Star Wolves - The Tribes of Yggdrasil: Book 1

Chapter 5

Location: Deep space

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Space is vast, and if one subscribes to the multiverse theory, infinitely so. Once out in the void, between specks of dust floating on a still black sea, a person learns what it means to be alone; especially on a small ship like the Dogan, with almost no crew for company. Serkan was Devrim's sole companion, but was little comfort.

Devrim and Serkan spent several weeks in stasis while their ship was in hyperspace en-route to the edge of Alfar territory. Waking up after being in stasis was like waking up after a night of hard drinking, followed by a few rounds of hand-to-hand combat where you were on the losing end. The Dogan's two passengers were shaking out their limbs and rehydrating; the combination of these things were the recipe for recovery, and would help them feel up to par in a few hours.

Once they were sitting on the bridge, Devrim broke the silence, "How did you sleep, Serkan?"

"Like I was dead."

"Well, we're alive now, and ..." Devrim leaned in his chair hit a few keys on an instrument panel, "on course."

"Good."

Like talking to a fucking rock, Devrim thought. "Ok, we need to find some humans. My sire takes disappointment rather poorly."

Serkan spoke without looking at Devrim. "I believe your sire has little hope of us actually finding humans-a clue, perhaps."

"We need to do more than that-I-need to do more than that."

"As you wish," Serkan replied.

"I would like to capture an Alfar and interrogate it. Better yet, if we can capture one of their ships, we may find the location of these humans."

"This is a small, poorly armed scout ship Devrim. How do you expect us to capture one of their ships? No wonder your sire speaks poorly of you. You are a foolish boy."

Devrim felt his face warm as his temper rose. "What I lack in physical stature, I have to make up in other ways," he replied. "The Jotuns blessed us with more than our fists as weapons."

"Indeed, we have our teeth as well." Serkan smiled a big toothy smile.

Damned fool, Devrim thought. His father employed Serkan as a blunt instrument, at which he excelled. He was a merciless, if not artful, killer. "What I intend to do, is lure one of their ships into a trap. We will look for a small, unarmed vessel, that way if we are forced to fight, the advantage will be ours."

Serkan simply made a small grunt in acknowledgement.

Asteroid: 832956 / Star: Kepler 22

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Senior-miner Folant stood with a wide stance, holding the mineral extraction nozzle to the asteroid's surface, while a bank of micro lasers surrounding the nozzle-head flashed in rapid succession, vaporizing selected minerals from the asteroids surface; simultaneously, suction directed the mineral vapor through the heated nozzle and tubes, and into the Alfar mining ship's storage tanks.

The Type-7 mining ship had no jump drive and was a high capacity intra-system vessel dispatched for low gravity mining operations with a crew of two to three miners. The ships were designed to be very simple to operate, requiring no special piloting experience. The miners simply programmed the coordinates of the mining site into the nav-computer and engaged autopilot to reach their destination.

Junior-miner Heledd sat in the cockpit monitoring gauges while her partner was on the surface operating the mining nozzle.

"The storage tanks are at ninety percent full, Folant," said Heledd.