“Are they chasing us?” Rosaria asked, her voice tight with fear and excitement. What would happen to the girl if they were caught was an open question, she might believe she would simply be returned to Thorne, but Rene suspected that the likelihood was that Bhast’s people would shoot her as an unnecessary complication.

“In a manner of speaking,” Rene agreed, tapping in a series of commands to bring up an image of a freighter, not unlike the Bonaventure lighting its thrusters. The console identified her as the fifteen hundred ton, Midian Star, an armed merchantman recorded as trading with the fringe worlds in the Eastern Cross and the in the Thistle Stars beyond. Whether Bhast had paid or simply commandeered the ship didn’t matter as at present it was of little threat.

“They won’t actually be able to stop us before we are able to jump,” Rene explained, he touched a series of buttons and converted his console from a flat screen to a three dimensional hologram. A series of computer generated courses were picked out in gold, with bubbles for the estimated engagement range for each ship projected in red. 

“We have too much of a head start and the rotation of the planet has already carried them several thousand miles out of position. It looks like we are going straight but we are actually breaking against our rotational momentum,” Rene told the girl, his eyes cutting to Solae as he spoke, though his paramour didn’t seem to be having any trouble operating the ship it was absorbing her focus almost completely. He rapidly clicked through the sensor boards. There were a dozen or so other ships in the vicinity but nothing, other than the Star, that was within ten thousand miles of the Bonaventure.

“Did you learn about this stuff in the Marines?” Rosaria asked unexpectedly.

“No, my family has a history of naval service though, I read alot about it as a child,” he explained.

“But you decided to join the Marines?” Rosaria asked, perhaps pleased to have something other than the fact they were being chased to occupy her. Rene glanced over to where the two Shyshin sat peering at the humans with concern. It wouldn’t help establish Solae’s credibility if he explained exactly how he had arrived at his present position so instead he merely shrugged.

“Its a long story,” he equivocated, watching the course plots scroll across the screen.

“We will reach minimum safe jump distance in sixty seconds,” Mia announced with breathy anticipation. Rene smiled slightly, he found he missed the AI’s inappropriate tones while he was on the ground on Zatis. Another indication that humans could become used to anything. 

“The Midian Star is firing its weapons,” Mia observed without concern. Rene glanced at the screens to see the electromagnetic spikes of a plasma cannon discharge. Most vessels carried some kind of armament to discourage pirates. Most frequently this was a small plasma cannon or in the case of extremely poor captains  a pod of guided rockets. Neither of these options was a real weapon in a naval sense ant the Stars captain was firing out of frustration rather than any chance of scoring a hit. They were nearly twenty thousand miles distant and even without an atmosphere to scatter the bolts, even a direct hit would be so diffuse by the time it reached them that it wouldn’t be noticeable. Rene glanced at the scopes a final time. Nothing had changed. Part of him expected the Decameron to emerge from behind on of Zatis’ moons, blocking their escape. It  was all too easy to imagine the enemy as perfectly competent and incapable of making a mistake, which sending the courier vessel back to Traulus Major certainly had been. Rene found himself smiling. If the enemy could make mistakes, it meant they could be beaten.

“We have reached minimum safe jump range,” Mia announced.

“Jumping,” Rene declared and reached down and pressed the execute button. The starfield in front of them shimmered and then the Bonaventure leaped forward into the unknown.