Free Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit by Ryan Krauter Page B
Authors: Ryan Krauter
would be enough just to see her again.
Web's station during docking maneuvers
was in the cargo control center amidships, where his crucial task was to stare
at the monitors which showed the status of the clamps that held the cargo pods
to the hull. It was a waste, though, because anyone with a little systems
knowledge also knew that the clamps on the ship's side wanted to stay closed,
and had to be held open hydraulically to remove a pod. They also failed to the
closed position, so Web essentially had nothing to do. He managed to open up a
portal into the security system and observe the gangway feeds, watching Halley
enter the ship.
He had given her some grief before they'd
left, complaining good-naturedly that while he was sharing a bunk as a cargo
loadmaster, she had earned a private stateroom as a hyperdrive engineer, a
cover she'd also used when they'd first met aboard the wrecked Confederation
survey ship Dyson a couple years earlier.
If she followed their plan, she'd be in a
particular restaurant on the immense orbital cargo station in a couple hours,
after the Solar Venturer had offloaded her own cargo pods. Before they could take
on their new cargo, the ship had to be fueled, inspected, provisioned, and the
incoming pods had to pass through one last security and bio scan. That gave
Web just enough time to meet her at their restaurant and catch up before the
next leg, which took them another three days closer to Callidor. After that
was Callidor itself, and their mission would finally get started.
Avenger entered the Reshing system on
schedule and was escorted to an orbit above the capital planet by one of the
small empire's cruisers. A brief diplomatic dinner for Captain Elco followed,
during which he did as ordered and presented an overview of the Priman
invasion; their tactics, weapons, and a timeline of events. The briefing was
fairly grim, considering the Confederation hadn't been able to stop them and
after losing a healthy chunk of its own worlds had entered into what Elco
considered to be an unholy nonaggression treaty at the urging of Senator
Dennix. Afterwards, he was able to convince the locals to allow shore leave
for small parties from the ship, which was really the whole point of the
exercise.
"Everyone ready for fun and
games?" asked Merritt good-naturedly as he, Cory and Loren were finishing
up the final prep on a Freedom class transport.
"You know, Merritt," Loren
began, "I think your idea of fun and games and my idea might differ
greatly."
"I like long walks on the beach and
romantic dinners," the younger pilot replied as he nudged Cory's hip with
his own. "You like blowing up Primans. I'm sure we can find a way to
accommodate both."
Loren just smiled, then hit the hatch
release to close up the small ship. Cory was already up front spooling up the
engines, and as soon as she saw Loren and Merritt were bucked in, she gently
raised the ship on its repulsor field and nudged it into the empty catapult
spot ahead of them. The generations-old script of launching a fighter from a
mother ship was repeated once again, and seconds later the transport was out in
space, angling away from Avenger as Cory yanked up the gear and headed towards
their inbound waypoint. The surface of the planet Reshing awaited them.
Half an hour later, the trio was walking
the streets of one of the larger cities on a southern continent that was just a
continuous chain of mountain ranges. There were steppes and the occasional
valley, but there wasn't a flat piece of land to be found larger than the
landing pads carved out of the outlying areas around the cities.
It was an old culture on Reshing, and it
had buildings that predated the Confederation by centuries. Loren could have
spent days just studying the architecture of the single city they'd come to
investigate, but the small matter of trying to save the Confederation had to
come first.
The three of them wore
Web's station during docking maneuvers
was in the cargo control center amidships, where his crucial task was to stare
at the monitors which showed the status of the clamps that held the cargo pods
to the hull. It was a waste, though, because anyone with a little systems
knowledge also knew that the clamps on the ship's side wanted to stay closed,
and had to be held open hydraulically to remove a pod. They also failed to the
closed position, so Web essentially had nothing to do. He managed to open up a
portal into the security system and observe the gangway feeds, watching Halley
enter the ship.
He had given her some grief before they'd
left, complaining good-naturedly that while he was sharing a bunk as a cargo
loadmaster, she had earned a private stateroom as a hyperdrive engineer, a
cover she'd also used when they'd first met aboard the wrecked Confederation
survey ship Dyson a couple years earlier.
If she followed their plan, she'd be in a
particular restaurant on the immense orbital cargo station in a couple hours,
after the Solar Venturer had offloaded her own cargo pods. Before they could take
on their new cargo, the ship had to be fueled, inspected, provisioned, and the
incoming pods had to pass through one last security and bio scan. That gave
Web just enough time to meet her at their restaurant and catch up before the
next leg, which took them another three days closer to Callidor. After that
was Callidor itself, and their mission would finally get started.
Avenger entered the Reshing system on
schedule and was escorted to an orbit above the capital planet by one of the
small empire's cruisers. A brief diplomatic dinner for Captain Elco followed,
during which he did as ordered and presented an overview of the Priman
invasion; their tactics, weapons, and a timeline of events. The briefing was
fairly grim, considering the Confederation hadn't been able to stop them and
after losing a healthy chunk of its own worlds had entered into what Elco
considered to be an unholy nonaggression treaty at the urging of Senator
Dennix. Afterwards, he was able to convince the locals to allow shore leave
for small parties from the ship, which was really the whole point of the
exercise.
"Everyone ready for fun and
games?" asked Merritt good-naturedly as he, Cory and Loren were finishing
up the final prep on a Freedom class transport.
"You know, Merritt," Loren
began, "I think your idea of fun and games and my idea might differ
greatly."
"I like long walks on the beach and
romantic dinners," the younger pilot replied as he nudged Cory's hip with
his own. "You like blowing up Primans. I'm sure we can find a way to
accommodate both."
Loren just smiled, then hit the hatch
release to close up the small ship. Cory was already up front spooling up the
engines, and as soon as she saw Loren and Merritt were bucked in, she gently
raised the ship on its repulsor field and nudged it into the empty catapult
spot ahead of them. The generations-old script of launching a fighter from a
mother ship was repeated once again, and seconds later the transport was out in
space, angling away from Avenger as Cory yanked up the gear and headed towards
their inbound waypoint. The surface of the planet Reshing awaited them.
Half an hour later, the trio was walking
the streets of one of the larger cities on a southern continent that was just a
continuous chain of mountain ranges. There were steppes and the occasional
valley, but there wasn't a flat piece of land to be found larger than the
landing pads carved out of the outlying areas around the cities.
It was an old culture on Reshing, and it
had buildings that predated the Confederation by centuries. Loren could have
spent days just studying the architecture of the single city they'd come to
investigate, but the small matter of trying to save the Confederation had to
come first.
The three of them wore