- Hey, wake up, you moron! - a sudden panicked voice shouted near ears.
With bad thoughts, Leo came out of his nap and grabbed a steering wheel, turned off the autopilot, and turned “Sabre” sharply upward. A huge asteroid came out of nowhere, suddenly blocking the path, and the autopilot doesn't know how to turn at a high angle when giant rocks say hi in the middle of unmanned space.
Leo, to the screams of Katya, managed at the last moment to evade collision with this huge space boulder and returned on set course. - Merde, that was close... - Leo said quietly, relaxing in the pilot's saddle. - You are such a sleepyhead, “commander”! - Ekaterina said with irritation and fear in her voice, - But I cannot deny – you have impressive reflexes and you saved our butts.
- We were anyway covered by a positron shield. Worst case scenario, we'd just get knocked back like a soccer ball, - Leo countered and felt something hit their ship making Katya scream again. - What was that?!
- Asteroid shards. They are too small to damage or throw us off course, calm down, Katya. Seems like we have reached Stronsay field and some parts have dense asteroid clusters. We should be inside one of them. Tau-61 jump hole must be not far from us, such a gravitational anomaly cannot be unnoticed.
- Okay, but watch carefully. I prefer not to put the shields to the durability test.
The next 20 minutes passed quietly and without incidents. Serre tried to watch the radars closely, but no surprises caught up with them. Soon Serre noticed asteroids move around something as if in orbit.
“Anomaly detected!”
- The jump hole must be ahead that causes gravitational distortions making asteroids act unnaturally. Can you see it, Leo?
Leo nodded and turned on manual control again because the path begins too unpredictable. Soon the anomaly itself appeared in front of “Sabre” - a sparkling red-blue something with the eye in its center. The jumphole also shoots flashes of lightning in nearby asteroids. - Initiating hyperspace transition systems. Hold on, we are going in, Katya.
In a minute their ship was pulled into hyperspace tunnel and after seconds of a crazy ride was spit out already in the middle of a different space.
Leo shook his head and looked at Ekaterina. - Are you alright?
- A little dizzy, but okay...Still can't use travel using jump holes. Jump gates are way more comfortable than random space anomalies, - Katya said holding her head, and asked, - So...We are in Tau-61, aren't we?
