The Highlander shuddered back into the RIP and held course for nearly three minutes before dropping once again into the universe of men and Xenos. The planet was much closer now the short distance hop having obviated days of acceleration and deceleration with the conventional engines. Almost at once Sayeeda's attack board lit up as they were painted with LIDAR and microwave targeting arrays. The comm system crackled to life on the 30 meter side band.

"Unknown vessel identify yourself," said a voice robbed of any identifiers by the signal distortion of radio. It really was much simpler to use laser or microwave but Sayeeda knew that you couldn't trust civilians to keep the fancy hardware operational. The caller was the Z-49 according to the identification code slugged to the transmission and confirmed by Junebug's own equipment. The destroyer had been spooked by their sudden extraction but luckily not fatally so.

"Z-49, this is Highlander, independent freighter out of Hodierna travelling empty, over," Sayeeda responded, her voice taking on the cool professionalism it always did in a near crisis. It would have been a hell of a thing for her first ship to get blown out from under her by a jumpy Terran gunner.

"Roger Highlander, highly suggest you are a little less precise with future jumps," the Terran communication officer came back. Sayeeda laughed with relief that she felt to the bottom of her bones.

"Roger that Z-49 that will teach me to be in so much of a hurry, Highlander out," she replied, closing the comm circuit. There was no point in claiming the jump had been direct from Hodierna as the light of their arrival out system would arrive in a little under an hour. Infact the only reason they had emerged so close to Z-49 was that their data about the ships location was nearly an hour old as well. It seemed Windhoven had landed on the planet somewhere but Junebug was unable to make it out on the sensors.

"Alright, I suppose you know where we are supposed to find this kid?"

[@Penny]