Liberty: Retired Admiral Arrested

[FooFighter]

The bridge of the RV Illumina. Everyone was busy scanning the area, doing routine checks, or communicating with the various contacts all over the populated Sirius sector. Captain Inoue had been after the LMS Sleeper Service for over a week now; nobody onboard really knew why, but as usually, the crew trusted it's captain without questions. Suddenly, interrupted the boring procedures, the young bretonian communications officer, Lineth Clearwater picked up a transmission from the Omega-7 systems.

"Captain, I think we found the ship. Our contact at Freistadt just claimed he identified the ship and transmitted it's Comm ID."

Inoue looked up from the ship mainframe's console. "Forward it, I'll speak to them personally." he said quietly. Lineth nodded, and soon, the board computer's mechanical voice informed Cpt. Inoue: "ComLink channel opened - communications protocols activated".

"LMS Sleeper Service, I propose a meeting."

"Should I know you?"

"Not personally - but I'd make it worth your time."

"Well, I'm on my way to the Cambridge system now."

"Excellent. I'll meet you at the jumphole."

"Sir, this is a commercial transport, Interspace Commerce does not use jumpholes to travel."

For a moment, Inoue scolded himself for forgetting with whom he was speaking. This was no explorer like him, this was also no pirate or freelancer. He shortly looked on his ships nav map of Cambridge - luckily, he wouldn't have to travel far until there, since he paused his search for the Sleeper Service just yesterday for a little visit to the University he studied in his youth, after he managed to flee Kusari space.

"Do you have the coordinates of the wreck of the Henry Jones, Sleeper Service?"

"Negative."

"I'll meet you at the backside of the Ross planetoid then; I'll transmit you my exact location in a few minutes."

Activating the RV Illumina's cruise engines, the Edge World research ship soon reached the proposed meeting point; the crew was allowed some recreation after the long search, however, to their misfortune, it didn't took to long until the Sleeper Service arrived, and soon, everyone was back on his or her post.

"Greetings, Sleeper Service. Please follow me a little bit in the Grasmere Ice Cloud, I hope you understand that it would be unfortunate if someone would pick up our radio chatter; especially the Norfolk is way to close to ignore it."

Luckily, all ran according to the plan, and without any interruptions, the RV Illumina accompanied by the LMS Sleeper Service arrived at the wreck of the Henry Jones, just far enough into the Ice Cloud to disable most radio scanners.

"It came to my ears that there is a person named Samantha Fisher on board your vessel?"

"What if?"

"Well, a certain...contact of mine would like to speak to her. I cannot reveal who it is, but be assured, you will be compensated for your troubles and, of course, no harm would be dealt to you and your ship."

"And you think I'd just trust a Junker like you?"

"You were a fool if you did, but I give you my word on my honor..."

"A Junker has honor?"

"...as Cambridge university professor and scientist, that, as I already said, you will be perfectly safe and you will be compensated for your time spent. I want to get over this peacefully."

It took a little while for the Sleeper Service to respond, but then:

"I accept your offer. Let's go."

"Glad to hear. We'll head to Liberty space, then, using the common trade lanes. Try to keep a low profile."

The rest of the journey was, except a little encounter with a couple of Cryer ships and a collision between the Sleeper Service and another trader, without any problems. Occasionally, Captain Inoue gave directions to the accompanying ship, but for most of the time, they just were using the tradelanes, moving quickly towards their goal in the New York systems. After the jump to New York was successful, Inoue opened the comm channels again.

"Switch your autopilot off. Should your ship be inspected, it's better if they don't see the place we're moving to in your logs. Fly to station Ithaca; it may be better if the local authorities don't see you with me, so I'll keep a couple of Ks away from you. When we both have reached Ithaca, keep close to me, it's easy to get lost in the Badlands, and the electromagnetic particles will blind your ship's scanner."

Then, the Captain switched the ComLink channel to the Sleeper Service to receive only, before ordering Clearwater to open up the channel with his contact with the Liberty Rogues.

"Inform Sylpheed that his guest is arriving at Buffalo in approximately 40 minutes."

Ordinary communication systems weren't able to reach far through the badlands. Of course, high efficiency communication systems like those the Zoners or some far away border world bases used could be installed on Buffalo, but they would give away it's position far too easily; to circumvent detection, the rogues used a network of moving comm satellites and drones which transmitted the message all over the badlands, making it hard to track for even the most sophisticated computers used by Order vessels. Of course, there was a short delay for the receiver of the message, but that usually wasn't a problem.

Navigation, however, was much more of a problem in the Badlands. A fighter could easily avoid the large rocks floating around, but for larger vessels, it was pretty unpleasant to fly through the asteroid fields. But as long as the shield and artificial gravity generators worked, there wasn't much to fear unless one was in a bulky House military capital ship. A couple of times, the two ships nearly lost each other, and Inoue feared that it's crew might have decided to flee when it became clear that the one wanting to meet Samantha was a Liberty Rouge, but, to his relief, each time it just turned out that the pilot of the Sleeper Service, not used to locations like the Badlands, experienced navigation difficulties, which were quickly solved.

As the Illumina and the Sleeper Service finally reached the base, the area was pretty clear, to this time, most Rogue ships were either on guard duty or docked. A small shuttle craft brought the passengers of the two ships to the base.