At the end of the transmission, the crew on the bridge looked at each other with various expressions of horror. Three hundred and fifty lives were lost aboard the Hayden, as a sacrifice for a business deal with aliens only Sinclair Corp knew about. A sacrifice they were also part of.
Alaya looked at her crew and said, “I think I’m going to be sick.” Her complexion was ashen as the full realization of the enormity of her father’s crime hit her. She had always idolized him, and to learn that she was expendable when it came to business, just about shattered her. However, Alaya had an inner strength most people would envy and her crushed spirit soon returned with an overriding desire for vengeance.
She fixed those on the bridge with a steely gaze and made only one statement, “My father must die.”
Slone had recovered from his initial shock, as had the others and all shared Alaya’s sentiment. Many atrocities had been committed during the various corporate wars of the past, but all on enemies of the corporation committing them, never in peace on one’s own citizens. “Death seems too mild a punishment for a crime of this magnitude. In addition, I doubt any of us could get close enough to do the deed. We need some level headed thinking to plan our next move. One thing is for sure, if Dane doesn’t respond to the message and we don’t show up in Sinclair space, we will all be presumed dead and old man Sinclair will feel safe. That’s his weakness.”
Alaya spoke up again. “We need to hit him where it hurts the most. We need to destroy the corporation before he dies. I want him to suffer the way he made all of us suffer. We had to watch, powerless, as our friends died. We need to make him watch powerless as his corporation, the only thing he cares about, dies.”
Slone could see that any family love on Alaya’s part was gone. “What about your siblings?”
“They stayed to run parts of the corporation and never cared about me. That’s why I went into space. I never wanted anything to do with the corporation. I was always the black sheep because Horatio Sinclair may have raised me as his daughter, but he’s not my father. Mother had an affair, but I have never known if he knew about it, until now. His natural children would never have been sacrificed for the corporation. But my birth may be to our advantage now.”
“How so?” Slone asked.
“On her deathbed, my mother told me my father’s identity. He’s Strabo, the pirate warlord.”
Now it was Slone’s turn to be shocked. “The leader of the Matsua Rim pirates?”
“Yes, but they like to call themselves Nova Romae pirates. It appears I’m his only child. My mother met him once when he was scouting Sinclair shipping routes and I am proof they hit it off. We can shelter with him, since he knows who I am but could never really make contact. Paul, how long to the MR427 system in the Matsua Rim?” Alaya said, turning to her navigator.
Paul did some calculating. “Using mostly sail and conserving our fuel for maneuvering only, we can reach MR427 in six and a half months. We’ll have to stay under sail since a good bit of the trip is through Sinclair space and I assume you want to remain undetected.”
“I think we all do, since we are presumed dead. If Sinclair catches us there’s no penalty if they kill us.”
The crew all nodded at that and began preparing the ship for the next order. It came quickly from Alaya. “Set sail for MR427. How many message capsules do we have aboard?”
Since the capsules were classified as ordinance, Diana Tojo responded to this query. “We have three aboard. But if you’re thinking of sending one all the way to MR427, none of them have that kind of range.”
“That’s fine. I do not intend to send any through Sinclair space; I want to launch one when we are out of Sinclair space and before we reach MR427. Before we leave, we have one loose end to deal with.” As the crew wondered what that could be, Alaya walked over to the lock box and opened it. She took out the memory core from the first scout and gave it to Tom to decipher. “Let’s find out what all of our friends and crew died for. Can you decrypt that?”
“Should only take a few minutes.” Gardner plugged the core into the side of his console and pushed some keys. The contents began to appear on his screen. “This is pretty routine stuff. Some mining info and the schematics to various ships for recognition and scanning purposes. Wait. There is one file with deeper encryption.” Garner pushed some more buttons and the file opened. “This file is in a symbolic language, I have no idea what it says.”
Slone looked over at the monitor. “I know those symbols. They were on the panel keeping the Hive Mother prisoner. This is the language of the Aliens who killed our crew in Andromeda.”
Alaya could scarcely control her rage. “Then it was all just a lure to give my father an excuse to send us all to our deaths, for the sole benefit of him and his corporation. He knew all along what awaited us and was in contact with the aliens. Tom, save all of that, in case we can someday get it translated. I would love to know what else my father promised those worms. Let’s just get out of here.” With that, Alaya deployed the sails and aimed the Dragon’s Claw towards the outbound slipstream that would eventually lead them to the Matsua Rim.
