3358
Outward Reaches
Uhlek Territory

The four bulk transports headed outward at flank speed plus auxiliary, their hulls shaking as the engines revolted at being pushed so hard for so long. The lead commander clenched his razor teeth, willing his flight of vessels to move faster. He fully intended to let his ships fly apart under the stress before he ordered the helmsman to throttle back on the engines. They hadn’t punched through this far to stop and be torn to glowing shreds by the tireless Uhlek bloodhounds behind them.

The commander’s eyes darted between the status display and the tactical holograph projection that showed a small swarm of slave ships closing in off the stern quarter of his trailing ship. He toyed momentarily with diverting life support power to the engines for a few moments at a time. Quick math told him it wouldn’t make enough of a difference. The warships were gaining, getting close to drop dead distance. Cool in the heat, the commander snapped his final trump card onto the table.

From an aft missile launcher, a hollowed out warhead case shot back toward the oncoming vessels, the glow of its booster tracing a course to the center of their formation. Inside the warhead case, an alien artifact conducted its countdown, ticking off the final digits to zero. Then, in a blinding white glow that dwarfed the dim starlight, the ace of spades detonated with the power of colliding worlds. The commander watched as the flower of Phlegmak engineering incinerated the Uhlek ships.

Seconds later, the fleeing group of ships bucked on the crest of a massive shock wave, still cranking power through their engines. Breach alarms blared their red light warnings immediately. The commander shot a look to the status displays for hull integrity—damage control was on it—then snapped his head to the tactical projection. The wake was clear. That was all the opportunity he needed. The formation broke hard to port, heading for a star and a planet, hoping for the future.

Uhlek Badlands
Unnamed System: 12,112
Aboard ISS Belfast Windfall

Running quiet, the Interstel caravel flew into the same remote star system over a thousand years later. “Orbital range seven,” said Arella from behind her science consoles. Commander Grx’bzzgah brought the ship into an approach vector for the small world, expertly trimming the thrusters to set up for an immediate roll into the descent profile.

A short time later, Belfast Windfall was rocketing through clear blue skies, cruising in a wide lazy circle in the upper troposphere. “Always comes down to this, doesn’t it?” commented Boz to no one in particular. They had narrowed it down to a single world around a single star in a galaxy that was, for all intents and purposes, endless. Grix pulled the Mercator projection onto the main view screen, affording the crew a map of the rocky world below.

“Nothing’s tripping the structural sweeps,” said Grix, eliminating the possibility of finding any sizable settlements in the open. The artifact from the southern cliffs hadn’t provided any grid coordinates for the planet’s surface. Scanner sweeps continued to produce no leads.

Nobody had heard HvHuss enter the bridge and the crew turned around surprised when he spoke.

“The peninssssula on the leading edge of the wessstern hemisssphere,” he said, peering at the view screen. “Thisss may be what we are looking for.” Without further prompting, Mack zoomed the map display onto the bold feature jutting into the ocean that dominated the northern half of the planet. “On Thosss, it isss the Shurell Peninssssula. Here, by any other name, it iss the firsst thing any Thrynn would recognizze.”

“Good enough for me,” said Biggs Hilsfar as Grix brought the ship around and gunned the thrusters. “Grix, we still have those stock images of Thoss?” Completing the maneuver and turning Windfall back over to the nav computers, the Velox accessed his archives. A few seconds later a series of low-resolution maps blinked across the screen. It was obvious the pictures had been taken from very low orbit above the fiercely guarded cradle world. HvHuss narrowed his reptilian eyes at the sight, then glared accusingly at Hilsfar.

The commander winked. “Pretty tricky, huh?”

After poring over the images and accompanying scan records, they isolated a small abandoned site at the eastern tip of the peninsula. Enshrouded by dense jungle, the barely visible ruins lined the cliffs around a cove that ran out into the ocean. HvHuss looked intently at the grainy image.

Arella raised her eyebrows at a possibility. “Cartographic association—it’s been known to work before,” she said. Rather than use the powerful onboard scientific instruments, she placed two printouts flat on her console and estimated approximate “sister locations” on the two maps. “Here,” she said, pointing to the maps, “that inlet there seems to correspond roughly to our site on Thoss.”

The flaps on Belfast Windfall’s starboard bow plane drew down, sending the exploration vessel to port as she began her surface approach.

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Next: “Flatland”

In the Windward Passage? Stop at the Jova Lounge to avoid the Fuzz. Anyway, here's an installment--stay tuned for others...

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