It is June and it is time for the first part of chapter 7. Since the summer is here, the readers should not expect any new releases until August (in best case I may post one more chapter this summer). The chapters have well over 40000 words in them, so there is enough to read.
If anyone has stylistic suggestions for me to improve my writing/storytelling skills, they may feel free to tell me about it
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Links to other chapters:
Chapter 6: Anger of the Giants
Chapter 5: Awakening of the storm
Chapter 4: Trade run to Hell
Chapter 3: Old connections
Chapter 2: Means for revenge
Chapter 1: First kill
You may find also find this story at:
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Synopsis of what has happened so far:
In 757, Erich Campbell, a AF cyberborg, is abandoned along the thousands of settlers on a jungle world that is surrounded by Xenon forces. He is forced to kill his deranged captain (loyalty feelings to the corporal that orders the murder are, unknown to Erich, induced by his implants). For couple of months he hides along with his unit and large group of settlers in the jungle. A Xenon PCPU class ship, A88.0087 discovers the presence of humans on the planet’s surface and initiates their destruction. Only Erich and his friend Buck manages to escape from the planet, only to have their ship destroyed when it enters the Montalaar system. Buck and Erich survives but are separated in the nebula surrounding the gate.
Almost dead from lack of oxygen, Erich is picked up by a Boron ship and brought to a Boron hospital station. When Erich awakes from the coma, he discovers that any survivor that has escaped the planet is targeted by unknown forces. Disillusioned by AF, Erich instead of returning to AF service, decides to start a new life.
Seven years later, Erich now working as an assassin is hired by a young man wanting to revenge his father’s death. The target is Max Rudel, a powerful and rich owner of NSM, a mining company that have managed the last seven years to break PTNI’s monopoly on Nividum trade. When Erich kills Max Rudel, he sets in motion a series of events that forces Erich to flee the Argon space.
He does not know who his adversaries are – there are few hints and they point to the planet he had escaped many years ago. Erich and his few friend have limited resources while their adversaries seem to have unlimited money and even have the power to make Argon Navy’s intelligence officer Jane Freedman hunt for Erich and his friends.
Erich will get allies in most unlikely places, but the odds are dangerously stacked against him.
In the system, on the other end of the Known Universe, events are forcing Xenon A88.0087 to have an upgrade that is not authorized by Xenon Central Network.
The citizens living in the Known Universe are oblivious to the plight of our heroes. Soon they will be threatened by a previously unknown enemy.
Seemingly, those three stories have nothing in common…
Chapter 7: Among the rogues
The tiny pirate station, Carrick’s Lair, consisted only of four decks. It was inevitable that Tikri Fr’ht would meet Otto and Erich some tazura. Large Split had eyed the Erich first. He noticed that the Argon man and his friend were wearing cowls with masks that covered their faces. That by itself was not unusual on the Carrick’s Lair station; many pirates were masked to avoid identification by police agents. Tikri himself was always wearing a Whi warrior helmet, which served two purposes: to protect him in fights and to keep his true identity hidden. On Carrick’s Lair pirate station, everybody knew Tikri under his pseudonym The Mailed Fist.
Tikri was particularly bloodthirsty and brutal Split that was easily angered even by standards of his own race. That had cost him the position of the quartermaster aboard a family Zein’s destroyer, after he killed a particularly arrogant member of the family he served. He was forced to flee the Split space, eventually finding his place among the pirates on the station. Since then, Tikri’s temperament had calmed somewhat, but still the rage would swell in him sometimes, like a volcano, clouding his judgment and setting him on the search for blood. And he knew how best to calm it.
Tikri would pick a victim, preferably a newcomer with no allies aboard the station, and using his ironclad fist would turn the victim into a mass of blood and broken bones.
Winning all his fights had led to a small group of fans following him whenever he entered the station’s bar. They would listen to his boasting, paying the drinks and food for him. They provided him also with a psychological weapon – his victims sometimes felt like they had entire station against them.
Now, after many mazuras of rest, he felt his rage boiling inside him again. When Erich entered the bar, Tikri thought that he had finally found one. The conversations in the bar stopped, everybody waiting to see what would happen next. One Teladi was already organizing the first bets. The Mailed Fist was a favorite.
“Trouble at nine o’clock,” Otto warned Erich when they found their seats. His eyes were on the approaching Split and the small crowd that cheered him on.
