az. Relaying signal from HQ: Yoda wants you at his quarters at the first opportune moment."
Azumi grimaced and responded with a double click on her mike. She was in no doubt that there would be hell to pay when she docked after she had run away for that long without saying anything. It had been necessary however. Spotting the twin row of arrows, she steered the small fighter into the docking bay and disengaged the engine. Home.
###
Splendid in green, gold and red, the Behemoth class heavy trade vessel propelled itself on a metre long jet of hard radiation on the fastest route towards the wormhole, top and dorsal turrets scanning for enemy ships while the escort fighters enveloped the convoy of which it was a member. The starboard engine stuttered slightly due to some impurities in the fuel and William chose to target that particular point with his heavy gatling turret. The twin set of flares would thunder from the launchers that were located on each side of the fuselage of his trusty Centaur Mk III and impact within half a second around the defence turret of the moth tearing the armour plates off and smash the entire ship out of course, exposing the flanks to another set of follow-up flares that would bury themselves inside the moth before detonating and reduce the former cargo ship to an expanding ball of scrap metal, trade goods and human waste. William depressed his triggers and made a swooshing sound with his mouth at the same time.
The anti-climatic result was inevitable since William had his weapons release switch set to safe and no weapons had been triggered. The Behemoth thundered on blissfully unaware of the dangers lurking merely metres behind it. Soon, very soon William would be allowed to smash the opulent self-righteous traders to bits as he so longed for. But for now he would have to ride escort for the sake of his guild. For the sake of his master. Finding it hard to control the wrath and pain that welled up inside of him like the bile residue of a hard night out he reached for and found the one item that allowed him to keep what little remained of his true self. He dragged the by now pitted and dull blade of his straight razor across the piece of metal that at some time had been a part of the fuselage of a Valkyrie but was now welded tight to the left side of the cockpit. The multitude of scratches that had been dug up to one centimetre into the armour almost covered the light blue paint that had been background for the nametag of which only the first letter, a black and ornate J could be read. He would take out vengeance upon them when the time was right.
The splendid green, gold and red ships traversed the wormhole one by one with William following dutifully. The wolf shepherding the sheep.
###
The rescue pod cocoon itself was the product of centuries of trial and error and was about as safe as possible without rendering the pilot unconscious. The first generation cocoons had simply injected a quick working sleep toxin and let the pilots sleep through the recovery. Too many pilots had, however, been lost to minor technical faults that were easily fixed by the pilot and thus the second-generation cocoon had allowed the pilot to stay conscious. Then they lost a lot of pilots to inexplicable causes such as the cocoon being opened from the inside in deep vacuum and found that claustrophobia was the main culprit. Generation four (generation three was quickly discontinued due to some rather nasty errors) allowed the pilot to be conscious but semi-asleep. The cocoon tried to re-create the amount and quality of light that was found inside a mother's womb and it seemed that a good combination had been found. This type of rescue pod had been in service for around three hundred years and was the standard rescue pod available for regular citizens.
It was also the setting for the recurrent nightmare that haunted Cat every night. The soft red glow held no promise of motherly warmth and safety for her. It guaranteed the terrors of helplessness in face of a nameless killer that would haunt her no matter what happened. The soft warning chimes of a radar lock, the shrill note of warning when she was targeted and the shivering until harsh positron death hammered through her shivering body and woke her in pain, sweat and tears.
She hadn't slept properly for around two months now, not since the new member had arrived in KAOS. Not since she had heard his voice that was so very similar to the pilot she had encountered in Itani space. She had tried to talk to Silia about it but had just been given some anti-depressants and sleep pills that her brainpal could just as easily synthesize. She had tried using them the first week or so until she had the first flashback while flying coolant crates for her guild given mission. She had woken with a strike force outside her cockpit window and her Behemoth crashed halfway into the docking mantle. She realised that she would rather have the nightmares than risk another flashback and had stopped using the medicine. She had tried burying herself in close quarter combat training but found that sooner or later even her exhaustion was no shield against her own mind. She had tried asking Ahriman but he had not been around since the operation had started. And Asteroth was nowhere to be found. She felt lonely again. Actually, she felt abandoned.
###
Tufan ran his fingers through the long almost whispery thin beard that sprouted from his chin repeatedly as he focused on the screen in front of him. Hideously complicated with trade routes running to and fro in multitudes of colours denominating the different traders and the ranking that they would follow in order to maximise the profits of TGFT, it took almost all of his concentration to make any sense of it. He smiled a crooked smile as the picture slowly merged with his plan, or rather the plan he had been given. This would surely work if only he could get the data out in a day or so. He sensed a figure in the screen’s reflection and stopped midway on his chin beard. A hand came down on the side of the terminal, the arm clad in an immaculate green sleeve; a smell of Ole Spice emanated like the heat of a hearth in deep winter, comforting and inspiring trust, the deep voice of councillor Waldoze boomed from his enormous chest.
“Planning immense profits there lad?”
Tufan smiled despite the anxiety he really felt inside.
“Aye, I am thinking of a route from Odia to Pyronis.”
The giant chuckled and pointed with a stubby finger at the screen, smearing it with his fingertip.
“If I were you lad, I’d take the route from Bractus instead. Ah know that it is another system but they are quite a lot cheaper than the bastards of Odia. Quick in, buy 100.000 crates and move them fast. Whamo, mega-credits.”
Tufan couldn’t help smiling even wider; Waldoze had that effect on most people.
“Surely that takes a lot of credits to set up, more than I have surely.”
“Ha, get a loan in the guild bank. I’ll vouch for you myself my friend.”
Tufan turned and looked at the broad faced man that was towering over him, a contagious grin on his face.
“Deal effendi. I shall take the loan out tonight and be on my way tomorrow morning.”
“That’s a true merchant speaking. You can always pay one in the Priggly Pear, okay?”
With those words Waldoze winked at Tufan and turned towards the exit. Tufans started stroking his chin beard again as he took a data-dump to his secure storage. Almost as an afterthought he asked for and was granted a loan of 38 million UIT credits that he immediately transferred to his non-traceable cred stick. It was like stealing candy from children. Tufan, aka Asteroth walked to his room to send the information he had just stolen to his master. Truly one of the biggest robberies of all time was about to take place and it was all is doing.
