Huntly was nursing her drink while she was thinking what to do about Captain Ramil Ibn Beighurin. He knew the Warbird was a pirate ship but could not prove it and even if he did who would he prove it to. If he could ever catch her in the act then he could use frontier law, but this time she was well within the law ans maybe even helping the authorities. Would he maybe get the heiress to put pressure on Huntly to push her to make that mistake and then he would have her. She had to beat him to Dione, but the Birmingham was much faster then the Warbird, and also had her out gunned. Ideas were running into her head and being discarded as quick as they came in. She yelled,

"Suran," and he ran into her room with the usual smile on his face. Huntly just shook her head and said,

"Do we have the plans for the Birmingham?"

"Yes but you do plan on attacking it?"

"No you fool what do you take me for a moron."

He produced the plans and said,

"We can do nothing to it. If we are going to get the Birmingham out of are way, it will have to be Captain Beighurin's decision, and he is a hard man to make do anything he does not want to do." Huntly looked up at her second in command and said,

"Suran you are a genius. You have given me the perfect plan. Now sit here and help me with your genius, get on the computer and I will explain what we are going to do." There is an old system communications satellite that Huntly had used before to transmit fake signals for different purposes. They can use it to distract the Birmingham. Suran's smile got even bigger and brighter as Huntly told him her plan. It would be a defiant challenge to fool the communications officer of the Birmingham, but he loved it. They got to work and it took them almost five hours to get the program done. She looked at Suran and said,

"How close is the Birmingham to Dione?" He looked at his panel and said,

"It is still about five hours away, but we are still almost ten hours away." Huntly thought her a second then said,

"We wait her an other hour and a half." After a half an hour the Warbird's communication operator came to Suran and Huntly and said,

"We just intercepted a message to the Birmingham. The heiress is alive and well, she is on a research ship called the Utopia. There is also another damaged ship there that needs an escort to Telemuchus."

"Dam," Said Huntly, "we may have waited to long. Well we can not change the plan now." Then turning to the communication operator she said,

"Back to your station and let know of any more changes."

They sat there waiting, not saying anything, until Suran broke the silence.

"It is time." Huntly just gave him a nodded. Suran pushed the button and they both watched the image of the Birmingham on the sensor display. Huntly had her fists clenched and in her mind she said over and over, turn, turn, turn. Then it happened the Birmingham's image turned off towards the satellite. She jumped up and yelled, and patted Suran on his back saying,

"You fooled the son of a Sloth." Suran was beaming with satisfaction. At that moment they got a call from Captain Beighurin, on the Birmingham.

"Warbird please be advised we have to check out a distress call. We will be back to assist you with rescue operations as soon as possible." Huntly replied,

"Good luck Birmingham," and signed off.

They were both very pleased with themselves for the rest of the trip to Dione. It took them a little over seven hours and they were in orbit. Both the communication and sensor stations at once went into action. After about ten minutes they were talking to Utopia. The computer told them there location and the ship sensors did the rest. Huntly was not sure what to say when she finally talked to Ms. Martine Isopetet. After all she was here to help, but was it to help these people or to help herself. Utopia the computer AI sent the communication on to Graham's computer gauntlet. They were back in the Captain's Mess sitting around the table. Graham, Connor, Martine and Denise where sitting having a coffee after the run in with the Levain. When an image of Huntly came up on Graham's computer gauntlet. She said,

"Ms. Isopetet, your father has sent us. He is very worried about you."

"Is he all right, has something happened to him?" said Martine.

"He is all right, just worried about you. I have not talked to him personally, he put a message on the grid and we came looking for you." Martine's expression became sad at what Huntly said and Graham said,

"Are you all right?"

"Oh yah, for a moment there I thought my father had actually cared, but I should have known better, so you are here for the big reward."

"Well that did get our attention, but what ever works."

"Yes, I guess you are right, you are here and we need help. Maybe my Dad did something right even if he did not know."

"Yes now we are coming down to get you and take you back."

"No you can't, they will get you just like they got the Empress and the Exemplar." Huntly at once took notice of the tone of Martine's voice and said to Suran,

"Place us in a high orbit over the target area."Then she turned back to Martine and said,

"Who are THEY?"

"I don't know. All I do know is that there is a highly advanced civilization living on Dione and they do not want anyone to know of their existence. From what I can tell both the Exemplar and the Empress of Sol were brought down in the same fashion. Some sort of energy draining ray. Let me start at the beginning." She paused to collect her thoughts then continued, "I was sent here by my father to make contact with a sentient species that he believed lived on this world. When we got here the Exemplar started doing some intensive scans of the planet. It took us almost a month before we found them, their cloaking technology was very advanced. When we finally found them we tried to make contact. We used every form of communication we could think of, but nothing worked. I am a Mindwalker and I even scanned the area to see if I could make contact with a mind, but their shields even kept my mind out. The Captain and I discussed it and felt we would have a better chance if we were on the surface. That was when we started to land, a couple of minutes into the atmosphere and we lost power to the engines. That is when I got out in the escape pod. The ship must have crashed because we have not picked up any trace of it." She looked at each person in turn for a second then said,

"I don't know if they will let us leave this place."