“I know, I have been observed by him for some time,” Erich said calmly. This was not the first time the cyberborg had been in a fight which he have not provoked. Forced for seven yazura to hide on the pirate bases, he learned quickly that the criminals defined themselves with violence. Erich knew what was about to happen.
Tikri began walking towards Otto and Erich. Small crowd followed him, cheering him on. He put his left hand on Erich chest and said with a menacing voice, “The filthy creature has entered the Mailed Fists domain uninvited. A tax in blood must be paid. Which part of the body do you want to loose?”
Otto had just started to reach for his TG-15 small laspistol when the Split screamed. Faster than Otto could follow, Erich had grabbed the Split’s left hand and crashed it between his reinforced fingers. At same time, using his left fist, he punched the Split in the chest causing his opponent to fly backwards few meters, landing on a table, crushing it. The crowd seeing their champion beaten in a tenth of sezura, quickly dissipated, fearing that the victor would turn in them.
The Split was laying on the floor, coughing up blood and from the whizzing sound of Split’s breathing, Otto concluded that Erich’s blow had been so powerful that it had broken Split’s ribs and caused them to punctuate one of his four lungs. Within mizuras, several angry voices could be heard. Erich and Otto, thinking that they were about to enter one more fight, looked around, searching for the assailants.
Spotting a Teladi surrounded by two Paranids, they understood that they could relax. The Teladi, who was organizing the bets few moments ago, was threatened by two Paranids that had placed their bets on Erich. The Teladi could not pay his debts and Paranids did not believe his claims that he had left his credits on his ship. One of the Paranids grabbed the Teladi, pinning him down. Flash of the blade could be seen and Teladi screamed. Once again, the blood was spilled in the bar. Nobody seemed to care.
Ha’nt Wyrta looked with awe on Erich. First he had thanked his ancestors that he had met Otto again, the man that had humiliated him on the Trade Station in Ore Belt sector. He was preparing his speech that would make this fight memorable when he saw the Mailed Fist approaching Erich. Ha’nt assumed that Erich would be quickly dealt with and his only fear was that the Mailed Fist would kill Otto too, before Ha’nt got his revenge.
Then with, what to Ha’nt looked like a blur of movements, Erich defeated the Mailed Fist. The Split that had attacked Erich was now trying to crawl out of the bar.
Ha’nt decided to wait for revenge. He considered himself a great warrior despite what his family thought. Nevertheless, even he understood that Erich was too powerful to be defeated by him.
Ha’nt decided to wait for Otto to be alone before he acted. He would have his revenge.
“An infantry commander, an admiral, a dead captain and a cyberborg that killed him – how are they all linked?” Suad Khan asked himself loudly. Realizing what he had just done, he quickly looked around to see if anybody had heard him. Luckily, hospital’s computer room was empty and Suad could relax. He massaged his temples, criticizing himself, this time in his thoughts, for such slip. I must relax, Suad thought. He had worked too long without sleep. His self-control was slipping.
Suad focused again at the hologram, looking at the list of the facts he had gathered. After each entry there was a note explaining where the information was found. Most of it was from the news agencies’ archives. Suad’s eyes were hurting after so much reading.
After almost half tazura of work, the only thing he had managed to dig out of Boris Gellar and Max Rudel’s background, was that Mr. Rudel had served as commander of infantry contingent aboard General Donahue, the flagship of then Admiral Boris Gellar.
After Gellar’s retirement from the Navy and his ultra-short, not to mention strange, career as asteroid prospector, Boris Gellar become extremely rich man, in fact so rich that he was ranked among the 1000 wealthiest in Argon space. He apparently had found unusually high-yield Nividum asteroids. Then he sold the rights to for huge amount of money to NSM, which at that time had been just inherited by Max Rudel. At that time, as Suad Khan found trough news articles, many people were asking themselves how NSM, who was economically troubled in these times, could pay such large amount of credits to Boris Gellar. Argon Economical Police investigated NSM for couple of wozuras, but then the investigation was discontinued.
Information about Binyamin Halevy was even more scarce. Deep space trained, after two jazuras of service in Special Forces, he was transferred to regular infantry contingent under the command of Max Rudel. Aboard the carrier that Boris Gellar commanded…
Obviously, there is something strange going on, Suad thought. The answer to what was in the past, perhaps linked to something that happened aboard the carrier at that time, before or during Argon Pride Tragedy.
There were limits to how much a man can find out trough the public sources, Suad Khan realized. If he was to find out more about the conspiracy, he had to turn to his sources in the Navy Intelligence. It would be risky, but Suad Khan’s other options were exhausted.
