Page 13 of Argen Mate
Chapter Seven
Argen
Dreadnaught Five had gone on ahead to recon Nadoo before we arrived. On their way, they stumbled on to the ship we needed for the mission. I was a little disappointed, to say the least. The ship they found for me to pilot was a junk pile compared to theKurellis. It was a Pican slave ship called theRedid Rauner.Not only was it a poorly maintained ship, but it also smelled terrible. Zoe said it stunk just like the slave ship that took her and her friends from Earth.
It was fortunate that they found me when they did because all their extra pilots had gone to theKurellis.I agreedwith everyone else thatRedid Raunerwas a piece of refuse, but that made it a challenge to fly. I didn’t really mind.
When Dread Five snagged theRedid Rauner,we got more than just a ship. It was carrying two thousand slaves and making delivery of them to various worlds. When theRaunerlocked into orbit at Nadoo, I shuttled over with Commander Maktu’s team, and we forced our way in when they opened their landing bay to shuttle slaves down to the planet.
In the face of armed raiders in full combat armor, the Pican’s surrendered. While looking for a place to secure the slavers, Commander Maktu’s team discovered the two thousand slaves already on the vessel, and some of them were Uatu. With the ship secure, Admiral Degatu sent over two guards and Zoe’s team to register the captives on theRauner.I requested that he send an engineering team to evaluate the air filteringsystem to do something about the unpleasant odor that permeated the ship.
The rest of the pilot team came over with the engineers. The Picans were then loaded on that shuttle and sent down to the planet. They would be marooned there, but unharmed.
For the next few days, the pilot team just had to maintain an orbit around Nadoo while the shuttles brought up the rescues. Most of the captives on theRaunerwhen we seized it were females. One of Maktu’s combat team even discovered his solmatu. A few found friends and family.
While I monitored the AI autopilot, Remar Gedlatu perused the navigational records. We both felt sure they must have some data on the coordinates for Earth because the Picans had apparently been stealing people from there for some time.
“I found it!” Gedlatu shouted. “This has got to be Earth. Fuck! I can hardly believe they took this piece of space junk way the hell into the seventh quadrant!”
“Are you sure?” I asked him, and it took me a moment to realize I hoped he was wrong.
“I’m pretty sure. It’s on the far side of the Sargus Empire.”
“That’s where the Narovian thought it was.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone until we talk to command. Just because we know where it is, it doesn’t mean we can get there.” I said. “I wouldn’t want to get Zoey’s hopes up.”
We got the slaves evacuated from Nadoo, okay, but Sargan battlecruisers were waiting for us at the rendezvous point where we were meetingKurellisas it was returning from Farseek. I tried to evade them as they fired on us, but theRaunerwas sluggish. She hesitated at engaging the secondary drive and moved off too slowly to avoid getting hit. The shields were a joke, and that blast blew out our stardrive. So, we had to abandon ship and transfer to theKurellis.We didn’t have parts or funds to fix theRauner.
Before we left, we did a memory dump from the AI intoKurellis. They had records of all of the slaves they had collected from various worlds and where they were delivered. That included the many people taken from Farseek. They also had detailed star maps of the seventh quadrant where Earth and Narova were located.
I was disappointed I’d lost my ship already. Engineering had got the air handlers fixed, and the captives had pitched in to help clean things up. It might have shaped up to be a good backup transport. But there was nothing I could do against Sargan battlecruisers.Raunerwas not fast enough to run from a battlecruiser nor did it have weapons enough to defend itself against one. We were fortunate theKurellisarrived in time for us to evacuate before life support failed.
Four of our Dreadnaughts held off the battlecruisers while we docked withKurellisand evacuated theRauner.Our ships took a beating, but the damage was not severe enough to keep them from blinking out once the transfer from the Pican vessel was completed. The Dreads blinked out as soon as theKurellisdid.
Because of the massive damage to Dread One, we didn’t get to transfer back to it at the rendezvous as planned. The Dreads went off to make repairs on their own while we headed to our next target.
A few days later, we had third meal with Commander Maktu, Pyrr Avantu, Sahvin Kazza and their mates from Earth. Maktu chose to reveal that we had discovered the coordinates to Earth on the Pican ship.
Commander Maktu explained that he was reluctant to tell them because we were afraid they would all want to go back. They didn’t. They really only wanted to let their families know they were alive and well.
“Are you disappointed that we can’t get you back to Earth?” I asked Zoe as we left the meeting with Commander Maktu.
“I wanted to go back to Earth after we were taken and spent months on that horrible slave ship,” Zoey told me. “But that was over two years ago. I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”
“Now that we have spatial coordinates that we recognize, perhaps we can make contact with the Alliance and get news of Earth, as Sahvin suggested.”
“That’s what we are all hoping, I think,” she said. “We’ve all made new lives for ourselves with your people.”
“I am a pilot,” I told her as we headed back to our quarters. “Perhaps, we could go there one day. I’m not half bad at navigation either.”
“Yes, but there’s the part where we’d have to cross the entire Sargus Empire to get there.”
“And they really don’t like us, I know,” he said.
“If I have a choice to never go back to Earth or become a slave in the Sargus Empire, I don’t need to attempt it,” she said. “I’m just hoping we can find a way to communicate with Earth.”
“I think it will be possible with Sahvin’s help,” I said.
