hoosier fear

The warship had long range scanners that indicated if other ships where in the passing space. Passing space being relative, of course, as the short light burst jumps allowed a ship to travel over one hundred light years in a single turn. The scanner wasn’t sophisticated it followed tiniest of patterns and shapes that moved through space. The only way to identify that it was a ship and not space debris was the speed at which the object moved.

The advantage still belonged to the Marshalls if they came in slow and random. “Helm, drop the engines and drift into the space surrounding the Warstar. If we’re lucky Fear hasn’t picked up on our approach. We should still be our of range for a full scan.”

“The engines are down to minimal for life support, Commander.” The helm replied.

Halbman’s voice trickled from the comm for a moment before Bell entered the main deck. “What is your plan? Float around and scan the planet from space. If we launch a short fighter, the Warstar will be alert. Unless we clip something that would drop us toward the planet.”

“Or get us to the moons shadow. If we can drift to the moons pull, we can hide the main ship in the shadow and have a piece break off headed to Earth.” A young eager voice came from behind Bell.

Bell smiled slightly toward Halbman who returned the look. The voice belonged to a Cadet Yun Tereare, Tear to those she called friends. She had worked her way up from academy to engineer and would be on her first assignment. The academy required all Marshall Flight Cadet have a full understanding of the laws of the galactic council to become a ground Marshall as well as a working knowledge of the ships that were assigned. Tear had a near encyclopedic knowledge of the ships workings as her mother was an engineer, but she wanted to be a field Marshall. Bell knew her story well as he had been her experienced training partner her first year out of the academy. She would be in her third year out, ready for the next assignment.

“Looks like your flying with us Tear, gear up.” Halbman said. “You too Eli.”

“Yes sir.” The eager response came from Bell’s right. Eli Tomesicus, Tear’s true partner would be joining the Whisper drop crew as there was no reason to separate the two.