by Per Holbo
Chapter 8: Behind the membrane
Swoosh! Freya felt her body practically being whirled like a spinning top after she had come through and she had quite a hard time trying to use the nozzles to stop the wild rotation. When she finally did, neither Thor nor Sif were anywhere to be seen and behind her the surface of the pocket was too far away for her to get a visual. She concluded that she had rushed inside with much more speed than any of them had anticipated and at her present speed, there was no way she could slow down and still have enough air to complete the mission, let alone to go back and search for them. So she gave up the idea, turned around facing forward and let her eagle like eyes scan for signs of Yetten presence. The inside of Skrymers Glove looked quite different than from outside. The vast number of colors and sparks, they had seen before they left the ship, were now just shades of gray and all the beauty was gone. Far off in the distance, she could make out an elongated oval shape. Being the veteran she was, she easily recognized it as one of the big aircraft carriers the Yetten used for invading planets where the local residents had little to no defense at all. From those carriers they could launch their troops and in no time take control of strategic points before the poor souls could even begin to respond. She also knew their weaknesses. Because they weren´t built to defend themselves against heavy artillery, these aircraft carriers had an absolute minimum of armor and fire power. Just a thick hull and no shield generator. Such a vessel, however, would be perfect to use here because the energy level would be sufficiently low for potential enemies to not be able to read their presence even when using the most efficient scanners.
The aircraft carrier was getting quite close and Freya grabbed her rifle from the sheath on her back. She had no idea how to find the children without Sif and her personal scanner, so for now there was nothing else she could do but to search the ship from rear to front. While she waited to get close, she imprinted the ship's exterior design on her memory. It was the classic oval shape used for most of the Yetten´s ships, but small details were different. Instead of having the bridge mounted in the center at one-fifth of the length of the ship measured from the front, this ship had the bridge built on the side as an extra appendage. Freya was puzzled, as it seemed to be a disadvantage. If their scanning equipment went off line, they would have a less favorable outlook and wouldn´t be able to see potential attackers coming from the other side of the ship. Still, she knew from experience, that the Yetten rarely built their ships the way they did without having a specific reason for any particular design. She guessed that it might have something to do with the gravitational fields that corrugated back and forth on the inside of the Skrymer´s Glove.
At the top of the ship, a bit further towards the center where the bridge should have been, a spherical dome stood approximately 5 meters tall and from underneath, she could barely see a square box sticking out. It stretched to almost the entire length of the ship and was apparently divided into several sections that could probably be disconnected and reconnected as needed. Possibly some sort of storage containers used for receiving new supplies.
Then she had a hunch and used the nozzles to move around and beneath the ship. She wanted to inspect the containers more closely. Gradually the container portion moved into view and she noted that each section had two turbines attached to the top right beneath the ship's bow. Engines? It would fit nicely with her suspicion that perhaps this was a very different kind of storage than she first thought. If the Yetten wanted a secure location to hold some of the most important prisoners of war, Skrymer´s Glove would be the perfect choice, a fact Freya and her friends had experienced firsthand. And using removable sections, they would be able to transfer prisoners to and from transport ships outside the glove and thereby keeping the crews of these transport ships from knowing about the vessel here. They could simply launch a single container and leave it out there somewhere for other ships to pick up. Yeah, that had to be the intention. And if she was right, the children would almost certainly be in one of those containers, at least most of the time, when they weren´t being interrogated. But which one? There was no apparent difference the sections other than a numeric code on each of them and even Freya with her experience of breaking codes and see structures couldn´t find any pattern to help her find the right section.
Suddenly, something whizzed closely past her at a furious pace! The small object was about 25 percent the size of a Skarfi and formed a white line behind it on its course directly at the aircraft carrier. Freya raised her rifle. If someone had discovered her, the whole mission would be doomed and it was crucial to shoot down the vessel before the pilot had a chance to alert the aircraft carrier. She aimed carefully. Swish! The Eon Particle Beam left the rifle and whizzed right past her goal. One more time! Swish! Yet another miss! Third attempt. This time she really had to succeed!