At least I am no longer monitored, Suad Khan noted, looking at his PDA showing the feed from surveillance cameras.
Tira the Teladi, as Tirculkiumsatin 9th was known on Carrick’s Lair station, observed her newest two customers. They had found their seats, with their backs to the wall with clear view to the entrance. Tira the Teladi had arrangement with Carrick, last in the string of the pirate lords that ruled the station, which allowed her to conduct her business in peace in exchange for her to listen to the talk in the bar, forwarding to Carrick any interesting information.
When The Mailed Fist had started making trouble with them, one of them had, using only one punch, defeated the large Split. Tira the Teladi did not know much about human anatomy, but she knew enough about it to understand that Argon’s, even two of them, should not have any chance in a bar fight against a Split. She understood that there was something unusual about these two Argons, something that could be interesting to Carrick too, so she decided to find out more about them.
She waved to one of her waitresses to take over and let her serve the drinks to the two strangers. She considered to slip in two truth drug tablets in the drinks but then decided against it. One of the men, oddly enough for a spacefarer, had ordered a glass of cold water. Tira the Teladi feared that the drug taste could be detected in water, without alcohol to cover its taste.
"You guys planning on staying on station long?" asked Tira the Teladi, serving them their drinks.
Instead of answering, one of them gave her a credit chip.
“Salvagers, huh? Or maybe not salvaging but smuggling?” she winked knowingly, deducting the right amount using her handheld chip scanner. Two men glared back at her, but said nothing. It was clear that they were not talkative types and that Tira’s questions were not welcome.
Now Tira the Teladi was really interested in who the two men were but she was afraid to ask more. They certainly seemed more professional than the ordinary pirates did at that age, who loved to boast about their achievements to anyone who cared to listen. Perhaps they were indeed smugglers. That seemed probable, the way the two men behaved. If that was what the two men were, that meant competition for Tira the Teladi’s bosses. She decided to contact her friends who had access to the police records. If the two men had trouble with the law before, certainly it had been taken mug shots of them two. She only needed to send her “friends” pictures of two men’s faces. But first, Tira the Teladi would have to wait for the opportunity when one of them removed their cowls. She had the necessary patience for the task. The profit always comes to those who await it patiently, as the old Teladi saying said…
Olav Lie waited patiently for his boss to stop eating. Boris Gellar considered his meals a holy affair and nobody, not even Victoria, his secretary, dared to disturb him during his meals. Several delicacies were on the table, all of them served on expensive nividumware, in portions that were large enough for two men. Boris appeared intend to eat them all.
After some time had passed, Boris Gellar, making a break in his meal, lifted his head slowly and gave his security chief signal that he could speak.
“I have bad news regarding Navy’s Intelligence search for Erich Campbell and Binyamin Halevy.”
“What now?” Boris asked, slightly irritated. His fears of being assassinated had abated last wozura, but he knew that he could sleep peacefully at nights only when Erich Campbell and Binyamin Halevy died.
“Jane Freedman, the Navy’s agent that is searching for the two assassins, has not been able to localize the two men and perhaps never will. We have also reasons to believe that she suspects that she is under our surveillance,” Mr. Lie gave his report in his typical style, without any hint of emotions in his voice and with a face that revealed nothing.
“Let her believe whatever she wants. Senator McCarthy has made sure that she will stay away from us. Was there anything more?”
“Yes, Sir. I have a suggestion to you regarding the bounty you and Senator McCarthy have put on the heads of the assassins. Two men may not be longer traveling together. All sightings we had of the two men were of Erich who appeared to travel alone. If we kill one of them, the only effect we will achieve is to have the other hide even better. If we on the other hand, capture one of them alive, we might be able to extract the information about the whereabouts of the other assassin. Even if they don’t travel together anymore, it is highly likely that they know where to find each other or at least how to contact each other.”
“I have never thought about it like that,” Boris admitted. To Mr. Lie, that was a clear indication how much Boris Gellar feared the two assassins. Boris Gellar was usually the man that stubbornly held on his beliefs just because they were his, no matter how wrong they were
“So what can we do about it?” Boris asked his security chief, taking a sip from the glass of New Californian Wine.
“We can remove the bounties from the BBS and instead contact personally the information brokers in the pirate stations, promising them huge rewards if they obtained information about the assassins’ current localization. We must also stress the fact that the two men in no way are to be harmed before arrival of our forces.”
