Rene had been trained in the rudiments of flying Marine Dropships. Unfortunately there were nearly no similarities between the armored boxes that delivered marines to the surface and much more sophisticated spacecraft like the Bonaventure.  Yarue was doing well under Solae's direction, though the ship had a tendency to bobble as they rose through the atmosphere on their jet of plasma. The Syshin was clearly nervous about making a mistake and when one of the thrusters lifted too high and began to unbalance the ship, he almost unconsciously throttled back and they mushroomed as their velocity fell off and needed to be rebuilt. The net result was that by the time they reached orbit and the gravity generators took over, they all felt a little queasy and they had burned a third again as much reaction mass as Solae would have used to make the same assent. Still it had been a success and Rene clapped Yarue on the shoulder.

"Well done, you have the makings of a fine pilot," he told the Syshin. Yarue made a grin that immitated a human smile but it was clearly a little forced before letting go of the controls as Mia took over the relatively simple task of pointing them directly away from the gravity well to get them to a safe distance to jump. After the attentions of both Ten and the Kalderi the Bonaventure was no longer the barely functional wreck it had been when it lifted from New Concordia and assiduous application of cleaning agents had removed the lingering smell of the slaves that had once been transported in its hold. It didn't look exactly new, but the scarred old bulkheads were at least clean, and the parts locker and food stores had been replenished to a point which probably exceeded that of most tramp freighters of a similar size. Rene had performed a sweep for listening devices, it was his duty as Solae's chief of security afterall, but neither he nor Mia could detect anything of the sort, not that it particularly mattered.

"Thank you Col... Rene," the Syshin replied, remembering to use his given name now that they were in private.

"We have some skill from when we were forced to work the rockhoppers, but never in an atmosphere," the Syshin replied with a trace of pride that Rene was pleased to hear.

"How long to this HK-421?" Rosaria asked as Rene stood and stretched, stifling a yawn. He hadn't slept much in the past several days and it was starting to wear on him even in spite of the various genetic augments.

"It should take about a day," Rene told her, at her look of surprise Rene touched a key and brought up a holographic starmap. A red bead appeared indicating the alpha numeric star system where they had spotted the derelict Corsica. A golden line appeared tracing the jump to Ranal Pindi, he manipulated a control and a second line appeared to the uncharted star system designated HK-421. The lines made an acute angle with the end points closer together than might have been assumed from travel conditions. Rene added their current course which created a triangle and then, for reference, added Zatis, a dark green bead considerably further away than any of the earlier points.

"If it is so close why haven't the Kalderi colonized it?" Rosaria asked, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Rene shrugged his shoulders.

"It dosen't seem to me that the Kalderi are a particularly expansionist people," he told her. Indeed, given their focus on maintaining the continuity and harmony of their communities, it was somewhat surprising that they established colonies at all. Perhaps at some point in their history scarcity of resources had forced the race to migrate, or perhaps when really serious disagreements arose they solved the problem by fissioning groups rather than by conflict. 

"Indeed, of the aliens we have met," Rene paused to give Yarue a respectful nod, "humans appear to be the only ones who habitually spread to new worlds regardless of any particular need."

"That makes us sound a bit like locusts," Rosaria said, sounding a trifle unhappy with the analysis. Rene shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose it depends on how you look at it," he replied, "at our worst, sure, maybe locusts, but I think at our best we are explorers fascinated by the unknown." It was a romantic outlook he knew, but Rene was, at his core, a romantic. There was an undeniable excitement to seeing an unknown world and it was another place he could be all but certain the Duke's thugs wouldn't be looking for Solae. A win win.

"So what are we going to do now?" the girl asked, "more training?" Rene glanced at Solae and shook his head before yawning somewhat ostentatiously.   

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I think we ought to get some sleep. It is a short jump and we don't know what is waiting for us on the other end, clear heads will do more for us than a few extra hours at the range."

