Chapter 57

The Gloriana was joined by a flotilla from Home Fleet to make the initial transit to Zuplar to honour Hisuat Vonalees for his years of good service to the Empire — or at least that was the reason that had been announced to the public. All of our group on board were in high spirits as well as being curious as to exactly how the Kilios operatives were going to match coordinates with 9^th Fleet in XD space which, from our studies, would be tricky to say the least.

XD space has been described as a different dimension from ordinary space, where the distance between planetary systems is a lot less than in ordinary space. Or that’s how laymen explain it. In reality, there’s nothing to be seen in XD space, to the human eye it’s just blackness incarnate. Navigating it requires precision mathematics and is handled, in the Empire, by AIs, though Fleet Command trains its Officers to manually do it in case of emergencies. Detection in XD space is done by gravity sensors as two ships could be right next to each other and still be unable to visually locate each other. This is also how the Empire goes about dropping a ship out of XD space. It involves making a cube formation around a ship and hitting it with a focussed synchronised grav-pulse, causing the drive to fail. This is something the Empire practices long and hard at as timing is everything. It’s pointless dropping a ship out of XD space if you don’t have your ship drop out with it to enable you to board it. Even a microrotation’s variance can cause a ship to drop out of XD space at a considerable distance from the target vessel.

Also, XD space, for all there is nothing to be seen, is not empty. There are what the Empire calls eddies, which are gravity wells caused by physical objects in ordinary space, and it has several layers to it which shorten distances between planetary systems even more. In addition, by overloading an XD drive in a specific way, it’s also possible to travel back in time, something the Empire discovered by accident. Whilst it is possible to travel back from where you start in a time jump, no method yet of travelling to the future has been found as the variables involved need a precise location and every attempt so far has failed to find one.

“I can’t see how they are going to do it.” Haelee finally stated what the rest of us were thinking. “I mean finding us will be tricky enough, never mind matching our progress and drive constants.”

“I spoke to Captain Ferg about it,” Amanda replied. “He’s not sure either but will allow us access to the nav-AI to view the event as it happens.”

“Liono?” I asked.

“I do not know either. Just that Kilios has done it before,” she replied.

“Sounds like the Empire is about to learn something,” Amanda commented with a smile.

Once aboard their courier ship, Parso and Lorre stowed Trask in a stasis chamber and prepared to move off to the XD limit in the system. For all the courier was stealthy, it was not a stealthed vessel such as an Imperial Scout ship would be and, once moving, would be detectable to the Kurosian space interceptors as well as their XD capable fleet.

Still, the two operatives merely sat and waited as the rotations passed until a chime sounded telling them that the departure time had arrived.

“Course set, leaving deep orbit,” Lorre announced. “We have been detected and they are moving to intercept.”

“Nav-AI confirms they won’t catch us in normal space,” Parso replied.

“Still have the right of pursuit though, which means they can chase us to Vreekoos if they want to,” Lorre chuckled.

“Let’s stick to the plan, fun as that sounds.”

The courier was standard ex-fleet design from the Empire and was capable of 5^th generation XD translation. Then again so could some of the Kurosian ready squadron of their deep space Fleet, even if they normally only used their XD drive to move about quickly in system. The Kilios purchased courier did have one advantage though — the Empire had supplied it complete with their specialised XD drive which enabled XD transition far nearer to a gravity well than a civilian one, or indeed the drives used by the Kurosian squadron who were moving to an intercept point near the civilian limit.

“Beginning transition,” Lorre announced as there was a slight increase in the background frequencies. “We’re in and course set.”

“Now the chase begins,” Parso nodded with a smile.

“Have taken our course to pass a freighter as well as locked onto a starliner,” Lorre informed her.

“That won’t fool them.”

“Not meant to, but will delay their pursuit as both will need to be carefully navigated past by their squadron unless they want to cause a local translation back into normal space by the freighter and starliner with the ensuing internal structural damage from grav overload.”

“Ah, I see,” Parso nodded. “Won’t that affect us when we join the Imperial flotilla?”

“Normally yes, however, this baby can match sync to the Imperial flotilla, disguising its drive signature,” Lorre explained.

“Clever.”

“That’s why we need a bit of distance. If the Kurosians are close enough, it won’t fool them.”

“You’re the pilot,” Parso chuckled.

All of us were watching the large tri-dee cube when the ship’s AI informed us of the approach of a small vessel in XD space. We watched in fascination as it got ever closer to the compact flotilla formation.

“That must be the Kurosian pursuers,” I pointed out a blob that was following the small ship and which hadn’t quite been separated into individual signals.

“Seems likely,” Amanda nodded.

“This is the delicate part,” Captain Ferg informed us over a speaker. “If that ship’s drive isn’t matched precisely to the flotilla’s, it will be forced out of XD space and possibly torn apart by grav-stress.”

“Will the flotilla vessels not be in danger too, Captain?” Amanda asked politely.

