It was their last night together as a crew.

  They would travel to Rucasur and part ways early the next morning.

  Landom was about to return to his family and retake his position as officer at Seka Security. Patience wanted to train the young people of her district to give them a chance for a better life. Other than that, she planned to regularly visit Sevastian who also would stay in Seka for his rehab training. Over the last months they became a couple and they wanted to see where it would take them.

  Timothy was about to return to his job as well, though he probably needed to file a well detailed report about their time on the Hubble first. He hoped to get assigned to a project nearby and planned to use his position to look into the identity of their attackers on Terulos.

  On the other hand, Robin was about to completely break ties with the UAS. He decided to skip the meeting and sneak into the outpost where they had captured Guard to set him free. Timothy had provided him with everything he knew and prepared him as well as possible. Happy and Alena would accompany him on this dangerous mission. And after they transferred Guard to the Keeper ship and finally got it under control, they would pick up Ang’Tue, the last member of their group.

  The old man wouldn’t follow them to the outpost. On the one hand he didn’t want to risk a political incident if shit hit the fan and on the other hand he had another task to do: Contacting his people and getting permission to bring strangers to their home.

  Visiting the hidden world of the Eltaran was their next target after all.

  Mereus had barely crept on the horizon, when the crew was busy preparing their departure. They wanted to arrive on Rucasur before midday and as such, everyone was quickly cleaning up the remains of their camp.

  Meanwhile, Robin had his head stuck in the engineering part of their ship.

  “I just need to loosen this screw here and put a connector over there and whoosh, everything should be back up and running!” He merrily whistled while he worked on the ship’s systems. Earlier, Happy had loudly complained that there were some irregularities with the control unit for the steering thrusters.

  After he was done, Robin properly sealed the sensible systems again and went back inside.

  “All done, give it a try!” He called and Happy quickly started the ship and performed some tests.

  “Looks great, everything works as intended.” She said with a wide grin on her face.

  “Great, prepare for take-off in t-10. I’ll call the others.”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  ***

  The trip to Rucasur was uneventful but the atmosphere was tense nonetheless. Each moment they came closer to the planet and each moment the crew got more agitated.

  Their plan was to come in quickly and land as fast as possible, then they would leave the ship and immediately split up.

  Landom, Timothy, Patience and Sevastian were going to use public transportation to get from the spaceport to the city.

  Ang’Tue had the IDs of the others and would also head to the city. On his way he would use their cards to lay a false trail to attract the attention of the UAS. It wouldn’t take them long to see through this ruse, but by that time Robin, Niu and Alena would already be on their way.

  Niu had revealed that she had severed ties with her family, but assured them that there were still people in the Alaris family she could trust. She had contacted an old friend of hers that promised to get them a ship to Fulan Point, the UAS outpost where they had trapped Guard. The idea was to sneak aboard the ship and hitch a ride when it traveled to the space station to deliver supplies.

  The ship was scheduled for departure at midnight that day, so the risk of being found by the UAS before that was low. They wanted to be off radar before the UAS even realized that Robin didn’t intend to come to the meeting they had set up.

  Soon the planet came into view and Robin felt a sense of nostalgia rising within him. He hadn’t been away that long; just a few months, a year perhaps. But he had spent his whole life on this planet and he had many good memories about that time.

  Today he only wanted to stay for a brief moment but he swore to himself that he would return one day and visit his old apartment, see his friends and pay his respects at Jim’s old workshop.

  “Contacting Rucasur Flight Control!” Happy announced and interrupted Robin’s musing.

  “Good to be back…” He muttered.

  “Flight Control, this is UAS-IPS-HJ556. We are approaching Rucasur and requesting permission to land.”

  “Welcome HJ556, we are checking your data…” A friendly voice on the comm replied and after a short moment they confirmed that everything was okay.

  “What’s your target destination?”

  “Do you have a small slot at Seka Spaceport where we can snuggle in?” Happy asked.

  “Sure, you’ve been assigned to pad SSLP-76.”

  “Thanks, on my way.”

  Happy initiated the reentry into Rucasur’s atmosphere and Robin, who stood behind her, tightly gripped the edge of her seat.

  “I miss Alena’s updates for altitude and speed.” Happy complained while small flames licked outside on the ship’s hull, “I told you this ship is too small. Damn, I’m doing everything alone here, you know?”

