It took nearly a week for the Karma Hazu to complete the voyage to Cylonieka. Partly this was to do with the distance as Hahn was an unusually isolated system, but mostly it was because the megafreighter simply didn’t accelerate to the kind of speeds that would be a matter of course for smaller vessels like the Highlander. Without friction there was no practical limit, short of the speed of light, to the speed a vessel could attain, but even in zero gravity inertia had to be accounted for. There was little point in accelerating for two or three days to build up speed, and then decelerating for the same amount of time, if it would only save you two or three days in transit even before you factored in the cost of fuel you had expended.

“Extracting,” Taya reported as the countdown clock on her terminal flicked down the last few seconds. Sayeeda felt her soul leave her body as the ship continued to accelerate away from her, attenuating her for long and agonising seconds before she snapped back into place. Indra, sitting in one of the infrequently used jumpseats was moaning quietly and Taya appeared gray and vacant for a moment before she blinked and straightened up. Neil and Saxon seemed unaffected by the extraction, though that was as likely to be because their discomfort was more internal than that it hadn’t occurred. Science was unable to adequately explain the hallucinations and delusions that accompanied transitions to and from the RIP but no sentient race yet discovered was immune to the effect. That an effect was so consistent across so many radically different biologies kept philosophers babbling but in practical terms it just meant all races found space travel equally unpleasant.

The Highlander shuddered as the Karma Hazu began to fire its attitude thrusters, correcting its course toward the systems distant sun. Precision jumping over long distances was not easy and all but the most elite naval units usually had to make a supplemental jump with more accurate positioning data to arrive at their destiation. Fortunately for the Highlander, luck appeared to be on the side of the Karma Hazu and her unwitting passenger as they were less than a light minute from the primary world of the system.

The Cylonieka system had six planets ranging from a sunbaked rock that was perpetually bathed in the light of the systems blue white star, to an icebound dustball barely ensnared by its gravity. Unusually, the system boasted two habitable worlds, Cylonieka itself, a primarily ocean world scattered with thousands of islands ranging from a few acres to several thousand hectares, and Coreyana, a moon of the gas giant Covax. Coreyana was a volcanically active moon, with wild crags and impressive mountain ranges. Although it had been terraformed at some point in the past, it remained sparsely populated. 

Unlike Hahn, the system teemed with traffic and the Highlander’s sensor board lit up with dozens of contacts. Cylonieka itself was a producer of export grade protein, mostly deep sea krill that were gathered by the ton by large automated submersibles before being processed on the surface. The world also boasted a chemical and electronics industry, largely reliant on mining on the more mineral rich Coreyana and the asteroid belt that had developed around the gravity well of the gas giant. Intra-system freighters coasted along the orbital approaches, in weeks or month long arcs before orbital tenders carried the ores down to the surface to be processed.

“Alright lets ditch this cow and be on our way,” Neil said with a grin. Indra smiled lusciously at the pilot as he worked the controls and the Highlander shuddered as the gravity rings sucked her up and away from the Karma Hazu. The mega freighterer began to fall away as it fired its breaking thrusters, though Taya’s sensor program meant they would probably remain unaware of their former passenger. Junebug watched Indra thoughtfully. The woman had spent a considerable amount of time with Neil in the past week and she wasn’t sure what if anything she should make of it.

“Should we broadcast to someone?” Taya asked as Neil fiddled with their course bringing them in to a long orbit of Covax to scrub velocity from the ship.

“I have private codes that will allow us to land at my families island,” Indra replied, “I was kidnapped once and would rather not announce that I am back.”

Indra had been somewhat reticent about how exactly she had been kidnapped but as she was paying that did not particularly concern Sayeeda.

“So long as they aren’t going to shoot us down on the way in,” Junebug commented. Indra waved her hand dismissively.

“My father values discretion,” she explained.

“Ships come and go from our island all the time, we also have a repair facility there, it is small but it should be sufficient to meet your needs,” she assured them.

“You have your own shipyard?” Sayeeda wondered aloud.

“Politics on Cyloneika is very fractured Captain, most of the major houses have learned that it is best to be as self sufficient as possible, lest a political intrigue cut you out of some vital resources.”

“Powerful noble families, no strong central government, what could go wrong,” Sayeeda observed wrly. The ship began to shudder as it orbited the gas giant, an impressive swirl of blue white and gray, before settling into a ballistic course that would put them in orbit above Cylonieka itself within a half hour.   

“Is there really enough shipping to make it worth it?” Taya asked curiously. Indra nodded.

“My family owns dozens of vessels, and our clients hundreds more, besides the facilities are also used to maintain submersibles. Trust me, you will find everything you need to repair your ship just as soon as you have delivered me home.”