In transit

The two groups split up the next morning, Jilana and Terbuk heading back to their botanical research to maintain their cover story, while the crew of the Solar Ascent began the long and cold trek through the mountain to the shuttle. As they walked, Dustin turned over the next steps in his head, holding an informal planning meeting with Yril’k and Macch.

“So, the likelihood of us being spotted if we drop straight into the system is going to be really high. I don’t see any way a lab like that won’t have long range scanners monitoring the jump points. Any ideas of how we can get in without being detected, or are we going to have to fight from the outset Macch?” he asked as they scrambled down a slope that was a lot more pleasant to descend that morning than it had been to climb up the previous afternoon.

The spy steadied himself as he reached the bottom of the incline, dusting himself off before shrugging. “There’s a few options. The system’s not totally off the beaten path - it’s used as a cargo route by a few trade groups, so we could try and obtain one of their craft and use that. Alternatively, you’ve got those little fighters with weave drives, right? The fact that those things can hop stars was the talk of Tho’unn intelligence not that long ago. We could use them, hang by the jump point and park up on the hull of a freighter to get in to the system and then use our own drives on the way out?”

Dustin frowned, trying to think of alternatives. “What about if we came in from an angle they didn’t expect?”

Macch shrugged. “Yea, if you can find a new route to the system that’d do it too. Might take us a while though, hopping around the neighbouring stars in search of a backdoor.”

Turning to his security chief as they continued through yet another gloomy cavern, Dustin gestured for her input. Yril’k delicately stepped over the uneven floor, chitin clicking as she gathered her thoughts before responding. “Using the fighter craft’k would be the sensible’k choice if we are aiming’k to infiltrate. There is an alternative’k however… or at least’k an adjustment.”

Both Dustin and Macch paused, the group coming to a halt as they turned to look at the Vex’ess warrior, torchlight glinting eerily off her form in the dark. “What alternative?” Dustin asked, wondering what his friend had spotted that he hadn’t.

“We could’k return to the ship graveyard’k. I am sure’k Defia and Rye could’k manage to get a hulk flying’k again - if we use an old’k Durathisian craft’k, they might think it just another’k trader. No risk of being detected’k in our attempt’k to capture or park on an existing’k freight ship needed.”

Dustin frowned, then gestured for the group to keep moving. “Not a bad idea at all. Smaller freight companies would use older ships, right Macch? Especially now when shipyards are putting their efforts towards the war rather than domestic production.” The spy gave him an answering nod, so Dustin continued his train of thought. “If we can get one of them to look rough which shouldn’t be hard if we’re starting with a wreck, we can load a couple of fighters in the cargo bay, fly it in, then fake a reactor failure. The fighters can park themselves on the moon, we can take an escape shuttle down to the facility - it’s planetside, right? Then infiltrate, find out what we can, and when we’re ready signal the fighters to either pick us up or get Sola to come in all guns blazing. I think that’s the plan.”

Rye as it turned out was less than happy with the plan when they got back to Sola. “Leaving aside the fact that I am pregnant and Bleu is going to flip if you suggest I spend hours in a vacsuit scrambling through a half-destroyed wreck, ya want me to rig a reactor to safely fail after it’s powered a poorly maintained weave drive through a hop into hostile space. And ya want all this on a rush so we can go rescue some random Durathisian spy?!” The bunny girl paced the ready room, gesturing wildly as she went.

“It’s not like we have many better alternatives, love,” Dustin said placatingly, to no great effect. “If there was another way to get into the system undetected I’d take it but…”

The Rabyth paused her pacing and frowned. “There might be. Ya know I’ve been working on the weave drive tech recently right?” At Dustin’s nod, she pulled out her tablet and tapped it. “Well, I still haven’t figured out how the Fractals shrink their drives so well, nor any clues as to how those aliens whipped us halfway across the galaxy in minutes. But I have found some interesting things regardless. One of which is that you can fake-out a weave re-entry.”

Dustin blinked. “Fake-out? What do you mean?”

Rye set the tablet down in front of him. “Essentially, when we drop back in from the weave it sends out a gravitational pulse - that’s what sets the detectors going crazy whenever someone arrives in a system. Now, normally, there’s no way to prevent that. But, if you have two craft dropping in at close enough to the same time with separate drive signatures, you can overlap the waves. Again, nothing new, that’ll just lead to two signals. But - look at what happens if you adjust the drive power modulation juuuust right.”

As she spoke, the bunny girl tapped the tablet, a crude render of weave transitions appearing on the screen. Dustin watched the first two, radiating lines of blue and green showing the pulse of gravity that occurred when ships returned to normal space. On the third render, however, something different happened. “The waves almost completely cancel each other out?” he asked, glancing up to stare at his pair partner.

“Yup. At least, that’s the theory. I’ve not had a chance to test it, and it’d require the drives to be precisely tuned to each other. Done right, and timed so that one of the planet’s moons is between us and them, and we should be able to near enough mask Sola dropping into the system. Of course, once ya done that, ya then need to hide from any system-wide scans they do, so Sammie’ll have to do some nifty flying to get us a nice lunar parking spot but…”

“…But it’ll be a lot safer, easier, and mean that if something goes south we’ll have the big gun available immediately.” Dustin grinned, then thumbed his communicator. “Yril’k, Macch, could you come to the ready room please? Rye’s had an idea that’s going to necessitate a major change to our plans.”

Sammie frowned at the two fighters. She’d wanted to pilot one of them, but Dustin had refused; this deep in Durathisian space he wanted her at her station on Sola in the event a warship suddenly showed up. They were in theory at least not making enough noise to be detected, but even so… Regardless, she’d hand picked the pilots and briefed them after Rye had finished her tinkering. One fighter was rigged to match Sola’s drive signature as close as possible, the other set to nullify it; the two craft were going to be dropped off and then follow Sola to the next system on her route to the lab. If all went according to plan, their arrival wouldn’t ping on Sola’s sensors and they’d be good to move forward with the next steps of their journey and the bunny girl’s wild scheme.

Saluting the two junior officers as they boarded their craft, she turned and headed for the turbolift. As she stepped inside, the Rabyth in question joined her. “For the record, this is a stupid idea of yours. If it works, you’re a genius, but I’m still not happy we’re testing it live and in hostile territory” the pilot grumbled, her scowl relenting only when the golden haired woman pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“It’ll work, trust me. Ya know I’m good at this kinda thing, Sammie.” Rye said, stepping out of the lift ahead of her lover. “Let’s get going - sooner we arrive at the next stop, sooner ya can all see I know what I’m talking about.”

On the bridge, Meli and Dustin were waiting for them, along with Yril’k. The pilot and engineer took their places quickly - this was a tiny hop, barely an hour’s weave-flight - and Sammie found herself blinking as the weave-arms retracted when they emerged into real space once more. “Remind me to let someone else do these tiny hops, they suck,” she muttered as her hands moved over Sola’s controls to move the starship out of the way for their fighters’ arrival.

Minutes passed, and nothing showed up on the sensors. Sammie bit her fingernails nervously. Had something gone wrong? Had her officers gotten lost in the weave, or crashed, or… The comms station beeped, then the speakers came to life. “Two birds ready for the nest, that was a tense flight. Do you copy?” As Sammie thumbed her own communicator to respond, she glanced over at the sensor station. Meli was shaking her head and Rye was grinning. It seemed the Rabyth’s little trick would work.