Wave Rider by Michelle Diener

Author:Michelle Diener [Diener, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eclipse
Published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

18

“An ancestral spaceship.” Leonie Mordova turned to look in the direction of what Anja was coming to call spaceship island, even though the mist still hung thick over the water and blocked it from view. She sat back on her heels at her place beside the fire, and shared a look with Yavish.

“That would explain the information we got last night,” Yavish said with a nod.

“What information?” Cal slowly crumpled up the container his meal had come in and threw it into the fire.

“When the solar flare died down, the satellites we use for outward communication with the VSC started transmitting information back to us on who was in the Jero system.” Yavish shrugged. “There was a ship in our nearspace that had not requested permission to be there, and there were no comms from VSC headquarters or the Arkhoran authorities that they had a ship so close.”

“The ship that Jake arrived on,” Anja said.

Cal nodded. “No doubt about it.”

“We took the rare opportunity of being able to send comms direct to the satellite, rather than send up a runner to transmit, and asked Arkhor if it was theirs, and if so, why they hadn’t asked our permission to be here.” Leonie tapped a finger to her lips.

“That will give the Arkhorans an incentive to come take a look.” Walef’s tone was a little dry.

“Knowing them, they’ll break every record to get here as fast as possible.” Livia gave a lopsided grin.

“That’s a good thing, surely?” Anja asked.

“Yes, but we’re mostly second-generation Arkhorans on Fynian, given the Arkhorans found Fynian originally. Even though we’re an independent VSC territory now, they still like to interfere with us as often as they can. It causes a little resentment down here.”

“Not this time,” Ritt said. “They can interfere as much as they like on this issue.”

“Yes.” Leonie looked up at the swirling clouds above them, which were slowly dissolving in the strengthening morning sun. “I’ll grin and bear a bit of Arkhoran interference when it comes to this. We’ll pay for it—Arkhor will be all over this discovery afterward—but we don’t have the expertise or the equipment to deal with a find like this anyway, so it doesn’t matter that much.”

“When you say they’ll break records to get here, how long are we talking?” The thought of an Arkhoran military ship pinching to the black to reach them, armed and ready, was very appealing.

“Could be as early as tonight,” Leonie said.

A lot could happen in that time.

The clouds were lifting faster and faster, and the top of spaceship island appeared out of the mist. They could only see the back of it from here, but they all heard the roar of a runner engine starting up.

The sound traveled clearly across the water, strangely distorted by what was left of the mist.

“Where’s he going now?” Walef wondered.

“Back up to get another runner, since Anja destroyed the other one?” Livia asked.

“You destroyed their runner?” Donnella asked.

“We tried to destroy both of them, to stop them shooting you down,” Cal glanced at Livia, and she lowered her eyes, realizing her mistake.

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