  Moments later they broke through the thick cloud ceiling and the ship slowed down somewhat.

  “We… we are still quite fast, aren’t we?” Robin asked when he saw the small city in the distance coming closer at a rapid pace.

  “Yeah, seems like that.” Niu happily agreed.

  “Happy…” Robin said with a strained voice, “Are you sure this is the right speed for a landing approach?”

  “Yeah, no worries.” Happy waved him off.

  When they were shooting over the barren ground of Rucasur and rapidly closed in on the city in the distance, the comm cracked again.

  “You are about to reach Seka, please reduce your speed to 40m/s and approach the spaceport from corridor C52.”

  “Confirming 40m/s, C52.” Happy repeated and pressed some buttons on a tablet at her side. However she didn’t slow down at all.

  Below them, Robin saw greenhouses rush by in a blur. He took a look over Niu’s shoulder.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “128m/s… uhh…”

  “You are approaching the landing pad, reduce speed to 10m/s.”

  “Reducing to 10m/s.” Happy confirmed but continued to hold their speed.

  Just when they reached the city’s outskirts and Niu finally hit the brakes, the comm crackled again.

  “Uhm, you should now be directly over your pad.” The voice sounded confused, “I’m not getting any visuals from the sensors…”

  “Nah, everything is fine. It’s a small ship, no worries. Pad C52, initiating touch-down.” Happy assured the guy from Flight Control while they still raced over the city.

  “Ahm… yeah, please check in with the local dock admin.”

  “Sure, HJ556 Out!” Happy said and cut the comm.

  She tapped on the tablet again and addressed Robin.

  “I was still too high, we were already noticed by Beakrath Flight Control. They have been trying to contact us for a few minutes. I have blocked any outgoing connections from this ship now so the UAS can’t listen in. Are you ready?”

  Robin nodded and motioned for her to open the comm.

  “Unknown vessel, identify yourself!” An angry voice demanded.

  “UAS-IPS-HJ115, we are declaring an emergency and request permission to land.” Robin introduced them with a wrong ID while Happy approached the small spaceport in Beakrath.

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “Uhm, I’m just a flight school student and my teacher has lost consciousness a few minutes ago.” Robin said, panic in his voice.

  There was a brief pause on the other side, the man probably checked their ship ID - which also belonged to the flight school - and needed a moment to collect himself.

  “Okay, no worries buddy. We will do this together!”

  “Thanks mate. I’m not too sure how all this works, but I see a hangar on the outer edge of the port, can I go there?”

  “Yeah, sure. Listen, you need to reduce your speed to 10m/s and align to an altitude of 65m while you approach. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah.. I can try?” Robin asked hesitantly and nodded to Niu who followed the instructions.

  “Good. We don’t have any emergency personnel ready at hand but I’ve already called a med team which will arrive in just a few minutes.”

  “Oh great, thanks!”

  After that, Robin and Happy let themselves be guided through the landing by the instructions from the helpful but overwhelmed guy. Beakrath only had a small spaceport and not many employees to manage it. So when Niu finally landed their ship in a spectacularly rough manner on the other side than what they had agreed on and even skidded into an open hangar, the local staff needed some time to get there.

  By the time they arrived, they only found an empty and abandoned ship.

  ***

  “That went better than expected!” Robin tried to laugh off his tension.

  “Yeah, who would have thought it was that easy to fool Flight Control.” Niu agreed.

  Together with Alena they sat in the small passenger compartment of a PTV that was on its way to Seka Spaceport.

  “Don’t be naive.” Robin shook his head, “We managed to fake our location data, but they should have noticed that something was wrong after just a few minutes. I’m sure they know by now who we are and that we went to Beakrath instead.”

  “Yeah, but they are still too late.” Niu laughed, “Do you think they really had a contingent of UAS people stationed there to apprehend us?”

  Robin shrugged.

  “I can’t be certain, but I think it’s pretty likely.”

  “I would have loved to see their faces!”

  “Let’s hope we don’t see any of their faces in the near future.” Alena said flatly and closed her eyes again.

  “Meh, you are no fun…” Niu complained but followed her lead and also tried to get some rest.

  The PTV raced through the barren land of Rucasur and by evening it reached Seka. Without detours it took them to one of the spaceport’s private entries and dropped them off.

