Raven Tide

14: Vesh Killian (Raven Tide)

"What is it?!" Chyani ran into the bridge as I flew us through a series of sharp evasive loop-de-loops.

"Venom Heart," I opened up the navigation system.

Gar'mol's horribly burned visage popped up on the side of my viewscreen. I muted him before he could start spouting off more fanatical nonsense.

"Holy crap, he's not dead!" Chyani strapped into the Beta's helm chair while waving her palm at the visual of Gar'mol. "Can he see us? How do we change the channel?"

"No, and sorry. This is the best I can do," I chittered with a shrug. "Technically, this is still his ship."

"Too bad Venom Heart doesn't have a remote ejection seat you can trigger from your wristcomm," Chyani smirked. "Tell me you've got a contingency plan."

"Already on it," I keyed in a new flight course. "I can't outrun him. This ship's too outdated. On the bright side, he must still want us alive. Venom Heart's got more than enough gun power to vaporize us in seconds."

"Silver linings," Chyani commiserated in my lack of enthusiasm.

"But he can leave us dead in the water if I'm not careful," I steered Storm Hound up and around to avoid taking direct laser fire, then enabled the overdrive thrusters. They wouldn't last for long, but it got us within visual range of our new objective.

"What's this place?" Chyani leaned over at the orange planet hovering on my viewscreen.

"Vesh Killian," I pushed the image over to her smaller screen. "Before locking in our flight path, I made sure to keep our main course within range of backup options. Just in case."

"And why wasn't this planet our intended destination?" Chyani sharpened one eyebrow.

"Because it's a Nexus Wilderness planet," I pulled the ship into a steep nosedive toward the planet's surface.

"I thought you said there weren't any other Zhaguai facilities in this sector."

"There isn't," I struggled to mitigate the turbulence when we entered the atmosphere. "It's Clan Skine operated. They're not the largest or the most influential clan, but they love off-world group expeditions and oversee the most wilderness and treasury planets in all of the Nexus. Nearly every sector has at least one Skine planet, but this one is tucked away in the boonies for a reason."

"I'm hesitant to ask," Chyani eyed me warily.

"It's restricted to only Ancients, and is especially inhospitable," I explained while opening up a local comms channel on my gauntlet. "No tech, no respite outposts, you're not even allowed to land a ship on or near the surface."

"What lives there?" Chyani cringed her teeth.

"Dunno," I typed in my Jahaa serial number. "But whatever's down there will be more than happy to kill that psycho."

"And us as well...?"

I shrugged reluctantly. "One thing's for sure, I'm no match for him out here. Venom Heart will obliterate our engines if he secures a lock."

Chyani took a long exasperated breath and then nodded.

"Ok," she continued. "So I get Gar'mol is long past giving a damn about the rules, but I can't help but notice we're about to land on a planet that specifically forbids it. Is your plan to draw the attention of the Clan Skine cops and hope they only punish him?"

"Nope," I smiled big and hit confirm to access the orbiting Vesh Killian's access beacon. "A Hollow encounter grants us special emergency clearance. We could land this rusty jalopy right smack in the middle of a supreme matriarch's hygiene chamber while she's soaking. The only requirement is that we kill him and retain a piece of him as evidence."