The next chapter in the continuing saga of Captain Hollie Hyena and her crew.
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On Board the Trebonious in Deep Space somewhere between Neptune and Pluto.
They had been waiting for hours, the crew was sat at their stations, no one would dare move. Hollie began to think they were not coming. Suddenly a black ship jumped out of nowhere. It was like nothing Hollie had ever seen, even to her untrained eye she could see it was bristling with weapons.
“THEY HAVE WEAPONS LOCK, ARMING WEAPONS” screamed Fermented.
“NO SKUNKY!!!” shouted Hollie, “that thing could blow us apart without breaking a sweat. Xander what is that thing?”
Xander looked at his screen and suddenly looked very worried. Hollie had the feeling if she could see his skin it would be white. “I…..I don’t know what it is Hollie. I cannot scan much of it and what I can scan… well it has weapons and systems that until now I have only read about in textbooks. I cannot be sure about it, but the only people I know who could possibly have access to a ship like that is…is…is”, Xander swallowed nervously.
“Who is it Xander?” Hollie asked softly.
“The Increment.” answered Xander. Suddenly it was as if the room had turned to ice. The Increment was well known all through the solar system, they were supposed to be a section of Earth Navy Intelligence. They dealt with black operations and covert spying missions but rumour had it, it had gone rogue. Although they were still connected to the earth government, they also sold their services to the highest bidder as spies and assassins. Why they were here and what they wanted was anyone’s guess.
A distorted voice suddenly came through the speaker “Are you Hollie Hyena of the Trebonius ?”, Hollie looked around and didn’t know what to say, the voice asked again “Are you Hollie Hyena of the Trebonius?”
Hollie swallowed and answered “Y...y...yes”.
The voice then spoke again “The package will be delivered to you shortly along with its destination, it is not to be opened or scanned in any way, is that understood?”
“It is understood” answered Hollie.
As they watched, a black one man cargo transporter (a more advanced version of the ones Hollie had in her hangar) left the other ship and approached Hollie’s ship.
Hollie reached for her intercom and spoke with the rest of the ship, “Beagle, Red, Rufus, Selas, Ty, there is a container coming aboard you are not, I repeat NOT to scan it or open it, you can check it normally but as I said, do NOT use scanners or open it, I will be down shortly.”
Arisu looked up from her screen, “I have the co-ordinates for the delivery Captain. Looks like it is in the middle of the Asteroid Belt. This one contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometer in diameter. I hope we get help when we get there or we will be looking for a needle in a haystack and we don’t know which field the haystack is in.”
“Thank you Arisu.” As Hollie sighs, “But how many times have I asked you to call me Hollie. Please work out a course and give it to Sumr. Then get us underway, Sumr I want best speed to the belt but I also want to get there in one piece, ok?”, Hollie then chuckled and started walking to the cargo bay.
Once she got there the container sat in the cargo bay, she could see Beagle sniffing over it, “Anything?” she asked.
Beagle stopped and looked at her, “Nothing I can smell.” he answered.
Hollie then looked at Ty, “what is it?” she asked.
Ty looked down and said “It looks like a Cryo pod. I haven’t seen one in years. They used to be used on the old Cryo ships for transporting people between planets before the jump drive was invented. They are only used now on the long distance exploration ships that go outside our solar system.”
Sumr’s voice suddenly came over the intercom “Course plotted we will be jumping in 10 minutes, everyone get strapped in!”
Hollie turned, “Ok guys, get the container secured, then get strapped in. We are on our way to the asteroid belt”.
Ten minutes later the ship suddenly seemed to shimmer and disappear. It suddenly reappeared 200 million miles away. The jump drive that was normally fitted to a ship like the Trebonius could jump a maximum of 150 million miles, but because the drive in the ship was taken from a larger ship, it had a much larger range. The only problem was the greater the distance of the jump, the bigger the margin of error, so it was not unheard of for ships to jump and materialize in an asteroid, station or on rare occasions other ships. But seeing as they were out in deep space they had no trouble jumping at maximum range. The problem with the drive was that that longer the jump the longer it needs to recharge. After this jump the ship had to wait for at least a day until its drive would be fully charged and they could jump again.
“Ok guys, Arisu here. While we are waiting for the drive to recharge, we are stuck here and we have about another three jumps till we reach Neptune, then we can use the gate system.”
The Gate System was put in place around planets to help ships traverse the massive distances between planets. Each gate gave a ship travelling through it a massive energy boost which enabled it to jump even longer distances. Also because the location of each gate was fixed and known there was no margin of error.
While the ship recharged the crew slept. In the cargo bay the container stood alone, but from the shadows, someone approached the container.
The next day Hollie was awoken by a hammering on the door of her quarters and a panicked voice shouting outside “HOLLIE!” *BANG BANG BANG* “HOLLIE!” *BANG BANG BANG* “HOLLIE!” *BANG BANG BANG* She then opened the door to find Selas standing there looking scared. “HOLLIE…CONTAINER…OPEN…EMPTY”.
Hollie took Selas by the shoulders and told her, “Selas calm down, breathe deep and tell me what is wrong”.
Selas, took a deep breath and then spoke again “We just went down to the cargo bay to do some repairs and general maintenance when we seen the Cryo pod is open and empty!”
Hollie’s eyes open wide “WHAAAAAAAAAT?!”, then she pushed passed Selas and ran to the cargo bay. True to what Selas said the container sat there open and empty.
“What? Who could have opened this? Who would have been curious enough AND stupid enough to open the container? After I SPECIFICALLY said for it not to be ope….” Suddenly a realisation hit Hollie. “BEAGLE!!!!!!! WHERE IS BEAGLE?? SOMEONE FIND HIM AND THROW HIM OUT OF THE NEAREST AIRLOCK!!!”
From a distant corner of the cargo bay Hollie heard a faint “baroooo” and the scamper of feet.
“Ok, this is what we are going to do! I want everyone to drop what they are doing and find whatever was in this container! Xander, I want you to scan every inch of this ship using the ship’s senses and your cybernetics. Also, use the recon spiders to scour the conduits.” Hollie then looked around at her crew standing there looking worried and anxious , “What is it?” she asked.
Red and Rufus gave each other a worried look and asked nervously “You don’t want us to REALLY throw Beagle out of an airlock, do you?”
“No, of course not.” Hollie answered, “Just find him and get him to help you find whatever was in that container”.
Hollie then stood and thought, “I hope whatever was in that container was not dangerous”.