The months passed uneventfully as they silently sailed through Sinclair space. As the trip progressed, they had many long discussions about their plans and all hinged on the reception Alaya’s real father would give her. At least none of them had families back home, so they would not be missed and Slone had already sent his agreement to his wife’s plan concerning their son. Every one of the ‘Andromeda Seven’, as they began to refer to themselves, was a free agent now. They monitored the news channels and soon picked up a news pod broadcasting as it passed through the various star systems. They learned that they were all presumed dead, having died in a tragic accident while exploring into the core of the galaxy. This was the complete opposite direction from where they had been. Alaya was amused that she was granted a state funeral with all the pomp and circumstance due a true Sinclair daughter. No mention was made of any of the events in either the Purgatory or Bickle systems. They did learn of a massive industrial accident at the Purgatory mines and a radiation leak there that made the area unapproachable for the time being. Alaya was sure the incident would fade into memory before anyone asked too many questions, especially when the article pointed out that all of the families had been handsomely compensated for the loss of their loved ones. This resulted in much praise of Horatio Sinclair by the Sinclair controlled press. After another month had passed, a news pod came through a boarder system mentioning an investigation of the accident on Purgatory concluded that the base reactor melted down and exploded because of human error and there was no evidence of sabotage. Unfortunately, both the San Juan and the Hayden were destroyed when the reactor explosion caused a gravity pulse that pulled the orbiting ships out of orbit and into the moon’s surface. The public would not care that there was no scientific way this could happen; anyway, by this time most people had forgotten about the Purgatory incident. It was replaced by news of increased pirate activity along the border of Sinclair space facing the Matsua Rim area. Apparently, the news of his daughter’s death had reached Strabo.
“Alaya, the outbound slipstream will take us out of Sinclair space and into the Matsua Rim.” Paul McMann pointed out. “We can send a message pod from here to MR427 without it being discovered by Sinclair units.”
“Ok, send a pod with greetings from me to Strabo. Tell him we are alive and send him a copy of the computer core and the message meant for Dane. He should see whom his forces are dealing with before he attacks further into Sinclair space. If we have any hope of striking a blow at my father, it will have to be better thought out than mere pirate raids.”
They sent the pod and settled in for the last weeks of travel still ahead of them. Alaya and Slone had grown closer in the long voyage to MR427. They went from colleagues to friends, and soon discovered they were in love. The Andromeda 7 felt deeply about each other and, since they were all technically dead now, they only had themselves for co
mfort and company. The romance between Tom Gartner and Diana Tojo also grew to the point that a few months back Slone, in honor of an old earth tradition granting certain rights to ship’s captains, married the two. Rank no longer mattered since they were all fugitives, hiding from the very people who gave them a rank. They were now pirates, and were about to meet up with the most powerful pirate lord in the entire known galaxy.
Two weeks after release of the message pod to Strabo, they entered a system within the Matsua Rim pirate territory. As they were traversing the system towards the next outbound slipstream, the sensor screen suddenly lit up and four large ships appeared out of nowhere. Alarms started ringing throughout the bridge as the other ships began approaching in sets of two from front and back.
“Incoming message, Captain.”
“Put it through,” Slone said.
Tom Gardner pressed a button and the speakers came to life. ‘This is Captain Juan Lorenzo of the Nova Romae dreadnought Longinus. Do I have the pleasure of addressing the vessel carrying Alaya Sinclair?’
Alaya threw caution aside and responded before anyone could discuss a response. “This is Alaya Sinclair, in the independent vessel, Dragon’s Claw.
After a few minutes passed as the signals traversed the distances between the ships, and the response came back. ‘My compliments. Lord Strabo, Consul of Nova Romae, bids you welcome to our space and has sent us to be at your service and your escorts to the capital.’
Since Alaya had no idea, how much Strabo told his forces of their relationship, she decided to leave her response simply as a thank you and told them to lead the way. The four ships fell into formation, two in front and two behind with the Dragon’s Claw in the center. There were some questions, which would have to wait, such as how did the pirate ships appear invisible to the state of the art sensors on the Dragon’s Claw. They all entered the slipstream and a new life. The crew of the Dragon’s Claw left the ship on autopilot through the slipstream and sat around the table in the mess hall as Alaya pulled out seven glasses and a bottle of the finest wine from the Sinclair cellars. She filled the glasses and lifted hers for a toast.
“I was saving this to toast the successful completion of our mission. Sadly, our mission has fully changed and we find ourselves without a nation and dead to our friends and family. I hope that will change in the future, but for now we will toast the end of one life and the beginning of another. So raise your glasses and toast with me . . . to the beginning.”
Voyage of the Hayden (The Adventures of Christopher Slone Book 1) Page 21