The Winds of the Wind approached its exit point, a part of the Sol system near New Jerusalem rich in the entangled atoms necessary for window creation. The window generators in the tips of the Wind’s farthest extremities blazed into life and cut a hole through space itself, creating a bridge into a star system 100s of light years away. Jonathan ordered the ship into stealth mode and then through the window which closed behind it. In front of the ship in the alien galaxy was a dead planet, one that possessed little enough resources that even a technologically advanced coloniser would find little worth in it. It was on the very edge of the system and portalling on the dark side of it would mask the window they created from detection. There would be no nasty surprises this time. The ship moved to the edge of the planet where its long-range sensors would be able to scan the rest of the system without detection. They knew there would be something here, as this was the destination for the parts on board the pirated freighter. Commander Song hovered behind one of the sensor officers, scanning the data as it came in, “What is that there?” she pointed at an anomaly as it came up on the screen. The sensor officer had already noticed it, but he was a patient man and did not take offense at her subsummation of his role, “It’s a structure of some kind, reasonably large. It looks like its planet bound.” He meant that rather than being a floating station in space, the structure had been constructed on a planet, but was large enough to be detected from space. Overhearing this, Jonathan knew that he should order the ship to make way for the structure in stealth mode, but he was plagued by uncertainty. He felt the responsibility for the people on his ship keenly and the fact that their souls would be reconstituted into new bodies if their current ones died did little to reassure him. “Captain?” Mei prompted him, clearly a little troubled by his hesitation but hiding it moderately well. “Shall we investigate?” “Shamus, take us closer on 10%.” Jonathan ordered. “I know it’s going to take a while to get there, but we can’t risk discovery.” Mei had studied the Whisper class ship’s data sheets closely, and knew that at this distance, the shunt engine’s thruster, which had been inset deep into the hull for purposes of masking its energy discharge from sensors would not be detectable at anything below 30% power. She also knew however, that if there was a fallen ship between them and the station that they’d be grateful they’d kept the thrust to 10%. She thought that their highly capable sensors would have detected such a ship by now, but she wanted to trust her captain’s judgement and kept her tongue. At least for now. So it was that it took the ship nearly an hour to cover the distance between the outer planet and the third planet in the system upon which lay the station. It was an hour which Mei found excruciating, and she suspected Sharp had too, but he had ignored any hints to increase the power and she had continued to resist the urge to challenge his decision directly, barely. “Have we been detected?” she asked the sensor officer as they fell into a high orbit. “I see no signs that we have.” he replied in a confident tone, “We’re invisible to them. The launching of the shuttle will be a big test though. Let’s take the shunt engine offline and use our momentum to turn the ship to face away from the planet. That way the shuttle bay will be facing away from their sensors, and it’ll be less likely to be picked up on scanners.” “We could just send the malakim marines.” Mei suggested tentatively. They didn’t need a shuttle to make the transit to the planet’s surface and an orbed malak wasn’t likely to show up on any sensor screen. Jonathan pondered the suggestion, but only briefly, “No. It’s important to the Lord to have the human marines learn their roles. I’m sure by now you’ve noticed I’m trying not to take any unnecessary risks…” Boy, hadn’t she just. She thought to herself. “…but I think that’s one risk we should take.” He continued, not missing the brief look that had crossed her face, confirming his suspicion that she had wearied of his overly cautious approach. He suspected she might be impressed if he loosened up a little, which he had to admit might have influenced him. A slight smile appeared on her face briefly, but long enough for him to guess his gambit had achieved the desired effect. It was as well for the human marines that he had made his choice thus because Cray, Lance and Titus were rearing to go in the armoury on the deck below and their eyes were fixed on Mark Bastion, expecting an order any second to move out. Their nerves were on edge as the marine commander cocked his head, indicating he was probably receiving a message from the bridge. “Right marines, let’s get moving.” Bastion said and stood to his feet, much to the relief of the others. Eret’el and his malakim were likewise on the move suddenly, indicating they had heard the same order. The malak commander addressed the human one, “We’ll await you on the surface Bastion.” Mark nodded to the imposing elohim and turned to lead the way out of the armoury. The armoury had been placed just adjacent to the shuttle bay to facilitate rapid deployment and the marines soon found themselves facing the two shuttles in the hangar. The one with its ramp lowered and a man in a flight uniform stood expectantly at the rear seemed the obvious choice and Bastion led his marines to it. The pilot, another human recently out of training was Raymond Tracer. When he’d chosen the last name for himself, he’d done so because he thought it sounded cool for a pilot but then he got the nickname ‘CGI’ very quickly whilst in flight school and he’d only afterwards found out that ray tracing was a computer graphics technique from the 21st century. He’d died in the 1970s before such things were possible, how was he supposed to know? He wanted to change it, but he had a feeling that he was probably stuck with the nickname either way. “Hey CGI, we good to go?” Bastion quipped as the marines reached the ship. And there it was, Ray winced. “Yup climb aboard, Castle.” he addressed to marine captain cheekily. “Bastion. It’s Bastion.” Mark responded wearily, as if for the umpteenth time, which is fact it was. “Wasn’t that the name of the hero from a children’s movie?” Susan Stead chimed in, then regretted it instantly as she received a stern look from the beleaguered commander. “Don’t ask me.” Cray shrugged; “I’ve never seen a movie. I’ve heard about them though.” “You’ve never seen a movie? Right. My house, straight after this mission.” Susan said in a commanding tone. “Bring popcorn. You can come too” she said turning to Titus, “But stay off my furniture this time.” Titus sighed, “You crush one sofa, and it follows you your entire life.” “Anything but Never-ending Story.” Mark insisted. “Gotcha boss.” Susan replied, nodding emphatically, then turned to Cray and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t worry, it will definitely be Never-ending Story.” “No one is ever allowed to talk about Never-ending Story again.” Mark muttered half under his breath as the marines took their places. As the ramp at the rear of the shuttle was lifting, Susan bravely took one last irresistible dig, “Wait, we’re not leaving without Artax are we?”
