To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch50 Sol

Sol

"We are approaching Sol Captain" Kat reported to Astarte.

"Thank you Helmsman, slow us down to 1 kilo light and transmit our approach to Neptune tower." Astarte ordered.

She had been away from her command chair for so long that it felt great to just deal with the minutia of space travel. They had spent three months traveling from the Confederacy capital to their home system, they had trouble finding a caravan that felt comfortable with Hellworlder vessels traveling with them. Nothing a large sum of credits couldn't ease though. On a basic level freighter captains and pirate captains were all the same, following their greed and ambition like they were the steady needles of a compass and not some insane roulette wheel.

During that time Aster suffered from Alwen's weekly procedures until her bones were finally on the proper path to recovery. She had only been let off bed rest a few weeks ago, and her first steps had been far to shaky and uncertain for her liking. Gato had looked at her and just grinned with sadistic pleasure as he began to plan a workout regime that would swiftly bring her back to her peak. She still had several months to go before she would feel as strong as she had before her fight with Kazlum.

The ship passed by the Oort cloud without any fanfare and approached the furthest planet of the Sol system and slowed down to relativistic speeds. From their distance the massive gas giant was just a pale blue ball about the size of a football. Unlike stations, the Union controlled the entrance and exit of inhabited systems and only allowed traffic to enter through one specific corridor where an established hyper-lane entered the star's heliosphere. In the case of Sol their corridor currently let them out somewhere near Neptune's current position in its 165-year orbit.

"Independent Star Ship Astaroth please state your business" a traffic controller from the station called over open comms.

"We're returning to our home port on Mars for repairs and rest. We were ambushed by pirates during a journey to the core worlds."

"Rodger that, Martian Drive Yards received your Wake-com two weeks ago and are ready for your arrival. Will the other ships on your travel log be joining you?" he asked.

They had decided to send Astaroth ahead to get the lay of the Sol system to see if any Union ambush had been lying in wait for them, her sensors and scanners were already sweeping the nearby space for any suspicious groupings. If worst came to worst Astaroth could fight a retreat and escape into the wild reaches of undeveloped space and lead the enemy away from the rest of the fleet as they changed course for Pandemonium.

Aster checked the scanners and saw only the expected traffic and nothing malicious hanging out in the shadows. Still, they would only send the 'safe' signal when they were settled into their berth on Mars. "Yes, they will be along shortly"

"Rodger that, you are to proceed along Sagan starway and enter Martian air space, Welcome home" the man said before the transmission clicked off.

Astaroth banked to port and passed the outer most 'buoy' satellite that marked the entrance to the Carl Sagan Star way and accelerated to a leisurely .01 Kilolights. Unlike in interstellar space both Luminal and FTL speeds were tightly controlled, there were so many mining drones, communication satellites, planetary ferries, and commercial vessels flying between the planets of the Sol system that the likelihood of a ship-on-ship collision were much higher than in interstellar space. Thirty or so years ago a super freighter full of refined acids had failed to correct their speed due to a thruster malfunction and had barreled into a transport ship full of passengers on their way to Ceres, the cleanup had taken years to collect all the small fragments that threatened other ships. In an attempt to better control ship approaches a system of star ways had been developed and were named after famous Terran astronomers.