  Robin, Alena and Happy didn’t need long to find the right hangar and managed to sneak in without getting noticed by the local surveillance systems.

  There was a Humbler Ulan, a small interplanetary ship specialized in cargo. The captain already knew about his secret guests and looked the other way after he had gotten paid handsomely by Happy’s friend.

  At midnight, not long after they had boarded, the ship departed and set off for Fulan Point.

  And just like that, without any surprises, one of Robin’s great plans finally worked as intended.

  ***

  “Are they on their way?” Franny Bolster asked the officer, Jenkins, next to her.

  “Yes, local security confirmed that Robin Tulward, Alena Vlasov and Niu Alaris have boarded the supply ship before it took off. They’ll reach Fulan Point in three days.”

  Bolster nodded to herself.

  “We got lucky. The Alaris family really went to length with this.” She said and then laughed, “Damn, I would have loved to see Eston’s face when he realized that he got screwed over after he had waited for them half a day at the spaceport. Does he admit to himself that his little project has failed now?”

  The young man knew better than answering that and kept quiet, waiting for his superior to continue. After Bolster finished her little rant, she turned back to the officer and her eyebrows went up a bit, as if she was only now remembering that he was still there.

  “Ah, right, I lost myself a little. Please continue your report. Is everything prepared at Fulan Point?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” The man nodded, “We have stationed three squads that are ready to engage within seconds. We have little control over the facility since the unknown entity has kicked us out of most of the systems but we are using the maintenance shafts below the floor to move around.”

  “Good, good! Now we just have to wait and see what this little rat is up to.”

  “I… uhm…” The officer began but swallowed back his words at the last moment.

  “Huh? You want to add something?” Bolster asked, “Please, Jenkins, speak freely.”

  “Ma’am, I think the risk of letting Tulward and his crew enter the facility is too great. What if…”

  “You are worried that he’ll try to free the entity?” Bolster caught up on his thoughts and the man nodded hesitantly, he clearly was afraid of speaking out of his place.

  “Don’t worry, that shouldn’t be a problem.” She waved him off and sighed when she saw him flinching, “You don’t have to be so stiff, it is important to bring up any concerns you have. But be assured, I’ve talked to the white coats already and they double checked any possible way to quickly reconnect the outpost to the network. There is none. If Tulward really wants to give the entity a way out, he would need to use one of the ships in the hangar. It would be a wireless connection and the transfer would take more than ten minutes. We can easily interrupt him if it comes to that. But he won’t try, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? He and the entity are obviously acquaintances… Ma’am.”

  “Haven’t you seen the message? They may know each other but they are definitely not on good terms. Also, Tulward may have turned his back on the UAS but I don’t believe he has the guts to actively go against us.” Bolster explained, “He only wants to have a talk with the entity and after he has just cut ties with the UAS he can only do so by going there in person. That’s also why we are giving him so much time in the first place: I really wanna know what they have to discuss.”

  The man nodded again but kept quiet. He still wasn’t convinced, Franny could see it written all over his face. But it wasn’t his place to press this matter any further, she already had played all the possible scenarios through in her mind, there isn’t anything that could go wrong.

  “You may leave, Officer.” She dismissed him but raised her hand once more to stall him when he reached the office’s door.

  “Jenkins, Tulward must live. His value to the UAS is… unexplainable. If I hear about any of your men using lethal weapons, I’ll personally rip them apart - whether Tulward got harmed or not.”

  The man gulped and saluted, “Yes, Ma’am! I’ll make sure that all three will be apprehended without failure.”

  “Two…” Bolster corrected him, her face plastered with a grin that could belong to a wolf that was about to feast on a little kid, “We have a deal with the Alaris’ to get them their girl, but for the Vlasov woman? Kick her into space if the chance arises. She has turned her back on mankind and has no further value to us. Maybe her brother learns from that and stays on the right path.”

  Jenkins paled a bit but gave another salute before he left the room.

  Franny Bolster walked to the window and looked over the endless buildings that covered all of Eden. With a sigh, she then went through the files about Fulan Point, Robin and the entity once more.

  When she was sure she hadn’t missed anything, she put the datapad down and took in the view again.

  “Your turn Tulward, show us what this is all about!”