“How large reward should we promise and how many information brokers should we contact?” Boris asked.
“50.000 Credits should be enough to tempt any information broker. It will also be enough for them to spend on the message drones, making sure that the information we receive would not be old. We should contact any information broker we can. I also suggest that we have a jump capable TL ready with a contingent of fighters and assault troops onboard”
“But is it wise to use information brokers in this matter? Wouldn’t everybody then know that we are after Erich Campbell and Binyamin Halevy?” It was an established fact that dealings with information brokers were a double-edged sword. If information about a rival was bought, the buyer always ran a significant risk that the information broker would sell to the rival information about who had been buying information about that rival. Boris’ fears were that someone would dig in his past and discover certain secrets he had kept hidden for so many years.
“That information is already out. It had been ever since the original bounties were posted,” Mr. Lie pointed out to his boss. Boris Gellar was silent, staring at his chief of security. Although his face did not reveal it, Mr. Lie knew that his boss did not like it when someone of his employees proved smarter then him. Where other men would welcome and encourage such employee, Boris’ inferiority complex made him, nearly always, fire such individuals. Usually it meant a permanent termination of the individual in question…
This time, however, Boris decided that he needed his chief of security too much and instead he approved Mr. Lie’s plan, signaling at same time that Mr. Lie’s presence was no longer needed and therefore no longer desired. When Mr. Lie left, Boris continued to indulge himself in Ringo Moon’s strawberry pie.
The pirate station’s living section was even more shabbier than its public section. The walls, having long lost their metallic color, were rusted. Most of the lights were out and all screens were offline, making the corridors dark. The garbage littered the floor so that Erich and Otto had to watch their every step in order to avoid stepping on anything that was sharp enough to punctuate their boots. The smell, a mix of urine and rotten meat, was strong and almost making Otto vomit. Erich had wisely ordered his chemical receptor in his nose to shut down. Every now and then, a body covered by garbage could be seen. Erich’s IR-vision mode told him that they were still alive. He wondered why they have not tried to find more decent place to sleep. Drug addicts, he concluded.
After few mizuras of search, they found what they were looking for, a vacant room, near several exits from the level, with a door that was still functional. Carrick’s Lair station had no rental service for the living quarters. Everyone who was strong enough to lay claim to a room and defend it against intruders, was de facto owner of the room. The pirate clan owning the station did not bother with this level at all.
Otto’s assessment of the station was, as he blatantly put it, “a catastrophic decompression waiting to happen”.
“Ok, it is time for me to go,” Otto said to Erich looking around in the room. The walls inside seemed even more rusted than outside and air was damp. He tested the walls by pressing the nearby wall gently with his finger, almost expecting it to crumble. The wall held but Otto could see that it had left the foul smelling stain on his finger, making him regret touching it in the first place.
“I’ll be seeing you in three tazuras time?” Erich asked, looking for a dry spot on the floor to put his sleeping bag on.
“Yeah, I don’t expect to be detained more than that. It will get me also the chance to make contact to Suad, to find out what he has managed to dig out”
“We should arrange meeting point if I have to make myself scarce from here”
“I’ll hope it will never get to that. Without piloting skills you’ll not get much further than the docks,” Otto pointed out to his friend who had never acquired any piloting skills in his life.
“Still, let us make alternative rendezvous point if things get hot here,” Erich insisted. In his shady career, he quickly learned that plans were lists of things that probably never happened. Man without alternatives was the man that tempted the Great Reaper.
“Ok, let us say Rolk’s Drift Trading Station Bravo. If you are not there I’ll assume you have hired someone to take you to Seizewell Trading Station and will look for you there.”
After two men had agreed on the code words, they parted with each other. Otto went straight to the docks while Erich remained behind. He could not leave the room until he had installed some security on the door, so his stuff would be safe. Eric immediately began to work on it.
Reaching the docks, Otto spotted the Split that had attacked them in the bar. He had managed to crawl all the way to the docks. People that had cheered him on in the bar had left him to fend for himself. Otto could see that several Teladi and Argon were advancing on the Split. Probably after his credits, Otto thought. Nothing to die from if the Split decided to be smart and didn’t resist them. He climbed aboard his Harrier. Otto could still see through the cockpit glass the Split looking nervously at the gang. Not giving any more attention to the Split’s fate, Otto started his preflight check. He was halfway trough, when a scream, loud enough to be heard trough cockpit glass, interrupted him. Otto looked again at the Split and the gang, thinking that the Split had been stupid enough to resist them. The scene he saw sent shivers trough his spine. The gang he thought were ordinary thieves had more sinister plan. They were organ dealers, the most feared criminals in the Known Space. One Argon was holding a bloody scalpel that he probably had used to split the Split’s stomach open, while other two Teladi were using their own instruments to remove their victim’s internal organs, putting them in cooling bags. The Split was still alive with his eyes wide open staring at his open stomach, his arms shaking in shock.
