Uhlek Badlands
Planetside, 12,117-7

ISS Belfast Windfall’s taxed engines whined as Commander Grx’bzzgah brought her into a hover just meters above the blue sea. The caravel’s massive turbofans kicked the water into a furious chop and whipped the air with briny sea spray. Grix punched a command into his console and the nav computer immediately took Windfall’s reins, holding her in position while he lowered the main freight ramp from the starship’s underside. Then he picked up a comm box, smacked it for good measure, and spoke into it.

Two decks below, Nickel and Dime bleeped to life and headed immediately for the cargo well. From their station at the top of the sea-slicked loading ramp, their optical recorders identified a large cargo skiff bubbling up from beneath the agitated surface. One of the upper hatches popped open and a middle-aged man emerged, shouting inaudibly into a walkie-talkie as the surf spray made quick work of soaking him.

“—two meters, Grix,” came Biggs’ voice over intercom system. “Down two more meters, and bring her around one-eighty on the plane,” he commanded, meaning he wanted Windfall to swivel around like the light on a dentist’s chair until her cargo ramp was aft of the skiff.

“Rog,” said the bug, manipulating the starship like a thoroughbred Porsche raised on the autobahn. The pitch of the starship’s engines dropped as she banked around—

“Steady! That’s good!” barked Biggs. “Down a half meter and lock her in,” shouted the commander over the churn of engines and water. He wiped his face, which was immediately soaked again, and shouted another order, this time down into the skiff. “Mack, we’re all lined up—pop the trunk.”

The cargo hatch rolled back, revealing several rows of neatly stacked black sarcophagi from the Hanhala sanctuary in the submarine cliffs below. A small loader immediately went to work hoisting the black vessels onto Windfall’s cargo ramp where a worn metal conveyor portered them into the cargo well.

It took a solid fifteen minutes to unload the first batch of stasis tubes. In the meantime, Biggs, Mack and the rest traded out with the droids and the engineering crew who could better handle the cargo transfer, such as it was. As the cargo skiff slipped back into the deep, Grix guided Belfast Windfall back to the beach and set her down just short of the waterline in a cloud of kicked up sand.

“So where are you going to take them?” asked Biggs, sitting on a couch on the observation deck. His ship was being loaded with thousand-year-old cryogenically frozen Thrynn exiles—he was entitled to a bit of curiosity.

All the same, the question caught Senator HvHuss off guard. His original plan had been to return them to Thoss to live and plan among the renegade cells that lived deep in the untamed hell swamps of that humid green world. But that was before he had realized how close the Directorate for Security was to uncovering at least his corner of the resistance movement that had grown up from nothing in the wake of the 4620 Crisis. Getting the senator himself back to Thoss without capture would be a monumental task in itself, now that he was being hunted. Smuggling several dozen cryogenic tubes past the bloodhounds of the Elite Guard would be nigh impossible, at least until this episode had cooled down, which would take some time.

“We have limited optionsss, Commander Hilsssfar,” was how HvHuss presented this analysis to ISS Belfast Windfall’s captain. “Returning them to Thoss is a troublesome proposition as thingss sstand…”

“Do they have to return to Thoss?” asked Biggs. “You might get more bang for the buck if they set up shop at a remote site,” he offered, then waited for the translation matrix to grind through his last bit of vernacular. Software was always a few steps behind an evolving language. “You could shuttle Thrynn out to be trained by the Hanhalenes instead of risking the exiles on Thoss,” he said.

“I’ve considered this, Commander Hilsfar—but where could they go? Certainly no nowhere in the Confederacy, and Arth is also too dangerous.” Arth was a fairly open planet, and with plenty of native Thrynn to boot. “The Directorate wouldn’t have the slightest difficulty infiltrating assassins to wipe out the Hanhalenes…”

“I think we can manage something, Senator,” said Biggs, a grin growing on his face. Belfast Windfall’s engines had just kicked up several notches, judging by the slight thrum—Biggs swore he could feel it in his jawbones. Sure enough, the starship lifted off to pick up the final cargo of sleeping exiles. “I know of a few places, and there’s a particular one I think might work out okay.”

There was a golden gas giant on the leading edge of the Dead Zone, a planet surrounded by gas rings—gas rings that hid an ingeniously camouflaged colony full of Elowan young. From a certain point of view, those children were the seeds of a Renaissance that might one day mirror the glory of a lost empire. Maybe the Eshbllr Colony was where the Hanhalenes belonged. Time would tell. Biggs thought it was time HvHuss knew some—if not all—of that particular story.

“Senator, have you ever heard of a frigate in your fleet, name of Kryssthoggr…?”

Deep Space
Spemin Empire
A Nebula

According to an amalgam of science and legend, the floating white Minstrel was descended from a line more ancient than the galaxy. Its graceful body made its way at a glacial pace through the cosmos, observing and remembering all that it saw, spinning from its memories a melancholy song of eternity. This one paused on its way, its attention courted by a momentary flicker in the surrounding murk.

The ship arrived alone, dropping out of superphotonic transit and coasting through the sluggish nebula dust. As spaceframes go, it was fairly unimpressive, a hodgepodge of compartments joined by thin cylindrical beams and access passages. It looked like little more than garbage hunks connected by titanium rails and wiring. On this particular model, however, there were two unusual modules, both seemingly new. On the underside of each device was a manufacturer’s label that identified it as an “assembly, plasma accelerator, rapid reset.”

Ripping across the brooding clouds of dust, a bolt of lightning crashed through the charged nebula gasses and shattered the vessel, briefly lighting up the interstellar sky. In the fleeting moment of illumination, across a panoramic slice of space, the lightning revealed dozens of vessels criss-crossing the folding depths of the nebula. The vessels moved about randomly in small groups, waiting as more ships arrived.

Over a period of days, the Spemin fleet grew into a massive armada fielding hundreds of warships and transports, each equipped with a deadly array of new weapons from the Leghk Sector. They meandered slowly in the haze, forming at last into recognizable formations as the final elements of the flotilla arrived and took up their positions, all before the patient eyes of the lone Minstrel that floated undetected amidst the hulking fleet. It was time.

When once again a shock of lightning seared blindingly through the nebula, nothing remained to be seen, save the rolling interstellar clouds and the Minstrel who, having seen another drama unfold, continued its timeless journey through the emptiness between the stars.

Uhlek Badlands
Planetside, 12,117-7

Biggs was sitting at his desk in the corner of the bridge. HvHuss, Volusze and the few other Leghk guardians were resting in their quarters for the journey coreward. The black cryotubes, bearing their still-oblivious Hanhalene exiles, were secured in the cargo bay and hardwired into the power grid. Windfall herself was in good shape. Boz, Arella, Mack, and Grix were all on the bridge and ready.

“Let’s roll,” said Biggs. ISS Belfast Windfall shot up into the sky and out into space like a bat out of hell.
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Next: “Gun Fighter”

Hilsfar & Company
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