The waiting game

To and fro
The travellers jumped back to the space station to see if the prototype drive ship was ready. It wasn't. Goff met them and informed them that due to the complexities involved it was taking twice as long. He estimated it would be another four months.

Because they only had two months until Empress Rao expected the delegations from the two major powers to arrive for negotiations the party could only spend a few days on the station. They took another opportunity to take stock.

By now the station was fully operational and bedded in. The living quarters and common areas were gleaming white plastic and glass. Stylish, functional and ultra modern - certainly compared to the Drinax propensity for brass, velvet and wooden panels. The meals, prepared by the repaired Sindalian Empire food synthesisers was something familiar and yet different at the same time. Recipes and tastes had apparently changed in the time since this station had last been operational.

Visitors?
The voice of ALF, the computer, interrupted one trip through the station with word that a ship had that second been detected on the scanners. They made their way to the bridge less than a minute later to be told that the ship had again disappeared. It had not been detected jumping in, nor since the detection jumping out. It was clearly stealthy. Or perhaps it wasn't a ship after all: there was a possibility that the sensors were picking up false positives.

The ship had been detected about 50,000 km away. Quickly making a decision Sparrow ordered the Harriers to be prepped for immediate departure to stealthily go to that location and once near there actively search for any lurking ships. Within a handful of minutes the Harriers were speeding away, and the party waited the 20 minutes for them to reach the location.

Suddenly the sensors picked up the Harriers blasting the area with active sensors, but nothing else showed up. They were instructed to initiate a search pattern and for the next couple of hours scanned but found nothing.

Meanwhile Sparrow had been getting ALF to go over the old sensor data from the past few months and found that a similar signal had been detected three times but with a smaller signal. Of course they knew that someone else knew where the station was because of the stolen torpedoes, but it was troubling that there seemed to be someone keeping tabs on it.

Instructing ALF to send out fighters in randomised patrols to make sneaking up on the station more difficult, the party left to head back to Drinax.

Oops
The first system was Thebus, but on arrival they detected Imperial Navy ships - a Kinunir-class cruiser and two Gazelles - in orbit. Being in the pirate lord Admiral Darokyn's former flagship - a stolen Imperial Navy Destroyer escort no less - they decided to immediately jump to Noricum using their remaining jump fuel. Under different circumstances they might have gone to the gas giant and scooped and refined some fuel, but this ship had neither fuel scoops nor purifiers.

On Noricum they refuelled using unrefined fuel and then jumped, slightly concerned about the ramifications of not purifying the fuel. Everything worked out fine and they landed at Torpol.

There they talked to their contacts who advised that there were a lot of Imperial patrols around. No doubt these were in response to the blockage, although none seemed to be aggressive at all. The impression was that they were just reminding people that an enormous empire was just next door and that trying to create a new one was foolhardy.

Back home
The travellers arrived on Drinax just as the two months elapsed. However there were no delegates waiting for their negotiating skills, nor any suggestion that they were on their way.

Meeting with Empress Rao they described what they had seen and heard. She was confident that this meant the plan was working. The New Sindalian empire needed to be able to enforce its own borders or it would not be real political entity. The powers in the Imperium and the Hierate would understand that.

After a few days Tipper and Hanz Waltz from GeDeCo appeared and asked to meet with them. They agreed to meet on the GeDeCo ship where Tipper advised that an Aslan fleet, with at least two capital ships, was approaching Drinax. This seemed to be the first indication that an Aslan envoy was going to arrive. In typical Aslan fashion it would be accompanied by a show of force.

The travellers decided to first tell Empress Rao, who was delighted with the news. She and her empire were being taken seriously. They then decided to tell Lord Wrax of the Star Guard, who initially was distrustful (Lady Nitrane being his ex-wife) but when the evidence presented to the party by Tipper was sent to him he begrudgingly accepted the news as fact.

With the imminent arrival the travellers are now deciding what to do. The more pessimistic among them assume an attack. Time will tell. Less than two weeks in fact.

To be continued.