Otto despite feeling sorry for the Split, decided that .there was nothing he could do. The gang would probably kill him if he tried to interfere. Beside, judging from the huge and increasing pool of blood around the Split, he would probably die even if Otto had managed to get him to a hospital within two mizuras. Otto continued his undocking procedure, having bad taste in his mouth.
Two floors above, Erich was making a makeshift security system for his newly acquired room. Sliding door’s automatic mechanism had died long time ago and the door had to be pushed open using a metal handle. Erich wrapped the handle with several layers of S-tape. Then he sprayed it with female Shandar spider’s poison. Shandar spider was native to the Split homeworld and renowned for their poison. Split’s legends told that while Split males were offspring of great warrior god Twe’kt, the female Shandar spider was the ancestor to all Split females. Despite its name, the Shandar spider was not at all related to spiders from the Goner stories. Females had four legs with two fangs as large as the rest of the body. Its fangs were not for the killing of the pray or the tearing of the flesh. Female Shandar spider used them to spray its victim with its poison, immobilizing the pray, which then was devoured alive. The poison also emitted pheromones which male Shandar spider found irresistible. After female Shandar spider sprayed it on the male spider, the mating commenced that always ended in paralyzed male being consumed. The quality of the poison was such that it could immobilize even creatures weighting several tons.
If anyone touched the handle without gloves, they would be paralyzed for several stazuras. As added security, Erich installed a shape charge explosive on the door, with most of the explosive force directed to the door, which was set to explode if door was opened halfway.
Satisfied with his work, Erich left in search for something to eat. Few mizuras later, he found a place that served decent meals for fair price. After ordering something that reminded him of Argon food, he was forced to remove his mask in order to eat. He did not think it was great risk – news from Argon Prime were slow to arrive here. Erich hoped that it was true with bounty postings too…
Using a button-sized camera, Tira the Teladi, took several pictures of the Argon man. She had guessed correctly that he would be forced to remove his mask in order to eat. His companion had left the station according to her sources, leaving the Argon man’s room unguarded. She had paid a junkie 30 Credits to break into the man’s room and see if anything interesting was there. Pictures would be enough to identify the man, so Tira the Teladi did not waste time sending the pictures to her connections using her PDA. She returned to her bar, awaiting the junkie and his report. Provided the fool manages to find the door, Tira the Teladi disdainfully thought.
Senator McCarthy smilingly looked at the crowd, satisfied with his life. All his goals had been accomplished. Beside him stood his pride, his daughter, also a well-accomplished politician. Both father and daughter were waving to the cheering sea of people, all dressed in blue and green, the color of Argon’s Progress Party. The media people fought small fistfights on order to get as close as possible to the winner of APP’s presidential nomination election. Many considered Senator McCarthy to be also a sure winner of forthcoming presidential election as well.
Father and daughter’s eyes met and both smiled. She had been his campaign manager, ensuring his victories in sector after sector thanks to her skills. Boris Gellar and Max Rudel’s money had helped too, of course. McCarthy could not have made it without them. His budget dwarfed those of his opponents, giving him most media exposure in Argon Prime’s history.
The loss of Max Rudel had been unexpected, but it could be profited from, McCarthy thought. NSM was in safe hands once again. Once the presidential campaign is over, things will change…
His contemplations about the future were interrupted by an aid signaling that McCarthy had a call waiting. McCarthy acknowledged it with the nod and signaled with his hands, “in five mizuras”. First, he had to answer few questions from the media. Most of the journalists present were on his payroll so he knew the questions in advance. The interviews were quickly done with and as promised, after few mizuras McCarthy answered the phone.
The passionless and cold voice of Olav Lie, Boris’ security chief, greeted him on the other end. Two men had known each other for years and had mutual respect for each other.
“Congratulation on your victory, Sir”
“Thank you Mr. Lie. How is your boss?”