“We have the greater mass, Serenissimé. We will be safe enough.”

“I see, thank you.”

The scene coalesced as the ship approached and just appeared to touch the edge of the Imperial flotilla when it suddenly merged with it and vanished.

“Where did it go?” I asked.

“It is now matched to the flotilla and appears as part of the XD signature of the matched group,” the AI informed me.

“Won’t that make their pursuers suspicious?”

“No, see,” Amanda pointed out as a small vessel seemed to part from the other side of the series of blobs representing the flotilla and draw away on the same course as the original ship.

“Clever,” I murmured. “I take it the Kurosians would only have witnessed a close approach and apparent pass?”

“You are correct, Dayyev,” Captain Ferg replied. “It was cleverly done. our ship is keeping the body of the flotilla between that small ship and the Kurosians, forcing the pursuers to waste time swinging around us as we are of equal mass and could potentially cause a massive grav anomaly dropping us all out and back into normal space, causing a major diplomatic incident as we have identified ourselves to them.”

“Wonder what will happen if they finally chase down the fake vessel and find it isn’t what they think it is?” Haelee pondered.

“It’s headed for Venaforth,” Verlig replied. “A major trade hub with the rest of the stellar area. I suspect the number of ships there will mask it easily.”

“You are correct, Verlig,” Captain Ferg confirmed. “Smugglers often use a busy port like Venaforth to throw off pursuers. Nor will the local Fleet Base there take kindly to a Kurosian presence, no matter the ‘hot pursuit’ agreement.”

“I assume they will co-operate, eventually?”

“They’ll hand over arrival logs and ask the Kurosians to pick out which ship they were pursuing, pointing out that all arrivals have the correct designations for their type.”

“In short, unless they know precisely which craft, the Base will not assist?” Amanda queried.

“Precisely, Serenissimé.”

“Hence the greater the distance, the less the chance of them knowing?” I asked.

“Correct, Dayyev,” the captain replied. “Something they have been doing themselves with smugglers we have pursued into their system.”

“Ah, the biters bit,” I nodded.

“Yes, though I suspect this will be a first for them,” he chuckled.

“See, no problem,” Lorre stated.

“Yes, clever,” Parso chuckled as their vessel headed towards Zuplar, where Trask, still in stasis, would be handed over to the Imperials.

The vessel remained with the flotilla, but other than an acknowledgement that they were there, remained incommunicado until an emergence was made at Zuplar where control of the vessel was taken over by the flotilla’s AIs and they were docked to the Battleship Trigno. The two operatives remained in the cabin area out of sight and contact with the Ground Force squad who entered with a portable power supply and grav-lifter and, with the assistance of their meditech, removed the stasis chamber and floated it into the Trigno.

The courier was then released from the Trigno and Lorre set a course for the XD limit and a journey back to Marblos where it would be handed over to the Fleet base where it was registered.

“Another successful mission,” Parso opined as the ship slipped into XD space.

“Yes, and a big bounty,” Lorre agreed.

“Biggest bounty ever offered by a Realm,” Parso nodded. “Though we’d have probably done this free of charge.”

“For Rogoth? Yes, but apparently the Empire insisted on paying.”

“Best decision Kilios ever made, moving to Marblos and within the Empire.”

“Yes, lots of work and somewhere where no one can easily threaten us,” Lorre chuckled.

“Yep, but now the mission is done, it’s fun time,” Parso giggled.

“That a hint?”

“Are you dense? Get in the bedroom!”

The Imperial Courier that had detached from the flotilla easily made it to the Venaforth system, even gaining a little on the Kurosian squadrons chasing them. They were then able to emerge from XD space and merge into the traffic flow to the civilian station before diverting, with a change of drive signature, to the Fleet Base.

This left the emerging Kurosian squadron with a major problem. There was no trace at all of the suspected smuggler vessel they had pursued into the Empire, who were now demanding to know why they were there.

“So, you were in hot pursuit of a suspected smuggling vessel which emerged into this system?” Commander Uron, the Fleet Base Officer in charge of traffic monitoring enquired of Commodore Macon of the Kurosian Pursuit Squadron.

“We were, and as part of the treaty between our Realms I’m requesting to see the arrival logs of the last hundred rotations, Imperial time,” a nervous Macon requested as the Imperial Superdreadnought Savage approached, along with several lesser, if equally powerful, ships, clearly intending to put itself between the planet and the Kurosian squadron.

“I see. Very well. Transmitting now,” Uron replied, sending the details.

There was a slight pause as the Kurosian AIs studied the logs before informing Macon of the ships they’d need information on.

“Could you give details on vessels designated A#334, A#335 and A#336?” Macon requested.

“They are all freighters,” Uron replied. “Unless you can be more specific, I’ll need to request that you leave the Imperium and return to Kuros.”

“The ship we were pursuing was a small craft, similar in size to a courier vessel or private yacht, though with an advanced XD translation drive,” Macon explained. “Have any such vessels arrived in Venaforth?”