Chapter 44: In For A Penny
"The ship is floating in the Icrerth Nebula," said Jun Li and he pulled up a picture of a beautiful pink, blue, purple, and white cloud that seemed to glow from within onto the screen in front of us. It was truly one of the prettiest things I had ever seen.
"Why would it just be floating there?" I asked curious.
"Because the Sisalik can’t be seen having it docked in their territory," said Jun Li slowly. I narrowed my eyes at him. I was beginning to realize that when he spoke like that, it was because he knew that whatever was going to come out of his mouth next was probably not going to make me happy.
"And why can’t the Sisalik have it docked in their territory?" I pushed with a sigh, already dreading the answer.
"Because even though it is the number one small fighter type ship in the Sisalik fleet, and looks like something the Sisalik would have come up with, internally, it is all Saalistaja technology."
"And I can only assume that with everything else Saalistaja related, they wouldn’t be happy to know that the Lizards have taken more of their technology for their own gain," I said as I started to rub my forehead.
"Pretty much," admitted Jun Li. "But the outside doesn’t look like anything the Saalistaja would design. It’s only once you are inside of the fighter that you would realize something wasn’t right." There was a slight pause before Jun Li continued. "Or when it fired its weapons."
"And as a fighter craft, is that something that they don’t do? Fire weapons?"
"Of course, a fighter craft normally fires its weapons. But in this case, the X94 is used for more covert missions than battles."
I held up a hand, not really wanting to hear anymore. For some reason, I think that I would be putting a bee in the bonnet of the Sisalik Empire if I took one of their prized spy, fighter crafts that they specifically hid away in a giant cloud of light so no one would notice it.
"Why hide it in the nebula?" I asked, only now dealing with that minor detail.
"Well," said Jun Li slowly and I could only sigh. Readjusting my blanket and pillow on the captain’s chair, I mentally started to prepare myself for the journey. And from what I could gather from Jun Li’s hesitation, it was going to be a bitch of a ride.
"Nebulas, or in this case, nebula is a huge area that can be hundreds of light-years in diameter. It consists of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and cosmic dust. They are, as with the nebula we are going to be traveling to, star-forming regions where the materials tend to clump together more and more until they form stars. If there are any leftover materials, then they blend together to create planets. It is an absolutely beautiful thing to watch."
"Thank you for that lesson," I said as I smoothed the blanket over my lap a few times in order to hold in the anger that I wasn’t supposed to be able to feel. "If I could paraphrase what you are trying to say?"
I smiled a tight smile and didn’t wait for Jun Li to answer. "You are telling me that the Sisalik have managed to take even more technology away from the most feared alien species in the universe, install it on a fighter craft that they can’t even use for fear of being found out, and then they went and hid it in a cloud-like area that is actually so chaotic that it manages to create its own stars and planets? Did I get that correct?"
Jun Li was silent.
"I will assume that I am right about that. Okay. In for a penny, in for a pound. We know where it is, now how do we take the spaceship back with us?"
"You are going to have to go into the ship, install me into its system, and then I can fly it out of the nebula."
"Perfect," I said with a nod of my head. "How are we going to do that?"
Once again there was silence and I had a very strong suspicion that I wasn’t going to like the answer.
"I am too big to be able to enter the nebula, that was another reason why the Sisalik hid it there. Not many ships would be able to go in and out safely. Not to mention that you would have to know that it was there in the first place."
"You haven’t answered my question, Jun Li," I said with a sigh, this time trying to massage the tension out of my neck.
"You are going to have to enter the Icrerth Nebula by yourself, somehow manage to get into the ship, and then I can take over."
Ah, I got to do all the hard parts. "Why me?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. I mean, I already knew that I would have to do it, I was just asking for argument’s sake. "You have a body now; you can go out and do it."
"You are the only one with armor capable of withstanding the atmosphere inside the nebula. Besides, I don’t want to dent my new body," said Jun Li with a smile. "So, I can set course for the nebula? I can have us there by this time tomorrow. Only 5 hyper jumps!"
Fuck my life. "Yup, let’s go," I responded. Who knows, maybe this would go off without a hitch.
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"Sir," said the bridge officer as he turned to look at the captain. "We have been unable to find any sign of Captain Zonax or the L-Series ship in Y Galaxy."
"Fuck," growled the captain as he pounded on the armrest of his chair in frustration. "Where the hell could they be?!?"
The bridge was silent as the officers looked around at each other, no one wanting to offend the captain or make him any more angry.
