Part 1: YEAR TWO

Arsenal Gate

I turned the viewer to aft view as we emerged from the Igras Nebula and the USS Rosinante was in normal space once more. I had christened the Katharian Raider after the horse of Don Quixote. Like the old lame steed of that fictitious character it was hapless piece of junk. Bolted and glued together from parts of of at least seventeen different space ships, each ship from a different space faring civilization no less. Somehow it all worked and the ship did not let me down when I needed it to work.

Only two weeks ago I had arrived here, in a shiny new Sturgeon Courier ship and nothing that should have worked. The Command seat in this rust bucket had been a leather sofa, bolted down onto the deck plates with actual screw bolts. That sofa floated somewhere in space between here and Coven, the secret planet of the Netherworld Witches, along with whatever vermin was hiding between the cushions. The red scaled lizard, that was there to hunt the vermin tuned out to be a coward and as soon as I let the thing out, it gorged itself on the Vac Packed supplies and hid inside a ventilation shaft when it heard the sharp teeth vermin squeal between the cushions.

I had learned, the red scaled pirate pet was called a Hantkit and it had a better home now. I had sold him along with everything loose and not absolutely essential to a Vendor for pretty much everything aboard a Scooper station two days ago. They let me land, and it turned out the Karthanian ship of mine had a few tons of Good Scoop aboard, it and the rest of the things gained me a small bag full of gold and Platinum chips. Union Credits had no meaning out here as I found out. For the chips they sold me something like an old fashioned dentist chair that was now my command chair, a big bucket of Scrub-A-Deck and seven bulbs of fuel. Hopefully enough to take this piece of junk back to Union Space.

It had felt like a cold shower, like being evicted from a castle to turn back to my male persona, but I really wanted to complete my Academy and not complicate things even more. But my experience on Coven had shown me what I wanted and what I would do as soon as I could. The doubts and the pain of not knowing what I was were gone.

Gwen, like me wore uniform once more. It was her who knew how to find the Scoopers base.

The Karthanian version of Isah Pods, called Nuran Enticers kicked us past the transluminal threshold and while the Karthaninans called it Nuran Space, it was the same thing as Quasi space. The transluminal speed of the ship was not exactly fast and it would take us eleven days just to reach Union space and another seventeen to make it back to Pauli Base.

Gwen sighed as she saw the Nebula turn smaller.

“Would you like to have stayed longer?” I asked her.

“No not at all. I told you that I feel home at Lorman’s Starbase. To many it is just a dust ball, but I have my career there and my friends and colleagues. It might surprise you but I really like being a JAG lawyer.” She pointed at the fainting image of the Nebulae.

“I was thinking about the lives of the Scoopers. Now that the Coven has decided to join the Union, this part will become Union space and their way of live will chance and I don’t think they will like it.”

“Well it is up to you how much exposure you want for Coven. It’s not going to be a big industrial or cultural center in the first place and all that chances might be a Union Post office, a public GalNet station and perhaps a monthly visit by the space bus. The Narth have none of that, they opted for a Space station called Narth Gate and pretty much all Union interaction ends there and never reaches Narth Prime.”

“Well of course you are right and I don’t think we do want much official exposure, but once the Union becomes truly aware of the Nebula and the conditions there, they send scientists and technicians. It’s what they always do. You Terrans are especially nosy and inquisitive.”

“You keep saying that and yet it is you who shares a human host body and it seems very Terran human at that.”

She laughed. “It seems you did learn something about us and it does sometimes take an outsiders eyes to see the obvious.”

She then added.”Not that you would ever be perceived as outsider on Coven. You would always be welcome.”