“He is fine, Mr. McCarthy. Enjoying his meals as ever…I have managed to exchange the papers without him knowing it”
Excellent, McCarthy thought. After Boris Gellar dies, his majority ownership in NSM would be transferred to a charity organization. The charity organization whose presidency his daughter, at right moment, will take over…
“Are there any news about the fugitives?” he asked Olav Lie.
“Not yet, Mr. McCarthy. However, I am expecting to have them in one wozura’s time. Their options are running out,” Olav answered and then explaining the details of how he planed to capture two men.
“Brilliant. And Mr. Lie?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“When we have those two men in our hands, it is not necessary for Mr. Gellar to know that. You understand?”
“Perfectly, Sir”
“Keep the good work up and I make you security adviser for entire Argon space next yazura. Report to me next wozura, same time”
“Thank you, Sir. I will take contact next week. Olav Lie over and out.”
I have much to be grateful for, McCarthy thought. Boris Gellar could be easily manipulated with help of Olav Lie, but Max Rudel was in an entirely different league. The murder of Max Rudel came at the right moment, McCarthy concluded. It finally allowed McCarthy to set in motion his plans.
“What do we have here?” Otto asked the scanner that was showing a hologram representation of the space around “Salvager’s Luck”. The small symbols represented the ships’ types and status. One Split Jaguar recon ship was particularly interesting to Otto. It had followed him on the edge of his scanner’s range, matching the speed and direction of Otto’s slower Harrier.
Otto’s ship was heavily modified equipped with sniffers and sensors that were prohibited to civilians in entire Known Universe. One particular modification was the towed scan probe. Such devices were usually only used by deep space navy fleets that towed them behind their recon patrols.
Pirates used them before attacking the convoys passing trough free sectors. One light fighter would position itself well ahead of the convoy and outside the escorting ships’ scanners. Once in position it would deploy such probe and slowly it would extend the line until the convoy was visible on the pirate’s scanner. Unlike military versions, pirate versions were advanced passive scanners detecting the emissions from convoys own ships’ scanner sweeps, while at same time remaining undetected. This allowed pirate clans to observe in peace convoy’s weaknesses and strengths without having to risk hardware and manpower on probe attacks.
If Otto ever got caught with such probe, he would under Anti-Piracy Act be convicted to at least 10 jazuras in prison. Therefore, Otto took certain precautions. The probe itself, technically, resembled a long-range asteroid scanner. What Otto had done to original asteroid scanner was to exchange its non-programmable electronics with programmable electronics that turned the asteroid scanner to a passive scanner within a mizura.
Otto launched the probe and extended the line to eight kilometers, enough to read the Split ship’s required ID-emissions. Every ship that did not send out its ID was branded hostile by entire sector and risked attack by police forces. Routinely Otto checked the ID he had picked up with the IDs of the ships that were docked with Carrick’s Lair Station at same time he had been there. Those IDs were usually fake ones, since nobody wanted to risk their ships to be registered as pirate ships by police agents that operated on pirate stations. To Otto’s surprise, this time he found a match. He shook his head in disbelief.
Probably a coincidence that the pilot of the Jaguar takes same way as I do, Otto thought. If he is spy then he is certainly an amateur.
Not wanting to take chances, Otto turned his ship to nearest gate, the North Gate leading to Power Circle sector, entire time watching the behavior of the Split Jaguar. Once again, the Jaguar matched his speed and direction.
Ten mizuras later, Otto entered the gate at max speed. After the bluish tunnel marking the passage between gates disappeared, Otto quickly positioned his ship just above the South Gate he arrived trough. Then he waited, observing the ships that arrived trough the gate. After ten more mizuras, the familiar Split Jaguar arrived. Wasting no time, Otto entered the gate again and the next sezura he was back in Herron’s Nebula system.
Otto counted on that the typical dizziness that followed the passage between gates, will keep the other pilot distracted long enough to allow Otto to enter the gate without notice. When Jaguar’s pilot refocused on his scanner again, not seeing Salvager’s Luck, he would assume, Otto hoped, that Otto had docked with a station. Speeding away from the North Gate towards the nebula that gave the name to the system, Otto deployed the probe again, extending the line to the maximum. With his ship in the nebula, his scanners were blind and his ship was hidden from other scanners. With the probe being just outside the nebula, Otto could see whether the Jaguar had taken the bait. After half stazura of waiting, satisfied that the Jaguar did not appear on his scanner, Otto sat course towards the so-called Space Fuel Factory.
Perhaps this maneuver was entirely pointless, Otto considered. The Jaguar may not have been following him at all. Then again, only fools take chances in space.
