Gaunt Galaxy / Blue Angel: Book 1

The Big Base

We began our search for the base we knew to be somewhere in this area of space. The stars and systems out here were sparse and far apart, there are a good many dust clouds and nebulae, good places to hide almost anything. Several days passed and all we found were lone stars and systems with no inhabitable planets and lots of asteroid debris. We stayed cloaked to try and avoid detection, everyone was listening or watching scanners, it was beginning to play havoc on our moral. We spent as much time as possible in our inside jungle to help ease the stress, but we knew the next jump could take us straight into another trap.

I asked our crew mate, Urslamere Voralee, if she had any ideas on how to pick up their trail. She had been a bounty hunter and being a Shebareleit was an excellent tracker. Rumor has it that she had tracked a single ship for close to a forte just to find an enemy of Shimmerion when in his employ.

"We need to go back the first system where they had set the trap, maybe I can pick up on something there."

"Sounds good. Ke & Se please take us back to Parsu system"

Once we were back Urslamere began a very detailed scan of the area where the sentry had been, even down to the subatomic level. She marked an area of what appeared to be empty space, "Could you tractor the marked area and bring any contents to the exterior hatch of Ghost's bay?"

Ke & Se made the sweep and were surprised to find a small fragment of something in their net. Urslamere brought the piece to the command center for everyone to see. It looked to be part of a coupling device, probably broke away during the removal of the sentry. "This piece has a unique frequency resonance, not many can follow a resonance like this. There are trillions of frequencies and their unique resonances in the Galaxy, some Shebareleit have a heightened sense to frequency resonance. I am one of those Shebareleit, sorry to say, this ability is why I was with Shimmerion to begin with. He used me to track people who ran from him, he only needed a piece of their ship, and we all know that small pieces fall off regular ships all the time, and I could track them halfway across the Galaxy if necessary.

Urslamere was not telepathic, "May I use the manual controls to manipulate your scans that I might pick up on this specific resonance?" Ke & Se allowed her the use of the controls and she began to highlight a small trail that faded into the distance of space. "Follow this trace."

We went only a short distance and the trace disappeared, "Most regular ships push straight for the destination of their jump just before they do so. Regular ships do not have the luxury of an Ovarunt which can make course corrections mid jump. They have to be headed in the basic direction of their intended destination before the jump, to make everything work properly. All we have to do now is follow this direction and check all possible jump options as we go. When we find the right one the trace will reappear."

"This is very amazing work! You are truly the great tracker of those rumors!"

"Don't celebrate just yet, this works most of the time but it is not infallible"

"We do not have the resonance sensitivities that you do, we can sense the frequency when it is active but not the resonance afterward, this is truly a gift!" Ke & Se were in awe of this ability.

"Thank you, I am very honored to be of service to this family."

"You are not just a service to this family, you are a member of this family!" Lererial patted Urslamere on the shoulder in a jester of acceptance and appreciation.

"I am indeed honored by this, I have never been part of a real family, thank you!!" Urslamere was a little chocked up on those last words.

Ovarunt have much better scanners than regular ships even in areas where there have not been any other Ovarunt. Ke & Se scanned ahead and plotted several jumps, the first jump turned out to be a rough star with no system around it. The next was a small dwarf star with a huge asteroid field around it, in the midst of the asteroids were several rough planets but nothing that would sustain life. Urslamere scanned this area very closely as there were many places that ships or even a base could hide, nothing. The next jump was an absolute breathtaking system, two suns, a white and a blue. Fifteen planets all on the same disc of orbit and three other planets that orbited the suns at odd angles to the main disc. These three odd orbit planets all had atmospheres and one definitely had the buzz of intelligent life. There were several different nebulae close enough to the system to add quite a show to their skies I'm sure, especially at night. We dubbed this system Utopia! We could even feel that the inhabitants were telepathic! Still no sign of the trace.