A scrapyard

The final jump to their rendezvous with the Tho’unn operatives had most of the senior staff on the bridge. Only Emely, Rye and Bleu stayed away - the Feliax because she was nesting and refused to leave her fortress of blankets, the other two because their jobs meant they’d be better off working elsewhere if Sola dropped out of the weave and into trouble. The presence of Naera and Jaisyl on the bridge was unusual given they were potentially heading into combat, but the Caenii woman had taken the seat next to Meli without a word, while the princess hovered in the background, seemingly wanting to be there more for comfort than anything else.

As soon as the countdown ended, the bridge exploded into activity. This was their third hop inside Durathisian space after a week’s worth of travel, and it was the first where they’d gone beyond the range of any long distance scanning. Sammie banked Sola hard to one side, engines thrumming as they skidded away from their arrival point. While the pilot worked to make them a difficult target, Yril’k, Meli and Naera stared at their screens, scanning over the incoming data from the ship’s sensors.

“Clear” Meli said after a moment, Naera echoing her a second later. Yril’k ran one last pass over her own console then nodded. “Clear’k.”

The assembled crew visibly relaxed. Dustin gave them all a moment - he was tense himself - then leaned forward. “Alright, people, we can all see the sensor hits from the massive number of scrap craft they’ve dumped here up on the main screen. Let’s move forward cautiously in case there’s any traps, but I want us looking like a drifting hulk if anyone else jumps in. Meli, Yril’k, keep an eye on the sensors. Sammie,” he paused and thumbed the communicator, “and Rye - be ready to kill power and thrust if I give the order.”

Sola shifted forward like a ghost, Sammie not wanting to overly increase the throttle in case they needed to suddenly kill the power. All around them, the edge of the system was filled with wrecks. Ruined Durathisian craft sat alongside others - pirates, rebels, those the aliens had conquered… It was hard to say why the craft were there individually, but as a whole it was clear that this was just a dumping ground for things their foes didn’t want to go to the trouble of melting down, but also didn’t want to have hanging around.

The presence of the wrecks was great; it made an ideal cover for Sola to meet with their contact, a place where even if the Durathisians were to use long range scanning they’d get so many drifting hits from the slowly shifting hulks that one more ping wouldn’t make a difference. It was also, Dustin realised, a perfect place for a trap if you were a scavenger.

The first probing attack came shortly after they’d entered the wreck field. A tiny, needle-like craft slid out from behind the destroyed remains of what had once been some kind of passenger liner, darting forward with weapons powered. Sola’s weakest turrets pulsed once under Yril’k’s careful hand, and the would-be-scavenger drifted back with the remnants of it’s own guns leaking coolant into the void.

“Any more signatures?” Dustin asked as their would-be assailant turned and fled, glancing at Meli and Naera even though he knew it was hopeless. In a field this cluttered, any signal would bounce off so many craft as to make it impossible to trace.

Not all of the wrecks were truly dead either. As they moved around the edge of the ruins of two ships that had clearly crashed together, the weapons on one of the broken vessels suddenly powered on. The blast barely made a dent in Sola’s shield; in response, Sammie tapped her communicator. “Wing one, scramble five, launch one.”

Dustin, Yril’k and the pilot had discussed this at length during the long flights out from Earth. In the event they encountered any pirates, Durathisian monitors or others using the debris field as cover in possession of weapons strong enough to need the shields to handle, they would deploy a single weave-torpedo instantly to deter any others from trying their luck.

Five fighters launched from Sola’s hangar in a graceful ballet, curving around her hull to face the ruined craft. As they broke formation and turned back the way they’d come, a single glittering dot of light sped towards the debris. Seconds later, the core of the hulk twisted in on itself, the gravitational riptides tearing the rest of the structure asunder.

When Yril’k had proposed the plan to use their weave-detonators, Dustin had been concerned. Not due to the catastrophic damage the devices could cause, but because a weave bubble popping might be detected. Rye, when consulted on the matter had shaken her head. “Na, Dusty. In a scrap yard like that? With no maintenance, and pirates or scavs mucking around? Drives’ll pop all the time. Check the logs from the Velca antennae, you’ll probably find several previous traces from that system.” Sure enough, when they’d looked the logs had been full of exactly the sort of event that had just happened - albeit not in so controlled a manner.

The sheer destruction they’d just wrought seemed to deter any further attacks as they pushed deeper into the junkyard. Truth be told, Dustin was worried their contacts might not still be present; if scavengers and pirates occupied the ruins, the kind of ship a spy might escape in would have no chance. As he was about to comment on that fact, Meli glanced up from her console. “Bank us towards that burned out freighter. We’re getting the signal the Tho’unn sent us.”

Sammie did as she was ordered, banking Sola slightly so that her hull almost met that of the ruined vessel. At the same time, the hangar doors slid open, the lights inside already extinguished to prevent anyone from spotting what was going on. From the depths of the freighter, a small craft slid neatly into the bay, the doors closing behind it before their drifting path cleared the edge of the wreck. From there, Sammie returned to letting the craft move listlessly through the debris field.

Rising, Dustin nodded to the crew. “I’m going to go meet our contacts. Yril’k, the security team is waiting for me in case these aren’t the people we’re looking for? Good.” At a nod from the Vex’ess, he turned and made his way rapidly down to the hangar.

Emptying the hangar so that the smaller craft would fit had been a pain. The ship belonging to the spies had stretched the limits of what Sola could take; they’d had to move all the regular shuttles down into cargo bays just to make enough room. Indeed, if Sola’s hangar had been any smaller, the alien craft would not have fit at all.

As it was, there was just about enough floor left unoccupied so that when Dustin entered the hangar he found himself in the presence of two aliens. The larger, a bulky individual with hands far too large for his arms was in the process of what looked like a post-flight check of their craft’s hull, while the other stood nearby, puffing on a vapor-stick and adjusting his cufflinks. Spotting Dustin, the smaller of the two men nodded, tapping the stick on his watch to turn it off before tucking it behind his ear and approaching.

“You Dustin? Macch and Linth, at your service. Don’t mind Linnie, we took a knock getting to that freighter and he wants to make sure our little skipper is ready to fly if we need her. I hear this is your human custom?” The man finished, holding out his hand for Dustin to shake.

“Welcome aboard, Macch. We’ve got berths prepared for you if you’d like, or you’re welcome to stay on your craft. I’ve set up one of the meeting rooms for your use too - we’ll need you to brief us fully before we move to try and contact the rebels. Sammie’s going to take us across the junk field, then we’ve got a pretty long hop to an uninhabited system afterward so we’ll have plenty of time to talk.” Dustin paused, then glanced over at where Linth had just stepped away from the hull with a grunt and a nod. “Before that though, how about I show you the galley and we have some real food?”