_______________________________________________

The crowd roared with approval as the parade made its way down the main thoroughfare towards the Ducal Palace. The palace was constructed in the Jovian style, with tall soaring arches and elaborately decorated colonnades surrounding the hollow hexagonal structure. The interior contained the actual Ducal residence, surrounded by well manicured gardens and parks which were in turn protected by the outer building from direct line of sight. Emperor Alexis Tan sat on a throne at the top of the large steps which lead from the boulevard to the elaborately decorated entry portal to the palace flanked by guards in body armor of gilded bronze which clashed with their modern and functional looking assault rifles. A small and very expensive energy shield had been erected infront of him, though it wasn't apparent to the naked eye other than for a slight tinge of ozone in the breezy afternoon air. The crowd close to him had been swept by his security, but an Imperial agent with a sniper rifle could be anywhere within several kilometers. Still, Imperial, or formerly Imperial subjects, expected that their leaders would do more than cower in their boltholes, and that was particularly true where Tan was trying to set himself up as the head of a new people. Enthusiasim for his elevation had been uneven among his subjects, but distribution of free food and drink as well as curiosity had been sufficient to bring the people of Trallus Prime out in droves. His officers and political allies stood behind him in solid ranks including Antigony Bhast, although the general was significantly further from the throne than she had been before her failure to prevent that cursed Falia bitch from activating the PEA on Zatis.

Trumpets blared brassily as the parade approached. Spacers in newly issued uniforms marched in step to either side of three self propelled flat beds which had been converted into parade floats by draping them with red velvet. Atop each float stood a large piece of mangled metal, each engraved with a single word in gilt lettering half the size of a man. Each bore the name of an Imperial warship which had been destroyed when they jumped in system. The leading piece of wreckage bore the legend: INS Yasimir. The words were only barely ledgeible on the twisted scrap of titanium ceramic composite. The two floats preceding it, INS City of Miridan and INS Selpura, were in better condition, but a practiced eye could detect that they were props rather than the real thing, the actual vessels having been blasted to atoms and thus not amenable to salvage. Another brassy blast sounded and the spacers halted in formation. Tan had never known a real spacer to be able to keep step, but these actors made the point better than the scruffy mercenaries who actually crewed his ships would have done so. The officers, resplendent in the new uniform of the Empire of the Eastern Cross, lifted glittering swords in salute and then fell into a posture of attention.

"Come forward Admiral Rade," the would be Emperor boomed, his voice picked up by hidden microphones and transmitted by a PA system boomed. The officer at the head of the column, a small somewhat rat faced man in an elaborate uniform, climbed the steps before kneeling before Tan. Rade looked like a weasel, but if that was so he had the cunning and viciousness of the breed. His strategy had allowed him to ambush the modest Imperial task force and destroy it entirely before any of the ships could escape, though the last had been a near run thing. The tactics had been designed around the many light auxiliary 'anti-pirate' vessels Tan had illegally built up over the last several years. He could never hope to equal the tonnage of the yards at Capella or Simtai, but Rade had demonstrated that a fleet of smaller ships could, at least for now, supply the lack. The Navy of the Eastern Cross could never hope to match the Imperial Navy, but it could, with luck and the kind of tactics Rade had pioneered, make the sector a mouthful that was just too unpalatable for a divided Empire to swallow. Tan cursed inwardly at that thought, if only he had access to the PEA arrays he could communicate with his conspirators across the Empire and know what was going on. Irritation welled up inside of him and it was with difficultly that he refrained from turning to glare at Bhast. Instead he stood and held up his hands imperiously.

"Admiral Rade, in your defeat of those who would oppress us you have earned, the eternal gratitude of the people of the Eastern Cross. You have secured your name among the greatest warriors our race has produced, you have served as a shield to protect liberty and peace for my people," Tan boomed theatrically. That was guiding the lily considerably, the Imperial force had been a small scouting element, but there was an element of theatre to building an Empire, and this was the first military victory of any note that Tan could point to. It would be foolish not to capitalize on the opportunity. The destruction of the trio of scouts was a victory after-all and hopefully it represented all the effort the Imperial Navy could muster given its, theoretical at least, troubles in other sectors. Tan took a large gold medallion shaped wit the arms of the House of Tan and the new stylized X of the Eastern Cross engraved in sapphire inlay. He settled it around the rat like admirals neck with slow deliberation for the benefit of the holocameras.

"Arise Admiral Rade, Knight of the Eastern Cross and Baron of New Concordia," Tan pronounced, stepping back away as the Admiral rose and saluted before turning to the cheering crowd. Tan smiled thinly, cursing the Falia bitch in his mind for leaving him blind and drawing the Imperials in months before he was ready to face them. Once he got his hands on her she would pay for what she had cost him, though her death would be delayed until she could birth an offspring with the right genetic markers.

"Soon," he muttered to himself as Rade began to recite his acceptance speech, "Soon..."